Theme Vote Poll Results
Last week I created a poll allowing visitors to vote for what type of themes they would like to see next. The post received a great response and I would like to thank everyone for their many suggestions. The 1,600+ votes cast gives me a good idea as to what types of themes are in demand, and the many comments/suggestions given were great to see. For those interested, here are the results of the poll:
To me it was no surprise that Business CMS received the most votes. Despite some complaints that we already have too many CMS-style designs, it’s obvious from our internal stats that these themes are in demand and continually receive the most downloads. That being said, we have always striven to provide a mix of niche and general purpose themes. In recent history we have produced such themes as InReview, MyCuisine, Anticipate and Event, all of which serve a specific purpose and offer a unique set of tools. We will continue this pattern going forward. When considering which niche themes to make next, the poll offered some interesting insights and we will certainly be exploring these ideas. Things like Mobile and Facebook Fanpage themes strike me as particularly interesting. There are also many hidden gems in the 200+ suggestions that you gave in the comments! I hope our customers realize that it’s impossible to make everyone happy with each theme release, but we still try! We strive towards creating an overall collection that is diverse while at the same time not too narrowly focused that it scares off the broader audience.
Thanks again for participating. In the future I will continue to look for ways to involve the community in our decision making and make sure that everyone gets a chance to have their voice heard 
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ET, I am never disappointed with the creative genious behind your awesome themes. Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to feed back and share our ideas. Just shows another of the many ways you go above and beyond all others… I’m sure I am not alone when I say that I am continually excited to see what you boys will think of next!! Thanks again and keep up the great work! You keep creating them, and we’ll keep building awesome websites for ourselves and our very VERY happy customers!
Cheers
“I’m sure I am not alone when I say that I am continually excited to see what you boys will think of next!!”
Diddo!
Double Diddo!
Hey Nick,
You know you have a fan here and while a new Business/CMS is not what I would go with first, I am still using and have used several business/CMS sites ET has produced. And even in the outside chance that you post a dud, I know you will keep making great sites overall.
Like Sally said, “Very happy customers.”
The interesting lesson is probably not that subscribers want more themes of types that you demonstrably do well, such as business or portfolio themes … after all, those are the reasons why many of us are subscribers in the first place. What seems important is that there’s a demand for types of themes folks didn’t even think of wanting before the poll. Even though I hadn’t considered them before, I now NEED an online directory theme and a city guide theme, and can’t imagine how I have lived without them.
Ha, this is a really good point.
I’m thinking that Nick might be the only person with the skills to make a “squeeze page” theme that didn’t look like utter spam
What is great is how responsive you are to your customers (me). I am a fan for life.
Nick and the other fine members at Elegant Themes:
I am so grateful for your creativity as you allow us to be a successful business. I often have nightmares if anything would happen to Elegant Themes…you are very needed and MUCH appreciated!
Derek
Great job Nick!
Would love to see more minimalistic portfolio themes. The most popular selling themes over at themeforest seem to be the “minimalistic” themes such as:
(Classica, Cotton, Minimalistic Studio, Athena, Wizzy, Fringtech etc.)
No more drop shadows please!
Whatever you make is beautiful! You guys have incredible talent to make ordinary things shine so bright that you need sunglasses
generally speaking you can’t have best of both worlds.
I guess ET is an exemption. Great theme, great customer service.
Best of both worlds!
Wow, the poll options really grew a lot. Hoping to see a lot of them come to reality in the future.
Hello Nick
I agree with Jean kelsey’s comment that { Whatever you make is beautiful! You guys have incredible talent to make ordinary things shine so bright that you need sunglasses
}
Looking forward to excellent themes and work which nobody can match!!!
Poll option shows that more people need business CMS
You are by far the most responsive tech people I’ve dealt with, especially in the WordPress arena. Keep it up!
‘responsive’ tech people – now thats a great compliment. I am with Chuck on this.
[...] Themes posted results of a poll asking what type of theme users want next. The results are interesting, especially for theme [...]
Wow, I’m really looking forward to the Facebook Fanpage template. They’ll be awesomely designed by ET, as usual!
Business CMS is what my clients want.
Sometimes with a blog and sometimes without.
