Mindmapping is a great way to show how you are going to plan out your site or project. Giving yourself and also clients a visual representation of how the site is going to flow and any areas that may need to be sectioned off or could be merged to cut down on menus. We usually use bubbl.us for site maps but since it does no harm to look around for new and better options. I try’d out a few and reviewed pick for you to consider. We’d love to hear what you use or even if you don’t bother with sitemaps?
If you’ve got a plan you need to map it out
Mindmapping is a great way to show how you are going to plan out your site or project. Giving yourself and also clients a visual representation of how the site is going to flow and any areas that may need to be sectioned off or could be merged to cut down on menus. We usually use bubbl.us for site maps but since it does no harm to look around for new and better options. I try’d out a few and reviewed pick for you to consider. We’d love to hear what you use or even if you don’t bother with sitemaps?
Mindmesiter
Mindmeister gives you a free live demo so you can get to know its features before deciding if you’d like to buy. In addition if you are looking for inspiration you can check out the mindmeister community which is full of mindmap examples and plenty of tech support if you run into any problems. You can download a app version for ios and android devices.
Feature highlights include being able to sync maps to folders, unlimited undo and redo history. If you use the subscribed version you can also export to MS word and Powerpoint formats. For those among you that make lots of changes then end up going back to your 1st idea you can thankfully revert to previous revisions. I like the use of in their terms setting up “thinking sessions” which allows you to collaborate with others in real time and with use of different colours per users you can see who is making changes and who may have fallen asleep mid session.
Mindomo
Mindomo gives you a beautiful interface with lots of custom-ability to let you create rich and unique mindmaps. I think this would even work really well using it as an artists idea board. The option to work either online or offline and store your maps locally is ideal if you worry about loosing your work on a temperamental internet connection. Site maps can be created via the mindomo app and then edited using the online desktop version. Various themes are provided plus you can even create your own. If your looking to add multimedia into your mindmaps to give them a little more wow factor, I’d say this would be the best choice for you.
Various price plans area available but I think for only $6 a month its not going to break the budget. I found the interface very easy to work with but if you watch the tutorial video it gives you all the explanation I think you would need.
Mind42
This free online mindmap builder did give me some issues with slow loading times and I even try’d this with various internet connections so I don’t think that was the issue. You do have to pay to remove the adds banner but for me they don’t feel to intrusive . Not being able to change the direction of a new map item once its created is a real pain. The spacing will default so you won’t have crowded areas but it’s not as user friendly as it should be.
You have many export options such as jpeg, png etc. Adding collaborators is a simple case of going to collaboration option and entering the persons email you would like to collaborate on your mindmap, nice and easy. The revisions works although the explaination could be a little clearer than explained on their site. “we don’t keep every revision of your mind map. But we keep one for every 5 minutes in the last hour, for every hour in the last day, for every day in the last week, for every week in the last month and finally for every month” So if you make really quick changes you might land in a mess.
Wisemapping
Wisemapping is a probably the most complex out of the bunch despite being open source. This still rewards you with crisp and professional looking sitemaps I’d be inclined to use this more on corporate sites rather than any really fun or creative projects.
If you are looking to be able to add links and even download options into your sitemap wisemapping makes it really easy to add that with a familiar link icon option. You can of course change the usual line weights, background colours. The tutorial video and shortcuts being always in the right hand corner of the UI is really handy if (pardon the map pun) you some how get lost.
What do you mean mindmaps are dull?
With a bit of creativity and some ideas you can really create some fantastic mindmaps like above to wow your clients before you even start building their site. Do you have any other methods you prefer to using mindmap builders? If you want to learn more about why we use mindmaps as part of the website building process. Why not take one of our Web Design Beginner Courses.
