This is something we’re trying to help everyone at work realize. I think we’ve known this all along, clients don’t ever fully understand wireframes. Plus, its more fun, and I think productive, to start building something that works early, gets your head out of the clouds and grounded in reality. A List Apart: Articles: Sketching in Code: the Magic of Prototyping
These shortcomings are difficult enough, but the situation gets worse when we start to consider not just design, but development as well. Development involving Ajax and RIAs requires closer communication between developers and designers, and this communication often has to be iterative. Tossing wireframes over the wall to developers doesn’t work. The critical information required for this interchange often can’t be captured in wireframes. Cross-discipline communication issues aside, attempts to use wireframes to explore tough interaction problems are problematic.