đââïž Ask Me Anything â Meister's Design Lead
Hi everyone!
We're thrilled to announce the next installment of our Meister Community AMA (Ask Me Anything!) series â your chance to probe the minds of Meister's product, development, and design teams.
This month, we'll be speaking with Adam Buckley - Design Lead @ Meister!
đ About Adam:
Originally from Ireland, Adam has been at Meister for over 5 years. In his role as Design Lead, he coordinates UI/UX design across all Meister products and is one of the driving forces behind Meister's philosophy of simple, intuitive and elegant design.
In his spare time, Adam enjoys playing darts, squash, skiing, and spending time with his family. To keep his creative juices flowing, he likes to work on personal projects, such as illustration and creative writing.
â This AMA took place on May 25th. You can find Adam's answers below âŹïž
User responses to Adam's answers start here. Feel free to continue the conversation!
Best,
Your Community Team
Best Answers
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Hello Meister Community!
Weâre always so motivated and inspired when we hear from our users. Thank you @Andrew Lapidus for setting this up and thank you all for your questions, itâs been a blast to read through them! Now let's get startedâŠ
Cheers,
Adam3 -
Yes! We plan to align the icon set in MeisterNote with those that we have in MeisterTask. If you have any special requests for icons, please don't hesitate to let us know. Although we can't promise anything, we're always happy to hear from our users about anything that can improve their experience.
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Hi Jens! Thanks for the really thoughtful question. Accessibility is not just something dear to my heart, but also something that we value hugely at Meister. We recently conducted an accessibility audit of our tools, which we kicked off by running a company-wide accessibility day where employees spent the day working with various accessibility features enabled such as screen readers, browser zoom, colour blindness filters, only navigating with a keyboard etc. We are aware that we have a way to go yet when it comes to being fully accessible, but we are working on it constantly.
From your question, I assume you are referring to MindMeister, here two of our most accessible themes are Blackboard and Ocean, but we are also looking at expanding these with some more accessible options in future.
In terms of colour calibration of monitors, all I can say is, as a designer I feel your pain! Unfortunately when it comes to digital displays of colour, there are a lot of factors out of our control. I know from my own experience that two identical monitors from the same manufacturer can often render colours quite differently. Add to that the fact that different browsers often have individual differences when it comes to rendering colours and it quickly becomes an exercise in frustration. Is there anything in particular where you feel Meister's tools could make this process easier for you?
With regard to the custom color codes (I presume here you mean the six-digit hex colour values that we allow users to enter in the MindMeister colour picker?). We have worked on some nice additions here that should make it easier to re-select custom colours that users have used in a map. Unfortunately the delivery of this feature has some technical restrictions that need to be resolved before we can go live with it.4 -
As with most things, it is about balance. What we have always tried to do with our tools is make it really easy for users to customise according to their own taste, but without overwhelming them with options. Additionally our colours have been handpicked to be a complementary palette that fit not only together, but with the rest of our UI. In the particular example you mention, MeisterTask sections, if we allowed users full colour customisation here it is probable that a lot of users would end up with colour combinations that aren't harmonious and thus wouldn't have the look and feel that we desire to always have in our tools.
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Yes, yes and yes! It puts a big smile on my face to read this question. We have quite a few internal mantras and philosophies within the design team at Meister, and one of these is that we want to make users "smile but not laugh". We have always focused on making tools that are a joy to use. The way we have traditionally measured this is by making sure that we use our own tools internally, and that we experience this joy.
We also feel that attractive design and simplicity go hand in hand. We want to provide users with tools that don't require huge amounts of personalization, because by nature this will make a tool complex. That being said, the right amount of customisation or personalisation can bring joy, and the tools we provide require some complex functionality to bring value to users, so like all things, it is about balance.3 -
Ich habe bereits in der vorigen Antwort eine unserer Philosophien erwÀhnt: "we make users smile, but not laugh" (wir bringen Benutzer zum LÀcheln, aber nicht zum Lachen), aber unsere wichtigsten Designprinzipien sind: "Less is more" (weniger ist mehr) und "Don't make me think" (Zwinge mich nicht zu denken).
