Private mode for contributors


As mentioned here: https://community.miro.com/got-a-question-ask-the-community-45/hide-expose-sticky-content-private-mode-in-mural-2678#

I feel that Miro is missing a key feature for facilitating workshops. As a facilitator i'd like to enable users to enter their contributions privately (without showing the contents to the group) until the facilitator reveals all of them at once. (Private mode in mural and other tools). 

With the current way of working contributors are likely to be distracted and/or can be influenced by the input of others. In a retrospective it is key that participants can work on their input in a focused and non biased input.

 

@Jennifer Clark , @Matt Mulholland, @Marina : Do you know if this feature is on the road map already? As describe I feel it is essential at least for the workshops I facilitate and I am sure that I am not alone in this.

Currently leveraging all kind of workarounds like asking participants to use bulk mode and ask them to publish them once the time box expires. This does not help in adoption of the tool as many participants are familiar with other tools that did have this feature. 
 


Hey there Floor! 

Maybe @Kate Ivanova has some update on it? 

 

Kind regards, 

Matt 


Hi @Floor Verschure I would love to discover more about the use-case in the interview. Will DM you with the invite to the interview :pray:


To be honest, I used the “private mode for contributors” today on a mural board (as a guest), and you feel really: It makes a difference not seeing others input on sticky notes during brain writing / ideation. A kind of private mode would be an improvement here.


Private mode is really missing from Miro, at the moment. I wonder when it’s gonna be implemented. It’s really a gaping hole in the user experience. @MiroTeam: Do you have that in your backlog?


I am an avid Mural user and find the Private Mode essential to collaboration.  It enables you to group like ideas without the contributors to be influenced by each other.  Huge missing component in Miro.


Probably the quickest workaround I have found to date is to use a Miro Lite board as a throwaway “scratchpad”.

You would start by putting a link to Miro Lite (https://miro.com/lite/) on the board.

Once users click that link, they will be taken to a Miro Lite board in a new browser tab. From there they can create any objects that Miro Lite offers (Text, Shapes, Sticky Notes, Pen tool).

Once they are done, they can

  1. Ctrl/Cmd+A, Ctrl/Cmd+C to select everything and copy it to their clipboard
  2. switch over to the main Miro board,
  3. and Ctrl/Cmd+V to paste.

More on Miro List here → https://help.miro.com/hc/en-us/articles/360017557699-Miro-Lite


Hi @Floor Verschure I would love to discover more about the use-case in the interview. Will DM you with the invite to the interview :pray:

Reigniting this old thread here, wanted to check if we know , this requested popular feature is on the backlog anywhere close to implementation. @Kate Ivanova 

 

Thanks,

Saurabh


Today 50th vote was casted. It would be really great to prioritise this issue.

For me this is for now the only feature that I lack in miro and therefore I’m still using mural.


I can only support what has been said already - in my daily work this is the main feature missing from Miro at the moment and the reason we still use multiple tools instead of only Miro.


Agree with the above! This is one feature which made for a great experience in Mural. Would love to see this come to Miro.


Really wish we could add the ability to turn on an “private mode” on a board. This would turn off cursors and make all objects created owned by “Anonymous”, votes would also be by anonymous. Such a mode would enable retrospectives, frank workshops, and open honest discussions. Given the fact that Mural offers this feature and the number of requests, it surprises me that Miro hasn’t picked it up. Please add!


Seems this might be a nice addition to the Frame.

Sort of like the ideas we have in the Frame PDF Export idea (which needs more upvotes also).

Today we can make Frames hidden and they show a cute little closed eye with “Hidden for now”

Perhaps this button can have an option “Hidden for others” or “Visible to me only/Show frame/Hide frame”

 

 


 

Today we can make Frames hidden and they show a cute little closed eye with “Hidden for now”

Perhaps this button can have an option “Hidden for others” or “Visible to me only/Show frame/Hide frame”

 

Possibly! What’s being requested is ‘incognito’. Different from ‘visible only to me’, more ‘visible to all, but anonymously’. Not sure whether piggybacking the functionality on frames would be super convenient, or really confusing, but I would certainly be interested to see Miro’s take on this functionality.


