Mural: Visual Collaboration for Workshops

Mural is a visual collaboration platform built for teams that run structured workshops, design sprints, and innovation sessions. Unlike freeform whiteboards like Miro, Mural leans into facilitation with features like timers, voting, and private mode that help guide teams through design thinking exercises. It’s popular with enterprise teams, consultants, and anyone who runs remote workshops regularly.

Key Specs

How Designers Use Mural

Mural fits into the early stages of design work, where teams are exploring problems, generating ideas, and aligning on direction.

For Remote Design Workshops

Run design sprints, brainstorming sessions, and ideation workshops with distributed teams. Mural’s facilitation superpowers let you summon all participants to a specific area, set timers for exercises, and control what everyone sees. Use templates for Lightning Demos, Crazy 8s, or How Might We exercises. The structure keeps workshops on track.

For Research Synthesis

Organize user research findings with affinity diagrams and thematic analysis. Import interview notes, tag insights, and cluster themes together. Use voting to prioritize which insights matter most. Mural’s infinite canvas handles hundreds of sticky notes without feeling cluttered, and the outline view helps you see the structure of complex research.

For Journey Mapping and Service Design

Build customer journey maps, service blueprints, and experience maps collaboratively. Mural’s templates provide starting frameworks for common mapping exercises. Add personas, touchpoints, pain points, and opportunities. Export finished maps as images or PDFs to share with stakeholders who don’t need editing access.

For Strategic Planning and Roadmapping

Run OKR planning sessions, prioritization workshops, and roadmap alignment meetings. Use voting to gather team input on priorities. The private mode feature lets people work independently before revealing answers, reducing groupthink. Frameworks like 2x2 matrices, SWOT analysis, and impact/effort grids are built in.

Mural vs. Alternatives

How does Mural compare to other visual collaboration tools?

Choose Mural if: You run structured workshops regularly and need professional facilitation features. Worth the premium for consultants and innovation teams.

Choose Miro if: You want flexibility, a free tier, and the largest template community. Better for ad-hoc collaboration and teams on a budget.

Choose FigJam if: You already use Figma and want whiteboarding integrated with your design workflow. Great for design teams staying in one ecosystem.

Choose Lucidspark if: You need tight integration with diagramming (Lucidchart) and mind mapping. Good for teams that mix workshops with process documentation.

Getting Started with Mural

A quick guide to running your first workshop in Mural:

Step 1: Choose a template or start blank

Browse Mural’s template library by category (design thinking, agile, strategy). Pick a template that matches your workshop goal, or start with a blank canvas. Templates include instructions and frameworks to guide your session.

Step 2: Add content and structure

Use sticky notes (N key) for ideas, text boxes for instructions, shapes for frameworks, and images for inspiration. Create swim lanes or sections with colored backgrounds to organize the space. Add a parking lot area for off-topic ideas.

Step 3: Facilitate with timers and voting

When you’re ready to run the session, use the timer to keep exercises on track. Enable private mode so people can work independently before sharing. Use voting (stars or dots) to let the team prioritize ideas democratically. Summon participants to specific areas when it’s time to discuss results.

Mural in Your Design Workflow

Mural sits at the beginning of the design process, where you’re defining problems and exploring solutions.

• Before Mural: User research (Dovetail, interviews, surveys), stakeholder interviews
• During Mural: Workshops, synthesis, ideation, prioritization, journey mapping
• After Mural: Wireframing (Whimsical, Balsamiq), UI design (Figma, Sketch), documentation (Notion, Confluence)

Common tool pairings:

• Mural + Dovetail for synthesizing research insights into themes and opportunity areas
• Mural + Figma for moving from ideation workshops to detailed UI design
• Mural + Jira for turning workshop outcomes into development tickets and roadmaps
• Mural + Zoom for running remote workshops with video alongside the board

Common Problems (and How to Fix Them)

These issues come up regularly when teams adopt Mural. Here’s how to solve them.

“Mural is too expensive for our team”

Mural’s $12/member/month pricing (annual) adds up quickly for small teams. If budget is tight, consider Miro’s free tier for basic collaboration, or FigJam if you already pay for Figma. Mural’s pricing makes sense if you run workshops weekly, but it’s hard to justify for occasional brainstorming.

“The board feels cluttered and overwhelming”

Mural’s infinite canvas can become chaotic without structure. Use areas (colored backgrounds) to create clear sections. Add text labels as headers. Use the outline view to see the board’s structure. Delete duplicate or irrelevant sticky notes regularly. Consider creating multiple smaller boards instead of one massive board.

“Participants don’t know what to do”

Mural works best with clear instructions. Add text boxes explaining each exercise. Use the timer to create urgency. Enable private mode so people can work without watching others. Use summon to bring everyone to the same area when it’s time for group discussion. Record a quick Loom video walking through the board before the session.

“I can’t find old workshop content”

Mural’s search works across all boards, but only searches text content, not images. Use clear naming conventions for boards (include date and workshop type). Create folders to organize related boards. Export important boards as PDFs after each workshop for archival. Use tags to categorize boards by project or theme.

“Facilitation features are hidden or hard to find”

Mural’s facilitation superpowers live in the toolbar and right-click menus. Enable facilitator mode from the toolbar to access summon, timer, and private mode. Practice these features before your first workshop. Watch Mural’s official facilitation training videos to learn the shortcuts. The power is there, but it’s not as obvious as Miro’s interface.