FlowMapp 2.0: 8 New Features and New Era of IA and UX Planning

We’re pleased to introduce you a completely new tool for information planning and UX. Meet the FlowMapp 2.0.

It was a lovely evening 5 years ago when all started. Actually, our team was working on making web projects. Loads of work has already been done and on top of all that we decided to create an applicable tool for UX planning and information architecture. This was the way our 5th element was born — FlowMapp, our baby which we created by ourselves.

Today there are 300,000+ users who chose our solution. They all have their own reasons why they stay with us but the most common we believe are:

• UI
  When you work together with developers who care about users, please do bear in mind the fact that they are users themselves. That became our base — we created tools for our convenience, to make our life easier. And since we love ourselves we wanted something extremely well-made
• Minimalism
  Plain interface and nothing extra. Our vision is that FlowMapp platform does not require any training before start working. It shortens down the planning process which we hope will not be ignored while creating the site.
• Speed
  We managed to create really fast-working tools that work online in any browser.
• “Helicopter view”
  Apart from helping the user to plan a project we also develop instruments allowing to observe the project from distance. It makes possible to calculate and plan its further development.

From bunch of tools to the ecosystem

Our work helped us to figure out both — our direction and destination point. We realized that our goal should be creating an ecosystem for product planning, starting with idea and brief and up to presentation of a working prototype.

There are a few similar ecosystems developed specifically for graphic design, programming and management. We all love them and plan different stages of projects with their help:

• Notion — ideas development and roadmap of projects
• Figma/Adobe — design and composition
• VS Code/Git Hub — coding and program directing

However for web projects planning stage (which as you can see we are unable to stick off) there was no such a solution. Therefore we had no choice other than creating it. This was how FlowMapp 2.0 appeared.

FlowMapp 2.0. What is that and where is 1.0?

FlowMapp is a project planning ecosystem that includes all stages from idea to prototype presentation. Planning, managing and team work — all in one place. The result of our work is a complete flow that can be used further on by all the participants — project managers, product designers, designers, content managers, and developers.

Our version received its name 2.0, thus we wanted to show the revolution of the service and take it to the next level. FlowMapp 1.0 is a set of separate instruments for UX and UI. But the new version is an ecosystem of interacting tools that complement each other.

Okay, surprise me

Let’s have a look at what we have here!

1. Wireframing tool (Beta)

Making hi-fi prototypes is now same easy as working with text editor. The tool will help to you easily create a prototype of the page. Create prototypes by choosing pattern blocks which you can also edit later on. Likewise, you can link the pages by inserting the reference to a certain page in templates.

What is upcoming:
the next update will include the option to change color settings of wireframes and a wide choice of blocks and templates.

2. Preview mode

Once you created a prototype it can easily be shared with any person via link, it will be displayed as a regular web page. All the buttons are clickable, so your client or team will preview the project as much real as possible. To see the prototype sent by the link the guest is not required registration with FlowMapp.

What is upcoming:
editing option, animation.

3. Workspaces

Following to requests from our users we created Workspaces. It is an all-in-all zone for every project. Workspaces allows to store projects in one space, spread tasks among the team and do the job together.

4. Notes

Meet the new tool — Content Gathering System. Now you no longer need to use the external gear, but you can bring the information together and write the content straight below the web page. Write a brief, draw up terms of reference using familiar workflow. Fill in the information on each site page in as much details as possible, and leave notes to the entire project. Here you can keep or import information on the project (roadmap, brief, etc.), upload design references to another web page. And of course, your clients and team can leave comments on each block.

What is upcoming:
to-do lists and management tools.

5. Labels

Manage and control the work process on projects with labels — it is a small feature adding more transparency into the teamwork process.

Now, looking at the project, you can see the whole picture because of using visual sitemaps or user flow. You can also trace every stage of the project and what part each of your colleagues are busy with. Use standard labels for marking the work process, such as “asap”, “in progress” or “pause”, or make your own labels.

6. Collaboration and permissions

Everything and everywhere: no matter what part of the project you’re working on, you’ll never be alone again. Allow access to the project and work on it simultaneously with the other team members.

7. Archive

Nothing extra on the screen, nothing will be lost. You can work with archive projects, as well as add the inactive or completed ones to the archive. You can easily unpack any of your works from the archive, duplicate it or take as a base for new.

8. New design and new engine

The app architecture has been reengineered, and plus we connected all our instruments. Now you can create the user flow, plan sitemap, make new prototype, present it to the client and get comments. All the workflow is now fast and easy after we implement a new logic engine.

What’s next?

We are not intending to build a spaceship or buy Twitter, but we will definitely make the life of developers easier:

• We improved the FlowMapp engine and made the system more reliable. It allows us to build powerful projects with almost unlimited collaboration and fast performance.
• We will definitely continue working with UX/UI design options. In fact the product gets more complicated, we’ll carry on observing users’ patterns and keep the interface clean and simple.
• We already work on creating the next version of Wireframes because we see a lot of potential in this platform.
• Removing CJM and Personas from our ecosystem allows us to focus more on the Sitemap and User Flow which are getting advantage by receiving new resources for updates. We will continue adding micro features that the users are asking us about.

Product Vision

Focusing on the process of web projects creation and design. We want to add new tools that will help users not only with drafting the websites, but also with making them in the future. Currently we are working out the Web Builder — the tool that will provide the users with templates to create the entire website step by step: planning, structure and architecture, moving further on with content, wireframing and finally completing the project. Our goal is to produce a super fast instrument that can be used to build every stage of the website — from idea to launching it into the web.