Unser Design Prozess ist sehr offen und kollaborativ. Wir beginnen meist mit der Recherche bzw. mit dem Analysieren von Einblicken und Daten die unsere Produkt Manager von Kunden, internen Stakeholdern, Daten- oder Marktanalyse usw. gesammelt haben. Diese besprechen wir dann gemeinsam mit unseren Entwicklungsteams und beginnen Ideen zu generieren. Wir verfolgen dann oft 2 oder 3 unterschiedliche LösungsansĂ€tze weiter und entscheiden mittels Benutzer-Testing was in der ersten Version enthalten ist. Nach der Entwicklung wird das Feature intern veröffentlicht, damit wir es noch einmal testen können und kleine Design Details ĂŒberprĂŒfen können.3 -
FĂŒr uns ist Einfachheit auf jeden Fall ein Argument, aber nicht das einzige. Wir sehen und hören auch oft von unseren Kunden, wie wichtig es fĂŒr sie ist, dass wir eine EuropĂ€ische Firma sind, dass wir DSVGO-konform sind und dass wir Sicherheit ernst nehmen.
Wir werden nie eine so groĂe Firma wie Microsoft sein, aber auch das ist ein Vorteil. Wir sind nĂ€her an unseren Kunden dran und können Lösungen und Tools anbieten die auch wirklich fĂŒr sie geeignet sind. Wir sehen Microsoft nicht unbedingt als Konkurrenz, sondern eher als bestehende Tools mit denen wir durch Integrationen und Workflows gut zusammenarbeiten können.
Wir wollen auch selber unbedingt Spalten und Tabellen in MeisterNote haben und arbeiten daran đ4 -
A little bit of both actually. MindMeister was the first product and the original logo and style were very inspired by the Web 2.0 colours and apps of the time. Some early mockups for the logo involved a pink brain, this became a pink "nucleus" style logo. When MeisterTask joined the family we were so fond of the blue we use for our in-app and website buttons that it felt natural to include it in the logo. It also brought a more serious, logical, structured feeling which reflected the tool, in contrast to the vibrant, creative pink of MindMeister. We then updated our icons to the solid versions you know today in 2018, keeping the main colours from the original logos. For MeisterNote it was simple, we had to choose the "write" complementary colour to complete the trio, so the yellow from our palette was the natural choice.
Generally most of the colours you see in various areas across our tools have been the result of long, long discussions amongst our UX and Graphic designers. We take our colours seriously!4 -
Without giving too much away, we are very very excited about the future of the Meister tools. There are some changes coming in the near future which should make it clearer to our users where we want to bring the platform.
In terms of MeisterTask, I would say we know that we want to provide more features for project management and project planning, so giving users a better overview of various projects and the tasks within them. In the past we have focused on bringing a lot of value for individuals and teams. We now want to expand on this and bring value for team leads, managers and larger organisations. Something that is very interesting to us is the idea of connecting a company's mission or goals with the daily work of the employees, so that everyone can see the value and impact of the work they are doing.3 -
Hi Philippe,
Yes, definitely! AI is actually one of the main topics at Meister right now and we are looking into how we can use AI functionality to enhance productivity. In fact, we are already experimenting with some concrete AI ideas for MindMeister â I'll only say topic suggestions and map generation đ€«.
I'm curious, which AI functionality would be most helpful for you in MindMeister and MeisterTask?Cheers from beautiful Vienna!
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Hello from Vienna đŠđč
I'm glad to hear that your team would be excited about bringing Notes and Tasks closer together â we are too! One of the things we are currently working on is furthering the existing MeisterTask <> MeisterNote integration, especially on the MeisterNote side. For example, editing the description, adding due dates and completing tasks will soon be possible without ever leaving MeisterNote. Is there something that would be especially useful for you and your team?
But we're just getting started, so definitely keep an eye out on MeisterTask and MeisterNote over the next weeks and months, we have many exciting things planned :)4 -
Hi, thank you for the feedback â this is exactly what helps us improve.
Over the next weeks and months, the MindMeister team will focus on making MindMeister the best mind mapping tool out there. A big part of that will be analysing the user feedback we received and using that as a basis to address the biggest usability issues our users are having. Regular contact with our users is important for us to understand what they are struggling with while using our tools and what they would like to see.
I'd be curious to hear what your issues with the new MindMeister are and what you preferred in the previous version?2 -
Really interesting question! As far as I'm aware we haven't had any requests for the .html format in the past. Can I ask what the reason is for using html to share the map in a browser rather than sharing via MindMeisters link sharing or Public Maps?
In terms of .txt, it is quite limited in what it offers in terms of formatting which is why we feel .rtf is better suited to a mind map.
.opml is an interesting one, as is the slides export as images and pdfs, I'll pass these on to the MindMeister product team. As far as I know, .mpx is no longer properly supported by Microsoft unfortunately.
MindMeister maps can be copy pasted in a markdown compatible format. If you select all topics with cmd/ctrl+A you can copy and paste the map into a markdown editor.3 -
Hi Rich! Thanks for the question.
