How to use Cursor for interactive prototypes, sound design, and data visualization

Elizabeth Lin is an independent design educator who has crafted learning experiences for Khan Academy, Primer, and Lambda School. She currently runs design is a party, an alternative online design school where she teaches courses like The Art of Visual Design and Prototyping with Cursor. In this episode, she shares how designers can leverage Cursor to create interactive prototypes with sound, explore different visual aesthetics, and transform basic designs into polished interfaces—all without deep coding knowledge. *What you'll learn:* 1. How to use Cursor to explore different design aesthetics—from brutalist to Y2K to cyberpunk 2. A simple workflow for creating interactive sound elements in prototypes that would be difficult with traditional design tools 3. A step-by-step process for transforming an ugly dashboard into a polished design using strategic prompting 4. Why broadening your inspiration sources helps Cursor generate more unique and creative design 5. Techniques for teaching AI tools to understand your design preferences and taste 6. A practical approach to creating data-driven prototypes by connecting Cursor with Notion databases 7. How to use Cursor Rules to streamline your prototyping workflow and avoid repetitive setup tasks *Brought to you by:* Lovable—Build apps by simply chatting with AI: https://lovable.dev/ Retool—AI that's designed for developers, and built for the enterprise: https://retool.com/howiai *Where to find Elizabeth Lin:* Website: https://www.lalizlabeth.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethylin/ X: https://x.com/lalizlabeth *Where to find Claire Vo:* ChatPRD: https://www.chatprd.ai/ Website: https://clairevo.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/ X: https://x.com/clairevo *In this episode, we cover:* (00:00) Introduction to Elizabeth (02:20) Demo: Exploring different visual styles with Cursor (08:20) Comparing different design iterations from the same prompt (12:35) Building a working piano prototype with one prompt (16:30) Understanding what’s happening behind the scenes (18:28) Practical design team scenarios using Cursor (21:00) Step-by-step walkthrough of transforming an ugly finance dashboard (27:29) Using targeted prompts to improve layout and visual design (29:22) Building data-driven prototypes powered by Notion databases (31:12) Lightning round and final thoughts *Tools referenced:* • Cursor: https://cursor.sh/ • Notion: https://www.notion.so/ • v0: https://v0.dev/ • ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/ *Other references:* • Edward Tufte: https://www.edwardtufte.com/ • Robinhood: https://robinhood.com/ • Cash App: https://cash.app/ • Stripe: https://stripe.com/ • Neopets: https://www.neopets.com/ • Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/ • Shad CN: https://ui.shadcn.com/ • Sketch: https://www.sketch.com/ • Figma: https://www.figma.com/ • Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/ _Production and marketing by https://penname.co/._ _For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email jordan@penname.co._

Elizabeth LinguestClaire Vohost

Jun 16, 202535mWatch on YouTube ↗

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Designers use Cursor to prototype aesthetics, sound, and data visuals

Elizabeth Lin shows how designers—not just engineers—can use Cursor as a creative partner to explore web aesthetics, rapidly generate styled pages, and iterate by re-prompting or refining specific issues one at a time.
She demonstrates a workflow for asking Cursor to suggest design movements, applying a chosen style (e.g., brutalist + Y2K), and using checkpoints to avoid getting stuck in unhelpful generations while saving screenshots of good outcomes.
Lin also builds a functional, sound-enabled digital piano prototype (hard to do in Figma), using simple “Cursor Rules” to scaffold new prototypes quickly and then interrogating the code/libraries just enough to expand possibilities.
Finally, she refactors an “ugly” finance dashboard into a cleaner data visualization by removing drop shadows, referencing well-designed products and Tufte, and using targeted prompts—then points to real-data prototyping (e.g., Notion-backed apps) as a major advantage of code-based prototyping.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Start by asking the model what styles it can implement.

Instead of arriving with a fixed aesthetic, Lin prompts Cursor to list design movements and describe their traits, which gives designers usable language (e.g., “neon, glitch, dystopian” for cyberpunk) to steer direction.

Treat generations as high-level drafts, then design-critique and iterate.

Lin prefers starting broad (“redesign in brutalist + Y2K”) and then applying a designer’s judgment to keep surprising wins (like hover effects or typing animations) while trimming excess.

Use Restore Checkpoint aggressively to avoid bad rabbit holes.

When results drift, she rolls back and tries again; because identical prompts can yield different outcomes, restarting is often faster than incremental patching from a flawed base.

Keep prompts short and tackle issues one or two at a time.

She finds “laundry list” prompts lead the model to forget items; targeted steps (remove drop shadows → fix background fill → simplify palette) produce more reliable progress.

Improve “taste” by feeding strong references the model already knows.

Lin shortcuts explanation by referencing products (Robinhood/Cash App/Stripe), practitioners (Edward Tufte), or aspirational standards (“a top designer at Apple would approve”), which nudges layout, grids, and restraint.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

Working with Cursor has really taught me that tools like Cursor can actually be extremely creative.

— Elizabeth Lin

What design aesthetics and movements are you comfortable implementing? List the styles and describe them to me.

— Elizabeth Lin

I always restore the checkpoint when I don't like something.

— Elizabeth Lin

If I give it, like, a laundry list of items, it'll, like, forget to do the last three.

— Elizabeth Lin

The biggest key is to broaden your sources of inspiration... like a K-pop music video... and see what it takes from it.

— Elizabeth Lin

Cursor as a creative tool for designersAesthetic exploration via design movementsIteration strategies: re-prompting, small promptsRestore Checkpoint and screenshot workflowCursor Rules for rapid prototype scaffoldingSound + motion + interactivity in prototypesData visualization and real-data integrations (Notion)

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.