Improve everyday collaboration in Mural with our upgraded user interface and more!

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Updated:
May 23, 2023
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UI components of Mural on a violet background
Improve everyday collaboration in Mural with our upgraded user interface and more!
Written by 
Morgan Kozol
 and 
  —  
May 23, 2023
Improve everyday collaboration in Mural with our upgraded user interface and a roundup of recent enhancements… plus a sneak peek of a few on the way!

We’ve upgraded our user interface with subtle yet thoughtful design changes to create a more vibrant and delightful experience while collaborating. Rounded corners and drop shadows on sticky notes, bold new high-contrast iconography on toolbars and menus for improved accessibility, and moments of playful animation add both surprise and excitement. Working in Mural everyday should be fun, after all!

But beyond our new and improved look, we’ve also simplified our navigation to put the features you use most front and center. This means less time searching, and more time doing. Highlights include:

  • Text and sticky notes each have their own section in the left toolbar for quick access, since these are the most common ways to express ideas in a mural.
  • Facilitation Superpowers®
  • features including timer, private mode, laser pointer and more are intuitively grouped together in the top bar for more seamless control while running meetings.
  • The mini-map can now be toggled on/off when you want more working space in your murals. Learn more.

Wait there’s more! Here’s a roundup of everyday collaboration enhancements we recently added that enhance how you work in Mural and collaborate with your team daily:

Import and extract pages from Microsoft documents & PDFs* (*public beta)

Seamlessly import and extract slides from Microsoft PowerPoint right into Mural to present directly from the canvas or use our collection of visual thinking tools to brainstorm and annotate content for your next presentation as a team in Mural.

This also works with Word, Excel, and PDF files. Add a document to your mural to give teammates information to review ahead of a meeting, or present Excel charts and visuals easily right within Mural. Learn more.

Further express your ideas with improved text formatting in sticky notes

Bold, strikethrough, underline, or italicize specific words in sticky notes to further accentuate or express ideas visually, and create bulleted and numbered lists to organize your thoughts easily. Available using standard keyboard shortcuts or the ‘T’ icon in the sticky note’s toolbar.

Get started quickly with Mural’s template library now available in the canvas

Whether you’re looking to kick off a brainstorming session, deepen cross-functional alignment, or strategize on OKRs, you can now easily add a template to the canvas from the left-hand toolbar to save time and jumpstart team collaboration.

Express a wider range of emotions with five new live emoji reactions

To visually share how you’re feeling in the moment, hover over one of our five new reactions (😂,👏,😢,👎,😮) added to the bottom bar to the left of your avatar. Click the emoji once or multiple times for it to float across the screen for other collaborators to see.

Try these features out in Mural today!

Structure and streamline your creative thought processes with mind maps* (*public beta)

Mind maps are a powerful tool for structuring creative thought processes like brainstorms, notes, and concept planning in a free-flowing, intuitive way. Coming soon in public beta is Mural’s new mind mapping feature, enabling your team to brainstorm more effectively by structuring ideas quickly and breaking down large concepts into specifics and expanding on certain ideas as needed.

Make hybrid and asynchronous collaboration fun and engaging by adding emoji reactions to a sticky note

You and your fellow collaborators have great ideas — and sometimes you want to show just how impressed you are by reacting visually. Coming soon you’ll be able to add reactions to sticky notes so facilitators and other collaborators can quickly assess which ideas are worth further focus. Plus, it adds a fun way to quickly and easily gauge the overall sentiment around an idea.

And a new feature we’re excited to announce coming soon!

Open and view images from your mural directly in the same browser tab

Our improved image viewer lets you open and view images from your mural directly in the same browser tab with easy full-screen viewing and zoom controls. This makes your life easier and lets you zoom in on the details without losing the context of your mural in a sea of browser tabs.

*Currently in public beta. Subject to testing and defects. Provided warranty free, "as is" and "as available" basis. Mural not liable for any losses that may result from public beta.

Morgan Kozol
Morgan Kozol
Senior Product Marketing Manager @ MURAL with a passion for all things visual. A Seattle native, you can usually find her backpacking or searching for the perfect taco.
Published on 
May 23, 2023