A couple more points regarding the series of posts I made earlier.
1. The purpose behind drawing these lines is not to make the chart look pretty but to draw the trader's attention to those areas, zones, points, levels, whatever where price action is most likely to provide trading opportunities. Whether one draws lines, boxes, circles, arrows, or big, pointy fingers is irrelevant.
2. Once those areas, zones, points, etc are identified, volume becomes largely a non-event, i.e., one pays attention to it
only at those areas, etc where it is most likely to mean something. That this point is so often overlooked is probably why so many people think volume is useless.
For example, using the 1m time bar chart I posted earlier, I've blown up the shaded area:
Until price reaches an area where a trading opportunity is most likely to occur, there's no reason to obsess over the minor ebbs and flows in volume. However, once trading opportunities are on the horizon, what might be considered directionless activity elsewhere suddenly becomes important.
Here, for example, when price comes back to 1966 the second time, the fact of the test is interesting enough. That it cannot make a lower low even with all the volume is even more interesting. The bullish boost at 1329-30 becomes more important because of what has come before, as does the volume recession when price pulls back to 1975. When another bullish boost occurs, beginning at 1352, it is significant, again, because of what has come before. And when price makes an attempt at a higher high at 1401 and volume isn't there, that again becomes significant because of what has become before and provides the "classic" double-top price-volume divergence setup for the short.
Without the context, none of this matters, and volume is little more than traders going about their business. With the context, it becomes a high-probability short trade.