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The New InVision — Where teams and tools unite in one collaborative workspace
InVision is now the place for teams of all kinds to come together, get organized, meet, brainstorm, and push work forward. Integrate your team's most used tools in one location with Spaces. Move from whiteboard to workboard and host meetings that matter.
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Great design thrives when ideas flow freely between people, regardless of silos and hierarchies.
In 2011 InVision created the collaborative platform that made that possible. Companies around the world discovered the power of Design to reshape every category of human consumption. However (isn’t there always a however?), as we celebrated the evolution of the field, its needs grew increasingly complex. We watched design tools, even our own quite frankly, struggle to keep up.
InVision has always been a 100% remote company. As we pushed ourselves to serve the future of Design, our collaboration tools weren’t cutting it. So we created a new tool – a tool that provided collaboration without complication, helped us fuel each other, and transformed the way we worked together. That tool was Freehand.
From creative reviews to budgeting syncs to birthday celebrations, we did everything with Freehand’s infinite collaborative canvas.
Then came COVID. Suddenly it's not just designers who need great collaboration tools. It’s every industry. Every team. Everyone.
So we’ve taken everything we learned working with Design and applied those insights to the entire organization. Research shows that inclusive, collaborative teams move faster and make better, more creative decisions. Whether it’s HR, Finance, Sales, or Project Management, the collaborative approach pioneered by EPD teams is the way forward. Freehand makes that possible.
Our library of smart widgets, templates, and integrations with your favorite tools from Microsoft, Google, Figma, Loom, Mode, and Jira, bring all your work together in one single source of truth.
With 47% of knowledge workers expected to operate in distributed environments in 2022, the Future of Work is upon us. InVision’s mission is to help every organization use collaboration to unlock the full potential of that future.
Top Hunter
Seems like the trend towards mega WorkOSes is strong... which I suppose is about creating a moat and long-term lock-in, but how do you avoid bloat while encouraging the production of best-in-breed product experiences?
I'm thinking of monday.com, Google Workspace, Slack, and others.
Chris so good to hear from you my friend! I actually think I'd agree with you more than not on the above. Part of the impetus behind this directional evolution is to seek to embrace best-in-breed product experiences not shy away from them. Inevitably you end up with some sort of 'bucket' or organizational platform for any work, even if that bucket is simply an open browser with many tabs in it that you can only view one at a time (I think we've all just kind of accepted that and forget that the browser itself is a 'bucket'). The paradigm shift here (for me at least) is the infinite canvas.
Example: What would it do to my workflow if instead of having a Google Doc, Google Sheet, design file, etc in separate tabs that I can only view one at a time, I had them in all in one place (one tab) as editable docs to work with lots of different types of stakeholders. That's actually how we've been working on this entire campaign/launch. One canvas with all assets in on place (including copy docs, designs, spreadsheets, etc) and individuals breaking out into their individual tools for focused work.
This does a couple things to the typical browser convention: 1) it gives the browser a 'z-axis' so to speak... not just scroll up / scroll down, but now scroll in and out which lets you nest content or give content visual hierarchy, size, and weight, 2) it gives you context and control... maybe I want to edit copy in a Google doc right next to the mockup I'm working on, maybe I want my copywriting team in just the Google doc but I want the staging team to see how all the docs fit together in a unified plan in Freehand.
All that to say, I tend to agree with you that the more we stop working to duplicate 'best-in-breed' products poorly and the more we learn to unify them elegantly with lightweight, flexible, powerful organizational systems the better (and hopefully more fun) work will be. The key is for the system to get out of the way of the best-in-breed tools, not to try and eat them. That's our goal here.
Just my 2 cents! I know the team will be dropping some practical examples of workflows like the ones I described above in coming weeks to further illustrate. Hope thats helpful!
All the best to you sir!
congrats @clarkvalberg and the entire InVision team for getting Freehand to where it is today! I use this product daily to help collaborate across our global workplace at Vercel, in so many different ways. Waking up to this post on Product excites me.
@dennis_field Dennis! You've been such a huge part of maturing this entire platform with your feedback and engagement, thank you!
Congratulations team! Love to see it! I cannot wait to start using this and see where it goes ❤️
Aside from what it can do (I'm sure it's a robust tool which the team can be proud of), I still think it, and tools like it represent too much of an inclosed space for the creation and crafting of digital products.
For example, while I know this must be tough for large businesses, why do tools need to “do it all”? Why can’t one designer communicate one way, and another a different way? Why, if joining a new job do I have to use this suite, when I’m confident at another tool.
I think tools should be tools. Figma did a good thing with Figjam - It became another tool. If I want to use Miro, I’ll use Miro. And I’ll still use Figma as a core design product.
To be analogous, why would a tradesperson use a hammer that’s tethered by string to a saw when there may be a better hammer out there. Maybe there’s not a better hammer yet? Maybe other manufacturers should be encouraged to fit that need, and maybe that should be encouraged in product design.
When Spotify launched Podcasting, that was a red flag for me and I didn’t adopt. I have a podcast app and a music app. That way, if I want to unplug from my music app and try another, I can, with ease.
This is a type of product trapping that I think doesn’t fly anymore. I’m using Figma as an example, because they have genuinely crafted a tool that’s helpful, and update it with meaningful improvements. Whereby other companies may have thought “how do we stop people leaving?”.
I’m rambling here, but maybe I’m anti-ecosystem to an extent. Tools should be modular because life generally is.
@simon_gabriel Simon I actually just replied to a similar thought from Chris above. I won't bore you with a copy/paste here, but I will say I think we actually agree with you this front. But hey you're also talking to a guy who purposefully rocks many OSes on the daily so as to NOT to get locked into one. I feel you as a fellow modular tool friend. 😁
Part of the impetus behind this directional evolution is to seek to embrace best-in-breed product experiences not shy away from them. Use whatever tool you like (as you should!). We see this more as a platform that brings unity to best-of-breed tools, not drives them apart. You should always use the best tool for the job, full stop.
But sometimes you need to see and use those tools in context with one another. That's where I think the flexible canvas approach gets really interesting with regards to organizational paradigms and conventions and is ultimately what we're focused on here.
I would love to try this, but if you have an old InVision account, which literally everyone has, it is impossible to access the new stuff. You always get redirected to V6. Like, everyone who has an old account will log in, try to find the new stuff for a minute and then give up. If fixing this is not the first priority at InVision right now, something needs to change quickly.
@fran_perez3 Fran good to hear from you my friend! Thx for raising this- always appreciate your eagle eyes! Working on getting this accessible to everyone to play with ASAP. We already have the bulk of accounts migrated but there is a segment that is waiting for access. We're putting a temporary banner on those accounts that don't yet have access so they know it's coming and aren't left wondering. This will be replaced on those accounts very soon with link to full access. If you want to get exploring sooner, you can create a new account which will be on the new instance. Thx for your patience!
Sidenote: would love to do a virtual coffee soon, would be great to catch up!
Congrats @clarkvalberg and team! The new Freehand is such a powerful tool for collaboration - well done
Nice, great to see the evolution of Invision. I remember using the app for the first time in early 2018. Great to see how far it has come
How easy is it to import SVGS without having to jump through hoops? The process of importing art boards from sketch can sometimes be tedious. Congratulations on the launch.
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