September 2014 Update I am now using the Genesis Framework with the Mobile First child theme. The Genesis framework is fast and there is a lot of support material (including child themes) available.
Approximately 15% of the traffic to Attempts at Honesty comes from mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets. To make the blog more readable on these devices, I had been using the free version of a plugin called WPTouch.
The free version of WPTouch works well for smart phones, but does not provide any improvement to the experience of iPad users. With the growth of iPad use, I knew that I needed to make a change. My choice was to purchase the paid version of WPTouch or to move to a responsive theme.
A theme is considered responsive when it renders the web page in a manner that is appropriate for the screen on which it is viewed. It does not matter whether the page is viewed on a mobile device, desktop or laptop computer, a responsive theme provides a readable version of the blog geared for that device.
After weighing the pros and cons of the paid version of WPTouch vs. a responsive theme, I thought that the responsive theme would provide a better experience across the board. So the question then became, “which theme?”
There are hundreds of themes available for WordPress. If you do a search on “best responsive WordPress theme” you will find several comparisons of themes. After reading a bunch of opinions in favor of this theme or that (all of theme good themes), I chose to purchase Standard Theme for Attempts at Honesty.
Since I haven’t tried the other themes, I cannot say that Standard Theme is the best, but I can say that it is a great option for someone like me who does not have the desire to write code or customize every aspect of the blog. It literally took me about 15 minutes to download and install Standard. For the basic theme there are only a few options that need to be selected. It only takes a few minutes to work through these choices and after that the theme is up and running and looking great.
Standard also has the ability to build child themes to provide for additional customization. I have not yet explored this option but may play with some tweaks of the blog moving forward.
If you are reading this on a mobile device, please take a few moments and provide a comment below providing feedback as to the look and functionality of the theme on your device. I’m especially interested in hearing from tablet users.
Also, any suggestions for improvement to the look and functionality of the blog would also be greatly appreciated.