Adjacency Matrix Diagram

How to use the adjacency matrix generator

Interior designers, architects, UX teams, and software architects use adjacency matrices to plan which pairs of items should be near each other and which should be kept apart, before drawing the actual floor plan or system diagram. This tool gives you a fast browser-based way to build one and export it for a client deck or technical review.

Steps to build your matrix

1. List your items in the textarea on the left. Rooms, components, services, teams, modules, customer touchpoints — anything where the pairwise relationship matters. One per line. Add as many as your tier allows (the count updates below the textarea).
2. Pick a starter template to skip the cold start, or build from scratch. Day-one templates include a 3-bedroom home, an open-plan office, and a microservices architecture; more templates land in upcoming releases.
3. Click cells in the triangular matrix on the right. Each click cycles the cell through the three relationship states — primary adjacency (filled circle), secondary adjacency (open circle), undesired adjacency (dash) — and back to blank.
4. Pick a theme that matches the rest of your deck. Architectural is the industry-default black-and-white. Pastel Plan reads softer for client-facing presentations. Bold Brand stands out in a long deck. Monochrome Premium is the refined choice for high-end consultancy work.
5. Export as PNG for personal or rough-draft use (free), or upgrade to Pro for editable PowerPoint, vector SVG, and copy-to-clipboard exports that paste straight into PowerPoint, Keynote, Figma, or Google Slides.

Why a matrix instead of an org chart or bubble diagram

An org chart shows hierarchy. A bubble diagram shows a proposed spatial arrangement. An adjacency matrix is a step earlier in the workflow — it's where the designer thinks systematically about which pairs of rooms (or teams, or modules) actually need to be near each other and which should be far apart. Once you've got the matrix, you can derive a sensible floor plan or system layout from it. Many designers build all three diagrams as part of a single client presentation: the matrix to defend the analysis, the bubble diagram to sketch the layout, and the final floor plan to commit to the result.

Use cases beyond interior design

The same matrix structure works for any domain where pairwise relationships matter. Commercial architects use it for office and hospital layouts. Software architects use it to map service coupling — which services need tight integration, which should be kept on separate VPCs for security. UX teams use it for design-system audits, grouping components by which ones get used together. Operations teams use it for factory-floor planning, putting sequential workstations adjacent and keeping flammables far from heat sources. Try one of the day-one templates to see how the same tool serves each audience.