(Note: I find this term confusing because ‘containers’ are a specific technology, while it’s being used more abstractly in C4, but it’s still a good idea.) Container Diagram, a zoomed in way to show the major ‘logicalĬhunks’ of software inside your system, what techs they use, and how.Into the overall business context of users and other systems System Context, or a high level diagram showing how your systems fit. ![]() Which proposes 4 types of standard views: Observability (Logging, Metrics, and Trace) integration pointsįor a structured way to limit complexity per diagram, check out the C4.How changes are made, if different (e.g.Authentication and Authorization boundaries.Flows (of data and calls) as a function of various processes, one.What does the service look like ‘just sitting Useful lenses that might be worth applying to a design to yield a set of Infrastructure, or just depicts data flows, or just shows backup If a diagram is tooīusy, it can be helpful to have one which just lays out the Mechanisms, infrastructure, logging and metrics, what componentsĬall each other and how, data flows, and more. That shows everything at once how the system is built, security One Thing At A Time: It’s common to try and draw a system diagram.In another (zoomed in) layer, youĬould show how that microservice is implemented. How 3 microservices are connected, but just depict those Zoom In / Zoom Out: For a high level diagram, perhaps you’ll show.Some strategies to refactor a busy diagram include: Simpler to show a collection of comprehensible diagrams which focus onĭifferent areas, including high level diagrams to tie them together. Keeping track of more than 20 things can be difficult. If your diagram has 200 elements in it, it’s going to be hard for a Guideline #1: Limit Complexity Per Diagram Guidelines which can universally improve communication effectiveness. However, across all types, there are some general The second part of this post explores some specific types General Guidelinesĭiagrams come in many types, and can communicate many different things. What’s captured here includes advice from Tufte, as well as many others, that’s focused on the particular domain of technology systems and processes. (Thanks to Bob Marshall for the reminder.) For a good high level firehose of some of the ideas, this slide presentation is pretty approachable. For example, not all lessons are totally portable to system and process visualization, but much of what Edward Tufte spent his life developing is very relevant. ![]() This post is the result of trying to ask the question – “can we do better?”Īs a short aside, technical diagrams aren’t incredibly unique, and much can be learned from others working on “effective visualization”. ![]() And a lot of them (even the ones I made in the past, that I’m revisiting) leave me with The Squinty Face Of Confusion™. Others, that after minutes of squinting, led to only more confusion.Īs a full-time Architect (the computery kind, not the making buildings kind) I end up looking at a lot of diagrams. Probably all seen diagrams which led to an immediate “aha!” – and Like any craft, methods of designing visuals that communicateĮffectively and efficiently can be studied and improved. Things like capacity, connectivity, reliability, security and performance. Images convey ideas and structure far more effectively than text.Įspecially for software systems, they can even help with reasoning about – Psychology Today, Learning Through Visuals) In fact, the part of the brain used to process words is quite small in comparison to the part that processes visual images. The research outcomes on visual learning make complete sense when you consider that our brain is mainly an image processor (much of our sensory cortex is devoted to vision), not a word processor. One of the best ways to communicate about technical designs andĪ large body of research indicates that visual cues help us to better retrieve and remember information.
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