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Think Vitamin's Clive Howard says "Wireframing is one of the first steps in your planning process and arguably it’s one of the most important ones." In this article, Howard goes through the wireframing process, discussing who should be involved, which tools to use, and offers sound tips to enable you to make better wireframes.

Among my favorite points are those about ownership and involvement. This is to do with ensuring that someone is driving the process and iterations, and making sure that the interaction design process doesn't happen in a vacuum, but is reviewed, validated, and informed by key team members, e.g. engineers, as you're creating them.

I also like the points about fidelity, and avoiding doing too much design. That said, if you're also the visual designer, or can base the visual language of the wireframe to the visual language of agreed upon visual design specs, then I don't see a problem doing that.

What I don't agree with, is that you want to avoid designing behaviors such as Flash or AJAX. Wireframes, storyboards, and sketches are the precisely place to explore how websites and applications should behave. You needn't be as specific as specifying types of transitions, just generalized behaviors and relationship to system logic. If you don't specify behaviors, decisions will get made without your input. If that's fine with you, leave them out. But you're supposed to be the expert on your users, how they've modeled the site or app, and what they expect to do there.

Lastly, one point that is missing for me is know how to pitch/present the wireframes. These aren't just documents to be chucked over the wall. While they should be able to stand on their own when it comes time to design or develop what you've specified, your job is not done when you've shipped the doc. You have to present and justify, explain details, and answer to questions that will undoubtedly arise about how things behave. For this reason, I rely very heavily on annotating wireframes and storyboarding behaviors. Those questions will need to get answered eventually. If you don't think you deserve to be in that conversation, leave them out, because someone else will make those decisions without you. But if you intend to be involved in the user experience, why not be involved in every aspect of design, and make sure your wireframing process allows others to be inform what you produce.

There's quite a bit of good stuff in Howard's points, so be sure to read the article to find out what each of the bullet points above refer to.

http://thinkvitamin.com/features/20-steps-to-better-wireframing/

In BusinessWeek, Bill Buxton discusses how to keep innovating, with the main idea being that you can continue to cultivate creativity and innovation by finding new things that you have a passion for. He suggests that when you get good enough at a thing, you should find something else to be passionate about, and commit and throw yourself into learning how to do it. You'll be bad at it at first, but the experience of learning something new, no matter how bad you are at it at first, may affect your creativity in positive ways that you won't realize until you experience it. In some cases, they may inform what you are already expert at, and in others lead you in entirely new and surprising directions.

The discussion reminds me of Paula Scher's talk focussing on serious versus solemn design at TED. Scher spoke about the different times in her career where she was able to be most innovative in her craft, and the thing that was common in each case was that she was doing something new--something she didn't know much about when she started that particular project. The fact that one has no reference point or bearing can lead to innovative thinking.

This is the same argument Buxton is making. I think Buxton is saying that the continued pursuit of new endeavors itself, is what can help cultivate one's creativity and create the pre-conditions for innovation. I'm sure a lot of people who take up new hobbies and have the continuing need to learn see the obvious in this. This is one of the reasons I feel at home in a city where it is easy for me to start investigating and learning something new all the time. Being in a city isn't necessary, per se, but being able to get inspired and start doing something new is a hell of a lot easier for me here. This coupled with the fact that my wife and I homeschool our 8 year old son, which has lead me to dive deep on countless topics and project that I would never have held my interest in the past. If you read my personal blog, you know about my forays into toy making, game design, character creation and storytelling.

In any case, the story is not new, but is a reminder for me that being well-rounded and having many interests is a good thing. In fact it's one of the top criteria I've used when participating in the hiring of people.

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/feb2009/id20090218_337947.htm

Theresa Neill, co-author of Designing Web Interfaces lists her 30 essential controls for Rich Interface Application design, and provides a list of frameworks that provide these controls, in the second article in a three part series on patterns and principles for RIA design.

1) Standard Screen Patterns: 12 patterns w/100 examples

2) Essential Controls: 30 controls for RIA design and development

3) Components for Commonly Requested Features: 15 patterns and examples (Forthcoming)

http://theresaneil.wordpress.com/2009/02/04/30-essential-controls/