September 11, 2024

Unveiling Benefits of Hyvä Theme in Magento 2

Alena Arsionava

Technology Evangelist

Hyvä Themes

Business and Tech Benefits of Hyvä Theme in Magento 2

Alena Arsionava

Technology Evangelist

Hyvä Themes

Business and Tech Benefits of Hyvä Theme in Magento 2

The release of Hyvä, a performance-optimized frontend theme for Magento 2, has become a noticeable event in the e-commerce market. As of 2024, the stats for using Hyvä accounts for 3,157 websites, with no sign of stopping there in the future.

At NEKLO, we've been working with the Hyvä theme since its first release and managed to test its benefits first-hand. Below, we look in more detail at why businesses migrate their Magento 2 stores to Hyvä and how it can impact your website performance metrics. We share our insight on the pitfalls you need to watch out for when setting up Hyva for your store, and give a sneak peek into customer success stories of those who have already benefited from Hyvä.

Key Takeaways

  • The HYVA theme revolutionizes the Magento 2 landscape, allowing faster and more performing stores.
  • Hyvä's key benefits are a modular approach, easy frontend development, powerful customization capabilities for design and features, and seamless responsiveness across all devices. Due to code consistency, Hyvä stores are also easy to maintain and support.
  • Hyvä theme development takes less time than Magento Luma store development, allowing store owners to invest more in functionality and business logic rather than technical intricacies.
  • These benefits can only be gained with proper Hyvä setup and optimization services, which require experience and expertise in modern frontend technologies.

 

What Sets the Hyvä Theme Apart

HYVA is a Magento 2 theme released back in 2021 providing developers with a powerful toolset to create faster and better-performing online stores. Performance might be the first thing that comes to mind when one mentions Hyvä. 

Slow loading times have always been a headache for store owners and require significant effort from developers using Magento 2 standard themes. In fact, they have been the number one reason your customers leave. According to research, 53% of online shoppers want a store to load in 3 seconds or less, or they prefer to shop somewhere else.

Still, performance optimization is just one benefit, but much more sets Hyvä apart from other Magento themes. 

Advantages that set Hyvä Theme apart:

  • Modular approach. You can build independent modules for your store and reuse or extend them without interfering with the logic.
  • Consistent code. Hyvä employs coding best practices and basic style recommendations for PHP, meaning the code is readable, easy to understand, and maintainable for developers.
  • Easy frontend development. The above two factors result in easier frontend development for Magento 2 without the need to go deep into the backend when working with functionality.
  • Customize beyond limits. Hyvä gets along well with third-party services, extensions, and microservices, so you can extend your store's functionality and change the design.  
  • Responsive design. With responsiveness in mind, Hyvä store design customization requests process seamlessly and faster on all devices.

7 Key Hyvä Benefits For Store Owners and Developers

Hyva theme technical amd business benefits

The beauty of the Hyvä theme lies in its combination of advanced features and its coding best practices approach, making it a favorable choice for developers and store owners. Let us closely examine how using the Hyvä theme can impact your store and the e-commerce development process. 

1. Better performance

The number one reason why many store owners consider Hyvä is because it helps you achieve better website performance. All Google core web vitals go straight to the green line, which most store owners want to see. Among the other Magento 2 default themes, it comes a winner at reducing website load times and optimizing vital metrics like server response, Time to First Byte (TTFB), and resource loading. 

Such significant performance optimization is achieved because Hyvä replies on:

  • Efficient Code Structure that reduces redundancy and enhances maintainability.
  • Lazy Loading makes the page load images and scripts dynamically as the user scrolls down.
  • Minimized HTTP Requests required to load a page.
  • Reduced CSS and JavaScript (JS) code to decrease the number of separate requests.
  • Efficient Caching allows clients to store static assets locally and reduces the need for repeated downloads.

Numbers speak louder than words. Using the Hyvä theme for our client, reduced the Speed Index page load by 57.5% compared to the Magento 2 default theme, making it from 4.0s to 1.7s. Total metrics improved, too, hitting the green marks. 

After we installed and optimized the Hyvä theme, the client's website parameters improved:

  • Home Page: from 51 to 92
  • Checkout Page: from 53 to 90.
  • SEO parameters: from 84 to 99
Hyva theme significantly increases Homepage metrics, Checkout performance, and SEO.

2. Faster development

Since Hyvä relies on a modular architecture, it lets you develop components separately. It has fewer dependencies, making it possible to reuse the code or the entire component in other projects instead of writing them from scratch. 

For the store owners, it means you can dedicate your developers' time to the store architecture, features, and business logic, not the technical aspect.

Case in point: Seating-Masters.com, Development Time Reduced X3

For our client, an online restaurant furniture retailer, we developed a product configurator using the VUE framework, leveraging Global Events. This configurator monitors connections between the properties of different products. When a button is clicked within the configurator, other page elements built in the Hyvä theme can seamlessly track and respond to these interactions.

The configurator represents a unified code pool that can be easily transferred to other client's multiple projects, including those still running on Magento 1. It allowed the client to cut the development time by X3. Notably, the page load speed remains consistent across different projects, and any encountered errors are promptly addressed, ensuring uniformity and stability across all resources.

3. Responsive Design

Built with a responsive design, HYVA ensures your store's consistent look and feel without compromising performance wherever clients are — on mobile, desktop, or tablet. It uses the Tailwind framework to simplify working with CSS and provide a mobile first approach, which allows you to flexibly customize styles for different screen resolutions.

