Website wireframe

A website wireframe, also known as a page schematic or screen blueprint, is a visual guide that represents the skeletal framework of a website. The wireframe depicts the page layout or arrangement of the website’s content, including interface elements and navigational systems, and how they work together. The wireframe usually lacks typographic style, color, or graphics, since the main focus lies in functionality, behavior, and priority of content. In other words, it focuses on “what a screen does, not what it looks like.”

Wireframes focus on

• The kinds of information displayed
• The range of functions available
• The relative priorities of the information and functions
• The rules for displaying certain kinds of information
• The effect of different scenarios on the display

Brown, Dan M. Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning, Second Edition. New Riders, 2011, p. 169.

The website wireframe connects the underlying conceptual structure, or information architecture, to the surface, or visual design of the website. Wireframes help establish functionality, and the relationships between different screen templates of a website. An iterative process, creating wireframes is an effective way to make rapid prototypes of pages, while measuring the practicality of a design concept. Wireframing typically begins between “high-level structural work—like flowcharts or site maps—and screen designs.” Within the process of building a website, wireframing is where thinking becomes tangible.

For More Information Visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Website_wireframe#Uses_of_wireframes