You may have noticed over the past few months we have changed the forums around. This was done in an effort to simplify the site. Fewer forums to figure out where to post, less scrolling to get to where you want to be. These changes were done leading up to Deep Blue. With Deep Blue, you can be almost anywhere in two clicks and minimal scrolling.
The goal is to make CR easy for the casual user. Casual Users typically only spend time on a couple of pages...maybe the home page, maybe the forum home page, or possibly the New or Today's Post search. Deep Blue seeks to put as many threads in front of them as possible and still have it manageable.
Deep Blue also makes our members the star of the show! Deep Blue's color scheme and graphic design is intended to showcase your content. CR changes with every new thread and post that is made..even the items members are selling are dynamically placed into the tabs and homepage. The homepage slideshow grabs threads with attachments from the Showcase forums and display them with links back to your thread. There is also a new footer area with the Hot Topics (Most Replied...from the past 5 days) and Most Popular (Top Viewed threads from the past 14 days).
CR has been growing thanks to you guys. Deep Blue was designed to really set us apart from other sites and hopefully get us to the next level (or three).
Here is a screen shot showing the top area above the tabs. This is where all the links are that used to be in the old menu...if this isn't displaying for you, please let me know what browser and version you are using.
Very cool looking and a lot different than other forums. If I could give a little constructive criticism, I'm not a big fan of the menus at the top. They're not very laptop friendly. It's hard to go from Forums to Top without hitting one of the other menus first. Otherwise, very cool!
Good point Erika. I think though if you are navigating the top nav, it isn't as critical if a content tab changes. It was decided to make everything change when your mouse goes over it rather than click. It could be changed it if turns out to be a major problem though.