Review: Themes That Don’t Suck

Since I started offering free reviews in November 2007, I have done mostly blog reviews. Blogs are easy to review since I always look for the same specific information. Web sites, on the other hand, are more complex as there is no ideal standard which I can follow.

This week I will look at a web site that offers WordPress templates. I haven’t used WordPress myself, so I couldn’t have a closer look at the templates. According to the webmaster, though, these themes don’t suck. The next question is whether the web site can use the same tagline?

Web Site:

Description: Listing of premium and free of hand picked WordPress templates that don’t suck.

Design 

When I first viewed the web site I noticed the themes right away as they are displayed on the left side of the screen in two columns with five rows. One thing that did strike me, however, was also the amount of advertising on each page.

While the themes take up a large part of the screen on the left, it seems the advertising takes up a large portion of the remainder of the page. The ads on the right side are displayed under a heading called “Premium Themes” with more displayed below that under “Resources”. It seems the author of the site appears to be pushing advertising a little too much in this theme.

When I look for themes on a web site I usually look for categories. This site includes five categories, but you have to click the categories link at the top right to display them. The categories are hidden unless you click that link.

With the design of this site it appears the author is attempting to promote more on the advertising than the actual themes.

Focus 

The focus of this site is WordPress themes, at least the ones the author think don’t suck. While the themes are displayed on the left, many of the additional components are either hidden or not easy to find, such as the categories.

Overall, however, you can easily tell that the web site is focused on providing WordPress themes.

Content 

This site is difficult to rate for content, mainly because there is very little. Most of the themes are displayed as an image, and clicking on each theme provides no detail about that particular theme.

The themes that I clicked on to view didn’t provide any additional information, except for a larger screenshot, some ads and informaton on when it was posted. Although comments can be added for each theme, I don’t consider this to be part of the actual site content.

Some themes also redirect you to an external site. I’m not sure if this is because the author benefits from this, or that is how the theme author added their theme.

The theme images are high quality, and provide a good overall impression of the theme. This site could use much more content to make it a better provider of WordPress themes.

Spelling and Grammar 

With the lack of content on this site, I can’t really rate the spelling and grammar. The text I did read had few mistakes, however, as I said it is difficult to rate.

Overall 

Usually theme providing sites are well done with lots of themes and information. Unfortunately, in this case, this is not true. While the focus is good, the design suffers from too many ads and not enough focus on providing information about the themes.

With regards to the themes, you will not be given much more than a screenshot. There is no additional information regarding the themes except a small and large screenshot.

If you are looking for WordPress themes, there are definitely better places to look.