You can move and arrange elements on the page for optimal visual appeal. You can adjust the overall structure and layout of the website pages and customize colors, fonts, and styles the way you want. A great advantage is that with Hyvä you can iterate your store design fast and focus on what works for the user rather than dealing with device-specific design issues.

4. Extensive Customization

As mentioned above, Hyvä's modular architecture and responsive design open up exciting possibilities for functionality customization. Custom features are not limited or impossible in Magento 2, yet the process differs drastically.

Since each module is represented as an independent unit, you can modify them safely without breaking the logic. Hyvä’s Compatibility Modules functionality lets you customize Magento modules, though it requires some coding efforts. 

Adding or removing modules based on your business goals or priorities is more accessible, too. Do your customers need help finding what they want? Work on advanced search functionalities or create personalized user interfaces. Would you like to improve the checkout? Hyvä checkout customization will let you incorporate custom fields or integrate alternative payment methods.

5. Microservices Integration

HYVA allows seamless integration of microservices, enabling the incorporation of additional functionalities and third-party services. It implies breaking down complex functionalities into smaller, modular components. This way, Hyvä allows for easier maintenance and updates of your entire store's key functionality.

For developers, integrating microservices makes it easy to add new functionality without interfering with website architecture. 

6. Easy frontend development

Hyvä follows best practices for frontend development, emphasizing a modular and efficient code structure. 

  • Alpine JS instead of Knockout JS and jQuery and Tailwind CSS instead of the Magento CSS compiler, which enables fewer JS and CSS code, a commonly known factor contributing to the page load time increase.
  • If you don’t/can’t use Alpine JS in your project, Hyvä lets you integrate other modern JavaScript frameworks such as Vue.js. This way, you can create more dynamic user interfaces and update the frontend features easier compared to Magento standard frameworks

Less JS and CSS make better frontend performance. The difference is palpable for small stores and high-loaded projects, which often accommodate this code and lose on performance. 

7. Maintenance and support

Websites built with Hyvä are easier to maintain and support compared to Magento Luma. You have fewer dependencies, a clear consistent code and feature-specific modules, so you can locate and fix issues faster. When you update or extend specific functionalities, you work locally, without affecting the entire codebase.

For store owners, this is a huge advantage as you spend fewer efforts and resources on website support, and in case of any errors or issues, you can process and resolve them on the go.

How Hyvä Development Powers Businesses 

All that technology magic that powers the Hyvä theme under the hood results in practical business benefits. 

  • Lightning-fast website performance has a direct impact on the conversion rate
  • The user experience counts, too. Extensive Hyva customization capabilities in terms of design and features let you create a truly authentic experience for your customers.
  • Hyvä sites employ scalability by default, letting you, as a store owner, plan your website growth for the future. 
  • A consistent code practice and forefront-first modular approach cut down the development time and facilitate your website support.
  • A well performing website has a crucial impact on SEO which in turn results in better ranking, higher traffic, and, eventually, more orders for your store.

Does Hyvä Have Any Drawbacks?

The HYVA theme for Magento 2 does offer numerous benefits for developers and store owners alike. Still, it's important to understand that, like any technology, along with the pros, it has some cons you need to consider before setting it up for your store. 

Things to consider before moving to Hyvä

  1. Hyvä is a good theme, a better theme, but not the golden pill for performance tweaks.
  2. Hyvä will not cure all your store pains instantly and as it is. It requires optimization and proper setup. You can't just put it on your website and hope I'll fix all its flaws.
  3. If you're still getting familiar with Hyvä, implementing and customizing it for your store will require a massive amount of time and will reveal lots of pitfalls on the way. Modern frontend frameworks like Vue.js, React, SCSS (Sass), and Alpine JS should all be in your comfort zone. 
  4. Hyvä's out-of-the-box features are somewhat limited compared to other Magento themes. Additionally, its compatibility with third-party Magento extensions requires a double-check. 

Tips for Implementing Hyvä Successfully

Implementing the Hyvä theme in Magento 2 requires careful planning, attention to detail, and adherence to best practices. Follow these simple yet essential steps for a successful Hyva set up in your store:

Before implementing

  • Define your goals for the HYVA implementation and measure key performance metrics to track further Before/After results. 
  • Conduct a Magento site audit to check for existing problems. 
  • Check your third-party extensions for compatibility with Hyvä. You may use Hyvä Public Module Tracker for quick checks.
  • Ensure that you have a robust backup system in place. Utilize version control systems, such as Git.

After implementation

  • Consider implementing HYVA in incremental phases rather than a single big release. This allows for smoother transitions and easier issue identification and resolution.
  • Test on various devices and network conditions to ensure a consistent and optimal user experience.
  • Track performance vitals. Basically, they are Page Loading times for key pages (Home, Checkout, Product Page) and SEO.
  • Keep the HYVA theme and all associated components secure and up to date. Regularly monitor security advisories and implement best practices for securing your Magento installation.
  • Plan for ongoing maintenance. Regularly check for new releases and bug fixes from HYVA.
  • Address any performance issues promptly to maintain a positive user experience.

Why NEKLO for Hyvä Theme Development

Looking to power your store with Hyvä theme development? We have a proven track record in Magento 2 ecommerce development and are ready to bring our expertise to your Hyvä projects. 

  • We’ve been working with Hyvä since its release. 
  • Hyvä development, setup, customization and optimization – all our fields.
  • 12 years in Magento e-commerce development and 300+ projects completed.
  • Deep expertise with Hyvä, Alpine JS, Tailwind CSS, Vanilla JS.
  • Experience in high-load Magento multi-stores.