Designing the slot machine levers of ChatGPT

Yesterday I used ChatGPT to help me design a feature for a dashboard I’m building.

My process was similar to the dozens of other times I’ve chucked thoughts toward the LLM.

But, like the rat pulling on the levers for a treat, I keep coming back for those small—and currently very rare—wins where the AI gives me something valuable.

This time I got the candy.

Maybe it’s the way I wrote out my question, maybe it was just winning the lottery, but I received a useful design idea to put back into my work.

Now, a bunch of caveats. First, I wrote out the acceptance criteria for what the feature should do, thought through the use cases, and already had a rough idea in my mind based on sketching concepts.

But what I hadn’t done yet is scour examples of similar features to get a sense for how I’d lay out all the pieces.

ChatGPT helped me short circuit that step.

When it spat out a design I got excited. It wasn’t right. The feature only half way solved the problem I was working on, but it gave me some ideas to keep pushing forward. I started sketching further, taking its ideas and mind, and blending them into a flow that made sense.

But, as is often the case with such features, an hour or so later I realized I’d missed a critical component of how two parts would operate together, so I ended up changing the UI quite a bit, diverging greatly from both my original sketches as well as ChatGPT.

Still, something shifted in that moment.

By spending a few minutes defining my problem, sketching it out, and writing it up—and creating a solution that was intentionally wrong but directionally correct—I was able to get near instant feedback from ChatGPT on an idea. And that idea, half baked as a wireframe in return, provided value.

It moved me forward and unblocked my brain. This is similar to chatting with a colleague. I don’t need them to give me the answer, but sometimes I need help breaking down the problem.

Now I’m off pull the slot machine a few dozen more times until I get something valuable again.