10 Reasons Why MIRO is better for product designers

How do I work virtually when I'm doing research for my design project? How do I collaborate with various people across this world when I'm doing a big project where I need a seamless experience of interacting with them and have ideas and sharing moments where I am brainstorming, how do I put my ideas to them and how I understand their ideas, Is there any way to do it effectively? Yes, guys, if you are in that zone, this podcast is going to exactly address you. Okay, so this is actually an explanation of a collaborative tool called Miro, which is one of my favorite tools which I used to do my decent research work, collaborate, present and even have a brainstorming session with them. And this has helped me improve my productivity at least 3 to 5x faster. If you effectively use this 10 steps, what I'm going to explain you in this podcast, you will in fact increase 10x or even more. Guys, because I've explored, I've researched more to whatever I have learned so far and then I made it very easier for you as a ten snippets. Okay, so I would suggest two things, guys, okay? First is you can open Miro software, okay? You can create a Google account and you can Gmail sign in and you can open that and keep it. Before you start listening to this podcast, I'll give you a you can pass this podcast and do it, okay? So I believe you would have done it. Second is you can take a lot of notes separately in a short notepad because when you're able to implement it each and every step, the 10 steps, then you're able to completely leverage the two. Okay? So with that being said, now we are going to increase our productivity 10 or even 20x faster. Guys, if you are a product designer and UI UX designer. Welcome guys, welcome, welcome. Thank you for staying in tuning with with me in Design for Change podcast. Thank you so much. And I've crossed 2000 plus impressions and more than four countries have what do you call followers are following back in me in Spotify and I'll be recording a lot of pain points which need to be addressed for designers everybody. So if you feel this valuable, give me a good five star rating in Spotify and Apple. Okay? So this particular podcast is going to help you how you can do design research and collaborate with your team and become more brainstorming and creative and you can present to your top management or your own colleagues or even your recruiters in a very seamless experience. Okay, so the 10 elements, what we're going to express to explain in this Podcast. The first element is Miro is a tool to collaborate. See, when it comes to making a ppt, okay, when it comes to making a Excel, every tool has this collaborate option, but Miro is something very, very, very interesting. Okay? See, it has a very big canvas. It's infinite. It. You can use as much as possible as you want. You can, you can create as much as boards, or as much as boxes, or whatever you want. You can create, okay? That's an infinite kind of a canvas, so you can freely move through compared to an Excel, compared to a ppt, where you're constrained by frames, you're constrained by slides. Okay. Okay, so how do I navigate myself? Jagdish. See, when you are using a Miro board, the first very good option is you have a live cursor. You know where you're dragging, where you are moving your cursor and you get to see other people also. Okay? If you don't want that person to be seen, you can hide that cursor. Okay. And you, you have another option in the right top corner where you can see that collaboration person name and their profile. If you click that, your mirror will automatically showcase that particular screen what that person is working on. Like let's say if that person is connected in a call and then he's saying, hey, I have collected some user research and 7% of the population is actually dying because of alcohol. So you, like, you'll be clueless. Where is this guy talking about? The moment you click on that particular guy like a collaboration, then you will exactly go and point it out where is this particular person is talking about that statistics. And then you will clearly see, oh, okay, here is there. The other person will say, no, I'm really not disagree, I'm really not agreeing it. So see my statistics. So you can click that person and then you can go the automatically your screen will redirect towards that mouse. So live cursion is on and off. You can use guys, that's a first excellent option, which you can do it. The second good option, what you can do is navigation. Okay, so please note down guys. Okay, so navigation is so you can use navigation using mouse, you can use keyboard. And also Miro has an option to auto detect. Okay, some people use mouse trackpad, some people use combination, some people use trackpads. And also you can use zoom in, zoom out with your pinch fingers and you can use your space bar if you're using a to to toggle across your screens. Okay, that's a very good way if you're Lost or something and press the spacebar and you can toggle across so you can seamlessly navigate. Because I told you it's a very big canvas, right? Yeah. Even if you lost. Also in the bottom down right corner there is something called plus minus which is like zoom in, zoom out. Okay, plus minus, simple option, left side to that, there is something called Bird's eye view. See, if you're making a big canvas, you need to know how you can use the Bird's eye view. That's a great option to view your entire bow. That's the second good thing. The third good thing is you can use it for ideation, guys. See there are pre templates available in Miro where you can go to left side and click templates where you can find brainstorming, where you can use for rapid ideation, where you can use for crossword ideation. See there are some pre templates which you can preview there and you can use it directly, right? It's simple guys, you can just double click it and you can write it down whatever you want. All the templates are fillable and if you print it, if you press enter, sometimes it will go to the next option. If you press tab button it will go to the left side. So it's very easy, it's intuitive even. You don't have to remember the comments, what I said. You