Ask HN: Do you use wireframes to mock up your site?

Use Balsamiq. Kicks total ass. Super super simple and highly productive. Non-technical users find it easy to work with and this is very valuable.

You can mock up an entire site in an hour. Balsamiq is actually quicker than paper mockups when you take into account ease of changes.

Software? :P I did go through a phase of using some crappy software package to lay out sites. But in the end it seemed to take more time.

Now I generally sketch briefly on paper (just ot remind myself) design in photoshop, slice graphics out, position and apply CSS and throw in the data :D

no.

i don't like them, really. in the past when i did some, i felt it took too much time in comparison to the benefits i got out of it. my concepts change too much, sometimes in big ways, even after a mockup is complete, even after work has begun.

/not a designer, but plays one on tv

I use HTML and Javascript to mock up my site. Then I redo it a couple of times. I prefer just to talk it over, think it over, and get started.

Of course, I'm talking about a totally new start-up website, not something I have to spec for customers.

What's a wireframe anyways?