This post is a community update on the progress and next steps of the WordPress.org website redesign project. Conversations earlier this year led to the current design direction, which has been applied to the homepage and several other sections of the website. In the coming months, additional websites will be refreshed, with a majority of the wordpress.org websites likely updated by the end of Q1 2023.
The main goal of this redesign project is to apply the updated design direction to all websites across wordpress.org as quickly as possible, making the sites visually consistent. Site content will remain largely untouched. As usual, any future enhancements to website functionality can be requested through Meta Trac. Feedback during the redesign is available in individual website GitHub issues (see Development Approach).
The Showcase website will receive a more-significant overhaul of site content and layout, which hasn’t had a significant update in years. Some well-planned past attempts to update the site will help inform changes for this project. Planning and feedback for the Showcase site will be available in a forthcoming Make WordPress P2 post.
Where We Are
Several sites on wordpress.org have already had the new design applied:
- The WordPress Mobile website received a visual update with minor copy edits made to reflect recent changes to the WordPress mobile app.
- The Download main page and subpages for release versions and counters were updated to use the new design.
- Updated the Global Navigation and Footer in September 2022.
- Homepage implemented the new design and copy in August 2022.
- The News website implemented the new design in June 2022.
What’s Next
The following sites will be worked on in the coming months. This list is ordered by complexity, not necessarily the order of execution. Many of these sites will be worked on in parallel or redesigned within the Gutenberg editor, so the frequency of sites launched with the new design should soon increase.
Lower Complexity Sites:
- Hosting
- Enterprise
- About
Medium Complexity Sites:
- Documentation (read the recent planning post on Make WordPress Documentation)
- Developer
- Learn
- Five for the Future
- Plugin Directory
- Photo Directory
- Pattern Directory
Most Complex Sites:
- Theme Directory
- Forums
- Showcase
Development Approach
Redesigned sites will follow the approach of the wporg-main-2022 theme, which uses a new parent theme, wporg-parent-2021. The parent theme provides a design and layout library as a starting point for all sites. All work will be done in repositories in the public WordPress GitHub repository.
Once this redesign project is completed, additional website enhancements and future redesigns will be straightforward in that all sites will share a common parent theme. Currently, many wordpress.org themes have legacy functionality built into each theme. This project will allow us to better-separate legacy functionality from the theme.
Communication
Since most sites are not intended to have a complete overhaul of functionality and will be functionally similar to the current sites, batched progress on the redesign project will be announced by the Meta team regularly to keep the community informed.
Feedback and team involvement are welcome in the redesign project GitHub repositories, with iterations able to be made based on community feedback. Sites requiring a larger overhaul (such as the Showcase website) will have their own Make posts to discuss the project and solicit community feedback, which is welcome and encouraged!