By Kosta Bolgov
Supercharge Collaboration with Polls, Spinners, This or That, Color Swatches and Charts — all in Freehand
Chris Vandermarel
Maybe you’re like us here at Freehand by InVision. Sometimes you just need a quick and simple way to get an answer, show a concept or assign an owner when you’re collaborating in a Freehand.
That’s exactly why we built these widgets. They’re a quick, simple way to accomplish your tasks, to run better and more interactive meetings, and get everyone involved. They’re visually delightful and create a fun and inclusive environment for the whole team.
But this is just the beginning. With our Widget SDK (software development kit), we’ll be shipping new widgets regularly to help with all the day-to-day work you do in Freehand.
Give everyone their turn with the Spinner widget
Have you ever found meeting attendees are increasingly disconnected? Camera off, mic muted? Sound familiar? The spinner widget is a great way to keep everyone engaged and share ownership.
At InVision, we share meeting ownership as much as possible. At the end of a given weekly meeting we use the spinner to assign the ownership of the meeting for the following week. It’s also a great tool for roundtables and brainstorms. Instead of each attendee sharing in the same order every week, instead spin to see who will share next.
When you drop the spinner on the canvas all participants are automatically added. You can easily add and remove people, and when someone is selected they are automatically removed the next time you run it. Take it for a spin today!
Looking for a way to get started? Check out our retrospective template where the first step is to spin to decide who will act as facilitator.
Get a quick answer with Polls and This or That
No matter which functional area of your business you’re in, sometimes you need a quick pulse check. Which way should we take this? Give me a quick answer!
If you’re a designer you know this well when you have two design options (This or That) or maybe several (Polls) and want to get some quick and early feedback. But we often see the same come up in marketing, sales, product management, and engineering.
Here is a look at the polling widget in action at our last product showcase, trying to settle the all important debate once and for all… is a hot dog a sandwich?
You can even solve more important (practical) problems like whether those pesky labels should be internal or external.
The perfect place to start using polls and ‘this or that’ you ask? Look no further than your next project review. Don’t have a template? We’ve got you covered.
Quick and Simple Plotting with Charts
We’ve all been there. You need to simply convey a trend or report on results. You have the data and need a quick chart. Instead of firing up Excel or drawing it out using shapes inside Freehand, you can now easily drop a chart on the canvas and edit the data set in a dead-simple, and clean way.
And this is just the beginning! We plan to iterate on this in the near term to allow you to tie in data from multiple sources to eliminate the need for manual text entry.
The Chart widget is here already today for you to try out. So give it a whirl!
Build the Moodboard of your dreams with Color Swatches
You asked and we listened. In talking to customers, a common request was a simple way to add a color swatch to the Freehand canvas. It’s critical if you’re in design or marketing, but can also be useful as a simple way to convey a common color palette for a project to stakeholders.
It’s an essential piece for you to use in your next moodboard. Use ours, or build your own today.
Get widgeting! Try these and more today right in Freehand
Our recent Product Showcase Webinar covered these and many more recent and upcoming enhancements to Freehand. Here’s an excerpt on the section that highlighted widgets.
Check it out today. These and several other widgets are all available in Freehand for customers on all plans now!