 

Today we can make Frames hidden and they show a cute little closed eye with “Hidden for now”

Perhaps this button can have an option “Hidden for others” or “Visible to me only/Show frame/Hide frame”

 

Possibly! What’s being requested is ‘incognito’. Different from ‘visible only to me’, more ‘visible to all, but anonymously’. Not sure whether piggybacking the functionality on frames would be super convenient, or really confusing, but I would certainly be interested to see Miro’s take on this functionality.

 

I think that's what I was saying… It's a frame property to me. But perhaps somebody would design it differently… Here's how I would do it:

User journey for going incognito/anonymous/private for a frame.

 


If there was ever a case to be made for private mode on Miro as it provides what is a collaborative space, is simply:

 

  1. Mural as a competitor has this.
  2. When collaborating the need for diversity of views on a topic without the usual anchoring biases is critical for innovative ideas to flow.

I put the competitor feature first as you may well prioritize the need  based on competitors feature set more so then any one use case anyone of us is likely to express.

The use case of “private mode” can be

      1. “private to all participants” on the board

  1. to a selection of grouped set of participants, so small groups can collaborate and co-create while being incognito to other groups similarly formed for the duration of the collaboration.

 


I know about hiding frames, but that doesn’t address my use case.

Example #1 We have a team meeting to discuss how things went in the last sprint. We ask team members to join the board and leave feedback as post-its. We want team members to be frank with one another, and to feel as if they can leave negative comments without worrying about blowback from other team members. While team members are putting down their post-its, we want “private mode” turned on. All cursors are hidden, all properties that would connect an object to a particular person are set to “anonymous”.

 

Example #2 We have a kudos board where we ask team members to leave a comment for each member of the team. We want comments to be anonymous so that it doesn’t create any social awkwardness between team members. We put the board in anonymous mode for the duration.

 

Example #3: A team is dysfunctional. We want to brainstorm problems, then vote on the biggest problems. The brainstorming and the votes should be anonymous… but when it comes to developing solutions, we want to see who contributed what.

 

Does this help?

 


I know about hiding frames, but that doesn’t address my use case.

Example #1 We have a team meeting to discuss how things went in the last sprint. We ask team members to join the board and leave feedback as post-its. We want team members to be frank with one another, and to feel as if they can leave negative comments without worrying about blowback from other team members. While team members are putting down their post-its, we want “private mode” turned on. All cursors are hidden, all properties that would connect an object to a particular person are set to “anonymous”.

 

Example #2 We have a kudos board where we ask team members to leave a comment for each member of the team. We want comments to be anonymous so that it doesn’t create any social awkwardness between team members. We put the board in anonymous mode for the duration.

 

Example #3: A team is dysfunctional. We want to brainstorm problems, then vote on the biggest problems. The brainstorming and the votes should be anonymous… but when it comes to developing solutions, we want to see who contributed what.

 

Does this help?

 

We have this ability already. We can connect with a password to the boards where we wish to do this type of collaboration by opening an incognito window in chrome using that password and we can name our user account anything they want when we connect.

The original poster didn't put all these use cases. I was addressing post #1, which stated very clearly the need and I show how the workflow might be built to allow them to do hide a user's activity until they wish to show it to everybody, which isn't possible today unless you have a moderator who will copy everything from the players boards to a common board for the presentation.

I think in your case, you want, like me with the PDF issue, to make it a bit easier to access.

For example, I want the PDF to automatically title the slides.

In your case you not only want to be able to work (as described in the first post) without other seeing you, but you also want the history to reflect a name other than your own.

So, we might ask that Miro offer us incognito mode for Miro just like we have with chrome. In that case, my drawings above would be not just anonymous for the frame, but also for any comments, object history, voting, deletions in activity window, etc.

Seems reasonable, but again all of these things already work today.

