“I haven’t written a single line of front-end code in 3 months”: How Notion’s design team uses Claude Code to prototype

Brian Lovin is a designer at Notion AI who has transformed how the design team builds prototypes, by creating a shared code environment powered by Claude Code. Instead of designers working in isolated repositories or limited to static Figma designs, Brian built a collaborative “prototype playground” where the entire team can create, share, and iterate on functional prototypes. In this episode, Brian demonstrates how AI-assisted coding has dramatically accelerated the design process and why code-based prototyping is essential for building AI-powered products.

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How Brian built a shared Next.js app that serves as a collaborative prototyping environment for Notion’s design team

Why encountering “reality” early in the design process leads to better products

How to use Claude Code’s “plan mode” to get better results when prototyping

The power of custom Claude slash commands and skills to automate repetitive tasks

How to transform Figma designs into working code with a single prompt

Why AI-powered products can’t be effectively designed in static tools like Figma

Brian’s rule for working with AI: “When Claude asks you to do something, teach it to do that thing itself”

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(00:00) Introduction to Brian

(02:36) Building for B2B SaaS

(04:42) Notion’s prototype playground: what it is and how it works

(08:01) The technical background of designers using the playground

(10:52) Demo: building a podcast player prototype

(16:00) Actionable tips for better Claude Code results

(20:16) Analyzing the result

(20:30) Creating slash commands to simplify the workflow

(23:03) Turning Figma designs into production-ready code

(25:06) MCP frustrations and tips

(30:54) Demo: creating a custom “find icon” skill

(35:03) Demo: Creating a deploy command to simplify GitHub workflows

(41:09) Quick recap

(41:59) How code-based prototyping is changing design at Notion

(46:48) Brian’s tool preferences

(48:42) Prompting techniques when AI is not listening

• Claude Code: https://claude.ai/

• Cursor: https://cursor.sh/

• Next.js: https://nextjs.org/

• Figma: https://figma.com/

• Monologue: https://www.monologue.to/

• GitHub: https://github.com/

• GitHub Desktop: https://desktop.github.com/

• Tailwind CSS: https://tailwindcss.com/

• Bun: https://bun.sh/

• Claude Skills explained: How to create reusable AI workflows: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/claude-skills-explained

Website: https://brianlovin.com/

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/brianlovin

X: https://twitter.com/brian_lovin

ChatPRD: https://www.chatprd.ai/

Website: https://clairevo.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/

X: https://x.com/clairevo

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].