User Experience Design explores how users will interact with your website or application in terms of informational hierarchy, content placement and the relative sizes of elements. Wireframes are usually low fidelity sketches that focus on the core workflow/path rather than the look and feel of the experience. They are absent of design elements in order to help stakeholders focused on the functional experience instead of getting distracted by the minutiae of design. Wireframes are useful when design teams are conceptualizing complex workflows that haven’t been built before or are must be tailored to a specific user audience. For instance, a faceted search interface for a website selling multiple categories of products for tweens might have a very specific set of requirements that necessitate wireframes.
Wireframes push potential problems to the forefront and accelerate the learning process when developing new interfaces.
For simple e-commerce projects that follow a typical e-commerce experience, wireframes are generally not necessary and can add to the overhead of a project.
For any other kind of e-commerce project, contact us today to help define your next interface.