18 Best Design Thinking Tools of 2025
Design Thinking Tools Shortlist
Here's my pick of the 10 best software from the 18 tools reviewed.
Our one-on-one guidance will help you find the perfect fit.
With so many different design thinking tools available, figuring out which one is right for you is time-consuming. You know you want a tool to help you understand design problems and generate creative solutions, but you need to figure out which option is best. In this article, I'll help you make this choice easier by sharing my insights on the best design thinking tools to foster creativity, innovation, and collaboration when navigating design challenges.
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Best Design Thinking Tools Summary
This comparison chart summarizes basic details about each of my top design thinking tool selections. You can view pricing details and the availability of free trials or demos side-by-side to help you find the best design platform for your budget and business needs.
| Tool | Best For | Trial Info | Price | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Best agile design thinking tool | Free plan available | From $8/user/month | Website | |
| 2 | Best for a highly flexible virtual whiteboard | Free plan available | From $15/seat/month (billed annually) | Website | |
| 3 | Best for video feedback from users | Free demo available | Pricing available upon request | Website | |
| 4 | Best design thinking tool for rapid prototyping & testing | 7-day free trial + free plan available | From $16/user/month (billed annually) | Website | |
| 5 | Best for collaborative mind mapping | Free trial + free version available (up to 3 mind maps) | From $6.99/month (billed semi-annually) | Website | |
| 6 | Best tool for building a shared workspace | Free plan available | From $8/user/month (billed annually) | Website | |
| 7 | Best tool for customer journey mapping | Free plan available | From $25/user/month | Website | |
| 8 | Best for small group breakout sessions | Free plan available | From $9/user/month | Website | |
| 9 | Best design thinking tool for enterprise collaboration | Free plan available | From $9.99/user/month (billed annually) | Website | |
| 10 | Best for persona generation | Free trial (1 persona) | From $16/month (10 users) | Website |
Best Design Thinking Tool Reviews
Here are brief descriptions of the top 10 design thinking tools on my shortlist that highlight what each tool does best, plus screenshots to showcase some of the features. I’ve also included a few more bonus options below if you’d like even more options to consider.
Miro is an online, collaborative design thinking tool that works a lot like a digital whiteboard. Its vast canvas accommodates a variety of expressions, from sticky notes and mind maps to images and freehand drawings, facilitating diverse idea representation. You also can translate Miro into over 100 different languages so language barriers need not apply when coming up with your best, most innovative new ideas.
Why I Picked Miro: Miro is great for agile teams who need to work fast and innovate often. Notably, the tool's integration with project and task management applications like Jira and Asana streamlines the transition from ideation to actionable tasks. Furthermore, Miro's asynchronous collaboration features, such as comments and reactions, allow team members to contribute at their convenience, fostering collaboration across different schedules.
Miro Standout Features & Integrations
Features include roadmapping, resource management, task scheduling/tracking, notifications, Gantt charts, prioritization, calendar management, data visualizations, quick diagram tools, a dependencies app to visualize dependencies, capacity planning capabilities, Miro Assist AI, and data import/export.
Integrations include Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Atlassian, Brandfest, Monday.com, Confluence, Figma, Slack, Asana, Airtable, Zoom, Azure, Notion, Box, and more if you join the Miro Developer Platform and access their web SDK and/or REST API.
New Product Updates from Miro
Miro's Advanced Diagramming Tools
Miro introduces a dedicated diagramming experience with over 3,000 shapes, a dot-grid canvas, layers, object dimensions, and AI-assisted creation for efficient system and process mapping. More details at Miro Blog.
FigJam is a virtual whiteboard platform that can be used for various work management, brainstorming, and team collaboration purposes.
Why I picked FigJam: This whiteboard solution is super flexible and can be used by your team for all kinds of purposes. It has stickers, comments, shapes, lines, arrows, images, and more that can be used to map out concepts, ideas, and plans. It also comes with several pre-built templates that can help you get started. From brainstorming outlines to retrospective structures to project management and roadmapping tools, there's plenty to draw from (so to speak). It's also very user-friendly and intuitive to navigate, making it a friendly solution for varying levels of technical expertise.
Team can collaborate virtually through FigJam using audio and live chat, commenting, stamp and emoji reactions, and even bitmoji avatars. You can also use the music player to spice up your brainstorming sessions, and calendar and timeline widgets for planning your work. External collaborators can be invited to your boards, too, which is helpful if you work with clients, freelancers, or agencies.
