Since about 2012 (I think) I’ve been providing an app called Theorymaker as a simple text-based way to construct theories of change for evaluators. It’s always been free. It was used by hundreds of people over the years. Unfortunately about a year ago I decided I didn’t have time to maintain it and shut it down. However, now with genAI-supported coding there is really no excuse, so Theorymaker lives again at theorymaker.netlify.app.
-
Theorymaker is good at laying out even complicated diagrams easily, finding good positions for nodes and links.
-
There’s an AI which knows some things about theories of change so it can create a whole diagram for you and/or you can chat to improve an existing one.
-
Apart from the AI chat, you can use it completely offline.
-
Your diagram is still defined by text and there’s still a text editor, so you can quickly tweak your diagrams like that if you want.
-
Now the diagram is interactive: you can really quickly add styles and add nodes and grouping boxes
-
You can save and share your diagrams with a URL, and/or copy an image to clipboard.
-
You can create arrows between grouping boxes as well as between nodes
-
To an extent, you can specify the order of your nodes and boxes
💥⛔Use another tool if:
- If you want a different kind of diagram, which does not simply involve multiple nodes, links and grouping boxes
- If you want custom positions for your diagram components. Theorymaker is opinionated about positioning (auto layout). It is not freeform drag-and-drop positioning.
- If you want fully-featured ToC software with indicators, monitoring, etc.
Get in touch if you need anything.