Design prompting: describe the world, not the widget

The text explores a novel approach to designing animations using metaphorical descriptions rather than technical specifications, arguing that describing the world where an animation exists allows language models to produce more coherent and satisfying results. The author recounts an experience with redesigning an animation for a user interface, where a shift from listing technical properties to describing the animation as a physical event significantly improved the outcome. By employing metaphors like molten metal flowing through a channel, the model inherently understands complex attributes like temperature, color, and motion, resulting in a cohesive animation. This method leverages the idea that both humans and language models organize abstract reasoning in the shape of physical experiences, providing a dense and intuitive way to guide models in generating content that aligns with the designer's vision.