I Designed a Full App in Claude Design. Do You Still Need Figma?

Josh tests whether Claude Design can replace Figma by building a banking app from scratch with Opus 5, asking: is Figma dead? 🟣

The Test Setup:

• Used Opus 5 with a pre-built Noctturn template and a fairly complex prompt covering task, design requirements, layout structure, and app logo.
• Josh even noticed he could upload a .fig file, showing Claude Design is positioning itself directly against Figma.
• Default effort was capped at medium; trying to bump it to high would force Claude to reread the whole conversation, so he stayed at medium.

The Results (Iteration 1 & 2):

• ✅ First mockup arrived in ~2 minutes with a surprisingly clean overview hierarchy, but ❌ the purple scheme didn’t work, and the overall output was generic “slop” — basic sections thrown together, non-working payment button, and nothing Josh would show a bank client.
• ❌ It also felt too modern for a banking app that needs to serve ages 15–99; first attempt was only “passable.”
• ✅ A second prompt improved things a lot: transactions, transfers, send-money flow, cards, and account selection were all there.
• ❌ Yet settings stayed very basic — just full name/email, no profile/security, alerts, or sign-out. It still felt like a beginner prototype, not a real banking app.

The "Real App" Push & Responsiveness:

• ✅ The third prompt rebuilt it as “Vault Bank” with realistic features: account summary, money market savings, currency accounts, credit lines, bill pay, statements, spending, recent activity, currency conversion with mid-market rates, credits/loans, and credit score.
• ❌ But most of it was static: buttons, tabs, and links didn’t actually do anything.
• 📱 On mobile (iPhone 14 Pro Max), the desktop navigation stayed, and the sidebar never disappeared. It was desktop-responsive only, not mobile-responsive.

Final Verdict:

• Josh says Claude Design could bypass weeks of Figma work and makes a great starting point for enterprise-grade banking UI — but at some point you’d say, “Thank you, Claude Design. I’ll take it from here.”
• 🎨 Verdict: not a Figma replacement yet, but an unbelievable assistant for UI designers.

Final Takeaway: Claude Design is ideal for rapid exploration and first drafts, but production-ready polish, real interactivity, and true mobile responsiveness still require a human designer.