phpBB: how to customize the UI really

Question

This will be quite a long way to ask my question, so please bear with me, I'm really interested in your opinion and need an advice.

I would like to modify or convert an existing phpBB3 setup because my users don't like it anymore. They definitely don't like the (otherwise professional) design of the templates based on proSilver or subSilver2 - they find it boring. We're talking about young girls and boys; it's quite possible that this is the first forum they've ever wanted to use (for some of them at least). Because I maintain that forum for a quite small community I must do something with this situation, so I've started thinking about how to dress up phpBB3 and make it more lovely.

Do you know any other forum software which could satisfy our needs better, perhaps a more Web 2.0 targeted solution? Do you have any ideas how should I design a forum style that 10-15 years old people can really use and enjoy? (I'm not talking about the IT specialists of the future here.)

I know it's not about programming on the surface, but we're talking about UI design here. I ready to do quite a lot of coding if we could find a nice concept - I wonder if I should create a new phpBB3 style with custom code from scratch or something.

Answer 1

I don't know phpBB, but to your question on other forum software...

I have used bbPress for a large project and I was very happy with it. It shares a lot of code with Wordpress and one can easily integrate the two, and even add more sophisticated social networking features using the BuddyPress plugin.

bbPress itself is lightweight and fast in my experience. It is easy to create a completely customized experience using only HTML, CSS and a few PHP template tags. There is a plugin architecture that allows you to customize the heck out of it without modifying the core.

One drawback is that it's future within the Wordpress stable has seemed a little uncertain recently.