1stwebdesigner

Beginner’s Guide to Wireframes and Tools to Create Them

Posted: 27 Apr 2012 02:00 PM PDT

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Wireframing, or prototyping, while designing, costs almost nothing, but can give back so much. While many designers start with a sketch in their mind and then just put it into Photoshop or even code it right away, some others start on paper. Yes, paper, that (most of the time) white thing we write on with our hands. Sounds very 2000-ish, but even today the best designers out there use this technique to their advantage. Web prototyping saves lots of frustrations later on during the project development phase, as it makes sure there are no things to undo or redesign. If you prototype correctly, you can be sure about the fact that redesigning will never be something you will have to think of.

What wireframing basically means is putting your design ideas on paper – for each of the multiple pages of a website. All pages will probably share some elements, therefore the first one will be a bit more challenging to do, whereas the rest of them will be a bit less difficult as you already have a basic idea over the general design patterns.

Keep in mind that these common elements are a must for any design. When switching between pages the user will have to immediately recognize the fact that he is on the same site and not somewhere else. Always keep the navigation and the important sections (content, sidebar, footer) in the same place. But this tends to become a novice guide to web design, so let’s move on.

General – the wireframe

In order to be able to use a wireframe, you need to know how it actually works. What this does is simple – it illustrates the layout of a website and its main components on paper. You can use different shapes, such as boxes and ovals to draw content, navigation and other functional elements. You might ask yourself why do we use shapes? The answer is simple: because it allows us to focus more on the design and forget about coding, cross-browser compatibility, images and so on. It’s pure and basic design.

Image by Zach Hoeken.

Wireframing or Photoshop design?

The alternative to paper web prototyping is creating the visual design in Photoshop first. While it has advantages to some extent, creating the layout in Photoshop is not as effective because it does not allow you to focus on the basic design elements. If you start designing in Photoshop you will probably also start thinking about colors, images and fonts. There is no need for this if done on paper. And the process is way faster on paper as well, so why not go for it? You can obviously start designing in Photoshop at a later stage, but I wouldn’t recommend doing it before you have a clear idea of what you want to get out of the project. The only way to achieve this is to start on paper.

You can call a wireframe a sketch if you want to. As a matter of fact, a wireframe is a basic, simplified sketch of a website. It communicates some ideas to the client which he can accept or not. If he doesn’t, it is quite easy for you to take another sheet of paper and draw other ideas from the top. The main reason behind a wireframe is to let you focus on what is really important on a website: how each page looks, where the most important elements go and how to achieve the overall positive balance you need.

After you get the idea to the client and he accepts it, you are welcome to evolve the basic sketch into something more detailed. Now it is maybe time to start thinking of fonts, colors and images.

Image by Denkbeelhouwer.

The Prototyping Stage

It is crucially important for designers and clients to work together during this stage of the project. While a client doesn’t have too much to say during the coding phase, this is where he usually gives a lot of input you should consider. Remember that once he accepted the design, he will gladly give into your further ideas – at this point in time he already believes in you and your skills. It will be a tough and long project if you don’t get the acceptance on the basic wireframe from him.

If you are a client remember not to stress a lot about the lack of colors, images, fonts and other styles. The job of a designer for now is to give you a basic idea of what he thinks is good for you. If you ask for more detailed wireframes from him and reject them three or four times, it will cost you lots of money. On the other side, if you ask for basic wireframes and reject them, it won’t cost you as much, because they are easier to draw and think of.

Tools for web prototyping

Here is a list of some tools I recently tested in order to see how much designers can trust them in building wireframes. If paper is not good enough for you then, in any given order, here are the other possible solutions:

1. iPlotz

This tool allows you to create wireframes which you can click on and navigate through. This helps creating the experience of a real website. While you can get a free account on iPlotz, I recommend one of the premium ones if you are serious about starting with web prototypes from now on.

