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A Beginner’s Guide To Drawing Technical Diagrams
An introduction to four common diagrams that cover almost any scenario
It wasn’t until I started to work towards being promoted to a staff engineer that I added diagramming to my set of skills. It doesn’t matter whether you’re just starting your technical career or you’ve been an engineer for a while — it’s never too early or too late to start diagramming.
Since learning to diagram, I’ve lost count of the number of times a colleague has noted how much easier something was to understand thanks to the addition of a diagram.
When used correctly, they can be an exceptionally powerful communication tool. Similarly, a poor diagram can just lead to confusion and misunderstanding. In this article, I’ll cover the basics of diagramming, how to get started, some common diagram types that cover most scenarios, and finally some tools that I find enable you to create excellent diagrams.
Why Should You Learn To Diagram?
Before jumping into the specifics of diagramming, I want to touch on why I believe diagrams are so powerful and why you should learn how to diagram.
Consider the common scenario where you must present something to a group of people. There’s a reason that when you go to a conference, everyone uses a slide deck. It’s much more accessible and easier to digest. The same is true for a diagram. Anyone reading the diagram will find it much more accessible than a Word document or you trying to convey your ideas verbally.
Diagrams are also great for collaboration. If you’re presenting a proposal to someone to get some feedback, it’s going to be easy to adjust that proposal on the fly and then reevaluate simply by adjusting some boxes or lines.
Diagrams are also highly versatile — they are not just for architects. I’ve introduced engineers who mainly write code to diagramming, and it’s helped them to write better code and helped me to explain my ideas on how to structure classes.
We’ll start by looking at four different diagram types, covering what they do, when to use them, and examples. Following that, there’s a guide on getting started with diagramming.
