Web-based collaborative user story and journey mapping tool
4.2/5 (168 reviews)Pros
* Very easy to start using it. After you get yourself familiar with the Story Map Concept and sign up for CardBoard, you can start doing the mapping exercise in no-time.
* Simple, yet powerful interface. There aren't too many features in the interface (and I'm not saying they are needed), and that makes the UI nice and clean. You won't get lost in tons of unnecessary or rarely used features, everything is at hand and useful.
Cons
The app itself is great, the following points are not criticism, rather ways of further improvement:
* Story mapping is not a wide know concept, so some tutorial(s) about story mapping would be great. For example, the competitors storiesonboard offers a "User Story Mapping for beginners" guide. Something like this would be helpful for CardBoard users as well.
* UI could benefit from some additions, e.g. to allow to increase the card titles font.
Thank you for the review and suggestions for future improvements.
Overall, this has changed my teams approach of how we work with the business! It is a great interactive tool and our business stakeholders love walking through the roadmap and scope in this collaborative tool!
Pros
The software simply and quickly allows us to build the framework (skeleton/backbone) of the business process and how technology supports through through the power of cards. Through this process we able to quickly understand our knowledge gaps. The journey feature also provides focus during deeper discussions.
Cons
Most of the quirks were address in the latest update (biggest being the introduction of colors and new layouts). However, we still struggle with the printing capabilities and how if needed we need to share in a planning session.
Thank you for your review!
Anyone who has read the User Story Mapping book gets why a tool like CardBoard is great for doing/saving story maps. It did install easily and I got started quick enough.
In my searching/research, I eventually came across StoriesOnBoard, who also follow the tenets in Patton's book. However, they clearly have the imagination to take it further and built in better tools for managing multiple stories, etc. We ended up choosing SoB, despite the fact that (at the time) they didn't have TFS integration.
And while this wasn't a factor in my decision, the CEO himself did a late night (for him, in Europe) walk through demo with me to answer some of my questions.
Pros
I learned about CardBoard from book, User Story Mapping. I so wanted this to be more, but it's a basic implementation of story boarding. It did have TFS integration, which I wanted. I also loved the whole premise of a virtual board for doing story mapping with a remote team.
Cons
I found it to be too basic and not very imaginative in its implementation. Given that we'd want to use it with multiple stories and have one place, I felt it didn't give us the tools to do that.
I found the software quite useful for basic storyboarding and brainstorming new projects. Unfortunately, due to the limitations of the JIRA integration and the nature of the work I'm doing, it just wasn't useful for anything other than large/complicated projects that need a fair amount of planning and it could only be used in the initial stages. Once I had the list of story "slugs" it was better to manually migrate the list over to JIRA and cease using Cardboard.
Pros
I quite liked the intuitive interface and ease of storyboarding things.
Cons
The JIRA integration left something to be desired. The software did not do a good job of informing me of what it would do when I synced the two. It was also not clear to me that this was not a constant sync. Changes in one product were not automatically migrated over to the other. This was especially problematic because later syncs of the stories and epics caused duplicates of the previously synchronized items to appear because the system did not identify previously sync'd stories.
I stumbled upon CardBoard a long time ago (2011) when I wanted an easy way to capture a Story Map. I really liked how easy it was to drop cards, move them around, and add some comments. The Team really enjoyed the look and feel of it. It did what we wanted and nothing more. I'm not a heavy user of it, but when I do need to put together a Story Map, CardBoard is what I turn to.
Pros
The simplicity of the tool, it provided me with what I wanted and did not over complicate it with features I did not need.
Cons
The export to excel option was pretty messy, but then again why export it?
What I wanted was a way to capture the full board visually to put into a document or communication, to show the overall Story Map (which I could not get in screen shots) I realize I could provide a link to the board for people to access and see the actual Map, but sometimes you just want a picture of it to support a communication.
We use CardBoard for release-slicing and roadmapping, as well as for the overall purpose of user story mapping. It plays well with others and is easy to use. Software that is this well-done is extremely hard to find these days. I highly recommend this software.
Pros
Web-based, so it's everywhere you need it to be.
Cons
I would like a project-based pricing model, rather than a community one. Sometimes what I need is one board for a group of people who will never work together again.
OK, because
did not found anything else so far providing same experience working with sticky notes, for mixed teams (co-located and not).
Pros
Do story mapping workshops having something similar to sticky notes, if teams are not co-located (which is the best, but not always achievable). Even if local parts are done in analog way, we transform it to cardboard in order to keep the high level overview and be able to tell others the "the story" in order to get them involved.
Cons
Managing large boards is hard, but sure ... not really easy, if you do not have such large physical boards and flipchart papers you can move arround in an room ...
Analog workshops do support paint anything to the board/flipchart-paper (arrows, little pictures, "links by arrows this related to that) => not really possible with cardboard (in the same you it happens in such analog workshops)
The tool is great for presenting the roadmap to leadership, stakeholders, and Engineers. I would highly recommend it, however, would also suggest getting enough licences for all folks on your team due to the limited export capabilities.
