Organizational Chart Design: UX/UI Best Practices to Use

Remember the time your friend dragged you to a modern art show and you stopped by one of the many pieces on display with a raised eyebrow? No clear destination, and you're left wondering in confusion: "What am I even looking at?"

You see, org charts can't afford to be like modern art, whose exquisite streaks are understandable only to a minority of connoisseurs of art. It's not the place for ambiguity or artistic flair that only a select few can decipher. An org chart is a tool created for clarity, collaboration, and efficiency. And a lot of its success starts with and goes down to design.

On this, we'll explore why good org chart design matters and go over the common pitfalls to avoid when building an org chart. We'll explain how to design an org chart, sharing UX/UI best practices to create charts that are as functional as they are visually appealing.

Why Is Good Org Chart Design Important?

A well-designed organizational chart provides a clear overview of the structure and roles within a company. If created with due thought, it can drive clarity and help people obtain the needed information about the responsibilities, reporting relationships, and where each employee fits at a glance. When done right, the visual hierarchy guides users to focus on the key elements they opened the chart for.

Why is it crucial not to have a confusing org chart? Well, because it has to be an evergreen source of information that lets people address their questions to the right colleagues and enhance communication. This reference can serve as a company directory for various use cases.

A good organization chart with roles and responsibilities must be simple to read and navigate. It adopts the standard UX/UI best practices, delivering an intuitive and easily digestible experience. Likewise, it should be scalable and adaptable, as the company evolves. Typically, the staff structure changes regularly, with new roles or departments added or people leaving the company.

Basic Components in Org Chart Designs

Which building blocks form the foundation of such charts? Let's review some of the core elements that form the backbone and help visually represent the structure and relationships within an organization.

Text Boxes

Each individual, role, or department is represented by a box in the org chart. They generally feature integral details like:

• employee names;
• job titles;
• photos;
• contact information.

Lines or Arrows

As you design an organizational chart, use lines to connect org chart levels and their boxes to portray command. They help illustrate the hierarchy and the relationships between employees, outlining the authority flow. Oftentimes, the direct command lines are solid, while collaborative or advisory connections are dotted. Additionally, arrows may show the flow, accountability, or communication.

Best Practices on Organizational Chart Design [With Common Mistakes to Avoid]

There are many ways you can visualize organizational structure, but the selected approach will determine how effectively your chart communicates key information. Here's a collection of the org chart design best practices and pitfalls to avoid so your chart can enhance clarity, streamline communication, and provide actionable insights.

1. The Question of Size

Let's start with the matter of size. Charts that are too big or cluttered are typically overwhelming. And if they're hard to comprehend or navigate, the chart fails at its essential mission. Here are a few size-related modern org chart design best practices to keep in mind.

One-Page Org Chart

Ideally, your organization chart should fit on a single screen or page. The thing is that excessive scrolling is not good since people should get the required data quickly. Ideally, arrange the text boxes in a balanced layout. This means the chart shouldn't be too large vertically nor horizontally, so it isn't too tall or wide.

• Tip: Do your best to keep everything compact, say, limit each chart level to a number of roles that's manageable in terms of readability.

Make Several Smaller Org Charts

If you sense that your org chart is too gigantic (which may be a common case with huge multinational corporations with multiple divisions, locations, and so on), consider breaking it down into a couple of smaller-sized charts. Instead of including every single employee in one enormous web, split the organization into logical groups, such as by project or region, and then connect these related and reasonably-sized charts together.

• Tip: Make individual charts using diagramming tools for each regional office, department, project, or group you think is worth separating and then link them to a master chart for easier navigation.

Org Chart Box Sizes

It is also integral to adjust font sizes or box dimensions to make them consistent. Some boxes in poorly crafted charts could appear half-empty or overcrowded, when they should be of the same size. Aim for uniformity in the dimensions of the boxes you use if you don't want an unbalanced, cumbersome, or overjammed chart.

• Tip: You may group several team members who report to a single supervisor into one expanded box to save space.

2. UX/UI Details

Following the principles of a strong design is essential for drafting a quality organizational chart. The org chart UX pillars here are usability, clarity, and appealingness. These are a few points worth mentioning to avoid common mistakes that deal with cluttered layouts or inconsistent formatting.

