FEEDBACK REQUESTED: do you want a 'forum' social media icon?

[BirdOPrey5]

Originally Posted by Panjo

This is great feedback! Thank you.

To answer a question that arose in another forum for admins, take a look at the footer of the vBulletin.com page:



It seems appropriate that amid the Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube icons that there be an icon that provides a visual clue and a clickable shortcut to a forum associated with the brand.

Attachment 151653

But those icons tell you where you are going- Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc... they are all external sites.

A generic forum icon- I don't know where that is taking me? Is it to an off-site forum? A forum on the site I'm currently browsing? Any forum of decent size probably has its own logo that they'd use for a custom icon already- between favicon and apple touch images they probably have something they could adopt.

So this isn't really for external links, the only similar icon out there really is the RSS icon, possibly a generic blog icon- you want a generic forum icon. This isn't going to compete with Google and Twitter, only RSS and Blogs.

[cellarius]

It takes you to a social sharing/discussion platform. Normally as you say it would be external. But many sites offer their own discussion platforms, normally forums. It would greatly benefit those sites if next to the well known external providers there would be a universally known icon for discussion forums that could be put next to those sharing icons. Insofar it does indeed compete with FB, Twitter and the like, as it makes your forum more visible at the place people who like to comment on something tend to look.

[Brandon Sheley]

I'd say a forum icon would be similar the favicon of the forum itself, and tailored to the companies brand..
I don't see one icon being used across the web for every type of forum.

[cellarius]

Hm - but would I not use my sites branding all over the place - not only for the forum part? And would it not be good to have people instantly realize that this link will lead them to a discussion forum?

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by Brandon Sheley

I'd say a forum icon would be similar the favicon of the forum itself, and tailored to the companies brand..
I don't see one icon being used across the web for every type of forum.

There's some exceptions to that. For instance, you might already be reading an article or a blog post on the authors website. So along with your social media icons linking users to your profiles there, you also have a link to your forum profile/recent threads/etc. on that same domain. Using the icon of a site you're already on might seem redundant or unclear. Again, the RSS icon serves a similar function.

[Panjo]

Thanks for all this feedback and input. Please keep it coming. Based on the input here and some other forums where this concept is under discussion, here is the latest option from our designer:



Attachment 151701

[cellarius]

Not so impressed, honestly. Just lokks like some sort of left-aligned button in Word. How would anyone connect that to a discussion forum?

[Digital Jedi]

I like it, but I still think it evokes a feature of a forum, rather than an entire community. I know he's trying to keep it simple for scalability. But a compromise might be needed here, where a couple of forum-eque symbols are used to convey a larger concept. Because the single symbol isn't quite nailing it.

As a really, really rough example of what I'm saying.

Attachment 151703

Okay, that's not great. But you get the idea of what I'm saying. Something that combines two critical aspects of the forum, rather than one that's not especially distinct from BBCode formatting buttons.

[Panjo]

Thanks Digital Jedi. Great feedback. It doesn't sound like people were seeing the "F" for forum in the last design. It was supposed to convey threaded conversations and an "F"

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by Panjo

Thanks Digital Jedi. Great feedback. It doesn't sound like people were seeing the "F" for forum in the last design. It was supposed to convey threaded conversations and an "F"

I definitely missed that. I think the way each bar contracts as it descends is what threw me. Now if it had been part of a word logo, that would haven't been missed as easily. But by itself, I just didn't see the "F" insinuation. And, again, it so closely resembles a formatting button.