The Joy of wireframing
November 15th, 2006
Yesterday and today I was in two meetings which were wireframe sign-off and iteration meetings, and I have to say that the work put into doing the wireframes has really paid off. Both clients are happy that their needs are being understood and met, and one client even expressed joy at having something that they could write on and make visual changes to.
Something we really emphasise is that wireframing is an important part of figuring out what it is exactly that you want to do. It nearly eliminates the differing interpretations people have when they read something like a spec document and then imagine themselves how it will look, feel and function. Having a visual representation gets everyone looking at one interpretation which can then be iterated, and it also really helps designers on the right track when interpreting a clients needs.
That little bit of joy was the result of trying an iterative “rinse and repeat” process where the emphasis is on visually determining what needs to be done, instead of going the verbal or written process, which often results in overly long and complex documents that most clients understand or even want to read - this way we’re probably going to have 3 iterations for the wireframes and as a service provider, it’s a joy having clients that buy into that rather than wanting 150 page docs that take many more iterations to get right (ever gotten to version 23 before?).
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