Word Frames

It occurred to me many months ago when I attended a Tufte seminar that wire frames shouldn't have wires.

Those lines always end up making the whole layout look very boxey. Yea, I know, its not meant to show design. Its not going to end up being boxes just because that's how the wire frame looks. But more and more, wire frames are making there way out to be viewed by people without that inherent knowledge. So as a communications tool for that phase of Web site design, it may be failing.

Next time I'm hankering for a wire frame I'm going to try something new... a word frame. If you look at what is trying to be communicated by a wire frame, there is no need for the hard-and-fast boundaries that lines create. You can communicate importance, size, and relative positioning with text styled at different sizes and weights. And skip the lines.

I'll give it a try some time and let you know how it works.