FigJam Standout Features & Integrations
Features include pre-built project management templates, audio and live chat, stamp and emoji reacts, external collaborator access, calendar and timeline widgets, bitmoji avatars, music player, and mobile app.
Integrations include Figma, Microsoft Teams, Asana, Jira, Mixpanel, and Github.
As you probably already know, the 5th stage in the design thinking pipeline is 'Testing.' That's where UserTesting comes in. Very nearly completely self-explanatory from the brand name, UserTesting is a design testing and user feedback software. With it, you can source end users from their pool of testers or introduce your own and then have them record their experience with your product on video and screen capture. UserTesting has modules for live interviewing, usability testing, brand messaging testing, card sorting, tree testing, and clickstream testing.
Why I Picked UserTesting: UserTesting has a huge focus on, well, user testing. Design thinking is about empathizing with your end user and designing features and services they need most. But your best guess may not be what customers want. UserTesting can help by testing your theories and then organizing the insights you collect in a meaningful way.
UserTesting Standout Features and Integrations
Features include analytics, dashboards, data import, external integrations, notifications, customer management, scheduling, net promoter score, and calendar management.
Integrations include Qualtrics, Jira, Slack, Trello, Adobe XD, Outlook Calendar, and Google Calendar.
Marvel is a design thinking tool for creating wireframes and prototypes of new products or features. You can use Marvel as a central database for feedback and ideas for your CX team. Marvel even has an event tracking feature to identify which users experienced issues during testing and which surface designs are good to go. Marvel’s user testing system lets you gather text, audio, and video feedback from users, design team members, and external stakeholders.
Why I Picked Marvel: Marvel is the best design thinking tool if you want to complete projects quickly because it allows rapid prototyping and testing. Its sketch tool allows you to transform design mock-ups into working prototypes without coding.
Marvel Standout Features & Integrations
Features include roadmapping, notifications, Gantt charts, data visualizations, and data import/export.
Integrations include Jira, Confluence, Sketch, Microsoft products, YouTube, Niice, Smartmockups, Keynote, Userflows, Botbot, Zeroheight, Ballpark, and Dropbox Paper.
MindMeister is a web-based mind-mapping software designed to help users capture, develop, and share ideas visually. It's well-known for its team collaboration features and is a popular choice for teams in software, marketing, consulting, and other industries that are looking to enhance creativity, productivity, and teamwork.
Why I picked MindMeister: MindMeister's emphasis on collaborative mind mapping earned them a spot on this list. Their software helps design teams brainstorm new ideas or document product workflows or customer journeys with ease within its user-friendly interface. I choose MindMeister as the best tool for collaborative mind mapping due to its capacity to facilitate brainstorming, planning, and organizing ideas among team members in real-time.
MindMeister Standout Features & Integrations
Features include the ability to personalize boards with custom styles, including themes, colors, and fonts. It also offers a focus mode to concentrate on specific parts of your mind map board, mixed map layouts for flexible information display, and an outline mode for a linear, text-based view.
The platform also supports real-time collaboration with features like comments, notifications, and integrations with other productivity tools, ensuring that team members are always up-to-date with the latest changes.
Integrations are available with MeisterTask, Microsoft Teams, and Google Workspace.
Stormboard is a design thinking tool for identifying, prioritizing, and acting on innovative ideas. It uses agile product management to let you strategize, create product roadmaps, and collaborate on projects. Stormboard has an ideation feature for brainstorming and generating solutions for issues you encounter during product design and development phases.
Why I Picked Stormboard: Stormboard helps keep your entire team on the same page through a shared workspace. It allows you to create folders for different teams, projects, and departments. You can use Stormboard to remotely co-edit files and presentations with your team. It even allows members to chat or use comments to communicate and send files to one another.
Stormboard Standout Features & Integrations
Features include calendar management, dashboards, data import/export, notifications, scheduling, task scheduling/tracking, roadmapping, collaboration support, budgeting, data visualizations, project management, and third-party plugins/add-ons.
Integrations include Azure DevOps, Jira, Google Drive, and Slack.
Smaply is journey mapping software used to manage and improve customer experience strategies. It has a stakeholder mapping feature for visualizing how stakeholders may influence and interact with your products. Smaply acts as a central information database for all projects to identify and eliminate redundancies.
Why I Picked Smaply: Smaply's customer journey map builder allows you to envision how customers will use your product and the issues they might encounter. Smaply also has text lanes to note down ideas for improving your product or save them for future projects.
