Rosenverse

Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.

Log in Create free account

100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.

Stuck? Diagrams Help
Thursday, October 27, 2022 • DesignOps Community
Share the love for this talk
Stuck? Diagrams Help
Speakers: Abby Covert
Link:

Summary

This month our DesignOps community was joined by Abby Covert, a founding member of the Design Operations community, and eMcee for DesignOps ‘18. Abby has two decades of making and teaching diagrams to other people. She is currently on a mission to rid the world of bad diagrams, one diagrammer at a time. And we think the DesignOps could learn a thing or five from her about how we could up our diagram game.

Key Insights

  • Diagrams combat the VUCA forces—volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity—by providing stability, transparency, understanding, and clarity.

  • A fifth superpower of diagrams is kindness, offering emotional relief and a pause mechanism when people feel stuck.

  • Diagramming is a craft informed by multiple disciplines, including cartography, math, machine design, and metadata systems.

  • Designing diagrams requires clear consideration of audience, including individual and group dynamics.

  • Effective diagrams can serve as life rafts through volatile and complex challenges, such as cyber hate or public health crises.

  • Simplicity is not always the goal; understanding the audience’s needs and context determines the best level of complexity in a diagram.

  • Diagrams must be accessible; providing alternative text or alternative content is crucial for people with visual or cognitive impairments.

  • Excessive color coding without clear structure can increase ambiguity rather than clarity.

  • Narrative storytelling can be a powerful alternative content strategy complementing complex diagrams.

  • Diagram accessibility solutions, like structured summaries or phone-tree style navigation, empower users to consume information at their own pace.

Notable Quotes

"When was the last time that you felt stuck? The one where you feel a sense of being stuck trying to understand something."

"Diagrams are life rafts crossing the sea of volatility, helping to get everyone on the same page."

"Diagrams provide transparency in the face of uncertainty by showing what there is to know, even if the news is not good."

"Simplicity is not always the answer to complexity, but understanding often is."

"Just because you can color code something doesn’t mean you should."

"Diagramming is kindness we give to ourselves and others to get our bearings on things we’re stuck on."

"Providing alternative content is often a kinder gesture than any lengthy alternative text could be."

"The key to good diagrams is accessibly rendered, content driven, and visually supported."

"Diagrams help when we feel stuck—providing stability, transparency, understanding, clarity, and kindness."

"Diagrams allow us to emotionally hit pause and come back ready to dig further."

Ask the Rosenbot
Chris Engledowl
A Mixed Method Approach to Validity to Help Build Trust
2023 • QuantQual Interest Group
Kim Lenox
Leading Distributed Global Teams
2019 • Enterprise Community
Sam Proulx
Accessibility: An Opportunity to Innovate
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Peter Boersma
How to Define and Maintain a DesignOps Roadmap
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Chris Hammond
Embedding sustainability into enterprise design and development: A journey towards "sustainability consciousness"
2025 • Climate UX Interest Group
Natalie Dunbar
DesignOps and Content Strategy: Envisioning the Future Together
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Dorelle Rabinowitz
The Magic Word is Trust
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
Sam Ladner
Methodologies: Beyond the interview [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
2024 • Advancing Research Community
Kat Vellos
Opener: The Other L Word
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Mike Oren
Design Research Strategy & Strategic Design Research
2022 • Advancing Research Community
Kelly Goto
Emotion Economy: Ethnography as Corporate Strategy
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold
Patrizia Bertini
The (r)evolution of designOps: It’s Time to Think (really) BIG
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
Jemma Ahmed
Redefining the research toolkit: Expanding methodologies for a changing world
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Max Gadney
Assessing UX jobs for impact in climate
2024 • Climate UX Interest Group
Kara Kane
Communities of Practice for Civic Design
2022 • Civic Design Community
Alicia D. Johnson
Disasters and the 21st Century
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold

More Videos

Nalini Kotamraju

"What happens if research does not report into UX? What might happen if we uncouple research from UX?"

Nalini Kotamraju

Research After UX

March 25, 2024

Dean Broadley

"Don't be a pot plant, be a crab."

Dean Broadley

Not Black Enough to be White

January 8, 2024

Denise Jacobs

"Racism doesn’t just hurt people like me; you’re hurting yourself by perpetuating beliefs that deny a greater humanity."

Denise Jacobs Nancy Douyon Renee Reid Lisa Welchman

Interactive Keynote: Social Change by Design

January 8, 2024

Kim Fellman Cohen

"Failure isn’t discouraging; it’s an opportunity to learn and improve your approach."

Kim Fellman Cohen

Measuring the Designer Experience

October 23, 2019

George Aye

"Power is the ability to change another person’s reality."

George Aye

That Quiet Little Voice: When Design and Ethics Collide

November 16, 2022

Nathan Curtis

"Sometimes alignment work isn’t enjoyable, but it’s part of the job for design system success."

Nathan Curtis

Beyond the Toolkit: Spreading a System Across People & Products

June 9, 2016

Greg Petroff

"We want our culture to be about the outcome, not about who owns what or who’s doing what on a piece of work."

Greg Petroff

The Compass Mission

March 10, 2021

Chloe Amos-Edkins

"Budget and time are the enemies of inclusivity in research."

Chloe Amos-Edkins

A Cultural Approach: Research in the Context of Glocalisation

March 27, 2023

Mackenzie Cockram

"Agile can feel like a cult, but the data helps show it’s working and not just a belief system."

Mackenzie Cockram Sara Branco Cunha Ian Franklin

Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Research from Discovery to Live

December 16, 2022