I have been interviewing various webpage designers for some time now. Some of these interviews have been published here in Web Templates Blog. Some of these dialogues are really too short or too limited to be an article-format interview. In addition to the interviews I have emailed many questionnaires to designers, especially their interests and experiences in using a website template as a first step in a design project.

One of the most recent responses I received was from Mamta Shahani of http://www.designdepot.com.sg/. Mamta had written an article on web templates and included a copy of it in the email. I will excerpt some of the article here:

“You want a site but you have a strict budget and timeline to adhere to. This is probably the most compelling time to start a project with a template. The three strengths of using the template approach are:

1. Tight budget
2. Tight timeline
3. Not entirely sure of your needs

One of the most time consuming, and hence expensive portion, of creating a site is the design, look, feel and ethos of the site. Not only does the client need to explain these elements to the designer but the designer actually has to understand this and not go off on a creative tangent. . .”

“The role of the designer has to change. . . Hence the designer plays an integral role in the customization of the site. The more experienced the designer in these issues the better the advise is that the client will receive. . . It is almost impossible to say which kind of template is best to use. It really depends on the clients requirements. Obviously the best templates would be those that are written neatly in easy to edit language. However, one cannot see the source code before the template is purchased. Hence, as a first cut, the template that is the best to use would be one that meets most of the clients needs and requires very little change.”

“The following providers offer quite good value - http://www.websitetemplates.name/ , http://www.templatemonster.com/ , http://www.basictemplates.com/ . . .As designers gain experience in buying templates from vendors they will notice that some contributors write in an easy to edit format so it might be beneficial for the client and the designer to choose more templates from these contributors.”

Thankyou Mamta for your thoughts and experiences. As I mentioned to Mamta, this is good feedback for buyers/designers using webpage templates.

Cruising the World of Templates,
Arthur Browning