Prototypes are an advanced stage of the design process. It tends to be easier (and cheaper) to make changes during these early stages, before a product has been greenlit for development. There is often enough detail and information in a mockup that team members can begin to critique whether a design scheme will make sense to users, what usability problems it might pose, and whether there is consistency across aesthetic and tone. At this stage, designers can use the mockup to invite feedback from stakeholders. Building off the wireframes, visual elements such as color schemes, fonts, and navigation elements are added to bring the visual representation closer to the final product. Mockups typically come next in the design process. Design teams will usually use wireframes to arrive at a consensus of a product’s design blueprint before they proceed to the next step. Wireframes often lack color, graphics, and text instead, as the name suggests, they consist of simple sketches that outline layouts and object placement. This basic, often bare-bones representation of a website, app, or platform page will serve as the blueprint for designers and developers. In a design project, a wireframe design will normally come first. Wireframes, mockups, and prototypes are distinctive deliverables used at different stages of a product’s design process. Related: What Does a UX Designer Do? Wireframes vs. Some of the common prototyping tools include InVision, Adobe XD, Sketch, Origami Studios, Webflow, Axure, Atomic, Framer, and Principle. Unlike wireframes and mockups, prototypes closely simulate the final experience with clickable links and other interactive elements, which means they’re ideal for usability testing, showing stakeholders what the final product will look like in action, and for catching issues that might be costly to fix later on. Prototypes are a high-fidelity representation of the final product. Some of the common tools used to create mockups include Artboard Studio, Cleanmock, Craftwork Design, Frrames, Lstore Graphics, Mockflow, Mockuuups, Justinmind, and Smartmockups.
This can help save time and resources because it allows designers to address usability issues before a prototype has been built. User testing can also be conducted at this stage to gather user feedback on what visual elements might not be working. Still, the static design is useful in helping design teams determine the visual aesthetic of a product. Mockups tend to not be interactive, which means buttons and visual representations of links won’t be clickable. Building on the placement of objects outlined by the wireframing stage, mockups incorporate fonts, logos, typography, navigation graphics, color, images, and text. Mockups are a medium-fidelity visual representation of the design.
Wireframes don’t just fall within the purview of designers-researchers, product managers, and other stakeholders can use wireframes to express their design ideas, and they can be accomplished using low-tech tools such as pencil and paper, or software such as Balsamiq, Figma, Adobe XD, Adobe Photoshop, Justinmind, and Mockplus. Often thought of as the “skeleton stage,” they offer a basic (and often black and white) visual representation of a product’s user interface design, with rough sketches and diagrams outlining the layout of a page. Wireframes are typically the first step in the product design process. Related: What is UX Design? What Are Wireframes in UX Design? With each step, design teams get closer to the end product. Starting with a low-fidelity sketch in the form of wireframes before advancing to mockups and prototypes, each stage of the design process becomes more detailed and fleshed out, with designers building on top of blueprints, adding graphics and visual design, and coding interactive elements.
Instead of conflating the terms, which can confuse design teams and stakeholders, it helps to think of the three deliverables as different steps in the product design process. As UX designer, Marcin Treder put it, “confusing wireframes with prototypes is like assuming an architectural blueprint…and a display house are the same thing.” Mockups: Tips To Choose the Right Oneĭesign terms such as wireframes, prototypes, and mockups are often used interchangeably, but in the field of UX/UI design, they actually mean very different things.