Before you start building in Mindsmith, it's helpful to understand how the platform is organized and the core components you'll be working with. This guide walks you through the structure of the product, key concepts, and where to go to learn more.
Your Workspaces: The Storyboard and Editor
Understanding the difference between the Storyboard and the Editor is key to building strong lessons. Each serves a distinct purpose in your workflow:
The Storyboard is where you plan and structure your lesson at a high level. It's ideal for organizing sections and pages before diving into content creation.
The Editor is where you build the content itself. This is your detailed workspace for adding text, images, interactivity, and refining each part of the lesson. This is where you build individual pages and use tiles to add and edit content.
We recommend creating your storyboard first, especially for longer or more complex lessons. A clear storyboard not only keeps your lesson organized, but also helps the AI Generator produce more accurate and effective content.
When in the editor, you can find the menu to toggle between Storyboard and Editor on the upper lefthand side of the page.
Content Structure: From Courses to Tiles
Mindsmith uses a simple, flexible hierarchy to keep your content organized:
Course: The largest unit in Mindsmith. A course is a collection of lessons and can be exported as a complete training package via SCORM, web link, or embed.
Lesson: A focused learning experience made up of sections, typically designed to be completed in one sitting (5–25 minutes). Lessons can also be exported individually.
Section: A group of related pages designed to teach a single concept or skill within a lesson.
Page: An individual screen of content within a section.
Tile: The core building block of a page and the smallest unit of measurement in Mindsmith. Tiles represent individual elements—text, images, questions, media, or interactive experiences.
As a course creator, you will spend most of your time working with tiles. This article offers an overview of the most commonly used types of tiles, but we recommend diving into further reading.
Types of Tiles
Tiles are the fundamental building blocks of every page in Mindsmith. Each tile represents a single piece of content—text, media, interactivity, or logic. You can mix and match tile types to shape each page based on your learning goals.
You'll encounter many different tile types in Mindsmith. Each serves a different purpose, and these examples will give you a sense of what’s possible as you get started:
Basic Content Tiles
Text Block: Add plain or formatted instructional content.
Section Marker: Shows learners where they are in the lesson, such as "Section 2 of 4."
List: Create bulleted or numbered lists.
Media Tiles
Image: Insert visuals from your device, documents, or AI-generated sources. Also supports Bing, Giphy, and Unsplash search.
Video: Upload video files directly to embed into lessons, or generate with AI within the tool. (This is a powerful, advanced tile; learn more here!)
Embed: Pull in content via iframe—ideal for YouTube, Vimeo, Google Docs, and more.
Buttons: Link to documents, external URLs, or use as navigational buttons
Interactive Tiles
Interactive tiles bring your lessons to life by allowing learners to explore, practice, and demonstrate understanding.
Core Interactive Tiles
These tiles encourage exploration and practice without formal grading. They’re designed to keep learners engaged and help information stick:
Tabs – Organize related information into tabbed sections.
Process – Display steps in a sequence.
Carousel – Swipe or click through a series of items.
Hot Button – Reveal details when learners click.
Accordion – Expand and collapse content for readability.
Flashcards – Reinforce knowledge with active recall.
Sorting – Drag-and-drop activities for categorization.
Assessment Tiles
Assessment tiles are interactive activities that generate measurable results. They can be graded and tracked in analytics, with options for AI-assisted scoring and feedback:
Multiple Choice
Select Multiple
Short Answer
Ranking
Matching
👉 See Practice and Assessments for detailed guidance on creating and grading with these tiles.
⭐ Learn more about all tiles in our Tiles 101 article.
Advanced Tiles
These advanced tiles unlock some of the most powerful capabilities in Mindsmith. While they serve different purposes, both can dramatically expand what’s possible in your lessons:
Scenario Builder – Build branching conversations or decision-making simulations where learners choose their path. This tile is ideal for judgment practice, customer interactions, and scenario-based training that mirrors real-world complexity.
Editable Video – Quickly generate customized videos using AI. You can create speaker scenes, generate scripts, design images or B-roll, and combine these elements into a polished video in minutes. To learners it looks like a standard video, but for creators it’s a highly efficient way to produce personalized, professional-quality content without video equipment or editing software.
👉 These tiles are so powerful, they get their own articles! For more information on what these tiles can do, see Working with Scenarios and Working with Video Tiles.
Sneak Peek: Scenario Builder
AI Generator
Mindsmith also features a built-in AI Generator to help you jumpstart content creation and manage training at scale. It removes much of the manual work—especially at the lesson and course level—and puts the power of AI at your fingertips.
Here are a few ways teams use it:
Generate new content: Quickly draft lesson outlines, pages, assessments, and flashcards from a simple prompt.
Edit and scale existing content: Make bulk updates or revisions across multiple lessons and tiles in just a few steps.
Translate and localize: Automatically convert lessons into multiple languages while preserving structure and tone.
To learn how to get the most from the generator, see the AI Generator Guide.
Sneak Peek: AI Assistant
What's Next? Suggested Reading