Works very smoothly, lots of freedom to grow with the app
I have been on the lookout for a long time for apps that help with mentally navigating (not just tracking/managing) my very complex world of responsibilities but that are not just lists. Some of the list apps and databases are excellent for making sure that things are tracked and deadlines are met, but they rarely meet my felt need for a visually intuitive overview of what I am doing. So though IdeaGrid is sold as a planner (and has lots of potential for that) I am also exploring it as a possible dashboard.
The app is so far in my experience very stable, very slick, very easy to use, very nicely designed. It took me a short while to get used to the logic of how to do things, but once I did the workflow is good - clearly a lot of thought has gone into the design. Swiping is favored over menus, and that makes for smooth series of actions when creating, editing, and moving things. Personally I find it easier to manage and design with than the mind map apps that I have used. There is much less hunting and tapping.
There are plenty of built-in templates for those who want a framework, but personally I love the scope for freeform design of nested workspaces within the app. I like when apps let me in on the design process. With a bit of forethought it is possible to create nested summaries of various projects and use the top layer as a visual overview - that is my favorite feature. (Note that information does not aggregate automatically from level to level, you do have to design and populate each level). If you’d rather organize your own information visually rather than put it in a slot in a list, this app is really useful for that. (If you need your app to aggregate automatically or track information, it will be less useful).
Things I wish for based on my experiments so far, in descending order of priority: 1. More colors for “pieces” (including green) - the current range of two blues, yellow, red, and grayscale is not enough to visually differentiate a complex layout, at least to my eye. 2. For the workspace to use more of the iPad screen - it has a very wide, redundant margin and I could be seeing more detail more easily if it used the full width of the screen. 3. The ability to create some specific pieces with larger font, so that they could be used e.g. in one corner of a grid to name the topic in a way that remains visible at the next layer up. Currently the font sizing seems to be a global setting, not per piece.
This is already very useful to me, though, and fun to use as well, which helps.
The app is so far in my experience very stable, very slick, very easy to use, very nicely designed. It took me a short while to get used to the logic of how to do things, but once I did the workflow is good - clearly a lot of thought has gone into the design. Swiping is favored over menus, and that makes for smooth series of actions when creating, editing, and moving things. Personally I find it easier to manage and design with than the mind map apps that I have used. There is much less hunting and tapping.
There are plenty of built-in templates for those who want a framework, but personally I love the scope for freeform design of nested workspaces within the app. I like when apps let me in on the design process. With a bit of forethought it is possible to create nested summaries of various projects and use the top layer as a visual overview - that is my favorite feature. (Note that information does not aggregate automatically from level to level, you do have to design and populate each level). If you’d rather organize your own information visually rather than put it in a slot in a list, this app is really useful for that. (If you need your app to aggregate automatically or track information, it will be less useful).
Things I wish for based on my experiments so far, in descending order of priority: 1. More colors for “pieces” (including green) - the current range of two blues, yellow, red, and grayscale is not enough to visually differentiate a complex layout, at least to my eye. 2. For the workspace to use more of the iPad screen - it has a very wide, redundant margin and I could be seeing more detail more easily if it used the full width of the screen. 3. The ability to create some specific pieces with larger font, so that they could be used e.g. in one corner of a grid to name the topic in a way that remains visible at the next layer up. Currently the font sizing seems to be a global setting, not per piece.
This is already very useful to me, though, and fun to use as well, which helps.
Show less
