Introducing New Stormboard
An All-new System Architecture and Rendering Engine to Power Stormboard
Over the past several months, our team has been working incredibly hard behind the scenes to prepare an update to Stormboard unlike anything we’ve ever done before.
This project took our design, engineering, and development teams thousands of hours to take from concept and design to testing and rollout — and we are finally ready to share it with the world!
What is New Stormboard?
The way-too-simple explanation of this project is: massive performance improvements.
In reality, the entire project is much more complex than just performance improvements (and we’ll explain a little more about that below). But what you are probably wondering is “how does this affect me as a Stormboard user?”
The primary objective for this project was to take what is already great about Stormboard and add even more power and potential. That means less lag, better responsiveness, and better capabilities.
“It’s like Stormboard on steroids.”
-Long-time Stormboard User during Beta Testing
The immediate impact of New Stormboard will be huge: your projects and collaborations have no more limits. You can expect overall performance improvements, more reactive features, and a faster, more responsive working environment, including boosts like:
Even more ideas per Storm
Support for more users in every Storm
Smoother overall operation
Where this gets really exciting though, is the doors that this new engine opens for us and our development team to improve and innovate.
Upgraded Line Connectors
One of the first things you will notice in the New Stormboard is our new and improved line connectors.
This user-favorite feature got a huge makeover over the course of this project.
The new and improved line connectors now allow users to:
Click anywhere on a line connector to open the menu.
Select from 17 new end points and easily swap line connector directions!
Drag a line connector end to a fixed point on an idea.
Whether you are process mapping, charting dependencies, or trying to demonstrate information flow and idea relationships, these new line connectors add an entirely new degree of versatility to your digital workspace.
Colors and Customization
While we were at it, we thought your Storms could use a little more flair as well. With our new engine, we are now able to support even more color options for your sections.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to customizing and configuring your Storms, and we are already hard at work behind the scenes coming up with our next big update.
All-New Features
While we are extremely excited to announce all of these updates and improvements, we also have a few secret projects that we aren’t ready to show you just yet…but are on the way with launches and improvements planned throughout this year (and next).
But just because we can’t show you yet doesn’t mean we can’t give you a little hint...Coming later this year, we will be adding a new layer of visualization to the in-Storm experience — allowing you to work more fluidly and better showcase important relationships between ideas in your Storms.
So what did we do, and why does it matter?
For those of you interested in some of the behind-the-scenes math and magic of Stormboard, our development team has put together a run-down of what the New Stormboard is all about, how it works, and what exactly it all means.
We re-wrote our entire in-Storm experience in a new technology, moving to a more complex, but much more powerful rendering engine. This upgrade allows us to provide users with a more responsive interface able to handle higher loads (more users in a Storm are able to work faster, with dramatically reduced lag between input and visualization).
“We could not be more excited about the future of Stormboard. With this latest release, our team has opened a number doors for future expansion of the platform, the addition of new features and functions, and continued overall improvement.” — Michael Bollman, Chief Technical Officer and Stormboard co-founder
Input Latency / Lag
Stormboard’s new rendering engine is the driver behind our biggest changes and new capabilities. In essence, the rendering engine is key to everything you do within a Storm — from adding ideas and files to mapping dependencies and changing section sizes.
To put it as simply as possible, you’ll notice that everything just feels faster and smoother now, even in huge Storms with hundreds or thousands of ideas. Actions like dragging ideas, panning, and zooming rarely dip below the magical rendering target of 60 frames per second (fps) where your brain starts to interpret this as “lag” or “jitter.”
What changes will I see?
On the surface, you might not notice much in the way Stormboard looks — aside from the new color palette mentioned above and the upgraded line connectors — but you will certainly notice a change in how Stormboard feels.
Throughout this entire project we were focused on making sure that you — the everyday Stormboard user — experienced a seamless transition from the old Stormboard to the new and improved version.
It’s important for us to mention that even with this huge change, all of your Storms, data, ideas, and projects will be unaffected.
Security and continuity remain at the top of our priority list, and we made every effort to ensure you and your team can confidently and securely continue your work and collaboration throughout the switch over.
The technical side of this project can get fairly complicated fairly quickly — we wanted this announcement to be as easy as possible to understand, but if you have any lingering questions, please do not hesitate to Contact Us and we can get into as much detail as you would like!
Results
We have some preliminary data from our testing phases that are very promising, but this project is far from over. You will likely notice dramatic performance boosts starting immediately, and the more you use Stormboard with your team, the more data we will have to continue improving.
On top of that, this new rendering engine and performance boost will allow us to focus on what really matters — improving the way you work and collaborate. We teased some new features and functionalities that are on the way, and we couldn’t be more excited to share them with you!
Finally, this entire project was done in consultation with our users and customers. Without your input, we would not have been able to figure out what wasn’t working, what you wanted to see next, and performance improvements would mean the most to you.
We would also like to thank all of our valuable Stormboard users who participated in our Beta Testing Phase, providing us with data, feedback, and input on the New Stormboard.
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