Utility Pro sets a new standard for child themes built for the Genesis Framework. It’s the first theme on the market that boasts full support for language translation and adheres to WCAG 2.0 standards for web accessibility.
More than just a WordPress theme, Utility Pro is a solid foundation that enables you to:
- Offer your customers an amazing experience on mobile devices
- Easily translate the theme into any language, including RTL languages
- Do business in any country, even those that require accessibility support
Handcrafted with great care and audited by respected WordPress developers, we are proud of what Utility Pro represents. Whether you use it for yourself, for your customers, or as a starter theme, know that you’re starting off right with Utility Pro.
Mobile First
Utility is mobile responsive – of course! It evens meets Google’s guidelines for mobile-friendly labels (go ahead, run it through the test!). The theme automatically resizes for screen sizes so that it looks fantastic whether you’re on a desktop, tablet, phone (or goodness forbid, a PHABLET).
Beyond the usual mobile responsive elements, Utility Pro is a mobile first theme. What does that mean?
[Mobile first means] writing CSS in such a way that smaller (mobile) devices can access their styles without having to wade through styles written for desktop devices. In other words, writing the mobile styles first. (“First” means before the media queries that define the look of the site on larger displays – media queries are one of the hallmarks of “responsive design.”) – Mickey Kay in What is Mobile First
You may not care about all the nerd speak, but the bottom line is that Utility Pro performs better than ever on mobile devices, both in terms of speed and good looks.
Accessibility
Web accessibility is no longer just a nice-to-have feature. A growing number of countries require web accessibility for business websites.
Built with accessibility in mind, Utility Pro includes skip-links, keyboard navigation, and screen reader text. Additionally, each of the four unique color schemes meets the Level AA requirements included in the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0.
Not only does Utility Pro offer a better experience for users with disability, it also enables you to do business in countries where accessibility is a legal requirement. That’s a win for everyone.
Language Support (i18n)
It’s big wide world out there and Utility Pro is primed for translation into any language, including those with RTL scripts.
The Utility Pro theme is authored in US English and ships with the following translations included:
- Dutch
- Hebrew
- Hindi
- Norwegian (Nynorsk)
- Portugese
- Portugese (Brazil)
- Spanish (Argentina)
- Spanish (Spain)
- Spanish (Venezuela)
Don’t see your language? No worries. The theme comes with a .pot file you can use to translate Utility Pro.
Extra Bells and Whistles
We’re just getting started on all the greatness Utility Pro has to offer you!
Widgetized Home Page
Make your home page look amazing in no time by using the custom widget areas included in Utility Pro. In case you’re wondering where those cool font icons come from, this demo uses the Better Font Awesome plugin.
* Extra TMI: The original release of the Utility Theme included Font Awesome, but since the icon font is still under active development, it made more sense to use a plugin to access the fonts rather than include it in the theme (and have to push out theme updates with each Font Awesome update).
Four Color Options
Why limit yourself to just one color? You can highlight your site using Utility Pro in lovely shades of blue, purple, green, or red. Of course, you can always add a custom color scheme as well.
Multiple Layout Options & Landing Page
Want a full-width site? How about the sidebar on the left? Or maybe you’re feeling crazy and want the sidebar on the right? Whichever you want, Utility Pro has it.
Utility Pro also includes a landing page template so you can highlight your special or promotional content.
Utility Bar
Ah, yes. It wouldn’t be the Utility Pro theme without a Utility Bar! The Utility Bar runs the full width of screen and sits just above the header. Similar to (but a lot less bulky than) the Hello Bar, this area is a great place to communicate special news to your visitors. It’s a widget area, so it’s a breeze to setup and change out at will.
Browser Support
Utility Pro is designed to work on the current major release version and one past major release of these following browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox (PC & Mac), Safari (PC & Mac), Chrome (PC & Mac).
What else?
Good grief – you still want more? 🙂 It’s worth a mention that Utility Pro is backed by a top-notch support team, ready to answer your questions. We’ve also got community forums set up so that Utility Pro users can ask each other questions, share tips, show off their sites, or simply bond.
If you haven’t already seen it, be sure to check out the theme demo.