7 things that Vibe Design can't replicate

Vibe coding and vibe design enable models to generate multiple high-fidelity design directions from business objectives or desired user feelings. Tools such as Stitch, Figma Make, Lovable, Cursor, and Vercel can compress weeks of work into much shorter timeframes. Despite these gains, vibe design cannot replicate key human capabilities. Taste and judgment become the bottleneck when many plausible options are available, requiring discrimination about what to ship. AI can make weak user experiences look polished, but responsibility for judgment, taste, and accountability stays with designers. Taste is developed through repetition, critique, and sustained exposure to excellent work, often built by reviewing past work and iterating toward more elegant solutions.

"“where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists.” Predictably, vibe design was next. Google's Stitch introduced a Vibe Design mode last March and popularized the term. With the new functionality, anyone can describe a business objective or a desired user feeling, and the model generates multiple high-fidelity directions."

"“what differentiates good work is no longer the ability to generate ideas, but the ability to discriminate between them.” With unlimited plausible options on tap, knowing which one to ship is “the” job. It’s hard to put taste into words. Designers may know what they want, but when they prompt the tool, what comes back often feels generic or unlike their own work, even when it technically matches the brief."

"“AI can make weak UX look polished; judgment, taste, and accountability are the responsibility of the designer.” It’s hard to put taste into words. Designers may know what they want, but when they prompt the tool, what comes back often feels generic or unlike their own work, even when it technically matches the brief."

"Taste is not innate. It is developed through repetition, critique, and exposure to excellent work over time. Most of the designers I've worked with built theirs through years of looking at their past work and finding elegant, creative solutions to improve it."

Read at Medium