Know of a Visio-lite appication?
July 13, 2005 8:46 AM Subscribe
Anyone know of a good free, easy to use, diagramming application that would allow me and my colleagues to brainstorm ideas similar to using post-its on a bulletin board? Related: Experience with affinity diagram techniques?
I am conducting a task analysis of an e-commerce site, and want to use affinity diagrams to map out the goals and tasks of our customers. In the "real" world, this would be done by letting customers and subject matter experts write out goals and tasks on post its and then place them appropriately on a bulletin board, but I need to find a way to do this virtually. An easily downloadable Viseo-lite application would work. Any thoughts? Advice?
I am conducting a task analysis of an e-commerce site, and want to use affinity diagrams to map out the goals and tasks of our customers. In the "real" world, this would be done by letting customers and subject matter experts write out goals and tasks on post its and then place them appropriately on a bulletin board, but I need to find a way to do this virtually. An easily downloadable Viseo-lite application would work. Any thoughts? Advice?
IMHO the only graphing program worth using is AT&T labs GraphViz. It's open-source, runs on all major desktop platforms (windows, mac, linux), and takes in simple text files to generate a variety of output formats, ranging from Gif/Jpg/PNG's to Postscript.
posted by phrontist at 9:16 AM on July 13, 2005
posted by phrontist at 9:16 AM on July 13, 2005
(It's really widely used in the engineering world for practically everything)
posted by phrontist at 9:17 AM on July 13, 2005
posted by phrontist at 9:17 AM on July 13, 2005
Response by poster: Wow! Thanks! I'll be taking a look at these, and please keep the suggestions coming. Two things to keep in mind (1) Everyone will be working on Windows (2) Some of the people I will be working with will be very computer illiterate. The simpler to download, install, and use the better.
posted by xammerboy at 9:28 AM on July 13, 2005
posted by xammerboy at 9:28 AM on July 13, 2005
You might also check out the various "mind-mapping" programs. They're generally simpler than full-blown diagramming software, and it sounds like they might fit your needs.
posted by mbrubeck at 9:04 AM PST on July 13 [!]
Amen. Check out MindManager x5 from Mindjet. There's a 21 day free trial, and then the software is about $190 a piece. Very worth it, excellent software, and it sounds like it will meet all of your needs (and more).
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 9:43 AM on July 13, 2005
posted by mbrubeck at 9:04 AM PST on July 13 [!]
Amen. Check out MindManager x5 from Mindjet. There's a 21 day free trial, and then the software is about $190 a piece. Very worth it, excellent software, and it sounds like it will meet all of your needs (and more).
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 9:43 AM on July 13, 2005
For what you want you might like as well. The price is certainly likeable.
posted by phearlez at 9:46 AM on July 13, 2005
posted by phearlez at 9:46 AM on July 13, 2005
Watch out for GraphViz, the learning curve is steep and it is not the realtime application xammerboy requires.
posted by mischief at 10:53 AM on July 13, 2005
posted by mischief at 10:53 AM on July 13, 2005
I found IHMC's Cmap Tools when i was looking for a program to mind map and organize, pretty simple to use, and allows sharing... best of all free!
posted by stratastar at 11:31 AM on July 13, 2005
posted by stratastar at 11:31 AM on July 13, 2005
Best answer: You probably already have an application that'll do everything you need for affinity diagramming: PowerPoint. Turn on the Drawing toolbar, use rectangles for tasks, something else for task groups (I like rounded rectangles) and connectors to create relationships. You can set a custom slide size in Page Setup if it gets too crowded, or you can split your set of task groups across multiple slides.
posted by jjg at 11:48 AM on July 13, 2005
posted by jjg at 11:48 AM on July 13, 2005
I may be wrong here, but it looks like Mindmanager is limited to heirachical tree-branch diagrams, ie you can't link an idea to both a child node and a grandparent node, (such as when the idea is a combination of, or compromise between, the concepts in each of those nodes), which you would do all the time in brainstorming. I really don't understand why all the so-called "mindmapper" programs seem to have this big limitation. My mind doesn't map that way, and I don't think anyone else's does either. I may be missing something.
Compedium (phearlez's link) seems to offer proper node linking though (Just judging from the website, again I could be wrong), I think I'll have to try it :-)
(I'm also looking for the kind of software Xammerboy asks for)
posted by -harlequin- at 11:58 AM on July 13, 2005
Compedium (phearlez's link) seems to offer proper node linking though (Just judging from the website, again I could be wrong), I think I'll have to try it :-)
(I'm also looking for the kind of software Xammerboy asks for)
posted by -harlequin- at 11:58 AM on July 13, 2005
FreeMind is a pretty simple, cross platform, easy to use application, see if the concept suits you. It is pretty simple though, you put text in a node and nodes can be organized in a hierarchy (parent, sibling, child). Since it is open source there are bunch of scripts and tools you can find that work along.
posted by notmuch at 6:49 PM on July 13, 2005
posted by notmuch at 6:49 PM on July 13, 2005
Response by poster: Thanks everyone!
I think in the end, Powerpoint will actually meet my needs best. I was unaware of the page size feature. There's no learning ramp up, and everyone already has the application. However, there are some really, really good applications here. Thanks to everyone for showing me stuff that is soooo much better than what I knew was out there. I will probably be using a lot of these in my future final documentations.
posted by xammerboy at 9:02 AM on July 14, 2005
I think in the end, Powerpoint will actually meet my needs best. I was unaware of the page size feature. There's no learning ramp up, and everyone already has the application. However, there are some really, really good applications here. Thanks to everyone for showing me stuff that is soooo much better than what I knew was out there. I will probably be using a lot of these in my future final documentations.
posted by xammerboy at 9:02 AM on July 14, 2005
This thread is closed to new comments.
Omnigraffle for Mac OS X is amazing. You can download a free demo version. The "standard" edition costs US$70.
You might also check out the various "mind-mapping" programs. They're generally simpler than full-blown diagramming software, and it sounds like they might fit your needs.
posted by mbrubeck at 9:04 AM on July 13, 2005