Themes, Builders, and Plugins, Oh, My! Meet this WordPress Toolkit Designed for UI/UX

TL; DR: “People ignore design that ignores people,” said designer Frank Chimero. With more than a decade of experience in crafting WordPress themes and plugins, Nick La, Designer and CEO of Themify, understands this well. We spoke with him about Themify’s thoughtfully curated themes and plugins, which are designed to improve the entire average user experience.

I do a lot of writing about the behind-the-scenes aspects of web infrastructure — servers, databases, APIs, and all that good stuff. But my real interest lies in UI/UX.

That’s short for user interface and user experience design, and it’s all about the first impression users get when they land on a website. It’s the layout, the flow of information, ease of use, and how consistent the brand feels.

Take Medium.com, for example. You’re greeted with articles tailored to your interests, staff picks, and recommendations on who to follow. The design is super clean — mostly black and white with small feature photos next to each article. It’s got the feel of a modern newspaper, and even though Medium hasn’t outright said it, I’m pretty sure that’s what they’re going for.

That’s what I love about good design: Every choice has a purpose. It’s an art and a science. But here’s the thing — not everyone is a web designer, so most people can’t just whip up their dream website. Or can they?

Actually, they can — with Themify. Themify is a marketplace of beautiful, well-thought-out themes and plugins for WordPress, the world’s most popular content management system (CMS).

We had the chance to talk with Nick La, Designer and CEO of Themify, about the platform’s design philosophy and some new features the company is working on to help people build even more stunning, accessible websites.

I always like to start with a little origin story.

Themify was initiated in 2010 by Nick, who has a long background in illustration and web design. Themify currently has more than 124,000 customers and its themes are active on 73,000 live sites. Plus, all Themify themes are created in-house by the team.

Themify has 42 themes, and I list a few of my favorites below. I love that some of the older ones are super nostalgic — like Minblr from 2011 or Postline from 2012 — and I think it not only shows how far Themify has come but also how UI/UX trends have changed over the past decade.

I took the liberty of putting together a list of some of the best themes depending on what you need them for:

• eCommerce Themes: Shoppe, Flatshop
• Blog/Influencer Themes: Stack, Parallax
• Creative Themes: Music, Responz
• Business Themes: Agency, Corporate
• Multipurpose Themes: Ultra, Infinite

And if you can’t pick a theme or want access to several different websites, then you can get the all-in-one WordPress toolkit called Master Club for a one-time purchase of $89. It sounds like a lot at first, but it comes with decent benefits: you get all Themify themes and plugins.

If you ask me, that’s pretty awesome.

“Our themes are very versatile. Users can customize and modify almost everything to match their brand, without the need for any coding,” Nick said. “We offer pre-made templates and demos that cater to various industry sectors, which can be imported and customized to suit individual needs.”

But Themify is much more than a pretty website. It also takes care of the other most important part of your site — the performance. In a world where the average user leaves a website after three seconds of loading, there is no time like the present.

Nick says page speed and performance are the key features that set the Themify framework apart from other competitors.

He noted that, in recent years, Google has begun to emphasize page speed and user experience as key factors for SEO rankings. Sometimes Google’s changes in its ranking are frustrating to keep up with, but these are things I’m glad it considered.

“As a result, we have focused on optimizing page speed and performance,” Nick added. “This way, our themes and builder load quickly and achieve ‘A+’ scores on Google PageSpeed Insights and GTMetrix.”

Themify leverages a bunch of different features to optimize its themes, including lazy loading, caching, and image support to reduce image size by 50% to 90% (which is great for visual-heavy websites). You can read more about it here.

WordPress wouldn’t be the same without plugins. They’re unique to WordPress and come in all shapes and sizes. Themify offers a range of plugins designed to simplify or customize your web design process.

Some are free, while others are paid — it all depends on the complexity you’re looking for. One of the coolest plugins I came across is the Post Type Builder, which lets you create custom post templates and page types. Nick mentioned that the page builder is the company’s most in-demand product because of its versatility, with flexibility being a growing priority for web designers.

“Recently, more users are focused on page speed since it directly affects site performance and SEO. Our Post Type Builder is built into both the theme and our core framework, which helps us optimize performance seamlessly,” Nick explained.

Since Themify’s products are all created in-house, they’re more compatible with one another — which means better performance.

“Many other page builders struggle with page speed due to unoptimized code and often face compatibility issues with third-party themes,” said Nick.

I was also impressed to learn that Themify offers its own website builder.

It’s called Builder Pro, and it’s actually a plugin that lets you create your own theme with drag-and-drop elements. It’s a one-time purchase of $69, which is a great deal. Many of us have been there. We think we’ve found the perfect theme, only to realize it’s a total letdown because it’s not customizable or it’s missing key features you need.

For example, my sister’s eCommerce site theme doesn’t allow for an image carousel. It’s a great theme otherwise, but that missing feature drives me crazy.

With Builder Pro, you get backend and frontend viewing, rows and columns, layout parts, and much more. You also get access to over 40 premade layouts. These aren’t full themes but more like the building blocks of your site, customizable with colors, fonts, and designs.

Themify v7.5 was released earlier in 2024. With it came a major update that included new features and improvements to add to the web-building experience and process:

• The new backend mode lets users toggle between frontend and backend so you can see every change live on both sides (a coder’s dream).
• A neat little add-on called Toggle was also added. You know when you go to a website and can toggle between the monthly versus annual pricing? It’s a really neat feature that keeps your webpage nice and neat without info-dumping.
• I also love the unlimited subrows feature. Since each subrow comes with its own grid options and styling, you can create just about any type of grid layout. You can finally officially say goodbye to the frustrations of inflexible themes.

(There’s a lot more, so check out the full version notes here.)

Just as I like to start with an origin story, I like to end with the future. And that brings me to some things in the pipeline Nick hinted at.

Just like the rest of web technology, WordPress has evolved a lot over the past couple of years. Nick said he foresees AI playing a big role in dev and design.

He’s spot-on: Just take a look at Wix, Jimdo, Durable, and Hostinger — all of which already released AI-powered website builders.

It looks like Themify is next on the AI train, says Nick: “We’re definitely looking to integrate AI tools to help users build sites faster.”

If you’re one of the 472 million website owners who use WordPress, then you may as well do it with style and ease.

Check out Themify for some of the most thoughtfully designed themes and plugins WordPress is home to.