Imagine it now. You’ve come up with the best idea ever and a great way of executing it but you need somewhere to quickly lay down your ideas. Pen and paper’s fine but what if you need to digitise this and send it to your team later? Why not just kill two birds with one stone?
That’s where MindMeister comes in. It offers a unique way to create digital mind maps through the use of various nodes that comprise your idea. Fast and with a free plan, it’s definitely for you.
Overview
MindMeister is a web app that allows anyone to create their own visual text-based mind maps that can be collaborated on with team members easily. It can become especially useful during the beginning planning process of projects as its nice web interface minimises distraction and maximises productivity.
Overview
With support for various different external formats and several offline features, it can be a lifesaver when you need to get your projects planned on the go.
Pricing
MindMeister offers the freemium pricing plan so that users can try the app for free with basic features to see if it is right for them before committing. One of the downsides of the basic plan is the limit on the number of mind maps allowed. While the premium plans bother offer an unlimited number of these, it is only possible to create a maximum of 3 with the free plan.
Pricing
The paid plans are quite generously priced and come loaded with a few more features than the basic package; including more security, the ability to upload files and images, and it’s even possible to edit your mind maps online.
User-Interface
MindMeister’s interface isn’t particularly special (apart from the actual mind map designer), but I’ve seen a lot worse. The design is quite clean and simple, which is something that you want with an app like this. The less clutter, the less distracted the user is likely to get, thus sometimes decreasing productivity somewhat.
User Interface
I’ve found various mind mapping web apps and some of the designs have been hideous. However, this isn’t the case with MindMeister. It isn’t that cluttered but still gives you everything you need to create rich mind maps for your best ideas. And a bonus is that it doesn’t appear to be built with Flash so it could probably be viewed on any platform.
Getting Started
It only takes a few seconds to create your MindMeister account and once you’ve chosen your package and entered a few basic details, you will be sent an email with instructions on activating your account. You are also given a free 30-day trial of the premium account.
Registration
After activation, you’ll find a nice little welcome page that introduces you to the app and then you are ready to begin.
When you create a basic account, you are also placed on a free 30-day trial of MindMeister. On this page you may also find a promotion that allows you 10% off the MindMeister PRO license providing you upgrade within the first 30 days.
Creating Mind Maps
It’s a really simple process to create mind maps using MindMeister. From the main dashboard, you can choose the “New Mind Map” option to create a fresh node from scratch or you can import a pre-existing one from many popular formats or even from plain (indented where appropriate) text. You will then be taken to the Mind Map designer.
Importing a Mind Map
Creating a Mind Map
Each map comprises several nodes that can be connected to show important relationships between each idea. Child nodes can be collapsed to save room and then expanded when it is necessary to examine the contents. To add text to a node, simply click it and you will be able to create and format the text. There is plenty of room to add hundreds of nodes and as far as I’m aware, there doesn’t appear to be a limit. Once you’re done, you can close the map to save it or choose an export option.
Offline Mode
With MindMeister, your location need not be an issue. Whether you’re traveling and have no internet connection or you’d simply rather work without a connection to minimise distraction, there’s a handy offline feature for that.
Offline Mode
Using Google Gears offline technology, you can access and edit your mind maps when you’re away from home. It’s also a possibility to export your mind map in the format of another mind mapping desktop application so you can use that to edit and import it back into MindMeister when you’re done.
Sharing
With the flick of a switch (or rather a button), you can make your mind map public so everyone can access your brilliant ideas. This could come in handy if you’re working on a project and have a blog and would love to keep your fans updated. You can simply embed the mind map into your website and instantly inform your viewers of the progress.
Browsing Public Maps
Service Integration
Another nice little feature is the ability to link your account with your Twitter profile and perform various actions through the new capability provided in the link. One example of this is that when you publish a new mind map, you can also broadcast an update to your followers to inform them of this.
Twitter Integration
It’s also possible to take advantage of Twitter’s direct messaging feature to aid you in a couple of things. You will be able to set up notifications so that whenever a mind map you are a part of is updated, you instantly receive either an email or a direct message through Twitter. One action I’m particularly intrigued by is where you can send direct messages to MindMeister’s official Twitter account when you have a sudden idea and they will be added as nodes in your default map. This is great for those who have ideas when they’re out and about, but by the time they get home, they’re already forgotten.
Final Thoughts
When you’re looking to ditch traditional paper-based mind maps where your team sits around a table and comes up with ideas, MindMeister is definitely the next best thing. For a start, a whole team can collaborate without having to be in the same room at the same time – which can prove to be really useful if you’re experiencing scheduling issues and need a permanent fix.
Overall, the app brings just about everything you’d expect to be delivered in app like this and a bit more. Some of the innovative features, such as the Twitter account linking, really make it unique. I can’t really find much to fault, which is a good sign, and I’d definitely recommend the app if you’re looking for a cheap solution to your productivity needs.