Pros
The application is intuitive and it's very easy to demonstrate the importance of technical debt to stakeholders.
Cons
The export capability is limited. The description of the cards can not be exported without printing each card individually. The board view PDF export is not as user friendly/aesthetically pleasing as the actual application. Stakeholders are asking for PDF exports, however, I hesitate to share due to the aforementioned reasons.
I've built out hundreds of mappings using this tool and never run into an issue.
Pros
I love that this is very simplistic. Story mapping shouldn't be complicated. This software is exactly what you need to map out your next project. It allows for easy collaboration with your team. You can leave notes on tickets. You can easily change the color, had swim lanes, add sections for V1, V2, ect. If you're looking for an easy tool to easily digitize your next story map, this is a great choice.
Cons
There are a couple funny UX things that you'll realize really quickly and figure out how to accomplish that task. Specifically around moving cards and making mass changes.
Thank you for your review! Simplicity in use is what we strive for every day when we make design decisions.
I've been using it for years. It was probably one of the first electronic story board mapping tools available. It now has a different UI with added bells and whistles. I don't necessarily need them all, but it's nice to see that it's being improved.
Pros
It's great to have a way to keep your sticky notes in an electronic format versus on a wall falling off after a few weeks.
We use it to create simple story boards for multiple use cases and can share with distributed teams.
Cons
The copy paste functionality is horrible. Previously, you could copy a series of cards and then paste to quickly create different use cases/jouneys in the same board. It would create a copy directly over your original layouts. You could then move the duplicates where ever you wanted and quickly update. Now, when you paste, it shifts everything down and I have to spend 10 minutes shifting individual cards back up. That's my only main problem with the tool.
Thank you for your review!
Pros
The service is pretty intuitive with a mostly point/click and drag/drop interface. It's easy to change colors and otherwise notate special things about the individual items. I also enjoy the ability to "flip" them for additional info while keeping the face "clean."
Cons
It's hard to really get in and kick the tires with the free account... there was initially no option to make your trial boards private, so you either had to be perfectly comfortable with anyone in the world seeing what you're testing, or you had to try to test how well this will work for you using purely hypothetical situations. That's what I did, and I found it was very difficult to decide to pull the trigger for a paid account when I couldn't really use it accurately during the test drive. Seems that they have since allowed you to "upgrade" to a 30-day trial account before paying.
It's a useful tool which gets the job done. You sign up, and create a board without even thinking about the functions. It's that easy. Especially after they updated the interface.
Keep in mind the tool is more in the freeform category - you can place anything anywhere in a grid - it won't require you to put specific things in specific slots. The drawback of it is that while it is comfortable, it can't fully integrate with task/issue tracking tools.
Pros
While working with paper and stickies is the most quick tool to adopt, sometimes a digital one is required, as it provides certain benefits (quick editing; sharing; remote collaboration).
I liked that it required zero learning for the basics. I just did the storymaps without a hitch, no wondering how I can do this or that. Of course, it provides some advanced functionality, but for the pure, basic, stickies-on-the-wall, experience, you there isn't a learning curve. Just plug and do.
Cons
The free version is said to work like the GitHub model - all boards are public. Everyone can see them and browse them. So far so good. However, unlike GitHub where you can use one of several ways to get your repository to other people (sharing a link, inviting them, telling them the name of the repo...) I didn't find any of it here. I could not share the free board to my colleagues (even for viewing). There is a workaround with exporting, which can get the job done.
I understand this is their business model, but then the site should not describe it working as GitHub's public repos, as it, in practice, differs as an end result.
I used CarboardIT to map out the product a team was developing for a Hackathon. We had lots of ideas that needed to be agressive lying prioritized and then recorded for possible future development. The tool allowed remote members to get a view of what the team was up to and could have collaborated in real time if we needed.
Pros
CardboardIT is extremely easy to set up and get going with. I had my first board running and doing real work with in minutes. There were many examples of other boards to get ideas from but this is so easy to use you really don't need much.
I also loved the free trial. It is fully functional but requires that your board remain publicly visible. That was perfect for the 1 week hackathon project we used it for. If I were to continue then I would definitely pay the small fee to keep the board going.
Cons
There's not much not to like. It's straight forward and easy so I never had to call tech support or even consult the help file.
I suppose an integration with other tools like Jira might require a bit more thought but there's no need if you're using it as a stand alone product.
Thank you Wayne, I"m glad you enjoy using CardBoard!
Electronic tools for story mapping are really hard to come by. Fortunately we have found CardBoard.
Pros
The best thing about Cardboard is that it offers other modes of use, e.g. integrating to JIRA or printing cards for real world manipulation.
Cons
Sharing (allowing Viewers) for a large community is constrained by either configuration (public vs private) or administration (long list of emails.)
Thank you for your review as we look to improve CardBoard!
I've used this to do live training on storymaps and it's flawless. In a world of bloated tools, this is a gem!
Pros
It's simple and fast. Very easy to create story maps, journeys, and it's easy to slice the map into different chunks.
