Since I'm not good at themes, I have to use from our Proboards Library. I'm honestly not good at the bells & whistles. I'm an introvert who prefers writing over talking so incorporate that into my forum. There's also something to be said about being overly done. To me, if a forum is too busy looking (not the activity, but popups, colors), I feel they are trying to overcompensate for something else. I tend to avoid forums where the themes are "loud".  

Well, they're certainly nice to have. But I don't mind if a theme is plain: as long as it gets the job done (i.e. it's not too hard on the eyes, and everything is clear and easy to read), I won't be put off by it.

I agree with both of you and I enjoy that nice and clean looking, but don't like a busy view.  Obviously you can get a solid grasp of my preferred design by looking at the theme here. 😄

Yes. A good looking theme will definitely draw me in to register and post around. I hate proboards for not having a decent user interface and nice themes. Therefore it's hard for me to sign up and support forums on that host.

I don't like busy themes that are distracting or visually overwhelming. I think that the theme really needs to fit the niche of the forum. If it's a professional site, it should look sophisticated and not childish. If it's a fun site, it better exude fun! 

If a site is boring but has the information I want, I don't leave because it's boring. But if a site is way too busy visually, I just can't stand to stick around for long.

I visit the website for just one simple reason that is content. I want the site to have fewer ads, a good layout, easy to navigate and a clean interface but I don't need fancy themes and a lot of decorations. I find too many visuals very distracting, I just want good content.

When it comes to the way I love forum or website themes to be used, it's should be as simple as possible. They can do fancy but let it not have too much noise in it otherwise it's going to kill my interest immediately as it will make it uncomfortable for me using the site. 

Speaking of themes, I've always used the dark theme on here, but I accidentally clicked the button to switch to the light theme. And I have to say, I rather like it! Very clean and simple... I think I'll use it from now on 🙂 .

When I go to a site, I tend to look at whether the site is clean looking, easy on the eye and easy to navigate. If all those are there then it doesn't bother me so much whether the theme is basic or fancy. 

Personally, I prefer to see a basic theme that looks professional at clean. 

I like fancy looking sites, but oddly I never found this site too fancy looking. 😅

Yes and no. Provided the themes are not ‘over crowded and cause the website speed to be negatively impacted, the answer would be yes. It does really depend on the theme/style that the website owner chooses

To me, it has to be a nice viewing site, not too bulky to attract me but not THAT plain either.

On 11/11/2023 at 11:10 AM, Bizdustry said:

Yes and no. Provided the themes are not ‘over crowded and cause the website speed to be negatively impacted, the answer would be yes. It does really depend on the theme/style that the website owner chooses

Exactly! Once there's too much details in the theme, it's definitely going to fail at getting me to stay on the website for long. I don't find it using anything that causes me mental stress and that's what a theme that's too much does to me. 

Absolutely. I like to visit websites that have attractive themes. I mean, they are the ones that I will always want to have a look at and interact more on.