I like the new design in general, it looks better than the old one.

However it is running very slow and it takes between 5-15 seconds for anything to happen when you press a link. I haven't seen other posts mentioning this and assume its some startup issues with the new layout, that will hopefully get fixed fast, as its pretty painful browsing the site. :)

One thing I don't like about the new design and seem to be an ongoing issue at the website, is the chaotic number of forums and how you focus on these or lack focusing on these. It seems like a sort of the more the better strategy.

My main concern in this regard and with the new design is this image:

First of all I really like that you have a menu to the left and when selected show sub menus on the right, that is good.

However looking at the sub menus to the right, it seems to follow the same chaotic strategy as the forums themselves, I have mentioned this a lot of times before and it constantly seem to haunt the site. What I mean by this is both the naming of categories, but in this case especially how they are prioritized as being important. And honestly it seems that is is done either completely random or by someone, not knowing Renderosity very well. :) (I assume this is done randomly, to be honest because its so way off the mark that it can't be on purpose)

Will start from the left:

Renderosity

Changes wanted in the community

Suggestion box

Are there any huge difference between these, that would justify why both have to be there? Compared to combining them into one called "Website suggestions", "Website feedback" or simply "Feedback" for example? You even have a green Feedback button on the right site --->

How many feedback places is needed :D

Premium tutorials

Seems very odd that these requires a forum for themselves? especially when you actually have a look in the forum it self and see there is 1 thread here. Why not assume that people doing a premium tutorial and might need help with them, would post for help in the software forum for which the tutorial were meant? The chance of them getting help posting in this very specific forum is very slim, if its needed at all, when looking at the activity here in the first place.

I could mention more weird stuff here, but to avoid the post being to long, which it will be, ill move on. :D

Software

This is where things really go wrong. Im not even sure where these categories come from. First one being Modo? I click the link and get told that the page doesn't exist, I look in my settings to see if I have turned it off as I have done that with a lot of forums, but there are nothing called Modo here!!. That seems pretty weird.

But this is not unique for Modo, it seems to be the case with several of the categories in this list.

Vistapro

Truespace

UVmapper

Seriously!! :D

I wont have a go at these software, but looking at Renderosity as a whole and someone asked me to explain what it was about, I wouldn't say that its a good place with forums for Truespace, UVmapper and Vistapro... There are no focus on these very specific programs anywhere on Renderosity... its mind blowing to me, that someone haven't pointed this out that these categories might not be the most relevant ones, before deciding to releasing the new design.

The absolute most active forum on Renderosity is the Poser one, so why is that not the first one in the list, wouldn't that make a whole lot more sense?

General

This is a rough one and hardly know where to start. If someone asked me to categorized what general things about graphics or art could be. I would probably add stuff, like 2D, 3D, Photography, Lighting, Animation, Gallery, Work in progress and could even put in gaming graphics since you have that. Fair enough with hardware and technical. But to me this would be good names for general forums. As their names aim wide. 2D art can include a lot of methods doesn't have to be pencil, but could be painting as well etc., 3D as well could be all kinds of theories etc. that doesn't relate to any specific 3d program.

Then you have conference, expos and workshops here? Which seems wrong in a general section and maybe better suited in a News category of some sort. There are two Gaming forums, which seems a bit overkill, when taking into account the amount of games that flows around on the site :)

CSS? That seems really specific and not even sure why it have a forum here? And clicking the link result in the page not existing anyway, so maybe that answered my own question, that it probably shouldn't be.

Poser

Then there is the always odd Poser specific category. With a forum for almost every single version ever released. Which I pointed out before, makes no sense and simply causes more issues that it solves. People regardless of version post primarily in the Poser forum and normally say or is asked which Poser version they refer to, should there be a need for it. Now it makes sense why they would do this, as new versions of Poser are released, more people move towards these. So the chance of someone posting in the Poser 4, 5 ,6 forum would get help gets very slim as less people will check this, as they might not really be interested or remember these versions very well.

However people using Poser 4,5,6 might have very basic questions that is most likely not related to a specific version, so to get help they post in the Poser forum with the rest of the community. Just hovering the mouse over the actually name of the forum, I can see that not only is this a general forum for Poser 4,5,6 its actually the technical forum..... now that is impressive :D

Its like Microsoft making a forum for each and every single windows release starting with DOS, it just not a very good way of doing it.

Then there is Moho Pro 12, which is sort of confusing, yes this is developed by SM. But have nothing to do with Poser. So why that is placed in a Poser category, rather than the Software category im not really sure? But guess this might be another result of the chaotic structuring of forums and the strategy, that if there can be a forum then there should be one, regardless of whether these make sense or not.

I really hope that someone working on the website design read this, you might not even agree with everything... or anything for that matter, but this is simply not a good way of structuring a website with forums. There need to be some sort of sense and logic behind how you organize this, so they are useful for the community and not just a long list of random headlines placed in main categories where they don't belong, it causes more confusion than sense.