PHP 8.5 Release & Future Design Submission

[lumnn]

Names and Contact Details

Kamil k@s6i.pl

Link to mockup/prototype

https://github.com/lumnn/web-php/tree/feature-new-design

Rationale (300-600 words)

I believe php.net needs a proper refresh across whole website, but I'm sure rushing the new website look and feel is too much to do before the release. Therefore, I started off from existing PHP 8.5 release PR to get it to a point where it looks rather modern.

Previous release pages seemed to be on point by quickly showing the new functionalities compared with old way of doing things. More details are always available via RFC links which seems to be a great balance between showing what's new and discovering changes more deeply.

Design changes include cleaning up cluttered layout by merging nav and "banner" together, extending content background to the edges (hiding completely the body background).
Feature highlights were added to create a little bit "excitement" before going into code samples. This is on top of the gradient background which uses colours from existing PHP palette.

Code formatting broken on screenshots - it's not intended

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Future of php.net

Moving further I'd imagine PHP website to become a friendly and helpful place for developers who are already browsing documentations related to web development such as MDN, React or Vue.js documentations.
Therefore for future of the PHP.net I'd see the usage PHP branding such as logo, iconic purple and boring, documentation-like layout style. Little differentiating extras such as body padding and border lines were added to a little bit of a distinctive style.

For the homepage, I expand on what has been done on release page by having a nav integrated with banner.
Banner in my view would include "Get Started" CTA, current version information linked to more detailed versions page and finally showcasing code samples and reasons for using PHP. Similar patterns are used on other language pages such as Rust or Python.

As documentation will be likely the most browsed page, I'd suggest keeping it minimal so the content is the most important part of the page, purple nav is used to highlight it's the PHP website, while plain layout without much of a "design" is intended to keep focus on content.
Similar to MDN I've placed page navigation on the left side and "On this page" navigation on right side. This approach would likely require a review on how existing documentation content is structured.

License

• I confirm, and agree.