Designing a user interface can be a challenge when looking to incorporate many business requirements into it. Often, designers get instructed to work on details they missed out on due to perplexing planning.
In order to maintain a good flow in your design process, it is crucial to adopt low-fidelity wireframes in your plans from scratch.
In this blog, we will get to know how important low fidelity design is to a UI/UX designer’s work, and how it makes the design process smooth.
Before we dive into why it is beneficial, what is a low-fidelity wireframe?
Low fidelity wireframes are simple visual representations that depict the user flow information of a design project. It is easily shareable to stakeholders and likely to receive quick feedback on how to improve the functionality.
Low fidelity wireframes are as important as authors needing an outline to write a book. It speeds up the process smoothly and gives clarity to a designer’s thought process.
Why use low fidelity design early on during the ideation stage?
Low-fidelity wireframes are essential when brainstorming ideas and accepting intricate requirements from business analysts. It aids in presenting an accurate design interface. Many of its advantages include:
- Low Cost 💵
Low fidelity requires a smaller budget for a project compared to high fidelity prototypes. It often requires only a pencil and a sheet of paper, or affordable design tools you find online. And you do not need to spend money to make high-fidelity design elements for your work.
- Saves Time ⏱
aking low-fidelity wireframes is a lot faster and less time-consuming than when spending time working on little details in high-fidelity prototypes. It makes the designer’s work more efficient when they craft articulate lo-fi wireframes. When testing, users will not get distracted by any design elements and stay focused on the user flow alone.
- Provides more options 📲
Since low-fidelity wireframes are faster to produce, it gives designers an edge to go deep in their idea exploration. By using less cost consuming resources, designers can present many variations of a single frame to stakeholders. It is helpful for stakeholders and developers to have many good options to choose from when going ahead into the development phase.
- Modifications are easier 😌
There are times during the design process where we have to make a few changes to see that all business requirements are met. Low fidelity design allows designers to make quick changes to their user flow diagrams. It will not turn out to be a time-consuming job compared to when modifying high-fidelity UI designs. You can make changes immediately during user testing when they spot any drawbacks.
- Less skill is required 💻
When high fidelity prototyping requires specialized skills, low fidelity requires less expertise to make a visual representation. You do not need to be a developer or know coding to make low-fidelity wireframes. You require only standardized tools. You have more freedom to put your ideas onto a blank sheet than being concerned about any technical aspects during ideation.
What are the challenges?
Although the advantages we explored are helpful to designers, there are always some caveats to it.
Low fidelity wireframes can confuse users or stakeholders when you are presenting them the design outline. They will find it difficult to imagine the user interface in their head just by looking at a piece of paper. We are often used to digital screens, and it will be tricky to get testers on the same page when you present your ideas. However, high-fidelity prototypes give more of a finished look and provide more clarity to testers.
Another challenging aspect is lo-fi designs are static and not interactive compared to hi-fi prototypes. It will take a while for designers to transition from one sheet of paper to another, explaining the user flow to the stakeholders. They will need to spend time organizing sheets and giving a smooth presentation. And testers will need to imagine tapping on buttons and moving onto the next frame just staring at a static canvas.
Therefore, when presenting the wireframes to testers, it is important to brief them that they need to imagine as if they are using a digital product.
What tools can you use to make low-fidelity designs?
Pencil and Paper
Take a look around you and find any sheet of paper or a blank canvas to write on. It saves a lot of time, and you can make changes to the design as much as you want without any hassle. It makes it easier for you to share your work with colleagues and stakeholders in your workplace.
Design Tools
Use wireframing tools online where you can share your projects easily with anyone remotely. There are a few wireframing tools with simple drag and drop features you can utilize, such as Balsamiq and Whimsical. Even though Figma is more of a high-fidelity prototype tool, you can still use it to design wireframes, and it is a helpful tool to collaborate designs with your colleagues.
To wrap it up…
Low fidelity offers many benefits to boost the mind of a designer. It is best to utilize lo-fi wireframes, especially during the ideation stage, to get your ideas across and acknowledge all top-level requirements in your interface design. It helps designers to explore many ideas and variations to their user flow design and makes the design process smoother for all stakeholders involved.
A good designer implements UI/UX designs using a proper plan. And making use of low fidelity is a perfect blueprint to structure your thought process well and design an accurate user interface.