We’re in prime digital age but I still prefer to use my trusty pen and paper for wireframes. In this post, I’ll share a bit about my experiences, why I prefer paper, and the wireframes I’m currently working on.

Wireframing is the process whereby designers outline the structure of a design solution, on paper or digitally. This outline communicates something very important to the members of the design team and the stakeholders. Essentially, it should reflect the needs of the business and the users- very crucial in the ideation phase of the design process. It kinda reminds me of the story writing process my 6th grade teacher taught me in the early, early 2000’s. Brainstorm, jot down some ideas, run it back a few times, give it a tweak here, get feedback, give it a tweak there, THEN prepare a proper first draft.
As a very young designer, who thought I needed to have all the tools, I miserably failed my first few attempts at digital wireframing. See, all the videos I saw on YouTube featured the tools. I’ve installed and uninstalled so many wireframing/prototyping apps from my iPad because I thought the apps themselves were the problem. Today, I can say the apps were working fine. They were working just fine! I just was not giving myself a fair shot at learning the skill of wireframing! And pen and paper were all the tools I really needed.
Here’s what I’ve learnt throughout my design journey about wireframing.
Wireframing is a skill! I can only get better at this skill with much practice. While I can’t draw (getting better since I work with children who encourage me to draw all sorts of things), I can surely use a ruler, a pencil, a 0.5mm pen, marker, and a correction pen to do some easy sketches. That brings me to my second point.
It’s so quick and ideal for early iterations. Whenever I try to immediately offload my ideas onto Figma, I get so caught up with the little details of aesthetics so a simple wireframing exercise becomes a complicated 2 hour long process. Sure the end result is a beautifully organised wireframe but then this leaves me with no evidence of where I started. There’s no story of how I arrived at the end. The important things ,the meat and potatoes of the solutions, are put on the back burner because I’ve now gotta focus on making this thing look aesthetically pleasing. Definitely the wrong approach when thinking of wireframes. After all, this is still the brainstorming phase.
In furtherance of point 2, here’s point 3. Wireframes don’t need to look like the black and white version of the finished product. The thought in my head is this should resemble an X-ray, bare bones, a structure… not yet a naked body. The naked body comes a little later.
Lastly, feedback given on paper wireframes is easier to accept and apply, in my opinion. At this early stage, the font, colour, graphics, and such need not be centre of attention. Right now we’re focussing on how can we ensure that this design solution helps Jim, the photographer from Missouri, provide a better service to his clients. What features do we need to include and how will we organise everything to meet user expectation?
In conclusion, paper wireframes are a still a valuable tool in the UX design process because they allow for rapid iteration and collaboration. They are a low-fidelity way to visualize and communicate design ideas, and can help designers and stakeholders easily make changes and provide feedback. Paper wireframes also promote creativity and exploration, as they do not require any technical skills or specialized software to create. Overall, paper wireframes are an essential step in the design process that can help streamline decision-making and ensure a user-friendly final product.
Thanks for reading. I’d like to hear your thoughts. How do you feel about paper wireframes?
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