First Impressions: (5 out of 15)
With my first visit of the forum, I felt as if I was being bombarded by a slow loading forum. Then I realized, you have too many images loading on the index, and for every single board on the forum. While I applaud you for the amount of posts and members you gained, the images dramatically slow things down for a first time visitor, in combination with the team speak, and the chat box you have on the bottom of the forum.
Personally, I would rather you remove the images from each individual board, but if you reduce the image size down some, the forum will load faster for those loading it for the first time.
Site Structure: (5 out of 15)
Honestly, I would have expected half of your sub-boards to not be sub-boards. The sub-boards to the console gaming category should not be sub-boards, but more visible on the forum index. That would help the exposure of those boards quite a bit! You can do that also with PC Gaming, and Old School Gaming! Showing those boards on the index, in my opinion, will help with the activity in those categories.
Also, I feel that if you have your banner fill the menu bar all the way, it will help with a more clean uniform look at the top of the forum.
Design Quality: (4 out of 15)
Honestly, the forum looks like it wasn't customized a whole lot, even though it looks like you spent the time trying to blend the various category and board images, with the color of the forum as a whole. As with my previous suggestion, if you remove the images for each board, the forum will look cleaner. Though I do love the image for the background of every category. That is a plus.
🙂
I also suggest getting a banner that has the text seem to not be overcrowded by the pictures behind it. Also, try to make the banner clickable, as that would help with quicker navigation to the index of the forum.
Originality: (11 out of 15)
I will give you props though, not many people attempt to run the type of forum you have there, and are dedicated to it, regardless of how active it is in the long run, so originality will score better here for you.
🙂
Overall Mark: (25 out of 60)
If you work on the above, I know you will succeed a little more than you have been. Also, I suggest sending out a mass email to update all of your members when you do finish fixing and swapping things around, so that you can get some renewed interest from your 1,000+ member base.
