Most UI work starts with a rough sketch — something to make the idea concrete before you commit to building it. Traditionally that meant opening Figma, dragging rectangles around, and thinking about the UI.
However, the more I integrate Claude into the design process, the more I'm skipping Figma and just asking Claude to generate wireframes or diagrams in plain text.
It's quite easy to get started. Open a conversation and type something like:
Create ASCII wireframes for a move document dialog. It needs to allow me to move between folders or spaces.Create ASCII wireframes for a move document dialog. It needs to allow me to move between folders or spaces.You'll get back something like this:
┌────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Move "My Document" │
├────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ │
│ Space │
│ ┌──────────────────────────────────┐ │
│ │ Acme Corp ▼ │ │
│ └──────────────────────────────────┘ │
│ │
│ Folder │
│ ┌──────────────────────────────────┐ │
│ │ Select a folder... ▼ │ │
│ └──────────────────────────────────┘ │
│ │
│ [Cancel] [Move] │
└────────────────────────────────────────┘ ┌────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Move "My Document" │
├────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ │
│ Space │
│ ┌──────────────────────────────────┐ │
│ │ Acme Corp ▼ │ │
│ └──────────────────────────────────┘ │
│ │
│ Folder │
│ ┌──────────────────────────────────┐ │
│ │ Select a folder... ▼ │ │
│ └──────────────────────────────────┘ │
│ │
│ [Cancel] [Move] │
└────────────────────────────────────────┘Lately, I prefer prompting with descriptions that are less about what the UI should look like and more about what I'm trying to do. For example, instead of saying I want a sidebar on the left and a content area on the right, I start with describing what I'm trying to do and let Claude come up with the interface itself. Claude is surprisingly good at coming up with very reasonable approaches that I can build on, requesting changes if I don't like the output (which is rare).
What makes these useful isn't fidelity — it's speed and portability. You can paste an ASCII wireframe into a Linear issue, a PR description, a dev plan, or a Slack message. Everyone can see it without opening another tool. And because it's just text, you can edit it right where it lives. Change a label, add a field, rearrange the layout — all without leaving the issue tracker.
It's not perfect, but it's fast.
I like this approach so much that I baked it into my workflow for creating new issues. My /new-issue skill generates ASCII wireframes automatically for every task that involves UI.
ASCII works for other things, too. When I'm working on a plan with a complicated flow, I often ask Claude to generate a flowchart to help me visually understand what it's suggesting. Here's an example of an onboarding flow for ContextStore:
┌────────────────────┐
│ Welcome │
│ │
│ ○ Create new space │
│ ○ Open existing │
└─────────┬──────────┘
┌─────────────┴─────────────┐
▼ ▼
┌────────────────┐ ┌───────────────────┐
│ Name & Logo │ │ Connection │
└───────┬────────┘ │ Method │
│ │ │
▼ │ ○ GitHub App │
┌────────────────┐ │ ○ Git URL │
│ Storage │ │ ○ Local Folder │
│ Strategy │ └─────────┬─────────┘
│ │ │
│ ○ Separate repo│ ┌──────────┼───────────┐
│ ○ Folder /docs │ ▼ ▼ ▼
│ ○ Branch │ ┌─────────┐ ┌─────────┐ ┌────────┐
└───────┬────────┘ │ GitHub │ │ Git URL │ │ Folder │
│ │ Sign-In │ │ Input │ │ Picker │
▼ └────┬────┘ └────┬────┘ └────┬───┘
┌────────────────┐ │ │ │
│ Sync Setup │ └───────────┴───────────┘
└───────┬────────┘ │
│ ▼
└─────────────────► ┌──────────────┐
│ Creating │
│ your space │
└──────┬───────┘
▼
┌──────────────┐
│ Done! │
└──────────────┘ ┌────────────────────┐
│ Welcome │
│ │
│ ○ Create new space │
│ ○ Open existing │
└─────────┬──────────┘
┌─────────────┴─────────────┐
▼ ▼
┌────────────────┐ ┌───────────────────┐
│ Name & Logo │ │ Connection │
└───────┬────────┘ │ Method │
│ │ │
▼ │ ○ GitHub App │
┌────────────────┐ │ ○ Git URL │
│ Storage │ │ ○ Local Folder │
│ Strategy │ └─────────┬─────────┘
│ │ │
│ ○ Separate repo│ ┌──────────┼───────────┐
│ ○ Folder /docs │ ▼ ▼ ▼
│ ○ Branch │ ┌─────────┐ ┌─────────┐ ┌────────┐
└───────┬────────┘ │ GitHub │ │ Git URL │ │ Folder │
│ │ Sign-In │ │ Input │ │ Picker │
▼ └────┬────┘ └────┬────┘ └────┬───┘
┌────────────────┐ │ │ │
│ Sync Setup │ └───────────┴───────────┘
└───────┬────────┘ │
│ ▼
└─────────────────► ┌──────────────┐
│ Creating │
│ your space │
└──────┬───────┘
▼
┌──────────────┐
│ Done! │
└──────────────┘This kind of diagram is a great way of turning a multi-page plan into something that is understandable at a glance.
Anywhere you need to communicate UI intent or complex flow in plain text, ASCII diagrams fit. Next time you're working on a UI task, try asking Claude to create ASCII wireframes of what you're building. You might find that a lot of your design thinking happens right there in the text.
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