Have you checked out these Design Thinking focused online collaboration tools?

Finding ways to collaborate online with your team while applying Design Thinking?

Read on to learn more about the different tools that you can explore using!

Design Thinking activities are typically carried out in a face-to-face setting with plenty of space for team breakouts, and most importantly a whiteboard space for ideation. However, Design Thinking activities can also be done online using digital tools as there may be constraints with space availability, time and more. Especially during this unprecedented period of time, it is ever more important to familiarise ourselves with the online Design Thinking based collaboration tools that we can explore to use with our teams. This will help build a sense of in-person collaboration, whilst ensuring that the team stays on track and focused towards their goals.

1. MURAL - Online collaboration workspace with over 100 templates that can be easily dragged and dropped into a blank canvas. This is great for running team meetings or workshops with your clients. The templates are based on Design Thinking and Agile frameworks, which can be configured to suit your needs. It is integrated with LUMA Institute’s templates, meaning you can use your preferred choice of templates from LUMA in MURAL. From filling out a business model canvas, planning your next project sprint to mapping out your customer’s journey - you will always find the opportunity to use MURAL to enhance your ways of working. MURAL offers a 30 days free trial and tiered paid subscription based on what you need.

2. Miro - Online collaboration whiteboard space with a quirky UI that makes project sprint planning so much more fun! It also offers a bunch of pre-built templates and can be integrated with other apps such as Trello, Jira, Slack, Microsoft Teams and more. It also has a good range of Design Thinking tools like customer journey mapping, 5 Whys, and service blueprint design. You are also able to assign different roles to your users for more enhanced collaboration. There is also an active Miro Community that offers support, community engagement and holds events with its users. Definitely one to check out and try as the free version is available for an unlimited period of time!

3. LUMA Institute - Online resources tool based on Design Thinking methodologies, offering a wide range of templates and guides focusing on human-centered activities - from initial field observation, interviewing, ideation to prototyping. It is used by many companies from consulting to technology firms to encourage employees to use the various Design Thinking methods on projects they are working on. LUMA does not offer its own collaboration tool, but it is integrated with MURAL so you can access LUMA’s templates within MURAL. You can try out the LUMA Workplace (which contains all of the templates, guides, training videos) on a free trial for 30 days to get a feel of what it is like!

4. Smaply - Online collaboration tool with customer experience focused templates. Adopts a service design approach to solving problems for your customers. Offers your typical persona, customer journey, stakeholder mapping templates to help you redefine and enhance your customer’s experiences and interactions with your product or service. You can try Smaply on a 14 days free trial!

Let us know if you try out any of these or if you came across other tools! We would love to hear your experiences using them.

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