There’s no question that planning and communication play important role in the successful website development. At the beginning of a project a client has lots of ideas of what he wants to get and, from another hand, developers have their point of view what is the best solution for the client. At this phase it’s really important not to fail (I think everyone has heard it time and time again: ‘If you fail to plan, you plan to fail’). And wireframing is a great and simple method to plan the layout, think out a set of features and what is important — it’s time-saving tool to easily share ideas to others.

We’d like to outline the main benefits of wireframing to show how it helps in development nevermind if it’s eCommerce (by the way, we like Magento. Hope you too ;-) ), website or web app:

1. It helps to clarify the requirements
Based on our experience we can say that every time that a client gets wireframes he says ‘Oh, that looks great! Also I understand that we do need such features as …’. It’s common situation. In case you don’t have wireframes, you’ll hear these words on further steps, when the client looks at completed part of the website. So, wireframes help to specify all requirements before development starts.

2. An image is worth 1000 words
There is one more reason why we always wireframe after the specification is ready. Because it helps everyone to see where is what. It helps to understand that a client and web agency are on the same page.

3. It helps to communicate the details to different parties involved
During the process of creating wireframes UI architect carefully thinks out the details. He advices with designers, front-end developers, project manager etc. It ‘s easier to discuss the project based on the visual materials.

4. It makes easier to design
We’d say it’s much easier to design website if wireframes are ready, because it’s already specified what elements need to be designed and where they need to be placed.

And what the both client and developers like:
5. It saves time and money
Some clients don’t want to accept the idea of wireframing, because they don’t want to ‘pay more’. But they are wrong. Without defined wireframes and dicussions around it at the beginning of the project, further changes can eat up hours of valuable time and resources.

At Oggetto Web we believe that wireframes are absolutely important. Learn more about our approach and how we can utilize wireframes to implement the successful website or application.