What are technical diagrams?

Diagramming is not like painting with brushes as if you were editing a photo. It's also not charting numerical data from a spreadsheet.

Instead, you place a number of diagram elements, connect them together, add descriptive text, and style the elements to convey more complex information visually.

Technical diagrams relate concepts, show context, and document the planning, design and/or implementation of a product, process, system, organisation, or service. In mahy professions, these diagrams document planning, implementation, analysis, or training information.

What makes a diagram technical?

Every field claims the term 'technical diagrams' or 'technical drawing' as their own, narrowing down the list of diagrams types to those used only within that field. But they all have one thing in common - technical diagrams relate concepts, show context, and document the planning, design and/or implementation of a product, process, system, organisation, or service.

Technical diagrams are created for many reasons: to plan changes at the start of a project, to track the implementation, to document a completed system or product, or to provide training in various ways. They are almost always embedded in documents, presentations or content repositories, and need to remain legible when resized.

Creating technical diagrams in draw.io

draw.io lets you draw a wide variety of technical diagrams: flow charts, mind maps, org charts, Venn diagrams, infographics, network and architecture diagrams, floor plans, electrical and rack diagrams, UML diagrams, and more.

You can embed draw.io diagrams in office documents and presentations, on a website or in GitHub, in a number of content management systems via integrations, or export to a vector-based image (SVG or PNG) and include the diagram data so you can open and edit it again in draw.io.