Item: Freehand by InVision
Rating: 10
Author: Marli Dickens

Overall Satisfaction with InVision Freehand

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I work on a digital product design team that brings human-centered design innovation to federal clients. I currently use Freehand to collaborate with members of my team as well as our clients. We hold virtual workshops, critiques, and design reviews in Freehand. I also use the tool personally to store and organize design concepts, mockups, moodboards, and usability testing plans. We use the tool on a daily/weekly basis.

Pros and Cons

Pros

The wireframing capability within the tool is easy and quick to use.
I like being to export work from Freehand as a PNG.
The nav menu and action menus are very simple to use and intuitive, we routinely introduce new people to Freehand and find that they pick it up quickly.

Cons

I sometimes find that image quality and load time degrades the more images that are on a Freehand. This is of course expected and understandable, but it would be nice if Freehand could handle more images at one time.

Most Important Features

Seeing who's in the board with me and where their cursors are moving.
Quickly pulling in/filling out stick notes.
Organizing large amounts of information for a short-term project.
Using Freehand for Design retros and other idea-generating sessions.

Return on Investment

Helping us reach and better interact with our clients.
Increasing the speed with witch we can pull deliverables together.

Alternatives Considered

I have used Miro, FigJam, Mural; none of which are fedramped which is why I can't use them for my current work with federal clients. I think all of these tools are pretty comparable, the only advantage I see in using Miro over Freehand or any of the others would be that Miro makes creating flow diagrams really seamless.

Key Insights

Do you think Freehand by InVision delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Freehand by InVision's feature set?

Yes

Did Freehand by InVision live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Freehand by InVision go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Freehand by InVision again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Abstract, Figma

Likelihood to Recommend

I cannot think of a better collaboration tool for virtual whiteboarding; specifically as a designer who regularly works with non-designers, Freehand is a fun way to level the discussion and invite people into a more collaborative working style. There are so many different uses I can get out of a single Freehand board. I think Freehand is best suited to research synthesis, informal design reviews, storing images/examples/inspiration. Although there is wireframing tools within Freehand, I don't use these too often since I will eventually have to move my wireframes into an actual InVision prototype. It would be nice to see an integration between this somehow.

Comments

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Great tool for collaboration with clients and team members

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