In a world dominated by Figma, there is a free open-source tool designed to create wireframes. Wireframes are great for Product Owners, Developers, and Designers to sketch the 'functionality' of a software, before each department starts their job.
All is Figma
Figma is a great tool. It has been a must-have for designers and teams of any size and shape for years now. And it has its reasons. It's fast, it has a lot of presets and can transform a design into a working prototype pretty easily (even with a partial presentation/navigation mode).
But this is, unfortunately, also the reason why Figma (or more accurately the teams using it) has now become the problem of a certain way of building software. We focus on design first, and we iterate on that, without taking into consideration the functionality from the technical perspective. Oftentimes even a skilled PO doesn't have the technical knowledge to know how two similar solutions might greatly differ in technical complexity.
Functionality?
Yes, functionalities - there is a forgotten trend in startups for which the 'functional' in functionality is taken for granted. Designing a functionality IS NOT the same as doing the design (or the technical implementation), but it's the core of what the software should do and how it should do it. This is the essence of what a great product definition should look like.
And, guess what, in a world of AI and automatism, only the human mind can grasp on what is Functional. A human being is the one who knows what fits into the current product. It might know by heart how complex something is going to be (and how many weeks of development it takes). Also when humans write for humans, they might focus on what A) needs decisions and B) what is most important.
Frame0
There are many tools out there, some better than others. Figma can do wireframes too,
Balsamiq is a great tool as well. But for a simple project, there is a simple, open-source, free alternative -
Frame0.
Main functionalities include:
- Easy to install and use
- Plenty of pre-defined assets
- Export in PDF, PNG and SVG
- Multiplatform (Mac, Windows, Linux)
- Free (I know I said it already)
Conclusions
No matter which is your job in an IT company, you might want to practice and start using Wireframes. They are a great tool to master and can come in handy to identify problems early, to use them as a guideline for the implementation and even for testing the expected behavior of the final application.
Source: https://frame0.app/
