Outdoor Adventure USA

There have been numerous reports that our forums are hard to navigate. You will notice that we are making some changes. So we are going to try to make some changes to make things more user friendly. We aren't changing content but we are streamlining the forums. Let us know what you think. Please ensure that it is constructive feedback.

If I can throw my suggestions into the mix...
There are too many forum sections. I know that we cover a lot of different topics on this site but I think this is the number one thing (IMHO) that makes the forum hard to navigate. I always head straight for the "View new posts" link on the top right. But I have had more than one person gripe that there is no way to look at only the active topics. Maybe there is a way to make that link a little more prominent.

This forum is still young in the life span of web forums. And Sooner or later this thing will hit a very rapid growth spurt. Thanks for putting the work in to make it awesome.

Is the "View active topics" link not giving you what you want? If not, what should it do?

It does exactly what I want it to do. Two people I directed this way commented though that a link such as that didn't exist on this site. I told them they had just missed it and they came back and found it. I think making it a button like the "New Topic" and "Post Reply" buttons would make them more visible. If you don't see it you end up combing thru the 56 different sections in the board index. I’m no web design expert this is just an opinion.
Also in those 56 different forum sections there are a lot of sections that could be combined to de-clutter the forum. For example there is a section for "Outdoor Adventure Vehicles" and a section for "Outdoor Vehicle General Discussion". I understand how these could be separate sections but the site would be easier to navigate if there were less of these.

OU812 wrote:It does exactly what I want it to do. Two people I directed this way commented though that a link such as that didn't exist on this site. I told them they had just missed it and they came back and found it. I think making it a button like the "New Topic" and "Post Reply" buttons would make them more visible. If you don't see it you end up combing thru the 56 different sections in the board index. I’m no web design expert this is just an opinion.
Also in those 56 different forum sections there are a lot of sections that could be combined to de-clutter the forum. For example there is a section for "Outdoor Adventure Vehicles" and a section for "Outdoor Vehicle General Discussion". I understand how these could be separate sections but the site would be easier to navigate if there were less of these.

You make valid points and this is exactly the kind of thing we're trying to address. We're also trying to eliminate all the drill downs. One click and you're at the posts as opposed to having multiple subforums.