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The weaknesses of the previous forum list

The way forums are displayed has remained unchanged for a long time and was, at most, marginally adjusted in recent versions. A key problem with the existing layout is that a disproportionate amount of space is devoted to information that is not relevant for finding interesting content. As a result, the most recently discussed topic receives only about a third of the available space, so that longer topic titles are frequently cut off. The associated loss of important information is a problem that should not be underestimated, and it weighs even more heavily on lower resolutions, such as tablets.

Another weakness is insufficient accessibility — for example, the configuration-dependent high density of links as well as the inadequate labelling of certain information. This results in click areas that are too small, making it harder to reach the desired link. By now, some of these criteria are also actively assessed by search engines and therefore affect the ranking of your own site, which makes this increasingly relevant even for operators with relatively few mobile page views.

Challenges in implementing improvements

The forum list exists in various forms — for example, the selection of ignored forums. Even within a single display variant there are numerous settings that have a sometimes considerable influence on the type of display and the information shown. The complexity increases further through the control of how sub-areas are displayed.

One measure we took during the overhaul is the removal of the option to hide the latest posts. In our experience, this option is used only very rarely, and hiding them can already be achieved easily with a few CSS rules. Removing this option reduces both the logic in the template and the various cases that we and style creators have to take into account in the overall design.

Also removed was the ability to display the users active in each area. This applies exclusively to the listing on the forum list; the detail view when opening a category or a forum has not been changed. In addition, forums without a category are now always displayed like a container, thereby avoiding optical illusions in which a forum is mistakenly seen as belonging to a category placed before it.

The new features of the revised forum list

The revised layout makes it possible to display the last two topics from a forum with a comparable space requirement, thus creating added value for users. We have also decided both to move the statistics below the forum title and to remove the display of labels (UPDATE 5 June: The labels in the forum list will continue to be displayed.). This allows most topic titles to be shown (almost) unabridged.

Our goal was for the forum list to be clearly structured for visitors and for content to be easy to find. The new structure relies on comfortably designed click areas and limits links to the essential content. The expanding and collapsing of categories has been reworked and implemented accessibly; together with the enlarged click areas, this can help improve the site's ranking in search engines. Categories from the 2nd level onward are interpreted as an implicit forum and now aggregate the content from the subordinate forums, so that they do not merely represent empty space but also offer added value for users.

The mobile display has been further improved and likewise focuses on presenting important information. The forum itself as well as the displayed latest reply are individually linked, using enlarged click areas for the best possible user experience.

The simplified display of forums — for example, for the list of ignored forums — has also been reworked and uses a layout based on the forum list, but in compressed form. This is intended to help find the area you are looking for more quickly within a largely identical visual structure.