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E-Marketplace Case
Study
"My E-Marketplace"
Welcome Page Wireframe
Spring 2001
Background
- Tool: Visio 2000
- Input: Functional Specifications documents
- Primary Author: Anthony Hand
The UEA always walks a fine line between being too realistic in creating wireframes and being too vague. If they are too realistic, the client may be alienated by their ugliness and the creative team may feel too constrained in how they implement the design visually. If they are too vague, the development team may not know what information elements are required or how the controls and buttons work on a page; and the creative team may not know enough of the design parameters for spacing and visual relevance weighting.
My approach to wireframes is to err a little on the realistic side. Generally, I treat wireframes as being graphical inventories of information, navigation, and the interactive elements on a page. I reassure the creative team that the wireframe represents weak recommendations on placement and weight, but stronger recommendations when it comes to the user interface and how controls like buttons should be implemented and the labels used. In the Architecture Phase, I make initial efforts to establish the navigational nomenclature (i.e., labels for each of the content categories and online applications or tools), but I prefer to validate them with users as soon as possible. (I'm good, but no one is perfect!)
I also try to illustrate various points with representative dummy data or copy. For example, I like to show cases where there are no values present, a moderate number of values, and a large number of values to help make sure the site gracefully handles a plausible range of possibilities. I'm also very particular about crafting consistent, visually attractive (if bare) wireframe pages. No one likes sloppiness, especially if your client is paying you lots of money.
When we show clients wireframes, it is often the first time they have seen a (somewhat) realistic representation of their ideas. Finally, their baby is coming to life! The danger is that the client can become disturbed by the lack of creative elements like color, fonts, layout, effective ues of whitespace, etc. Clients also tend to focus too much on the dummy data, the plausible but still placeholder copy, and the greeked text ("lorum ipsum…") rather than double checking that the informational elements on the page adequately meet or exceed their business requirements. Fortunately, the E-Marketplace clients were able to get beyond these issues and focus on the important stuff.
Still, the UEA must deftly manage the danger of endless tweaks in order to get the sign offs - and then manage the stream of change requests that come in.
View "My E-Marketplace" Welcome Page Wireframe
Other Links in this Case Study
- Case Study Introduction
- Actor Description and Use Case
- Site Map
- Log On Page Flow Diagram
- Wireframe for My E-Marketplace Welcome Page (this page)
- Notes for My E-Marketplace Welcome Page
- Wireframe Tracking Sheet
- Privilege Matrix