  1. If you want to host an activity meeting, you simply have each person create their own board and share it with the mediator. The mediator can copy and paste to the common board to present.
  2. If you want to let the users protect their identify from the mediator, you give them a board with a password and tell them to use chrome incognito mode. So the mediator will publish a new board link with a password and each user will copy their own private work to the mediator's shared board. Saves the mediator from needed top open or copy/paste anything.
  3. If you want to vote, use the same technique. Board with password + Chrome Incognito for users.
  4. If you want to comment, use the same technique. Board with password + Chrome Incognito for users.

 

So I believe point 1 covers the OPs ideas and I believe points 2-4 cover your points?

Am I missing something?


If there was ever a case to be made for private mode on Miro as it provides what is a collaborative space, is simply:

 

  1. Mural as a competitor has this.
  2. When collaborating the need for diversity of views on a topic without the usual anchoring biases is critical for innovative ideas to flow.

I put the competitor feature first as you may well prioritize the need  based on competitors feature set more so then any one use case anyone of us is likely to express.

The use case of “private mode” can be

      1. “private to all participants” on the board

  1. to a selection of grouped set of participants, so small groups can collaborate and co-create while being incognito to other groups similarly formed for the duration of the collaboration.

 

Same reply as I had for Hagan above…

You can use board + password to allow private mode.

You simply share the board using a password and the participants open the board using a chrome profile or an incognito mode where they are not logged into miro with their user account. They can choose their own name/alias and all the comments will be setup with the code/name they choose upon logging into the board with a password.

I've been using Miro since it was called Realtimeboard and there isn't anything better. Mural seems to force me into a box. Do you guys really like it?

This is pretty slow… I like miro...
hmm.. yes. if I want to show my authorship, I will edit my own private board and then when the mediator asks me, I will copy everything I created to the mediator's board. I think Miro has everything I need.

 


Ok, yes, I read again all the posts just to be sure I wasn't missing anything.

Thank you all for pushing on me a little.

The password feature in miro gives you everything you need.

 

In fact this gives me some ideas. It gives a way to comment or add material to ANY miro board in an incognito mode. So if you ever need to make an anonymous comment, you just open the board and share a password and then login with that information from an incognito window in your browser. If the boards are created with passwords and the password information is shared on the board, everybody can participate whenever they wish.

Same effect as Mural with a couple more clicks.

Same situation with the PDF titles that people are asking for in the other thread. They want to save a few clicks. I think in these situations, Miro could really help out but they certainly do already provide you with a way to make this work. And if you are creative with it, I bet you will find that it is better than Mural is every way.

Good luck.


Password mode in Miro does not give me what we need. What you’re talking about is that the user has to leave the board and then return to it, using Chrome.

  1. I have users who cannot use Chrome.
  2. I have users who are novices to Miro, and I can’t use a solution that has them jump through hoops to enter private mode. I need it to be something that the facilitator can do.
  3. Forcing the board to be a public board with a password is in violation of our company guidelines. I require access to the board to be managed separately from the anonymous mode.

Hey! What's going on with this feature? Is Miro team working on it? 

I hosted a leadership workshop yesterday and one of the feedbacks given (as in all previous workshops) was that they really apprecited the new voting feature, i.e. votes are revealed when everyone has casted their vote. 

BUT Same thing is missing for post-it idea generation. What we would need is this:
1. we select postits/objects that will be used for anonymous brainstormin

  1. set the timer on
  2.  once the timer is on, you can see that someone is working on a post it, but don't see the content
  3. once the time is up, all post it contents are revealed
  4. thus - you get ideation without unnecessary anchoring and biases which is intertwined with the current way of brainstorming. + it's so much more convenient compared to asking people write their ideas in some other chrome tabs or somewhere else and copying them. 

Any updates on this? We would LOVE this feature (Private / anonymous posting). I would get much better feedback. I’m currently having to use other free tools to get this feature (Ideaboardz, funretro, easyretro) for our retrospectives. 


Hey,


Is there any update on this topic? I would love to have this while doing silent brainstorming. The work arounds proposed are not very user friendly and add too much hassle to make it enjoyable.


Private mode to capture inputs from participants in an anonymous way is a high value feature which is really missing in Miro for facilitators.
@Miro Product Owner(s): Any plan to make it available in the near future?