When we released the new editor we decided to focus on the core features of MindMeister and the mind mapping experience. Third party integrations and features always require quite a lot of maintenance and upkeep and we had to prioritise where we spent our resources. That being said, Biggerplate has always been an important partner for us, and an invaluable resource that we continue to use. I will pass on the feature request to the MindMeister team.
Would you mind telling us some more about your particular workflow when it comes to automatic numbering and callouts? These are two very interesting features, and as I mentioned in a previous comment, our focus is making MindMeister the best mind mapping tool. We always look at competitors when deciding on which features to work on, but even more important to us than following the crowd in terms of features, is to talk to our users and find out what the actual problems are and try to solve these in a simple, Meister way.
Are there any other features you feel are missing in MindMeister?3 -
Hallo Samuel,
gute Nachrichten! Das Layout einer Mindmap kann auch noch nachtrĂ€glich geĂ€ndert werden. WĂ€hle dafĂŒr das zentrale Element deiner Mindmap aus und klicke in der rechten Seitenleiste auf das "Layout" Icon (drittes von oben) â hier kannst du dann jederzeit zwischen Mindmap, Organigramm und Listen Layout wechseln. Mehr Infos dazu hier.
Vielleicht könntest du uns noch ein bisschen genauer erzĂ€hlen welche DesignĂ€nderungen du noch gerne nach dem erstellen der Mindmap vornehmen wĂŒrdest?1 -
Will you be introducing the ability to change text colors? Right now, you can only highlight.
One of the things we've always had in mind when it comes to colours and customisation is that we want to make it really difficult for users to create aesthetically unpleasing content with our tools. Or in other words, we want to make it easy to create beautiful content with our tools.
While I wouldn't rule out some form of text colour options in future in MeisterNote, it isn't something that we are currently looking at.
As a matter of interest, is there a specific use case that you have where different text colours are necessary? Or is it more of a personalisation/customisation case?1 -
Will collapsible headings be introduced? Some notes/articles get a bit long so this would make everything so much more clean.
I'm drafting my answers to these questions in MeisterNote (of course!) and all I can say is, I agree.
I can't give you a date, but what I can say is that collapsible headers are very likely to be brought to MeisterNote.Will the tables function have the ability for us to change colors for the cells and borders so we can make the tables look more aesthetic?
As a designer, I can't stand a table without some colour in it :)
We're currently taking some technical steps to make it easier to bring tables to MeisterNote. While the first version may not have colour customisation, I think in a future version it would definitely be great to have.2 -
Probably the trickiest question here! In terms of an overall life goal, I would say becoming a father to my two awesome children. In terms of professional goals, I would say that it is the fact that I have a career that aligns perfectly with my passions. I love to design, I love to work with people and I love to solve problems.
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What do you think about the integration of a colour slider or input field for colour codes? Or maybe an extra settings page for our design needs. It would give us the ability to customize the appearance of our individual Corporate Identities.
I mentioned the balance between customisation and keeping the tool harmonious in a previous answer, however one thing that we definitely want to explore is the area of corporate identities and custom theming for teams. If I can ask a question in return, which areas in particular would you want to customise according to your corporate identity?
Would it be possible to give us the ability, to move the header image in MeisterNote for better positioning? Or to resize them? Most images, even from unsplash, look a bit strange because they don't really show what we'd love to see đ
You're not the only one who wants this feature :) some of our design team share the same feelings. We are going to look into what changes we need to make to make this possible. Thanks for the insight!
4 -
Many users, me included, miss the option for inserting background images in the new version of MindMeister. I see this feature as a very important one for future use cases. Maybe a business model canvas in the background and perfectly styled topics in the related fields. Or a house with nice windows and cool designed topics, positioned in it for individual story tellingâŠespecially in presentations.
Background images in MindMeister is something that users of our old editor have been crying out for. It is also something that was an essential part of our older templates. We've been thinking about ways to bring background images into the new editor but in a smarter way. With the more colourful default theme, most background images would likely clash with at least one of the colours, or topics would become very hard to read. We would like to implement background images in a way that doesn't create a lot of manual effort for our users to then adapt the map styling to match the background.
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Thatâs all folks! Thanks everyone for your questions and insights. I hope to keep some of these conversations going and to hear more from you all in future.
Auf Wiedersehen!
-Adam
3
Answers
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Hi to Adam and all,
I have a question about design and customization. I love the MeisterTask design and the color scheme is a big part of that. But I also like features where I can customize my background, and there is a current feature request with many upvotes asking for totally customizable colors for columns. Do you think giving too much customization options conflicts with the good design?
