Top 3 Preferences When Choosing A Theme

[Kit]

There are a lot of things to consider when you choose a template. For each person, these may be a bit different and have a different priority. For example, the top three things I look for are:

1. Clean and easy-to-work-with code
2. Unique features
3. Style and arrangement

I do not consider color or graphics at all because I usually customize those to meet my needs. ;)

What are the top 3 things you look for, in their order of importance?

[conorp]

Since I'm just starting with coding WordPress themes I like to get a base theme and edit or copy bits to use on my own themes. I think my top 3 things are:

1 Easy to understand code.
2 How things are arranged.
3 Less fancy features- Just plain old html and css, nothing to amazing

So like yours.

Conorp

PS: What a great thread idea!

[LarryMonte]

1. Table-less CSS design (Valid XHTML/CSS). This likely goes without saying but it is my number one.
2. Right Sidebar(s). Content first, distractions second. :)
3. White background for content. The rest of the theme can be black for all I care. The traditional black on white text usually works just fine for me.

Even though I've only worked with 3 or 4 themes since starting out with WordPress, I feel I can't go wrong with the above points.

[Ryan]

I'm usually looking for themes with odd-ball functionality so I can reverse engineer it. The sort of themes I like to look for though are:

1. Obscure magazine themes, they often have some weird/interesting features
2. Exotic photo blog theme, I like to see how they handle creating galleries using WP
3. Simple, but professional looking designs.

I tend to rewrite the code from scratch anyway so that sort of thing doesn't bother me.

[Kit]

Since I'm just starting with coding WordPress themes I like to get a base theme and edit or copy bits to use on my own themes.

So like yours.

Conorp

PS: What a great thread idea!

Why thank you very much. :) This is a topic I tend to go over a lot with my newbie clients. They tend to look at colors and graphics and I have to tell them that those don't matter, I can change all of that stuff for them. lol


@Larry - I'm soooo with you on the CSS and content!

@Ryan - I hear ya! I love all those little unique functions that help to make your blog/site stand out.

[Jeffro]

Man, I have a whole blog post ready to go on this topic. But real quickly:

1. A demo of the theme in action
2. A showcase showing what people have been able to do with the theme
3. Support forum that is available to the publics eyes so I can see at a glance how good the support is.

Good topic. I'm sick of falling in this trap of purchasing a premium theme because it looks great only to realize it simply won't meet my needs or is too much of a pain to configure.

[jdh]

1. Free (it has to be--premium themes are over rated).
2. Typography -- I prefer Georgia; I prefer not having to change this
3. Awesome-looking comments; I like gravatars and nice input boxes

[Ryan]

3. Support forum that is available to the publics eyes so I can see at a glance how good the support is.

I find it odd that people would sign up for a forum they can't see actually. How do you know how good the support is if you can't see it!

Personally I have a paid support forum which people can access, but that's only for if they don't want to have their posts seen in public. They can still post in my public forum. Those who pay get better support than those who don't. Seems to work fine for me.

[Kit]

Those who pay get better support than those who don't. Seems to work fine for me.

Hmm...I'm guessing by "better" you mean more hands-on and one on one attention? I'm one of those people who would rather communicate privately.

[Ryan]

Hmm...I'm guessing by "better" you mean more hands-on and one on one attention? I'm one of those people who would rather communicate privately.

Paid members can communicate with me by email, private forum and sometimes by IM (depends on my mood). And by 'better', I mean they get a whole bunch more attention. Premium members questions are answered first, and things which I wouldn't answer for regular members are fine for premium members. I'll also edit their blog for them directly (if they give me admin or FTP access) and will rewrite scripts for them. I sometimes create new plugins and widgets for them too (within reason). It's not feasable for me to do that for free members though or I would get inundated with requests for support and I wouldn't be able to handle the load, the current requests for free support are already draining enough as it is.