Working on a forum. Design tips?

[Trigs]

I'm planning on coding a custom forum (to work with my usersystems). Here's a mockup of what the main page should look like.



Some constructive critisism would be great. What can I add? What can I do without? Is the page to crowded, should something be somewhere else?

[lTraditional]

Firstly add some colour to it as it is bare without colour and maybe add the images related to the forum. So what is your forum about - a general forum?

[Jack!]

I'm planning on coding a custom forum (to work with my usersystems). Here's a mockup of what the main page should look like.



Some constructive critisism would be great. What can I add? What can I do without? Is the page to crowded, should something be somewhere else?

You really need a more definite layout before we can give much C&C, try maybe adding some colors, finish up a few areas, so we can see what it looks like, but at the min it don't look to bad

[Florx]

Not bad, I would probably move the radio to the top if it was auto playing, because there is nothing worse IMO than a radio auto playing and you not being able to find it to turn it off. Especially seeing as I have Spotify running nearly all the time so I already have music on!

If this is just a placement mock up then go for it, in the next design look into making it more friendly on the eyes, less lines - more curves

Jake.

[Trigs]

There no colour, it's a placement mockup only, just to see what would go where.

The radio thing definately won't be auto playing. And I agree, it should be at the top.

[Irrorate]

That's more of a wireframe than anything, so as soon as you add details like colours then it's easier to give C&C.

The design looks good, move the radio up. I like the use of the tabbed area at the bottom.

[Trigs]

It's not the actual layout, just the template so yes it's suppose to look like the wireframe. I just want to try to make my forum look different from vB, which everyone is accostumed to. I want my forum layout to be an improvement from vB.

[Irrorate]

It looks a lot like vBulletin at the minute. It's quite difficult to differ from the usual category-forum-subforum style of things - if you find a way that'll be great.

[Trigs]

I don't think it's vB's way of doing things, I think all forums use that format. I was contemplating not using a category system but I want to come up with a creative way to display/sort forums. If anyone has suggestions let me know!

[Jamesy]

I don't think it's vB's way of doing things, I think all forums use that format. I was contemplating not using a category system but I want to come up with a creative way to display/sort forums. If anyone has suggestions let me know!

Vanilla uses a different take on it:


Personally though, I prefer the common format.