# What is a diagram?

**URL:** https://community.geodesignhub.com/t/what-is-a-diagram/50
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [January 5, 2017, 10:26am UTC](https://community.geodesignhub.com/t/what-is-a-diagram/50 "2017-01-05T10:26:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![hrishiballal](https://community.geodesignhub.com/user_avatar/community.geodesignhub.com/hrishiballal/32/2_2.png) [@hrishiballal](https://community.geodesignhub.com/u/hrishiballal)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2017, 10:26am UTC](https://community.geodesignhub.com/t/what-is-a-diagram/50/1 "2017-01-05T10:26:53Z")

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Diagrams are one of the foundational communication concept inside Geodesignhub. You can think of a diagram as a representation of a idea that can be easily understood and communicated. The closest analogy is a explaining something to someone using a back of a napkin, you are going to use rough sketches, some text etc.

Prof. Steven Ervin explains diagrams the best, I would really recommend that you listen these two short videos (~ 5 mins each) on YouTube: [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqjAJwER_SE) and [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n34KWvg3uiU).

 ![diagrams](https://community.geodesignhub.com/uploads/default/original/1X/20177d76debeaf9b2b8f05de2b0f3ead82fd7f38.jpeg)

Diagrams are form the basis of design negotiation and are a fundamental object type in Geodesignhub. Diagrams are objects that represent past, current and future ideas of interventions that are created by users and others in a project. Diagrams have three things:

- A representation on a map (e.g. line or polygon on a map)
- A short text describing what the diagram communicates.
- Other meta data attributes such as a cost, timeline, funding type etc.

There are primarily two types of diagrams: Projects and Policies. Projects are ideas that involve construction, building something, moving something and are necessarily linked to a location. For e.g. building a new shopping mall is a project. The second type of diagram is a policy. Policies are things that are not necessarily spatial i.e. linked to a specific location. For e.g. a water management training or education program is not linked to a specific house but to all of the area. A policy could be a rule, regulation that can be introduced as a part of the design strategy. E.g. to promote opening of new businesses, a tax break could be implemented for new businesses. These type of economic tools are examples of policies that can be pursued. A effective geo-management and strategy consists of both projects and policies. The policies are depicted as hatched patterns and projects as solid pattern in Geodesign and a example is below.

 ![](https://community.geodesignhub.com/uploads/default/original/1X/9f101fe6ebc4b5f033263c886ff1aa4115b82e4a.png)