Legible Font Sizes

Readability is of the utmost importance for org charts. So, make sure the text inside the chart is readable. If you use fonts that are too narrow or wide, this might only overload the user. Your goal is to make the chart functional and enhance the user experience, so don't give preference to intricate fonts that are hand-written, curvy, or require an effort to read (even if they look pretty and let you make beautiful org charts).

• Tip: Keep the font styles unified at all times. You may choose in favor of more familiar and simpler fonts like OpenSans or Roboto and select a font size that's a minimum of 14 pixels for readability.

Clear Typography and Standard Symbols

Typography can also be of great help if you want a seamless experience and easy navigation. For example, various font weights and bold text can help emphasize more important information while standard and easy-to-understand org chart symbols like arrows can give hints, clarifying what the user sees.

• Tip: Making the department names or job titles bold is a common practice, while the person's name is often marked with a lighter font weight.

Consistent Visual Elements

The org chart shapes and lines used must also be constant throughout. To ease perception and help avoid confusion, use clear geometric shapes like rectangles for all roles, but you can use their variations that differ slightly to mark other special positions that have to stand out. The same goes for lines, which have to be cohesive for the chart to be easy to follow.

• Tip: Select the shapes and stick to them in the entire chart, such as bold rounded rectangles for executives and non-bold ones for mid-level employees. Plus, use solid lines to symbolize direct reporting relationships and dotted lines if there are advisory roles.

Readable Labels

The labels within each box must be informative and concise. So, to avoid ambiguous labels that can lead to misunderstandings about the roles and titles, they should feature the essential information.

• Tip: It is best to prioritize such modern organizational chart design points as briefly showing the core data like the person's name and job title, hiding the rest (like the description of their responsibilities).

Reasonable Spacing

Moreover, mind spacing too, as this visual org chart point should also be consistent. When done properly, spacing lets you prevent visual clutter. Sufficient white space around and inside each box ensures that it is visible and the information inside it is readable. Plus, balance colorful elements with enough white space for clearer separation.

• Tip: Try not to cram many boxes close to each other or squeeze lots of information into a box. The smartest thing to do is to use alignment tools to maintain even spacing and to set equal gaps between rows and inside the boxes.

Add a Diagram Key

If necessary, a key placed on the side of the diagram can help navigate complex structures so that people definitely know how to read an org chart. It can serve as a quick explanation of what symbols or colors are present on the chart mean. It can, for instance, explain the difference between solid and dotted reporting lines or what a certain color code stands for.

• Tip: If you used certain symbols or colors to distinguish roles, departments, or levels of hierarchy, list their meanings in the key.

3. Color Usage

Improper colors can make your org chart a Skittles blast that's distracting. How do you use this powerful tool to maintain a professional appearance and make the org chart aesthetically pleasing and functional? Let's go over the ways color schemes can affect your organizational chart design.

Brand Compliance

When choosing the color scheme for your org chart, you can fall back on the corporate brand palette. It can be a good idea to use the ones in the company's designer guidelines so that the chart is in sync with the rest of the materials the company uses in terms of the visual identity. Selecting several colors from the brand book can help make a cohesive-looking chart.

• Tip: Use specific hex codes for an accurate match with the brand colors but don't use too many hues. Mind that if the corporate color scheme isn't a good fit for your org chart, don't use it, as making it functional and readable should be a higher priority.

Functional Color Coding

Colors can help you achieve a creative org chart design. But they should be used strategically, so don't stick to just one color or a black-and-white chart. As such, you may assign distinct colors for certain teams, levels of authority, regions, or departments. For example, executive roles could be red, managing roles orange, and entry-level ones neutral yellow. This can also help users grasp the relationships faster. Nonetheless, the same color scheme must be present across all sections.

• Tip: Shortlist the colors and their undertones wisely. Remember that the colors should be not only appealing visually but also allow people to distinguish between departments, roles, and so on. It is important to double-check that the same color represents the same category throughout the chart.

Colors for Visibility

Importantly, the colors you select should improve visibility. Therefore, it is best to use high-contrast colors between the text and its background. Color can be great leverage to draw attention to certain areas or attributes. For instance, a unique color can be applied for vacant positions or cross-functional roles like project managers who oversee multiple teams. However, using overly bright or clashing colors is not a good idea as they can strain the user's eyes and even distract them from the chart data.

