Wireframes are simple, two-dimensional drawings used instead of creating a full version of a product. They exclude production-level details like security or code. This allows the product development team to focus on the layout, information architecture, user flow, and functionality before passing designs to the engineering team.
Wireframes give developers a chance to test their ideas. By working with users and stakeholders, product teams can learn if their assumptions about what is important are correct. For more on the role of wireframes in design systems, check out this blog article on design system.
What Are the Types of Wireframes?
- Low-fidelity wireframes are very basic, often using only simple shapes like lines and circles.
- High-fidelity wireframes use more details, such as color, to provide clearer information about features and functionality.
What Are the Advantages of Wireframes?
Wireframes help product teams visually communicate problems and solutions to clients and key stakeholders within the organization. They ensure cross-functional alignment by providing a shared, understandable reference before investing in building the product or feature.
Incorporating wireframes into your practice has several benefits:
- The team receives more feedback early in the process when changes are less costly.
- The team engages with customers early, getting used to seeking feedback and making changes based on user needs.
- The team creates a more usable product by identifying issues with interactions and user flow before development begins.
What Are the Disadvantages of Wireframes?
Wireframes have some limitations:
- Technical Feasibility: Wireframes may not consider technical constraints. If designers don’t collaborate with engineers, stakeholders might get excited about features that later prove impossible to implement.
- Client Understanding: Clients might not understand the purpose of wireframes. If stakeholders or clients aren’t properly informed, wireframes could lead to mistrust. It’s important to ensure clients know what to expect so they aren’t disappointed when they see only basic outlines instead of a finished application.
- It’s easy to become too attached to your early drafts. Spending too much time on wireframes can be counterproductive. If the wireframes look too polished, the team might feel pressured to move forward even if changes are needed or you have to start over. The goal when creating wireframes is to include “just enough” detail to communicate the concept effectively.
When to Use Wireframes
You should use wireframes when the product development team needs feedback from customers and stakeholders early in the process. In other words, use them all the time.
Wireframes should be a regular part of your design and development process because they let you understand how your product will work without having to build the final version first.
For example, if you were planning to construct a building and needed an inspector to check if it meets the code, it would be much easier and cheaper to show them a blueprint rather than building the structure and then being told to start over.
Developing applications follows the same principle. It’s much easier to get feedback from a team member or potential customer using a simplified version of the application rather than building a full version and possibly having to start over.
Types of Wireframes
Low-Fidelity Wireframes
- Low-fidelity wireframes are very basic, often using only simple shapes like lines and circles. Use these when you want to quickly try out new ideas and get a general understanding of the layout. They should be easy to create and modify.
High-Fidelity Wireframes
- High-fidelity wireframes use more detail, including colors, to clarify features and functionality. Use these when you need a better understanding of specific details like color schemes, navigation, and accessibility.
How to Start Wireframing
For both high and low-fidelity wireframes, it’s important to understand the problem, the solution you’re proposing, and the user feedback you’re seeking.
Understand the Problem
Identify what the team needs to understand. Is there uncertainty about whether users can interact with the new feature you’re building? Does this new feature fit within the context of the webpage? Clearly stating the problem will help you develop a hypothesis and have a clear idea of the solution your wireframe will provide. For more insights on the product design process, you can read this blog article: https://linkupst.com/blog/product-design-process.
Understand the Solution
Identify the solution to the problem. If you think that making a section of the site yellow will attract the user’s attention, then this idea will be the foundation of your wireframe.
Understand the User
Who is this solution for? If you want to know if users will click on the yellow box, you need to understand who the wireframe is for and what success looks like for the team. If you don’t get this right, you might end up building the product for the wrong audience.
Once the design team understands the problem, the solution, and the user, they can create an effective wireframe. For additional guidance on wireframing, you can watch this video.
The quickest way to start wireframing is to use pen and paper to draw your idea. Keep it simple and rough—use lines, circles, and squares. Include concepts like images, video, and text placement. At this point, there’s no need to write copy or include actual images or videos; just use symbols to represent these elements.
Make sure not to spend too much time on this, even though it might be tempting to create a detailed replica of your idea. Try to sketch your concept in less than 10 minutes to keep it simple and get the idea on paper.
For more on design and product development, visit Linkup Studio.
Wireframe Tools
There are several options for teams who want to develop wireframes.
- For those comfortable with showing low-fidelity prototypes to customers, you can use a tool like Balsamiq. It provides a quick way to create prototypes with simple, uneven lines and basic representations of items like YouTube videos. This helps teams avoid becoming too attached to the design.
- If you need higher-fidelity tools, Figma, Sketch, and InVision let you create detailed replicas of your application. These can be shown to your team or potential users much faster than building the actual product.
Either way, you’ll have a prototype to share with colleagues, stakeholders, and customers, allowing you to make changes in hours instead of weeks.