Wireframes are selling you short
Now as much as i respect and trust my clients, I do feel that wireframes are lost on them, to be honest i'm not sure I could vouch for truly understanding any I hadn't drawn my self, its kinda complex stuff simplified to a state that tries to make it understandable and actionable, but really are just sketches of a top level idea.
Its half the story (at best), wireframes fail in a world of dynamic interaction, the paradigm is lifted directly from architecture, websites are named ‘sites’ as a result. Buildings don’t move in any way near the dynamic way digital does so no need to deal with that in the blueprint, result is the medium is lacking.
Interfaces do, digital does, wires don’t.
Luckily i’m not the only one thats spotted this, far from it. We have some awesome tool blossoming currently. Some limited to the existing patterns, some more flexible, each with a technical knowledge tradeoff, designers need to get in and learn. Speed is of the essence and sometimes the simplest platform is best, its about finding what you are comfortable with. I don’t feel we have a market leader for true interaction prototyping just yet, but we are getting close.
Some stuff worth looking at;
Try Flinto, Free for 30 Days It's easy to catch issues in your design when you are testing an interactive prototype…www.flinto.com
Most designers today create static mockups to communicate app ideas. But increasingly apps are anything but static…facebook.github.io
Framer is a new creative tool to build interaction and animation prototypes.framerjs.com
POP turns hand-drawn wireframes to interactive prototypes. Sketch the app ideas on paper; take pictures and add links…popapp.in
Inspired UX Design is tough with uninspired User Experience Design Tools. That's why UXPin is handcrafted to be robust…www.uxpin.com
There are HEAPS more, and I want to hear about them, link me up! ☺
