Swimlanes make the card view 10x more useful by grouping cards in two dimensions.
For example
- columns stack cards by status (started, in progress, stuck, completed)
- swimlanes group those cards by person
Here's an example from Mark Kraska
https://us.v-cdn.net/6031209/uploads/Y8K23OOMUIPX/image.png
There are no current workarounds in Smartsheet.