Wednesday, March 25, 2009

What is the appeal of a Template?

As I begin to get back to creating new and exciting templates, I took a moment yesterday with Stephen to do a little research on the templates that are most used here at Guild Launch. I was surprised by the results and could not help but wonder what about certain templates appeals to you (you being our awesome users)? Is it the simplicity? colors? theme? ease of customization? As the designer of the templates you love to use, I would love to know what the draw is. Can I get a little insight please?

According to the search results the "Redux Red" template is one of the favorite templates used. I decided that people must like it because of it's simplicity and color. I would have guessed ease of modification but very few people modified it besides the uploading of a header.









The Wrath of the Lich King Template, a heavy theme driven template and guess what? It is the all time favorite template amongst our users. My thoughts are that I created it using nothing but WoW elements. It is not easily customizable unless you are experienced with CSS and other then a header change I haven't seen much customization. So what is it with this one?








I am on a quest to discover what is it about certain templates you, our users want to see more of. Simple? Game Themed? Or, just darn cool?

6 comments:

Unknown said...

I think you're on the right track with your thoughts. Colour and simplicity is one of my favorite aspects of a template. I think most users go in planning on doing lots of customization, but never really get around to it.

As for the Wrath Template, it's got some gorgeous colours, and is very very clean. The only reason I'm not using it right now is that some users have trouble viewing at work with old web browsers (sad).

So I think you've hit all the main points:

Colour (Personally I like dark blues/blacks/cobalts, hence my like of the Wrath template)
Simplicity
A Clean/Sharp look

All of these things lead to a professional looking website, the kind of website you can direct applicants to where they go "wow, these guys must have it down". Or the kind of site that you can come back to time and time again without seeing flaws and problems within it each visit.

... a little ball of truth said...

weeee.. I love templates.. but.. have only used a few myself... the ones that are made, I bounce between

Clean/Default (for when I have full CSS blown in action)

redux black (for neutral, minimal distraction)
&
default warcraft one (gold, red, grey)

oh.. I also like the redux horde and redux alliance ones..

Right now, I'm using a Pirates of the burning sea one. While I'd like to have some more color in them, the redux colored ones are too overpowering for me, and some of the others that have elements I like, I can't seem to customize to get rid of the parts I don't.

I am still having a hard time with adjusting colors - even though GL tried to make it more customizable. Either the template, or another setting is possibly overwriting it so I cannot see the changes I make.

I love, that I have been able to customize forum tags (/ducks.. haven't done it yet), and the forum icons - via an interface.) The banner, as well. I have been toying with the idea of a "flash" banner, but then don't want to have a blank banner for those w/o flash installed.

For New features.. or adjustments to custom interfaces, I would love the following:

An interface for the border files, i.e. top, center, fill, right, right fill, right bottom, etc. AND/ or - pick the border set from this template and apply it to "left" "center" "right"

hmm.. graphically.. o.O that could be it. I think I asked once about custom emoticons, but I believe that feature has been added...

oh.. a lot of the options are dark colored. and I can't adjust them to be light?, unless I full blow out css?

I'm not sure if this is the info you're looking for, but I'm glad to help w/ anything.. graphically, feedbackly, or etc. :)

... a little ball of truth said...

oh.. we're at YQLIF

Lyndel Turner said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lyndel Turner said...

Honestly Vicki I think with the Wrath template its the forum icons. lol only joking. It is really eye catching yet simple and I think this is what attracts people to it.

For me template selection is mainly about how close it is to what I want my end result to be. But as you know I like to play with the css a lot.

Unknown said...

Hi - many of our guild members want to browse the site at work and we'd love something with a light background, low graphic use, efficient use of the screen space, etc.

Something akin to our old guild site (public link: http://duskronin.net/viewforum.php?f=12) would be ideal for the "Looks ok at work, easy on the eye layout" factor!