Hi,

Im interested in some feedback on my forum, its (another ) computer support site, i have worked hard in making it look different from most other sites in this area, and trying to give it a unique look and feel.

Looking forward your comments (good and bad) :-)
http://www.avmechanic.co.uk

I'll give you a quick review.

First Impression: Nice skin, quite a few posts, looks good. However, the portal page seems to be lacking content. It sorta just looks like a placeholder or something, because all you have on the page is a little blurb about your site, a search function, links to other parts of your site, and recent articles.

Skin: I really like this skin. It's not over-the-top, and neither is it the default skin. It's that perfect spot right inbetween. And I like the banner too.

Organization: I think you have the perfect amount of forums for the amount of activity you have. The only problem I see is that there's only help forums available for Windows OSes, but I guess that's okay.

And also, I don't understand what the 'How to use this forum' board is there. Those topics you made could easily be put into the FAQ, and you could just make one topic with a link to the FAQ.

Rules & Staff: I don't understand why you made a separate topic for the rules in each forum and stickied them. I'm not that familiar with vB, but I thought there was some sort of global announcement thread you could use? If there isn't, I suggest making a separate page for the rules and linking to it on the navigation bar, because having the same rules on each individual forum, as individual topics is a little redundant.

As for staff, I can't find any staff listing. You might want to add that, either as a page like what I said for the rules, or make it a topic. Because I can't find any mention of staff, other than the single post in "Can you help?"

Recommended Changes: Add a staff list, maybe add some more content to the portal, and do something with the "How to use the forum" board.

__________________
Speculation Central - Thinking about the future... today!

UROCA Forums - Home of the NationStates roleplaying region UROCA

Thanks for your comments.

The portal page, is open to more content, at the moment its meant to point users to other parts of the site, for examples the latest articles, and latest posts etc

The reason i made a "how to use forum" section was because i found some users who were not familiar with how a forum works were posting in the wrong sections or sending questions via pm or contact forms, and they tended not to look at the FAQ section. A similar reason for not using announcement, people seemed to take no notice of them..

I havent done a staff list, i will look into that!
thanks

That's kind of weird that no one seems to notice announcements as they stand out more on the forum (at least in vB) than stickies.

But anyways, that's understandable. Good luck!

__________________
Speculation Central - Thinking about the future... today!

UROCA Forums - Home of the NationStates roleplaying region UROCA

Initial Impression

Your logo is awesome!

(Who designed it? Want to make me one? )

Organization and Feel

Everything is laid out nice and neat. I have no trouble finding my way around the site. Good job.

My only suggestion is that you nix the Getting Started forum. It's redundant. People can ask their question in the software or hardware AV forums.

Skin and Modifications

The skin looks fantastic. My only complaint is that the navbar looks a little funny where it currently is. It seems like it should be closer to the header. Nice favicon, btw.

Your links and articles pages are nicely done.

Guidelines and Staff

You have an entire section devoted to posting guidelines and forum rules. It might sound like it's too much to some, but it's really not in this case. Everything is easy to find and easy to understand.

I couldn't view your Forum Leaders page, since guests do not have permission.

Recommended Changes

• Move your navbar closer to the header. It feels out of place in its current location.
• Get rid of the redundant AV - Getting Started forum.

The site looks great. Good luck.

__________________

Hi
Thanks for you comments,

Logo/Skin
The logo cube part was purchased (i can give you all a link if im allowed, where i purchased from, they have loads of great logos) but the rest of the header with the logo was designed by myself

Skin was again designed by myself in photoshop, had to pay someone to code it for me though.

NavBar/getting started
I see your point, i think your right, i will move the nav bar up , it will look better, will also drop the getting started section

thanks for your positive feedback and suggestions