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Benefits of wireframes
Wireframes are indispensable to good information architecture - it's almost impossible to imagine doing good web design without them.
They allow a quick and convenient prototyping of how and where content will appear on the finished web page, without having to invest time inefficiently in producing a finished graphic design. In addition:
- Aid to design - they serve to guide the later graphic design process in sensible, usability-sensitive directions
- Templates - they often serve to define a series of templates that cut across similar content types. If we can keep the number of templates down, we simplify the process of building the site, and thus reduce build and maintenance costs wherever possible
Look out for...
Over-engineering: wireframes should look like frames made of wire. They are NOT graphic designs, although issues of layout and proportion are hugely important to the quality of a solution.
The point here is that wireframes necessarily omit a degree of detail in comparison with a finished graphic design. The question is not therefore if there is a difference between a wireframe and a graphic design - there is, patently - but how profound the difference can be, and should be. Remember, there should always be a healthy tension between IAs and designers about "who owns the layout of a webpage?" There is no answer to this question, but there - rightly - should be on-going debate
- Annotation - wireframes are often best presented with detailed annotations explaining what is being proposed. Such annotations can either be done on the wireframe itself, or via some form of interactive design specification, which is more akin to a design document - and may include graphical interpretations of wireframes - along with dtailed descriptions of features, tools or other interactive content items.
- Formatting - wireframes often come wrapped up in formatting specific to a particular IA and/or their experience. This is window-dressing, and irrelevant to the quality of the solution
- Handholding - very often, a client will need handholding through the process of interpreting wireframes. With low-resolution wireframes, they will often mistake a wireframe for a finished design, or will assume that relative sizing and positioning will necessarily be reflected in graphic designs based upon those wireframes. For higher resolution wireframes, they are sometimes disappointed with the graphic "polish" of a design.
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Alternative methods
There is a school of thought - mainly promoted by graphic designers - that says wireframes should be wholly textual. Or in other words, that graphic designers should "own" layout and information architects should keep their geeky noses out of things (like layout) that they don't understand.
Needless to say, this is a lively debate. The information architects are in ascendance at the moment, and very few people produce text-only wireframes. But it is a legitimate technique, and may - for some projects - be the right way to proceed. |
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