Tools and Tips for Visual Thinking

Delightful Mind Mapping for your Mac, iPad and iPhone. MindNode helps you visualize your ideas. Start with a central thought and then brainstorm, organize and share your mind maps.

Build charts online with the easy to use ChartBlock chart designer interface. Upload your data then set to work designing your chart.

Highcharts - Interactive JavaScript charts for your web pages.

Junkyard helps you visually organize ideas and create attractive mind map illustrations. Create text boxes with your notes and ideas. Arrange and rearrange them. Draw connections between them. Change fonts, colors, add arrows, place graphics on the canvas. Separate topics into their own tabs.

Raw is an open web app to create custom vector-based visualizations on top of the amazing D3.js library through a simple interface.

Raw is an open and customizable project (LGPL license), and you can freely download it and modify it. If you want to contribute to its evolution, fork the project on GitHub! Even though Raw is a web app, the data you upload will be processed only by the web browser. No server-side operations or storages are performed, no one will see, touch or copy your data! Primarily conceived as a tool for designers and vis geeks, Raw allows to export visualizations in vector (SVG) or raster (PNG) format and embed them in your web page.

Thinglink is a tool for image interaction that allow content sharing via online images. The purpose of ThingLink, is to allow photos and other images to be made into web links. Use it to design interactive posters and visual content.

Create, share and collaboratively work on mind maps with MindMeister, the leading online mind mapping software.

A useful MindMapping tool for iOS, Mac OS X and Windows.

Use mind maps to develop critical thinking skills by explore information and decide what's important and how it connects with what you already know. Create beautiful mind map online and share them with others or work collaboratively and mind map your next project.

Create, publish and share data visualizations, infographics and online charts.

XMind is the most professional and popular mind mapping tool. Millions of people use XMind to clarify thinking, manage complex information, run brainstorming and get work organized.

The Digital Society School Design Method Toolkit enables you to get started and enrich your design process. A collection of design and research methods: categorised to help you select, time based to help you plan. Plan and execute your design research, ideation, experimentation and creation within short iterations.

Autodesk SketchBook is the drawing app made for those who include sketching as part of their daily routine, from creative professionals to aspiring artists. With SketchBook, drawing and painting on your iPad or iPhone feels like a natural creative experience. SketchBook's powerful brush engine has over 170 customizable brushes, which perform exactly as you expect. Ink feels fluid and smooth, synthetic brushes blend colors in a natural way, and texture brushes mimic natural media.

Search, compare and make free time lines on TimeRime.com. The time lines can be filled with audio and video fragments such as MP3 and YouTube.

When inspiration happens, put it on Paper. Use this app for visual notes, photos, and sketches. Draw on photos or quickly spotlight details. Sketch diagrams with unbeatable speed and ease.

Whether you’re plotting your next thriller or writing your dissertation, designing a course, managing a legal practice, coordinating a campaign or planning a season of orchestral concerts, Tinderbox 7 will be your personal information assistant.

Our free online timeline maker allows you to easily create and customize a timeline with our drag and drop interface.

iThoughts is a mind mapping app for iOS, Mac and Windows

A mattermap is a visual representation of a news story, debate or event. Our software assists users in collecting and organizing information, quotes and sources around a central question. The result is a clear infographic: a mattermap. Mattermaps allow for various points of view on a topic to be displayed, and give insight into where the creator got his information. The reader is provided with a single glance overview of the ongoing debate.

Boords is online storyboarding software that lets you create and share storyboards quickly and easily.

WiseMapping is a free, fast and simple online mind mapping editor for individuals and business. Sign up to start organizing and sharing your ideas and thoughts.

Rather than just read about Inkflow, go ahead and try it out: We've decided to make the Basic Edition of Inkflow completely FREE. The Basic Edition comes with the Fountain Pen in black ink and all the features above. Books max out at 20 pages each, but you can create as many as you like. Inkflow is perfect for:

• Brainstorming
• Planning and scheduling
• Graphic design and layout
• Sketching and doodling
• Notes, Sketch notes, Mindmaps, etc.
• And pretty much anything else you would use pen and paper for.

Comic Master allows you to create your own short graphic novel. Create your own graphic novel with this interactive comics tool that uses prompt questions to help you.

Milkr works in line with your brain's natural way. Explore ideas, manage knowledge, share thoughts and connect people just in one place.

StoryMapJS is a free tool to help you tell stories on the web that highlight the locations of a series of events. It is a new tool, yet stable in our development environment, and it has a friendly authoring tool.

There are a couple ways you can make a StoryMap.
Add a slide for each place in your story. Setting the location is as easy as a text search for the name, address, or latitude and longitude. You can change the visual style of your map with a few presets, or you can use Mapbox to create your own style. You can tell stories with large photographs, works of art, historic maps, and other image files. Because it works best with pixel-dense files, we call these gigapixel. Setting one up requires you to host files on a web server.