Champion Selection improvement suggestions
First off, I'm not some fantastic graphical artist. I didn't try to make the prettiest Champion Selection possible. I do look at the use-cases for how people do things, and I present this improvement suggestion from that perspective. The images may not be the prettiest, but I believe they're functional enough to get the idea across.
#General Lets start with the generic champion selection window, as there are quite a few things that were changed here. http://i.imgur.com/aOGy3eF.png
- In the bottom left, Preferred Role can be declared. Next to your selection box, you see the same icons from other places in the UI as indicators to your team. For this to be a suitable replacement for rapid copy&paste role positions in chat for Blind Pick, the server would need to capture who selected which role first and display it in the UI. For Draft, the hope is that those nebulous picks (Kog'Maw, for example) are easier to read, especially if someone had to AFK and didn't have time to read the chat before they have to select themselves.
- The mode you selected is in the bottom right. No wondering if you signed into Normal Draft or Ranked, you can tell in an instant.
- Summoner Icons are brought front and center. Lets be honest, you see the Summoner Icons of strangers more often on the boards than you do in client, just because they don't ever show up in the UI. I think this minor tweak also helps humanize your teammates and enemies, since each one chose an icon for a reason. I'd also appreciate the ability to change the icon from this page, so if our team wanted all Golden Spatulas, we could do it.
- Bans fill the space provided. Yes, more bans would be nice, but right now we don't have them, so why leave that space so empty?
#Champion Presets You'll notice across the top there are some different tabs. Lets start with the "My Mids" - or Champion Presets http://i.imgur.com/y16LnyK.png This offers a much smaller window for viewing champions, and lets you specify what types of champions you want to view. Think of this like item sets, but for champions selection instead. http://i.imgur.com/Yw9u4M4.png I can go back to the Champions tab to see all my champions. Alternatively, it could behave like the Item Sets, where the top selection is "All Champions".There's no need to be able to edit these lists from Champion Selection, but there will need to be another panel added to the Profile section so you can edit them.
#Trade http://i.imgur.com/a44P2cN.png The last new panel I added was the Trade panel. At first it starts empty, since you haven't selected someone to trade with. You've probably noticed the button above lane preference. That's the icon to view available trades. http://i.imgur.com/fucSEsM.png WIth the second player on my team selected, I can see the champions that we have in common. I don't have to ask if he has Jarvan 4, I know he has it. This makes it less time consuming to discuss a trade.
#Champion Filtering There's one feature I forgot to include in my images, and that was Champion Filtering. Currently, the only filter you have is Alphabetical, but it's easy to see wanting to filter based on Most Played or Most Recently Played as well. Most Played is useful for picking your best champions, while Most Recently Played would be useful if you're practicing new champions. Both can be used to see what champions you need to practice more. I'd put the filter selection icon next to the Search Bar, since there's a logical connection between the idea of searching and filtering.
#Others
The current ban selection is clunky. It shows the enemy team's champions during your team's ability to ban, but the scrolling is partially disabled for anyone other than the banner, making it hard to suggest bans. It then swaps over to show your team's champions for no apparent reason. I mean, what good does it do your team for the 35 seconds that the enemy team is banning to show your own champions? Show the enemy team's champions the entire time, and let everyone scroll through the list, even if they can't ban.
I'd also recommend having a BAN button replace the LOCK button. People do misclick in bans, there's no need to have them instantly waste a ban because of that. Let them hover the ban, get feedback from their team, correct mistakes, etc.
I know that Team Builder Draft is in the works, so some of these ideas might already be coded into that queue. That said, I think these ideas are still worth while for all queues and hope they can be implemented there as well.
Did I miss something, or could something be implemented better? Make a comment. Feedback is welcome.