Almost a year has passed since ChatGPT was first released, yet it’s still one of the hottest topics on the Internet and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. That’s not surprising. ChatGPT is unlocking new ways of working we couldn’t even imagine before. With just a few text prompts, you can leverage AI capabilities to save hours of manual work.
The same goes for UX designers. With the proper use of ChatGPT, you can easily double your productivity while maintaining your quality standards. Let’s explore how.
Many people preach that ChatGPT, and AI in general, will soon make many professions — including UX design — obsolete.
They are right.
Well…to some extent.
While I heavily doubt AI itself will be able to replace the complex art and science of UX design, I’m pretty convinced that UX designers using AI will make non-AI-savvy designers obsolete.
Effective use of tools such as ChatGPT allows UX designers to work faster, avoid the blank page syndrome, and ideate new ideas quickly. Given how competitive the UX field is, the ability to work with AI tools such as ChatGPT will soon become a must-have requirement.
You don’t want to be a laggard here.
There’s no worse feeling in the world for a UX designer than looking at the blank Figma file with the overarching thought, “Where do I even start?” Who’s never experienced this situation? Throw a rock.
Luckily, there are a few ChatGPT prompts that can give you some inspiration to get unstuck. The prompts I use most often help me by:
I’ll show you how ChatGPT can help with each one.
Whenever I work on a new feature, I like to start with getting the initial user flow from ChatGPT. Although these are simplistic and far from complete, they give a solid starting point for further work. Plus, they are better than a blank page.
Make sure to include details such as the type of product you are designing, whom you are designing for, and what use cases the feature will support. Here’s my sample prompt:
I’m designing a [type of product] for [user persona]. I’ll give you a description of a new feature I’m working on. Generate user flows for that feature.
The feature: [quick description of the feature]
The possibilities: [list of use cases]
While ChatGPT itself doesn’t yet provide visual outputs, it’s still a viable tool for high-level wireframing.
You can provide a page description, or user flows yourself, but the best way to utilize ChatGPT is to leverage its conversational nature and build on top of previous prompts, such as the one above about generating user flows:
Generate a wireframe layout for the following user flow [example of the user flow]
If you find ChatGPT’s outputs lacking, you can ask it to expand or add more details to the parts that interest you the most. For instance, I thought that the second screen of the wireframe could use more details; it was as simple as asking ChatGPT to add more:
Now, you can choose the most relevant parts of the proposed layout and get straight into designing. Or if you’d like, you can pop this text into another AI tool to generate a wireframe and save yourself even more time.
There’s hardly a deeper rabbit hole in UX design than setting up the color palette, typography, grid, font sizes, and other design system fundamentals.
If you are one of those designers who gets decisions paralysis and tends to spend too much time on this step, consider delegating this task to ChatGPT and just move forward. You can always revisit those choices later if you are not fully satisfied.
For example, say I need a color palette before I can think further about my design. Here’s the prompt I’d give ChatGPT:
Suggest a color palette for [type of product] targeting [user persona].
Or here’s another:
Suggest typography for [type of product] targeting [user persona].
While I wouldn’t delegate the visual direction to ChatGPT altogether, it’s a great way to get unstuck. If you still have some spare time after the designs are done, nothing prevents you from further experimenting with different font pairs and color schemes.
Lorem Ipsum placeholders should be banned. They often lead to:
While designers are rarely the ones responsible for the final content (although that’s sometimes the case), using realistic placeholders will maximize the chances that your design choices will match well once the final content is ready.
Headlines evoke emotions in users and set a tone for the whole communication. Ideally, you should push your clients and stakeholders to provide you with this piece of content (or at least the first draft) upfront.
Otherwise, an AI-generated placeholder is still better than a Lorem ipsum placeholder. I recommend asking for a few headline recommendations to get a bigger picture of which direction the final communication might take. Here’s how you can ask GPT:
I’ll provide you with a product description and target buyer persona. Please generate 10 examples of headlines for the landing page.
Product description: [1–2 sentences describing the value proposition]
Target persona: [quick persona description]
Choose the one that feels right, and make sure your design and page layout work well with it. It’ll greatly increase the chances your design will work with the final copy.
