Design or Content

[netsavy006]

I tend to go for a balance of the 2. I consider both of equal use, because if it's a real bright or too dark skin and it's hard to read, your not going to stay on the forum, but if the skin is plain, even though there's a lot of members, user's may ask for a better more custom theme.

That's how I see it.

 

[Medora]

Which do you care about more? Design such as the theme or content such as the forums?

Of course, a decent design is necessary to ease the process of sifting through, and submitting, content, and in order to give the guests and members a pleasing environment within which to seek out content.

The content is my foremost concern, but the other elements remain important though they are secondary.

Regards,

Kevin

 

[Lee Lawson]

Owning anything on the internet needs 100% of both. Great content with good keywords and excellent grammar to be higher on searches. The fancy graphics and theme to keep the visitors coming back.

True, I tend to go for designs first and work my way through.

 

[Deleted member 4320]

It's 50 / 50, the site has to look nice but also has to have some decent quality content otherwise the design is completely blocked out the picture and vice versa.

 

[SheepishWolf]

I honestly don't care at all how it looks as long as it has something interesting to read and other good content or a nice memberbase.

 

[Marc]

The first thing a member sees when he/she visits a website or forum is the looks of it. They look at the content afterwards. If a website does not look welcoming, members don't feel the urge to come back.

So, I would say that the Design is the most important as content can be added afterwards.

There is this tool for generating back links that I use.

Although the design of the web page is terrible, I still use it because it is a great tool & I'm sure a lot more webmasters use this tool for generating back links to their site, 😉

So, content is the most important thing.

Even if your website or forum looks nicely designed, if you don't have good content, then why would people stay online?

 

[SaintSinner]

I think content is always the priority, whether it be new or old forum. If you have the content people will like it anyways.

 

[22_22]

Obviously both are very important because a bad design turns you away from a forum and lots of content turns you in. To be fair, you can't run a successful forum without both of these. A forum with a great design will turn a few users in but eventually (a few days) users will leave because of the lack of content. Lots of content will get users in for a couple of days before they get sick of the bad design, or mainly just turn users away as soon as they click on the link 😉

 

[d3wlin]

I would say that everything must be in a reasonable level, but it also depends on the public your site is visited by. Some even don't like fancy looks. Content is King!

 

[HardRockRevolution]

I think they are both important.

 

[Nebulous]

To be fair, you can't run a successful forum without both of these.

Yes you can.

Examples:
http://forums.offtopic.com/
http://forums.d2jsp.org/
http://www.nexopia.com/forums.php
http://forums.facethejury.com/forum.asp
http://forums.somethingawful.com/

All of those have basic/unattractive skins and are some of the largest forums on the net.