Made with
ConceptDraw
DIAGRAM 17

Diagrams Mean Nothing

Most of technical blog articles have diagrams, charts, flowcharts etc. And again, in most cases these all don’t make any sense. I mean sense for readers. Such schemes and graphics notes are very helpful for writers to arrange their thoughts in a time of creating article.

Diagrams mean nothing

For example this illustration: if you haven't read text, you’ll never understand what this all about. Actually this mess could be described just by one sentence: “The data of single stripe was damaged on several disks in the same time”.

Good words worth thousand rects

If you have enough of talent and time to write a simple and clear text, you won’t need a single piece of diagram then. If you don’t, try at least to use it better.

Diagrams mean nothing

No one can neither read nor understand block diagrams. Every time someone uses it, he spends tons of words to make it clear. And at the end you don’t remember what was in the beginning. One can easily omit block diagrams by describing few critical points of the flow.

Use complex and abstract schemes when you 100% sure your readers know base and conventions. If so, then diagrams and charts become meaningful and you can use their strength at full capacity. Here we dive a bit in some of key points to improve your diagrams.

First is a second dimension

Maybe Feynman Diagrams are most extensive and dense in a sense of represented information and knowledge.

Diagrams mean nothing

Actually these diagrams describe four dimensions. By the horizontal axis here’s time and all of our 3D world represented in vertical axis. And it remains true in reverse directions, so it can be read back in time too (and it does). Hence Feynman Diagrams reveal a huge amount of information in very elegant and ascetic manner. Each symbol, element and shape has its particular meaning.

And last but not least is using of text. Text appears as much as it needs to mark key points. No legend, no coordinates, no terms. This is a very first sign your diagram is on a way to be perfect.

Flowcharts use both directions as well. But in contrast with Feynman Diagrams Flowcharts, they use inconsistent way: in some part time is on horizontal axis, in some not.

Diagrams mean nothing

Much easier to read outline itself instead of chart represented it. So don’t hesitate to just write down a list. The advantage of list is that it has one dimension hence it would be much clearer (if it’s not too long).

Second is a third dimension

A flat image has its own z-depth. It could be emulated by shadows, focus-depth, blur, color palette, etc.

Diagrams mean nothing

Or using gradients. Here we have an impression of a 3D picture, but it does not have any additional value. It’s just decoration. And as it normally happens with decoration, the graph has lost a lot of its readability. Never place text on a gradient. Of course, if you want, it could be read easily.

Third dimension helps us to layer information. Color is most significant tool for this purpose. We can filter parts of diagram by its colors in few moments:

Diagrams Mean Nothing *

Note how fast you can find endings of each chain colored in yellow. This schema may be a bit overcolored and colors are too saturated. Anyway, color layering works well.

We’ll discuss coloring in more details in next articles. Here are just few points so far:

  • Use colors in from palette
  • Max 3-4 colors
  • As more colors as less its saturation




