Large Forum Review
First Impressions
When I first arrive at your forum I see a theme that I recognise so well. This is a very commonly used theme which is known to be buggy in many ways. This theme has never appealed to me and still doesn’t when I first view your forum. There is nothing about this forum that screams teen forum apart from the logo; the whole theme is far too corporate and serious.
There is nothing about this forum that makes me go wow, what a great forum. It doesn’t feel very inviting; again I believe this is due to the corporate feel of the theme. Teenagers are quite a hard target audience so I believe the first impressions are even more important here than they would be on any other forum. I believe you need to make the whole forum feel more inviting and FUN! Most teenagers go on forums to have a good time and relax, I don’t feel that that would be possible on your forum from a first glance.
(Score: 8/15)
Appearance
As I have already mentioned, I am not a great fan of the theme you are using. There are several things I feel don’t really work, the first being the logo. The logo itself is very good and stylish, it portrays exactly what a teen forum should be, but it is far too small and tucked away. It ought to be the first thing you notice when you visit the forum, but it isn’t. Another issue I see which is connected to the logo is colour schemes. The theme has a dark grey and blue colour scheme whereas the logo has a white, orange and yellow colour scheme. In my opinion the logo colour scheme works better and I believe you should focus more on this.
The header area feels quite messy and you have several navigational menus that look like they are floating in mid-air in a bit of a dis-arrangement. Scrolling down the design I am overwhelmed by small splashes of different colours appearing all over the place. The whole design feels very messy and doesn’t give me anything to rest my eye on, giving the forum an uneasy feel. Below the footer there are also several broken images which doesn’t make the forum look very professional. I suggest you look into getting a new theme which has a better flow of colour and doesn’t look so corporate.
(Score: 11/20)
Statistics and Activity
Date Site Opened: 29/03/12
Posts 4,482 Members 588
Your forum has been open for just over a month which gives an average of 4400 posts per month. For a brand new forum these statistics are great and something you should be proud of. However you only have an average of 8 posts per member which gives me the feeling you have been doing a large amount of post exchanges to try and get the forum active. This is always a good idea, but there is a fine line between a good balance and too much. In this case I believe you have tipped the balance a bit too much.
If this is not the case then you need to look into the reason for members joining your forum and not returning. This usually means that they find the forum boring or lacking in some way. You ought to talk to your staff and spawn ideas on how to get members to stay and new members to join. Maybe posting or referral contests or just getting more content into your forum would help. The sky is the limit!
(Score: 15/20)
Ratios
First off I feel you have made many of the classic mistakes made on new forums. The major one here is the amount of boards you have. You only have around 100 posts in each board which isn’t very much. I suggest merging boards together so they have 200-300 posts in each and not expanding your boards until one board has at least 500 posts in it. There are two reasons not to have too many boards, the first is kind of obvious, and it makes your forum look empty and inactive. The second is often overlooked, ease of access. If your members keep having to click loads of extra times to get to the content they want then they will easily get fed up and leave.
From what I can see you have one founder, one management and one Community Rep as your staff. I don’t really see what these different tasks are meant to be and what makes them differ from each other but I believe 3 staff is too much, you only really need two staff members for this forum as it isn’t actually amazingly active. Sure, it has 4000 posts, but as each member has an average of 8 posts it shows there isn’t really that much to keep an eye on. Moderation also seems very relaxed around the forum.
(Score: 6/10)
Content
This is an area where your forum actually excels. You have a lot of good content and it all seems to be unique and well-written. Your members use pretty good grammar and spelling, especially considering the age group. Replies to threads are usually at least a couple of sentences which shows that your members are actually interested in the topic at hand instead of just posting for the sake of posting. Your content is something you should be proud of. Your announcements are also very well written, although I would like to see more block text and less bullet points.
(Score: 17/20)
Navigation
I didn’t find it very easy to navigate your forum and I was unable to find simple things that I was looking for. A staff page informing me of who is staff and what their tasks are was nowhere to be found. I was also unable to locate the Terms of services which is another important document. You have the privacy policy in the footer which is good though. I found the links on the menu rather confusing, especially with the drop down menus that appeared under certain menu options.
(Score: 10/15)
Total Score
67/100
Final Remarks
This is a forum that has real potential, but needs a lot of work in certain areas. The theme is a major issue that ought to be replaced as soon as possible. The stats are great for a new forum but as I mentioned before you need to work harder to keep members and for them to want to return. A very uneven review where you really excel in some areas and flaw a lot in others. I believe this reflects you a lot as a person, which is always interesting when it comes to any online ventures. I am looking forward to seeing in what direction this forum heads.
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