A visual representation that helps someone.
Stuck? Diagrams Help Abby Covert
Common Elements of a Diagram
- Visual elements: What the audience sees as the diagram
- Scale: How big or small and active or passive is the space you have to get the diagram to its audience?
- Shapes: What are the objects you need to represent in the diagram?
- Lines: What are the relationships between the objects that you need to represent in the diagram
- Labels: What are the visual and verbal markers you provide for viewers to interpret the diagram?
- Key: What are the hints you leave for viewers in case they get confused about what something means?
- In-visual elements: The decisions behind the diagram
- In my experience, there are often un-labeled and unspoken parts of a diagram that the viewers can’t see, but they can absolutely feel them. I am calling this set of elements in-visual because they are encoded in the visual elements but are not visualised as elements themselves.
- Intention: What is the service you wish the diagram to deliver to the audience? What is the action or change you hope for in making the diagram?
- Audience: Whom are you making the diagram for? What do you know about them, and what do they know about the subject of the diagram?
- Scope: What are the boundaries of the content you are representing? What did you decide not to show the audience?
