Communication Patterns

Chapter 4. Narrative

After nourishment, shelter, and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.

Philip Pullman

The term narrative may remind you of an English literature class, but stories serve as a means for so much more, including social bonding, problem-solving, and entertainment among others. As humans, we thrive on stories.

The other chapters in this part are more about what to show your audience to communicate successfully; this one is more about the how. This chapter will help you tell your audience a story to get your message across.

The Big Picture Comes First

When you look at the cover of a box of LEGOs you don’t see a picture of each individual brick that’s inside. Instead, you see the picture of an exciting, fully assembled model…positioned in a life-like pirate’s bay with cliffs and sharks.

Gregor Hohpe, The Software Architect Elevator

Diagrams do not exist in isolation; they are part of a narrative, and the big picture comes first pattern helps order that narrative. Most diagrams are not the beginning of the story, and many are very much down in the nitty-gritty details of design.

Even if your audience is interested in the fine details, that is not what you should show them first. They need the context and to be engaged and hooked into your narrative. Fine details are boring and confusing when you don’t know the big picture. The levels of abstraction discussed in “Mixing Levels of Abstraction” need to be ordered to make sense. When you’ve ...