takai003 — Tue, 03 May 2005 21:42:04 +0000

Hey, thanks for all the comments and ideas! I've asked for site reviews on a good number of forums now and you guys gave me the most helpful suggestions!

It took me a while to reply because I've been trying to work on some of your ideas. It's improved some, but I still have a lot I need to work on.

Also, about the arcade - you wouldn't happen to have any specific arcade mod in mind? I've been looking around and only able to find one.. And I didn't like how it was organized.

Thanks again!

wilbur — Sun, 01 May 2005 14:14:39 +0000

I really like your color selection! Orange on grey looks great!

If i were you i'd make some exclusive content (something not offered on many other sites) that way many people will go to yours to find that specific thing.

Also, because your site is a forum, it isnt hard to find an arcade add on. I suggest you add one because everyone likes games!

That's all I can think of to say because Megan said a lot.

mfdc — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 15:46:39 +0000

I cant really say anything else as Megans covered it all but I wanted to say I really like the design. One of the nicest themes Ive seen done on a forum for a long time

Well done

Megan — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 14:26:46 +0000

Hello, takai! Thanks for looking at some other sites first

This looks very good. You've done an excellent job customizing the system here. I really like the logo and the navigation the icons along the top, although I really don't know exactly what they're referring to. Maybe some small text underneath would point the users in the right direction. I am getting quite a bit of scrolling with window width around 850 px. A tagline under the logo might help users to figure out what this site is a about.

Now that I've taken a look t the design, I want to see what's here. But I can't. Every link I click on asks me to login. New visitors should be allowed to see something. People should be able to find out what this site has to offer before signing up. How do I know if I want to join if I can't see anything? The main content area here is completely not helpful at all. I really do not understand why so many site owners feel the need to provide a running commentary on behind the scenes updates. Who cares if you moved the domain name???? You could use a side panel for important announcements (i.e. something new, something is down etc.) but otherwise the main content section could be put to better use. Highlight some of the content that is available, show users what they can do on the site. The scrolling list of new posts is a good idea, but I find that it scrolls a little too fast.

As usual, I find the text size to be a little on the small size. It's okay for small bits like you've got on the front page, but for larger blocks of text the size should be a little bit larger. It can be a little hard to read comfortably.

I'm just noticing the curved outlines along the top of the header area. Those look neat, but they're very low contrast. Consider lightening the outer background a little bit so those curves stand out more.

Now, normally with sites like this I say something about the cookie-cutter three column layout. I think you must be able to do more customization on this so it doesn't scream "PHP-Nuke" (or phpBB, in this case - same thing). You could probably take out some stuff (statistics, who's online, Welcome Guest, maybe the poll), bump the rest over to the left side and move the affiliate links to the bottom for a two column layout. Alternately, this might look good if the affiliates were in a narrow column on the right, with everything else on the left (In my scenario you'd have login, navigation, announcements, and polls)