Flowchart

A flowchart (also spelled flow-chart and flow chart) is a schematic representation of a process. They are commonly used in business/economic presentations to help the audience visualize the content better, or to find flaws in the process.

Examples include instructions for a bicycle's assembly, an attorney outlining a case's timeline, diagram of an automobile plant's work flow, the decisions to be taken on a tax form, et cetera.

Generally the start point, end points, inputs, outputs, possible paths and the decisions that lead to these possible paths are included.

Also many humorous flowcharts exist, for example one that outlines how to pass the blame if something goes wrong.

Flow-charts can be created by hand, but lately specialized diagram drawing software has emerged that can also be used for the purpose, such as Visio and Dia.

Applications in Computer Science

Flowcharts were used historically in computer science to represent algorithms, which are themselves instructions for a sequence of operations. Today, however, the trend is towards the use of pseudocode to represent algorithms. Flowcharts are, however, more visual, and could be more useful to more visually-minded people (note their use in presentations).

See also Program Design Language, Unified Modeling Language (UML), and State Diagram.