Important thing is to have that content rich home page.
Just Focus in the main elements
Biz
Portfolio
Magazine
Showcase
Galleries
Plus new surprises new ideas some thing can be use in any niche
Good luck for your Kingdom :-p
… ok next
Maybe the admin section needs a refreshing (complete shortcodes) … also text styles and formatting inside of some shortcodes …
+1 for refreshing backend! shortcodes (maybe more styles of sliders?) and some more page templates like review and event
I agree, more shortcodes can make a huge difference. Thanks, I am well pleased with your work guys.
I agree. Need more shortcodes, text highlight shortcodes.
I also want to see more widgets like Twitter, facebook, Contant with captha, RSS built in the theme it self.
I don’t want any more. There are too many of them as it is. Too much css/java/images can really slow down a site.
Defining more shortcodes will not slow down your site until you use them, and you don’t have to.
Gimme more!
I think a Facebook Fanpage Theme and Mobile theme would bring in to ET a lot of new customers, as well as be appreciated by the devoted followers you have already.
Facebook Fanpage theme are not very common at all.
Keep up the good work!
For me only the classic blog / personal blog themes are interesting but I am still very happy with Memoir. But a new classic blog /personal blog theme would be nice now and then. I don’t expect one every month!
Thank you ET!
Hi there,
Very impressed with your themes. I’m trying to find a good city/local based site and think you guys could make a great one.
Other options at the min are Templatic and Appthemes are supposed to be building one – but they are not quite right!
http://barchick.com/ is a great local site as an example and uses tags as filters very well
Fingers crossed you will consider seeing as 7% polled agree
Dave
@Nick
One thing that might be interesting to you is to take a crack at this concept:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/06/07/free-html5-css3-wordpress-3-1-theme-with-responsive-layout-yoko/
In this case there is the desktop browser theme, which presents a mobile (Android, iPad, etc.) theme in place of the desktop one, if the viewer uses a mobile device to connect.
This might be one way of making a lot more people happy. Being ahead of your competitors, and doing something a bit different – more interesting.
i’ll second that… go responsive! If possible even larger than Yoko – go full width with Adapt.js from 960.gs
I would like to see a theme like this. Or perhaps a plug-in compatible with Elegant Themes.
I agree… preferably a blog theme like this. I currently use a WP plugin to make my site mobile friendly, but it doesn’t scale images and such like the example above does.
1. You have plenty of business CMS themes, but what they lack is a sub-page menu functionality, that you can toggle for horizontal or vertical display. That would be a winner.
2. You have news and magazine themes, but what they lack is a newspaper/magazine look and feel. Your themes tend to use up too much real estate. Aggregator is an example of wasting space above the fold, but great ad layout once you scroll down.
3. All your themes should load fast and run on smartphones and ipad without a mobile plugin.
I like the idea of all suggestions in your poll, and
I already use the city guide/location based theme from Woothemes. It is my most popular site yet has the least amount of posts! This theme type would have so many uses in so many niches. In fact I am thinking of building a business just around that theme.
Hope these comments are helpful
You could do an e-learning template, with different levels of learning, that’s something hard to find in wordpress.
Hey Nick!
Thanks for providing us with so many great themes and incredible customer support.
I was wondering if you can provide us with a Buddy Press theme, after all that too is a plugin for WordPress and I am sure, people will love it.
Hoping for a positive reply from your side. Cheers!
I know the voting has closed, but I’d like to see a theme for podcasters. That might be what is called “Multimedia/Video”, but there is a need for podcasters that is distinct in my opinion. Keep up the great work!
Business themes with CMS type functionality will always be popular.
I see more theme developers finally giving us easier access to WP functionality, i.e. http://www.woothemes.com/2011/01/upgraded-listings-content-builder/
Would be great if ET either added something similar or worked with integrating best plugins to do the same.
lastly, I really would like to always have the options in layout to choose between left or right for sidebars on all themes
I wonder if the “design by elegant themes” in the footer must remain after purchase?
Can i change it?
You are free to remove it.
Portfolio/Gallery was 3rd
Does it mean we will see this kind of theme in 3 months? 