• Tip: Org chart designers aiming for a polished look often choose muted tones or pastel shades. Save the bold or contrasting colors for critical roles to make them stand out without design overload.

4. Informativeness and Automation

Long gone are the days when organizational charts were simply static illustrations printed on a board. They can be dynamic and interactive, offering a lot more value to those browsing them. These are some additional tips on making your org charts better and more effective.

Use Interactive Elements

There are plenty of dynamic and interactive solutions that can be added to supplement an org chart and make it better, more informative, and neat. Here are a couple of notable tips to get you one step closer to cool org chart designs.

• Hidden details, hover effects, and dropdowns — not all information should be jammed into a single box, which is why it is reasonable to hide some of it, making it accessible on demand. As such, contact details with work emails, lengthy job descriptions, and more information can be put in collapsible sections or unfold on hover, in a pop-up, and so on.
  
  
• Hyperlinks — you may embed links within the boxes or use them for connecting and navigating between multiple charts. Some information can appear after a click or lead the user to a directory, profile page, project documentation, or elsewhere.
  
  
• Tooltips — additional hints placed in tooltips can make the charts more user-friendly, especially if they are large and complex. They may provide a quick view of some data or give contextual information placed inside the box.
  
  
• Filters — simplifying the search for information can also enhance usability. Consider adding a filter that can modify the org chart based on the indicated parameters, like the entered role, name, department, location, and so on.

Automate with Online Tools

Of course, getting hold of the right tool to create your chart is another best practice. Yes, there are plenty of customizable templates that can give you org chart design ideas. Sure, there are many intuitive drag-and-drop builders available to speed up the process. Yet most of them share a common issue: the necessity to handle chart updates manually.

Therefore, it's wise to seek more effortless solutions that can offer automation. As such, you can adopt OrgaNice, an in-Slack org chart builder that facilitates chart creation and upkeep.

OrgaNice can be a great way out if you'd like your chart to remain accurate and up-to-date without manual intervention.

1. Effortless chart draft creation

OrgaNice uses AI to make a draft of your org chart after integrating with Slack. Data gets pulled from the in-Slack profiles of the employees, and the initial structure can be up in just a few minutes with logically connected roles and departments. You can adjust or shuffle them accordingly afterward.

2. Profile management

To enrich the org chart, OrgaNice prompts employees directly in Slack to fill in data that's missing. This can include such points as job titles, managers, contact information, photos, and their start dates in the company. However, most of this data is usually present when the person is added to the Slack workspace.

3. Automated updates

If changes occur, there's automatic maintenance. Whenever there's a new hire, department change, promotion, and so on, OrgaNice makes real-time updates to the chart, which are reflected instantly. So when there's a layoff or someone leaves, you won't have to worry about manual data removal or other chart intervention.

4. Sharing is as easy as pie

Since OrgaNice is integrated into Slack, everyone in the workspace has access to the org chart. Therefore, sharing the organizational chart is effortless, and employees can view its latest and freshest version at any time. Plus, the data is safely stored in the system to protect personal information.

5. Extra included perks

The coolest part is that OrgaNice isn't just an org chart builder, it's an entire employee engagement suite for teams and HRs that also gives access to other neat features and tools. These include employee time-off tracking, a surveys bot, a solution for birthday and anniversary celebrations, welcome messages for new hires, kudos for team recognition, and more!

How to Design an Organizational Chart

Quality org chart designs are more than just neatly arranging boxes and lines. How do you approach their creation most optimally to make it an effective tool? Here are the main steps to follow.

Step 1: Define the Scope

Before jumping into drawing labels or choosing fonts, think about how detailed you want your org chart to turn out. Will it be an employee directory with detailed profiles? Or should it simply showcase the organizational structure as a static resource? Is it going to be one big dynamic org chart or several smaller ones available from one "parent" structure?

Think through its purpose, audience, and other vitals like whether to include every single employee in the staff hierarchy or just a high-level view. All of this will let you determine how much data you need to gather, which type of chart to choose, and which layouts are more suitable.

Step 2: Decide Which Tool to Use

There are plenty of available tool options to create your organizational chart. You can even draw one by hand! But most likely you're aiming for something functional, interactive, and with a modern organizational chart design.

If this is the case, save yourself the trouble and don't opt for customizable templates available in PowerPoint or Google Slides or drag-and-drop builders provided by Figma, Canva, or others. Why? Because you'll be stuck with lifelong manual updates with such charts, even if they're easy to create or look nice.

