Notational Cues in ArchiMate
In addition to the colors, other notational cues can be used to distinguish between the layers of the framework. A letter ‘M’, ‘S’, ‘B’, ‘A’, ‘T’, ‘P’, or ‘I’ in the top-left corner of an element can be used to denote a Motivation, Strategy, Business, Application, Technology, Physical, or Implementation & Migration element, respectively.
An example of this notation is depicted in Example below:
Shape Convention in ArchiMate
The standard notation also uses a convention with the shape of the corners of its symbols for different element types, as follows:
• Square corners are used to denote structure elements.
• Round corners are used to denote behavior elements.
• Diagonal corners are used to denote motivation elements.
Related Resources
The following resources may help you to learn more about the topic discussed in this page.
- What’s New in ArchiMate 3? – An overview of changes in ArchiMate 3.0
- Full ArchiMate Viewpoints Guide (Examples Included) – A ‘handbook’ of ArchiMate Viewpoints, which lists and explains all to 23 example ArchiMate Viewpoints in detail
- ArchiMate 3.0.1 specification
- Learn more about Visual Paradigm‘s ArchiMate support
- Visual Paradigm on YouTube