NO WIREFRAMES? OH MY!

As a former producer who’s been through the product/project life-cycle end-to-end many times, I love this infographic by the User Professionals’ Assoc. that tells the story from an ideal UCD perspective. In the Infographic by the User Professionals' Assoc.real world, however, we go way off road from this tidy, step-by-step game path in order to meet tight timelines and budgets and follow orders from stakeholders who often have to prioritize other causes over a formal UCD process.

This is my experience and the experience of many others: see Smashing Magazine article, Beyond Wireframes.

Aaron Louie, visionary and CD at Citizen, spoke on “The Future of UX” at the IA meet up in Seattle. He said, UX designers have to learn to be faster to keep pace. He ended his talk with a curious claim: “In the future, there won’t be wireframes.”

So what will replace wireframes given they are a key deliverable for UX designers now?  As we adopt processes that reflect the faster, leaner and more agile work environment, it’s more important than ever to maintain our core UCD tenants; because they are the vital organs that will keep the user experience alive.

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