“I think that a designer is much more noticing the things that are wrong than making the things that are right. … I walk into a hotel. I can feel if it's a good hotel or a bad hotel. I don't know how to make it better. But someone who knows what they're doing could walk in that space right away and say, that's wrong, change this, move this.”
Dive Club 🤿 · Product & Design · November 2026
Context
The host asked Johnson whether he is still a designer when his prompts to AI are mostly 'this looks messy over here.' Johnson answers that design skill is mainly taste and critique, and that prompting works like art direction.
Transcript
…you either of them. I don't really care. But it depends on what you're looking for. And so you can now say, well, I want these all to be mirrored and I don't have to worry about a CMS or I don't have to worry about like all this, you know, issues, all these issues with limitations of the platform.
…might be like, this looks messy over here. Like, yeah, you know, you know, and I saw a lot of that stuff in your prompts. And that's what freaks me out right now. Like, I'm like, am I a designer? You know, I'm not even giving the specific advice. I'm just pointing out what needs to be better.
I think that, I think that a designer is much more noticing the things that are wrong than it is making the things that are right. I think that if you walk into a space, if you walk, like if I am not an interior designer, I can walk into a space. I walk into a hotel. I can feel if it's good hotel or if it's bad hotel. Like I know. I don't know how to make it better. I don't know what elements are there or what's missing or what could be added or what like smells or music or tiles or anything, how to deaden the sound and nothing. I have no, but someone who knows what they're doing could walk in that space right away, say that's wrong, that's wrong, change this, move this, do this, do this, bing, blong, boom, you know, all that kind of stuff. And we, you use a product, there's a very big difference between someone's like, oh, this app sucks. And if you were to use that app, you'd be like, if they did this or this or this, or they tried this and they moved this here or they got rid of this flow and you like, that is all you've been doing. You've been using pen tools and vector tools and frames and canvases and all that kind…
I'm most interested in right now. And then also, I think, the biggest shift in my own process. Like a very specific example today, for instance, like I overnight had Claude run on this internal tool that I was building. And there was this like record. It was like basically like a prompting, like a…
No, I feel the same way. When it does something well, I'm like, am I the designer? You know, am I the one designing this thing? Like it nailed it on the first try or something like that. Was that an easy idea? Or do I not have taste anywhere? Like, do I, it's probably could be better, right? Like…
Yeah. What was the unique value that you contributed there? Like, actually, was it the idea of, oh, we should run with a danger sign? And that was the unlock that got me there. As simple as that, right? Like, it really is just like the quality of the idea that you can have. Well,
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