We will have to create a guide on how to access the forum from the main page because of this issue though. Thank you for pointing out that there are potentially more difficulties in navigating around the site.
It can be quite confusing for some as it changes views from a smartphone to a tablet (or PC) as it's designed to support both platforms on a single page.
In addition to forums, we also have
Home (aggregated content from our entire site,
Places (a business directory),
Blog (where we post both site updates and news under the news category as well as fun things to do around Okinawa, even for a cyclist like you),
Forums (where one can discuss in several different topics, or even completely
off topic, which you were in search of),
Events (calendar(s) of events, which today remains barren due to the crisis at hand),
Classifieds (a classifieds directory soon to be replaced with a better functioning version as well as new features), and
Media (which is where you can upload pictures in high resolution, as they're meant to be seen).
As you mention an arrow, I can only assume that you're on a tablet or PC. Clicking the arrow and not to the left of it with the "Forums" text and icon to the left of that will merely bring down options you can do in the forums itself, such as view
new posts or
the members of Okinawa.org and a ladder of where people rank in different areas of participation. The arrow shouldn't be visible if you're in the Forums already though, be it a thread or a category; it should only be seen when you're outside of them such as on the Home page.
As far as the arrow goes, do you find the spacing a little difficult to click either/or? If so, that's an area of user experience that we need to look into. We didn't want a horizontally scrolling navigation bar, so we would just have to widen the page a bit in order to make them more accessible to click, such as if you are on a larger tablet trying to click either of them with your finger and go somewhere unintended.[/S]
