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> This is why you want to limit the amount of information to process to the most relevant ones, to make the most relevant thing easy to transfer. This is the l
by alixanderwang 6y ago
> This is why you want to limit the amount of information to process to the most relevant ones, to make the most relevant thing easy to transfer.
This is the limitation of a single image diagram. Anything worth diagramming has some complexity; which means you have to remove critical info or risk it becoming confusingly messy.
> A widespread mistake is to mix abstraction levels inside a diagram. This really increases the cognitive load.
This is one of the core ideas behind https://terrastruct.com https://terrastruct.com [0]. Split complex diagrams into digestible pieces, via levels of abstraction.
[0] full disclosure, i made it out of frustration at current diagramming tools.
- didibus 6y agoLooks nice, but I can't imagine having the time to document all layers like that or the entire sequence flow in an animated way.
- spockz 6y agoI’ve long played with this idea. I would like to draw at the most detailed level and then let the tool generate the different levels of abstractions for me.
- alixanderwang 6y agoYeah we're working on reducing the time it takes to generate. Eg hooking up to databases to get schemas, source code for dependency graphs, using text to minimally express. But, I'll say that I think however long it takes, diagrams used for documentation is looked at much more than the author will have spent on it, and the benefits of having a mental model be clearly shared makes it worth a lot of effort.