Comments on: Don’t Hide That Website Wireframe! 5 Reasons Why Wireframes Are Critical to Your Site’s Success

By: brett

brett — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 19:02:36 +0000

I disagree (i am an IA/UX designer with 10 years experience). Wireframes should be used as an INTERNAL design tool and low fidelity visual design comps should be used as the primary client deliverable. Wireframes should be included as a secondary deliverable to show rationale for design decisions demonstrated in the comps. Clients don’t understand wireframes, nor should they. Wireframes consistently confuse clients and raise more problems than solutions. I say give clients what they want which are visual designs, but do these in an efficient way that will add value to both the client and the design team.

for a counter opinion read:

http://www.barbariangroup.com/posts/824-wireframes_totally_don_t_do_what_they_re_supposed_to_but_they_are_useful_anyway

By: Marianna

Marianna — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:12:58 +0000

Hi,

Nice article. I absolutely agree that “Wireframes” should be exposed to clients. It is a strong Information Architecture tool and should be used to help the client visualise how the content of information will be structured inside a website.
My clients enjoy the idea that can make changes before the design level as information structure is equally or sometimes more important to design and developing processes.
Other programmes I use for wireframing is Visio and Axure. Lately I have started designing flash prototypes as well.

By: Bookmarks about Wireframes

Bookmarks about Wireframes — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 20:17:27 +0000

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By: J. Jeffryes

J. Jeffryes — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:07:00 +0000

Ah, I forgot to mention. I also use a page description document, but a much better one. Build it as a Word document in outline mode, like this:

1. Page
a. Most important element on page
i. function of that element
ii. another function of that element
b. Second most important element on the page

etc.

It’s simple, it’s clean, and most business clients will immediately understand it.

By: J. Jeffryes

J. Jeffryes — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:00:28 +0000

For me, sharing the wireframe with the client is a vital part of the design process. It allows for rapid iteration through functionality, while also giving some hints to layout. Typically I will use my wireframes to build up to the eventual layout. When done properly, this makes it much easier to get buy-in from the client, as the design is already subconsciously familiar to them. They’ve seen it in the wireframes, but they may not realize that.

By: Kel

Kel — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:27:37 +0000

Another tool for quickly getting wireframes built (and general site structure) is JumpChart. http://www.jumpchart.com/ It’s missing in some areas, but it’s a quick, decent way to prototype and share with potential clients - or just for yourself.

By: Justin Delabar

Justin Delabar — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:48:52 +0000

Good question! We actually build the wireframe like any other website, just minus graphical elements. So, Dreamweaver, although any code editor would work. Once the wireframe is set and we receive client approval we begin to “skin” it with the graphical elements.

By: Ólafur Pétursson

Ólafur Pétursson — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:27:15 +0000

Which program do you use for wireframing?