Diagram types and their use cases
draw.io is not a spreadsheet program - there are no figures from which to draw charts and graphs automatically. But there are plenty of useful shapes in draw.io, so you can easily create attractive charts and graphs for presentations and infographics.
Diagrams for the medical industry are often described from the perspective of an organisation or hospital, but how can the most important people in medicine - the patients - use diagrams themselves to get better treatment outcomes?
Humans understand information faster and more easily in diagrams. This is why there are many visualisation tools, from simple sketching apps, to single-purpose diagramming tools and whiteboarding apps, through to technical drawing applications like draw.io and hyper-specialised CAD and architectural tools for precision drawings.
Salesforce diagrams let you visualise your system and solution architectures using a set of icons (shapes) recommended by Salesforce.
If you are learning a language, you need tools to help you make sense of the grammar. Especially when you come across sentences that are carefully constructed to be as confusing as possible. That’s where sentence trees come in handy.
Association classes in UML class diagrams ‘hang’ off the relationship between two other classes. Instead of leaving an unconnected end on your connector, add a waypoint shape between them and connect all three class shapes to the waypoint shape.
UML component diagrams are used to model the high-level software components and subsystems in service-oriented architectures and component-based development projects, and more importantly, define the interfaces between those components. As component diagrams provide a clear visual overview of a system, they are drawn early in a project as they are useful both to seek approval from stakeholders and to develop an implementation roadmap.
T-charts are a type of graphic organiser or concept map that helps you to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of anything. They can also be used to contrast two things of the same type, such as physical products, services, processes or data structures, business models, applications, situations, etc.
While the shape libraries in draw.io have a vast array of shapes for technical diagrams, there are relatively few illustrations for use in infographic diagrams. You can create your own illustration shapes easily using draw.io on a tablet. For example, all of the illustrations in this tidal pool infographic were drawn as freehand shapes in draw.io.
Data flow diagrams (DFDs) are common diagrams used in structured analyses and data modelling to document the data flows between entities, processes and data stores. For example, the following DFD documents the main data flows in a large language model that allows user queries such as ChatGPT.
There are many systems where you need to describe the different roles that interact with it, and what their responsibilities are. As they can be quite complex, diagrams help you to explain how it works to both customers and colleagues.
Concept maps are a broad category of diagrams that are useful for brainstorming with teams, learning and training, showing hierarchical information, planning events or product campaigns, and exploring solutions to problems. They are widely used throughout all industries, especially in medicine and education.
Explaining new technologies to a less technical audience, like management-level stakeholders, can be difficult. Our whitepaper explains feature flags DevOps in clear diagrams how feature flags work and how they could benefit your product.
Explaining feature flag DevOps with diagrams whitepaper (PDF version)
Diagrams are an effective way of teaching and learning because we all understand complex information more easily when it is visualised. Graphic organisers, mindmaps, timelines, cause and effect charts, Venn diagrams, flowcharts, scientific illustrations - all of these can created in draw.io.
draw.io will be available as an integration in the web-based GitLab Wiki editor on 22 March with the GitLab 15.10 release and product kickoff. When you add your diagram to a GitLab Wiki page while editing the source of that page, it will be saved as an SVG image containing the diagram code, and displayed in the page content.
With PlantUML in draw.io using our web application (app.diagrams.net) you can quickly draw UML diagrams from a text description. When you input your PlantUML text, the diagram editor will automatically layout and arrange the diagram for you, based on your description and the style of output you select. It supports many different types of UML diagrams, as well as mindmaps, tree diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, Gantt charts, ER diagrams and more.
Feature-based development and lean release cycles are becoming more common in online software services (SaaS products), where continuous development and continuous deployment are required. Feature flags give administrators and developers fine control over what features are available to which customer segments on release.
UML activity diagrams show the sequence of actions and the flow of control in a system or a process. You can model the behaviour of physical and digital systems, as well as business process flows with activity diagrams.
UML activity diagram template in draw.io
Using diagrams.net or draw.io together with scripts and data sources, you can create data-driven diagrams, with colours, shapes, text labels and even animations that change to reflect live data.
Documenting software costs developers time and becomes outdated quickly. A code-first diagramming approach - describing the diagram in code or text while programming - works well for entity models (SQL database code), and class descriptions (PlantUML and Mermaid syntax).
Industries and services need to plan for when an incident happens, both to provide good customer service and ensure the safety of all those affected. When responding quickly to an incident, diagrams are easier to read and put into action than paragraphs of text.
UML use case diagrams show all of the ways an end-user interacts with your systems, with all of its pre- and post-conditions, exceptions and alternate paths. These diagrams are used to establish your system requirements, whether that be a software system or an interaction with another person or team.
