Chapter 0: Wireframes

Overview

When it comes to building any product, you generally need to answer 3 primary questions:

1. Why am I compelled to build this?
2. What is it going to do?
3. How am I going to build it?

This typical “Why?”, “What?”, “How?” paradigm is universal across all industries, and software engineering is no exception.

But, one thing that can happen to software engineers, is once they have an idea for an offering, they jump right into coding (the “How?”) before getting a handle on the features and functions (the “What?”) that will be needed to make it achieve it’s purpose (the “Why?”). This approach does, however, have some upsides:

1. You get to bring parts your idea to life quickly
2. You get to jump into code, and after all, that’s the fun part

But, it also has some downsides:

1. You might not be building the right thing
2. You might not be building the thing right

Unfortunately, these downsides can lead to a lot of wasted time and effort. Let’s define “wasted” in this context as, “Building things no one will use.” One thing you can do to help mitigate this risk is to put at least one round of effort into defining “What?” before jumping into the “How?”.

In this chapter, we’ll be reviewing the “What?” (Features & Functions) of our first skill in the form of low fidelity wireframes.

Training

Wireframes

Pre-requisites

This chapter is very passive, so you don’t need to do anything to prepare. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy.

1. About 15 minutes of time
2. Optional: Popcorn or snack
3. Optional: Fizzy drink

Concepts Covered in This Chapter

1. N/A

Tools Used in This Chapter

1. Exceldraw - A low fidelity wireframing tool that also looks great.

Commands Used in This Chapter

Something Missing?

Now What?