WordPress: The Worst Thing That Happened to Web design & Development?

WordPress is obviously great. I mean it’s certainly the most popular CMS out there and powers more than 79% of websites on the internet.

Still…

Because so many people use WordPress, it has to accommodate a lot of uses and because it has to accommodate so many uses, there are a lot of different ways to go about doing things.

There are literally themes for nearly everything. This is both good and bad. Obviously, it’s good because you can accomplish so much with the platform, but it can become fragmented really quick.

If you are a qualified designer and you know what you’re doing, then this should not be a problem. But WordPress makes a lot of people think that they know what they’re doing when they really don’t. It makes people think that they’re a designer.

While it’s a great introductory step to learn standards, good practices, and good design, a lot of people don’t dive in deeper than the surface. And this makes a lot of people think that they can design great websites by finding the right theme. And then by applying a plugin to accomplish what they want.

Instead of understanding, a lot of time they apply quick fixes to provide a temporary solution. It saturates the market with people who say they’re web designers. And that makes it more challenging for the people who really know what they’re doing. A lot more reason why you should read this post on why you need a professional to customize your WordPress website.

What about the client experience?

Clients, most of the time, have no idea what’s right and what’s wrong. Most of the time as long as a client likes the look of their website, the way it works, and that they can edit it, well, that’s all they really care about. They have no idea about standards, best practices, etc. As for the people who really know what they’re doing it also becomes a hassle to educate the client.

WordPress Development

A lot of these same arguments I made about design apply to development. People think that they can apply a plugin and then now they’re a developer. Apply the WooCommerce plugin and now they know e-commerce. Obviously, I’m exaggerating a little bit, but I’m just trying to prove a point.

Also, with the huge amount of security vulnerabilities in certain WordPress plugins due to poor development practices, it becomes harder and harder to filter through them. But for the people who know what they’re doing this isn’t a problem. Sometimes it can waste time, but if you know what you’re doing you’ll find the right combination for you. However, the people who think they know what they’re doing could be giving a client something that sucks. And like above, a lot of times the client doesn’t know what’s good and what’s not.

What are your thoughts on WordPress?