Visual Appeal: Clutter or Lackluster?

[Gamoc]

Well, yes, as said, great graphics are very much appreciated by the members, but if it starts cluttering the forum I will more than likely leave the board. Some good examples are:

• using images for board names. If you have a big image with the name of the board for each board, it will really stretch the board and make it look worse. You don't even need an image for the board name in general. The name itself works fine enough.
  
  
• Now backgrounds are big, too. Some people have these overly decorated backgrounds that really aren't needed. Now some of them look nice, but others just way overdo it. They'll have random images in random places, and they won't render the image or anything, plus, it may be an anime image for a site for...oh I don't know horse role playing.
  
  
• Head/Base images. Have you ever gone to a site and they have those huge head/base images that are just way to big or just, don't fit. Somebody who already has a good looking site, then they add huge head/base images thinking that it looks good. Personally, if you can avoid it, don't use head/base images. They're not needed and it would save on loading time.
  
  
• Welcome table. I have also seen many things placed in welcome tables that aren't needed. I used to be a member of a site where I had to click hide welcome table on five different welcome tables every time I visited a new page. It got very annoying and I left. This person just had so many unneeded graphics and it took way to long to load.

Now I have seen sites that have very little graphics and they do just fine. They have a basic banner that just has the name and a gradient. They have some gradients and nicely chosen colors. they have good looking basic buttons, and it's overall a good looking, quick-loading site. It works out fine. It just shows that you don't have to have a bunch of graphics to have a good site.

[Michelangelo "Spike" Scarlatti]

I think to many graphics does make a site look overly cluttered
I only like it where it has some sort of graphic in the place of the folders on the side
and something different for the menu buttons
Sometimes its nice if it has a banner too but Im not to picky on that
On a few of my boards I used to like to have pictures to show a room for my characters
so when you roleplay then you will be describing the right space
then Ive decided to nix that cause it did slow down loading time for some so I only put some pics on the outside of the board just for a look appeal to it
And on some subboards/boards I put in some descriptions

I dont like the ones that has tons of graphics in their info box plus alot on other parts of the board.It does make it look a bit too much and thenthe loading time for some isnt right if you really want to keep members then you should take that into consideration too
not to have so many graphics or you may lose some members over that

[between.trees]

If you have a very simple, basic board, lots of people will find it boring and uninteresting. It may seem like the admin didn't really try, or wasn't really concerned with the way things look.

On the other hand, not having all that extra stuff makes people focus more on the content and not the appearance. I know a few people that join boards just because they like the skin, not because they have any particular interest in the topic. I don't know many people that want member to join just for the appearance.

However, having a nice skin/design helps attract members. It will be obvious that the admin put a lot of effort into making their board look nice. But a lot of the time, a board will have this amazing, beautiful, complicated design, but the actual content isn't that good. It almost seems like the admin didn't really care about the purpose of the forum.

**Sorry if there are a lot of typos. My computer is being stupid and won't let me open Microsoft Word to spell-check it.

[SerChan]

I personally like graphics on a board, but not overly large ones all over the place. I don't mind seeing a large picture as the title but at the same time if they have a large title picture I can't see the reason to have a large picture anywhere else. It makes things look squishy and will stretch the screen which will annoy members and sometimes cause them to leave. Though small pictures here and there are sometimes useful and eye catching for members.

Then again all this is just personal opinion. ^.^

[Android 17]

Would you agree that a huge board with planty of boards, but very few posts and lots of empty boards is ugly?

[eri]

I like forums which have appealing colours and where the topics etc are well set out and clear - great graphics placed correctly and in the right way can really create a wow factor but in the wrong way they can just look messy and distracting. I stick for simple myself but I know some great ones - I just know if I tried to do it I would end up with a disorganised looking mess!

[Memzak]

i am not sure if my forum looks good or not...

would some one mind to check it out...

( memzak.proboards105.com/index.cgi? )