Over the last couple of months, I've been fiddling with prototyping and designing directly in code - especially now that I can vibe with code. With an assistant and a design system, I am slowly getting better at spinning up flows fast, plug in realistic data, and feel real behaviour: focus states, errors, loading, responsiveness, performance.

And have observed : when I present static Figma mocks and drag around the canvas, the discussion slides into polish— "make this red," or "logo's off". When I share a coded prototype, the meeting stays on the job to be done: does search recover, what happens offline, can we undo? Design gets out of the way; functionality leads. Kind of what I have seen during product demos by developers.

This matches a broader view: mockups often lie because they lack content and context; in the browser or on the device is the only way to communicate design. Not saying Figma mocks are going away anytime soon, but designing in and for the medium does give a sense of freedom.