Diagrams

Diagrams are useful whenever you want to simplify information into something that can easily be understood at a glance. By using the appropriate type of diagram for your needs, you can explain complex systems, structures, and processes much more efficiently than if you tried to explain them in text.

Many technical professions have diagrams specific to their discipline, such as:

Circuit diagrams used by electrical engineers

Mechanical diagrams used by mechanical engineers

Floorplans used by architects

Wireframes used by user interface designers

UML diagrams used by software engineers

Gantt charts used by project managers

and Anatomy diagrams used by doctors.

There are also diagrams universally used across all professions such as:

Cycle Diagrams, for showing a repeating process

Venn Diagrams, for comparing and contrasting the attributes of two or more items

Pyramid Diagrams, for showing how items depend on and are built on top of one another

Funnel Diagrams, for showing how a large number of items at the top of the funnel are reduced to a single item at the bottom of the funnel

Tree diagrams, for showing how a series of branching nodes all descend from a single root node

Mind Maps, which is like a tree diagram that has the root node in the center

Fishbone Diagrams, for showing the multiple causes of an effect

and Flow charts, for showing how a sequence is made up of branching and conditional looping steps.

Certain charts can also function as diagrams when they are used to display qualitative data - meaning data related to qualities which are not numeric - instead of quantitative data - meaning data related to quantities which are numeric. Examples of qualitative charts functioning as diagrams include:

Quadrant Charts, when using squares to show how four groups are related along a horizontal and vertical axis

Line Charts when showing a bell shape that represents a normal statistical distribution

and Spider Charts, when using polygons to compare and contrast the attributes of items of the same type.

If none of the technical, universal, or qualitative chart diagrams suit your needs, then it may be a good idea to design your own diagram for your specific purpose. Fortunately, the types of diagrams used in the business world are extremely simple, with most consisting of nothing more than labeled shapes - sometimes called boxes - with connecting lines. In this way, we can think of the majority of business diagrams as being made up of boxes and lines.

It is often surprising just how valuable a simple business diagram consisting of nothing more than boxes and lines can be.

For example, if you were giving a presentation explaining your company's business model, instead of showing slide after slide of text, you could present a single diagram. This diagram might have boxes naming your suppliers, marketing channels, strategic partnerships, licensing agreements, product categories, target markets, and distributors, all with connecting lines showing how everything worked together. Now, the information that could have potentially taken an hour to present with slides of text may only need a few seconds for your audience to understand.

Depending on your diagram's complexity, you may find it easier to sketch out your ideas with a pencil and paper, than to start by drawing your diagram in a drawing program. The benefit of a pencil and paper is you are free to draw whatever you like - however you like - with none of the restrictions imposed by a drawing program. By making a series of quick, rough sketches of your ideas, you can slowly iterate towards something that approximates your final design. This process may take a few minutes or a few days until you have a design that you feel adequately communicates the concepts you want your audience to understand.

Once you have your sketch finished, you now have to choose how you would like to create the digital version of your diagram. Generally, your choices are to create your diagram using the drawing tools built into your document editor, or to use a program dedicated to drawing diagrams.

For simple business diagrams, the drawing tools built into your document editor - such as Microsoft Word - may suffice, but as your diagrams become more complex, you may want to consider more sophisticated drawing programs, such as Microsoft Visio or Lucidchart.

Using a dedicated diagram drawing program gives you several advantages.

First, there is support for creating many of the most common diagram types such as Pyramid Diagrams, Tree Diagrams, Venn Diagrams, and Mind Maps.

Second, there are shape libraries that support the creation of practically any diagram you would want, including generic shapes such as rectangles, squares, circles, ellipses, and triangles; as well as diagram-specific shapes such as those used to create flow charts, user interface wireframes, and floorplans.

Third, lines that are drawn from a shape automatically connect to other shapes, and maintain these connections as they are dragged around. This is particularly useful during the process of creating a digital version of your diagram, as you will often be repositioning shapes, and having the lines remain connected is very convenient.

If you created your diagram in your document program, then you are done. If you used a dedicated drawing program, you will need to insert, import, or copy your diagram into your document, or export your diagram into its own file, and then insert or import that file into your document. If you choose to export your diagram, pay close attention to which image format you use, as diagrams can look awful if they are saved as the incorrect image format.

As a general rule, you should never use the JPEG image file format for diagrams, as all of the crisp lines and labels may be blurry. Instead, you should use the PNG file format, making sure that the image is large enough to avoid pixelation. Note that while the SVG file format is very good for diagrams, it tends to be problematic when importing into document editors. If you would like to distribute your diagram as a standalone document, you might choose to use the PDF file format, as no matter where your diagram is viewed or how it is scaled your labels and lines will always look crisp and sharp.

Learning to use diagrams to their maximum potential is a powerful skill in visual communication. Even if it takes you hours or even days to come up with a good diagram, the time you will save your audience by enabling them to understand complex information at a glance will be well worth it.