Re: Style feedback wanted :)
Mellaflusia wrote:
How come all forums look the same? Why are we all stuck in the same box?
I don't know, how do we get out the box?
Re: Style feedback wanted :)
hcgtv wrote:
I don't know, how do we get out the box?
By really thinking about what a forum is supposed to do, no just about how it's been done till now. Look at punbb, it was a fresh look at an "already solved" problem, and it's fantastic.
Maybe we need to look at the way people use forums, and what forums are supposed to do, and then find a better way of doing it.
~m~
Re: Style feedback wanted :)
Mellaflusia wrote:
Maybe we need to look at the way people use forums, and what forums are supposed to do, and then find a better way of doing it.
I think you have identified the real problem with forum design. Ask 10 people what they think a forum ought to do and you will get 10 different answers. Thinking of a "better" way of doing something is difficult when forum sofware is used in so many different situations. I would say that forum sofware is being overused and misused. On one end of the scale you have forums being used when a guestbook or a faq system would do the job and at the other end you have people using IPB or vBulletin for a full blown community system when they really need a cms with forum/tutorial/news/poll/gallery/upload modules.
Perhaps the real answer is not looking for "better" way of doing things but rather looking for the most flexible way of doing things i.e. make it as easy as possible for the end user to customize their forum to meet their exact requirements. That way instead of getting something that reasonably suits the average user you get somethng that exactly suits the particular user.
Having said that, I would love to see something different. The only sure fire way of finding out if there is a better way of designing forums is for somebody to try it. The only thing I know for sure it that anybody wanting to shake things up radically will have to go completely tableless, not because tables are a problem semantically, but because they are an absolute killer when it comes to flexibility.
Re: Style feedback wanted :)
well, i was going to look at your forum, but Catherine Bell told me I had to look at her instead.
Re: Style feedback wanted :)
I love your.
Thak U.