The New Faunalytics.org: A User’s Guide
Sometimes, even for someone that works on the Internet and spends a good deal of time online, I slip into the (erroneous) thought process that websites are magical objects that just sort of appear when you type a URL into your browser’s address bar. One of the most fascinating things about the online world is just how slick and immersive it can be, obscuring the work that goes on behind the scenes.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because, for the past year, Faunalytics has been in the process of building a new home for our vast array of resources. It’s work that has happened almost completely behind the scenes, something we’ve only teased a few times in newsletters, conference presentations, and 1:1 conversations with other advocates. Now that it’s here, it almost feels like it’s emerged from the fog, fully formed and completely by surprise.
Since you’re reading this on our new site, you’ve likely already gotten the news and noticed some big changes. To clarify, this is not a rebrand — our logo, brand identity, and brand colors remain the same. The familiar “fauna birdy” (as we call our mascot internally) still guides us in flight with her bar graph wings. Likewise, these changes also don’t signal any reduction in services or resources: everything that existed on our website two weeks ago still exists now.
Instead, the relaunch is focused on creating a better user experience, and bringing more of our work “to the surface.” Before beginning the redesign process, we engaged in systematic user testing to understand what people had trouble finding, and how we could improve the discovery process. Before this relaunch, Faunalytics was much like an iceberg: we had a small amount of great content that was easily accessible, with a vast amount of great content hidden below the surface. Now, more resources than ever are available in plain view, just one or two clicks away, instead of three or four clicks or more.
What follows is a crash course to bring you up to speed on the newest features, and how to use our site most effectively.
Mega Menu & Improved Search
The biggest change that you’ll notice immediately is a better and more robust menu. This was a key consideration in bringing more of our work to the surface of the site, and reducing the number of clicks needed to get to different corners of the site. We also reorganized our menu into three overall options, based on feedback from our user testing: Explore, Research & Resources, and About. More detail on each is below.
We’ve likewise improved the clarity of our search options and filtering. When people come to our website, they are often looking for something specific, and while we’ve had category tags and filtering options before, they remained somewhat hidden. Now, when you browse the results of a search, your options for filtering — including region, peer review status, publication year, and more — are immediately visible in the left-most column, and ready to be customized.
Search is one of the aspects of the site we’re focusing on most going forward, and we’ll continue to make improvements on a regular basis. We want you to be able to find the most relevant results from our 5,000+ entry Research Library, as quickly and as easily as possible.
Go Exploring
Not sure where to begin? Check out the “Explore” section. It gives you quick access to our Research Library by broad topic area — Effective Advocacy, Animals Used For Food, Companion Animals, Wild Animals, Animals Used In Science, and Other Topics.
The “Explore” section also includes quick access to our Fundamentals series, which offer in-depth, infographic-heavy overviews of the above topic areas and more, including Fundamentals dedicated to ocean life, zoonoses, invertebrates, and the intersections of animal and social justice.
Diving Deep Into Research & Resources
The Research & Resources menu is where things get much, much deeper.
In the left-most column, you’ll find series of links to access the full scope of Faunalytics’ flagship Original Research program, starting with Completed Projects. This page has received a significant visual update, as well as new sorting options so you can explore our projects in an efficient way. In the coming weeks, we’ll be adding further sorting options to give you further dimensions to explore, such as only viewing quantitative or qualitative research, only seeing studies that are representative population samples, and so on.
The Research In Progress and Upcoming Projects pages offer a glimpse into the studies that our Research Team are actively working on, and what they have coming up. All of these studies have passed our thorough and extensive Prioritization process, which ensures we’re meeting the most high-priority research needs of animal advocates.
Running down the middle column of the Research & Resources menu will take you deep into Faunalytics’ Research Library, blogs, visual resources, and translations:
- Our study summaries, with over 5,000 entries and counting, is your go-to place for research on just about any animal advocacy topic you can think of.
- Our blog provides deeper analysis on specific animal advocacy topics and issues. For example, we’ve recently published blogs looking at people’s attitudes toward wild animal welfare and PROP 12 and the EATS Act.
- Our visual resources, including infographics, videos, and study supplements, provide you with a range of options for learning about animal advocacy in a more visual way.
- Our translated resource hub gives you quick access to the range of study summaries, original research, and blogs we provide in different languages. This section will be updated soon to provide fully translated micro-sites in our most popular languages.
Finally, in the right column of the Research & Resources menu, you’ll find a range of links to resources that support further research and capacity building for animal advocates:
- Information about our free Office Hours program, where we help advocates 1:1 with their advocacy, data, and research questions.
- Information about doing your own research, including insights on how to design your own research, common research-related terms, and a webinar on designing effective surveys.
- Information about our Ambassador program and how you can get a free presentation.
- A link to our External Resources Hub that gives you a comprehensive list of resources from around the web related to animal advocacy, research methods, datasets to work with, and so much more (seriously, this page is huge!).
- Finally, we have a link to information about Fauna Connections research symposium, which will happen once again in September of this year. Watch this space for updates.
More About Us
In the final main section of the mega menu, the “About” menu, you’ll get an overview of who were are and what we’re all about: Read about the organization, meet the team, check out our impact hub, and read about our commitment to quality research above all. From there, you can explore the workplace culture at Faunalytics, see our press coverage, read more about our policies and contact us.
After all of this exploration, you might be thinking to yourself: “What an amazing organization! How do I get involved?” Click the “get involved” button, scroll down, and start the journey. You can support us by donating, volunteering, buying Faunalytics merch, and so much more.
Your Library
One of the most exciting parts of this website relaunch has been considering how to make some of our long-standing features more visible and easy to use. One such feature is the “My Library” function.
By creating an account on the Faunalytics website, you gain access to the option of building your own personal library of animal advocacy research that is relevant to you! As you explore our Research Library and find articles that are relevant to you, scroll down underneath the title, and you’ll find a range of sharing options, as well as the option to “save to my library.” Click on that, and it’s added!
To view your library, simply click on the small person icon in the top right corner of the website menu while you’re signed in, and choose “My Library.” Voila! You now have a list of items that you’ve saved to your account, accessible any time you need them. We will be adding further features within the My Library function as time goes on.
A Quick Video Walkthrough
If you’re more of a visual learner, we’ve created a quick video to guide you through some of the aspects of what I’ve outlined above. Check it out!
Acknowledgements
This project would not have been possible without key players who did some seriously heavy lifting.
Neil Harvey is Faunalytics’ web developer, and though he’s not an official staff member, has long been a member of Faunalytics’ extended family. His work on this deployment has been extensive and crucial, and the flow of this whole project was smooth and seamless because of his tremendous efforts.
Black Antelope is a web design company based in Seattle that iterated various looks for the new site, and created the new look you see today.
Faunalytics’ Staff & Board provided valuable feedback on design and UX at various stages of the process. Indeed, some of the new features are things we’ve wanted to do for years, based on our own knowledge of our resources, and how we could present them better.
Finally — and as much as we say this, it bears repeating — our readers are why we do this. You’ve given us so much valuable feedback over the years in our Community Survey, in 1:1 emails, in conversations, and more, and that feedback helps guide our work in every way. Animal advocates are our key audience, and this new site is a product of listening to you, and what you need to be more effective. We will keep listening, and we encourage you to continue to give us your honest feedback on how we can improve.