How to Design with AI | The Complete Guide for PMs with Xinran Ma
The Growth Podcast
Design + Prototyping Best Practices
Xinran outlines specifying instructions, tracking design violations, and navigating design options with AI tools.
Today’s Episode
Designing with AI isn’t about prompting.
Most PMs think they understand AI design because they can write a good prompt. They’re wrong.
Real AI design is about understanding the entire workflow, the system, the constraints, and the behaviors.
Xinran Ma runs Design with AI, one of the top newsletters on AI design. He’s been studying AI design tools for three years. And he hasn’t shared most of this information publicly before.
In today’s episode, we’re going live. We’re building real prototypes. We’re showing you the exact workflows that top 1% designers use.
By the end of this episode, you’ll know the entire workflow from PRD to prototype to product.
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Check out the conversation on Apple, Spotify and YouTube.
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Key takeaways:
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.
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Where to Find Xinran
Related Content
Newsletters:
* Product Requirements Documents
Podcasts:
* Advanced Guide to AI Prototyping with Sachin Rekhi
* Everything You Need to Know About AI
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