What Is Visio And Do I Have A Use For It?

Microsoft Office users are usually familiar with Word and Excel at the very least. For other versions of Office, PowerPoint and Access usually join the fray in the realms of common knowledge, too. There are a few applications and features that currently don't come bundled with Office, so the majority of people never use them, or have even heard of them. Visio is one of these such applications.

Perhaps one of the reasons Visio is lesser-known is that it hasn't always been a Microsoft product, (they acquired it from the Visio Corp in 2000). Nor has it ever appeared in any of the Office suites, (it's standalone and have to buy it separately). Before you decide to splash out, it's best to decide if you really need it.

Visio is essentially a program for creating vector diagrams - a precise, mathematical form of illustration and drawing. If you think you've never seen a Vector before, (most of us being familiar with JPGs, GIFS, bitmaps or raw images from our digital cameras), you'd be wrong. If you've ever used clipart or played with fonts, then these commonly use vector images. But would you get a use out of them in your daily or business life?

You don't just have to be an architect or designer to get a use out of Visio, but if you are, it would be a great program to have! There are certain useful tools that Visio has that would have transferrable skills to other professions. Let's say you're a project manager, engineer or designer. You can create a flowchart in Visio to show the elements coming in (and going out) of your project, perhaps even coupling this with a budget and costs of each stage on an Excel spreadsheet. Creating a professional flowchart is also much easier to share and distribute among others involved with each element of the process, instead of written notes. Flowcharts have a universal language that is usually understood by everyone.

Think about how instructions for flat-pack furniture are written out (possibly with a shudder!) - in the step by step, diagram-heavy way. It works, though, and can communicate the same message to anyone who views it, without use of a particular language. You can use this for signage in the workplace, basic instructions or for parts of a website (such as the infamous "under construction") that anyone can understand, without the use of text.

Another use for Visio is creating a hierarchical diagram (similar to a flowchart). For example, the total of personnel in a location, from the manager to the cleaning team, is one we often see in the workplace. Family trees are another prime example of this kind of layout. These kinds of diagrams can be changed, altered, added to and shared easily with other people. The key, of course, is that the people need to have Visio, too. Therefore, if you've now not only heard of it, but are getting a lot of use out of it - the best advantage you can have is tell other people and encourage them to try something new, too.