Personally, the main thing that keeps me from being active in the community here is that acdb is visually cluttered. Any time I've wanted to get involved with it, I've just been confused as to what's what and given up. I don't know what the lounge is, whether it differs from forums or the chatbox, etc. Another criticism I have, maybe not so much related to the community but making the site easier to navigate which might make people want to stick around more, is the top banner. Having anime screenshots behind the navigation makes it hard to look at, especially when the text is red. I think in the future it'd help to have the first box or two be black, and have the screenshots only on the left side. I frequently forget that there is anything in front of the banner because it stands out so much. I also don't think smash or pass should be featured on the left - maybe that space could be used for something community focused?

I made a mockup of the changes I'd like to see, so I could be more helpful. I took out the navigation icons because they just seem like generic icons that could mean anything, and don't add anything to the navigation, just make it more confusing. Those could easily be replaced with something clearer. The community spotlight is also just a basic idea, I'm not sure what you'd do with it since I'm not an active community member, but it could be used for anything - I just think that if we're working on building a more active community, something community-related would best serve in smash or pass's place. I think reducing the site's clutter would go a long way toward increasing activity. ^^



I want to add that, although I like the concept of the new sidebars, they do add to the clutter. I think it might be better to only have the one on one side. They sort of squish the content into the center and it looks a bit sloppier. I also think it'd be better to color them darker in order to match the header, rather than have them white like the main site content.

[ Edited Jun 11, 2018 ]