What is Wireframe and what are its uses?
If you work in user interface design and user experience, you are probably acquainted with Wireframe. We can say that building a wireframe is one of the essential parts of the website or software design process. This article will talk about the essence and types of wireframes.
What is Wireframe, and who uses it?
The Wireframe is very similar to architectural designs. The Wireframe is a two-dimensional skeleton of web pages or applications that overview page design, layout, information architecture, user flow, performance, and desired manners.
Since the Wireframe shows the initial condition of a product, its impression, colors, and graphics are minimized. Designers can create the wireframe version manually or digitally according to their requirements.
UI designers and user experience generally deal with wireframes, which helps team partners choose the location of data before programmers make the interface.
At what stage is wireframe fabrication done?
The Wireframe is the first version of a web page, usually the starting point for designing a product. In general, user feedback helps designers involve more detail in product redesign.
What is the primary purpose of building a wireframe?
Designers use wireframes for the following three purposes:
1- Focus on the user
Wireframes can be a means of communication. They speed up sending user feedback and encourage team members to interact. In addition, the Wireframe allows designers to share their ideas.
Testing on users at this stage will allow them to give you their honest feedback, which will also help identify problems that will be very helpful in developing and consolidating the product. The Wireframe is the best way for designers to evaluate how users interact with the interface.
2- Defining the properties of the website
Users do not have a detailed understanding of words such as the original image (Hero Image) or call to action (Call to Action). Still, designers will use wireframing to share the process and goals of website elements with users. Wireframing also allows team members to give enough space for each component to place and link website information to its visual design; In addition, project developers can explain the position of each page of the website.
Seeing all the website’s features in the wireframe version allows exploring how they work together, in which case, if a component does not match the other parts, the designers will draw it.
3- Cheap and fast
The best feature of wireframes is that they are inexpensive and effortless to make; In fact, you can make a pen or paper and a wireframe at no extra charge. In addition, you can design digital wireframes using current tools. If the performance of a product is acceptable sufficiently, users will often express their objective view on the first meeting with it. In general, it is better to determine the problems of a product at the beginning of the design strategy. Otherwise, you will incur more costs along the way.
Types of wireframes
The main difference between wireframes is the amount of detail that goes into them. There are generally three types of wireframes, each of which we will describe below:
1- Low-Fidelity Wireframe
This type is a basic image of a web page design that is usually a starting point. This Wireframe is generally dry without grading, grid design, or image pixels. A low-Fidelity wireframe has detailed images, geometric shapes, and artificial content, removing all the extra details.
This Wireframe is very useful for getting started, determining how to arrange details, and mapping the user’s path. In other words, if you want to draw the initial design of your product with a pen for managers or customers, you must use this type of Wireframe.
2- Mid-Fidelity Wireframe
This type of Wireframe is a common way to present a product’s initial design and shows more detail to customers or project managers than Low-Fidelity wireframes. However, there are no photos or graphics in this Wireframe. More details are displayed, and it will differentiate all the features from each other; Different text fonts are also for designers to separate headlines from the main content.
It is in black and white, but designers can also use shades of gray to highlight some elements. Mid-Fidelity wireframes are usually for using tools such as Sketch and Balsamiq and are employed in the earlier stages of product design.
3- High-Fidelity Wireframe
Unlike Low-Fidelity, which displays relevant images using English letters such as X, this type of Wireframe has textual content and quality images. Such details make this Wireframe used by designers to show more complicated elements such as menus or interactive maps. You will also use a high-Fidelity wireframe in later stages of product design.
What components are included in the Wireframe?
As mentioned earlier, the components of the Wireframe depend on the type. But in general, features such as the logo, search section, title, share buttons, and text are in the Wireframe. In addition to these navigation systems, contact information and footnotes will also be in the Wireframe.
Wireframes are usually black and white, and designers use light and dark shades to show the color difference. Of course, in the High-Fidelity, red and blue colors also indicate the status of the warning or link. Since it is designed in 2D, it will not be eligible for showing features such as drop-down, floating, or accordion menus.
Wireframe Website and Mobile
We often think that wireframes are only for websites. So mobile wireframes also have their own rules, some of which we will discuss below.
Size
The width of computer and mobile web pages is different, so you should pay attention to factors such as columns; In other words, mobile pages must have a maximum of 2 columns. In addition, you should think about the length or number of pages.
Function
Users on the computer go to web pages by clicking or mouse clicks. But on mobile, they do this by pressing the screen. In other words, when designing a wireframe, you should pay attention to the beauty of the website buttons.
Interaction
How users interact with mobile Internet applications is equal to computer software. But it is also possible to use them offline. Therefore, in designing wireframes for mobile applications, you should also pay attention to their offline mode.
