There’s been some discussion in the blogosphere recently about the importance of wireframes and how they should be handled within interactive agencies. Going by a recent post by Sarah Harrison and reiteration by Paul Boag of the Boagworld podcast, there seems to be a disconnect between information architects (IAs) and the designers that they work with in relation to the position of wireframes within the overall website development process. The basic caveat as introduced by Sarah is that wireframes, even if they are meant to be lo-fidelity representations of a final website that contain no true graphical direction, colors, or themes, still focus on physical information layout, something that is generally handled by designers in lieu of the IA (in a perfect world.) Sarah suggests a novel document known as the Page Description Diagram, as introduced by Dan Brown in his excellent work Communicating Design, as the perfect solution to this impasse. The Page Description Diagram  lists the elements of a page in a standard three-column format with the most important information featured in the left column with less important aspects listed in the center and right columns. The standard horizontal structure of the document keeps it layout-neutral in a design sense and leaves placement completely up to the designer. (more…)