Photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash

Wireframing probably makes up 80% of what a UX designer does, with the latter portions being some mix of ideation, validation, and heuristic evaluations.

What I think most people fail to consider has nothing to do with the actual execution of the wireframes, but rather, has to do with the elements surrounding wireframing.

I think that the approach to wireframing is just as important as the execution of the wireframing — and the best part is, it doesn’t matter what software you use to ideate this portion. Figma, XD, or Pen and Paper all work fine.

Tell the story

The #1 thing people miss is telling the story.

One reason I think that early career designers miss this aspect most often is that it takes an intimate awareness of the project as a whole in order to be able to effectively craft the narrative that surrounds your wireframes. In order to begin developing this perspective, you should be continually assessing your ability to think about the project as a whole in order to understand your ability to affect the design in a positive direction. As you are planning your wireframes, ask yourself these questions:

• Who am I showing these wireframes to?
• What stage of the project am I on?
• What is the best way to show these wireframes?

In answering all three of these questions, you will be able to tell the story and ensure

Who is seeing these wireframes?

The first question piece of the puzzle can be answered by building up information surrounding who’s going to be viewing your wireframes:

• Will they be going to stakeholders or your manager? Will they be going to be both? Stakeholders generally are looking for different things than your product manager will be — changing how your wireframes cater to specific goals expected for each time frame will be expected for both stakeholders and managers.
• How much or how little are they interested to see? Do they need to see fully fleshed-out concepts, or are they interested to see bare-bones information architecture? Only showing what they want to see cuts through the noise and presents the best cut of what you have to offer.
• Are these wireframes going to other people? Oftentimes when you send wireframes to your stakeholders, they get distributed further within their organization as decisions and progress gets shown further and further up the food chain.

What wireframes are you presenting?

The second piece of the puzzle can be solidified when you figure out what kind of wireframes you should be presenting:

• Are these initial concepts or are these final designs?
• How much information can you fill in? Do you have data you can fill in or are you still using placeholder information?
• Are these wireframes iterating off of previous concepts or are we starting from scratch?
• How much has user feedback played into these concepts?

Presenting the wireframes

Presentation is 50% of the effort involved with wireframing because the success of an idea hinges on how you structure and deliver an idea.

• Need to make sure you present the concepts within the wireframes and will
• need to make sure that you are covering the ideas that you need to present
• How much background knowledge does your audience have on the subject matter? Would it help to include some material
• How much time do you have to show them?

Bringing it together

Compiling the key components is only the first part of telling the story — bringing it together is another skill entirely.

• How do the pieces flow together? Flow is one of the key tenants of the story — it dictates how the story comes together. Do the elements of the story feel fluid and natural? Do the concepts follow one another?
• Is there anything to be added? Being able to see the presentation as a whole and understand what it is missing is a crucial skill of a senior UX designer — sometimes presentations may require a creative element specific to that situation.
• Is there anything to be cut out? Perhaps even more crucial than what can be added is what can be taken away. Ensuring that your wireframes are presented cogently and concisely is of utmost importance.