Deconstructing eMOV
Finding the skeleton beneath an existing structure.
Wireframing isn’t a concept I was particularly familiar with before I learned about Ironhack. I have had the pleasure of being asked to create wireframes in that self-same lack of knowledge and, I assure you, this lesson would have come in handy then. My previous employers wanted to create a new website not quite from scratch. My job was to conceptualize how that would look for us. I spent far too many hours contemplating design, effect, and feel. I skipped the low-fidelity stage and went straight to mid-fidelity. Skipping that first step complicated the entire process and gave me a few well-earned grey hairs.
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In the past, my focus was on final details rather than the most important and necessary details. This led to me racking my brain to sketch out the plethora of concepts that may or may not have been required. In this challenge, we were guided in a way that allowed for a mental reset. We were encouraged to look at the individual frames and find only the most important elements. Forget color, design, imagery. What is most essential?
I enjoyed moving backwards from an existing set of frames to find the bones that lay beneath. Conceptually it helped me to understand which aspects were the most essential. I did find myself stumbling a little bit. Some elements might not be required for functionality, but they still needed to be represented. The good thing about moving backwards is that I didn’t spend as much time ideating what I wanted the thing to evolve into because I could already see its final form.
It’s easy to get lost in the idea of what you want something to become. You push forward, you skip steps, and what you end up with a a pale version of what you wanted to achieve. Wireframing helps to create a structural foundation and a blueprint from which to work.
