I design with Claude more than Figma now
- The author, a designer at Jane Street, now primarily uses Claude Code rather than Figma to design and prototype new features.
- Instead of creating traditional spec documents, Figma mockups, and proposals, the new workflow involves writing a problem description, opening an editor, and using Claude to build an interactive prototype inside the actual codebase.
- Building high-fidelity prototypes directly in the medium (e.g., using OCaml and Bonsai at Jane Street) eliminates intermediary artifacts and allows the author to quickly iterate on minute details like keyboard shortcuts, copy, and button refinement.
- This approach makes evaluating concepts much easier for stakeholders, as they can interact with a live tool rather than static frames, which is particularly valuable when testing the feasibility of complex features like internal LLM integration.
- A key shift in their model happened over the course of a few months as improved models, growing prompting familiarity, and proper scoping allowed for handling large-scale diffs (exceeding 2,000 lines).
- A major workflow challenge is how engineering teammates handle code reviews for fully baked features; the current solution treats the prototypes like "code mockups" that engineers can iterate on or reference to write the official production code.
- The author expresses concern that relying on Claude might stifle fluid, out-of-the-box creativity, locking them into an incremental, iterative mindset constrained by what they expect the LLM can easily generate.
Hacker News Discussion
- The Shift from Static Design to Working Prototypes: Many users echoed the author's sentiment, noting that the traditional reliance on Figma for initial product concepts is declining. Teams increasingly prefer building quick, functional wireframes in dev environments that stakeholders can actually interact with.
- Organizational Friction and "Vibe Coding" Pressure: A prominent topic of discussion was the tension this workflow introduces with management and business teams. When non-technical stakeholders or designers build a working prototype quickly using AI ("vibe coding"), leadership often pressures engineers to push it directly to production without understanding the need for refactoring, architecture, and handling edge cases.
- Loss of Deep Design Thinking: Some commenters argued that outsourcing early-stage creation to an LLM removes a crucial phase of critical thinking. Because the AI automatically paints over gaps or details in a prompt, team members stop asking foundational questions ("how should we communicate this idea?" or "what happens when..."), leaving critical logic gaps to be fixed much later.
- Homogenized and "Safe" Aesthetics: Users iterating with text-to-UI tools noted that the default visual output tends to adhere strongly to contemporary web tropes, resulting in boilerplate or generic Tailwind/Bootstrap-style layouts unless heavily prompted with highly specific design rules or unconventional examples.
- The Long Tail of Accountability: Engineers emphasized that while AI dramatically speeds up the initial prototyping loop, it does not replace the necessity for engineering discipline. The long-term ownership of operational risk, system maintenance, edge-case mitigation, and on-call accountability still relies entirely on human experts.