can just go directly and apply that. It's as simple as that. You will find it out. Okay, because that much of easier option is there giving you some visuals to make you clearly explain and implement. You can use it for mindstorming, you can use it for brainwriting, guys. You can use like anonymous option so you can post different, different ideas so that you will know who has stole this idea. So that you can bring out lot many creativity among your team and then you can remotely track this activities also who has did what and what has happened. See, that's a great, great option guys. And the beautiful thing is you can click always any kind of option in anything and you can create an emoji for that. Let's say if you wanted to vote for a concept, let's say if you wanted to put some expression for that, what will happen is you can create that kind of a seamless experience for that. Okay, so that is the other advantage of using for brainstorming rapid ideation and stone. So the next option, the fifth option, what I'm going to explain you is actually the fourth option. Sorry, the fourth option, what I'm going to explain you is sticky notes. See left Side if you go, there is a simple sticky note icon which will look like a sticky note itself. You can just click that and you can use it. The advantage of using sticky note is you can use multiple colors, you can group it. When you're using some primary research, secondary research or particular target segment. Let's say if you wanted to segment your user age wise. So you can use kids, adults, age old people, married, unmarried. So like that you can categorize it using some colors and you can increase the type phase size, you can increase the thickness of that font, you can increase the, you can change the typeface if you don't like. There are some pre templates and also you can give a left side, right side alignment. You can use bullet points. So all these things are very common. Guys, you can use background color opacity. So I mean explore that tool. You'll come to know. Okay, this podcast is to explain you the aspects of what is the important features in Miro. Okay, Minute details go left click, right click that and all. I cannot explain you even if I tell it's difficult. So you can do that and explore it fast. Okay, a quick YouTube video will give you the clarity. But this podcast is going to explain you the intention of using that Miro. Okay, the next one is strategic planning. See guys, when you're doing a project, you need to create maps, you need to create flowchart. Particularly if you are a UI UX designer. You tend to create information architecture, you tend to create a lot of user Personas. User flow. It's the best way to use different, different shapes, guys. Again if you go left side there is an option called user fl. There is something called shapes you can use. You can click that shapes and left side you will see a lot of pre templated shapes coming. You can create flowcharts, you can create Gantt charts, you can create planning charts. What is Gantt chart? Gantt chart is a project tracker, guys. In what amount of time, what kind of activity needs to be done in my project? Week one, week two, month one, month two, day one, day two. So you can create that kind of a Gantt chart in just seconds because already a template is given. Particularly if you want to give a collaboration for cross functional teams, you can invite them and you can present it. That's a cool option to do it. And each and every option, guys, you can group it, you can ungroup it. So that is like a very normal option. You can use click drag, you can do a right click and select an ungroup. So this kind of Options will be very useful when you create a very big mind mapping. Okay, so the next aspect and the important aspect, the seventh aspect is you can do lot of mapping. Okay, See there is something called every text and everything will have a node option in the left, right, top, bottom. You can connect this nodes different, different pointer. Let's say if you're putting sticky notes. Let's say if you're connecting some Google image, you can drag and drop Google image, you can drag and drop all the text, whatever you're copying from your chat, GPT or user research or website, anything. You can connect this text to the box. You can connect this text and picture to the sticky notes using simple connector dots. Guys, it's a cool feature. You can continuously make this sheet look like a proper flow under story. Because when user or somebody if you're sharing this Miro board, if they open it, it looks like here and there kitchen. When you are able to define it clearly through arrows and pointers, then that becomes a seamless experience, right? User experience is also about how you present it. So that's the thing. And the eighth aspect is you can upload content, guys. See, you will be really surprised by this cool feature. You can upload your entire PPT there, guys, you can upload your entire PDF file there. Go to an option in left side which is called upload. Okay, there are some lot of plugins which is already available. You can click that plugin and you can use upload. The beauty is if you wanted to support your data with some kind of a few 5 slide ppt. You don't have to switch back your screen to go back to PPT to open share. That experience will get spoiled, right? You can directly have your ppts there when you give upload. Upload your file, browse your files in your local computer. Upload your PDF, upload your ppt, upload your Word even you can upload your Excel sheet if you want to present some numbers. And the beautiful part of it is you can change the slides, guys, in that ppt. Try it out. It's cool. Right now you can try to pass the Spotify app podcast and you can try that. You can insert your people, you can change that so you don't have to run back here and there, see. So you can present your data, visuals, information, user flow, everything. And you can show, hey, this is a stack what I've collected. Show slide one, slide two, slide three. And the best part is you can edit that template, guys, it will automatically the main source of that file like Excel Or PPT will get auto updated. See how cool and superb it is? Guys, if you are not able