Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Principles of Team Wireframing
Gold
Monday, October 2, 2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Share the love for this talk
Principles of Team Wireframing
Speakers: Billy Carlson
Link:

Summary

Wireframing is not just making sketches; it's about team communication. Make handoffs clear, know why you're wireframing, and annotate your work. Roles like Product Managers, Designers, and Developers all benefit from wireframing for different reasons. PMs can clarify requirements and sketch ideas, designers can generate multiple options, and developers can understand what's easy or hard to code. So yeah, wireframing is great for teams, not just designers.

Key Insights

  • Wireframes are best seen as low-fidelity communication tools, not final deliverables or prototypes.

  • The real value of wireframes lies in the collaborative process of creating and iterating them.

  • Many teams lose the thread of wireframing as a communication tool when wireframes become overly detailed and siloed.

  • Billy’s five principles of team wireframing are articulate, generate, iterate, communicate, and validate.

  • Staying in low fidelity throughout most of the design process encourages rapid idea exploration and easier feedback.

  • Tools like Balsamiq intentionally limit high-fidelity design to keep users focused on idea communication rather than polished visuals.

  • Including content and content design in wireframes helps prepare for high-fidelity visual design and improves usability discussions.

  • Wireframes should enable alignment on user goals and flows before moving to detailed design or development.

  • Collaboration between UX designers, UI designers, product managers, and developers is crucial to successful wireframing.

  • Organizing multiple iterations with a hub-and-spoke file structure helps manage complexity in wireframing projects.

Notable Quotes

"Wireframes don’t add value to the product, customers don’t buy and install wireframes. The true value is the wireframing process."

"Wireframes are like an idea in time you can use for conversation."

"If you had to visualize what you thought you agreed to in a meeting, a lot of times there’s misalignment."

"Wireframes should not really be considered prototypes or high polished scale models of the thing."

"Low fidelity design lets you try things quickly and learn so much before you get too detailed."

"The more detailed, the more you start siloing and confusing the whole project."

"I like adding content to wireframes because they’re the best place for content design."

"Balsamiq is more a communication tool, intentionally limiting high polish so you focus on sharing ideas and getting feedback."

"If you show something that looks ready to ship too early, you may miss exploring 30 other concepts quickly."

"Collaboration is key; wireframes shouldn’t be thrown over the fence from UX to design without discussion."

Ask the Rosenbot
Mike Davidson
Fireside Chat
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Craig Villamor
Resilient Enterprise Design
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold
John Cutler
Oxbows, Rivers, and Estuaries: How to navigate the currents of change (without burning out)
2024 • Advancing Service Design 2024
Gold
Lada Gorlenko
Theme 1: Intro
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
James Wieselman Schulman
Research is a team sport: advancing the work when everyone does the research
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Conference
Amy Thibodeau
Opening Keynote: Process and Ambiguity
2019 • DesignOps Summit 2019
Gold
Jon Fukuda
Theme 3 Intro
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Bassel Deeb
Do More With Less: Equip and Lead Design Orgs Through Adversity
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Dan Willis
Enterprise Storytelling Sessions
2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
Gold
Kate Towsey
The State of ResearchOps: More Than Just Theory
2019 • DesignOps Community
Sean McKay
Whole Product Thinking: Expanding beyond problem and solution space thinking
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Jen Briselli
Learning is the north star: service design for adaptive capacity
2025 • Advancing Service Design 2025
Gold
Amber Knabl
Empowering innovation: The critical role of inclusive product development in the AI era
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Dr Chloe Sharp
Using Evidence and Collaboration for Setting and Defending Priorities
2023 • Design in Product 2023
Gold
Carol Scott
Avoid Harming Your Team and Users: Promoting Care and Brand Reputation with Trauma-Informed UX Practices
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Greg Petroff
Software as Material—A Redux
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold

More Videos

Carol Scott

"Trauma is a universal human experience."

Carol Scott Melissa Eggleston

Avoid Harming Your Team and Users: Promoting Care and Brand Reputation with Trauma-Informed UX Practices

February 5, 2025

Lija Hogan

"UX researchers should learn Python or R and how to leverage AI APIs to process unstructured data."

Lija Hogan Milan Mijatovic Sam Proulx Louis Rosenfeld

Three Years Out: Perspectives on the Near-Term Future of User Research

March 15, 2024

Sam Proulx

"Mobile screen readers can confirm basic accessibility but desktop testing is still needed due to differences across tools."

Sam Proulx

Mobile Accessibility and You

June 9, 2022

Ana Ferreira

"We do not have online indicators in our communication software, so people know they shouldn’t wait for an immediate response."

Ana Ferreira

Designing Distributed: Leading Doist’s Fully Remote Design Team in Six Countries

January 8, 2024

Jorge Arango

"Keeping large content repositories organized is an ongoing challenge that often gets deprioritized."

Jorge Arango

Scale Smart: AI-Powered Content Organization Strategies

September 24, 2024

Chris Moses

"No doctor wants to use an EHR; we’re often the least bad option in a field full of poor usability."

Chris Moses

Stretching the Definition of DesignOps with Product Development

November 7, 2018

Trisha Causley

"A prompt is just a set of instructions to an AI in the context of text generation."

Trisha Causley

[Demo] Complexity in disguise: Crafting experiences for generative AI features

June 5, 2024

Clara Kliman-Silver

"There’s a perception that generative AI is gonna change everything, but I think it’s gonna transform, not totally overhaul mine."

Clara Kliman-Silver

UX Futures: The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Design

June 7, 2023

Michael Polivka

"Relationship maps help you get stuff done with people who don’t report to you and aren’t accountable to you."

Michael Polivka

Scaling Design through Relationship Maps

November 7, 2017