Business CMS is good too…
Hi,
Have you thought of doing one similar to the on @ TemplateMonster? There is room for improvement with this them and it could be used for lots of consultants. I’d like to use one similar to this for my consulting business – focus is on website analytics and ROI analysis.
http://www.templatemonster.com/demo/33789.html
I would love a theme or method that would let me build a master site combining some of your features, like a Q&A merged with a CMS, merged with shopping.
Hi Nick,
Please create at least one coupon theme too in the future. There should be more variety and that is what is unique about elegant themes compared to others. Please create a nice coupon theme in the future. Most of the options you had listed were awesome options and you should create at least one theme from each option. That will give an awesome variety. I would highly appreciate if you could create a coupon theme soon.
Regards,
Zaman
ya, i 100% agree with Zaman. We need coupon code website.. at least one.
It looks like people loves business theme more and I have one more reason why I love ET because there were so many shouts that what they should release and what not.
And they have come up with great solution by conducting this poll.
Excuse me, I made a comment that was directed at the YOOtheme. (App horn)
More leave my honor by the good topics.
It also makes my suggestion of a theme can be useful for professionals register.
ex:
my Photo
my Name
my address
my phone
my phone + Operator
email
Professional Description: ex; painter with 10 years experience ……….
Map location
website
Photo Gallery
video
voting
…………………………………………..
5 Banners of sponsors by category
………………………………………….. ……
could create a registration system for registration of the professional categories, type:
country
city
profession
………………………………………….. ………………………………………….. …….
create one, the world needs good ideas
………………………………………….. …………………..
thanks
Edson Cruz
Glad to see you’re asking for feedback. You definitely have way to many CMS themes. I wish you would make one kick ass blog only theme that is simple with social plugins a decent way to truncate posts like http://www.thepioneerwoman.com.
Additionally, it would be great if you all had a way on your own site to search for themes based on their niche. WooThemes has this on their site and it makes it easier for people to find themes that suit their needs.
Offtopic – the blog is quiet for a long time. Is this the biggest gap ever?
Hi,
I think elegantthemes team should make the back-end translation ready (epanel and aditional post fields descriptions)
Another great thing that you guys should do is provide the REAL sample data used in the Preview´s section in elegantthemes.com
This two requests would make my dreams come true.
More than a new theme, we need better themes …
Thanks …
Hi, elegants.
I understand that in the future we’ll get a new Business/cms theme? If yes, great. But i would have chosen “Multimedia/Video”. I’m building now a music portal, and such a theme would have been accepted.
Good luck. Hope the new cms theme fould be wonderful.
How disable thumbnails on elegantthemes (EarthlyTouch)
Nick/E.T. Geniuses,
I just discovered Elegant Themes, I’m pretty surprised and excited because I’m pretty sure I found what I’m looking for!
I agree Mobile and Facebook Fanpages themes should be concentrated on the most. Or, couldn’t you just make all current themes mobile ready with maybe some sort of upgrade or service option, or I guess one can request this as custom work? Maybe make all future themes mobile ready?
The back-end translation ready will be great =)
I am not surprised that won Business CMS.
Thanls for your poll. I hope so u will made coupon code theme
[...] I am pleased to give everyone a sneak peek at our upcoming theme LeanBiz. After the Theme Vote results revealed a need for more Business Themes, we kept our promise and started working on just [...]
[...] I am pleased to give everyone a sneak peek at our upcoming theme LeanBiz. After the Theme Vote results revealed a need for more Business Themes, we kept our promise and started working on just [...]
Hi Nick,
Wish I’d seen this while the voting was still active. What I would LOVE to see is an article directory theme that works like it’s supposed to. (I bought Templatic’s AD theme and already wanting my money back because it’s so hard to use & lacks some really important features it needs). If you could do that, you’d outsell every A.D. theme on the web!
Thanks,
Donna
I love elegant themes! They are so beautiful both inside and outside. You can check out my version of Chameleon at http://liveinredding.org
Thank you elegant themes!
You might consider doing a CMS theme for authors to promote their books and blog.
There is a huge and growing demand for well-designed author pages that authors can easily learn to customize and update themselves.
Thanks for the beautiful designs!
Pool results unavailable now. Could you please republish them?