I’d love your opinion on an issue that I’m having with building/positioning/explaining the app I make, Kinopio.
Context
In a nutshell, Kinopio was built as a very general spatial thinking tool that encourages you to get thoughts/ideas out as cards anywhere on a page, and then to connect/drag related ideas together to get to new ideas.
Depending on what you’re looking for the result can be arranged in a data-driven nested way, or be more loosely organized:
I’m having a tough time explaining what Kinopio is succinctly to people because it has such a wide range of uses. And the danger of being too general (combined with looking too different) is that no one will understand why they should try it. That said, I’m noticing themes in how people use it like note-taking and outlining.
Question
Would it make sense to categorize Kinopio as an Outliner?
I think when we think of outliners we picture a specific shape:
But in broad terms outlining is about understanding a problem and planning out a structure – which are precisely the same kinds of problems that people seem to tackle in a less rigid way using Kinopio
Some reasons why I don’t think Kinopio directly competes with infinite canvas apps like Miro or Freeform
Kinopio has a toolbar-less/mode-less design: so the flow isn’t select the ‘sticky note’ tool, then place it, then type. Instead, I designed it specifically to capture thoughts/ideas with as little friction as possible: so you click anywhere, then type.
keyboard shortcuts like enter (add new card below) and shift-enter (add new indented card below) also work outliner-style.
A Kinopio document (aka space) is a webpage with a top-left origin (ie it’s not infinite in all directions). This makes it harder to get lost in, and easier to design/layout readable spaces for public sharing (another example: https://kinopio.club/materia-medica-J00bvASkbmzKRWKngbdRQ)
There’s only a rule not to overdo it. This is a great post, IMO. I’ll try to read more carefully and weigh in later.
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I wouldn’t call it an outliner. Like you, I think of outlines as very rigid, linear things. At first glance it reminds me of Curio, but much simpler to use. It also feels a lot like a mind map, but with greater flexibility.
Have you asked your users how they describe it? I think that’s where I would start. Focus groups and surveys can be useful for this sort of thing.
A previous last time I asked, ppl contributed ideas/usecases like moodboarding, whiteboarding, mindmapping, and brainstorming. But I guess I’m looking for the/a *main thing – in pursuit of ideally having a snappy answer for when someone asks so ‘what is kinopio’?
Muse also uses the spatial thinking phrase. In the past, they’ve said “a tool for thought” but it seems they’re now appealing to the interest in deep work.
Muse also has a quick entry → organize later workflow and has some interesting select tools. But it looks nothing like Kinopio. I like that you’ve arrived at such different approaches.
Looks more like a mindmapping tool to me like MindNode, and I may be wrong, but I think an outline is a type of mindmap. Positioning Kinopio as an outliner does not do it justice.
One thing for sure is that I would never call these kinds of tools an outliner. I want much more structure from those and more tools to quickly navigate and shape the outline. I don’t think having the ability to outline is enough, because any tool that allows text entry can technically outline, and someone wanting “an outliner” wants more than just text entry.
hah ya I think that’s pretty cool too – muse is a really great tool / team. I was actually on their podcast once: Episode 50, Metamuse podcast — Muse
I could definitely see that. I started building kinopio before I learned about mindmapping/tony-buzan. My insecurity with the term is that it sometimes seems like mindmapping has very specific rules/conventions? (eg main idea in the middle and children branching outwards. And all trees must be connected to the main idea). It’s entirely possibly that I’m over-thinking how religious ppl are about mindmapping though
I’m not into mindmapping so I cannot help you here but I would not be surprised at all that there are different approaches for mindmaps with fierce religious wars between the different proponents. I like the “concept mapping” proposed by @JohnAtl
related side question: is non-linear/visual/spatial ‘note taking’ a category that feels like more of a fit? Or at least a less awkward one because it has less pre-defined connotations?
If Microsoft word is a “word processor”, I reckon your app (and it’s cousins) is a “thought processor”, with a few adjectives thrown in - fast, visual, easy.
Having used the product off and on, this works for me as a description. The ability to think freely in space is powerful.
There are loads of Mindmapping tools, and it seems to me to be different to people’s expectations of them (and Outliners). Although whether people are searching for “spacial thinking tools” I don’t know.
I would say you can only call something an outliner if you can export it as an OPML file. Other wise it is a whiteboard, mindmap, concept map or “thinking tool”.
