In plain English
It's the floor plan before the paint and furniture: where the walls, doors and rooms go. Moving a wall on paper costs nothing; moving it after the kitchen's in is a different story.
Used in a sentence
“Before we design anything, we'll agree the wireframes, so we know every page has what customers need.”
“Seeing the wireframe made me realise our phone number was buried at the bottom of every page.”
In detail
A wireframe lays out the structure of a page: the headline, the sections, where the call to action sits, what's in the navigation. It deliberately leaves out colour and imagery so the conversation stays on content and order. Changes at this stage are quick and cheap.
Wireframes are usually followed by designs, which add the brand, and then by building. Skipping them often means arguing about colours while the real problems, like a missing page or a buried booking button, go unnoticed until late.
Why it matters for your business
Wireframes catch the expensive mistakes while they're still cheap to fix.
- Agree the structure before the look
- Spot missing content early
- Fewer changes during the build
Easy to mix up
A wireframe isn't a mockup or a prototype. A mockup shows the finished look; a prototype can be clicked through. The wireframe comes first and shows only the structure.
Related terms
UX, Call to action (CTA) and Page builder. Or browse the whole glossary.
