lesson
Updated 6 days ago · 2 views
Imagine building a complex LEGO set without any picture instructions — just a giant wall of plain text.
You would probably get lost fast, and programmers face the exact same challenge when writing code without a plan.
A flowchart is a visual diagram that shows the step-by-step path an algorithm follows from start to finish.
In 1921, industrial engineers Frank and Lillian Gilbreth created the first process flow charts to help people break complicated jobs into clear, visual steps.
Flowcharts help us with problem decomposition, which means breaking a huge problem down into smaller, manageable chunks before writing a single line of code.
📊Interactive diagram
To read or build any flowchart, you only need to know five standard shapes. What does each shape actually do?
The Core Flowchart Symbols
Every shape in a flowchart has one specific job so that anyone looking at your diagram knows instantly what happens next.
📊Interactive diagram
The Terminator symbol (oval, stadium shape, or rounded rectangle) marks the explicit "Start" or "End" of a flowchart.
The Input/Output symbol (parallelogram) indicates data being received into the system (e.g., user enters temperature T) or output generated by the system (e.g., display message 'Bring an umbrella').
The Process symbol (rectangle) represents an action, task, computational operation, or internal state change (e.g., calculating Total=Price+Tax).