What about the Headway theme?

**Jacqueline** · July 18th, 2010

Hi everyone,

Does anyone here have any experience with the Headway theme? I'm considering buying it and would appreciate any and all feedback.

Thanks in advance,
Jacqueline

**Jacqueline** · July 19th, 2010

Thanks Probofix,

I appreciate your feedback. I've already been to the
Headway site and have read many positive reviews
about this theme.

But I'm wondering if anyone here has used this theme or
knows if the Headway theme is as good and easy to use
as the positive reviews (that contain affiliate links) say
it is.

I purchased the Thesis theme because it was reported
to be extremely easy to use and "SEO friendly".
However, once inside the forums, it became clear that
in order to have anything other than a rather plain site,
I'd have to either hire someone to make changes for me
or spend a good deal of time learning how to make the
changes myself.

I'm not opposed to hiring someone to help me get
the look an feel that I want, but I'd much prefer to be
able to, for the most part, create a site on my own that
I like how it looks.

I very much like the structure of Lynn's Clicknewz site
and understand that is custom built. Was just wondering
if the Headway theme is versatile enough so that if I build
a large site using this theme that it could be customized
(over time) with similar features.

Is anyone here using the Headway theme that would be
willing to share their opinion about it?

Thanks,
Jacqueline

**MikeF421** · July 19th, 2010

If you are looking for something free with a lot of options that isn't too difficult to customize, the Atahualpa theme is not too bad.

The support forums for it are generally pretty helpful too.

I'd recommend checking it out.

**Engage** · July 19th, 2010

Apologies, I should say at the start that I know nothing about the Headway theme.

I purchased the Thesis theme because it was reported to be extremely easy to use and "SEO friendly".
However, once inside the forums, it became clear that
in order to have anything other than a rather plain site,
I'd have to either hire someone to make changes for me
or spend a good deal of time learning how to make the
changes myself.

First, as I just wrote in another thread, please observe that two of the most popular sites on the Internet, Google and Facebook, use...

Plain jane designs.

Simple. Boring. Nothing special.

It might be useful to take a close look at the designs of Google and Facebook...

...The most successful designs on the Net.

Hiring someone to tweak your designs, or spending a good deal of time learning how to do it yourself, are both bad options, imho.

You see this already, and are looking for a solution in posting your question. You are looking for the best Wordpress theme.

But...

Having 5,000 different themes to choose from is an obstacle that the developers of Wordpress and the webmaster group consensus have placed in your path.

In the time you've spent shopping for themes, buying them, installing them, learning them, analyzing them, fixing them, tweaking them, considering other themes, posting questions on forums, reading the answers, shopping for additional advice etc....

...You could have probably added 100 great articles to your site.

You are not alone of course, you are traveling a very well worn path, and this post is NOT about you personally. I'm just using your post as the latest in a very long line of examples.

My comments are addressing the millions of hours of productive time being wasted in such activities across the webmaster world.

Millions of hours of productive time being flushed down the toilet in search of the ideal theme...

...encouraged by the webmaster group consensus and leading experts....

.... when the most successful sites on the Net have already PROVEN that web users are perfectly happy with very simple basic site designs.

Of course, this might not apply to you personally. If your site is an artistic enterprise created to explore your creativity, then learning how to tweak themes would be a logical next step. There's nothing wrong with being a web artist of course.

**Jacqueline** · July 19th, 2010

@Mike...Thanks Mike for the heads up about the
Atahualpa theme. Is that the theme you're using
for the site in your link?

It's a very nice looking site. I like that it is very
clean looking and uncluttered.

@Engage...Thanks for your detailed response. I agree
that Facebook and Google are very simply constructed
websites and easy to navigate.

However, I'm thinking of doing my site in a blog format
rather than a static website (did I say that right, "static"?)
like the Facebook and Google sites.

My site should eventually have many pages of posts and I want
it to be customized enough so that once the blog is big, it
is well organized so that people can find many posts that
interest them rather than leaving in frustration because they
don't want to spend time having to dig around to find what
they want.

If hundreds (maybe thousands) of posts can easily be organized
in a site that is as simple as the Facebook or Google site and the
visitor can find the category and post he or she is looking for
quickly, that seems like a good thing.

Could you possibly point me to a site like that with static pages
but that also has many blog posts with comments included?

Much appreciation,
Jacqueline

**Engage** · July 19th, 2010

@Engage...Thanks for your detailed response.

And thank you for enduring one of my chronic rants with grace and style.

