Skip to content
Aakash GuptaAakash Gupta

Give me 60 minutes, I'll make your AI Designing 81% Better

Xinran Ma breaks down the complete AI design workflow. Mind map of AI design, live demos in Google AI Studio and Lovable, plus the exact tools top designers use. Full Writeup: https://www.news.aakashg.com/p/xinran-ma-podcast Transcript: https://www.aakashg.com/designing-ai-products-the-right-way-google-stitch-custom-gpts-and-prototyping-workflows-with-xinran/ --- Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 3:54 - What Is Designing with AI? 8:02 - The AI Design Mind Map 12:29 - Ads 14:00 - Custom GPT to PRD Workflow 26:10 - Building Custom GPT Live Demo 30:02 - Ads 32:25 - Generating PRD for Prototyping 36:07 - Comparing Lovable vs V0 vs Bolt 41:23 - Stitch to AI Studio Workflow 43:31 - Google Stitch Live Demo 49:53 - YOLO Mode for Divergent Solutions 56:06 - Advanced Google AI Studio Tips 57:32 - How Cursor Stacks Up 59:37 - Final Takeaways 1:01:00 - Outro ---- 🏆 Thanks to our sponsors: 1. NayaOne: The fastest way to test AI and fintech solutions - https://nayaone.com/ 2. Pendo: The #1 software experience management platform - http://www.pendo.io/aakash 3. Maven: Get 15% off Xinran’s course with my link - https://bit.ly/3Y2FUZn 4. Bolt: Ship AI-powered products 10x faster - https://bolt.new/solutions/product-manager?utm_source=Promoted&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=aakash-product-growth 5. Gamma: Turn customer feedback into product decisions with AI - https://gamma.app/?utm_campaign=prompt&utm_content=Aakash+Gupta&utm_source=LinkedIn --- Key Takeaways: 1. AI design covers five areas not just prompts - Prompting, ideation, design/prototyping, workflows, and staying conscious. Most people think better prompts equal better design. That's just 20% of the skill. 2. Use Google AI Studio for quick design variations - Upload 2-3 visual references. Describe what you want. Generate three different design directions in 5 minutes. What used to take 3-4 hours now takes 15 minutes. 3. Lovable builds functional prototypes in seconds - Describe the experience you want to build. Lovable generates a working prototype in 60 seconds. Not mockups—actual clickable experiences you can test with users. 4. Match tools to specific use cases - Custom GPT for effective prompts. Lovable for high-quality prototypes. Magic Patterns for design variations. Google AI Studio for free exploration. Cursor for full-stack experiences. Claude Code as all-purpose best. 5. Good design passes four layers not just visual - Visual representation, problem-solving, design principles, and implementation feasibility. Most people stop at layer one. Great design works at all four layers. 6. Context matters more than prompt length - Don't say "design a button." Say "design a primary CTA button for B2B SaaS onboarding where users connect calendar. Professional brand." Specificity drives quality. 7. Visual references anchor AI output - Upload 2-4 screenshots showing the aesthetic you want. These show AI what "modern and minimal" means to you. The quality difference is massive versus text-only prompts. 8. Iteration speed determines final quality - The magic isn't in the first output. It's in the 10th iteration after you've refined and tweaked. Review, identify issues, tell AI how to fix, repeat. 9. Always validate with real users - AI tools make generating designs easy. Only users tell you if those designs actually help. Show prototypes to 3-5 users. Watch them try to use it. 10. Workflows changed from linear to parallel - Before AI: sequential steps taking weeks. After AI: describe, generate, iterate freely. This is how top 1% designers work now. --- 👨‍💻 Where to find Xinran Ma: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmaxinran/ Newsletter: https://www.designwithai.co/ 👨‍💻 Where to find Aakash: Twitter: https://www.x.com/aakashg0 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aagupta/ Newsletter: https://www.news.aakashg.com #aidesign #productmanagement --- 🧠 About Product Growth: The world's largest podcast focused solely on product + growth, with over 200K+ listeners. 🔔 Subscribe and turn on notifications to get more videos like this.

Aakash GuptahostXinran Maguest
Feb 19, 20261h 1mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Design with AI workflows: prompt engineering, prototyping tools, divergent ideation

  1. Designing with AI is framed as an end-to-end workflow problem—constraints, system behavior, and iteration—not just writing better prompts.
  2. Xinran’s “AI Design Mind Map” breaks the space into prompting, ideation, design/prototyping workflows, and a less-discussed layer: conscious, risk-aware design.
  3. Workflow 1 demonstrates using a Custom GPT to interview you for key inputs and output a lightweight, front-end-focused “PRD for prototyping” that can be pasted into tools like Claude, Lovable, or V0.
  4. Workflow 2 demonstrates using Google Stitch for divergent UI exploration (including “YOLO mode”) and exporting selected designs into Google AI Studio to add interaction and iterate.
  5. The episode compares popular prototyping tools (Lovable, V0, Bolt, Claude Artifacts, Cursor, Google AI Studio) and explains tradeoffs in design quality, speed, learning curve, and cost.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Design with AI is a workflow and systems problem, not a prompting trick.

Xinran emphasizes understanding the system, constraints, and desired behaviors end-to-end; prompting is only one interface layer in a broader design process.

Start by clarifying the ask before adding context.

High-quality outputs come from stating what you want, what to include/avoid, and then adding only the context necessary to reach that outcome—more context is not automatically better.

Use a Custom GPT to eliminate the “blank canvas” loop.

Instead of vibe-coding aimlessly, the Custom GPT asks structured questions (users, needs, platform, key flows) to produce a ready-to-paste spec that anchors the first prompt.

Write “PRDs for prototyping,” not full PRDs.

The spec should prioritize front-end screens, components, and interactions while excluding backend architecture and success-metric filler that can dilute model attention and cause “context rot.”

Run a cheap ‘mock pass’ in Claude before spending on heavier prototyping tools.

Xinran uses Claude as a quick visualization sanity check to catch prompt issues early, then moves to tools like Lovable/V0 for more polished results.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

Designing with AI isn't about prompting. It's about understanding the entire workflow, the system, the constraints, and the behaviors.

— Xinran Ma

Not more context means better, but the necessary context that is related to the goal.

— Xinran Ma

AI is not human, right? It does not really have enough empathy.

— Xinran Ma

I like to shift it to ChatGPT in order to save tokens for Claude.

— Xinran Ma

You can make it very refined or YOLO, which is going crazy.

— Xinran Ma

AI design mind map: prompting, ideation, prototyping, conscious designClarifying the ask vs context engineeringLightweight PRD/spec for AI prototypingCustom GPT as a structured prompt generatorTool comparison: Lovable vs V0 vs Bolt vs Google AI StudioGoogle Stitch for divergent UI exploration (YOLO/variations)Risk mitigation: hallucinations, bias, empathy gaps, human-in-the-loop

High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.

Get more out of YouTube videos.

High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.

Add to Chrome