Critique please - P8ntballer New Skin

Slavik

XenForo moderator
Staff member
Well, after deliberations and testing for several months, the P8ntballer Forums are soon switching over to xenforo.

As such, we have finally released our test site publicly to receive feedback on the design, and as well as our members, we would love any feedback from others not affiliated with the site to get their opinions, so if you were visiting the site for the first time, is it a design that would put you off, or make you want to stay?

All comments welcomed, no matter how small, good or negative. We want to build the best skin for our members, so all feedback is useful to us.

Check it out.

http://p8ntballer.com/

//Slav
 
The first thing that struck me about your forum was the background image used, I like it. But you need to make it static so it doesn't scroll with the forum in my opinion.

The rest of the design I felt was too close to the default look really to comment about.
 
One of these themes where there is not much to say. And I mean it in the most positive way :D

Few suggestions: Header seperated from the nav looks good. Rounded edges would look much better:

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There is too much space between the forum titles and last messages. Thread and message counts could be put in a nice box between them...

5053092044.png


Ad positioning is always a tricky business. Vertical ads in single messages create a huge white gap which I don't find it as a user convenient... I'm not aware of an ad position where I marked it in the screenshot but if there are I would consider it:

6359516991.png


I can't belive how messy your website looks now compared to xenforo, I'm sure your users will love the transition :)

Hope it goes smoothley, very best wishes.
 
I think I went in expecting more color. It is a paintballer forum, after all. Anyway, I like what you've done with both the navbar and the header area. I do agree that the header would look much better with rounded corners on the bottom. The sharp corners look out of place with everything else having rounded corners.

I do not like the blue on the forums and sidebar. Way too vB-ishy. *shudders*.
Just about any other color would be better there.

I really like the little images next to the links on the navbar. Nice touch.
Overall, a very nice look. Still, I would like to see more color.
 
Now this is a the one of the few styles for XenForo that I actually love, it is simple yet appealing. The colors you used go so well together as well.

I have to disagree with Peggy though, in my opinion to many colors will actually make this style turn from great to bad. I also have to disagree with the blue on the forums and sidebar, they don't look vB'ish at all to me.

The header would look way better with rounded corners on the bottom as others have said. Also maybe you could add more to the header area, the middle is just to empty for my tastes, might not be as empty for others as I use a large resolution on my monitor.

I love what you did with the navigation, how the bottom part is indented in on the right and left and you made it so it doesn't look like it is just floating there.

Also I agree with laztrix on that you could put something in between the forum name/description and the latest post, looks way to empty there.
 
Also I agree with laztrix on that you could put something in between the forum name/description and the latest post, looks way to empty there.

Inserting something in between the forum name description and the last post data would only distract imo creating an unnecessary focus point. A simple solution would be is to offer a fixed width style which would give users a choice and reduce the spacing.
 
Inserting something in between the forum name description and the last post data would only distract imo creating an unnecessary focus point. A simple solution would be is to offer a fixed width style which would give users a choice and reduce the spacing.

Or that, even better. Whatever makes that biig space gone :D
 
An excellent design. I am almost always in favor of simple white skins, and yours has just the right amount of color. Loved the design, in fact I would want to join just seeing how great it looks.
 
This is excellent. I really like the background because on the one hand, it's not just a bland single colour, but on the other it is not distracting (I always think textures work well here).

I also like the idea of having lots of very small banner advert style graphics at the top and bottom of threads rather than one single large banner, I may have to steal that idea as a way of getting site sponsors listed on my eventual migrated forum :) As a side effect this also injects loads of colour into the page.

It has been commented above about round or square corners, I did not even notice that until reading the comments, so either it didn't matter to my eyes, or you have changed it since the OP.

Finally, I didn't spot these until the second look, so it's quite subtle, but the extra graphics you have added work well. The icons in the menus, the green + next to the latest topic etc.

Good work.
 
Awesome design :)

Thanks, credit goes to Graeme also :)

I would suggest the search box being a bit wider, looks out of place above the banner ad.

Great job though (y)

Thanks for the suggestion, a quick test making it wider didn't look too great either, so ended up putting it back

1) Few suggestions: Header seperated from the nav looks good. Rounded edges would look much better:

2) There is too much space between the forum titles and last messages. Thread and message counts could be put in a nice box between them...

3) Ad positioning is always a tricky business. Vertical ads in single messages create a huge white gap which I don't find it as a user convenient... I'm not aware of an ad position where I marked it in the screenshot but if there are I would consider it:

4) I can't belive how messy your website looks now compared to xenforo, I'm sure your users will love the transition :)

Hope it goes smoothley, very best wishes.

1) The majority of our users are IE users, so don't see the rounded edges, maybe a "slight" rounding may be in order.

2) A fixed style is going to be added, but nothing will be put there :)
3) Something I am trying to work around at the moment.

4) Cheers

I think I went in expecting more color. It is a paintballer forum, after all.
I do not like the blue on the forums and sidebar. Way too vB-ishy. *shudders*.
Just about any other color would be better there.

We have always been relatively conservative with our colors, paintball sites with big bold colors usually look a mess. As for looking VB like... I have to say I disagree.

The first thing that struck me about your forum was the background image used, I like it. But you need to make it static so it doesn't scroll with the forum in my opinion.

The rest of the design I felt was too close to the default look really to comment about.

Never going to happen! I hate sites where the background doesn't scroll ;) Thanks for the suggestion anyway.

add more to the header area, the middle is just to empty for my tastes, might not be as empty for others as I use a large resolution on my monitor.

A fixed style coming, however less than 15% of our users have a resolution over 1366 wide.

Otherwise, thanks so far and keep the comments critiques coming guys, however from what feedback we have had so far, most people seem to think the design is nearly there :)
 
I really like it. I do agree with the rounded edges suggestion and well... all those ads kinda turn me away to be honest. Specially since they are in every single page. The boxes and the vertical ads.
 
I get this error viewing the link in the first post...

Fatal error: Exception thrown without a stack frame in Unknown on line 0
 
I'm a bit late to the party on this one, but agree with others, a great looking skin. Well done.

Should help with the transition from vB to XF too ... I learned a valuable lesson last time I migrated - don't radically change the skin at the same time as you're changing everything else - DOH!! :confused:

Good luck with the move. :)

Cheers,
Shaun :D
 
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