So, feedback time. I believe that clarity is good but vitality is just important. These clarity changes absolutely make certain things easier to read and comprehend, but I'm a little concerned that the Boards is becoming less visually inviting in the process. Here's our color palette:
- Off-White
- Light blue
- Dark blue
- Really dark blue
- Tan
- Black
I understand why this is, but it's not exactly inviting. It's all cold colors, and generally it's a few shades of only two colors (blue and brown).
- Body Text Color
Fair enough, seems to help.
- Links and Byline text colors
While I like how they now match the platform better, they are almost completely washed out on the lighter-colored responses. It's a lot harder to immediately see links than before on those replies.
Also, links look identical to the interface surrounding the comment. It's difficult to know what's a link and what isn't without a bunch of text around it offsetting this fact, and it removes color from posts. I'll get into this more in part 3 and my closing thoughts.
- Comment Colors
While I like the overall idea of contrast, this change makes the platform feel darker and more gloomy than it did before (which is impressive on an already very dark platform). It feels as though all color is being crushed to black, even if that's not necessarily the case. The darker the platform, the more there needs to be at least minor splashes of color to break it up and make it feel more alive.
In a completely opposite piece of feedback, the lighter-colored responses feel washed out. The dark ones have very high contrast between the background and text, the background and avatars/Rioter titles, and between what is hard text and what is a link. The light ones have very low contrast, comparatively speaking, and are kind of annoying to read.
I actually really like the dark comments, they look great. The thing is, they need some visual offset in the interface to really feel perfect. Summoner icons help, but they are too small and generally match the color scheme too well to really make it feel inviting.
- OP Color Treatment
Yeah, it helps.
Overall I appreciate the changes (other than what's listed above). I still think the platform lacks vitality, however, and making things darker overall without anything to bring life or color to the platform reinforces that feeling.
The default reply color is almost identical to the background now, which is basically already almost black. There has to be something offsetting the extreme darkness or it just feels...uninviting. What does the platform look like with a more colorful background? What about if things have gradients/patterns or other visual features as small splashes of attractiveness?
Here's an example of a link on an initial comment.
