Final. I felt what the illustrator sent still needed more work and refinement. I broke each step of the process into separate sections and color coded them, matching colors to the rest of the layout. I also cleaned up and rearranged the typography, and made the path flow in a more logical fashion.

Final from illustrator.

Back from the illustrator.

Decided to add a path to make it more obvious what is part of the sequence, and what is an aside.

Back from the illustrator, with changes made.

The editor & I came up with icons to visualize the process and also streamlined and simplified the steps.

Back to square one. All the tech was restored, but it's basically a re-draw of the editor's schematic.

First pass from illustrator. Too much of the tech was removed. We're a tech magazine, so I had them put it back.

Original schematic from editor