to track all your time what you're doing in your project, you will be mindlessly wandering here and there. That is why it's good to understand how much time you're spending in this software. Tools like ppt, Excel, Word Picture this that if you use one tool like Miro, it will cut short all your hours of research into minutes. Right? And the eighth important feature is integration. Okay, so there are a lot of option guys, if you go to the left option there is something called integration and application integration. See, Miro has more than 500 plus integration. You can integrate Slack application like productivity tool. You can integrate Google Meet if you wanted to put some link. You can integrate Figma screens. Let's say if you want to show your low fidelity and high fluidity wireframe again, our entire user flow. I told you, right? For creating user information architecture, that itself is pretty much enough to create an information architecture. But anyway, you can use certain tools like Figma to showcase your final work and wireframes. And the next ninth option, what I want to tell you is there is something called sticky note capture. Guys. See these are all coming in the integrated options. But you can search 500/ application, you can use as much as possible. You can use Google Sheets, you can use Slides, you can use Unsplash image. Unsplash is a very good image downloader. You can create that as a direct plugin or direct integration. So that left side, if you always click Unsplash will be open. You don't have to go to Google Image or Bing Image to add drag and drop or copy paste and paste it here. No, it's completely avoided. Unsplash is a direct tool which is integrated here. Click whatever you wanted to do. Let's say if you wanted to project relating to forming, you can type out forming in Unsplash you get a hundred images which is high quality drag and drop. Simple. So it is like two times fast comparing to your existing image. Copy, save, download and then paste it here in other tab. Right? So you can visualize how much image we are copying as a designer and we are pasting it. And you need to credit it also properly. Okay, yeah. So you can explore that 500 different option guys. And the best part is you can really become agile when you are able to work with this kind of a software. Okay, when we talk about Agile, we need to show how to present it to other people also, right? That comes a ninth important feature which is Called frames. Beautiful option. Go to left side bottom. You will find something like a ppt. Like a four lines guys. Okay. It's like overlapped four lines frames. The beauty of the frames is you can define whatever custom size frame you want and you can drag. You can draw that frames on your p in your entire canvas. Like let's say your canvas has huge information. But if you want to only present 10 things to your boss or your client or your project mates, you can draw a frame to that particular 10 things. One frame you can draw whatever size you want. You can do. But there are some pre templated also like 4 is to 3, 16 is to 9. These are some of the format which is very good for presenting in screens. Like let's say normal laptop screen. Or you can use mobile screen, you can use tablet screen. That's up to you. Okay. But if you want custom you can do it. Any option is good. Okay. So the beauty of frames is you can create a frame and you can present that frame will capture that particular information in that canva. Imagine if you're using a big chart, put it in your wall and you're putting it here and there some information. It's very clumsy, right? But when I create a frame of I'll only zoom into the segment to make you understand. Miro will automatically focus that particular zoom feature to open that particular frame and present you. Okay, suggest how do I create frame? It's very simple guys. You need to define that story. What needs to come in the first, second, third, fourth, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. And you can draw ten frames and you can rename that frame in the top left corner frame 1 ppt 1 ppt 2 slide 1 slide 2. Or let's say if your team member, team member Ramesh is there, you can put Ramesh slide and you can put Ram slide, you can put Sujitha slide. So whatever you want you can put so that when that particular slide comes, that person will will come and present you. And the beauty of the frame is you can rearrange it. Guys, go to the left side, click frame. You can find that rearrangement option. You can seamlessly integrate it to a different different order you want. And the moment when you are ready with your frames, then click the present option. See the magic guys. All the things what we're doing so far is to get this stage, to get to this stage. And when you are able to present it, you will see the big slideshow coming very clear of what you wanted to present. Not this entire big board, right? And you have a navigator option in the bottom. You can slide 1, 2, 3, 4. You can go up, down, whatever you wanted to do. And this is how you present it. Okay. The fifth, the last tenth big option. What I want to tell you is Talk Track. So beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful feature guys. Okay, Talk track is. You can find it in the top right corner there is something called Talk track. Okay. And you can put. You can find it in integration option. Also Talk track is a beautiful tool where you can just click Talk Track and it will automatically open your camera and mic and your picture will come there in round. Okay, the right side or something. It will come. You can move your picture and you can exactly point to a place and you can talk about that particular feature. Hey, let's say. Hey Sujitha, I wanted to tell you that this particular research what I've collected. No actually this seems little abstract here. Why don't you give it a polished look. Why don't you search more about this particular topic, add more statistics and present it. Because tomorrow when you're presenting it, this information is going to make a big difference. Okay, so do it. I'll be working on some something else in that Miro board. Stop recording and you can add that Sujitha and you can comment that there is a feature