Comparing collaborative digital whiteboard tools for design teams
Just like most people in the product design space, we shifted to primarily connecting with our clients online in early 2020. At Disco Innovation Studio, we saw this as an opportunity. By breaking down the barriers of geographical location, we were able to connect with teams, clients, and designers across Canada and even internationally, every day. In many ways, a remote product design team is only as collaborative and productive as the tools that they use. Online tools are cropping up all over the place. Let’s walk through and compare a veteran tool (Miro) with two tools that have been released during our year of remote working (Google’s Jamboard and Figma’s Figjam).
Miro
Formerly known as Real Time Board, Miro is an online visual collaboration platform that enables distributed teams. Miro is one of the original digital whiteboarding tools in the tech industry, and has over 15 million users.
✅ Usability: Is the tool easy to use on a day-to-day basis?
- Bulk-add sticky notes
- Clear guides and grids
- Range of typefaces and text formatting options (bullets)
✅ Collaboration: Is it easy to share ideas and work with others?
- Screenshare and ‘bring everyone to me’ mode
- Video chat feature (works best with two participants)
- A ton of plugin features, including a countdown timer and participant voting
✅ Versatility: Is the tool useful in a wide range of design contexts/problems?
- A variety of components (shapes, sticky notes, emojis) that are great for co-design workshops or user journey mapping
- As a Miro board gets more complex, performance is usually compromised
- Frameworks feature allows the user to add templates, workshop grids, wireframing, and agile templates (retrospective boards)
Google’s Jamboard App
Not to be confused with the 55 inch cloud-powered digital whiteboard that’s over $5000 USD, the Jamboard App is now available as a web app through your Google Account. The web app can be used as a visual collaboration tool between multiple users in real time, with the goal of supporting remote teaching and learning.
✅ Usability: Is the tool easy to use on a day-to-day basis?
- Simplicity and easy of use
- Better for small internal group meetings
- Multiple frames are easy to access
❌ Collaboration: Is it easy to share ideas and work with others?
- Unclear who adds what to a Jamboard (no usernames)
❌ Versatility: Is the tool useful in a wide range of design contexts/problems?
- Freeform format, with no templates or frameworks
- Integration with other Google documents (sheets, docs)
Figma’s FigJam
Figma is our design team’s primary prototyping tool. Figjam is Figma’s most recently launch digital product, which is meant to be a collaborative, workshop-oriented tool for product designers and UX specialists.
✅ Usability: Is the tool easy to use on a day-to-day basis?
- Stick notes, emojis, basic drawing tools
- Very limited colours
- Simplified yet powerful toolbar that has everything you need for day-to-day collab
✅ Collaboration: Is it easy to share ideas and work with others?
- Voice chat integration to chat virtually with others within your board
- Personalized avatars and stamps for all participants on the board
- Quick reactions gives you the ability to share feelings/emotions with the group
- No built-in countdown timer
❌ Versatility: Is the tool useful in a wide range of design contexts/problems?
- Design objects made in Figjam can be moved over to Figma (a simple copy & paste!)
- No navigation map when rescaling a large Figjam canvas
- Accessing the templates isn’t intuitive at all (it’s in the Figma community library)
It’s clear that Figjam was made for designers, by designers. Although it’s relatively new and still in beta, it has a lot of potential. The simplicity, speed, and tools for virtual decision making (quick reactions) make us re-think why we love Miro so much. When designing in a digital whiteboard, ease of access to each tool is what makes for a smooth experience. Miro’s ability to house all templates within the canvas itself is something that Figjam can’t currently offer. There are also some small integrations within Miro like a built in timer, that our design team uses every day. As for Google Jamboard, it’s not exactly built for designers and will be more useful as a simplified teaching tool for educators.
Yes, the OG Miro still wins! But Figjam, we have our eye on you. Your design iterations post-beta will be something for our design team to look out for!
