How to Build Interactive UI Prototypes with Claude Design

The quickest path to an interactive UI prototype with Claude is through Claude Design—the current, supported tool that replaced the short-lived 'Imagine with Claude' research preview. Navigate to claude.ai/design, describe your screens in plain language, and Claude generates functional HTML, CSS, and JavaScript that renders live on a split-pane canvas. You can iterate inline, comment on specific elements, and export a standalone HTML package for developer handoff—all without writing a single line of code yourself.

What Is Claude Design, and How Does It Relate to 'Imagine with Claude'?

'Imagine with Claude' was a 5-day experimental research preview launched in late September 2025 alongside the Sonnet 4.5 release. It showcased real-time software generation and DOM manipulation, but it was explicitly a limited-time preview—not a permanent product. It was deprecated and fully replaced by Claude Design, which officially launched on April 17, 2026 under the Anthropic Labs banner.

Claude Design is the tool you should be using today. It offers a persistent split-pane canvas, Brand Kit extraction, inline commenting, and export to PowerPoint and Canva—capabilities that go well beyond what the original preview offered. If you've been searching for 'Imagine with Claude' tutorials, everything you need is now in Claude Design.

Who Can Access Claude Design?

Claude Design is available on Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans. No installation is required—it runs entirely in the browser. Enterprise users should note that the feature is off by default and must be enabled by an admin in Organization settings before team members can use it. If you're on a free plan, you'll need to upgrade to access Claude Design. See the Pro plan details or the Team plan details for plan comparison information.

How Do You Build an Interactive UI Prototype Step by Step?

Here is a concrete walkthrough based on the product manager use case: building a clickable mobile onboarding flow.

1. Go to claude.ai/design and start a new project. You can also reach it from the design prompt entry in the standard chat sidebar.
2. Upload your brand assets upfront. Before generating anything, upload your logo, existing UI screenshots, or a Figma export. Claude Design can extract color tokens and typography from these files to anchor the visual style. Skipping this step is the most common cause of 'visual drift'—where the AI invents generic styling that becomes harder to correct as iterations accumulate.
3. Describe your first screen in natural language. For example: 'Create a mobile onboarding flow with three screens: a welcome screen with a hero image and CTA button, a permissions screen with toggle switches, and a profile setup screen with a name field and avatar picker. Use the brand colors from the uploaded logo.'
4. Review the live preview on the right-hand canvas. Claude generates functional HTML/CSS/JS that renders immediately. You can click through the prototype to test interactions.
5. Iterate with inline comments. Click on any element in the canvas and type a refinement—for example, 'Make the CTA button larger and change the label to Get Started.' Claude applies the change without rebuilding the entire prototype from scratch.
6. Export the final output. When the prototype is ready for developer handoff, export it as a standalone HTML package. Developers receive runnable code, not static images.

What Kinds of Outputs Can Claude Design Produce?

Claude Design is not limited to UI prototypes. The same tool can generate:

• Interactive HTML/CSS/JS prototypes — clickable flows suitable for user testing or developer handoff
• Slide decks — branded presentations exportable to PowerPoint or Canva
• Visual assets — layouts and graphics generated from natural-language descriptions

This makes Claude Design useful for product managers, non-designers who need to communicate ideas visually, and anyone who needs to move from concept to shareable artifact quickly.

When Should You Use Claude Design vs. Figma or Adobe XD?

The core distinction: Claude Design excels when you need to generate and iterate on code-backed prototypes through conversation. Figma and XD are the right tools when your workflow centers on vector layers, design systems, and pixel-level precision.

What Are the Most Common Pitfalls—and How Do You Avoid Them?

Pitfall 1: Visual Drift Over Multiple Iterations

If you start generating without uploading brand guidelines or existing UI screenshots, Claude will invent generic styling. Each subsequent iteration compounds the problem, making corrections increasingly expensive. Fix: Always establish a Brand Kit before generating your first draft. Upload your logo, color palette, and any reference screens so Claude can extract concrete style tokens from the start.

Pitfall 2: Rapid Token Quota Depletion

Generating complex prototypes is token-intensive, especially when using the most capable models. Fix: Use a dual-model approach—generate the initial architectural draft with a full-capability model, then switch to a lighter model for small iterative edits like color or spacing changes. Establishing a Brand Kit upfront also reduces costly structural rewrites later. It's worth noting that Anthropic permanently doubled the monthly token limits for Claude Design across all eligible plan tiers in May 2026 in response to user feedback about this exact issue.

Pitfall 3: Enterprise Users Can't Find the Feature

Claude Design is off by default for Enterprise organizations. Fix: An Enterprise admin must enable it in Organization settings before team members can access claude.ai/design.

How Does Claude Design Fit Into the Broader Claude Apps Ecosystem?

Claude Design is one tool within a larger suite of Claude Apps that extend Claude beyond the standard chat window. The ecosystem includes Claude Desktop (for agentic desktop automation via Cowork), mobile apps for iOS and Android (for calendar, reminders, and health data), a Chrome extension (for browser-based research and automation), and Office add-ins for Excel and PowerPoint. Each app targets a different workflow—Claude Design specifically targets the visual creation and prototyping workflow.

Understanding this context matters for teams: a product manager might use Claude Design to prototype a feature, while an engineering lead uses Claude Cowork to simultaneously monitor pull requests and draft a launch announcement. These tools are designed to complement each other rather than overlap.

Is Claude Design Worth It for Non-Designers?

The clearest case for Claude Design is the blank-canvas problem: non-designers often know what they want to communicate but lack the tools or skills to produce a visual artifact quickly. Claude Design converts unstructured text into a branded, exportable prototype in minutes. A product manager can describe a mobile onboarding flow, receive functional HTML/CSS/JS, iterate by commenting inline, and hand off runnable code to developers—all without opening a design tool or writing code.

For teams that already have dedicated designers working in Figma, Claude Design is most useful as a rapid ideation tool—generating a rough interactive draft that can be refined in Figma later, rather than replacing the design workflow entirely.

Key takeaway: 'Imagine with Claude' no longer exists as a product. Claude Design is its official successor, launched April 17, 2026, and is the correct tool to reference for interactive UI prototyping, slide deck generation, and visual asset creation through natural language.