When you go shopping for a new outfit, you take your choices to the changing room and get to try on the new look in the privacy of a cubicle, no one gets to see those fashion faux pas’ unless you want them to.

Unless you have the luxury of a “development or test” server the same is not true for your blog. If you change themes on your blog your readers will see the changes straight away, that can be disorientating for them especially if you are trying several.

One solution to this is to have a secondary domain (which is what I do) to try new blog effects, looks etc. but if you are just trialing a new theme do you want to go to the effort and expense of that?

If you are on a Wordpress based blog there is a plugin, compatible up to the latest version that will let you test drive new themes only for the admin account, your readers continue to see your existing theme. Called, unsurprisingly Theme Test Drive it allows you to “try on” a new theme and even set the theme’s options without changing anything for your readers.

This is a great way to test a new look and feel without upsetting your readers as you play around with various options.

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