Smaply Standout Features & Integrations
Features include customer management, data import/export, dashboards, notifications, and data visualization.
Integrations include Jira as well as import/export data options from Mural, Excel, Miro, and Lucidspark.
Ideaflip is an online collaboration tool with digital sticky notes, commenting, and a graphics library for sharing ideas with a group. It has unlimited boards to use in as many projects as you need. The software allows you to add up to two guest collaborators for projects requiring outside stakeholders or contractors.
Why I Picked Ideaflip: Ideaflip is the best design thinking tool for online collaboration with a breakout group template for managing large groups. This design software lets you create smaller groups so everyone can participate during discussions. Ideaflip allows you to assign members randomly to ensure equal team distribution and foster camaraderie.
Ideaflip Standout Features & Integrations
Features include roadmapping, notifications, Gantt charts, data visualizations, and data import/export.
Integrations are not listed publicly on their website but they do claim that custom integrations are part of their Enterprise subscription package.
Mural is a digital whiteboard and collaboration software that lets your team work together in real-time or asynchronously to contribute to a shared visualization. This visualization can be filled with sticky notes, drawings, text, icons, gifs, and graphics. You can let your team freestyle on a completely blank board or leverage a pre-made template (or a template you designed yourself) for a more focused approach. The canvas is infinite and resizable with a flexible permissions system—so you can go wild with a limitless ideas space or hone in on a specific goal.
Why I Picked Mural: Mural is the best design thinking tool for enterprises because it gives team members an equal space to contribute during ideation and planning workshops. It has an anonymous voting feature to give equal opportunity to voice preferences and/or concerns. You can add an unlimited number of users to have all hands on deck when tackling complex problems.
Mural Standout Features & Integrations
Features include roadmapping, resource management, task scheduling/tracking, notifications, Gantt charts, prioritization, calendar management, data visualizations, and data import/export.
Integrations include Adobe, Asana, Airtable, Azure, Butter, Confluence, DropBox, Embedly, Figma, Giphy, GitHub, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Notion, Slack, Trello, Unsplash, Zoom, and additional connections through a Zapier account (may require a separate subscription).
Userforge is a persona creator tool for creating products that align with real-world user needs. It has more than 1,000 icons to allow you to create polished and professional-looking personas. You can invite other team members to your Userforge project to get more insights and share the workload. This tool has an integrated image library with thousands of images to create interesting personas. It also has customizable text output that lets you create user or buyer personas in several languages.
Why I Picked Userforge: Userforge is the best empathizing design tool because it lets you build user personas to get into the head of users and know how they feel and what they need. You can add more content to your user persona template as you learn more about your users’ needs.
Userforge Standout Features & Integrations
Features include roadmapping, notifications, Gantt charts, data visualizations, and data import/export.
Integrations are not listed publicly on their website.
Other Tools
Here are a few more worthwhile design platforms that didn’t make it into my top 10 list of the best design thinking tools, but are still worth checking out:
- Lucidspark
Virtual whiteboard with integrations and collaboration for design thinking
- Invision
Design thinking tool for rich, interactive prototypes
- Lucidchart
Intelligent diagramming software with integrations and collaboration for design thinking
- Digisite
For design thinking tool for marketing, CX/UX, and innovation teams
- Batterii
Tool for turning video reviews into insight reports
- Sprintbase
Design thinking analytics & reporting suite
- Mockingbird
Drag and drop UI elements
- Boords
Web-based storyboarding software
Selection Criteria for Design Thinking Tools
When selecting the best design thinking tools to include in this list, I considered common buyer needs and pain points like identifying user-centric solutions and facilitating team collaboration during ideation phases. I also used the following framework to keep my evaluation structured and fair:
Core Functionality (25% of total score)
To be considered for inclusion in this list, each solution had to fulfill these common use cases:
- Capture and organize brainstorming ideas
- Facilitate remote or in-person workshops
- Enable collaborative visual mapping
- Support prototyping and iteration
- Store and export design artifacts
Additional Standout Features (25% of total score)
To help further narrow down the competition, I also looked for unique features, such as:
- Provide AI-assisted ideation suggestions
- Integrate directly with agile or product management tools
- Offer real-time feedback and voting functionality
- Include industry-specific design templates
