In the last two months, I have been designing some documents and wireframes for a couple of projects and every time I’m going to begin a project I have to take some time to explain our clients what’s the hell is information architecture and wireframes.  Still here there is the belief that a website is just a nice graphic design, some flash and blink, and some of them think information architecture is just a sitemap… so at the beginning I think, this is going to be a challenge.   
I really think our work besides makes websites, is about continuous education with our clients and also our team.   User experience and IA are words that clients are beginning to assimilate here in Panama, what I hear the most from my clients is:  I want a “user friendly” website.

Yes. I know but to make a “user friendly” we can’t go directly to the visual design.  Having a “user friendly website” implies define the project, understand the client’s business model, ask the right questions, understand the audience, know the overall goals of the website.  After they has answered all the questions about the project, you can start with the site structure (if is a big big website, you can use a board with some post-its and a marker), this will help you to know what sections and pages exist in the current website, organize and label them well.  After this: fun begins, it’s time for creative process, I begin with a pencil, an eraser and a sketch pad and I draw, also I take some time to research some other websites that seems to be a good example of what I’m looking for.  You can produce the final wireframe in a tool like Visio or Omnigraffle (there are many others), don’t forget to document the wireframe, put some annotations.

After I have the wireframes ready, it’s show time, It’s time to show to the client, be prepare because everything can happen. You can hear questions like: Why the website is black an white?, why this section is in another language (lorem ipsum content)?, etc.

I think that for being a user experience designer in Panama and in order to sell this service you have to:

• Teach your clients about User Experience, what is for and how it can improve their business websites
• Show them some examples, case of study or some work you have done before
• Explain clearly what involve the process of Information Architecture, what are the deliverables and at the end what they can get.

What is a wireframe?