Designing your social media site

Before you get started creating your site, it's worth taking some time to think about its design. This isn't just the visual design, but the user interface (UI) and components too. Think about the following:

Do you have an existing theme for your site that you want to use?

Is there a theme designed for BuddyPress (at https://wordpress.org/themes/tags/buddypress) that would work for your site?

What plugins are you already running on your site? Check whether they're compatible with BuddyPress; most well-written plugins should be, but any relating to membership or similar could cause a conflict.

What structure do you want your site to have? Will it include other elements that aren't part of BuddyPress, such as a blog and extra static pages?

What information do you want to include on each page using widgets? You might want to include a mix of BuddyPress-specific widgets and other widgets or just BuddyPress widgets.

What will be on your home page? This could be a static page, your main blog, or BuddyPress page.

Which BuddyPress components will you need to use? This will depend on your users' needs and the service you want your site to offer.

What BuddyPress components and pages will people be using the most? Make sure that these can be reached via one click from the home page.

How will people log in to your site? Will there be a separate login page or will you use a widget?

Spend some time thinking about how your site needs to work and look before you start, and you'll find that you're less likely to have to go back and redo things as you go along.