A big part of what we do at Gadarian Digital is focused on Digital Planning and the result is that outside of direct client work, a big part of my job is focused on looking for the best solutions that I can than integrate into my overall mix.

A great example being Slider Pro – a premium WordPress slider which also happens to be the slider that we use here on the Gadarian Digital Home Page. For Gadarian Digital I wanted something pretty minimal so I pulled it back, but as you’ll quickly see if you head over to the Slider Pro site, this slider is extremely robust. Will it do everything you need? You’ll have to answer that question for yourself, but I’d say the short answer is probably.

While I am not going to outline all the Slider Pro features and focus on a technical review – you can easily see all that for yourself I do want to talk a bit about the criteria for how I evaluate technology as I think that is a much more important piece of information for me to share with you.

A few key areas that I always look at:

Out of the box – does this product work and does it address a need that I have consistently seen across a number of my clients. In this case the answer is most certainly yes.

Does the product website communicate effectively? If a product can’t communicate what they do in a clear and concise manner on their site that is a red flag for me. If you’ve ever heard of the David Lee Roth M & M test than you might appreciate this – I’ve found that a technology product that does not communicate effectively is likely a product that still needs some work, otherwise their website would be in better shape. Over time this has become one of my key criteria as I’ve seen that products that pay attention to this “detail” are much more likely to be on the ball. Slider Pro has a really nice site in this regard and they also offer a series of video tutorials that show you exactly how to use the product.

Is the Product Evolving? Technology evolves and so should most technology products. The WordPress platform has a regular update schedule and they are constantly offering up new wrinkles. Slider Pro seems to be on the ball here (lifetime free upgrades are currently included with your purchase). And while I said I won’t go in too deep regarding the features, a few recent upgrades for this premium WordPress Plugin include a responsive slider layout option, an updated user interface inside of WordPress, some very strong Slider “skins” and the ability to easily add your own CSS or even to create your own skin.

How is the support? This is always a factor when evaluating a new technology. We are talking about integrating a piece of technology that someone else created and introducing it to your business in some way. Here is an area that the folks over at Slider Pro really “get”. David (the creator) has impressed me to no end in this regard and if you want to see this in action for you feel free to head over to the comments section on Code Canyon for this item (Code Canyon is where you make your purchase of this product.) As you’ll see over 2,000 sales, a five star rating and more so a very active conversation happening inside of the comments section. His customers have questions and he is very actively answering them.

In my space, access to great information and great product has a huge impact on the outcomes I can deliver for my clients and so I don’t write reviews like this lightly. And no, I’m not saying this is the “best” slider in the market (I’ll leave that conversation for others) – what I am saying is based on my above outlined criteria, Slider Pro is my preferred client solution and it also the one that I use on my own website. Go ahead and see for yourself – you won’t be disappointed.