ProjectProposal-SuneetShah

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Perfect FlowCharts

Flowcharts are a great tool to facilitate communication. They allow effective analysis and help demonstrate logic steps. They can also be used to show complex relationships and interdependencies. They are great for project documentation and are often used in coding projects. The only problem with flowcharts is that they can get messy and complicated very quickly. This project proposal is a method to eliminate that messiness.

Often when working with a group, or when attempting to organize thoughts, one finds the need to create flow charts. There are many software packages available today that allow you to create flowcharts on a computer, but many people prefer to still first create them on paper, and then if they need to be presented, they later format them nicely with software. The goal of this project is to create a software package that will allow a user to use the Anoto pen system to create flow charts on paper and have them instantly show up as nice color coded and properly organized charts. This system should not be limited to just flow charts. There are many other types of diagrams that it will be able to support, like Venn diagrams, Euler Diagrams, and tree type diagrams. In this project proposal we will focus on Flow charts, but the concepts discussed here will similarlily apply to all other types of charts.

Potential Users

The target user group for the Perfect Flow Chart system is rather broad, it consists of students, engineers, business professionals that often make presentations, and companies that use charts for things like self support, tutorials, or demonstration of company processes. It is difficult to classify this user as a type of person, but it is easier to classify the tasks that this system is well equipped to handle. Some of the possible uses include:


  • logic diagrams
  • marketing proposals and business plans
  • cause and effect diagrams
  • self service
  • troubleshooting tools
  • photo diagrams
  • deployment charts
  • customer-supplier relationships

More About Flow Charts

Let's now further explore flow charts and the Perfect Flow Chart solution. Lets take a look of a great example of a good flow chart. This flow chart was generated by SmartDraw, a software package that allows you to create flow charts. Our Perfect Flow Chart solution will differ in that it will allow you to simply draw your chart on paper and have the software automatically turn it into something similar to the right. The picture on the right is taken from one of our competitors, | SimpleDraw

As seen to the right, a typical flow chart will contain any number of the following symbols:

  • Ovals
    • These represent ideas or questions.
  • Squares
    • These are used just like ovals but a different shape can be used to differentiate a different type of idea or question
  • Connecting lines/arrows
  • Start and end points
  • Arrow Labels

The system will need to recognize these shapes to format the charts correctly.

I think that the Perfect Flow Chart solution has a lot of appeal to users because foremostly it doesn't require them to sit at a computer. Just the way most people prefer to print things out and then read them, many people find it more concrete to organize their thoughts with pen and paper, and then make them look nicer with computer tools. This will allow them to do both at once. It is really appealing to people that make presentations often. This tool will allow you to easily create impressive looking graphs. While there are a lot of competing products, this is the only product that fits seamlessly into the brainstorming process that someone might go through because it allows them to use their conventional methods. The learning curve for this tool is very easy, the user will simply have to learn some standard shapes that the system will understand.


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