Sorry for the delay. I figured you were working on a couple things, and wanted to see what you were about to update before giving my review on the forum of yours. And now, here it is.
🙂
First Impressions: (13 out of 15)
As I loaded your forum, I noticed that your forum is using a clean looking blue metro theme. Looks pretty good there.
🙂 Almost what I expected for a typical Metro based Theme. Love the location of the search bar and the login and register links. I like how you managed to get the sidebar to be the same length of the main body of the index. Basically, I like how it doesn't waste space on the forum.
The only thing that gets me as I quickly look through your forum, is the .html after everything. Are you using a plugin to convert all of the forum and post slugs to the title.html slug? And if so what is the reasoning behind it? The only way I can see that I can get to the regular phpBB slugs for the forums and posts, is by using your recent posts sidebar, which still uses the original formatting of the forum software. So it is kinda weird to see the .html and .php thrown in the mix together.
Site Structure: (7 out of 15)
Logically, I believe you need to move the "Charter School Parents" category to be above the Teachers category, in the forum list, based on the subject areas of your categories, as I see that the teaching and administration sections need to be next to each other, instead of split up. Also, the State Specific Charter School Information board probably needs to be added to the parents category, as that sounds like something that would involve parents needing to know information on, instead of it just being a general information area.
Last but not least, your News and Announcements board needs to be placed above your Introductions/Off-Topic Chat board, as any news and information you want to be read needs to be shown first in that category, instead of further down the list.
Design Quality: (10 out of 15)
Design wise, I like the blue, light grey, and black colors that represent this particular Metro Theme that you have as the default layout. If you haven't done it already, I suggest adding a darker version of a Metro Theme, so that those who have issues reading text on a bright background, can better navigate your forum.
Originality: (14 out of 15)
You have a pretty unique forum idea. I hope you will run with it, and try to provide the best services you can with it! As with that idea, I would suggest that you actively start filling in information the State Specific Information board as much as you can over the next month, as that would help increase usage of your forum in the future. A forum like yours, if done right, can be a great value to parents and teachers who are looking for ways to help teach their children, so do try to get any and all information you can get for each state in the Union.
Overall Mark: (44 out of 60)
Good luck to your forum! I hope you will take my recommendations and try to do your best to implement them!