Some layouts are content-heavy. Think of an ecommerce product page, for example.
On ecommerce sites, product descriptions, buyer reviews, and other dynamic content types make ~50–80 percent of the page. Lorem ipsum placeholders would make it very difficult to evaluate the layout structure and design choices.
Instead, invest a few minutes to generate realistic placeholder content with ChatGPT to get a better sense of how your design would perform:
Create a sample [type of content] [specific example] for [type of product]. The [type of content] should be [desired length].
If you are designing for multiple languages, I always recommend checking if your design works for the longest language you support.
For example, German words are significantly longer than their English counterparts, so buttons that work fine with English copy might look completely broken after translations. Feed your copy (whether final or placeholder) to ChatGPT and then back to your design files to see if it still looks fine or requires revision:
Sample prompt: Please translate the text I’ll provide below to [desired language].
My personal rule of thumb: if your copy works with German, it should work with most languages.
I have a somewhat love-and-hate relationship with market research. On the one hand, it’s a great way to get inspiration, establish benchmarks, and stay on top of the industry. On the other hand, it’s often a time-consuming, repetitive, and somewhat boring activity, usually consisting of repeatedly reviewing Google’s search results.
Although ChatGPT won’t fully replace market research, it can give you a great starting point and help you narrow down further research.
N.B., although ChatGPT states that its database was last updated in September 2021, it’s also proven it knows more recent facts. Regardless, treat ChatGPT outputs as a starting point rather than a definite source of truth, or use a plugin that helps ChatGPT browse the modern web.
ChatGPT can help you identify the main players in a specific market segment. Simply ask about the most popular products in a particular segment. You can later dig deeper into specific competitors with subsequent prompts on your own research:
What are the most popular [type of product] in [market segment]?
If you are working on an established product, you can ask ChatGPT directly whom it considers to be [your product name] competitors.
Once you’ve identified your key competitors, you can follow up with more specific questions. It’ll help you get up to speed quickly and decide where to focus your further research:
Analyze the user experience of [web link]/[app store link]
Some supplementary prompts I like to use include:
Identifying relevant trends can help you shape your design direction and ideate interesting solutions to build your competitive analysis:
What are the main trends in the [industry] in [market]?
Whether you are just starting to learn UX design or are already an experienced designer trying to learn a new tool or niche, ChatGPT can be your best teacher.
You will have to learn a brand new design tool a few times in your career. Let’s face it: not only does not every company use Figma, but new design tools will also appear on the market over time.
Instead of watching (usually too long) video tutorials whenever you are stuck, you can ask ChatGPT a simple question exactly the same way you would ask an experienced colleague:
What’s the best way to [task you want to accomplish] in [design tool]?
If you want to get down the rabbit hole of learning a new tool, you can also leverage ChatGPT to get the list of valuable learning resources:
Give me examples of specific resources for learning [tool] for someone who used [similar tool] in the past.
If you are designing something for the first time, you should start by accustoming yourself to established best practices. It’s valuable both as the inspiration at the beginning of the design process and as a sanity check after you’ve designed the screen:
What are the best practices for designing [component]?
Even if you are already quite senior in your UX design journey, reviewing the best practices every now and then might be a helpful refresher.
ChatGPT is a powerful UX design tool that can be used for ideation, generating placeholder content, doing market research, learning new things, and much more.
Given current job market conditions and ever-increasing needs for speed and efficiency, proficiency in using ChatGPT might tip the scale of whether you will be the one getting the promotion or that new job offer.
The best part is it’s a pretty straightforward tool. As you saw in the examples, interacting with the ChatGPT doesn’t differ much from talking to a coworker. You don’t need a perfect design prompt; just get started and add follow-up questions if needed.
However, keep in mind that ChatGPT is not a one-tool-fits-it-all solution. There are other, more specialized AI tools on the market, such as:
I’m not saying you should know them all. Rather, whenever you face a new challenge at work, remember there’s probably a dedicated AI solution that can help you reach the solution twice as fast.
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