Your First Prompt: The Four-Part Framework
A good Claude Design prompt tells the model four things: the goal (what you're making), the layout (how it should be arranged), the content (what info goes in), and the audience (who will see it). Skip any one of these and the first draft wanders.
Here's the exact sequence we captured building Lineup, the kanban board used throughout this guide. Claude asks a short round of clarifying questions first, confirms direction, then generates the full board in one pass.
The four parts
Goal, what are you making and why
- State the artifact and its purpose in one sentence.
- Examples: 'a product landing page for a Series A launch', 'a 6-slide pitch deck for a design-ops proposal', 'a prototype of a settings page with a dark-mode toggle'.
Layout, how should it be arranged
- Describe structure in plain language, you handle the skeleton, Claude handles the polish.
- Example: 'Hero on top, three feature cards in a row, a testimonial block, FAQ at the bottom.'
Content, what actually goes in
- Paste the real copy, bullet points, or key numbers. Don't write lorem-ipsum-style filler. Claude will produce something generic.
- Real words in = real-looking output out.
Audience, who sees this
- Naming the audience changes the design. 'Enterprise CISOs' produces a very different page than 'indie developers on Reddit'.
- One sentence is enough, just enough for Claude to calibrate tone.
Prompt example
Goal: A web-based kanban board called Lineup, a lightweight
Trello alternative for small product teams (5-15 people).
Layout:
- Top navbar: "Lineup" wordmark on the left, current project name in
the center ("Q2 Product Launch"), user avatar + notifications bell
on the right.
- Main area: 4-column kanban board. Backlog, To Do, In Progress, Done.
- Each column header: column name, card count pill, "+ Add card" button.
- Cards: title, 1-line description, 0-2 colored labels, up to 3 stacked
assignee avatars, and a small icon row for comments/attachments.
Content:
- ~12 sample cards distributed across the columns, realistic SaaS
product work:
Backlog: "Research competitor pricing pages", "Interview 5 lapsed
users", "Audit onboarding email sequence"
To Do: "Finalize Q2 launch copy", "Design dark mode toggle",
"Spec A/B test for pricing hero"
In Progress: "Ship mobile signup flow", "Rebuild settings page",
"Migrate analytics to PostHog"
Done: "Kill off legacy admin panel", "Update terms of service",
"Post-mortem on Feb incident"
- Labels visible on some cards: "design", "bug", "copy", "infra" ,
distinct soft colors.
Audience: Product designers, PMs, and engineering leads at early-stage
SaaS startups. They find Asana too heavy and Trello too simple. They
want speed and keyboard-shortcut focus, not enterprise controls.Expect 3-5 rounds of iteration before a prototype is ready to share. Designers who try to one-shot a finished output end up fighting the model; designers who accept the first pass is rough get to polish faster.
Early research-preview builds had a recurring issue where clicking around the UI with the canvas open could snap you back to the Claude Design home screen. Anthropic's mid-2026 updates appear to have addressed it, and it's no longer on their documented list of known limitations. If you ever do get bounced to the home screen, don't panic: your work is saved and you can re-open the project from the project picker.
Your first prompt shipped
- Wrote a goal + layout + content + audience prompt
- Submitted it and saw the canvas render
- Saw the first draft ready for iteration
Next: how to add references so Claude starts closer to what you actually want.