From Pencils to Pixels: The Power of Paper Sketching in UI/UX Design
My relationship with paper sketching
There’s a constant push and pull in my UI/UX design process. Sometimes, I convince myself I can skip sketching and jump straight into Figma. But inevitably, after a few weeks of “I don’t really need to sketch,” I find myself drawn back to the pencil and paper, by one reason or another like a complex user journey.
The beauty of sketching hits me every time I pick up a pencil. It’s calming, efficient, and lets me focus on one thing at a time. Ideas flow freely, and I can iterate quickly. This “one-thing-at-a-time” approach helps to clear my mental clutter and builds my confidence before diving into higher-fidelity prototypes on Figma. I might stray, but the benefits of sketching always pull me back.
The final nudge
I was listening to an NNG podcast episode recently about wireframing and prototyping that featured Leon Barnard, co-author of the book Wireframing for Everyone, and I felt renewed inspiration to write this article that I’ve been meaning to write for a while now, advocating for paper sketching as a should do in the design process.
One thing he said that stood out to me was even if it’s a couple of words you’re writing down on paper, it’s still an act of externalizing your thoughts which often leads to a clearer understanding. Seeing them sketched out or written down can help you identify patterns, connections, and potential problems and solutions.
The Power of Paper: Why Sketching Still Reigns Supreme
So now let’s get into why sketching on paper is still an essential part of my design process and why I think it should be for you too.
- Saves time (iterate faster)
One of the core functions of a UI/UX designer is ideation and iteration. But more specifically, at the lowest fidelity where the least time and resources are being used. So yes we’d rather iterate on Figma than during development, but you know what is even faster than Figma? Yup, sketching on paper. It’s much faster to comb through and refine your ideas through doodley sketches with a pencil on paper, than with a mouse on Figma.
2. Less cognitive load (one thing at a time)
”Sketching is like picking up a pencil before a paintbrush.”
Leon Barnard
For a simple concept that you’ve done a million times before, like a login screen, it’s justifiable to skip the sketch and go directly to mid or high fidelity on Figma. But for a complex or new concept, it’s very easy to get overwhelmed trying to think of too much at once. What element should I use here? What step should come next? Should this be a primary or secondary button? If you jump into Figma directly while thinking of all these things it becomes extremely overwhelming and counter productive.
Sketching on paper allows you to ideate and explore the core functionality and flow of your solution first without being tempted to use auto-layout or think about what your primary color will be. This way, you can focus on ideating and iterating the solution first before being tempted to make it pixel perfect.
3. Whimsical
Honorary mention to Whimsical. Whimsical is a low fidelity prototyping tool that I sometimes use in place of sketching or after sketching. It has pre-made most of the elements you would need to use, like buttons, input fields, text, images. There’s also limited variation possible on these elements. For example, they only have one font available and only three sizes of buttons available.
I found this so useful because even if I get tempted to try and make the button a custom height, I simply can’t. 😂 So I have no choice but to focus on what I’m actually meant to do, which is ideating on the basic structure and flow of the product without focusing on any nitty gritties.
4. Early collaboration, early communication of ideas
Another advantage of sketching lies in the ability to quickly translate requirements into high-level layouts with minimal effort which can be used to get your ideas out in the open and validated by your team early on. Stakeholders like other designers, front-end developers, back-end developers and product managers can all provide valuable feedback before you dive into Figma.
Here are some examples of how you can leverage this:
- Feedback from frontend developers: “Hey, I have these two concepts for this dropdown interaction. Which one would be easier to implement?”
- Feedback from backend developers: “This table requires information on X, Y, and Z, along with filters. Do we have existing APIs to support this?”
The faster you can visually communicate and gather feedback, the better. While low-fidelity wireframes are possible on Figma, there’s a tendency for designers (myself included) to get bogged down in details. The beauty of paper? Doodly, imperfect sketches are perfectly acceptable.
5. Fail fast, fail early
Imagine pouring your heart into designing a journey on Figma, only to discover later that you misinterpreted some key requirements. If you had started with paper sketches, you would have been able to get that feedback in less than say an hour compared to ideating on Figma which would probably take you a day. Fail fast, fail early ✨
Your first paper sketch won’t be perfect (and it shouldn’t be!). It’s a springboard for gathering early feedback from stakeholders ; to discuss potential misunderstandings with designers, developers, and product managers before diving deep into high-fidelity prototypes. This collaborative process allows you to course-correct early, saving valuable time and resources.
Beyond My Experience: Insights from other UI/UX Designers
My own experience has solidified the value of sketching in UI/UX design. But what do other designers think? To gain a broader perspective, I reached out to a few UX designer friends and asked them if sketching on paper remains a part of their process. Here’s what they had to say:
Do you still find sketching on paper valuable in your UI/UX design process? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below. Thanks for reading, and see you next time 😊
