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Mural, Miro…now Figjam

Like many of you, I’ve been using digital whiteboards daily since 2020. I use Miro for teaching, researching, writing, collaborating, and planning. Every day I find new ways to make the digital space more real.

I wanted to like Mural because they have a free package for consultants, but the UX is not there. I feel a bit spoiled for tossing aside a decent tool for one with slightly better interactions, but that’s 2021, I guess.

Last month, a new contender stepped into the ring…Figjam launched in the most polished Beta I’ve ever seen. I could almost hear the Miro team freaking out.

This arms race is a very, very good thing for designers.

I’ve been clocking some serious hours in Figjam the last two weeks. Here’s what I like:

• It’s stupid simple…you don’t need to know Figma to use it, and it’s easy enough for non-designers to use.
• The onboarding is A+…the demo board shows rather than tells you how to use it, and I found myself using hotkeys immediately.
• Interactions are instant…with stamps and emojis and chat on the cursor, you can communicate in real-time without stickies (Miro already released “Reactions” to compete).
• Typography is set…much like Notion, the text options are limited and selected via a dropdown, thus reducing options and increasing simplicity.
• Copy/pasting straight from Figma…which means no more exporting assets for Miro!

Figjam feels like the fun alternative to Miro that you would use outside of work. I can’t wait to see Settlers of Catan on Figjam.

Workshops in Figjam

Can Figjam replace Miro as a workshop tool? Well, I was crazy enough to try it last night in a whiteboard challenge workshop with hundreds of designers. How did I do it?

1. I published the workshop board to the community so participants could work in private.
2. Workshop participants duplicated a version of the workshop board and worked alone (I prefer to have everyone in the same board, but it’s doable).
3. Participants followed along as we went from one step to the next (or at least I think they did because I was blind to their boards).
4. At the end, participants shared their board links in the chat on their own accord if they wanted feedback or were just proud of their whiteboard results.
5. I used the locking functionality extensively to make the workshop board hard to break. At the end, I had them unlock a special area that had a prize in it.

It was all a bit new for me, but I think the participants were excited to try a new tool. I like having a birds-eye view of everyone in the same board, but at least now, anyone can try out the workshop on their own.

Check out my workshop board in the Figjam Community here:

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Research in Figjam

Not only did I run this workshop in Figjam, I even did my research there. I’ve been using data walls for research for a while, and when I discovered the power of a digital data wall, it’s a regular part of my process.

What is a data wall?

We teach digital data walls using Miro in our Advanced UX Course, so I wanted to try it out in Figjam. I researched the best articles, videos, and images I could find on whiteboard design challenges in one giant board.

I love how you can drop screenshots into the board and annotate and comment on them quickly. The stamps make great callouts for specific parts of images.

You can see the results for yourself here:

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Until next week, design in a visual, non-linear way.

-Jeff Humble

Designer & Co-Founder of the Fountain Institute

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P.S. We still have some spots left for our free Meetup: Designing Career Growth with Dee Scarano next Wednesday, May 19th if you want to join!