2. Balsamiq

If you like drawing, then this tool will give you the feeling of it, only now it is digital. The elements can be tweaked and rearranged easily and the control over them is quite easy as well. The results are clean and one of its advantage is that everything can be reiterated in real-time.

3. Pencil Project

This tool can easily be used to make diagrams and GUI prototyping.

4. templatr

Although it will not allow you to draw anything, this tool lets you create individual designs for your website on the go. You don’t need to know any HTML and you can download the template in the end with a single click.

5. Flair Builder

This is a tool capable of creating interactive wireframes very fast. It is quite easy to use and comes with a palette of functional components which will ease the process of creating prototypes. Flair Builder is also interactive and will improve your experience a lot.

Image by Michael Lancaster.

Bottom line

Wireframes, or web prototyping, is a process known to many designers, although just a handful of them use it. While it might seem that it takes a lot of time, on long-term it will help you a lot. If you know how to properly communicate and closely work with the client during prototyping, the rest of the project will go smoother than expected. I totally encourage you to prototype your designs before actually starting to code or to create the whole visual design in Photoshop. It will make the process easier for you and will spare you frustrations down the road.

Until next time, let’s spark some discussion here for my 50^th article on 1WD. How often do you prototype your designs? How effective has it been for you? If you don’t do it, why is that?

Best Browser Features According to Users, Designers, and Developers

Posted: 27 Apr 2012 06:00 AM PDT

This ain’t another article on Browser Wars. The Internet has come a long way and so has the industry of Internet Browsers. If you have ever used the Internet in your life then you have spent some time with Internet Browsers. From the designer’s and developer’s perspective the browsers of today have been an important tool that shape the Internet. Henceforth, in between all the browser debates we, the average Joe, starts to long for that ultimate browsing experience which is a dream as of now. A browsing experience which is free of memory over utilization pit falls and incompatibility of code. This article will dig into the thoughts of users, designers and developers in order to understand what is the ultimate browser feature that completes a browser.

User’s Perspective

Well, users are the key to everything. So, we will start by understanding the user’s perspective about the browser’s of today. This section will concentrate on the usability side of the browser features as that is the most important feature that users look for.

[Image Source]

1. Memory Utilization

The most important issue for users who are using old machines. As of now almost every browser uses a separate process for every new tab opened in one window. This means that if you open one browser window and then open five tabs inside that window then you have indirectly opened five different browser windows. Now, these five different browser windows will use up equal amounts of memory and sooner or later you will see a resource crunch provided that you don’t have loads of memory to back you up.

2. Processor Performance

This is another aspect of browsers that is a turn off for users. Browsers tend to over utilize the system resources especially when they are loading pages that require a high amount of CPU cycles. Like if you open multiple tabs with YouTube videos running in all of them then you will see a significant slowdown in performance. See, I don’t mean that this will happen in all machines. There are processors that can bear almost any load, but then not all of us have that sort of processing power. Right?

For such users it is very important that their Internet Browser does not over use the system resources.

3. Less Power Usage

Well, this one is a far-fetched dream but then we are kind of dreaming only right now. True? There is this notion that because Internet Browsers use a lot of system resources they end up consuming more battery power. This in turn degrades the battery life. I am not sure how, but there has to be a way that one can get rid of this issue that plagues almost every user, regardless of how good their computer is.

Nowadays the mobile browsing experience has gone to amazing heights and so has the lighter version of browsers that power these mobile phones. I am assuming that these light version of browsers will soon be available on desktops so that we don’t consume too much energy and save battery power.

4. Synchronization

Data synchronization between multiple platforms is an important factor that must be addressed by various browsers. I don’t like the fact that my browsing history is not always in sync between my mobile browser and that I have to follow a set of steps if I want to synchronize the same between two platforms. Although Firefox has been good enough when it comes to synchronizing data between two devices yet most of the other browsers are still catching up. We just hope that they do so quickly.

5. Socially Sound Browsers

The Internet has emerged as a place where all over-the-top socially sound human beings connect with each other. Lately, Internet Browsers have started to integrate most of the social networking platforms in the browser itself which helps the users to stay connected throughout their browsing sessions. Still, the seamless sort of browser and social media integration is still missing from most of the browsers.