Systems modelling language (SysML), is an extension of UML that has been modified for systems engineering. While both can document software, information and processes, SysML diagrams also document the hardware, humans, physical components, and facilities in the system.
The concept of state diagrams or state machine graphs has been around since the mid 1900s, long before David Harel modified them into the form used today as part of the UML standard.
Marketing teams commonly use 5C situational analyses, simpler SWOT analyses, PEST and PESTLE analyses to examine and improve their products and services. By presenting the information visually, you won’t get bogged down in unnecessary details.
When you slice a 3D shape up and layer it in a diagram, you clearly visualise that a concept or process is broken up into smaller parts. Here’s a step-by-step tutorial to create your own infographic using shapes from the basic draw.io shape libraries.
Bioicons is a collection of free custom shape libraries containing open source icons for life science applications. The website lets you select one or more shape libraries, and open them in the draw.io editor on the web.
Mindmaps are useful to quickly capture ideas, and are easy to draw in draw.io and our draw.io branded apps. But some people prefer to work from text lists when brainstorming. Drop a text list into the PlantUML import tool and draw.io will generate your mindmap for you - no need to fuss with connectors or layouts.
Venn diagrams are widely used in business, education and research to visualise commonalities and differences. Although, you have probably most often seen theme used in memes.
Open this Venn diagram in our diagram viewer
Sequence diagrams show the order of messages that are passed between elements of a system to complete a particular task or use case. The events that cross system boundaries are used by objects and people (actors) to complete their processes.
Have you been asked to create a chart, a diagram, or a graph? There is a lot of confusion around these overlapping terms, especially as they are most often used interchangeably. However, there are some minor differences in how they are used.
Represent the three-dimensional molecular shape of a chemical by drawing a structural or skeletal formula in draw.io with the two new connector shapes in the Arrows shape library - the solid wedge and the dashed wedge.
UML class diagrams are used to illustrate the structure of a computer program. They detail the types of data or attributes stored within each ‘class’, the methods (operations or functions) that each class provides, and the relationships between the classes.
You can create network diagrams from scratch in draw.io using shapes that match the platform you are using - AWS, GCP, Veeam, Azure, Cisco, IBM and many more. Both the draw.io AWS19 and GCP Icon shape libraries for network and cloud architectures have been updated recently.
Timelines, roadmap and milestone diagrams feature in a range of documentation - project development documents, infographics and presentations being some of the most common. There are many shapes and templates in draw.io and our draw.io branded apps that you can use to quickly draw an attractive diagram that you can embed in your presentation or documentation.
Flowcharts are one of the most used types of diagrams in all teams. But some process flows are circular or cyclical rather than a series of steps with a start and end. You can create circular flowcharts in the draw.io editor in a number of ways.
The barrier to anyone diagramming and whiteboarding with draw.io is lower compared to many other SaaS applications. From reviews and customer feedback, some of the things they like the most include:
Ishikawa diagrams, also called fishbone, herringbone or cause and effect diagrams, are used to analyse and identify the root causes of defects or negative events. As most problems have multiple causes, Ishikawa diagrams are a useful prompt to look at the many different contributing factors.
Steps in business processes and project documentation are easier to understand when visualised. As one of the most common families of diagrams, drawing flowcharts in Confluence lets you present complex information neatly and securely in your team and company knowledge base.
Many people prefer a minimal interface for diagramming, as there are fewer distractions. While online whiteboard applications often have a limited set of available tools, draw.io lets you use its advanced features in a less cluttered diagram editor theme.
The draw.io editor online at can use the Sketch editor theme which has an endless whiteboard-style canvas and simple toolbar. This theme is ideal to use as a collaborative online whiteboard with your remote team. The lack of page and grid lines, along with the simple toolbar, minimised panels and the default hand-drawn rough style for shape outlines, shading, connectors, and text labels feels like an informal physical whiteboard, much less intimidating than traditional diagramming apps.
Teams in different departments use many different methods to plan projects, but most of these plans are initially sketched on a whiteboard. Collaborate in real time and online with distributed team members, customers and stakeholders easily in the draw.io whiteboard-like editor theme throughout your project development process.
As a type of directed graph, dependency graphs visualise processes or situations where there are dependent components such as in decision making, scheduling, product development, IT or telecommunications infrastructure, supply and manufacturing chains, and more. They help you find the optimal order and identify critical paths or weak links that would constain your application, infrastructure or process.
Kanban boards show the breakdown of large projects into smaller tasks that you prioritise and track as they are completed. Collaborative projects benefit from a kanban board as it helps everyone visualise workflows, the state of the project, and the current workload.
Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is a standardised diagramming system used to visualise business processes. BPMN diagrams are a form of flowchart, similar to UML activity diagrams. While it is typically used by business analysts and managers, its simple and understandable set of shapes and flows makes it a good choice to document processes for stakeholders in any department.
Entity relationship diagrams or ER models in software engineering show the structure of and relationships between database objects. They are used extensively in database modelling to plan new systems, and document existing systems for maintenance and updates.
Open this ER model in the draw.io editor
Flowcharts are one of the most common diagram types, showing all of the steps that must be followed to complete a process. Not many processes are limited to just one person or one team, which is why swimlane diagrams and cross-functional flowcharts are used - these show the flow of data or control across different groups.
User story diagrams are quite strongly related to UML use case diagrams, and both are used in an agile software development context. Both types of diagrams are used to explore and document customer requirements, they identify different groups of users and their goals, but they are used in different ways.
The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a set of standard symbols and diagram types, commonly used in data modelling, workflow visualisation, and system modelling. UML notation is the defacto industry standard in the fields of software development, IT infrastructure, business systems and other fields. Many languages, such as SysML, SoaML, and a number of architecture frameworks use and extend UML.
Draw your Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure with draw.io for free. You don’t need to register or sign-up, and you can store your diagrams in your favourite cloud storage platforms, like Google Drive, One Drive, and Dropbox.
You can use a versioned diagram in a GitHub README file in a number of different ways, and include links to edit the diagram or use it as a template for a new diagram.
The C4 modelling is used to describe and define architectures in an abstract and simple way. Designed by Simon Brown, C4 is a different way to approach modelling software development which focuses on four c’s: context (people), containers, components, and code.
Diagrams make coding go a lot smoother, especially when you are programming in teams. Having diagrams version tracked and right with the code they reference, and version tracked similarly in your code editor saves you time. You don’t have to exit your workspace to switch to an external tool, or have to export/import every time you want to update a diagram.
draw.io has a number of shape libraries and templates for creating rack diagrams. Both electronics cabinets can be visualised, as well as IT racks with servers and networking hardware, including those provided by specific vendors like APC, Cisco, Dell, F5, HP, IBM and Oracle.
All teams have their own unique needs and particular workflows. Integrating useful collaboration tools seamlessly into that workflow is the key to your team’s success. We offer security-first diagramming for teams working with Atlassian products.
Mermaid is a syntax similar to Markdown where you can use text to describe and automatically generate diagrams. With Mermaid’s Markdown-inspired syntax, you can generate flow charts, UML diagrams, pie charts, Gantt charts, and more.
Network diagrams, or infrastructure diagrams, let you understand a computer network quickly.
Org charts, also known as tree diagrams, organisational charts, and organigrams, are used throughout all disciplines and professions. We like to categorise everything as it helps us make sense of how the world works. Species of plants and animals, corporate and military hierarchies, team structures, family trees, language family relationships, even symptoms of illnesses - org charts help us quickly find who to contact, what illness to treat, and so on.
Floorplans aren’t only useful for real-estate agents and people who are moving to a new apartment. You can also plan new office spaces, show emergency routes, create a seating chart, plan a conference or trade show layout - anything where you need to arrange people and furniture in a space.
It’s easier to show new development team members your project’s branch structure in your Git repository visually than to describe it in words. Some platforms may illustrate this using built-in tools. If you are using a platform without a convenient visual representation, it’s easy to create your own gitflow diagram.
Threat modelling, especially in IT, is becoming more common. Companies are increasingly aware of the risks of having their infrastructure and devices connected to the internet. As more devices, machines, sensors, monitors, and applications are added to a company’s infrastructure, there are potentially many more vulnerabilities.
Cloudockit is a platform which connects to and monitors your cloud and on-premises environment and automatically generates 2D or 3D diagrams. It works with AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), VMWare Hyper-V, Alibaba Cloud, IBM Cloud, and your local infrastructure to visualise your network and automatically generate documentation.
Entity relationship diagrams show how data is structured in relational databases. Each entity consists of rows of attributes. ER diagrams are used in software development and by IT workers to design and document database structure.
Using Cloudcraft, you can securely connect to cloud environments and infrastructure components via your architecture diagrams where statistics, resource information and more is updated in real time. The 3D isometric view that Cloudcraft uses is familiar to engineers and IT staff as it often matches the tools they learned on. The automatic updates driven from your company’s live systems makes Cloudcraft a fantastic tool for monitoring your AWS cloud infrastructure. The statistics are also helpful to estimate costs when you want to make changes to your system.
Veaam is an online service that visualises and monitors your cloud and network architectures, and provides a number of additional availability services, including deployment, backup, replication and restoration. It supports Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and IBM Cloud, as well as a variety of workloads, apps, and platforms commonly used by businesses.
