Wireframing for clients is different than design done in-house. Follow these 7 tips to avoid friction and ensure a smooth development process for the team.

Wireframing is a key process in web design and development projects. When it’s not handled properly, friction between internal teams or with clients is sure to follow.

After all, your wireframe is the blueprint to your website, and holds all the little details in determining the difference between a purposeful build and one without substance. It’s also the key in determining whether a web project will meet all the projected requirements and functionalities in the given time and company budget.

Building a website or app without it is a bit like building a house without the frame. Sooner or later, things are going to start falling apart.

And it’s only going to get more important in time: digital growth research predicts that by 2040, 95% of purchases will be facilitated by e-Commerce. This means the need for effective, well-planned wireframes is surging. It can no longer be a cursory step just for the sake of box ticking - it should be a key part of your process.

With that in mind, here are 7 tips that every great agency UI/UX designer should be mindful of to get the most out of their wireframing process, and ensure it sets up their web project for success.

1. Be consistent from the get-go

Consistency. A small detail at the start, but a costly afterthought if missed at the wireframing stage. Even though it is not full design, both low-fidelity and high-fidelity wireframes should be consistent when referencing specific modules and sections of a website, across the board.

Slight adjustments such as adding additional features to a module, different alignments or differently-structured UI elements will be an issue later in development, if a developer is following the design to a tee. This can result in development that is out of scope or a project that goes over budget, both issues that could have been avoided with consistent wireframing.

We recommend creating a template for your modules, and using the same module across different pages. Use the same font sizes for your page, section headings and paragraph text. Consistency here will help the designer when it comes to creating a style guide.

If you find a module is continually being adjusted on various pages, it is a sign you may need to rethink the functionality of the module or the user journey. While it is easy to start injecting design elements at this stage, it is important to remember that wireframe design should be centered on usefulness and functionality, not UI. This is one of ten important wireframing principles to remember, if you find you struggle between the two.

2. Good communication between teams is vital

When it comes to web development, there are 4 key departments you need to consider:

• Account management
• Project management
• Design
• Development

For clarity in a project, all 4 teams need to be on the same page. Especially when it comes to UX journeys, UI interface and intentional functionality in development.

Adding thoughts or questions to the wireframe can start to make your board messy if you’re using standard text. If you have a lot of annotations in a sea of information, it is also easy to miss something important.

Instead, we recommend creating a color-coded legend to your wireframe annotations. The different colors facilitate communications relevant to different teams. As an example, designers can pick out the design-related notes at a glance, and account managers can pick out the queries that the team has for the client to clarify, before their next meeting.

This is a great way for multiple teams to contribute to a board, and make sure their tickets are seen by the right people. A streamlined communication system in your wireframe will speed up your process and allow different teams to revisit the wireframe at independent time points, with a lot more clarity.

3. Design for multiple customer profiles

Our clients usually have a clear understanding of their ideal customer profile, a.k.a. their dream client. And sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in designing the primary user experience, i.e., serving their main pain points and needs.

In the interest of speed and meeting timelines, it can be easy to rush into the design phase. However, it is important to consider multiple target audiences, customer profiles, and different user scenarios. Otherwise, you might get halfway through the development phase and your client then has the hindsight to ask:

• “What if customer A is not ready because of this?”
• “What if customer B wants this?”
• “What if customer B wants to know more about this?”

As an example, the ideal customer profile may be someone who sits at the tail end of the sales funnel and is ready to buy. A customer who sits outside of this is someone who has just forayed into the awareness phase of the brand, and requires more educating and top-level information.

Pre-emptive foresight and planning will save you from returning to the drawing board at a later stage. Prototype and test the user flow with different user profiles. A user journey that takes into consideration multiple customer profiles will ensure your finished product is a sustainable digital platform built for longevity. Its wider net can effectively capture more customers.

4. Aim for accurate content design

Although wireframing generally happens very early in the web design process, the more real content you can incorporate into it, the smoother your overall project will be. Many designers will use latin text and placeholder content such as “Sample Link”, “Sample Button”, and “Sample Heading”.

