There’s a new trend saying to ditch low-fidelity wireframing, and I utterly disagree.

… And I just can’t stay silent any longer.

As I’ve been scrolling through youtube and LinkedIn lately I’ve seen a rising number of posts and videos saying that they think low-fidelity wireframing should be dropped. The reasoning is always either one of two:

a) To save time (as it’s easier to convince stakeholders with pixel perfect designs)

b) Because why design low when you can just start on high-fidelity???

I’d like to address why I think removing low-fidelity from the process is a bad idea.

Reason number 1: Time is money

It’s much cheaper to fix something that’s low fidelity than after having spent hours perfecting a high-fidelity design.

The pros of going low fidelity first are that you have the opportunity to explore a wide range of designs quickly. The first solution you think of is rarely the best, so why limit yourself and your product by perfecting the first design you can think of? (Having to redo it in a few months because your users can’t understand the product is gonna be costly 💸💸)

In addition, low fidelity is easier to conduct usability testing on. We humans have a tendency to get distracted easily, so If we were to use a high-fidelity design to test a simple user flow we might see that our users get hung up on (or distracted by) a small detail in the design that’s not related to the flow itself. Or maybe that high-fidelity detail even changed the outcome of the test entirely.

The argument that it saves time by making it easier to convince stakeholders… I get it.

It’s hard. I see where you are coming from. I’ve also experienced non-design/technical stakeholders favouring a solution that looks more visually pleasing (higher fidelity), even though one could argue that the user experience in itself is lacking (maybe even a lot). I do however not think this is a reason to remove low-fidelity wireframing from the process - because this is a communication problem.

The golden solution would be to find a more effective way to communicate. This is where a designer’s soft skills come in.

Design is about more than just drawing boxes and being creative

Many aspiring designers have a misconception that design is all about being creative and “drawing boxes”. The harsh truth is that drawing boxes and being creative is only a microscopic part of the job. Along with strategic and logical thinking - the biggest part may be communication. Communicating your design decisions and fighting for the best possible compromises. Communicating and understanding stakeholders. Communicating with developers. Communicating with users. If it isn’t clear enough already - you need to know how to communicate.

And a pro tip - It rarely works to say “because it’s good UX practice” when someone asks why you did what you did. Sometimes the best thing you can do is to speak to the stakeholders in a language they understand.

Do they care about money? tell them why their preferred design (with bad UX) would cost double the amount of time and $$$, and would have to be iterated soon (using more design and dev resources) in a couple of months’ time.

Do they care about branding? Tell them how that wall of text will lead everyone away from the website/social media platform instantly because no one cares to read it. Do you see where I’m getting at?

More stakeholder involvement, earlier

You should definitely involve stakeholders at an earlier stage. Involving people early and giving them a sense of ownership in the decision-making process ensures that no one is left surprised, and wind up slowing down or even stopping the project because of disagreements. This could be done by simply inviting them to your meetings earlier, hosting workshops earlier, having early design sprints, or involving them in user interviews and usability testing.

The added bonus is that these things are usually very fun, and the product will most definitely benefit from them. As Shia LaBeouf once beautifully said:

So. This was my little informative rant. I am curious though, what do you guys think - do you and your teams use low-fidelity wireframes in your workflows?