TEN RELATED HOW TO's:
eLearning Solutions: Free Platform for Remote Learning. Skype as a remote education tool. Digital Learning Technologies.Skype as eLearning Platform *
Picture: Skype as eLearning Platform
Related Solution:
Many professionals have to solve problems every day. Designing of the process algorithm contribute to understand where the problem is in the process. A Flowchart is a graphical tool that most usable for breaking down processes. Definition of flowchart - a diagram that shows step-by-step progression through a procedure or system especially using connecting lines and a set of conventional symbols. All the icons, symbols and connectors needed for creating standardized notation flowcharts are contained within Software Flow Chart.Software Flow Chart *
Picture: Software Flow Chart
Related Solution:
Any business process consists from a number of tasks carrying out the certain business goal. It is useful to diagram business processes to ensure that they are as foolproof, logical and sequential as possible. This business process diagram describes a typical booking process flow by the example of a cab booking process. It can be used as a roadmap for any booking system implementation. Diagramming a business process allows you to look at the entire project and take into account all types of possible scenarios. Business process diagram helps you investigate and clarify the process thoroughly so that you can find out how it can be improved. Business process diagram supports team communications by ensuring that each process element is clear and everyone in the team is on the same page. Sometimes your company brings you less profit than you expect it to be, and it’s difficult to reveal the causes. Maybe it’s time to learn new technologies, because business diagram are easily developed by means of special software, so you won’t make any extra effort. In return, you will increase your productivity and get more done in a less time.Business Diagram Software *
Picture: Business Diagram Software
Related Solutions:
The Architecture Diagrams are the type of diagrams which help to system designers, system developers, and application developers to visualize the overall high-level structure of the system or application and depict the interactions between software systems, users, external systems, data sources, and services. The ConceptDraw DIAGRAM Architecture Diagrams Software provides the unique Cloud Computing Diagrams solution from the Computers and Network area of ConceptDraw Solution Park with wide set of powerful tools for fast and easy creating various types of Architecture diagrams.Architecture Diagrams *
Picture: Architecture Diagrams
Related Solution:
A triangular graphic representing Graham's "hierarchy of disagreement", based on Paul Graham's March 2008 essay "How to Disagree".Pyramid Diagram *
Picture: Pyramid Diagram
Related Solutions:
The reliability is a cornerstone for any corporate computer network. If you want to provide a high fault tolerance, a mesh network topology would be the solution. The main advantage of this network is that every node can work as a commutator, although it’s not easy to set up this kind of network. A mesh network topology may be full, or partial. Full mesh network means that each node of the network (computer, workstation or other equipment) is connected directly to each of the other nodes. A partial mesh topology means that a part of nodes are connected with a whole network, and the other part of nodes are only connected to those equipment, they exchange the majority of data. This illustration shows schematic diagram of a partial mesh network containing six nodes. Each node is represented as a circles and connections are drawn as straight lines. The connections may be both wired and wireless. This scheme can be used to make the specific logical or physical network diagrams by means the ConceptDraw Computer and Networks solution.Mesh Network Topology Diagram *
Picture: Mesh Network Topology Diagram
Related Solution:
Android is an operating system based on the Linux kernel and developed by Google for smartphones, tablet computers, electronic books, netbooks, smartbooks, digital players, watches, game consoles, TV and other devices. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM extended with Android User Interface Solution from the Software Development Area is a powerful software with extensive drawing tools which can help you to build the intelligible, attractive and easy for perception Android GUI for your application.Android GUI *
Picture: Android GUI
Related Solution:
A database is a data collection, structured into some conceptual model. Two most common approaches of developing data models are UML diagrams and ER-model diagrams. There are several notations of entity-relationship diagram symbols and their meaning is slightly different. Crow’s Foot notation is quite descriptive and easy to understand, meanwhile, the Chen notation is great for conceptual modeling. An entity relationship diagrams look very simple to a flowcharts. The main difference is the symbols provided by specific ERD notations. There are several models applied in entity-relationship diagrams: conceptual, logical and physical. Creating an entity relationship diagram requires using a specific notation. There are five main components of common ERD notations: Entities, Actions, Attributes, Cardinality and Connections. The two of notations most widely used for creating ERD are Chen notation and Crow foot notation. By the way, the Crow foot notation originates from the Chen notation - it is an adapted version of the Chen notation.ERD Symbols and Meanings
Picture: ERD Symbols and Meanings
Related Solution:
Electrical Diagram is a visual graphical representation of an electrical circuit. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM diagramming and vector drawing software supplied with unique Electrical Engineering Solution from the Industrial Engineering Area will help you design Electrical Diagram of any complexity without efforts.Electrical Diagram *
Picture: Electrical Diagram
Related Solution:
Many of us want to be able to create designs efficiently yet quickly. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM will help you to make awesome drawings without having to design all those Time Elements. These elements include graphs, symbols, cliparts, visual data representation and a whole lot of other stuff.Time - Design Elements *
Picture: Time - Design Elements
Related Solution:
ConceptDraw
DIAGRAM 17