“Begin Anywhere”

Frank Bach spent his first week at Anthropic building his own design tool. On this week’s Near Future podcast he explains the approach behind it, inspired by two words from experimental composer John Cage.

Once his tool had built something worth sharing, muscle memory kicked in and he started working out how to get it into Figma. Then: “hey, wait a minute, I can just prompt a share button.”

Shortly after, he realised his PM was away that day, so thought he’d send a Loom instead. Same waaait-a-minute. Three prompts later, his tool could record him walking through it and allow him to send it over.

You can hear the joy in his voice as he tells the story. Like a kid in a candy shop!

The share button didn’t start out in the plan, it was just the next thing he needed. This way of working can be overwhelming for some, but incredibly liberating for others. Especially those for whom the act of building is joy itself.

Our ways of working are shaped by whatever our tools happen to make easy. Pull that constraint away and there’s an enormous amount of room for wild exploration. And fun!

My favourite feature Frank described building was a split-screen view: the existing experience on one side, the new one being tested on the other. Press a button and both advance in parallel, putting the differences front and centre.

I love that this tool isn’t just for making the interface. It’s for getting enough altitude to work out what the interface even needs to be. And I suspect it’s just as useful for getting a team to agree on what the current experience actually is, too.

If this idea resonates and you’re at Hatch Conference in Berlin today, go and watch Jonny’s talk. He’ll continue pulling at this thread, I’m sure.

Listen at nearfuture.works/podcast.