How I Use AI as a Web Designer: 4 Practical Workflows
Claude Design, Figma Make, and Base44 in a real client process
All the hype right now is about AI and whether it will replace designers. I have a more useful question: what can it actually do inside a working design process?
I'm Olga Kolgusheva, and I run Applet Studio, a Squarespace design agency and template shop. I use AI daily in my work, and I'm constantly learning these new tools.
In this post, I want to show you four practical ways I use AI tools like Claude Design, Figma Make, and Base44 to improve and streamline my client processes.
Claude Design as a Junior UX Designer
I use Claude Design as a junior user experience designer. It's very good at UX, but weaker on creative design and visual metaphors. If you need something that conveys emotion and feels unexpected, Claude is not going to help you. What it's really good at is a decent, clean, streamlined prototype or wireframe.
Right now I'm mostly using it for wireframing.
I feed it the client's content along with the sections I want to see, then add a few simple instructions: black and white, sans-serif fonts, very neutral, lay this out on the page. And Claude does wireframing really well. You can also upload a website screenshot along with content in a document, and it will produce a wireframe you can hand to your client for review or use as a prototype.
Design systems
One amazing feature of Claude Design is design systems. You can point it at a GitHub repository, give it links to files on your computer, Figma files, any assets, logos, fonts, images, and it will create a design system for you. Then you can review it and tweak it.
Clickable prototypes
With Claude Design, you can make a clickable black-and-white prototype for your client to make sure you're on the same page. If you're building a website for yourself, this is a really fast way to visualize all of your copywriting. You can ask it to tweak or add sections. You end up with a full multi-page prototype.
Publishing is easy too. I click Share and choose Vercel, a hosting platform with a free tier. You need an account, then you click Send, and it publishes the prototype to its own URL. If you're working with several clients a month, it's a really convenient way to do it.
The point of all this is client alignment. You get agreement on structure and content before you ever open Squarespace, which is exactly where you want that conversation to happen.
Figma Make for Clickable Prototypes
Another tool I use for wireframing is Figma Make, an AI builder inside Figma. It's a vibe coding tool that lives right in your design environment.
Same approach here: I feed it content and ask for a black-and-white, really neutral prototype with images, and it helps me lay out and visualize the content. I can specify what I want in each section and how I want the layout to work, without having to drag and drop anything manually in Figma.
The two tools have different strengths, so I use both depending on the project. Claude is generally better at understanding content, so it knows where to place things and how to structure it. Figma Make, if you're on a paid Figma account, is powerful in a different way: it generates an entire prototype; it can be clickable, and you publish it with one click and get a link immediately. You can even connect it to a domain or subdomain.
What you get is a full, clickable, responsive prototype you can use to communicate design decisions to a client.
Claude for Cleaning Up Client Feedback
Claude is also really good with formatting documents.
Say your client sends you messy feedback. You can ask Claude to format it into workable feedback notes that are actually easy to read and act on. That's another way I use it, and it saves a surprising amount of time.
Base44 for Small Client-Facing Apps
I build small apps for my clients on Base44. Any part of your process can be turned into a small app.
For example, I have a mockup review app. I open a link, send it to the client, and they log in, type their name, and leave notes. I built it just by explaining what I needed. It's a simple two-page app with no user management involved. You build something like that for your own internal processes and send the client a link.
Any static experience where you'd normally send a Google Doc or a PDF can become a small app instead.
One of the earliest apps I built with Base44 was a sales page creation app. It runs a client through a questionnaire and then generates a wireframe for them. I made it last year when Base44 was still in its infancy, and it's much better now at handling things and understanding what you need.
You can use small apps like these as lead magnets in your process, replacing PDFs and Google Docs. Most of the time you don't even need a paid plan to build them, because Base44 and tools like Lovable give you a generous amount of free credits.
So, Will AI Replace Designers?
Not from where I'm sitting. Every one of these workflows still needs someone who knows what a good wireframe looks like, what a client actually meant in their feedback, and which part of a process is worth turning into an app.
What AI has replaced is the slow, mechanical middle of my work. The wireframe I would have built by hand. The feedback I would have untangled manually. The PDF I would have formatted and emailed. That's where the hours go, and that's where these tools earn their place.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can AI build a full website for a client?
It can build a working prototype, and that's genuinely useful for getting sign-off early. But a prototype is not a finished site. The creative direction, the brand decisions, and the actual build still need a designer.
What's the difference between Claude Design and Figma Make?
Both generate wireframes and clickable prototypes from your content. Claude Design is better at understanding content structure and knowing what belongs where. Figma Make lives inside Figma and publishes with one click, which is convenient if you already work there and have a paid account.
Do I need to pay for these tools?
Figma Make requires a paid Figma account. Base44 and Lovable both offer generous free credits, so you can build small internal apps without paying. Publishing a Claude Design prototype to Vercel is free.
Is AI good at creative design?
Not in my experience. These tools are strong at clean, structured, functional layouts. They're weak at visual metaphor and anything that needs to feel emotional or unexpected. That part is still yours.
What can I use AI for in a client process besides design?
Formatting messy client feedback into usable notes, and replacing static documents like PDFs and Google Docs with small interactive apps. Both are process improvements rather than design work, and both save real time.
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