With this content often carried over into design, it can create 2 problems that surface later on.

Firstly, it may help hide mistakes in the wireframe, or disguise a journey that doesn’t make sense. As an example, a developer might miss coding important functionality behind a button that simply reads “Sample Button”.

Secondly, it doesn’t give your client or copywriter the best guide as to the content that should go there. This can result in a poor content flow and also lengthy amounts of content that do not look good in the design.

The biggest tip for great content design is to guide the client as early as you can. Ask your client for their draft content, even if it’s not polished. Avoid latin text in wireframes, and use as much relevant content as possible. Show intentional content design to help them understand how to structure their content, and how much to write.

If wireframe content-planning is something you need extra help with, you can follow these 7 easy steps. Forward-planning your content will help make your wireframes "objection-and-revision-proof", or at the very least reduce the degree of wasted back-and-forth with the copy team.

5. Design all hidden screens and content

Missing designs for pop-up, pop-out, and lightbox screens are important to include in the wireframes, as they are primarily functionality-heavy. When this step is forgotten, it can generate some confusion and frustration for your development team. These screens are generally intended to close the buying loop, educate a user, or lead to a booking or sale, and are arguably the most important to wireframe.

Leaving these up to your developers’ imagination can give you an unpolished result or have your developer circling back to you, slowing down the web journey project.

Ensure your wireframes show clearly where call-to-actions lead, which pages they go to, or what pop-ups they open up. If included within the scope of your project, ensure these pop-ups are also wireframed for consistency.

6. Differentiate various user journeys with clarity

It is great to be able to share a resource, and find different points of relevance and purpose. It streamlines your operations and reduces the amount of training required.

To make sure your wireframes are helpful to your sales or operations team, you can highlight various user journeys and purposes with color coding.

As an example, for your sales team you can differentiate the pathways between a user journey at the top of the sales funnel and a user journey that is ready to engage, straight off the bat. Color coding your CTAs for the different sales purposes can also make it easier at a UI/UX level to ensure a page has been optimized for awareness, education, information, or conversion.

For a conversion-optimized wireframe, allow ample space around your CTAs. A CRO website conversion study showed that call-to-actions that are surrounded by more negative space and less clutter had a staggering increase in conversion rate of 232%.

7. Consult your developers for feedback before client sign-off

Last, but certainly not least. This is perhaps the most important step of all. Even though you can be pretty sure you’ve been thorough and thought through every detail, it’s always important to consult your developers before showing your client the wireframe.

When this small consultation is missed, it is easy for wireframes to pass through with scope creep or hold unrealistic expectations in the given deadline. Development can run over time, eating into the precious allotment of hours for quality control and testing. Your developers are the builders after all, and they know best if your website plan is achievable within the given time they have to code, test and launch it.

One such practical tip your developer might recommend, after seeing your wireframe is a different grid or layout. With their experience, they will often know the math behind a design to make the build easier and more straightforward.

For designers, when it comes to design, it can sometimes feel like only the sky's the limit, in the pursuit of innovative layouts and UI elements that push the norm. Our developers are there to ground us with reality, the harsh truth of budget, timeline and scope. When this relationship is respected, you can rest assured that you have a smooth ride ahead, well after the wireframing stage.

Wrap up

Wireframes hold a lot of power. How well they are executed will determine 2 things: how smooth the development process will be for the web design team, and how successful the website will be in achieving your client’s goals. A crucial step if you want your web agency to run smoothly, and you want a happy client, short term AND in the long term.

On top of your own processes, if you incorporate these 7 helpful strategies into your wireframing practice, you’ll surprise yourself with how much smoother the website journey is for your team as a whole.

And remember: communication is the key to a happy design team. According to latest accounting expert findings, as a direct result of the pandemic, the landscape of the workplace has shifted to remote work and meetings for over half of small businesses with 2-10 employees. It is especially important for teams to optimize their internal processes. These good habits will provide strong foundations for your wireframing process, and save you a lot of back and forth, time, and miscommunication.

When all your teams are singing from the same hymn book, it’s a lot easier to conduct the orchestra of events!