🙋‍♂️ Ask Me Anything — Meister's Design Lead

Hello Meister Community!

We’re 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, it’s been a blast to read through them! Now let's get started…

Cheers,
Adam

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.

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.

Für uns ist Einfachheit auf jeden Fall ein Argument, aber nicht das einzige. Wir sehen und hören auch oft von unseren Kunden, wie wichtig es für sie ist, dass wir eine Europäische Firma sind, dass wir DSVGO-konform sind und dass wir Sicherheit ernst nehmen.

Wir werden nie eine so große Firma wie Microsoft sein, aber auch das ist ein Vorteil. Wir sind näher an unseren Kunden dran und können Lösungen und Tools anbieten die auch wirklich für 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 😀

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.

Hello from Vienna 🇦🇹
I'm glad to hear that your team would be excited about bringing Notes and Tasks closer together – 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 :)

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.

Hallo Samuel,

gute Nachrichten! Das Layout einer Mindmap kann auch noch nachträglich geändert werden. Wähle dafür das zentrale Element deiner Mindmap aus und klicke in der rechten Seitenleiste auf das "Layout" Icon (drittes von oben) – hier kannst du dann jederzeit zwischen Mindmap, Organigramm und Listen Layout wechseln. Mehr Infos dazu hier.

Vielleicht könntest du uns noch ein bisschen genauer erzählen welche Designänderungen du noch gerne nach dem erstellen der Mindmap vornehmen würdest?

@Dessy Prasad :

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.

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 😊

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!

That’s 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