Boagworld: UX, Design Leadership, Marketing & Conversion Optimization · Paul Boag, Marcus Lillington

Why and How You Should Create Wireframes With Others

·1 hr 12 min·5 clips

Why wireframing with stakeholders avoids design by committee and reveals unexpected approaches.

The lesson starts with wireframes. Paul places them inside a Lean UX course, where they help bring stakeholders into the work while it is still loose enough to change. Before that, though, the show takes the scenic route through rain, wind, bins in the street, pandemics, the environment, and Marcus feeling insanely bleh. Marcus is not exactly at peak operating condition. That ramble is part of the point. The later design talk keeps bumping into the same reality: projects are made by people who are busy, tired, moving house, or dealing with whatever else life has thrown into the room. Lee Helms joins the conversation after Marcus introduces him as a long-time presence around the show, someone listeners may know for UX and UI design judgment. Marcus and Lee are also moving house, because apparently the episode needed one more layer of chaos. The interview opens with tip runs, stuff everywhere, and the small mercy that nobody has to see the mess on video. Then the wireframing talk tightens up. Lee talks through the process from a working designer's angle, while Paul later focuses on the inputs that should shape that process. The difference between them is the useful part. The episode does not force one clean method onto everyone. It lets two experienced practitioners disagree a bit around the edges without making a drama out of it. Stakeholders stay close to the center. Wireframes come across as a shared thinking surface, useful because they make assumptions visible before the final thing starts to feel locked. Balsamiq supports the free course, and that fits the subject without turning the segment into a pitch. The mood stays loose. Even the closing joke and newsletter reminder keep the lesson from getting too polished. That is the show: serious UX advice, delivered by way of weather, stress, jokes, and the untidy route designers actually take to get work done.

As heard by us

A plainspoken case for using wireframes to involve stakeholders and strengthen the final deliverable.

Wireframes are presented here as a working tool for shaping better decisions, not as a box-ticking stage. The conversation starts with a bit of casual drift, then settles into a clear argument: bringing stakeholders in early can improve the outcome and make the process easier to…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Use wireframes to bring stakeholders in early and steer toward a better deliverable.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Boagworld: UX, Design Leadership, Marketing & Conversion Optimization