As a rule, I only use WordPress themes that I’ve designed myself.  This is for a number of reasons, but mostly because I feel it gives me a better sense of ownership over the blog.  I also like to add some custom functionality to the blogs I run and always feel safer when I know how the theme works, in case something goes wrong or I have to make changes.  There’s also something to be said for uniqueness in the highly competitive world of blogging.

So with all that in my mind, I’ve started thinking about a theme for this blog.  Seeing as this is a blog about usability, the theme is going to be as usable as possible.  That’s going to be the prime focus.  In order to do that, I’m going to do some fairly heavy research into structuring and displaying content, typography and readability.  I want it to be as near to perfect in terms of usability as possible.  And seeing as I’m big on sharing, I’ll be posting about the process, progress and results in due course.

Out of this process I expect to produce: -

1. A set of guidelines that can be applied to information sites, and specifically blogs on the best way to structure and display information.
2. Best practices on typography for as near as ideal readability.
3. A framework for WordPress themes that can be adapted and used by others, with the lessons learnt in the above two steps engrained within it.
4. A new theme for The Usability Blog.

As you can see, it’s not a one step process.  I want to lay the groundwork, the foundations, that can be used again by myself and others.  I’m not going to build this house on sand.  And for those of you wondering, I’ve developed a number WordPress themes in the past, and written a number of articles on the subject.  I also plan on launching a WordPress themes site to support my theme development shortly.  So there’s alot going on!