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> I am trying to convince someone of the importance of
flowchart direction. I
> have some good arguments but I need a little "official"
backup.
Between my last two gigs (Barnes&Noble.com and Avaya
Communication), I did a tremendous number of process
flowcharts...maybe close to 500. The following is based on
my experiences, others may be different.
With no other factors, direction is important as long as it
doesn't cause a misinterpretation of what's going on. By
this, I mean that if a flowchart is depicting a circular
process, don't sacrifice that just so you can maintain a
left-right or top-bottom design. Likewise, if you are doing
a flow chart with swim lanes, while it may be possible to
maintain a direction within each lane, trying to maintain an
overall direction will drive you nuts.
I try to maintain a left-right or top-bottom movement-my
readers seemed to have the least amount of trouble
understanding what was going on.
OTOH, I don't think you will find an "official" ruling on
direction. For instance, I don't think that there is a
specific instruction in the UML specifications.
John Posada
Senior Technical Writer
writer[at]tdandw.com
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