Good forums seem to take a distinctive shape a main page with sections for easy navigation to the topic you are looking for. Examples of section we could use are the steps within the scheme so Audit, mentoring ect… Large forums have numerous sub categories which isn’t need for us however what is useful is the number of threads and posts to be displayed, I instintively looked at this and the larger the number the more likely I was to go into that sub category.

The layout of the page is generally spread across the entire screen giving you information in an easy to read table format – which we have already adopted on our Claydon Court forum thanks to Buddy Press.

Now something I really like which links nicely to my gamification post previously is the idea of giving thanks to a comment. This is similar to the idea of Kudos on Giff Gaff however has a more personal feel to it. Meaning people are rated by how many thanks they have been given on the number of threads they have posted. A nice idea would be once you get 20 thanks you get a reward and as your thanks increases your reward increases, as suggested before trees and recyclable pens.

The number of people viewing a category is also used on a few forums, I am unsure how I feel about this, partly it says come join the party and then on the other hand reminds me of the big brother effect.

The pages this blog is based on are, Home schooling and Businessuk forum.