Prototypes, Turf Wars, and Vibe Coding: Who Does What Now?

Designers and PMs have always stepped on each other’s toes, especially when it’s a user-centered PM and a UX or product designer. They’re both trying to figure out: “What should the product do, and how should it do it?” They each bring their own expertise, but that expertise is different. AI is going to make this tension worse—with vibe coding.

As vibe coding gets used more and more for prototyping, it will become the place where interaction design decisions happen. In order to make a prototype, you have to figure out the software’s behavior. This will be contested turf—unless the designer and PM figure out how to work together. Maybe they collaborate on whiteboards, with UXDs creating flows and concept models (which they should be doing anyway—paper is still a great, fast medium for problem-solving).

But I’m going to suggest something radical (maybe?): with vibe coding platforms getting more and more friendly to non-devs, what if UX designers use them to prototype? Still with a lot of whiteboard collaboration, of course, with PM and engineering. This frees up PMs to work on the business value problems: monetization, acquisition, engagement, retention, etc.

Too often I see PMs who basically become UXDs, and stop focusing on keeping up with the market, understanding tech trends, figuring out where the business value lies and how to extend it, improving pricing, and more. They micromanage every aspect of the product, and it eats up every moment of their time.

Vibe coding is fun—but you only have so many hours in the day. Figure out where you can create the highest value, and make sure your time is spent there. If that’s prototypes for early validation, great. But a great product designer can increase the signal of those tests because they know how to avoid usability issues and make sure you’re testing the potential product’s value, not its implementation.

In other words, act like a team. Lean on your design and engineering partners. We’re better when we work together, and faster when we divide and conquer.

And if you’d rather focus on creating the perfect shopping cart, making a magical onboarding experience, or figuring out how users browse and manage their photos—well, maybe you’re a product designer! And that’s awesome too.

TL;DR

Know your value to the company and what unique skills you bring to your team. Know what brings you joy. Communicate. Collaborate. Coordinate.

Official caveats:

I can’t predict the future, but I sure can recognize when problems from the past start cropping up again. This won’t be a problem if your designers are all visual designers focused on making the UI sexy. But figuring out all the interactions? That’ll either eat up your time, or you’ll do it half-assed just to keep up with everything else. Having a partner is really nice.

And of course, all of this assumes everyone doesn’t suck. In a team, we all have to step out of our lane sometimes to make sure the product succeeds.

Would you like me to prep this in HTML or push it into a CMS format for WordPress or Ghost?