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What You Need to Know About Wireframes Before Hiring an iOS App Development Company

Wireframes are essentially visual illustrations or representations of an app. App development companies create them at the beginning of the development phase to define the look of your app and present the visual layout of the interface and of each individual feature. More detailed than sketches but not as interactive as prototypes, wireframes show you where all the major design elements will be placed on the iPhone or iPad screen, conveying a sense of the synergy between them.

By showing you how your app will look like, wireframes enable you to send feedback to the app developer before the coding begins, to ensure the app will be built according to your vision. If you plan to hire an iOS app development company to build an app for you, there are a couple of other things you should know about wireframes.

• Wireframes are not definitive representations of your final iOS app Although wireframes offer you a visual plan of how the navigation, content, text, menus, and text will look in your app, they are essentially blueprints that help an iOS app development company get started with your project. Improvements can be made to wireframes on-the-go during the development phase, as new design elements and app features are implemented and tested. For this reason, you should look at wireframes only as reference points for your iOS app development project.

• Wireframes can be both low-fidelity or high-fidelity representations of your app While low-fidelity wireframes are easy to create and can help you exchange design ideas with your iOS app development company quickly, they are not as detailed as high-fidelity wireframes, which often include important information about every design element, such as dimensions, behavior, and actions. Before the actual development phase begins, you want to make sure you’re looking at high-fidelity wireframes.

• Wireframes are cheaper and easier to create than prototypes Prototypes offer a higher level of interactivity than wireframes, giving you a better idea about the user experience and flow within the app. On the other hand, creating a prototype is almost like building a lightweight version of your app, and will add to your iOS app development costs. It’s possible to build a great app without a prototype. If your app isn’t very complex, forget about costly prototypes and ask your iOS app development company to focus instead on high-fidelity wireframes.

• Wireframes can be presented as images or PDF documents Wireframes can be drawn by hand and then scanned or photo-copied into a computer, or else they can be created using Photoshop or dedicated wireframing tools such as Balsamiq, Axure, Pidoco, UXPin, or InDesign CC. Your iOS app development company will generally send you wireframes as images which you can then view on your computer or iOS device.

  A succession of logical, connected wireframes can be quickly compiled into a PDF document which you can then open on your iPhone or iPad, navigating it as you would navigate the app. If your app developer doesn’t offer you one, it’s good to ask for it. By viewing PDF wireframes directly on the device for which you’re building the app, you will get a clearer idea about the app’s look and feel.

• Wireframes convey a sense of the app’s functions and usability Your wireframes won’t be too useful if they focus only on rendering your app’s user interface. All the important features have to be included, alongside notes and comments concerning their functions. After looking at a few wireframes, you should get a pretty good idea about not only how your app will look like on your iPhone or iPad, but also how it will actually function.

• Good wireframes retain essential iOS design elements Wireframes that look odd usually brake some of the established iOS design norms concerning the placement of menus, the size and position of buttons, and so on. When wireframes depart greatly from the look and feel you have come to expect from iOS apps, it may be a warning sign that your app will not be user-friendly. iPhone and iPad users value usability highly, so want to make sure that your app layout and design isn’t unnecessarily complicated or shockingly original.

• Wireframes are important because they can save you money Coding the wrong interface for your app is a costly app development mistake that you absolutely want to avoid. Not only will it significantly increase your development costs, but it can also slow down the development process and possibly create tension between you and the app developer. Because wireframes can be easily shared, they allow you to quickly send feedback to the developer, so that you can direct the course of the visual and functional development of your app.

• Wireframes can stimulate innovation and creativity By creating and sharing wireframes with you, an iOS app development company invites you to provide feedback. At the same time, it can encourage the company’s team of iOS app developers and graphic designers to be creative by contributing their ideas to each aspect of the app layout and design. When it comes to wireframes, there’s no right or wrong, only different versions of the same app representation, so that both you, the client, and the development team will be inspired to provide feedback in a continual effort to improve the the app. Wireframes are a great way to find the best possible design for your new iOS app.

The Bottom Line

Putting it all together, it’s easy to understand why wireframes are important during iOS app development. They come with many benefits that ultimately help your iOS app development company better understand your needs, requirements, and vision, so that they can create for you a successful and engaging app.

Regardless of the type of iOS app you want to develop – whether it’s a business tool, an entertainment app, a fun game, or simply a mobile version of your organization’s official website – you want to make sure the iOS app developer you choose can use wireframes creatively to lay out the plans for your app before the coding team gets to work.