Cons
I suppose if I had to nitpick, a 'collapse' option for 'epics' would be handy, especially when you get into huge storymaps...although that would take away the free-flowing nature of the interface.
I’ve used it map out a the biggest project my old employer ever had.
Also smaller components to describe it to customers, build with customers.
I did a talk on User Story Mapping at an agile meet up & demo’d Cardboard to the group and it was really well received.
Introduced my current P.O. to it after he did a map in Excel - he’ll never go back, loves it but still trying to get approval for it.
Pros
Ease of use - the way that the cards just rearrange themselves.
Being able to group quickly.
The blue line.
Downloading in csv.
Cons
‘Selling’ to various bosses at different work places. They just don’t seem to get it, even tho it’s really cheap & wont make a difference to the budget. Maybe that’s just an issue with me & the places I’ve worked.
It was functional, but it felt like there were too many obstacles in the way to be an efficient replacement for index cards and a camera. I can see it being useful for other teams but not for ours.
Pros
The learning curve was short, so picking up CardBoard and using it was fast. Creating cards and laying them out was easy.
Cons
The cards, as displayed, were much too small. In order to even include all of the information that a User Story requires for one side of the card much of the text was hidden. The back was always hidden. The grid layout was much too rigid, I had hoped for the ability to overlap cards. If these features were present they were not obvious.
Laying out cards initially was easy, but the UI resisted efforts to move cards very far (especially using a touch interface). If I needed to move a card to a different part of the board it was almost easier to delete and recreate it than move it.
Pros
Cardboard is easy and simple to use. Doesn't take much to get up and running. Nice for sharing story maps with remote users. Great for small story maps.
Cons
A little too simple. It becomes hard to manage with bigger maps.
Thank you for your review, check out our updates in the coming weeks and please let us know what you think!
Pros
The simplicity of the boards are fantastic and have caused several others in my company to adopt the product as well. It is great for visualizing plans to stakeholders, and for them to see the breakdown of the features and when development will happen
Cons
The JIRA integration needs work. We use JIRA extensively, with multiple boards for various work streams. The integrator on the Cardboard side does not allow for customization over what is being pulled, and therefore cannot filter out technical tasks when I only want the user stories coming through. This needs to be fixed for it to get 5 stars.
Pros
It's open ended with what I can do. I like being able to move the cards anywhere I want, the user journey functionality is a great idea, and it creates a good visual.
Cons
The number one issue is the navigation and use of the software. Moving cards around quickly and moving around the board (especially when sharing my screen) needs a lot of work. If it the use of this software improved, it would be my main story board. I still use a physical board for working sessions because of this.
Feedback allows us the opportunity to see what our customers think, and improve the process! Thank you so much for taking the time to review.
I have found using the tool has been unrivaled when doing things like card mapping. I have also found it useful to use during retrospectives.
Pros
I enjoy how easy it is to use. The dev team has integrated great features over the years.
Cons
While a lot of the features are great. There are times I wish it just remained a simple light weight tool.
Pros
- Allows you to keep your story map and edit it ongoing, unlike having it on the wall where it often has to come down and all you have left is a photo
- Great for distributed teams
Cons
- The lmitations are only those of doing anything on a screen, you can't step back and see the bigger picture
I tested a few story mapping tools and CardBoard came out on top in my tests. Just need to get budget approval now and I'll be able to start using it.
Pros
I really like the UI and the ease with which cards can be created and moved around - two of the most important things in story mapping.
I wasn't able to convince my Jira admin to set up the integration but from the videos I saw it looks to do exactly what I'm looking for.
Cons
I didn't like trying to rearrange all of the cards when one card in a column pushed out a bunch of others. There was a lot of multi-select drag and dropping of all other cards to fill the extra column rather than it disappearing once empty.
Thank you for your review! Let us know if there are any steps we can take to assist you in the approval process!
- Bad and Good
- The central idea of the board is nice
- Everything around seems to have been donc in a rush
- Management of teams are just a mess
- The idea a public boards, not searchable, messy . .. give you just a bad image
- Not intuitive (except for the cards management)
Pros
- The idea
- The fact that their is not real alternative to the product (not saying it's a good product, just not worst than competition)
- Easy to use and simple
- The journey feature
Cons
- Buggy
- The pricing model
- Missing at least a crucial features: descent printing (what do you think teams do with a Story Map)
- When you move things cards do not reorganized as expected and we end to have to move many cards across the screen. I should not be forced to think in advance what to enter first to avoid delating and moving things around after.
Your feedback is greatly appreciated!
Pros
The software tools look modern and easy to use. I was able to get accustomed to the application with great ease.
Cons
I think the application needs to have slightly more versatile for it to be used for a wider variety of reasons.
Keep an eye out for the coming updates in the next few weeks! We believe it will make your experience much more versatile!
I've become interested in product management and read about User Story Mapping technique. Then I googled for a story mapping software and that's how I got to CardBoard. I tried it for a few of my own projects and it worked nice! I was able to create a visual backlog of things I had to do, and track my progress against the backlog. Everything was very transparent and easy to understand, so I highly recommend learning Story Mapping and trying Cardboard to everybody.