Short answer: Jordan Metzner says a web app lets Anthropic test demand before folding it into the desktop app, as with Cowork, and it feels a bit like a Figma killer. Sam Nadler says it is far easier than Figma.
Watch this answer from Episode 40 (starts at 9:09) · Episode 40 notes and transcript
From Episode 40: Claude Design Changes Everything (Figma in Trouble?), starting at 9:09.
Jordan Metzner [9:08]: Now let me ask you a question. If this was just, like, rolled into Claude Code for you, then would you just abandon this? Right? You just want these, like, design based features in Claude Code anyway, right, or Codex or something similar. Right?
Sam Nadler [9:18]: I think maybe it could be rolled into Cowork somehow and but, yes, absolutely. I'm a little surprised they didn't they made a separate product.
Jordan Metzner [9:26]: Well, think I mean, as you know, for software development purposes, it's just much easier to build a web app than it is to integrate something into a native desktop application. So it just seems to me that, like, they were able to build this as an easy way to test to see if people would like it or not. And if they like it, then just roll it over into the desktop application, which I think we've seen before with Cowork and some of their other tools. And, it just makes sense like that because one, you've got a web dev team that can move really quickly, and then also just like you're able to test these hypotheses on whether or not customers actually like these products. Because, I think we're talking about Cowork and now Claude Design, and these are products that customers have been loving and using all the time. But I'm sure there's been some other Claude tools that they've launched that have not got as much traction and therefore maybe don't don't warrant the necessity or need to implement them back downstream into the native application. So this does seem like a gateway ish drug, but, yeah, it just seems like a really awesome tool to improve design. And, mean, I it definitely feels like a little bit of a Figma killer in my opinion, but I don't know. How do you think?
Sam Nadler [10:20]: Yeah. Totally. I think, like, I'm I would say my Figma skills are pretty awful, and this is incredibly easy. I mean, we it's it's as easy as chatting with any AI and it does a really good job and it's intuitive. I've already redesigned multiple things and I think top tier. So, we'll see. I mean, obviously I think Figma will have its place, but this is I think this is a step it feels like a step for me in my what I'm doing, a step function in my capabilities.
Jordan Metzner [10:52]: Totally. Well, let's jump in to the news as we have some really good news articles this week.