- Allow AR or VR prototyping support
Usability (10% of total score)
To get a sense of the usability of each system, I considered the following:
- Provide a clean and intuitive user interface
- Balance power and simplicity in toolsets
- Offer clear navigation with minimal learning curve
- Maintain responsiveness and stability
- Support easy drag-and-drop or whiteboard interaction
Onboarding (10% of total score)
To evaluate the onboarding experience for each platform, I considered the following:
- Include interactive walkthroughs or product tours
- Provide access to ready-to-use templates
- Offer video tutorials and training guides
- Include live webinars or scheduled training
- Use in-app chatbots or guided support prompts
Customer Support (10% of total score)
To assess each software provider’s customer support services, I considered the following:
- Offer live chat or 24/7 availability
- Maintain a searchable help center or knowledge base
- Provide timely and helpful email responses
- Allow access to user communities or forums
- Include onboarding support and success managers
Value For Money (10% of total score)
To evaluate the value for money of each platform, I considered the following:
- Offer transparent and flexible pricing tiers
- Provide a free trial or freemium plan
- Justify costs with unique features or integrations
- Scale features effectively for team or enterprise use
- Maintain competitive pricing compared to alternatives
Customer Reviews (10% of total score)
To get a sense of overall customer satisfaction, I considered the following when reading customer reviews:
- Highlight ease of use in real-world scenarios
- Mention helpfulness of support and documentation
- Reflect tool’s ability to enhance collaboration
- Discuss performance and reliability
- Share user success stories or specific outcomes
How to Choose a Design Thinking Tool
It’s easy to get bogged down in long feature lists and complex pricing structures. To help you stay focused as you work through your unique software selection process, here’s a checklist of factors to keep in mind:
| Factor | What to Consider |
|---|---|
| Scalability | Can the tool grow with your team as more users, projects, or templates are added? Avoid tools that cap functionality on lower plans. |
| Integrations | Does it connect easily to tools your team already uses like Jira, Miro, Slack, or Trello? Manual workarounds kill momentum. |
| Customizability | Can you tailor workflows, templates, or boards to match your team’s specific process? Rigid tools create friction fast. |
| Ease of use | Can non-designers jump in without needing a training session? If people avoid using it, it doesn’t help. |
| Implementation and onboarding | How long will it take to get value after purchase? Look for pre-built templates, how-to videos, and live walkthroughs. |
| Cost | What’s the true cost per user and does it scale well with your team size? Watch for hidden limits on users or boards. |
| Security safeguards | Does it offer SSO, SOC 2 compliance, or access controls? If you’re prototyping sensitive ideas, don’t skip this. |
| Support availability | Will someone be available to help if you hit a wall mid-sprint? Check if support is live, ticketed, or community-based. |
What are Design Thinking Tools?
Design thinking tools include the software, methods, techniques, and processes used to facilitate the design thinking approach, a human-centered problem-solving method that puts the user's needs and experiences at the forefront of the design process. These tools aim to promote empathy, creativity, and collaboration among team members to generate innovative solutions to complex problems.
Some examples of design thinking tools include persona creation, journey mapping, empathy maps, brainstorming, storyboarding, prototyping, and user testing. These tools help teams gather insights, identify user needs, ideate and develop solutions, and validate and iterate on those solutions based on user feedback. Overall, design thinking tools help teams approach problems with a user-centered mindset and generate meaningful solutions that meet user needs.
Features of Design Thinking Tools
When selecting a design thinking tool, keep an eye out for the following key features:
- Collaborative whiteboard: Enables teams to brainstorm, map ideas, and work together in real time from anywhere.
- Template library: Provides ready-made frameworks like empathy maps, user journeys, and ideation boards to speed up sessions.
- Sticky notes and voting: Lets users add input quickly and vote on ideas to prioritize concepts during workshops.
- User persona builder: Helps create and visualize personas to keep the team aligned on user needs.
- Prototyping interface: Allows quick creation of low-fidelity prototypes to test and refine solutions early.
- Workshop facilitation tools: Includes timers, presenter mode, and breakout tools to guide structured sessions.
- Version history: Tracks changes and lets users revert to earlier iterations to manage evolving ideas.
- Commenting and feedback: Supports real-time or asynchronous comments to capture input and encourage discussion.
- Export and sharing options: Makes it easy to share work with stakeholders through links, PDFs, or integrations.
- Cross-device access: Ensures users can access and contribute to sessions from laptops, tablets, or phones.
