Updated Sep 2, 2022.
In this article, you will find out about
- Why Is Wireframing the Best Way to Start the Redesign
- What Is a Wireframe?
- When Does Wireframing Take Place?
- What Is the Purpose of Wireframing?
- Why Do Wireframes Look Like They Do?
- Benefits of Wireframes
- Conclusion
Why Is Wireframing the Best Way to Start the Redesign
You can make your website more visually appealing, streamlined and increase its functionality if you use wireframe when you redesign it.
Much like blueprints that builders use, designers use wireframes to help them keep track of the complex designs and make the entire process run smoothly.
We will tell you in this post what are the most notable seven benefits of wireframing that will help you get to start your redesign the right way.
What Is a Wireframe?
A wireframe presents a basic, simple and clear visual representation of a website, including all of its major components like headers, footers, videos, forms, share buttons, etc. It serves to define the basic architecture of a website, as well as the navigational structure.
The point of a wireframe is to put the focus on the arrangement of visual effects, as well as the informational hierarchy on the page. It can help you solve your functional and navigation problems in a manner that is simple to adjust and allows you to focus on the quality of user experience without thinking about color, fonts, and other decorative stuff.
You can create a wireframe with nothing more than a pen and paper, but you can also use different programs for it, like Adobe Photoshop or Mockingbird.
Wireframing Is Essential in UI Design
Wireframing is a crucial part of the interaction design process and it presents a layout that shows which interface elements are going to be present on a web page. This gives stakeholders and the project team a chance to review the product’s visual representation before the creative phase begins.
Wireframes are also used to create a global and secondary navigation. This ensures that the structure and terminology used for the website meet expectations of the users.
Since they are just a schematic presentation of web pages, their behavior, and contents, wireframes don’t include graphic elements. Instead, they are used for arranging the architecture of a website and its functionality, as well as navigation on the site. Lastly, they are used to run tests with users to get clear feedback from them.
When Does Wireframing Take Place?
Wireframing is a part of the exploratory phase in the product’s life cycle. This is the phase that entails designers testing the product’s scope, exchanging ideas, and determining business requirements.
So, wireframing is part of this phase because a wireframe is the initial design of a webpage, sort of like a test webpage. Because of this, a wireframe is used as a starting point in the product’s design, allowing developers to collect user feedback and use it to create another, more suitable and more detailed design of the product.
What Is the Purpose of Wireframing?
There are three key purposes of wireframing and we will now take a closer look at each of them:
Wireframes Keep Focus on the Users
Wireframes are often used as a type of communication device – they are a great way to get users’ feedback, they help exchange of ideas between developers, and instigate talks with the shareholders.
User testing during the wireframing stage provides honest feedback to designers. This can help them identify the key issues with the initial design in order to develop a better concept for the product’s final design.
Designers often use wireframing to see how users would usually interact with the interface. For example, they can use devices like Lorem Ipsum (fake Latin text that serves as a placeholder for planned content) to ask users what they expect to be written there. This can help them understand better what would feel intuitive for users, allowing them to create products that are user-friendly and comfortable.
Wireframes Define and Clarify Website Features
It can sometimes be difficult to communicate your ideas to the clients since they can lack the technical knowledge to properly understand some terms, such as call to action or hero image.
That’s where wireframing can be very useful as a way of showing the clients certain features, how they work and what purpose they have.
Wireframing also enables stakeholders to understand how much space each feature requires, clarify the functionality of a page, and connect the website’s information architecture with its visual design.
It’s also easier to visualize how all features work together once you see them on a wireframe. And if some features aren’t a good fit with other elements on the page, you may decide to remove them.
Wireframes Are Cheap to Create and Quick
One of the best things about wireframes is how easy and cheap they are to create. You can have a sketch of a wireframe as quickly as you can find a pen and paper. Even digital wireframes can be created in a matter of minutes with one of the many tools available nowadays.
Users often shy away from being honest about their impressions for polished products. But letting them provide feedback on a wireframe of a product will allow them to be honest without feeling bad about criticizing the product and you will get a chance to make necessary changes to the core of the layout and any other pain points and flaws. The sooner this is done in the design process, the cheaper and quicker it will be.
