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The "swimlane diagram" (I've not heard that term, before) looks a lot like the classic bus timing diagrams that I've used since the 1980s.

I tend to use the same kind of diagram, whenever I'm illustrating a linear flow (or, more often, a set of linear flows).

One of my most useful tools is OmniGraffle.

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Swimlane diagrams are from the 1940s[0]. IGrafx trademarked it in 1996. They're often used to model process' that span people, roles or security boundaries [1][2][3].

Sequence-diagram participants[4], and gantt-sections[5] are sometimes used to represent the same.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimlane

[1]: https://swimlanes.io/

[2]: https://www.lucidchart.com/pages/tutorial/swimlane-diagram

[3]: https://www.drawio.com/blog/swimlane-diagrams

[4]: https://mermaid.js.org/syntax/sequenceDiagram.html#participa...

[5]: https://mermaid.js.org/syntax/gantt.html#syntax

another good one is https://sequencediagram.org/

Thanks to both of you!

These are useful resources.

I have always illustrated my systems and interactions, but have seldom used formal methods. I would use them, if they are required, but usually find that my subsets are more useful.

I did use “Booch Blobs,” back in the day, followed by UML, but always ended up using a tiny subset of the spec.

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