What’s the Best Application for Making Wireframes?

People just getting into information architecture ( ) frequently ask me which application to use for creating wireframes. After nearly a decade of making wireframes myself, I still ask this question on a client-by-client basis if not a project-by-project basis.

That answer relies on the answers to 2 other questions:

  1. Is the purpose of the wireframes: requirements gathering, interaction design, functionality validation, content organization, usability evaluation, or site documentation?
    Each of these purposes inherently has different needs and requires different levels of detail and different frequency of change. For example, wireframes in usability evaluation will need to be quickly modified after each evaluation where as those documenting a site will only change during major refreshes.
  2. Which applications do your clients prefer?
    Good wireframes are living, breathing documents - just like the sites they represent. Wireframes are the easiest way to visually communicate and comprehend the impact of a change across an entire system. This makes them the perfect candidate to experiment with well after the major Information Architecture engagement is over. Therefore, it’s best to choose an application everyone is comfortable with.

With these two questions in mind, I’ve had experience with a number of applications, each with their benefits and drawbacks. None of them the best answer. Map the strengths and weaknesses below against your answers to the above questions and you’ll find the least square peg for wireframe’s preverbal round hole.

  • Wall-sized Whiteboard and a Stack of Markers
    • Description: Sometimes the best way to sort through a difficult problem is some dedicated wall-time. I normally start complex projects this way. Some of my most interesting conversations have come out of these wall sessions where everyone has a marker and we’re diagramming as we’re talking.
    • Strengths: very approachable, great for exploring different interaction models quickly with 1-5 project team members.
    • Weaknesses: requires a decent amount of physical space, difficult to distribute digitally, no redo, no copy-paste.
  • Pen, Paper, Stickies, & a Copymachine
    • Description: stuff you have lying around the office, think of it as a portable whiteboard.
    • Strengths: very accessible, easy to update, rough and unfinished look provides excellent feedback in evaluations.
    • Weaknesses: difficult to distribute digitally, adds more paper to your life, no redo, no copy-paste.
  • Adobe Illustrator
    • Description: Adobe’s professional digital illustration tool.
    • Strengths: Most popular vector-based drawing tool, fast, very flexible text operations, cross-platform, readable by Adobe Acrobat.
    • Weaknesses: no support for multiple pages in the same document, no text underline feature out-of-the box, no customized and editable stencil palette, tedious to make changes across multiple documents, tough learning curve.
  • Macromedia Freehand
    • Description: Macromedia’s professional illustration and layout tool.
    • Strengths: supports multiple pages in the same document, find and replace for shapes and text, shapes stay connected when moved, robust text handling,
    • Weaknesses: not as popular as Illustrator, tough learning curve.
  • OmniGraffle
    • Description: a young Visio for Macintosh. This is what I use for all my side projects.
    • Strengths: very flexible custom palette system, a number of wireframing stencils already exist, exports to Visio’s XML format, shapes want to be locked together, inexpensive compared to Illustrator or Freehand.
    • Weaknesses: not everywhere, Mac-only, no easy way to draw freehand, interface model not exactly like Illustrator or Freehand, doesn’t support multiple layouts, awkward to draw freehand.
  • Microsoft Visio
    • Description: Microsoft’s flow-charting tool, originally built to help software developers to visualize and organize their code.
    • Strengths: supports multiple pages, supports multiple layouts, can auto-insert useful information like last-modified date, lots of organizations already have this in-house as part of Microsoft Office, wireframing stencils exist and can be easily customized, shapes stay connected when moved.
    • Weaknesses: interaction model completely unlike Freehand or Illustrator - will drive experienced graphic designers batty, might be the only reason to purchase VirtualPC, nasty type handling.
  • Macromedia Dreamweaver
    • Description: Macromedia’s website building tool.
    • Strengths: hyperlinking, form elements, templating built-in, great for creating live prototypes, has site-mapping built-in, supports styelsheets, files are text and can easily be added to version-control systems, can integrate into live systems.
    • Weaknesses: no easy way to handle annotations, the generated code is throw-away, some knowledge of HTML is needed to create quickly, doesn’t print well.
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
    • Description: The application you love-to-hate and hate-to-love.
    • Strengths: slides are already formatted for screens, very flexible printing options, hyperlinking and animation built-in, supports multiple pages in the same document, offers a specific place for annotations, find-and-replace, super easy to update on the fly, everybody can update it easily.
    • Weaknesses: doesn’t support multiple layouts easily, difficult to design pages longer than a single screen, somewhat awkward interaction model.