What is a wireframe, and why it matters

A wireframe is a simple, stripped-back layout of a page — boxes and labels showing where things go, before any colours or images. It's the blueprint stage of web design.

Why start with wireframes

• •They focus on structure and priorities, not decoration.
• •They're fast and cheap to change early.
• •They make sure the important things (message, action) come first.

Structure before style

Deciding what goes where — and in what order of importance — before worrying about how it looks leads to pages that actually work. Pretty comes after the structure is right.