I understand that "wireframing" is some kind of "brainstorming" tool, so it is used with a pencil and a whiteboard in a meeting room and require to draw/erase fast iteratively... so it's the "right" tool for this job...
But as soon as you use a computer instead of a pencil, why not have a "realistic" and "clean" look instead of this kind of quick-and-dirty sketch-like style? It's an honest question
Is it because designers are most used to this style? Is it because it make more clearly appear the essential points (for example: a list) and avoid discussion like "is this text exactly in this color ?"
So. Yeh.
You really have to drill home that ideas and possibilities are just that, and not concrete features that they could start using tomorrow.
I ask because this guy s a common lament, but I’ve never figured out why. It shouldn’t be a surprise or (to me) disappointment that the fidelity of a communication also carries signal about the status.
Any change from that haphazard throwaway with nice colors is suddenly a change they have opinions about, because it feels like a change.
If you show them something that's obviously not what will ship, they don't get as attached.
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This is also partly a "most people don't understand the design process" thing, and just how much reworking and restarting is generally necessary to get an actually-good end result. If they see hundreds of mockups (or even sketches), they'll wonder why you haven't made hundreds of products, rather than those being merely tools used to think along the way.
Actually I don't think "technology producers" are entirely excluded from this bias either. I've assumed more complexity than there was in reality (possibly due to my background in infrastructure and backend), but other developers I've worked with certainly fall more into the trap of "there's a UI? now it's just a simple matter of CRUD."
Personally I also prefer the hand-drawn style, but can't put my finger on why. There's something about the uneven lines filling out the space better, while still defining the shapes well.
I think this was then expanded to be "paper-looking".
But yes, for the reasons you state.
If everything is either an obvious sketch, or pixel perfect you can get decent feedback, but a design that is just a little off in jarring ways will distract people from the functionality or design intention.
B) An "unfinished" messy design is an invitation for critical feedback. If you give people something that looks too polished, they might be afraid that they'll break it, that they don't understand it, that they can't give feedback that is "good enough".
In short: if it looks like a toy people will play with it.
* C) The reason many of these tools look like Balsamiq has more to do with the tech of the late 00s/early 10s. This specific style of vector art was pretty easy to achieve in Flash.
Honestly it also looks better.