XF 2.2 Ideas to organize forums with a large number of nodes?

[NealC]

Hello,

I run several XF sites and my main one is RVForums.com. We have a lot of forums (nodes) and I'm trying to find a better way to present this. Is it better to leave it as is and use the categories and forums for the site or maybe an option of using tiles that represent categories and then drilling into the category to see the forum nodes? My concern is obviously SEO but the main goal is a well designed site that's easy to navigate. I get complaints at various times how hard it is to navigate. Another option is a fly out menu in the header that shows all categories and forums?

Thank you for any suggestions on a layout for sites with large numbers of nodes. Reducing the nodes is not a desired goal.

 

[Mr Lucky]

I just had a quick Look and I understand about complaints about how hard it is to navigate.

I've just down a revamp on my site that had way way too many forums, so that it is now a lot fewer forums, but threads are organised via prefixes within a forum. It is working a lot better now.

I'd be totally lost on your forum to be honest. So many navigation items, so many forums....

Reducing the nodes is not a desired goal.

Then ignore what I said above. I think so many nodes is a problem but if you want to keep them I cannot see a viable answer if you want to get more users who engage and who are younger and are put off by the apparent complexity of how forums work.

I'm sorry if that feedback seems negative, it was not meant to be.

 

[Mr Lucky]

I had another look

tiles that represent categories

I'm not to sure what tiles that represent categories means

Another option is a fly out menu in the header that shows all categories and forums

If it represents the complexity of the navigation better then maybe that could work, but it may be good showing an example of what you mean.

The hardest thing sometimes is to put yourself in the shows of somebody arriving at your site for the first time, not knowing what you know about the hierarchy of the all the categories and sections.

My advice would be to get a usability audit done

 

[bzcomputers]

I can see some room for improvement. Even on a desktop the organization is still a little overwhelming.

I personally would attack this 2 ways.

1) Add an additional grouping layer: Currently your organization is only: Category -> Forum, which leaves visitors scrolling for days until they just give up. What I would recommend is Category -> Parent Forum -> Subforum. For example: Owner Clubs -> Clubs (A-I) -> then your existing forums that begin A-I. The Parent forums should be set to not allow posting, just like a category. In your case I would find similar ways to group any category with more than about 5 forums in it. I would aim to keep it down to less than 15 Parent Forums total. This would be much less overwhelming when a visitor hits your site, and for those that are regulars on your site already the changes won't upset them, and every existing link and bookmark will be unchanged.

2) Organize into columns for larger format devices (desktops & tablets): Make better use of space for large format device users by using columns. I personally use this on one of my sites with numerous forums: https://xenforo.com/community/resources/cv6-node-icons-tools.5565/

With this setting:


Resulting in this: (it is dynamic and will adjust column count to available screen width, you can further tweak with css if needed)


With this columned submenu layout you can fit 8 times the forums in the same space on large format devices (desktop & tablets) which for forums is typically around 30-40% of your site traffic.