HeartBox Me! Message Board

Heart Box Me Message Boards- Official Review by @Cierra

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- The theme (default) seems to girlish and it has too much purple. I would suggest going towards a gender neutral, yet customized theme.

-Your forum icons are plain, try having different ones fr each forum and ones that use a variety of colors.

-There are too many forums to post it, removing some would make it easier for members  to post.
-I like the visible announcement bar but I believe it should stand out more. Try adding a drop shadow or something of the like.
-Activity is not great. You as an administrator should be posting new content daily and promoting your site. Try holding contests or giveaways to draw in new members. You could also pay for posts.
-I see you don't have a favicon, you should add one. Here is a helpful tutorial on adding favicons: http://help.website-...ading-a-favicon.

-There is no visible staff list, you should add one in the index or make a thread and global sticky it.

-A calendar is not needed in my opinion and most members will not use it.

- I am not fond of the "Latest Registered Members" widget, I feel that it could go into the footer as text only. It takes up a lot of space currently.

-The index is way too long, it takes me a while to scroll to the bottom. Reducing the amount of forums will help with this.

-The background seems sort of dull and bland.

-I don't lke the wording in the last online box, "last accomplished on Yesterday at 1:01 PM.". It would look better to say something like: "The most users online at one time was x on xx-xx-xxxx at xx:xx PM/AM". This can be edited through your templates. Private Message me for help or instructions.

-A dark theme would be nice to allow users to customize their forum experience.

-The orange color of your username (or, what I presume to be your username) clashes with the current theme. Try a softer, lighter color.

-When I first visit  HeartBox Me! Message Board, I am not sure what the forum is about. Try adding a tagline or an about page.

-The logo is small and I don't think it represents the forum well. I would try to have a logo with the forum name included in it.

-Below are some sites to improve your forums speed, SEO, and other common issues.

Useful Links:
http://www.site-analyzer.com/
http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/
 https://www.google.c...obile-friendly/
https://filippo.io/Heartbleed/


-You have a lot of work ahead of you for your forum to succeed but good luck with your forum.

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Atrium

Atrium Forum Review– By: @Cierra

FEEDBACK Categories
Visual/Impression
Content
Other Comments

Visual/Impression
Background/Logo:  – -Not very fond of the simple text logo, I don't have any ideas currently but I recommend a new one, maybe with an icon. Same with the favicon. I really, really dislike the default theme for a variety of reasons (colors, bulkiness, general feel), but you have a lot of other themes to choose from which is great. I like that.

Navigation/User Friendly:  –  You have a navigation bar to help members navigate around various parts of the forum which is good. Everything is within "reach", so to speak. Atrium is pretty easy to figure out. As Amanda said below:

    Quote
    I like it but one thing that really annoys me is how large the top of your index is that show the news and information. This is a huge chunk of forum to scroll down from before you get to look at anything.

I agree 100% with that. There is way too much above the fold content. This needs to be reduced by at least fifty percent, but more would be better.  I'm really not sure why it is so large to begin with.

Loadtime/SEO:  – When I search for "atrium forum" it is the first result, while "atrium" is not. It would be great if you could improve your rankings so much that you were on the first page, so that is a goal I would strive for in the future.

Useful Links:
http://www.site-analyzer.com/
http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/
 https://www.google.c...obile-friendly/
https://filippo.io/Heartbleed/


Content

Advertising:  – I don't see any ads, but I do see a PayPal Donate button in the header. This looks a little tacky to me, so I suggest adding it to a page instead.  That way it is out of the general forum member or guest view. I do like the customized donate button, though. If you do ever ad advertisements, try to stick to one or two ads only. No one likes a bunch of ads.

Bugs/Glitches/Technical:  – There is a initial loading lag when I load up Atrium of about 5 seconds, but besides that the forum is speedy. I would compress/cache some of your images, such as your background and forum icons, because that seems to be some of the problem. I have not found any technical errors.

Spelling and Grammar:  – There are no major spelling or grammar errors but you do tend to use too many splices in your forum descriptions, so check those all over some.


Other/Final Comments:
It was nice to review Atrium Forum. Good luck with your forum Reverie!

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