Having your app developed from an app development company can be a very efficient way to get your app made. But it comes with its own challenges. While your app will be developed by your development team, you will be one who will be making them understand all your requirements and features that you need in your app. To do this you need to create an ‘app wireframe’. Spending a little time making an app design wireframe will save you a ton of time & money during app development.

App Wireframe

An app wireframe is an illustration of the User Interface (UI) of an app which demonstrates how the product will look like and how it will be used. An app wireframe is needed at the early stages when you have an idea of an app, but it’s development hasn’t started yet and you are trying to visualize your app according to your idea.

Why is an app wireframe important?

Wireframe of an app acts as a blueprint of the app to be developed which makes it very important when it comes to development of the app. The app design wireframe also ensures the structure and design of the UI of the app to make it easy and understandable by the client and end user in the initial phase when the app is not completely ready.

Wireframes of an app creates a skeleton like structure of the app which illustrates the app’s interface (content position, functionalities, element spacing, element placement) and represents how the user will interact with the app. An app design wireframe also acts as an important communication tool between the app developer and the client in any app project because it gives a picture their idea and their app to think whether it is the way they were thinking or not. The clients are then able to talk about their needs and how they want it and it helps them define the project goals and primary focus for their project.

Benefits of an App Wireframe

• Visualize the structure the app in its user interface.
• Help in defining the project clearly and refine it accordingly.
• Save time and effort.
• Push usability to the forefront.
• Make Development easier and more effective.
• Explanation of the features of the interface of the app
• A clickable prototype can also be used for user testing before you hire a developer!

How to make a wireframe for your app?

There are plenty of ways to make or develop a wireframe for your app. You can use simple ways like drawing the illustration of user interface of your app or you can use tools to develop a complete UI for your app.

• Pen and Paper: The easiest way to do it is that you can draw out your design the way you want it to be with simple pen and paper and give a demo to the developer of the idea that you have in mind for your app. The developer then will be able to develop something according to that and show that you (the client) and you can decide whether its according to your idea or whether there are any amendments to be made to it.

• By Using Tools: Tools can be very helpful while creating an app design wireframe as by using different wireframing tools you can give your app idea a face, like you can bring it to life. By using these tools, giving your requirement and making the developer understand about your app becomes very easy. We do highly recommend you create a clickable prototype.

Here are some wireframing tools that can help you make your developer understand better about your idea:

• Adobe XD
• Figma
• UIZARD
• Proto.io
• MOCKPLUS
• UXPin
• Fluid UI
• Sketch

These are some steps that you should follow while creating your app wireframe:

1. Learn and become familiar with your wireframing tool
2. Develop a user persona
3. Map out and decide the user flow
4. Draw the core part of the user flow
5. Sketch out your wireframe
6. Setup a mobile frame
7. Determine the layout using boxes and Design Patterns
8. Connect the pages to create the flow of the app
9. Make a prototype and test your designs

Step 01: Learn and become familiar with your app wireframing tool

As stated earlier you can develop an app wireframe even with a pen and paper but obviously there are limitations to that and its not practical. As the wireframe goes through various changes and it’s obvious that by using the traditional methods things can get messy when any updates are done in it. Everybody would want to make easy updates and should try using wireframing tools for maximum efficiency.

Step 02: Develop a user persona

All users are not the same and they don’t behave the same way either. It’s very important to know who is going to use the app. When you know for whom, the app is and how you want them to behave while using it you can develop a UX-focused app wireframe which can make your app even better.

Identifying the user persona is an important step to develop an app design wireframe. This tool is often used in marketing in order target their audience and make sales strategies for the audience they want to sell their products.

Suppose that you want an app for your e-commerce store then you will think that a potential customer who wants to buy tech items on your app will focus and spend more time on the product descriptions and specifications while a customer who is interested in fashion products will rapidly click through the pictures of the products so you have to create your wireframe keeping in mind all these things.

Step 03: Map out and decide the user flow

User flow is the series of steps to that user takes to get something done. Deciding this flow is a wireframing process to define the flow of traffic, the initial landing screen of the mobile app and other screens according to their need.

Step 04: Draw the core part of the user flow

After deciding the user flow it’s time to visualize it and create some quick concepts of the screens/pages of your app that you can share with people and get feedback and iterate upon it. When drawing these quick concepts that give shape to the page always think from a user’s perspective like how will user like the screen – think of a goal that user would want to accomplish.

Step 05: Sketch out your app wireframe

At this step you have to create the whole screens of your app. You should include all the elements that you want to add including Text, Videos, Photos, Clickable elements, lists etc. At this stage you can provide all the common and important details and information that you want to be on the screen when the user opens that screen. It should provide the complete visual representation of your app.

Furthermore, you can focus on and point out some key items: Header, Footer, Body, Manus, Navigation and Clickable Elements.

Step 06: Setup a mobile frame

However, a simple rectangle can be used as a frame for the app wireframe but it’s better to choose a frame with same dimensions of an actual device that you design it for, then the frame will act as an actual device and considering the dimension of the screen you won’t be able to put too many elements on the screen and will put what is feasible.

It’s recommended to start creating an app wireframe with a device that has a middle size screen. For instance, to develop an iOS app the recommended frame is iPhone XS frame.

Step 07: Determine the layout using boxes and Design Patterns

Being familiar with the wireframing tools you should know about the UI elements that you want to include in your app. When people use any new app, they rely on previous experience and design patterns that have similar UI elements help them to understand and use the app easily so It’s very important to use the defined design patterns for Android and iOS apps. Design patterns work as reusable content blocks in our app. Design Patterns include elements like: Search Box, Circular Plus Button, Alert Box etc. All these are common in both Operating System i.e., Android and iOS and don’t have any difference.

Step 08: Connect the pages to create the flow of the app

When you’re done with putting all the elements on different screens and have designed them the way you wanted. You have a collection of individual screens so it’s better to create a flow out of them. UX flows make it easy for the development team to understand how the user will interact with the app and what can be the different interaction scenarios.

Step 09: Make a prototype and test your designs

By creating and connecting all the different screens at this last stage a prototype of your app should be ready and this should be the closest representation of you app. Now you need to test the app design wireframe and test all the elements that you have included on the screen and share with other people and get feedbacks and then you can send it to the development team for your app to developed and get ready the way you want it.

Conclusion: All the above steps can be performed using the different tools mentioned above, especially Adobe, Proto and Figma are my personal favorites to get the work done.

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