Three diagrams - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals)

Shalev 06 Apr 06

Well obviously the first diagram is the best - it has all those official looking paragraphs and a cool multi-layered diagram!

Jeff Croft 06 Apr 06

All of these are very cool and interesting in their own right. Nice to see this kind of information here. Love stuff like this!

Dan 06 Apr 06

Yes, the JJG diagram at the top is the best one. I’ve had it in my cube going on four years now. It has withstood the test of time imho.

Chris S 06 Apr 06

Different diagrams for different audiences with different needs:

one is conceptual
one is technical
one is didactic

all are educational

Beyond the functional spec type argument I think that what is strikingly different between the first two and the the third is — the first two make explicit attempts to include other people beyond the designer in the process.

It is really easy to design for yourself — you know what you want — you can “look at what’s there and figure out what sucks.”

The other models make an attempt to communicate how they are going to include the other stakeholders in a project into account. The effectiveness of the particular methods described in the diagrams, or the ability of the diagrams to communicate their processes is debatable.

The first looks at users for goal definition. Ideally, this phase would identify what the stakeholders view as the “epicenter” of the process/experience you are seeking to improve. From there on it takes a “I know more than the users” approach to design.

The second is illegible — but the number and variety of characters illustrated suggests some kind of involvement of people outside the development/design team.

The third is designer as all knowing all seeing. It suggest a single “rockstar” working in a vacuum.

Get Real: unless you’re designing for yourself, you don’t know as much as the user knows.

JF 06 Apr 06

Caleb, Getting Real doesn’t mean you only design things for yourself. You can most certainly involve other people in the process. Absolutely.

If you are building something for someone else then by all means have that other representative person (or group of people) involved as much as possible. The more the better. That doesn’t mean do everything they say, it just means have them involved.

Show them real things, not diagrams or paragraphs describing real things. Show them real mockups. Have them click through things. Have them use what you’re building.

That is what Getting Real is about. Building, using, tweaking, and adjusting real things.

Getting Real is not attached to scratching your own inch. Scratching your own itch is a great way to build better products, but of course it’s not the only way nor is it feasible at all times.

Caleb Buxton 06 Apr 06

Great!

Now lets find a way to realistically communicate that in that model, if we’re going to be comparing models that is.

I wasn’t questioning Getting Real — and what you underscore in your response is exactly what I was getting at. Participatory Design.

None of those three models describe that.

Kevin 06 Apr 06

“the first two make explicit attempts to include other people beyond the designer in the process.”

which eventually leads to design-by-committee. Personally, I’ve seen what soliciting input from people can do, especially if these people don’t know how to input properly.

And you’re reading way too much into the third diagram. If you want to criticize it, criticize it for being too general to offer any type of usable idea. Even Getting Real isn’t so simple.

Larry Wright 06 Apr 06

Is that ThoughtWorks poster the one that hangs in their Chicago headquarters? It look suspicously like the one I saw there in January….

JF 06 Apr 06

Now lets find a way to realistically communicate that in that model, if we�re going to be comparing models that is.

We weren’t communicating anything about the diagrams. We just posted them as observations.

Mark Gallagher 06 Apr 06

Scott Adams totally nailed the value of all flow charts (and consultants) in this old cartoon.

Of your three diagrams, the middle one is the funniest - designed to maximize the number of meetings and hours billed.

Goynang 06 Apr 06

The third one is the only one I understood in 2 seconds. What’s that worth?

Britt 06 Apr 06

The map is not the territory. The diagram is not the product.

If a diagram does not explicitly represent something tangible (like a floor plan to a building), I’ve found I have little need for it.

I must admit to being biased against diagrams. I’d rather read a descriptive, short paragraph.

I remember seeing that first one in a presentation by JJG years ago. He explained it well (took a little while) but it did not bring home the presentation as did concrete examples.

The second one I would not even bother trying to follow.

Luis 06 Apr 06

The third one makes the most sense in simplicity mantra. Really, do these things need to be so busy and pretentious?

Cem 06 Apr 06

#3 says it all.

Uzi Shmilovici 06 Apr 06

JJG’s diagram is one of the best altough I believe that 1-2 layers can be ommited.

JF - I think your diagram is extremly good for a designer or a developer in their own process of work. But you cannot eliminate the importance of understanding the user needs, which you did amazingly in basecamp (even if it is understandingyour own needs… at the end you are the users…)

B 06 Apr 06

2 are maps. The other is a compass.

Cooper 06 Apr 06

Actually all three of them are diagrams.

xian 06 Apr 06

Maps are teh lame! Google should just beam your directly to your destination!

~bc 06 Apr 06

#2: Clearly, if something walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, but is labeled “rhinoceros,” well, clearly then it’s a rhino.

Andreas 07 Apr 06

1st one: For the Designer/IA
2nd one: Developers & Team
3rd one: Managers

;)

Dan Rubin 07 Apr 06

Am I the only one who laughed a little when I saw these? :)

#’s 1 and 2, though well-designed from a ‘diagram’ perspective (they successfully communicate their content), represent the complex — #3 is simple, and straightforward (though communicating much less complicated information), but how much information is included in the first two that doesn’t need to be there?

Most deliverables in this vein are not nearly as well-designed as the first two examples, but that doesn’t change what I like about seeing these side by side: it’s worth keeping diagrams as simple as possible, so the message doesn’t get lost in the telling of the story.

Jens Meiert 07 Apr 06

Flickr lags like hell, but that doesn’t matter anyway: What would Tufte say. Certainly nothing which waves through these three diagrams, nor anything which wants diagrams as simple as possible, @Dan.

Jens Meiert 07 Apr 06

Immediate follow-up: …as long as they are exact and do not deceive, of course.

Dan Rubin 07 Apr 06

The important part of my last line was “as simple as possible” — there’s no sense in making something so simple that the viewer can’t understand the point. Lots of diagrams that I’ve seen make too much of the act of displaying information, and distract the viewer from the information itself.

Jens: fwiw, I’m not a Tufte devotee (not for any particular reason; I’m not eschewing his ideals, I’m just not in that camp at the moment).

Goynang 08 Apr 06

OK, 37signals guys, what’s your take on the diagrams now everyone else has had a say…?

Caleb Buxton 08 Apr 06

I hope I didn’t scare them off — I didn’t mean to be so passionate.

Platte 10 Apr 06

I commented on the Flickr page for #2:

It’s in the room where our monthly Chirb meeting is held in the Chicago ThoughtWorks office.

I don’t think I’d ever create a poster quite like this one, but I can imagine it’s useful for an audience that might not understand that agile development isn’t an unaccountable hackathon. Or understand why and how business interests need to be involved.

ThoughtWorks does quite a good job of bringing agile development to larger clients. If the purpose of calling attention to their poster is to criticize it, I suggest you take another look at what they’re doing in context. The poster would make an excellent aid to conversation about agile stakeholders, and in the place where it’s posted, that seems to be exactly what it’s for.

Graham 16 Apr 06

I must say that I’ve been somewhat underwhelmed by JJG’s diagram, not to mention his book. Both seem to be overly obsessed with labeling with little understanding of how design work actually gets done. I always come away from his documentation or his talk sensing arrogance or lack of experience. While objects or tasks receive sensible labels in his work, ultimately there is very little context, coherence or meaning. His effort to achieve a common vocabulary is certainly worthy of respect, but this diagram has faded on my pinboard … not through overuse.

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