WordPress Design and Development. As the popularity of the WordPress platform continues to increase exponentially, designers and developers are bending, stretching, and modifying the WordPress platform to do all sorts of cool things implemented on top of cutting edge designs.
This popularity has also created a maze of information, design styles, and basically an overload of information for someone who is looking for a designer, or theme for their site.
After designing and implementing dozens and dozens of totally custom WordPress sites we have learned a thing or two about what makes a WordPress site successful.
Keep It Simple
No this doesn’t mean you can’t have a lot of information on your site’s homepage. It doesn’t mean you can’t have a very intricate, custom design. It means keep it simple for your users to find what they’re looking for. In order to do this you first have to know *what* your users will be looking for, and your designer needs to take this information into account in every phase of the design and development process. Make it easy for your users to find what they came to your site to find, and this will keep them coming back for more.
The Sidebar is not a Christmas Tree
Yes WordPress has an extremely powerful and dynamic widget system that allows you to put all kinds of cool stuff into multiple sidebars. Use this sparingly. Your site’s sidebar (which every good design knows doesn’t actually have to be to the left or right of your content) should help supplement the main content on the page or post, not detract from it. Yes that spinning 3D tag cloud is cool, but does it really help you accomplish any of your site’s goals? When implementing a custom design, the sidebar, like the rest of the site should be designed before being built and what is put there should be there to help your users.
Make it Dynamic
WordPress is an extremely dynamic content management system. An experience designer who knows what WordPress is capable of will take this into account during all phases of design. There is almost no area of a WordPress site that cannot be made dynamic and controllable through the admin interface. By adding static elements to a design you are taking away what makes WordPress so popular in the first place.
What Now?
If you’re interested in a high-end custom WordPress Design and Development project then Contact Nicasio Design today.