EdrawMind is a cross-platform, multi-functional mind mapping software from Wondershare Edrawsoft. Available in free and professional versions, EdrawMind provides a variety of intelligent layouts, diverse display modes and combines design elements with pre-defined theme styles in a strive to create an efficient tool for users. Since the release of version V10.6.0, EdrawMind has integrated artificial intelligence with new AI-driven…
N/A
Freehand by InVision
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
Freehand, from InVision headquartered in New York, is an online whiteboard that enables teams to plan, brainstorm, and draw together. It aims to give everyone a simple way to visually represent ideas with charts, diagrams, and drawings. Whether for mind mapping, creating a customer journey map, or drafting up an org chart, Freehand can help teams make ideas and plans visual.
I love it and that is all I can say. Once you are taking notes or need to make a logical argument case, it's the tool to use. It's may not so easy to use when taking when you need to dictate by voice because the voice taking gesture doesn't work well for me
Freehand has been well suited for creating process maps and getting stakeholder feedback. It has also been good for brainstorming and "freehand" board creation. Some of the templates are hard to customize for specific needs so it's sometimes better to build your own from scratch. There are a lot of navigational issues with larger boards that require zooming in/out and navigating to different sections.
Have a method to travel from one end of the relationship line to the other end
When printing the mindmap, have option to format the fit image to one page rather than tile it across the page multiple times
Improve the dictation feature when writings in the mindmap. It does not work so well
need more varied options for branching: have lightning looking branches, with a cloud being at the main start;
have tree looking branch types, with a seed at the main start; have a river tributary looking branch types, with a spring/dam/lake at the main start; have a solar system type branching, with a sun/star at the main start; have a electron system type branching, with a nucleus at the main start; in essence some type of fractals. I can send sketch examples if you want
Have option to include voice recording by directly recording into the branches
I am not in charge of the decision making on renewal or not, but my personal opinion would be to use FigJam instead as Figma is a software that we already have implemented and are familiar with. Invision would be my second choice on that topic
Color Selection can be tricky when changing colors for shapes and text I've seen other users struggle with creating sticky notes and getting text to fit in the box properly and had to abandon the tool for a workshop for this reason After having a demo, I learned of new features I wasn't using. I don't know it would have been intuitive to find on my own.
I think it is pretty readily available. I had some sign-in issues recently (could not log in no matter what), and my IT department created a ticket with Invision to solve it. Other than that, I have never had any issues.
InVision Freehand gets such high marks because there is no page-load lag at all. We have other applications integrated with it and we see zero lag, or drag on it's operability. We work a lot of platforms that promise smooth integrations and they don't always work that way - with inVision Freehand we know it plays well with others
I haven't had to use the support team for anything, which is great news because that means the product usually works as expected! In terms of online support, I've been able to find videos that show how new features work. Also, many of the people I work with have experience with the tools so they are a great resource for me.
The implementation is pretty much easy-peasy and plug-n-play. We simply download the applications and install, signed in and were good to go. I really cannot imagine that there would be anyone who would have any difficulty whatsoever in getting started in more than just a few minutes. It's really how implementing these officewide improvements should always go.
I've used Xmind, MindMeister, Mindly, Coggle, MindMup, Mindmap Maker, SimpleMind, and a few other applications to see what they offered. I chose EdrawMind after carefully consider all the available options on the market. EdrawMind came out on top for me in terms of platform support, cloud storage, aesthetics, functionality, features, customer support and ease-of-use
InVision Freehand is closing the gap and adding all the functionalities that some of these tools provide separately. In the race towards a one-stop digital design ecosystem, InVision Freehand is well poised to deliver and connect where others can't. I hope that with the news of Adobe acquiring Figma, InVision Freehand can continue to be a leader and pioneer in this space.
Not everyone in the company has access to Invision, and they can't view the links I provide to them. I also wish everyone could view a file without logging in to the enterprise account. It comes in handy when I am doing focus-group studies or other studies with our customers that don't have Freehand. Unfortunately, if that is possible, I don't know how to do that.
Freehand has had a positive impact on WHO can collaborate on our designs. It's not just for designers. Anyone can pop in and contribute.
Freehand is a great value when included within everything else InVision has to offer. Really helps to bridge the gap between the "pretty picture" (prototypes) and the "deep thinking" behind why everything is how it is.
The only negative is that not everyone is on InVision. People use all sorts of collaboration platforms, and InVision is a bit of a barrier to entry when working with lots of people at lots of different organizations.
