What kinds of themes do we look for when we add to our collection on WordPress.com? We get this question a lot, both from existing and potential theme shops. And while some of the specifics evolve over time, the principles of what makes a good theme good remain the same. Whether it’s on WordPress.com or not.
When reviewing themes for WordPress.com, we never accept a theme based on design alone. We want to see the entire theme experience and for that you have to look at the user experience and code too. Why? You can have a beautiful design, but still make a bad theme. So we always look at three aspects, what we call the Three Amigos, named after a popular American comedy movie.
Design
We consider a lot of different design aspects. In general, we look for a strong grasp of design principles, especially methods that help establish harmony and unity:
- Perspective: sense of distance between elements.
- Similarity: repeating similar – but not identical – elements with strong visual connections.
- Continuation: the sense of having a line or pattern extend throughout a design.
- Repetition: elements being copied or mimicked numerous times.
- Rhythm: achieved when recurring position, size, color, and use of a graphic element has a focal point interruption.
- Altering the basic foundation of the design achieves unity and helps keep interest.
Code
We look for themes that follow the WordPress.org Theme Requirements and WordPress.com Theme Requirements.
User Experience
We run through setup to see how challenging it is to make the theme look like the theme demo. Complicated theme setups cause a large amount of user frustration, refunds and theme switches. We look at theme options to see if they’re intuitive to set up, simple, or complex. Any patterns that may confuse WordPress.com users are noted. User experience might just be the most important thing. You can’t use a theme if you can’t use it.
We’re always open to exceptions, if they can be justified by an innovative or creative theme that users will love.
And one last note – whether our marketplace is officially accepting new theme shops or not, we’re always looking for amazing, new themes. Make one, put it out there, and we’ll probably find it.
Happy theming!
