Diagrams as Compositional Engines

Key Principle

Change the notation and you change the design. The medium of composition is not neutral — it predetermines what a designer can see, prioritize, and build. "The nature of a compositional system determines what a design may be and what experience it may create" (p. 157). This operates as a Sapir-Whorf principle for design: representation pre-selects results before a single design decision is consciously made.

Experience design demands a diagram taxonomy built for relational thinking:

These categories overlap — graphs contain symbols, some graphs are maps, many maps become symbols (p. 180). All three serve as "process-oriented tools for making," not data visualization (p. 163).

Why This Matters

The established "canon of representation" — floor plans, scripts, schedules, storyboards — systematically excludes experiential dimensions. An architect's plan omits acoustics; a lesson plan notates timing but not comprehension flow. The gap is not in thinking but in representation: intentions that cannot be notated cannot be communicated or built (p. 162).

Reach for a familiar object-oriented tool and you will design objects. The notation forecloses relational thinking before it begins. "Known diagrams lead to known forms and can be resistant to experiential thinking" (p. 162). The canon of representation is the mechanism by which thing-focused design reproduces itself — even in the hands of experience-minded designers.

Prescription: "The diagram must be part of the design process, as that diagram will determine the experiential scope of the project" (p. 162).

Good Examples

Travis Weller, Long Distance Duo (2017) — Replaces traditional note-by-note musical notation with a relational structure: ten movements alternating "Apart" and "Together," with togetherness modes (harmonics, rhythmic, unison, meditative, melding). By changing notation from melody-specification to relational diagram, what gets designed shifts from sound-sequence to performer experience (pp. 158–159).

Christian Nold, San Francisco Emotion Map (2007) — Replaces infrastructure-first geographic notation with geotagged emotional intensity data from participants. Demonstrates what becomes visible when the diagram itself is redesigned for experiential priorities (p. 161).

Odyssey Works, Pilgrimage Spiral Graph — The spiral form was chosen not to display data but to perform an argument: repeating themes at increasing intervals, suggesting a porous frame where performance folds back into life rather than ending abruptly. Graph form becomes experience design (p. 170).

Burickson & Tobin, "The Book of Separation" (2020) — Dual-path diagram tracking two participants through asynchronous intake, synchronized story, and reunion. The diagram IS the composition — relational dynamics lead the design rather than narrative sequence (p. 173).

Debord, The Naked City (1957) — Fragmented Paris neighborhoods connected by subjective movement arrows. Demonstrates what emerges when capitalistic mapping priorities are replaced by personal experience (p. 175).

Minard's Napoleon Campaign Map (1869) — Overlays distance, troop loss, time, and temperature in one image. The generative insight: "had such a diagram been used to plan the campaign before it started, might Napoleon have made different decisions?" (p. 179). Diagrams used to autopsy failure are the same ones that could have prevented it.

Counterpoints

Diagrams are not replacements for scripts, blueprints, or schedules — those remain necessary for execution. The claim is that diagrams must come first, in phase zero, to set relational priorities before object-oriented notation takes over for implementation. A diagram without eventual translation into buildable specification is vision without execution. Conversely, "the diagram is a possibility of fact — it is not the fact itself" (Deleuze, p. 163).

Custom diagrams also carry risk: invented notation requires explanation. Symbols work through social agreement, not resemblance (p. 163). A symbol without a shared key is noise. Designers must balance novelty against legibility — use common symbols (arrows, circles, lines) by default; introduce novel ones only when the concept demands it (p. 166).

Key Quotes

"The nature of a compositional system determines what a design may be and what experience it may create." (p. 157)

"Known diagrams lead to known forms and can be resistant to experiential thinking." (p. 162)

"The diagram must be part of the design process, as that diagram will determine the experiential scope of the project." (p. 162)

"To select a symbol for your diagram is to select a purpose." (p. 167)

"On a graph, where something is located tells you something." (p. 169)

"The graph drives home the incredible capacity of diagramming to use the relationships between things as the compositional engine of a design." (p. 172)

"Maps describe a territory on the basis of a specific set of priorities." (p. 174)

"Experience design is a wildly interdisciplinary practice, unifying often quite distinct activities under a single vision. The key to doing this effectively is designing the right diagram." (p. 180)

Rules of Thumb

1. Diagram before you script. Compose the experience as a relational diagram in phase zero; let scripts and schedules follow, not lead.
2. Audit your notation. Ask: what does this format make impossible to express? If the answer includes your core experiential aim, switch formats.
3. Symbol selection is purpose selection. Every shape commits you to a representational logic. Choose deliberately.
4. Weight sensory channels by neurological sensitivity, not physical size. The Penfield homunculus shows disproportionate brain area devoted to hands, face, lips — design attention should follow (p. 178).
5. Replace functional categories with experiential ones. Subordinate room names to light quality, sociality, liminality. Give the experiential dimension a representational surface or it gets no design leverage (p. 177–178).
6. Use multiple representations. Different stakeholders inhabit different priority systems. One map is one argument; multiple maps reveal the territory.
7. Build symbols iteratively. Simple shape, assign representation, encode parameters, add connections, vary types, add color — each layer only as needed (p. 167).
8. Shift diagrams from analytical to generative. Use them to plan decisions, not only to record consequences (p. 179).

Related References

• Experience Design: The Core Framework — The objects-to-lived-experience thesis that diagrams operationalize at the tool layer
• Implementation Playbook — Phase zero composition where diagrammatic thinking begins