Tech moves fast! Stay ahead of the curve with Techopedia! Join nearly 200,000 subscribers who receive actionable tech insights from Techopedia. A visual programming language (VPL) is a programming language that uses graphical elements and figures to develop a program. A VPL employs techniques to design a software program in two or more dimensions, and includes graphical elements, text, symbols and icons within its programming context. A visual programming language is also known as an executable graphics language. A visual programming language enables the development of software programs by eliminating textual software code with a series of visual graphics elements. VPL incorporates these graphical elements as the primary context of the language arranged in a systematic order. The graphics or icons included within a visual program serve as input, activities, connections and/or output of the program. A visual language can be one of a few types, such as icon-based languages, diagramming languages and form-based language. Visual languages should not be confused with GUI-based programming languages, as they only provide graphical program authoring services. However, their code/context is completely textual. Kodu, Blockly and executable UML are popular examples of visual programming languages.