Designer’s Perspective

Designers look at the web from a totally different perspective. For them load time, memory issues and over usage of CPU just don’t matter. For designers it is all about the aesthetic looks of the website, the UX and the flows. Now, in such a scenario it was really difficult for me to figure out what could be the best browser feature from a designer’s perspective. Henceforth, I won’t squeeze in much from my side. As of now I can think of just one feature that designers will surely appreciate and let me push that for the readers.

[Image Source]

1. Deep Social Media Integration

Well, social media has become an integral part of the web. No website is complete without social media integration. It is so necessary that designers are forced to pick up space in their design and push social media apps in those spaces. The end result is that even though the design looks good some of the precious space is lost due to this necessary integration. If, somehow, browsers provide a sort of social media integration that is compatible with every website then designers will have the freedom to design websites without worrying about any sort of social media integration for that website. The code itself will interact with the browser and help the users connect to respective social media accounts of that website without even trying to worry about the social media buttons on the website.

Just image, you won’t have to think about leaving Facebook Like box and other similar stuff on a website. You can easily use that space for ads or much useful content. Helps remove the clutter.

Developer’s Perspective

Developers. Another important chunk of the web design industry that shapes the Internet. From their lens the Internet is something else. They don’t think like the daily Internet users and neither do they think like the designers. They think in code. They are someone who dreams about creating codes that will do every possible bit of work that users do. Crazy people I tell you.

[image source]

If it wasn’t for the developers then cross-browser efficiency would never have been a topic of discussion. Let me try to dig into the requirements of the genius developers.

1. HTML5 Compatibility

HTML5 has surely taken the web by storm but alongside its success has been this chunk of developers who have been left behind just because of its compatibility issues. A huge section of the Internet is using old browsers and somehow HTML5 might not be able to show its real firepower when used in older browsers. It is this incompatibility that is a turn-off for developers. HTML5 will be a treat for developers as soon as it starts working equally in all browsers, though such a day is far away, really.

2. Cross-Browser Compatibility

Another compatibility issue that developers have to fight with on a day-to-day basis. Imagine the headache a developer has who has to make sure that a website displays the same in all sorts of browsers. This proves to be a headache as (like we know) most of the browsers have this sort of fight going on between them due to which they don’t pay much heed to compatibility issues.

Nothing will be possible till all the browser companies sit together and pledge to come up with one common platform where developers will get the freedom to create one code that works for all browsers. Till then, developers have to perform cross-browser checks over and over and over.

3. On the Fly Editing

This is one browser feature that developers dream to have. Firefox add-ons like Firebug provide similar functionality where developers can edit the code on the fly, but then we are far from what we want. Browsers must have the on-the-fly editing tool which developers can use to edit code and experience changes right away. It isn’t difficult, is it? It is just the matter of time and sooner or later it will happen. The question is when will such a feature be built-in on all the browsers?

Conclusion

The list is huge and will continue to evolve with time. It is human nature to look for more than whatever he or she has. That is the reason why we have been evolving ever since we landed on this planet. I just hope that some of these features will be quickly implemented in all browsers and not just a few. Seamless compatibility is what I am talking about. Get it, anyone?

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vineri, 27 aprilie 2012

1stwebdesigner

1stwebdesigner

General – the wireframe

Wireframing or Photoshop design?

The Prototyping Stage

Tools for web prototyping

1. iPlotz

2. Balsamiq

3. Pencil Project

4. templatr

5. Flair Builder

Bottom line

User’s Perspective

1. Memory Utilization

2. Processor Performance

3. Less Power Usage

4. Synchronization

5. Socially Sound Browsers

Designer’s Perspective

1. Deep Social Media Integration

Developer’s Perspective

1. HTML5 Compatibility

2. Cross-Browser Compatibility

3. On the Fly Editing

Conclusion

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