I work in web development and over the past five years or so I’ve seen these “infinite canvas” or “whiteboard” applications proliferate over the years. A short concentrated list of these things would include miro, freeform, and obsidian. A longer list would include things like Confluence whiteboards and even things like Figma.
These applications always seem like they’re the preferred tool of people who love to navel gaze and go on long monologues about software development frameworks and “user experiences”.
I find navigating these tools to be frustrating and trying to “work collaboratively” in them to be even worse.
I understand some of them for some domains. (Figma I’ve grown to tolerate specifically because it seems to have a reasonable use case.)
But:
What is with these things, and why are there so many of them now?
Do they help anyone work better?
Do people actually like them, or are they just forced to use them?
You probably don’t like them because they aren’t meant for you and you aren’t used to them.
They should be used for brainstorming and maybe wire framing, or design in figma’s case. When designing or exploring the infinite space means you don’t have to stop mid session and move stuff around to fit pieces on a fixed canvas. It shouldn’t be used for anything final so the lack of constraints is good. They can also be good for interactive workshops.
If your team is using miro or the like for final work then they are using it wrong.