Hey John, Twenty Nineteen is definitely both SEO and user friendly. You might also want to check Twenty Twenty.

Hey AJ,

thanks for the detailed feedback. It’s true that there is a lot that could be added in terms of functionality etc. However, as far as I understand it, the default themes (meaning the entire Twenty XYZ series) have always been built as starter themes with a pretty defined purpose. It means they do one or two jobs really well (in this case, work as a simple blog or business theme) and also make it easy to build upon them.

There are other themes out there that provide a lot more customization options for non-technical users and you can also customize themes through page builders without any coding knowledge. However, with the default themes, you do have to get your hands dirty a little bit to make them your own. At least, that’s how I see it.

For example, a logo. How many businesses actually have a logo that fits nicely into a circle? yet you say that is fine. To quote… “It will also be sufficient for most company logos” Just look around the web and tell me that the majority of logos are circular, I don’t think so!

And while I do appreciate simplicity, I’m not a fan of having to write custom css, install plugins, or edit php files to achieve something that with any other theme would be done with a few mouse clicks. Such as… making a global font change, editing the WP branding in the footer, adding a search widget to the nav/header area, reducing the large blocky (and frankly ugly) navigation links etc etc. These are all things that you would expect to be able to do via the customizer without having to create custom css.

That’s just my opinion, I can see that this might be fine for designers/developers that like a clean slate to start with. But what about the majority of WP users that don’t want to get their hands dirty with css, or don’t know enough to do that sort of thing? In that case, they are stuck with the layout and design that WP feels they should be using.

Hey Mohamed, thanks for the comment. I am also a big fan of the default themes. They are often a great starting point for your own designs. Cheers!