Excited to create a visual solution for an app? Start with the Wireframes.
This article elaborates on the wireframing technique, its usage, steps to create wireframes and wireframing tools. It also suggests the best online course for business analysts to learn wireframing skills.
Approaching a New App #
Suppose you are working as a Business Analyst and your client comes up with the following requirement.
I want to develop a web application for my real estate rental business where my staff can post and manage property listings.
My clients can browse through the listings, shortlist any property and express their interest in the property by providing their info.
Our staff can view client’s info and the properties they are interested in and contact them to proceed further.
As a business analyst, how would you approach this requirement given by the client?
How would you elicit requirements and create a solution?
It is required to understand user interface preferences for the web application, think about various solutions, be able to visualize it and validate it with the client.
The best approach here is to start creating Wireframes for a new application.
The wireframing technique helps to visualize solution ideas and present them to clients or business stakeholders for validation, and to efficiently elicit the user interface requirements.
What is a Wireframe? #
Wireframe is a technique used by Business Analysts to visualize user’s thoughts, preferences and requirements about the User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) of a website or a mobile app.
It’s a Low-Fidelity (low-fi) sketch/skeleton of a website or mobile app that helps a Business Analyst validate and finalize UI/UX requirements and creates a strong foundation to develop High-fidelity (hi-fi) user interface designs called ‘Prototypes".
A wireframe consists of a basic grayscale outline of essential components of a website or mobile app such as:
- Screen Layouts
- Navigation Bars
- Components of UI/UX design
- Interactive Elements
It is a powerful and iterative process in which wireframes are created, reviewed by stakeholders, and revised until they are finalized.
Steps To Create Wireframes #
Based on my experience, the following is a proven and effective process to create wireframes for a web or mobile application:
- Articulate User Interface Requirements - Collect all necessary information about the application such as types of users, functionalities, and user preferences for UI/UX
- Create a Solution Outline – Ideate and outline solutions for each functionality of the app
- Create Wireframes – Create wireframes for each functionality using a specialized wireframing tool
- Review – Get the wireframes reviewed by stakeholders and collect their feedback
- Iterate – Revise the wireframes and repeat the review process until they are finalized
Once the wireframes are finalized, hand them over to the designers to create hi-fi prototypes which would look like an actual app with branding and colours.
If there are no designers in the team, the wireframes can be provided directly to the developers as part of the requirement specification to develop the app. The developers would use a UI Theme template (as selected by the client) and develop the functionalities using the wireframes.
Popular Wireframing Tools #
- Figma
- Balsamiq
- Uizard
There are plenty of other tools as well but these 3 are the most widely used and the most efficient tools available in the market.
The following article dives deep into these wireframing tools and may help you choose the best one for your next wireframing task.
Wireframe Online Course #
If you are an aspiring business analyst or already doing business analysis and want to learn how to create wireframes, spare a minute to explore our online comprehensive course tailored specifically for business analysts.
It covers the basics of wireframes, an overview of the Figma tool and follows the step-by-step approach to creating professional-looking wireframes for real-world web and mobile apps in Figma.
Click on the following link and Enroll today to master the essential wireframing skill.
Mastering Wireframing for Business Analysts
