How to choose the right admin template
I have got stuck in various templates earlier when i work for my personal projects and for our company projects, I am sure you must also have faced similar situations where you purchased a theme and you where not able to receive the right support when you are in need or even cases of poor code standards and automation. So i decided to write up to share my best formula to find the best admin templates.
There are various use cases for a admin template for some its for a client project for some its for their well crafted dream products. While you are searching around you must have gone through a lot of free and premium admin dashboard templates and must got confused with a lot of options. Before burning a lot of time consider the above factors to choose the best admin template for your dream project.
1. Design
The world is moving design forward and your products should be able to move forward with a design thinking approach. Consider user interface and user experience of the admin dashboard this helps your products to maintain client retention and a better experience for your users all time. Build a clear clarity on your needs because the dashboard for a sass product or for a B2C E commerce website is completely different on its needs, So one you have a good clarity on what you want in sense of Typography, layout, Buttons and graphical representation. There are premium templates that can cater your exact requirement.
Consider what kind of design you are looking for weather its material or flat or any new trends its up to your product and your vision on how to position the design for the Admin dashboard.
2. Support
This is one of the hardest thing to find before you buy a Admin dashboard template. Every premium templates claims to have the best support but when you raise a ticket most theme authors even don’t have a system to track their tickets. So when you consider to have more support for you to help ahead with the development search the comments of the author and go to their support page and check weather they have any proper support ticketing system.
This is one of the major issue that people face when they use a free version of Admin dashboard template, so if you are building a serious product and requires a serious on time support i would prefer to opt the premium version of the theme which is very cheaper nowadays. Some of the authors provide Pre sale support that’s one of the best feature you can get without spending money you can clarify your initial initial queries about the theme.
Things you should consider when you are looking for a theme with best support.
- Support for third party plugins
- Means of communication – Chat, Email, Voice
- Duration of the support service
3. Documentation
Proper documentation is essential for every Templates, Weather you are new to using admin dashboard templates or a pro developer who have been developing dashboards you still require to have a good documentation to handle the code you really wanted to because the structure of the code and quality of the code differs from author to author proper documentation of the template would help you to integrate your back-end to front-end of the dashboard without any normal issues.
A Proper documentation would include
- Compatibility
- Technologies used
- Versions
- Feature updates
- File structure
- Installation
Reference – Admin Dashboard Documentation
4. Responsiveness
You always wanted your products to be supported by al major devices like desktop, laptop, mobile & tablet. Responsiveness of the dashboard is an important factor as your product need to be responsive in this competitive market. So before you buy a theme make sure its responsive and working on all major devices. Most theme provider so often showcase this as a feature, If you would like to test your own use Google Mobile Friendly Test Tool.
5. Security
Security is a major concern world wide when it comes to latest technologies people are afraid of losing data and stability of the platforms they use. We have seen a lot of data breaches in these years with the worlds largest firms. Admin dashboard always do have plugins and widgets that needed to be updated with latest versions.
You can check your HTML & CSS with the validation tools, This is to ensure that the HTML and CSS of your website are error proof. Checkout HTML CSS Validator Tool to avoid Front-end errors.
6. Flexibility and Customization
Every template requires a bit of customization to align with the product strategy, Depending upon the product some may require high-end customization and for some simple products it may just need some tweaks to customize the product. The flexibility and customization should be one of the main priority when it comes to the selection of a bootstrap admin template. Once you are able to purchase a highly flexible and customized product such as Label Pro you would be able to customize the dashboard as you wanted.