The best way out here is searching for solutions that offer automation. Starting from seamless data integration and real-time syncing to remove the headaches of constantly making tweaks to the chart manually, to easy sharing, data safety, and more.

Step 3: Select the Org Chart Layout

One of the other big things you'll need to decide as you start to design an org chart is its kind. There are various types of org charts out there, including the classics, like horizontal and vertical charts, and more complex ones like matrix or divisional charts.

Either way, you need to think through scalability at this point. Will this layout be enough in two years' time? Anticipate future hires, expansions of departments, and other changes so your chart stays relevant and flexible.

Bottom line: you need a practical and adaptable organizational chart design solution. After you choose the type that best suits your workflow, be it top-down or some other layout, begin customizing it.

Step 4: Improve Readability and Visual Appeal

The design org chart principles don't differ much from other UX/UI design rules. Your chart has to be easily read and understood. So you can choose the basic shapes, select a relevant color scheme, and assign colors strategically.

Mark the default fonts and their size, think through your bolds and dotted lines, and ensure the spacing is rational. Plus, think about how to arrange boxes and other vitals like the overall chart size. Make sure there is symmetry and alignment throughout the entire org chart, and add a diagram key if necessary.

Step 5: Collect Organizational Data and Fill Out the Chart

To ascertain that you're pulling all the right data, make a list of the must-have information. You'll definitely need names, job titles, reporting relationships, and departmental assignments. Do you need their photo, location, personal details like the birthday or work anniversary, or contact details? If yes, which ones? Do you want to mark core responsibilities or add bios or job descriptions?

The more information you'd like to show, the more important it is to think through how it'll be displayed. As such, hiding some details or making them available in an enlarged pop-up window or side panel upon click can be a good option.

Next, you have to gather all this accurate and up-to-date information about your team. If the data upload option is available (say, via an integration with your internal database or CRM), filling out the chart and each box will be fast.

Step 6: Share Your Organizational Chart

Once the chart is complete, you need to make it accessible for the team. The sharing options will depend on the tool you used. But some tips here would be to share the link and embed it somewhere in the workspace so people can easily access it at any time. However, don't forget to set sharing rules, as the chart likely features sensitive data, so you would want it hidden from unauthorized users.

Step 7: Keep the Org Chart Updated

People come and go, it's the circle of life in companies. But the chart is useful only if it gives relevant information. Make sure the chart is up-to-date at all times. And if you're forced to do it manually, set up an optimization routine or think about switching to a chart solution that handles this kind of work automatically.

Concluding Thoughts on Org Chart Visualization

Org charts are more than just pretty diagrams with people's faces. They can bring a lot of value to a business and foster communication when done right. That's why organizational chart design isn't a matter to be overlooked. You need the right chart type, layout, fonts, and displayed details. You need accessibility, visibility, and flexibility.

But none of this has to be a time-consuming manual process. Some solutions, like OrgaNice's in-Slack org chart builder, can simplify the creation and maintenance of org charts by leveraging AI. This way your chart stays current and accessible while reducing manual effort. Feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions or would like to learn what else your business can gain by integrating the tool.

FAQ

1. What does an organizational chart display?

It is a graphical representation of a company's structure that showcases reporting lines, job titles, and departmental divisions. It commonly has a hierarchical org chart format and often includes hierarchy, roles, and relationships between employees.

2. What can an organizational chart tell you?

Primarily, it helps you understand the chain of command in an organization. It illustrates a company's internal structure by mapping out roles and responsibilities, highlighting key relationships. It may feature important additional information like contact details.

3. What does an organizational chart show employees?

An organizational chart with roles and responsibilities shows where an employee fits within the company hierarchy. It clarifies the responsibilities of their colleagues and displays some company workflows.

4. What should an organizational chart include?

A complete org chart with roles and responsibilities should include such key elements as employee names, job titles, reporting lines, and departmental divisions. Ideally, it has to provide extra details like contact information, brief descriptions of each role's duties, or links to personal profiles.

5. What information is presented horizontally on an organizational chart?

The information in horizontal org chart layouts typically depicts team members, individuals, or departments working at equivalent levels or the same level of authority or responsibility. In this case, information flows left to right instead of top-down, and it's common for companies with fewer layers of management.