Flowcharting
I spent the better part of last week agonizing over flowcharts to describe aspects of my designs. I say “agonizing” because the single most difficult challenge of communicating a design with a flowchart is understanding how the intended recipient of said chart will react to it.
In my case, it is (ideally) for programmers and artists, which means it needs to speak plainly, be reasonably easy to follow, and communicate equally to a left-brainer and a right-brainer. Frankly, I’m not even sure this is possible without tearing a hole in the space/time continuum but I digress.
In a previous effort, I submitted a flowchart for a different kind of gameplay and received a stiff response from a programmer saying, ‘drop all the colours and dotted lines, keep the chart simple and don’t embellish’.
Thoroughly chagrined, I edited the chart and removed all of the artsy colours and variations that I’d thought would so cleverly differentiate the various states, phases and actions to one box type, connected by one line type and no colours.
‘Better…much better.’
Then an artist approached me and exclaimed, ‘I can’t tell the difference between a camera shot, phase change and a state; why not have colour variations and different shapes to set them apart?’
I showed her the original chart and with a smile, she said, ‘Yeah! Just like that!’
Just like that…
So, when I received my design review back with a tiny notation that asked for me to “make a chart” I knew I’d need to have more specifics. So my question was to the point: “who is this chart for?”
The answer was, of course, programmers and artists.
Right. Good.
This time I was going to handle things differently. Details were clearly going to be needed here and I’d avoid unnecessary colours if possible. So I got to work… for hours… then days… then days and nights and toiled. Several times I got so muddled in the ‘if this occurs then move to that state’ type thinking that I started seeing flowcharts in my mind of what would happen if I had another glass of water without going to empty my bladder.
When the going really got tough I called on a designer buddy and a programmer friend to oversee what I was up to so that they could give me the sharp kick in the nuts that I would need whenever I was on the wrong track. And they so graciously did kick me in the nuts repeatedly to help me get the work done.
Thanks guys.
In the end, I was very pleased with the work that I’d done and felt like the overtime poured into my flowcharts was well worth the learning experience.
Until Friday at 5 o’clock when my work was reviewed and I was informed that they were entirely too detailed and that I’d need to re-do them all in a much simpler way.
Now I know there’s a lesson in all this. Oh yes, there’s a lesson. Somewhere…and perhaps I’ll flowchart it when I figure it out.