During April, we trialled using Vanilla on a community site, instead of what we had been using, the XOOPS forum module. I’d like to move the entire site over from XOOPS to Drupal which I prefer. That aside, it’s been interesting to see what users thought of Vanilla during that month.
First, some background. I’ve had my eye on Vanilla for some time now because it approaches the idea of a forum from a completely different angle. Forget how “normal” forums are done – Vanilla strips it back to what’s important: the conversations. Not the smileys, the bandwidth-hogging signatures, the mailbox, the forum categories. It pushes discussions to the forefront and uses subtle AJAX to make the experience of communicating with others fast and simple.
Vanilla is edging closer to version 1.0 thanks to creator Mark’s hard and tireless work. More and more people are contributing add-ons as version 1.0 will stay true to its name and won’t come with any special features by default, unlike earlier versions.
While we were interested in feedback from people on what they found easy/hard about using Vanilla and its features, we noticed that most people found it difficult to distinguish what was and wasn’t a part of the forum system and how difficult they found it to separate out feedback on the design vs functionality. Some immediately said the new forum was hard to use and confusing. Once a few weeks went by, users who initially complained about the confusing nature of the forum grew to love it and said they wouldn’t dream of going back. (more…)
