Choosing a Theme

In my previous post, I explained that I would like to design a user friendly, informative and attractive site.  After viewing the websites of my potential competitors, I began researching possible themes for my website.

I want to ensure that my website is fully responsive for various devices such as laptops, tablets and mobile phones.  The functionality of my website is important as I want to target every possible market available.  If my website does not load properly on certain devices then I could be neglecting a proportion of customers and missing out on sales.

I want the shoes to stand out for themselves, my theme shouldn't compete with my product images and my product images must stand out well against the background.  I want my website to be easy to navigate so not to cause frustration to my customers.

I want a classic but not boring website, as the subject is children's shoes, white backgrounds and minimal colour might appear plain. Taking on board all of these requirements, I chose four different themes that seemed to meet my expectations.  I settled on evaluating the following themes; Activello, Easy Commerce, Vogue and Pashmina.

Activello

(Activello 2017)

I was drawn to Activello, as in the description it is described as fully functional and well suited to fashion themes.  I loved the simplicity of this theme initially but after reflection decided that it was a little too minimalist in it's design.

Easy Commerce

(Easy Commerce – WEN Themes 2017)

Easy commerce, as it's name suggests is perfect for creating an e-commerce website.  This theme is fully functional and allows for plenty of customisation.  I had nearly settled on this theme as it seemed to tick all the boxes.

Vogue

(Kaira - WordPress Theme Demos 2017)

When I first stumbled across Vogue, what stood out to me was the highly customisable statement placed across the screenshot. I installed this theme and immediately found that it was attractive and I found it easy to experiment with the design.  This theme is also fully responsive and is well suited to an e-commerce website.  I loved the slider at the front page and I thought that would be great to use to promote any sales, promotions or new designs for new seasons.

Pashmina

 (Pashmina – WordPress Fashion Blog Theme 2017)

I eventually settled on the Pashmina theme, this fun theme allows me to further customise my site with it's additional CSS page.  At writing this blog post, I am not too familiar with coding but I will work to build my knowledge on basic coding using CSS3 and HTML5.  The coding will give me greater flexibility with the design of my site and it is a useful skill to acquire.

REFERENCES

Activello (2017). [Online] Available from: https://en-gb.wordpress.org/themes/activello/ [Accessed 22 December 2017].

 Easy Commerce – WEN Themes (2017). [Online] Available from: https://wenthemes.com/item/wordpress-themes/easy-commerce/ [Accessed 22 December 2017]

Kaira - WordPress Theme Demos (2017). [Online] Available from: https://demo.kairaweb.com/#vogue [Accessed 22 December 2017].

Pashmina – WordPress Fashion Blog Theme (2017). [Online] Available from: https://demos.famethemes.com/pashmina/ [Accessed 22 December 2017].