

In other words, you aren’t designing for a specific mobile or desktop resolution, but rather on general mobile or desktop format.

Static wireframes do not take device resolution into account and are not set to any specific dimensions.Static wireframes completely ignore additional viewports beyond the major three.Whenever you need to introduce a change to layout structure, you will need to change all of the wireframes. Thus, if you optimize your design for mobile, tablet, and desktop, you will need to create at least three versions of every single wireframe for all major viewports (one for mobile, one for tablet, and one for desktop). Each screen or page must be wireframed multiple times to address each viewport. When working on a responsive website, it’s possible to use static design artifacts, but this approach has a few major downsides: All you need to do to introduce a change is update the source code of a page and reload it in a browser. Responsive wireframes are dynamic, so they require less effort to introduce changes. In contrast, responsive wireframes are simple web pages, created with HTML and CSS, that use principles of responsive web design to illustrate the layouts. Typically, wireframes are static design artifacts created for a specific viewport (desktop, tablet, or mobile). Wireframes for responsive design are different from static design artifacts.

In this article, we’ll explore the concept of responsive wireframes, how they lay the foundation for websites that work across multiple devices, and a process you need to follow to create them. A pivotal point in this process is when designers convert static sketches of elements for future design into digital artifacts. Wireframes help teams define the structure of future pages and see how content could work with different layouts. When designing websites that look and work great across multiple devices, product teams rarely start without going through a wireframing process first.