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What is your favorite goal you achieved?
0 -
Hallo Adam!
Ich freue mich, dass wir die Möglichkeit bekommen Fragen an dich zu stellen, da das Design von euren Produkten ein wesentlicher Grund ist, warum mein Team und ich uns entschieden haben mit MeisterTask zu arbeiten.
Welche spezifischen Designprinzipien leiten dich und dein Team bei der Entwicklung von euren Tools? Und kannst du einen kurzen Ăberblick darĂŒber geben, wie euer Designprozess aussieht?
Vielen Dank! đ1 -
Wie wollen sich die MeisterLabs-Produkte MeisterNote und MeisterTask auf einem Markt mit Microsoft Loops und vor allem Notion auf Dauer behaupten können? HauptsĂ€chlich ĂŒber Weglassen von KomplexitĂ€t und Funktionen? Die Einfachheit ist ja da oft das Argument. Trotzdem vermisst man gerade bei MeisterNote - auch wenn es noch ein junges Produkt ist - wesentliche Funktionen wie z. B. Spalten und Tabellen.
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Unsere IT-Abteilung sieht MeisterTask leider auch als pot. SicherheitslĂŒcke: Vor allem die Möglichkeit, AnhĂ€nge (v.a. Microsoft Office-Formate) auĂerhalb des Firmennetzwerkes in Meister-Task-Aufgabenfelder einzuspeisen und diese dann innerhalb des Remote-Arbeitsbereiches aufzurufen, könnte die dauerhafte Nutzung gefĂ€hrden.
NatĂŒrlich kann man auf die Nutzung solcher Möglichkeiten einfach verzichten, aber das ist noch kein ausreichendes Argument. Gibt es fĂŒr mich als Team-Administrator die Möglichkeit, durch eine Einstellung die Nutzung von AnhĂ€ngen fĂŒr alle zu unterbinden? Was könnte ich sonst noch bzw. alternativ tun, um das kritisierte Risiko zu vermeiden?
Vielen Dank fĂŒr die Antwort!
Mit freundlichen GrĂŒĂen
Lars BĂŒttner
2 -
Hi @lars.buettner@stiftung-naturschutz.de - Ich wollte mich schnell, um Dir hier eine mögliche Lösung zu geben:
Business-Administrator:innen können externe AnhÀnge unter Teameinstellungen -> Berechtigungen verbieten.
Mehr Infos dazu hier.
Falls Du weitere Fragen hast, schreib mir gerne eine DM! :D
LG Andrew
2 -
Hallo @Adam Buckley
Mir gefÀllt MindMeister mit den vorhanden features sehr gut. Was mir jedoch fehlt ist die Möglichkeit, ein Design nach dem erstellen der Map zu Àndern.
Beispiel: Ich erstelle die Map im Organigramm-Design, merke aber nach ein paar nodes dass das Liste-Design viel besser passen wĂŒrde. Stand heute kann ich das Design nachtrĂ€glich leider nicht mehr Ă€ndern.Könntest du dir vorstellen, dass es kĂŒnftig möglich ist, dass man das Design nachtrĂ€glich Ă€ndern kann? Oder ist das in MindMeister nicht gewollt?
Beste GrĂŒsse,
SamuelThe impossible does not exist! The solution has just not been found yet!
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Hey! I'm new here - I just saw the banner at the top of the help center. I acutally use all three products and therefore all the help centers. I can see that meistertask is blue, mindmeister pink and meisternote orange (also from the icons + in product). I was wondering whether there was any real theory in choosing these colors or it just kind of happened that way?
3 -
Also: is there any plan to add more icons to meisternote?
Thanks!
2 -
Hi Adam
Question - Why doesn't MindMeister have more export options? .html (.htm) file format is a common way to export a mind map and visualize it directly on a web browser.some other common export file formats that are missing but are useful are - .txt (.rtf is there), .opml, microsoft project (.mpx), slides as images (.zip), slides as pdf (.pdf), markdown file (.md)
2 -
Hi Adam,
I have a question: do you plan to enable any AI feature in MindMester and MeisterTask?
Cheers from Paris
Philippe
6 -
Hey Adam -
Greetings from Canada đšđŠ
Can you comment on any further integration between the apps. Specifically between Note and Tasks? It seems they are a natural to work closer together - and my team is very excited about the possibilities!
Thanks!
3 -
Hi Adam,
Big MeisterTask fan and user.
