Tips for beautifying wireframes

- Gray the borders
- Master grayscale presentation
- Use correct fonts and sizes (understand what font is used in the application)
- Make it look as realistic as possible
- Use right mild colors
- Layout, reducing the white space
- Alignments
- Adding graphics that fit color scheme and correct size
- Filling up the spaces well, but keep design simple as far as possible
- Use transparent arrows and annotation border boxes
- Use light bg color (cream, brownish, bluish etc.)
- Show focus elements of the wireframe clearly
(make it prominent by contrast of colors, blur out the background/irrelevant etc.)
- Make modular wherever possible, chunking of elements/grouping etc.

Content Strategy Review points

- Links to be clear - where it would take you
- Provide good informational sources links
- Show Examples at each step
- Subtle References to subscribe in many places but not overt
- Language used based on intended/majority audience
- Add visual cues (icons) wherever possible
- Maintain conceptual separation
- Have headlines for each section
- How to enable features (screenshots)
- Emotional lead-in line
- Add stuff the company markets the most
- Refer to brand/product in key areas - e.g.: in subject line etc.
- Curiosity inducement in each subject line/maintaining theme

Principles - Part 2

1. 80/20 rule - make the 20% good, highest use cases, use case pyramid in frequency. Set default options everywhere
2. Lean methodology: Build - test - learn - improvise
would the user know the terms?
3. Is the categorization/chunking/grouping of functions, actions and terms correct? Does each block show consistent behavior?
4. Minimize choices, have a phased approach, more important first then additional options/advanced
5. The problem is most of the time, do I have all the info to build the wireframe? what is missing? what are the alternatives? how many? justification of recommendation?
6. Is it developmentally possible? Front-end? Can the back-end/kernel handle it?
7. Consider everyone's opinions and put it in your UX framework:
Optimize UX (specialization) + background of other disciplines: proj mgmt, opinions and directions of people in power (requires convincing effort if not tallying), business goals
8. Involve all stakeholders and get their opinions from the start
9. Before any meeting - always have expectations of what to get from it, direct the meeting towards the desired framework, summarize and recheck at the end.

Meeting principles

In every meeting -
- Always have an agenda
- Set expectations at the beginning of the meeting
- Keep in mind - how much to brainstorm, when to stop and shortlist, when to take decisions
- Bring back the discussion if its moves off track
- Summarize the takeaways at the end
- Mention next steps, clarify overall direction, repeat decisions
- Keep end target (goals) in mind all the time, no matter how much down the rabbit hole you go, never get lost
- Ensure the discussion aids decision making

UX principles for the best wireframes

Principles -
- Alignments
- Fonts
- Symmetry
- Consistency
- Focus (primary action, secondary action), limit choices
- Steady theme or style
- Color theory, light borders etc., controlled use of contrast
- Iconography, Images
- Indication of status
- Ease of use in functionality
- Making use of industry trends/standards i.e. learned user behaviors (from Google, Linked in etc.)
- Showing error states
- Guiding the user - explicitly or implicitly (Affordances) to avoid errors in the first place
- Provide information relevant to context
- Simplicity - Number of action areas, number of options displayed at a time
- Minimizing redundancy in functionality (not having multiple copies of the same thing)
- High readability - Fonts, Typography
- Gestalt perception

Reinventing the wheel is necessary

While providing justification for UX decisions, we usually refer to authorities, market trends, what big successful players are doing etc. This is definitely a valid approach, but it does not provide the deeper understanding of what drove the creator's thinking. The creator's consciousness is always much higher than the imitator in the chosen area. Usually design principles are closely tied to psychology (behavioral psychology, gestalt psychology, habit psychology etc.), science of perception, cognitive science on how we form mental models etc. Therefore an understanding of these areas gives you much more profound knowledge on what drove the creator's thinking towards those designs.

Your daily job may require you to make quick decisions and may not give you the time to explore in this depth. But nevertheless, to be a pioneer, to speak with genuine confidence, it is necessary to understand the real root behind design decisions which lies in exploring the above mentioned areas.

Abstract: For the UX Role

In my experience, I have observed the term 'User Experience' could mean a whole myriad of things. When you work as a UX Designer, its not just UX that you do.

Its taking into account and satisfying requirements from multiple areas:

1. Business Goals and Strategy
2. Maintaining Brand Image and what it represents
3. Maintain reasonable consistency with existing momentum (In terms of visual design, processes, methods followed, team culture etc.)
4. The User Goals (derived from surveys, experiences of employees dealing with customers, News, direct user interviews)
5. Aligning Priorities based on Deadlines, Project Timelines, Development Timelines etc.
6. Collaboration with other team members and adjusting to the work styles/Meeting culture/Getting consensus
7. Market Trends/Habits setup by Big Giants such as Google, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, Instagram etc.
8. Mandates coming from above - CEO, Executives with business ideas etc.
9. Ensure that there is a steady flow of projects for you to do on a day to day or week to week basis (if not, you have to find something to do) 
10. All the perspectives that created the existing design (in case of building over existing products). This would be needed to fit new pieces into the existing jigsaw such that its in harmony.
11. Seeking balance between:

• 'Time spent on Brainstorming (to get a wider and deeper picture)' and 'Getting something actionable out of it (so that things can move forward at a competitive speed wrt. market)'
• 'Putting effort into detail' and 'Getting something out in the market quick'
• 'Building a fully finished module or project (compromising early feedback from users)' and 'Moving big projects in phases, measuring each step and letting things evolve organically (agile method, compromising long term vision to an extent)'
• 'Imitating what competitors/big businesses are doing (Creating comfort for the users by familiar interfaces, but nothing stands out as novel)' and 'building something uniquely tailored to your company's vision (May be too deviant from market trends)' 
• 'Creating user retention strategies' and 'Creating a lot of annoyances for the user'
• 'Marketing new features, promotions' and 'Reducing the irrelevant information, annoyances and distractions from the primary use case'

The balances part of it could be looked at more abstractly, as balance between:

• 'Exploration/Playing with Clay' and 'Decision making/Solidification'
• 'Completeness and detail' and 'Quick and Dirty approach'
• 'Doing everything in one pass' vs 'Staggered approaches/Do, Measure, Learn cycles'
• 'Imitation/Conformity' and 'Novelty/Deviance'
• 'Persuasion' and 'Aggression/Annoyance'