A process or user flow drawn as steps, questions and outcomes, for the people who have to follow it.
A flowchart is worth drawing when two people would otherwise do the same job two different ways. This page has two to open: a shop's refund process, and an app's screens from sign-up to a first booking. Both are samples to adapt, and your own process goes in through the prompt.
Who it's for
Whoever owns a process and is tired of explaining it: an operations lead writing down how refunds work, a manager with a new hire starting Monday, a designer handing a flow to developers. Send it when the rules have just changed, or when the third person this month has asked what happens next.
It's the wrong tool for a workshop where the team drags boxes around together. Use a whiteboard app for that, and publish the chart once it has settled.
What a good one contains
- One start, and an end for every outcome. The refund chart has three ends: no refund, the customer's choice, refunded. A single end usually hides the unhappy paths.
- Questions that take a yes or a no. "Is the refund over $150?" can be answered at a desk. "Assess the refund" can't. Put the threshold inside the diamond.
- A label on every branch. An unlabeled arrow out of a diamond makes the reader guess. Yes and No sit on the lines.
- Who does each step. Each box carries a role. When a request stalls, the chart says whose desk it's on.
- One main line. The usual case runs straight down and the exceptions step off to the side.
- The same steps as a list. Seven numbered lines repeat the refund chart in words, for people who would rather read and for screen readers.
- In a user flow, the paths nobody wants. The gym app shows five: a taken email, a wrong code, someone under 18, an empty class list, a full class. Developers build what's drawn, so draw what happens when things fail.
Small enough to trace with a finger
Most charts fail by trying to hold everything. The refund sample has nine steps and four questions, and that's close to the limit for one picture. Past that, split it: one chart for the main process, another for the exception with rules of its own.
Open it on a phone before sending. A wide chart shrunk onto a small screen turns into grey threads, so both samples switch to a narrower, stacked drawing there. Then ask someone who doesn't do the job to trace one case from start to end. Where their finger stops, a branch is missing.
When the rules change, replace the page. The link your team saved keeps working, and nobody follows last quarter's chart.
How to send it
To named people. A process chart shows where your limits sit, like the refund size that needs sign-off. Keep it to the team that follows it.
Every page you publish gets one link that opens in any browser. You choose who can open it: anyone with the link, anyone with the password, or only the people and company domains you name, who sign in with Google or Microsoft. Change the page later and the link stays the same.
