It gives you an idea of the User Experience
Certain ideas that seem brilliant during the initial stages can start falling apart and show themselves as gnarling flaws once you start laying them out on paper. Wireframing helps to identify and correct potential roadblocks.
It helps maintain focus on the essentials – proposition, content, and context.
Using grayscale models exposes the working of the interface without the distraction of graphic design and detailing. You might have got all the elements right but the client fails to see its essence because he can’t see past the graphically-appealing-to-you and visually-repulsive-to-him yellow and green colour scheme. The converse also applies. Showing a client a fully mocked up design without the client signing off a visual approach is a huge waste of resource as well.
It acts as a sanity check with someone outside the project
You’ve been spending every waking hour on the thinking process, even the most absurd idea can start seeming marvelous to you. Test your wireframe. Watch for a pattern of responses. Was that the third time that someone saw the circular text field and gave you a three syllabled laugh? The most important feedbacks come from the client. By making a note of what he says at this stage aids in managing his expectations by directing his ideas and channeling them into a more streamlined flow.
It saves you a great deal of time
Once you have committed to a layout or to a design digitally and taken a lot of time ensuring every element is accurately positioned, it becomes a lot more difficult to dismiss it as an idea that failed because of the time you have already spent immersed in it. Since generating wireframes take considerably lesser time than generating colour comps it’s easier to dismiss them when it’s found to be faulty. It saves you the ‘this is worse than the sinking of the Titanic’ panic attack at crunch time.
Once the wireframes are approved, the design process is becomes smoother since you already have the clarity and now can focus on only the design.
You could use pen and paper, digital software or even actual GI wires (as we see in the picture below) but the important thing is that you plan out at the beginning.
A wireframe model of a Nissan on display at Forum, Bangalore
