Feedback Exchange
Review by [user]Cierra[/user]
First Impressions
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When I first visit Feedback Exchange, I like the pleasant theme and the forum icons give the forum a nice look. I notice a good amount of categories and forums to post in. I like the top icon navigation bar and the large yellow call to action banner. I think that it's repetitive to have the "create an account" side box when there is the the same thing at the very top of the forum and large banner. I think you would better off without it. It would remove a space, so you could add in another module. I see the blog is outdated with the last entry being October 2nd. That doesn't look good to a blog with months old posts, so you could hide the dates if it allows you to or post new content on the blog. I prefer the second option myself because I there are may subjects you can write about and get the blog active again. Overall Feedback Exchange gives me a good first impression and if I was a guest I would probably sign up.
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Good
Design Quality
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You have a couple different theme for your members to choose from, which is nice because it gives them options. I'm not a big fan of the current logo, it just seems too plain in my opinion. I would like to see something with a little more color in it and a different font. Though, I do like the light bulb logo because it ties in nicely with the forums name so I would keep that. The "forum games" and "interrogation room" sub forums do not have a forum icon. That looks odd so I recommend adding the icons in to give everything uniformity. I don't like the Twitter bird icon on the navigation bar next to the three dashed line menu. It just seems out of place to me. I would rather see it under "more" as a link or as an icon in the footer. I would like to see the website sponsors section moved more up in to the footer also.
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Average
Site Statistics
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Feedback Exchange currently has 14,350 Total Posts and 406 members. Immediately I see that post and threads are lumped together. I don't really like this method because there is no way to differentiate between posts and threads. I would like the ability to see both. I am not sure if this is available with IPB though. Twenty members have been online today, at the time of writing this review. Feedback Exchange has 406 members total. The amount of members only daily should be much more than that. The amount of users who have even posted out of that twenty is substantially lower also. This shows me that some improvement needs to be made with activity. You have the members, so you are not lacking there, but you need to have active members. This could be achieved through many things, but I recommend buying posts from users on other promotion/admin forums, participating in post exchanges, holding a contest (I would tie in a feedback element to it), and just being more active yourself. More promotion is always good too.
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Poor
Final Remarks
I enjoyed reviewing Feedback Exchange. Some improvements need to be made but Feedback Exchange has a pretty solid foundation. Activity definitely needs to be improved. I think with some extra effort and work those changed can be made. Good luck with your forum Cosmic!
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