Aug 19, 2015 15:31:52 GMT -5
So I had this convo with stinky.
Forum UI has been largely been the same since 2003. Personally, I think administrators and designers have gotten so used to certain things that we rarely question certain them. IMO if a certain element is used often it should be prominent and on the flip side, if certain things are not used than it should be removed. However, I understand the power of defaults so I can perhaps see why people like things to be familiar.
One of the things I have always ponder about, was " What is the purpose of board stats such as topics, viewer, and replies?". If you're not sure what I'm talking about, please refer to the visual below.
Personally, I have never found found the use of the board stats and it rarely tells me anything about the forum. However, I'm only one person and would love to hear your opinions.
TLDR: Are the board stats useful information to you? If so which ones? And finally, if they were removed, would you be disappointed? Let me know!
Aug 20, 2015 11:43:05 GMT -5
Depends on the user tbh. I've always removed the table headers on PB, but tend to leave the numbers. Some people base their interest on stats like that, to gauge how active a forum is. It's prob best to leave them, but place them somewhere out of the way. Under the board title, or description, or off to the side.
There prob hasn't been any advancement in forum UI because forums are sort of a 90s - 2000s thing. People don't use them much except for support and special interests. If you go on Behance and search "forum" or "bulletin board", there are few results. On Google images, there are plenty of results, almost always the same or similar UI structure.
I agree though, it should be done differently. The only question is how