called Comment also in the top right corner you can comment that, you can post it. The beauty is when Sujitha opens this Miro board, Sojita will get to see the video first in the notification right side. It will come the moment she clicks that my entire video along with my frame and along with my explanation it will come see guys, this one feature will make you productive 20 times faster. You know how much time it takes to chat in teams or in their phone in their call make them explain this one particular video on sharing will give them complete faster collaboration of work. That is why nobody can beat this kind of a productivity tool. Okay. And then people will click it. They'll come to. Hey hi Sujitha. This is where you have to work. Come on do it. And Sujith, I can even comment on it. I can create more Talk track like that. I can create free five talk track videos. That's pretty much enough for one project. You can remove that and you can replace new if you want higher like 20 different videos. Yeah, you can upgrade to a higher plan. That's fine that you can do it little later. But these are all the 10 different things guys. And finally you can share with the people whomever you want. You can hide the access Whomever you want, you can give view option, edit option, same like like that is a pretty much known tool. Like no, no option for everybody. Like you can if you want, you can protect your Miro board, you can protect it. If you want to give access for viewing only, you can do it. If you want to edit it, you can do it. So all these things are going to make you productive guys. Okay, so let me recap fast. So first is Miro Collaborate. You can use live curses to on and off and do it. You can use navigation using mouse keypad and you can use bird's eye view, map view left, right and all if you are lost. The third is you can use ideation, brainstorming, rapid sketching, rapid ideation techniques and all these things. The fourth is you can use a lot of mindstorming techniques using the pre frame template which is already available. So that you can add expressions, you can put a lot of sticky notes and you can add lot of text and information and comment to that particular ideas and you can even vote also in higher level plans. But right now you can use emoji option. Okay, so the fifth is sticky notes. You can use that sticky note. Let me tell you an important point in sticky note guys. There is a feature called capture stickies. If you go to integration option, okay? The beauty is when you have physically did a sticky notes and you paste it in the wall, you can capture that photo in your mobile and you can upload it in your desktop or whatever, right when you give capture stickies and when you upload that image, whatever you're taken all your physical work, what you did know it will convert it into digital work. It's a cool feature guys. I forgot to mention you. So you can click that picture in your wall with the sticky notes and you can capture and put it here, it will automatically digitalize. The beautiful part is you can even edit that. You can even resize that. It'll exactly without error free, mistake free will capture. Let's say if you're putting hundred sticky notes in your wall and you wanted to convert to digital data, what you will do takes huge time, right? Just click a photo in your phone and just upload it in sticky captures. Everything will be digitalized. Okay, so the sixth part is strategic planning for the project. Creating flowcharts, creating gantt chart, creating information architecture, wireframes, etc. And the eighth part is mapping the diagram. You can use connectors and dots to connect different different pictures, Hyperlinks, slides, images, PPDs, etc. And you can upload content for presentation like PDFs, Excel, data, everything to seamlessly view it. And you can even insert YouTube video to show it. And whatever changes you make, it will upload it there. And you can integrate with lot of features like Google, Meet, Slack, Figma and you can create frames for making it beautiful to present. And you can collaborate with different people to showcase all these things. And you can use talk track to even talk a video and share with others. Okay? So if you do all these things, guys, you will have excellent user story to tell for your project. You will have exactly a proper story narrative to explain to your team. And you can even show all your important informations in a very shorter span of time so that you become more collaborative with other people. Also to work right. When you take a longer presentation, people lose interest. So that skill you need to develop by using this kind of tools, then you become agile, then you become more innovative, then you really empathize with other people. Also how somebody will understand the presentation of my information, because this will only give you proper direction to get more information from other people. If they understood your idea only, they'll be giving you lot many value, right? If they don't even understand. Hey, this guy is talking something here and there, showing some big map here. What is this? Nothing. Guys, you will be unproductive. So utilize all this option in your Miro. Sign up a free account in Miro today. And I pasted that link also. Guys, in this description, you. You can use that and you can create that and check it out, okay? But if you need my support and mentoring and coaching to help you. Hey. How to do primary research, how to do secondary research, how to create storyboards, how to create user flow, how to create information architecture, how to create wireframes. Please send an email to me. I'll be happy to put you in my mentorship course and help you out. I don't take normally a lot of students. I help only few students. And if you feel that this podcast has added value, subscribe. Subscribe to my channel and give me five star rating. I would, I would recommend you if you feel this value and notified for further episodes. Guys, thank you so much. If you're staying too long, I mean if you're staying till now in this podcast, I believe you're really serious. Take action. Take action now guys, or else this will not give you any value. Okay? So take care. Bye bye. All the best. Hey.