If someone gave me a coin every time a business owner with a tech background told me that they preferred to spend most of their budget on development without focusing too much on the UX UI since they say it is not relevant to their business model, I would be more prosperous than Elo Musk.
You may be surprised by how many small teams underestimate the crucial role of presenting an initial design during the launch.
The first impression is always the most important, especially in a competitive market like today's world, where the competition for attention has become more than crucial to survival.
If you ignore your design strategy early on, you might find yourself burning through your budget before you even realize it.
How can I avoid overspending and keep the project going?
To get to the hidden treasure, you must have a map that tells you how to get there, and that map is where the wireframes and user flow are.
These two phases aren't just about sketching ideas or mapping journeys; they're the backbone of cost-effective product development.
But to understand more in-depth how this works, let's define it. Shall we?
What Are Wireframes and User Flows?
- Wireframes: These are the blueprints of your digital product. They usually know as well like the bones of what an App or platform has, and they are essential for the structure and functionality of the app or website without diving into the detailed design.
- User Flows: User flows represent a user's journey through your product. They are the route that your user will follow to complete a specific task or goal that you want him to do, such as buying an item, registering, or subscribing. Understanding how users interact with your product can create a better user experience and avoid a really complicated UX.
Why Is This Important?
Everyone dedicated to this profession knows that UX/UI design is expensive, and redesigns is even more.
Here is a quick example.
Imagine that two guys want to buy a car and they find two models: one costs 5k and the other one costs 15k; the first one wants to save and buy the 5k version while the other one buys the 15k; you would think that the first uses better his investment since his save 10k more right?
What if I told you that the 5k cars require extensive maintenance, need new components for EVERYTHING, and will stop working in a couple of years?
Meanwhile, the other vehicle only requires a little maintenance and lasts much longer.
This is the same with the earlier stage of design. It is much easier to address the issue from the beginning (when you do not have a reputation to keep) than after launch.
Wireframes and user flows offer a cost-saving advantage by ensuring design works before development starts.
If you skip these stages, you risk not only design mistakes but also spending your budget on late-stage fixes that could have been prevented.
Structure of a Product Design Process
The most successful projects follow a well-defined process that includes wireframing and user flow analysis early on. Here's the structure:
- Research & Discovery: Understand your target users and the problem you're solving. This theme is discussed more in-depth in the article "Discovery Stage: Why Should I Have It?"
- User Flows: Map out the user's journey to ensure your platform focuses on resolving the user's problem.
- Wireframing: Build out the structure of each screen to visualize the functionality and layout.
- Prototyping: Create a basic product version to test with real users before full development.
- Iterative Feedback Loop: Use prototype feedback to refine and perfect the user experience.
- Final Design: After thorough testing, you proceed with the final visual design.
- Development: With a solid design foundation, developers can focus on building the product without costly mid-project design changes.
What Are the Objectives and Goals of Wireframes & User Flows?
The primary objective of using wireframes and user flows early in the process is to ensure that the design aligns with all user expectations and variables to avoid making changes during development and increasing costs. This is crucial, too.
- Simplify Complex Processes: By breaking down the user's journey, you identify unnecessary steps and streamline interactions.
- Optimize the User Experience: Good User flows help create an intuitive product that minimizes frustration and conversions.
- Reduce Development Revisions: Well-structured wireframes prevent last-minute design changes, saving time and money in development.
What's Included in a Wireframe & User Flow Process?
To reduce costs effectively, here's what you should include in your early-stage wireframing and user flow analysis:
- User Research: No matter how much you try to make a fantastic product, data will always be the key to understanding user behavior. To go far enough, you need to do Market research and analyze how your competition has its user flow mapped.
- Clear Navigation Paths: Sometimes, we think that straightforward navigation includes a couple of screens, but it is more than that; user flows need to map out how and why users will move through your product and consider different scenarios that Users feel confronted during the navigation.
What happens if you buy?
What happens if I need to remember the password?
What happens if a makes a mistake?
What happens if you want to recover a file?
All these questions must be answered during the user flow, and each interaction should have a design that feels natural and leads users.
- Wireframe Variants: Don't stick to one Idea—explore multiple wireframe versions before narrowing down the best option.
- Prototype Testing: Create a clickable prototype from your wireframes to test with actual users. Feedback here can save you thousands down the line.
Tools to Help With Wireframing and User Flows
Getting the right tools can make all the difference in efficiency and cost-saving. In Entertact, we use Figma for Wireframing, prototype, and user flow. Thanks to its usability, it allows us to create different types of design systems around different workspaces to keep the project done in a faster and more optimized way, as we use a program like Figjam or Miro for collaboration and user research when we want to map an Idea with the stakeholder before going to the wireframing phase.
Summary: Why Early Design Choices Matter
A good plan structure allows you to be idea-oriented to a result that will make the process much faster and optimize the entire trajectory of your project. Wireframes and user flows help reduce costs by:
- We are identifying problems early in the design process.
- Ensuring design decisions align with user expectations.
- It is keeping development on track by preventing late-stage revisions.
It's not the same as changing a prototype or wireframing that makes it to the development phase. Changing something in the dev phase can result in more time for the dev team to address the change and, with that, more money.
By investing in these two critical steps, you'll be able to save both time and money, making your product more likely to succeed in the market.
At Entertact, we do things right and always focus on keeping your project going to get the best result possible with the best quality. That is why, during our outboarding meeting, we check everything about your product (user research, market, flows, and other features) to ensure we are good to go and don't need to make new updates.
If you would like us to review your product, you can always book a call with us. We offer our first client a free proof of concept and support throughout the process to achieve the success that our client deserves.
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