EightShapes, LLC is a user experience design firm specialized in web sites and web applications.

Wireframe Page Types

A page type is a complete, pre-defined page layout based on an assembled set of components and/or elements. A team may choose to create a few representative page types, such as a home page, search results page, and product page, or may use a component and page type library to catalog and evolve a much more extensive collection of page types across projects and efforts.

The EightShapes Unify system comes with sample page types for you to get the idea.

Where

/wireframes/_pages/

How

To use a page type:

  1. Find the snippet of interest by navigating to the /wireframes/_pages/ directory.
  2. Place the snippet by either:
  3. Selecting File > Place and selecting the snippet of interest
  4. Dragging the snippet from Adobe Bridge or your files window (Windows Explorer or Mac Finder) into an InDesign wireframe document.
  5. Orient the embedded content (text, objects, etc) to be left-upper aligned with page layout’s guidelines.
  6. Ungroup the embedded content if necessary to customize your layout.

NOTE: You cannot open a page snippet file independently of an InDesign document (.indd) file; the snippet must be placed into a document.

When

Place a page type onto your wireframe page layout at the outset of authoring content for that page.

Why

A page type is valuable as a:

  • Starting point to update that page for a future project
  • Standard layout that organizes components and elements in a meaningful way
  • Full-page example assembled via components to reinforce reuse to designers and stakeholders
  • Supporting artifact for writing guidelines for elements, components and pages