I design screens with Claude. As a product manager I need two things at once. The prototype
has to sit on the real product: its components, data shaped like its own, flows and scenarios
as tangled as the real ones. And it has to be fast: three UX ideas compared this afternoon, not
next sprint.
The tools I tried each pick one side. Claude Design, Lovable and Figma Make are fast, but
they bring their own components and their own data; in my tests of Claude Design (October
2026), every state and every scenario was faked by hand. A dev branch and Storybook have the
real thing, but every change is slow, and versions never sit side by side.
Claude Design
Production design system: partly
Data shaped like production: no
Data scenarios: no
Versions side by side: partly
Dev branch
Versions side by side: no
Light to iterate: no
A link to share: partly
Nothing to install: partly
Free visual exploration: no
Lovable
Production design system: no
Data shaped like production: no
Data scenarios: partly
Versions side by side: no
Free visual exploration: partly
Storybook
Data shaped like production: partly
Data scenarios: partly
Versions side by side: partly
Nothing to install: partly
Free visual exploration: no
Figma Make
Production design system: partly
Data shaped like production: no
Data scenarios: no
Versions side by side: no
protolab
A link to share: partly
Nothing to install: no
Free visual exploration: partly
Criterion
Claude Design
Dev branch
Lovable
Storybook
Figma Make
protolab
Production design system
partly
yes
no
yes
partly
yes
Data shaped like production
no
yes
no
partly
no
yes
Data scenarios
no
yes
partly
partly
no
yes
Versions side by side
partly
no
no
partly
no
yes
Light to iterate
yes
no
yes
yes
yes
yes
A link to share
yes
partly
yes
yes
yes
partly
Nothing to install
yes
partly
yes
partly
yes
no
Free visual exploration
yes
no
partly
no
yes
partly
yes partly no
So I built protolab. It has its costs: it needs the app's repo to run, and a link leaves my
machine only once the lab is deployed. But of everything I tried, it is the best balance
between the real product and speed.