Groupmap for Remote Collaboration (especially for UX work)

This online whiteboard is key for successful remote ideation and analysis sessions.

Published in

Marketade

4 min readMay 18, 2020

When I joined this fully remote team in 2018, I learned a lot about translating traditional in-person collaboration to a virtual platform. Initially, I wasn’t sure how this would apply to analysis and ideation workshops. The fun and electricity of being huddled together in a room, going back and forth between ideas, seemed hard to replicate online! I quickly learned that as long as workshop facilitators stay energetic and choose the right online collaboration tools, it’s generally easy to guide participants through virtual analysis and ideation workshops.

This article will focus on Groupmap, the virtual whiteboard that’s been our go-to for remote workshops and remote collaboration in general. Here are a few reasons why I love using it (#notsponsored).

1. Built-in, customizable templates for common scenarios.

You can use Groupmap as a blank whiteboard to post notes on, but they also offer tons of templates for common design thinking activities, like the Impact Effort matrix. You can adjust any of these templates to your needs, or build a Groupmap from scratch.

Template library shown with a use-case menu (brainstorming, decision-making, etc.). Includes different colored backgrounds. — Template library on Groupmap.

Customization options include Axis, Regions, and Background color and design. Shown are axis designs(blank,1 quadrant, or 4). — Building your own Groupmap from scratch.

2. Step-by-step options to customize a process and guide a group through.

As in any workshop, there’s usually an order of operations. Groupmap allows us to maintain this organization and gives us the flexibility to customize the process as needed. To lead participants through affinity mapping (sorting individual notes on user insights into themed clusters) and to prioritize top findings, the three-stepped Brainstorm > Vote > Results process is usually sufficient.

Participants can add and organize notes within Brainstorm, indicate group names by color-coding the titles. Then, they can move to the Vote step to dot vote on the highest priority groups to discuss. Here, they can only see their votes. Lastly, everyone moves to the Results tab to view which groups received the most votes.

3 step Process (Brainstorm, Vote, Results) with the option to delete or re-order each. “Add step“ reveals more Process steps. — Customize the Process by adding a step and rearrange steps by clicking-to-drag.

3. Voting feature to give everyone a voice and prioritize top ideas.

To virtually dot vote, include a Vote step and give a set amount of votes to each Groupmap contributor. In that step, people can vote anonymously and without seeing others’ votes. When instructed, everyone will move to a Results step and, ta-da! Everyone can see a tally of the votes. This virtual version of dot voting might arguably be less biased than in-person voting, since individuals cannot see what votes others are casting in Groupmap. Nielsen Norman Group discusses the weaknesses of in-person voting and advantages of digital voting in this article about dot voting.

2 columns of notes(green on left; orange on right). Assign votes using the plus and minus options next to individual notes. — View from an individual in Vote.

2 columns of notes(green on left; orange on right). Total votes are shown next to individual notes. — View for everyone in Results. Categories with your votes are indicated in blue.

4. Low-learning curve for newbies.

It’s pretty simple. Click to begin a new note, type, and hit enter to publish. Click again to edit, delete, color-code, etc. When we’re holding a remote workshop, we’re usually able to give a mini demo of Groupmap in around a minute, after which everyone is successful at working off of the board. From my limited exposure to other online whiteboards like Mural and Miro, those seemed to have a higher learning curve than Groupmap. The artboard feels endless, so the borders of the boards can expand. This requires users to scroll around a board, zoom in to read the content, and then click, drag, and zoom in on another section to read it. The board borders in Groupmap don’t expand, so there’s no need to scroll and hunt to view content.

The one issue with Gropumap that usually trips people up is the auto-fit nature of the board. As I mentioned, the borders in Groupmap boards do not expand, so in order to fit all of the content within the board, notes expand and shrink to fit within the space. So, we recommend users to maximizing the Groupmap window and using the Zoom option in Settings to clean up the work space.

Individual notes are organized in lists. Green notes show group titles. Notes are cramped and hard to read. — Notes are cramped and overlapping in this 100% view. Notes are grouped into lists, with titles shown in green.

Individual notes are organized in lists. Green notes show group titles. Notes are easy to read after zooming out. — Note organization and lists become clear after adjusting the Scale in Settings to 70% (top right corner).

5. A handy tool for reflection.

Outside of workshops, Groupmap has also been helpful for internal post-mortem discussions where we reflect on what we learned and experienced from working on a project. Project members have typically used the Start, Stop, and Continue template to post and organize their reflections.

3 columns ofnotes for “Start,” “Stop,” and “Continue.” Note text is blurred out. — Post-mortem Groupmap board.

Overall, Groupmap has been an easy-to-use, successful tool for our remote collaboration.

That said, we are always experimenting and trying out new tools. Let us know what tools you like to use for these needs!