MindManager

MindManager is for getting ideas out of your head and into a structure. People use it to plan projects, break a large piece of writing into manageable parts, or make sense of a topic before they try to write about it.

A map is a visual object, so the question that matters for accessibility is always the same: what happens when it leaves MindManager. Done properly, a map exports into a document with real headings, and that is a genuinely useful outline.

• Nest topics properly as you go. The indent level in the map becomes the heading level in the exported document. A flat map exports as a flat list and helps nobody.
• Use the outline view while you work. It presents the same map as a linear structure, which is easier to check and much easier to read with speech than the map itself.
• Keep topic text short and meaningful. Topics become headings. A heading that reads as a full sentence is harder to scan than three well chosen words.
• Put detail in notes, not in the topic. Topic notes carry the body text through to the export, which is what turns a map into a draft.
• Add alt text to any image you place on the map. Icons and pictures in a map are as invisible as anywhere else without it.

• The exported document has no heading structure. Almost always because the map was flat. Fixing the nesting in the map fixes the export.
• The map is unreadable with a screen reader. Work in the outline view. The map view is a canvas, and no amount of effort will make a canvas read well.
• Colour is carrying the meaning. If priority or category is shown only by colour, that information does not survive for anyone who cannot see it. Put it in the topic text as well.
• Collaborators cannot open your file. Exporting to Word or PDF is usually a kinder way to share than sending a map file to someone without the software.

People with dyslexia and ADHD who plan far better visually than in a linear document, and project workers who need to hold a complicated piece of work in one place. The training tends to focus as much on the export as on the mapping.