Janine Janine — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:53:20 GMT

Good article. This is a problem I hit in every project.

I would agree with Zephyr – if I do an official looking wireframe most clients feel they are under pressure to understand/improve what they see (while thinking I am the “expert” who spent lots of time and experience to create the wireframe). But if I stand infront of a white board and start drawing boxes to achieve the same result the client is with me all the way (making good suggestions etc).

Maybe its because if you do it together you are explicit about what your considering when you draw boxes, what are the trade-offs etc whereas if you just hand them a final wireframe the don’t have access to the though process that went into making it.

A couple of points on why wireframes should remain as is:

1) Conceptual: I would be worried about adding any imagery or colours etc as its important that visual design is seperate. For me its an important message that they have “information design” as a seperate step and flag that the visual design sits “on top” of this. Like the famous Garrett diagram on “Elements of User Experience”.

2) Practical: I work for a technical company, often our clients have long term relationships with a seperate design agency and they want that 3rd party to do the visuals. Having wireframes which the client has understood (and signed off) means the design agency can get on with doing visuals while we start doing the back end. Wireframes are great for communicating between tech and design people (even in seperate companies). Also, if a company is going through a rebranding then you don’t know what the final visual assets are going to be (and sometimes you can’t sit around and wait).

Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Janine Janine