While most of the businesses have established their presence online through their websites, not all of them were fortunate enough to have their sites created by professional web design team. Some of them, due to financial constraints have opted to the more cost-effective way of creating a website – the DIY way. There are many web design applications allowing small businesses and individuals to design or augment their website requirements in a more creative way for less cost.
When creating a DIY web design, the limitations on the themes that can be used can sometimes affect the effectiveness of a website. The most common design platforms used for DIY web designing is WordPress themes and frameworks. Thesis and Headway are two of the most preferred frameworks for WordPress – they have the flexibility for building custom websites and beautiful designs. Depending on the design requirements of your business, you can choose from either Headway or Thesis to be the framework for your DIY website. Check out their pros and cons to help you decide.
Headway
This is a user-friendly theme complete with a live visual editor, drag and drop features. The live visual editor can be used by anybody, even those without technical or designing background. The drag and drop features can help in customizing your site without breaking into the code. Colors, fonts, etc. may be adjusted with a few clicks and does not require CSS knowledge.
The best feature of this DIY theme is the live visual editor as it allows changes to the site without any code. It also has a CSS map which can effectively target various elements. Headway has built-in SEO tools applicable for Posts and Pages, sitewide or individually.
Advantages:
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Live visual editor. Even if you are using CSS, the live editor allows you to see and check the changes before making them go live.
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Customizing is easy because of the drag and drop capabilities that can make adjustment on the design details, and ready-made leafs like “About” and “Twitter” leafs.
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Technical support is amazingly provided by willing and able technical experts. Even the forum are teeming with helpful advice and tips for the new users.
Disadvantages:
From a design perspective, Headway has no major downsides or disadvantages. Some users are quite hesitant in upgrading to newer versions for fear of losing the great features of the original version. With the many options and good features, users are comfortable with the version they are using and may take a while before deciding to shift to newer versions.
Thesis
This is more popular than Headway with over 37,000 users. It is chosen for its SEO capabilities, convenient and user-friendly controls, and fantastic support staff. Visual clarity and typography are notable features as well.
The best features are its SEO capabilities, layout generator with 1, 2 or 3 column layouts, customizable multi-media box, hooks for easier coding and a wide variety of skins available.
Advantages:
Most users are raving about the flexibility in their design. Customizing can become so convenient with the checking and unchecking options. Hooks allow modification on custom functions without leaving WordPress. Customizing will not mess up the theme files. Like headway, they have a great forum offering valuable help in customizations, upgrading or other concerns.
Disadvantages:
Feedback from most site developers has it that one should know a bit about CSS to get the most out of Thesis. Updates are not as regular as Headway.
Both offer superb convenience most especially to those who are new to the field of website design. These themes also suit those who need to run their websites live as soon as possible. Given the pros and cons of each do it yourself web design themes, the verdict lays on the user’s preference and needs.