Miro is an online collaboration tool used to manage projects, share ideas, and collaborate.
Signing Up for Miro
Follow the Miro link from the home portal and click on the Microsoft Office icon, the orange square below the 'Get Started Now' button, next to the Apple logo. This will ensure you are signed up and in with your LIS credentials.
How to Create a Board
A board is the most commonly used feature by beginners in Miro. It is a blank canvas to which you can add different features. Once you get used to the software, you can start directly with a Mind Map or Kanban Framework.
- After you have logged in to Miro, click the New board option and then select the Create a shared board option.
- You can either select a predefined template or close the window and start with a blank board.
- On the empty board, you can select the frame type or size from the available options. Frames help you demarcate areas on the board, structure, and manage content. You can also easily export a frame.
- Once you have selected a custom frame, you can add sticky notes, mind maps, text, or videos to it. When you have multiple frames on a board, you can zoom out to view all of them together.
How to Create a Mind Map
A mind map is an effective tool for brainstorming and structuring your thought process. Visualization is key to plan the work and look at the idea in its entirety.
- To view the Mind map option, click the horizontal ellipsis at the bottom of the app menu on the left of the screen. Select Mind map and click anywhere on the whiteboard to place it.
- Click on the + icon on the first node to create child nodes for the mind map.
Once you have the basic setup for the mind map, you can add notes, text, or videos.
Collating Your Research With Miro
Whether you are a technical expert or manager, researching is a vital task for every role. Traditionally, you would save links to the website, URLs for videos, images in a document. But it isn't very informative, and the collection is linear. The situation becomes complicated when you return to the research to realize that the original train of thought is lost.
You can place the content logically and preview it on Miro as you traverse the different parts of the research.
You can place sticky notes as reminders, add videos and images, and leave comments for other contributors.
You can expand a multi-page document by selecting the Extract pages option on the document's first page. All the pages are displayed the same way as physical paper prints.
Reviewing and Collaboration Tools
There are many ways to share content on Miro. You can share your board directly via Slack or Gmail. If these options are not available, you can share the board with an individual or a team and assign them relevant rights.
To share your feedback, you can react to a board, tag others, ask questions, add comments, and keep track of these comments by resolving them. All these features replicate the in-person review process seamlessly.
The tagging feature allows you to notify team members, only the specific board users, or a teammate via their email ID. You can differentiate between comments and questions by color-coding them.
You can add quick reactions similar to Twitter or Facebook to the Miro board or ask a question by clicking the Reactions options. Even though adding reactions is a new feature in Miro, it feels familiar due to its popularity on other social media platforms.
You can also select the Emoji option from the Apps window and place an emoji anywhere on the board to make collaboration more fun.