InVision - Best Business Technology - Other

Company: InVision, New York City, NY
Entry Submitted By: kglobal
Company Description: InVision is the platform for inclusive collaboration within digital product design and development. More than 7 million people use InVision to power a repeatable and streamlined design workflow. That includes tens of thousands of organizations, including 100% of the Fortune 100.
Nomination Category: New Product & Service Categories - Business Technology
Nomination Sub Category: Business Technology - Other

Nomination Title: InVision's Freehand

Released June 11, 2020

InVision Freehand is the only digital whiteboard that’s truly for everyone. The tool has never been more relevant than today, as remote work is the new normal and visual collaboration is a critical way for teams to collaborate across any department. Additionally, Freehand is the only whiteboard that is seamlessly integrated into the product development process, as it also can fit within the broader InVision platform and can act as the design thinking point of origin. That’s so important, because the speed of digital product design and development has accelerated faster than anyone predicted, and teams are required to create and ship digital products that are, in 2021, their most central customer experience . That’s why we designed Freehand to be so simple, everyone can use it.

To respond to surging usage following the move towards remote work and increasing need for product development, in the past year InVision made Freehand more engaging than ever, with more than 20 meaningful updates including sticky notes, version history, emoji reactions, easy voting tools, exporting capabilities, shape locking, and popular templates like brainstorming and wireframing. In late fall, we launched templates by some of the world’s leading teams at AWS, Atlasssian, Microsoft Teams, XBox and so many more, allowing teams to learn tricks and practices from the very best enterprise organizations in the world. Together these features create a compelling tool that can guide any user through work challenges within an infinite whiteboard that, in many cases, serves as a more powerful, pleasant, and rewarding experience than standard digital exchanges.

The numbers don’t lie: we’ve seen triple-digit growth since March 2020, (more than 180% YoY growth by enterprise teams) and we don’t think we’ve seen peak usage yet.

When the pandemic first hit, companies needed to figure out how to meet. While historically teams were reluctant to collaborate virtually, suddenly, it was a necessity. As we’ve adapted to this new normal, it is now, in many cases, preferred. It’s faster to organize, removes location as a barrier, and integrates collaboration tools that make work actionable. Freehand is a unique product that’s seamless to use, easy for any stakeholder to jump in and share ideas, and unlock the power of the team itself.

We believe that the power of Freehand is not visible but felt. This principle was on full display as we launched a slew of new updates in spring 2020. Remote work is the new normal and our customers—who have also been rapidly investing in their digital products in unanticipated ways—are faced with completely new communication challenges. Demand for Freehand skyrocketed from design teams, engineering teams, and from HR, marketing, and IT teams. We saw entirely new customers who were turning their focus on digital products for the first time, and teams that needed to rethink nearly every aspect of their business for a new world.

Freehand is built for anyone within an organization to feel at home. Because of InVision’s long history serving the digital product design space, those in design and product are most familiar with Freehand, but even those user groups are expanding in both importance and size, as customer experience matters now more than ever.

https://www.invisionapp.com/freehand
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wHdDPfnbB0
https://hackernoon.com/invision-gains-2-million-users-adds-freehand-templates-interview-t9293zye
https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/11/invision-adds-new-features-to-freehand-a-virtual-whiteboard-tool-as-user-demand-surges/
https://invisionapp.wistia.com/medias/q0yolqxhnt