wiggens on design

Helping designers thrive in the age of AI

Read this first

10 Layouts in 10 Seconds: AI Wireframe Prompts

When you sit down to sketch a new interface, the hardest part is often just getting started. That blank canvas in Figma can feel heavy. AI is a perfect way to push through it by generating fast, low-fidelity options you can react to.

You don’t need polished visuals. You need rough structures that stretch your thinking.

Here’s a simple prompt set you can try today:

Give me 10 layout options for a sports stats screen.
Return them as simple ASCII wireframes, not polished visuals.

Why this works:

  • Volume, fast: you’ll get 10 different approaches in seconds.
  • Visual, not verbal: ASCII wireframes force the model to sketch structure, not just describe it.
  • Low stakes: none of these are final designs — they’re starting points you can remix.

Example output

It might look something like this:

Option 3
-------------------------
| Team A   |  Score  | Team B |
-------------------------
|
...

Continue reading →


How to Turn AI into Leverage on Your Next Project

A few weeks ago, I had to sketch out an onboarding flow for a sports app. Normally I’d burn half a day making rough wireframes. Instead, I asked an AI tool to generate five navigation patterns in simple text. Within minutes, I had options on the table. None were perfect, but two pushed my thinking in directions I wouldn’t have reached as quickly. That shaved hours off my process and gave me more time to refine the flow.

That’s what leverage looks like.

AI isn’t here to replace designers. It’s here to amplify them. The difference is in how you approach it.

Most designers fall into one of two camps:

  • Fearful: worried AI will automate their craft out of existence.
  • Dismissive: convinced AI is a toy, not a tool.

Both miss the point.

Think of AI as an intern who works at the speed of light. They’re not going to ship a polished portfolio piece for you. But they will:

  • Generate 20...

Continue reading →


One Designer’s Fear About AI — and the Breakthrough That Helped

In a recent coaching conversation, a designer admitted something I have heard more than once: “I’m scared AI is going to make my work irrelevant.”

The fear is understandable. Every week there is a new tool promising to replace hours of design work with a single prompt. The headlines rarely help. They paint AI as either a miracle or a threat.

What struck me in this conversation was not the fear itself, but how much it was keeping this designer from experimenting. They had stopped exploring. They avoided trying new tools because they did not want to confirm their worst suspicion.

The breakthrough came when we reframed the problem. Instead of asking, “Will AI replace me?” we asked, “How can I use AI to amplify what I already do well?”

That shift opened a door. Suddenly the designer started thinking about using AI to generate rough first drafts, to explore options faster, to test...

Continue reading →


Why I’m Building The Designer’s Story Kit (and What I’ve Learned Already)

When I started working on The Designer’s Story Kit, I wasn’t thinking about creating another “resource.” There are already more templates and frameworks out there than most designers will ever use. What I wanted was something more practical, more alive, a way to help designers capture the real story of their work without getting stuck in the blank page.

The seed for the kit came from coaching sessions. Again and again, I’d see talented designers struggle not with their craft, but with telling the story of their craft. They would freeze when it came time to explain a project in a portfolio, pitch themselves to a client, or even just write a case study. The result: great work stayed invisible.

So I started building a set of tools I wish I’d had earlier in my career. Simple prompts, structured templates, and lightweight frameworks that turn “what happened on this project” into a clear...

Continue reading →