Guides
7 guides on product design. Practical writing from the team building Atlas, useful whether or not you buy anything.
A wireframe shows a screen; a storyboard shows a life. Telling the story of a user's experience in context reveals whether a design solves a problem that actually matters to them.
The gap between a finished design and working software is where intent gets lost. Diagrams close that gap by communicating structure, behavior, and edge cases developers cannot see in a mockup.
A flat backlog hides the shape of the product. User story mapping arranges the work into a story users can follow, so the team sees what to build, why, and in what order.
A UX flow diagram turns a product from a pile of screens into a journey you can reason about. Mapping the paths reveals the dead ends and detours that break the experience.
Wireframe, mockup, and prototype get used interchangeably and should not be. Each answers a different design question, and using the wrong one wastes effort: this guide draws the lines clearly.
A user flow diagram maps the actual paths people take through your product to accomplish a goal. Drawn honestly, it exposes friction and dead ends before your users find them.
A wireframe is a deliberately plain blueprint of a screen. Its plainness is the point: it forces everyone to argue about structure and priority before anyone falls in love with a color.
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