Wireframes – When Are They Useful?

Wireframes have a well–known history of being part of a designers toolkit though I actually find they don’t really provide much usefulness these days.

To illustrate why, Cennydd Bowles provides an excellent example in his short and sweet “article”.

They just feel too detached from the product you’re designing for. Sure, the absence of visual design supposedly makes you focus more on the flow, but without the atmosphere (as Andy Clarke would put it) of a product, the wireframes are quite difficult to relate. Take usability testing for example. Showing wireframes versus showing screenshots to people. I don’t doubt that screenshots will give a richer and more relatable experience to a product than wireframes.

They’re also not particularly quick to create — I prefer sketching as a method for speed — and when interaction is involved, I’d rather hack a few screenshots and throw it in Invision and it would provide far better use than interactive wireframes alone. I used to do “rapid” prototyping with HTML and CSS but that also has its limits (that’s also another story).

I still deal with wireframes from time to time, though I personally don’t create them anymore for my process.

So when are they useful?

I’m not sure they any advantages over other methods, but I know that other methods do provide some edge or another over wireframes.