Why Do Wireframes Look Like They Do?
Wireframes look exactly as you would expect from an early-stage visual representation of a project. You won’t see wireframes that look like the final product. However, that’s not a problem – wireframes are meant to look that way for a few reasons:
Wireframes Are Not the Final Design and They Make That Clear
Thanks to only a few colors and low-fidelity, wireframes usually make it impossible to mistake them for a final look of the site. The key is to get the structure finalized first and they focus on visual design.
Wireframes Send a Message That You Are Open for Feedback
Since no one can mistake a wireframe for a final design, they will be encouraged to leave honest feedback. So, wireframes encourage discussion with their rough look. Many call this a look no one is scared to criticize. The focus is on ease of use at this point in the process, so making changes based on users’ feedback is necessary and expected.
Wireframes Show that No Code Has Been Written Yet
If your stakeholder or customer got some screenshots that seemed like they were of the final design of the site or app, they might think that all the code was already written. Wireframes make it clear that’s not the case.
Benefits of Wireframes
While some people don’t like to use wireframes because they can take a lot of time, among other things, it is clear that the pros outweigh the cons when it comes to wireframing. Wireframing allows you to:
Make Changes More Efficiently
It is not easy to recognize flaws with your design during the development phase of your website. In many cases, these flaws require a complete overhaul of the work done, and that can lead to a lot of time lost. And time is money!
With wireframes, it doesn’t take a lot of effort to make changes. It is much easier to toss an idea away and try another approach. That is a great incentive to try many different ideas before you find the right solution instead of sticking to something that doesn’t work so you don’t lose your progress and invested time.
Display the Architecture of Your Site
Even if you feel like you have a pretty clear idea of how your site will look in your head, it is always better to lay it all out in a wireframe. This allows you to check everything as many times as you need and make adjustments if you have to.
Wireframing can help you make sure that everybody included in the process is on the same page when it comes to the site’s architecture and helps you avoid any potential confusion with the redesign.
Clarify Website Features before You Build Them
The functionality of a website is the most important thing, even more significant than the visual appearance. That is why wireframes are great since they allow you to discuss all the necessary functionalities of a website that you want to include. It is more effective to have this discussion before you move forward with development and design.
Focus on the User Experience
User experience should always be the focus of your redesign. Difficult and confusing navigation and ill-defined hierarchy of information are some of the most common causes of bad user experience, and bad user experience can lead to a high bounce rate, which can seriously damage your reputation and position in search engines.
All this can be avoided with well-made wireframes that put user experience above anything else, allowing you to test it before you start to develop your website.
Determine Website Responsiveness
You might think that it is a bit early to determine website responsiveness in the wireframing stage but the opposite is true. It is a great place to start thinking about it and how your website will look on other devices.
Since nearly half of all Internet users access websites via mobile devices, which is an ever-growing trend, your website must be able to work properly on all devices. Even if you design it with a mobile-first approach in mind, you still need to anticipate how the site will look on a desktop computer, which is best achieved in the wireframing phase.
Make Content Development Better
Since wireframes don’t focus on the visually attractive aspects of web design, that practically forces you to focus on the content for your website.
Wireframes allow content writers to get the idea of the length of their content for every page. That way, the content can look perfectly fitting to the website’s design.
Wireframing also lets you organize the content most optimally, ensuring that your website has high readability, proper font size, and well-arranged headers and lists.
Save Time and Money
As we mentioned earlier, wireframes can save you a lot of time and, consequently, money. It can help you make changes faster and provides better knowledge of the entire project, minimizing the possibility of additional redesigns.
If you get the functional part of the redesign right, your designer will understand what he is supposed to do much better than he would if he had to jump in on just an idea in your head. He will be able to design these features and make your vision come true faster.
Conclusion
Whether you are designing or redesigning your website or application, wireframing can help you focus on functionality and user experience before you focus on the visual aspects. There are multiple benefits to this approach, but most importantly it can save you a lot of time and money.
