An Everyday Example of Architecture Documentation: Subway Maps
November 2009 • White Paper
Paul C. Clements
This white paper explores the idea that subway maps provide a good, common example of architecture documentation and that they might be instructive about good software architecture documentation.
Abstract
This white paper stems from an observation by the SEI's Paul Clements that
. . . subway maps are very good everyday examples of architecture documentation. A subway system architecture isn't a software architecture, for sure, but it's certainly an architecture. I started wondering what parts of our Views and Beyond approach to documentation I could recognize in a subway map and the associated pieces of information the public can find in a subway station.