Why I rarely wireframe

I have a confession to make. I am a UX designer who doesn’t wireframe. What?! Blasphemy! An outrage! Well, trust me, it’s not that bad. Let me explain.

I wasn’t like that all the time. I used to wireframe. I was a faithful follower of good UX design practices. I used hand-drawn wireframes, Balsamiq, and even Adobe Fireworks (yes, it was that long ago). I spent a lot of time putting wireframes together.

You see, the main reason for doing wireframes is to limit detailed thinking. Focus on the flows. This is supposed to be good for both idea generation and gathering feedback. Less distraction, and noise…

It also makes a lot of sense if you have to justify having design specialists: a UX designer who does high-level design, a UI and interaction designer, and a UX writer.

It all sounds good. The problem though is that artificial constraints might help some, but they can also cripple others.

Placing constraints sounds absolutely logical. It is a valid technique to get the creative juices flowing. But design is a messy business, and constraints don’t always help.