Survey results: using themes from WordPress.org

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This is the last of 3 posts summarising the recent surveys and looks at what it’s like using themes from WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/.

Total responses: 140

Question one: Have you downloaded a theme from the WordPress.org theme directory?

questiononeagain

Question two: Tell us about your experience downloading themes from the WordPress.org theme directory. Was it easy to install? Were you able to set up the theme? What kind of obstacles did you face setting up the theme? Did you do a lot of customization?

Summary: Mostly people found it easy and simple, but the biggest issues are not looking like demo/preview and customization.

questiontwo

Question three: Have you downloaded more than one theme from WordPress.org?

questionthree

Question four: Where did you download your theme?

questionfour

Question five: Did you view the theme demo before downloading the theme?

questionfiveagain

Comments from question five:

Summary: we have some big issues with the demo and preview looking not as expected.

questionfivecomments

You can also view the full results here in a pdf.

Andre 6:35 pm on June 22, 2015

The one thing that appears to be disconcerting is the “demo preview” aspects of the theme details page in the directory. I feel it’s been a liability and does not do a theme justice. I’ve suggested in the past that the theme’s preview should be a direct link to an actual theme demo website to give the potential user a much better representation of what the theme’s capabilities are. If it was even possible, the theme submitter could have the option to use the directory preview button, or an actual demo website instead. It would at least solve the problem of the relation between the theme’s screenshot (which is usually based on a live demo version), and a preview of the theme in all of its glory.
Dovy Paukstys 7:49 pm on June 22, 2015

Yes, the theme preview should be visible to see the use case for a blog setup, but I almost promise that every theme dev will use their own demos (if permitted) and then the theme preview will be hardly used at all.

You just can’t showcase your product in a box. That’s all there is to it. Anyone who’s ever sold a product knows that it’s all about the customized presentation. 🙂
- usability.idealist 8:03 pm on June 23, 2015
  
  why .. they are already doing that 😉
  
  there is this hackish kind of way of “demo content injection”, which helps pimping up the regular, rather boring, demo content the theme preview is using.
  
  cu, w0lf.
- Carolina Nymark 2:32 am on June 25, 2015
  
  Sure you can, just keep it in mind when you build the theme. It’s just code right, so adapt it.