Design wise every web developer has had their day of hair pulling and teeth grinding. I have certainly seen in my experience enough of these cases. The project starts well enough and every requirement of the website in question is noted down again, just to streamline and communicate the standards. Next comes in the concept discussions and everyone pitches in their ideas. Things go back and forth a little and finally a concept stands out which the designer then works on for some time before it goes to the developer for work. Businesses streamlined an entire procedure for PSD to HTML conversion or WordPress so companies may have their own take upon the subject.
Often, when this PSD goes to the developer for working or conversion there emerges some contention between the two sides. Often it can be due to miscommunication between the two sets of professionals but in my line of work this has risen primarily because of misunderstanding the sort of themes that a WordPress site can have. I’m certainly not against editing a standard or a theme but WordPress development allows that within a certain framework which many designers end up overlooking.
So first of all what is the look of an ideal WordPress theme? It looks something like this.
Having looked at that roadmap, we probably will be faced with many questions. But many designers even might ask “is this really how most WordPress sites go about it? “. Well we can find that out right?
Now the site above is built using one of Studiopress’s WordPress themes. Take a look from the top and you’ll see that the header placement is pretty much spot on with the original roadmap so that part is checked. Is it a good idea? It certainly makes the colour theme of the site prominent and it gives a good amount of visibility to the menu.
What’s next? The sidebar and we seem to have that inbuilt as well. Though you can tell that there has been some minor adjustment within that element it still fulfills the sidebar’s purpose and allows further navigation within the site. Design wise it is pure information to the visitor or the user: valid information mind you. Because the site deals with information about the sporting academy and any visitor would have multiple questions in mind about its facilities. The header deals with the questions, the side bar deals with the data collection measures and allows users to fill out details or collect forms.
The middle part of the page then becomes underlined as the index or the page itself and we can see that is where the subject or the main content for the page is posted. Obviously, the contents of the archive or even the title of the post can be ordered within this space of a page. Now aesthetically, it adds ease to the readability of the user. The content and the title are nicely at the center of the screen. Not placed high but placed high enough to be at the center and from there on they can scroll to read as they would.
Placing the archives just below within the section can help your other pages gain users and visitors too. From an aesthetics perspective you are placing or rather marketing your other content as soon as the user is done reading so if they have liked what they read then they might check some other pages as well.
I’m skipping ahead to the comments template and the query pages because that is where some interesting things have been attempted. And by interesting I do infer that all of them have been positive. Now in terms of the comments section, you ideally want to have it at the end of the page. Not only is it nice ordering but it also augments the user going through the entire page before giving a verdict. Similarly with a query post or page you want it placed somewhere after the main content’s display so that the querying reader or user is informed before making that query.
If you are really looking to change the themes then there is a concept known as Child Themes within WordPress which allows you to edit the themes properly. Part of standardizing the customization is to add more quality assurance to the WordPress site brand which we have to see is really for the business’s good. Just bear in mind that you can minimize a lot of working hassles by bearing the theme’s map in mind when designing your PSD. It adds quality to the work and saves a lot of time for the developer as well.