I agree that Facebook and Google are very simply constructed websites and easy to navigate

There was a historic battle back in the 90s, before Google became the dominant force it is today. Lots of companies wanted to be the search engine leader, and many tried to become "portals", the one stop destination for everything we might want to do online. Their home pages grew in complexity, with zillions of different features crammed in to an ever multiplying array of little columns etc. "More is better" was the overall philosophy, as it is in very many aspects of our culture.

Google was of course the company that won the search engine wars, and they did so with an extremely simple uncluttered "less is more" plain jane 1995 style interface, which they've largely kept to this day.

The explosive popularity of Facebook, a different kind of service, but sporting the same simple plain jane type interface, tends to confirm the experiment.

What's interesting is that both Google and Facebook are very technically sophisticated sites, that succeed at hiding the complexity from users.

Imho, that's what good design does, gives us "more is better", while making it feel like "less is more." After all, we want everything the world has to offer, AND we don't want to think (ouch!) or lift a finger to get it. Both. Everything, for nothing.

Oops, more ranting, sorry...

However, I'm thinking of doing my site in a blog format rather than a static website (did I say that right, "static"?) like the Facebook and Google sites.

I'm not sure what you mean by "blog format". Do you mean a site that can accept content from visitors?

My site should eventually have many pages of posts and I want it to be customized enough so that once the blog is big, it is well organized so that people can find many posts that interest them rather than leaving in frustration because they don't want to spend time having to dig around to find what they want.

Ok, easy navigation, for a big site, a very worthy goal. I do agree this is important. You are wise to consider this ahead of time.

If hundreds (maybe thousands) of posts can easily be organized in a site that is as simple as the Facebook or Google site and the visitor can find the category and post he or she is looking for quickly, that seems like a good thing.

Agreed. More is better, organized to look like less is more.

Could you possibly point me to a site like that with static pages but that also has many blog posts with comments included?

Well, I have so many opinions about these kinds of issues because I design interfaces myself. If you wish, you can examine one of my sites to see my blowharding theories applied in practice. Here's one that is relevant to this forum, and has nothing for sale etc.

http://non-profit-funding.org/

Here's how I went about the navigation.

1) Right below the article is a list of the latest articles.

2) Below that are drop down menus containing a link to every page on the site, organized by category. So, the user can get from any page, to any page.

3) There's a site map for users, with various searching features. See button in sidebar.

4) There's three sitemaps for search engines, XML, text, and html.

5) The inhouse site search feature searches titles and summaries. A google site search feature searches all content.

The comments are tucked away in their own department, see buttons in sidebar. At the time I designed this interface everybody was FREAKING OUT about SEO comment spam, so I put the comments where the search engines can't reach them. This is good, or bad, depending on personal preference and the latest opinion fads, which come and go like the seasons.

Overall, I see my job as an interface designer to both offer AND limit features. That is, make careful judgments based on my experience regarding what is important, and what is not.

Imho, navigation is indeed important, whereas endless choices about themes and plugins etc is not.

Imho, having one accessible accountable person with authority and skill responsible for the proper functioning of one's site is important. Modern content management systems are complex, and _real writers_ should not be wasting their time trying to master them.

Imho, for most webmasters, getting up and running asap fully focused on content and links is important. Once we start a site the time clock begins ticking down on our initial enthusiasm, and some level of motivating success must be reached before our initial hope, energy and dream is expired, or it's game over.

This is the number one fate of most sites. The owner gets distracted from the real job, exhausts themselves on unproductive activities, sees little success, suffers a motivation crisis, and quits.

Ha, ha! In the time you've spent reading this post you could have written three of your own. I have become the distraction I'm ranting against.

Over to you...

**MikeF421** · July 19th, 2010

Originally Posted by Jacqueline

@Mike...Thanks Mike for the heads up about the
Atahualpa theme. Is that the theme you're using
for the site in your link?

It's a very nice looking site. I like that it is very
clean looking and uncluttered.

Thank you, and yes it was done with that theme.

**Jacqueline** · July 19th, 2010

Thanks again, Engage, for your response.

However, regarding comments, you mentioned:

"The comments are tucked away in their own department, see buttons in sidebar."

I clicked on the buttons, but I couldn't find any comments from your
readers. What department are they in?

and you asked,

"I'm not sure what you mean by "blog format". Do you mean a site that can accept content from visitors?"

My answer...By "blog format", I'm referring to a site where a visitor's comment to a particular post is clearly shown below the post (as
in Lynn's ClickNewz site).

Sincerely,
Jacqueline

**Engage** · July 19th, 2010

Hi again,

Sorry, I realize my explanation was vague. By "comments in their own department" I just meant the comments are displayed on a page by themselves.

If you wish to explore this, just go ahead and leave a comment in response to any article. Once you do, a "Read Comments" button will appear for that article.