The Importance of Wire Framing in Web Design

Often times, businesses that want to create a website consider skipping the wireframing process. Usually, these businesses believe that because clients and customers won’t understand the purpose of a wireframe that they are not necessary. And as anybody acquainted with business knows, when something’s considered not necessary, it’s not done. Unfortunately for these websites that are developed by skipping the wire framing process, it’s actually a very bad idea.


What is a wireframe, anyway?

Regardless of what type of website you want to build, whether it’s a small hobby website or a large corporate portal, you need to begin with something tangible. And in web development, the starting point is a wireframe. Generally, after a website’s main structure has been envisioned by a site map or navigation mockup and before the creative design process starts, a wireframe is created.

Wire framing is essentially creating a dumbed down black and white layout of your website. However, although it’s not pretty, it needs to be true to life. Proper placement of elements, features, and navigation is the goal of a wireframe. Fonts, colors, and any other type of design is strictly forgone in favor of simplicity and necessity. In a way, a wireframe is like a blueprint of a building.

So why is wireframing important?

There are tons of reasons why wire frames are crucial to the development process. Imagine a construction crew trying to build a structure without a blueprint. The same can be said about a website, especially bigger ones. Although you can jump right in and start building things, it’s much more important that you cement the fundamentals before you start getting creative.

Wire frames are visually accurate

As mentioned, although wireframes are void of any hint of style, they are accurate when it comes to what’s included and where it’s implemented. This is great for any form of collaborative effort, as getting multiple people on the same page can be difficult without anything tangible to offer them.

Usability is put first

With any website development project, it can be a struggle to prioritize usability in favor of style. Many times we consider aesthetics to be just as if not more important than usability, but this is far from the truth. Making a wireframe mockup allows those working on the website to remember its most primary purpose: to offer something to a reader or client.

Save time

Having a wireframe blueprint on hand is a fantastic way to speed up the design process. It allows everybody to visually recognize what they’re working towards and how they’re going to get there, in addition to providing a centralized unification resource for how multiple elements will work with each other. Building a good wireframe is a surefire way to save time and meet deadlines.

The conclusion

Ultimately, whether or not you want to use a wireframe will depend on your personal goals. However, if you plan to build a website that’s medium or large in size that plans to make money for a business, you will undoubtedly want to use wireframing, as it is hands down the most effective way of streamlining the process.

About the Author

Mary Rogers has over 5 years of experience as a website designer and content writer for many website design and Online Marketing communities. Her capabilities include small business website design, information site architecture development, web flow diagrams and user interface design. Apart from having in-depth knowledge in website design her passion is to share what she knows about website design, small business web design and web development. She is an avid Blogger and writes regularly for Robotforce.com

3 thoughts on “The Importance of Wire Framing in Web Design”

  1. Good information being provided on the importance of wire framing and the benefits we can get from it. Wire framing really saves your time and even proves fruitful . I think developers instead of avoiding this should explain client and customers in deep.

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