XMind ZEN

Brainstorming sessions are often organized within teams to figure out the best solutions for various problems. Whether you're a fan o this method or prefer the solo version of brainstorming, you can resort to mindmap tools to easily write down and sort these ideas.

Taking a sophisticated approach, XMind ZEN represents a simplified version of XMind, facilitating a clear-cut interface for designing mindmaps. It minimizes the amount of menus and buttons typically found in such software in an effort to create a distraction-free zone and let you better focus on tasks.

When trying to get familiarized with the app, you can press buttons found on an upper bar and menus. Later, though, you can use keyboard shortcuts. XMind ZEN actually has an interactive tutorial that demonstrates the basics using hotkeys, like naming the central topic, creating subtopics and forming relationships.

The application comes bundled with over 25 mindmap templates, each with its own style, theme and colors. Some of the examples include business plan, marketing funnel, design response, problem solving, travel plan, and green food.

Aside from creating topics, subtopics and relationships, you can select multiple items to place boundaries, write summaries and notes, copy styles, edit labels, write hyperlinks, and attach images or any other type of file. XMind ZEN has a library filled with markers and stickers too.

It's possible to password-protect the mindmap files, import data from MindManager, Freemind or Lighten, as well as to export projects to PNG, PDF or text format. Moreover, projects can be shared via public or public links, blog, email, Evernote, Biggerplate, Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest.

All aspects considered, XMind ZEN adopts a clean and elegant interface that makes the whole mindmap designing process a delight. It also has intuitive and practical features that anyone can learn quickly, even users who haven't worked with such software before.