I have a confession to make. I don’t always start with wireframes.

Deciding if they’re appropriate for a given project starts with a simple question - will the time spent making them be beneficial to the outcome? Or in other words - are they the right tool for the job?

There’s no question the exercise of creating wireframes is extremely useful in the process of creating well thought out user experiences. They’re a fantastic tool for limiting visual distractions when the focus needs to be on nailing down the content, or working through complex UX flows. Especially when the number of people who need to speak into them gets higher and higher.

But it still doesn’t hurt to at least stop and ask the question, because sometimes the answer is no, and you end up saving decent time on a project like this.

My reasons for not doing them here were pretty straightforward. (1) I knew it was just a concept project that had a fairly narrow scope (two or three unique screens at most.) (2) I was the only person speaking into it (even though I like to argued with myself.) (3) I knew the majority of the UX wasn’t going to be new. There’re many travel sites out there, owned by big corporations who have probably spent tens of millions of dollars trying to optimized the UX behind every mechanic of booking a flight, so I knew I had solid examples to follow. Well okay then, Bob’s your uncle.

The animation for the plane needed to be broken down into three parts for this idea to work. It had to move from its current position to something that could be looped, and then off the page entirely.

I felt my options were limited because of the looping part, but I didn't want to overthink it. So, I made it look like it was in a holding/searching pattern. I think it was a nice play on the situation after all.