For anyone who is looking to build a website, whether a simple website or a complex one of any shape or size, planning is the first step.  During this planning process, the web strategy is defined before designing or development, also known as wireframing. Hence, wireframes are a great way to improve the quality of work to minimize the mistakes and save a lot of productive time and the resources on the project.

“It's critical to simplify and run the business in such a way that resources are released to invest in your main business.” – Safra A. Catz, executive at Oracle Corporation.

Sometimes, clients underestimate this method and rush to work on the website development instantly, only to end up with lot of corrections and modification necessary on the tail end of the project. In this blog post, we explain the necessity of creating wireframes even before the commencement of actual work to ensure the designers and the developers are on the same track confirming a smooth flow of work.

So, what is wireframing?

Wireframe is the blue print for your website’s and application development. It is usually created after deciding the site’s architecture, which has been influenced by the site map or the web-site’s pages flowchart, prior to the creative design phase.

The wireframe skeleton is usually illustrated with basic shapes and lines with partial colors and styling, focusing on the layout, content positioning, scope definition and other prototypes.

Still questioning why you need a wireframe? Here are some reasons, why wireframing is essential:

• Screen’s Layout – wireframe gives a solid idea on the structure of the website, before the actual creation of the design. A straightforward wireframe means exploration of multiple ideas in a relatively short time. You can fix on the sidebars, sliders, headers, footers, navigation etc., to state a layout that suits the goals of the client, thus making the mock-up easier.
• Helps Exhibit Site’s Architecture – How can you exhibit the sites architecture? Fetching the sitemap to wireframe; helps build the initial solid visual process in a project, where a simple flow chart is turned into a tangible plan. A wireframe makes your client think about what his/her actual needs are and helps the client define clear project goals and a primary focus.
• Website feature Clarity – Wireframing the various features such as product filtering, light boxes, Google Map Integration, hero image and other hundreds of features might not be understood by your client properly at the initial stages. The wireframe element provides a clear-cut communication to the client and exhibits how these features will function, where they will exist on a specific page and how useful they could actually be. Wireframes bring clarity to the projects, allowing to the client to work through all the layout needs.
• Site’s Usability – The Wireframe helps everyone to glance factually into the website’s navigation, feature placement, conversion paths, ease of use etc., It also shed light on the flaws in the site’s architecture and illustrates how a feature may work.
• Wireframe Efficiency - With the help of a wireframe everyone in the website development team will be on the same track. Everyone is aware of the goals, what the website is supposed to do and how is it to function effectively for a more fluid creative process, thereby reducing redundancies and increasing efficiency.

People might have different tactics to wireframing, but, it is best to choose an option which saves times, assist in collaboration and ultimately improves productivity. A detailed wireframe helps the developers to check out the layout from all angles, ultimately spotting out possible gray areas of development, instead of making a major change and wasting a lot of productive time after the completion of the project. Hence, wireframes are required for a professional website development project to make it simple and systematic.