Boards are beautiful and terrible and I hate them

Hi everyone!

Basic introduction. If you're interested in jumping straight to my feedback regarding the boards please skip down. I'm a 4th year graphic design student who has been playing league fairly regularly for a few years now. Class is about to start and I suppose I feel like I need to vent about the boards a bit instead of just making more "omg boards suk" threads (which I've already done, mind you).

• Flat UI design rules. This is absolutely where things are heading and I'm thrilled to see Riot embrace this. This is why the newly skinned client is such a success, and also why the new boards are a success visually. There are an abundance of simplistic, minimalist visual elements that convey information without distracting or detracting from the page's visual hierarchy. That being said, saying something is visually successful and successful in usability are two very different things. Part of the reason we don't like the boards is of course, adjusting to something new. Another part is the complete loss of our individuality. The amount of user representation (variety of icons, size, etc.) is not sufficient. Secondly, there is a general acknowledgement that our individualism has been lost to the hive-mind. Conversations feel like they are out of our control. The community feels permanently foreign and alien.

• I personally know how difficult it can be to do something and then be told you need to scrap it. That it doesn't work. That it's not relevant. That's exactly what you need to do here. Scrap the boards. Retain the new style and flat UI and carry it over to a new forum. Are much of our complaints merely reflecting there being a change itself and not the content? Yes. Will the complaints subside eventually? Probably. However, the community will not benefit from this in the long run and neither will you.