How I AI A designer's guide to AI: Why designing in Cursor lets you prototype 10x faster, simplifies collaboration, and accelerates getting ideas out of your head | Joel Unger
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May 12, 2025 
Joel Unger, design director at Atlassian, is redefining design with AI, transforming products like Trello. He shares how tools like Midjourney and Cursor enable rapid prototyping and seamless collaboration. Unger explores the balance of technology and creativity, showcasing how AI enhances communication between designers and developers. He discusses using AI to create animated brand assets and mood boards, while emphasizing the importance of human creativity. Ultimately, he stresses that embracing AI is crucial for staying ahead in the evolving design landscape.
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Using Trello's New Features
- Joel Unger used Trello's new personal productivity features to capture and organize his podcast prep ideas effectively.
- He leveraged features like quick capture and Planner to manage tasks and plan time dynamically.
Limitations of Traditional Design Tools
- Traditional design tools like Figma handle layout specs but fall short on dynamic, configurable UI prototypes.
- Prototyping interactive systems with drag-and-drop requires closer integration with actual code environments.
Prototyping with Cursor
- Joel used Cursor to prototype a three-panel drag-and-drop UI from a Figma image, generating interactive code directly.
- Cursor understood even imperfect spelling, enabling fast prototyping of subtle, responsive UI behaviors.