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Prompting Claude Opus 5.5

207 points · 227 comments · Michelangelo11

  1. Bishonen88 · · focus · HN ↗
    > Frontend design defaults

    > Asked for frontend work without design direction, Claude Opus 5.5 falls back on a few default styles, and a general instruction such as "avoid a generic AI look" mostly swaps one default for another. It responds well to instructions that name specific patterns to avoid, as in the following example. Work iteratively: check which styles the first result used instead, and extend the list if needed.

    I hardly ever read tips for prompting etc. because things change too quickly, the writeups are kindof big. Glad I read this one, because I often did exactly what they assume users would do. I write "don't make it look like generic ai slop" and that seemed to work nicely. Now I know why there was still a chance of seeing similar styles across apps. I reckon doing some manual work in terms of scouting dribbble/behance for nice layouts will yield better results.

    1. emsixteen · · focus · HN ↗
      This is relatively useful to know, but I can't help but wonder how people are expected to be able to describe something that they probably have difficulty putting in to words. Maybe it's mostly useful for those who have a design eye, background, or experience.
      1. Sharlin · · focus · HN ↗
        Well, the model can’t read the user’s mind, can it?
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