I’ve never liked static wireframe documents, I’ve always found that there are bits that don’t make sense. If a chunk of functionality changes during the design phase, very often it will be featured in more than one place in the document and whoever is doing the update will miss a bit somewhere. There is also the inevitable problem of trying to describe dynamic functionality using static diagrams and text. If the designer uses different terminology to the developer then there is a breakdown in communications. Either the developer has to risk going ahead with a best guess at what was described or there needs to be a discussion to clarify (followed by updating the wireframe document if you are doing things properly).

In their book “Getting Real“, the guys at 37 signals advocate going straight from paper sketches to HTML prototypes. The reasoning behind this is that the prototype becomes the base for the final build so no time is wasted on creating wireframes that will ultimately be discarded. Whilst I appreciate the sentiment and reasoning behind this, it does depend on the software designer having the skills to build the prototype in HTML to a standard that can be used for further development. It also assumes that you have enough time to produce a prototype in this way, its fine for internal projects but if you have a client expecting to see a functional prototype in 5 days time then you could find yourself having to cut corners.

I was recently introduced to a piece of software called Axure RP Pro, it’s an application specifically aimed at those who need to quickly build wireframes and functional prototypes. The drag and drop interface at first can seem overly simplified but with a little time you start to see how simple it is to simulate complex dynamic functionality. I’ve found it to be invaluable as a tool for quickly building a prototype that can be used by clients to approve a design and to give something to developers that doesn’t require written descriptions of functionality and the discrepancies that can occur in the interpretation of those descriptions.