The problem
What was broken before AI
Designers often hit friction at the beginning and middle of a project. A blank page can make it hard to choose an aesthetic direction. Traditional prototyping tools are great for screens, but harder for interactions with sound, motion, or real code behavior. And when AI generates ugly interfaces, the designer still needs a way to guide it toward better taste without rewriting everything manually.
What changed
What the use case made possible
Elizabeth uses Cursor to make design exploration more immediate. She can ask for aesthetic directions, combine styles like Brutalist and Y2K, restore checkpoints, and run the same prompt again to get a different variation. She can also build interactive prototypes, such as a digital piano with sound, from a simple prompt. When the output is ugly, she uses specific feedback, references, and design principles to push it toward something more intentional.
Why this matters
Why this use case is worth studying
Elizabeth’s workflow is valuable because it gives designers a more playful relationship with AI. The tool is not just producing finished screens; it is helping her ask better design questions. What happens if this feels more Y2K? What if it sounded like an old Mac? What if the dashboard borrowed from Robinhood, Cash App, Stripe, or Edward Tufte? The work becomes a conversation with prototypes instead of a long wait between idea and test.
Use this when
When this pattern applies
Use this pattern when a design idea needs to be felt, clicked, heard, or tested before it can be judged. It works especially well when static mockups are not enough, when you want to explore several visual directions quickly, or when the interaction itself is part of the idea.
