Lucidchart

Ever wanted to share data & exchange ideas or modify the pictorial representation? Well, that’s what Lucidchart is all about. Whether it involves creating a chart from scratch or reviewing (albeit collectively with your team), this is the package for you! Let’s browse through some of their exciting features…

For the novices or statistician nerds (geeks are always welcome!), this powerful tool provides a framework for data analysis via convenient visualisation. Literally, draw your ideas on the virtual whiteboard provided & admire the results. Create organisational maps as well. This is a versatile app, as it caters to designing the following:

• Diagram cum flowcharts for procedural protocols
• Software & systems design: now you can progress more methodically & efficiently
• Process maps: your logic gate & program flow woes have been answered!
• Simpler organisational management makeup & hierarchy can also be depicted in this way
• Representing agile planning in a systematic yet effective way

All good so far, however, let’s take a look at Lucidchart’s not so fine attributes:

• The common offender: an interface that delivers poor file & folder management, in terms of both accessibility as well as revisability. The structure has been reported by users to be somewhat complex
• Object linking via lines can be cumbersome
• Not very user friendly or ergonomic when creating larger flowcharts & sharing options are also not very intuitive
• It has inherent glitches, making the experience a rocky ride at times, riddled with errors
• It lacks compatibility with many other 3rd party apps & also doesn’t configure well with printing on hard media
• Poor resource management when storage is concerned
• Lacks its own audiovisual material for flowcharts, often warranting external sources to be sought for instead: an incomplete or neglected development flaw, perhaps?

Overall, even if you’re an amateur, Lucidchart has some helpful tools to facilitate your technical planning & graphical or drawing-based needs. However, looking at the volume of cons (namely concerns & problems) that users have encountered, getting cold feet is natural. After all, they appear to outweigh the benefits, although may not affect all users equally (depending on situational contexts & applications). Advice: set yourself a clear expectation as to which feature you’ll need to use most & then decide after comparing with other competitors accordingly. Remember, user reviews are the best primary sources of information!