Benefits of Design Thinking Tools
Implementing design thinking tools provides several benefits for your team and your business. Here are a few you can look forward to:
- Faster idea development: Built-in templates and real-time collaboration help teams move from idea to concept quicker.
- Better team alignment: Shared boards and visual tools keep everyone on the same page during workshops and reviews.
- More user-focused outcomes: Persona tools and empathy maps make it easier to keep user needs front and center.
- Easier remote collaboration: Cloud access and multi-device support let everyone contribute no matter where they are.
- Clearer decision-making: Voting features and feedback tools help teams prioritize ideas without long debates.
- Lower rework risk: Early prototyping and testing features catch issues before too much time or money is spent.
- Stronger stakeholder buy-in: Easy sharing and visual exports make it simpler to show progress and gather input.
Costs and Pricing of Design Thinking Tools
Selecting design thinking tools requires an understanding of the various pricing models and plans available. Costs vary based on features, team size, add-ons, and more. The table below summarizes common plans, their average prices, and typical features included in design thinking tool solutions:
Plan Comparison Table for Design Thinking Tools
| Plan Type | Average Price | Common Features |
|---|---|---|
| Free Plan | $0 | Basic whiteboarding, limited templates, limited collaborators, and basic export options. |
| Personal Plan | $5–$15/user/month | Full template access, unlimited boards, version history, and standard integrations. |
| Business Plan | $15–$30/user/month | Team collaboration tools, advanced permissions, admin controls, and priority support. |
| Enterprise Plan | $30–$60/user/month | SSO and security features, advanced analytics, dedicated support, and custom onboarding. |
People Also Ask
Still wondering about design thinking tools and how they work? These answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) should help clarify things further:
What is design thinking?
Design thinking is a productive and creative way of solving problems by building products that cater to a niche need.
Jeanne Liedtka, Design Thinking Expert, noted in Harvard Business Review that: “design thinking has the potential to do for innovation exactly what TQM did for manufacturing: unleash people’s full creative energies, win their commitment, and radically improve processes.”
The best business model is one that keeps the end-user front-and-center throughout the service design process. You can do this by creating an empathy map for iterating purposes, uncovering user pain points with your product, and doing tons of hands-on user research.
However, brainstorming sessions are wasted time if you don’t have a way to collect and compile the resulting data using a platform that can make use of the data.
Design thinking can be hugely influential when it comes to developing new products, like when Braun set out to design a simplified IoT electric toothbrush, for example. Design thinking is exactly that: taking what you already know and building off of it to make a better product that answers more of the end user’s concerns for a better customer journey.
How can design thinking tools help the creative process?
Design thinking helps you develop creative solutions to technical problems in customer-centric ways. Online design thinking tools can help you organize your thoughts and plan your trajectory toward product innovation.
The design thinking process can become complex because you’re constantly balancing idea viability + affordability (for the business) + desirability (for the end user). However, design thinking apps are made to guide you through the 5 design thinking stages so you can track new ideas from project start to project completion.
What is the customer journey?
The customer journey is the probable path (or paths) that your ideal users will follow during their interaction with your product, from introduction to completion. Human-centered design is important to make this journey as painless as possible. The design thinking process relies on a strong understanding of the customer journey: how customers get from A to B and where they might run into trouble, as well as what key problem your product/service is trying to solve for them.
What are the 5 design thinking stages?
According to Stanford University, the 5 stages of design thinking are: empathy, definition, conception, prototype, and testing.
- Empathy is working to understand the end user’s needs (the “problem statement”);
- Definition is the elevator pitch of what problem you intend to solve and how;
- Conception (or, ideation) is creative brainstorming (“ideate”) to find the best solution through product design;
- Prototyping is creating the most basic version of your product;
- Testing is turning that minimum viable product into a fully functional, QA tested, launch-ready item.
What other resources can help me learn more about design thinking?
If the design thinking concept has got your wheels turning, there are plenty of other resources to help you along in your learning journey.
Are there any free design thinking tool kits?
Though they may have some limitations compared to their paid-subscription counterparts, using a free design tool is a great option for smaller teams or those looking to simply test the waters of the software first. As a design leader, you can make the call in regards to what suits your needs best.
Free possible solutions include:
- Ideo’s toolkit
- IBM design thinking toolkit
- Hubspot’s make my persona
- Google Design
What's Next?
Design thinking solutions can help you plan a successful product from start to finish. It’s a way to organize your design process so that no note is forgotten. They can help you visualize where you are and where you are going.
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