Designing a discussion forum without turning it into a social network

I've spent much of the last few months designing and building Public Voice, a new independent discussion forum.

I'm a graphic designer first and a developer second, and one of the things I've enjoyed most about building it is figuring out how to make a fairly sophisticated platform feel as simple and straightforward as possible.

I didn't want to reinvent how forums work. I wanted to take the things that made them enjoyable in the first place and give them a modern, carefully considered interface.

Here are a few of the decisions I've made along the way.

One shared forum to start with

One of the early design decisions was to remove the traditional categories and subforums.

I'd originally planned to organise conversations into subjects like technology, design, photography and so on. But with a small community, separating everything into different areas seemed counterproductive.

Instead, Public Voice currently has one shared forum where anyone can start a Thread about whatever interests them. It makes things feel more open and encourages people to stumble across conversations they might not otherwise have found.

But the longer-term plan is to introduce Spaces.

The idea is that anyone will be able to create their own public or private Space, essentially giving them their own version of Public Voice to use however they wish, and build their own community.

So rather than dividing the main forum into predefined categories, people will be able to create entirely separate communities organically, around whatever interests them.

For now, though, everyone shares the same forum, which feels like the right place to start.

Showing conversations, not just titles

A traditional forum generally gives you a list of thread titles, with the latest activity indicated alongside them.

That works, but I wanted people to get a better sense of what's actually being discussed before clicking into a Thread.

The homepage has an In conversation feed, showing recent contributions from different Threads. The idea is to put the actual content of conversations front and centre rather than just displaying a list of subjects.

The individual Threads are still there, of course, with the full conversations available when you open them.

Responses and contextual Notes

Another feature I've been working on is the distinction between Responses and Notes.

Responses are the main contributions to a Thread, while Notes allow people to respond directly to a particular contribution, keeping smaller exchanges connected to the thing they're discussing.

I wanted conversations to feel natural without becoming an endless collection of nested replies.

There is also a Sources view that brings together links and references shared throughout a Thread, making it easier to revisit things people have contributed.

Trying to keep the interface out of the way

This is probably where I've spent the most time.

I've tried to make the layout, typography and navigation feel consistent and unobtrusive. Very little decoration, no unnecessary cards or shadows, just clear typography, fine dividers and plenty of attention to spacing.

There are useful features like saved conversations, activity updates and a customisable homepage panel, but I've tried to keep them from overwhelming the actual discussions.

And there are no likes, karma points or follower counts. I wanted people to contribute because they had something to say, rather than because there was a number to increase.

The difficult part comes next

Public Voice is now live and functional, but it's still a very small community.

And that's where the interesting challenge begins. It's one thing to design a forum that works technically; it's another to make it somewhere people actually want to spend time.

I'm particularly interested in how easily new members can find a conversation they want to join, contribute something, and return to it later.

Those are the things I'm hoping to learn from people using it.

If you're interested in UI/UX or enjoy independent web projects, I'd love you to take a look. And if you fancy signing up, sharing something you've made, starting a thread or joining an existing conversation, even better.

Public Voice — publicvoice.co

I'd genuinely welcome feedback, especially on anything that feels unintuitive or could work better.

Cheers!