Where do you see the Meister platform specifically MeisterTask, in say 5 - 10 years time?
Cheers.
Regards
Cathy Fanning
www.thetemporaryalternative.com.au
3 -
Hi @Andrew Lapidus Thanks for continuing the Q&A sessions. Very informative.
Regards
Cathy Fanning
www.thetemporaryalternative.com.au
3 -
Hi Adam,
Here are my 3 questions for you:
- Will you be introducing the ability to change text colors? Right now, you can only highlight.
- Will collapsible headings be introduced? Some notes/articles get a bit long so this would make everything so much more clean.
- Will the tables function have the ability for us to change colors for the cells and borders so we can make the tables look more aesthetic?
Thank you!
Dessy
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Hi Adam,
I have one question for you regarding the chosen color scheme:
Have you considered the number of people being challenged by color recognition, i.e. red-brown?
I myself has some issues in separating the color's when having an online presentation, unless I spend time and efforts on selecting default html-color-codes following my own reference list.
This challenge is next to my personal issues also caused by the monitor my clients are using - not everyone has managed to calibrate the settings, so when using color's outside the default html-codes we sometimes end up spending time on color's rather than the content.
Thanks,
Jens Brinch
4 -
Hi Adam, I have a threefold question regarding the desired effects of design in the Meister Suite:
I think we all agree good design is good for marketing and selling a product. But beyond that:- Would you agree that an (optically) positively perceived working environment does significantly enhance motivation, mood, and also resilience of screen-related work?
- Would you, like me, think that positive mood and motivation not only influence the quantity of the outcome but sometimes also change the content of our thinking/creating brain activity, in other words, would you say that the result of work in a positively stimulating environment is positively different from the result in what might be called just a functional, working, clean user experience?
- Did one or both of these areas of thinking significantly influence Meister's decisions to go the way of attractive design and simplicity rather than "just" high functionality and total freedom of personalizing in colors and styles?
Thank you so much for taking the time, and thanks to Andrew for bringing another top decider to the forum for questioning!
4 - Would you agree that an (optically) positively perceived working environment does significantly enhance motivation, mood, and also resilience of screen-related work?
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Hi AdamâŠSomehow I feel that the older version of Mind Meister is better than the one that we are promoting now. How do you see that improving?
2 -
Also, another addition is - can mind meister give flexibility to downloading pdf without having the content getting added towards the end of the mindmaps
2 -
Hi Adam ï»żđđ
Firstly, a big thanks to you and your team for all the effort you put in the development of the Meister Suite. And of course, a few questions from my side too:- What do you think about the integration of a colour slider or input field for colour codes? Or maybe an extra settings page for our design needs. It would give us the ability to customize the appearance of our individual Corporate Identities.
- Would it be possible to give us the ability, to move the header image in MeisterNote for better positioning? Or to resize them? Most images, even from unsplash, look a bit strange because they don't really show what we'd love to see đ
- Many users, me included, miss the option for inserting background images in the new version of MindMeister. I see this feature as a very important one for future use cases. Maybe a business model canvas in the background and perfectly styled topics in the related fields. Or a house with nice windows and cool designed topics, positioned in it for individual story tellingâŠespecially in presentations.
I'm very interested in your thoughts and appreciate every feedback.
Best, Jörg
Als Experten-Partner von Meister fĂŒhre ich in meiner Agentur u. a. Workshops fĂŒr die Integration der Meister Software durch. Hier in der Community freue ich mich auf den Austausch mit Euch und helfe bei Fragen zu MeisterTask, MeisterNote und MindMeister gerne weiter.
Weitere Informationen findest Du auf agenturkoper.de und LinkedIn.4 - What do you think about the integration of a colour slider or input field for colour codes? Or maybe an extra settings page for our design needs. It would give us the ability to customize the appearance of our individual Corporate Identities.
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Adam,
I am a Mindmeister user and avid mind mapper. My top source for mind mapping templates and to learn about mind maps is Biggerplate.com. I was disappointed to learn that, with the new editor, it is no longer possible to upload a map created with Mindmeister to the Biggerplate.com library as it was with the old editor. Is restoring that ability on your product update roadmap?
Mindmeisterâs biggest competitors are Xmind and Mind Manager. While Mindmeister certainly has certain advantages over them, the Mindmeister editor does have fewer features. The lack of automatic numbering and call outs being just two examples. I want Mindmeister to be successful and become peopleâs mind mapping provider of preference. Do you take the features of your competitors into account when deciding on future product upgrades?
Regards,
Rich
3
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