Behind the Scenes: Prompt Crafting Techniques for FigJam AI
A Deep Dive into Effective AI Prompt Engineering for Designers
This month, I shared an article showing how to use a prompt crafting technique to create a flowchart with FigJam AI. Although it seems easy, creating an effective prompt with prompt engineering techniques takes time until the AI models understand the tasks well.
Generative AI is only in its first step, and we will see much improvement in contextual communication with it faster than we can imagine.
But for now, we must write a very context-specific AI prompt for accurate results. If it is not very specific, two things can happen:
- We must review the results, work on them deeply, and tweak them to get the desired results.
- The results will not serve us at all.
Because prompt engineering is not easy, I am sharing a guide on developing it for FigJam AI. The prompt helps you add many items to the board using different sticky notes.
This prompt can help you save time when adding information to the board.
The user story
To start the task, I wrote this user story for myself.
As a FigJam AI user, I want a streamlined process for bulk-adding
items to a board so that I can quickly add multiple items to my
FigJam boards in one action. This would save time and enhance my productivity
during brainstorming or project planning sessions.Once the user story is written, I can easily focus on the task and the target audience.
I took the idea of using a user story from the product design world, which helped me focus. I see the prompt as small software because it performs my task.
The process
The process of creating the prompt took many iterations. Here, I show the most important ones so you understand how I think when I develop prompts so you can do it yourself.
The first prompt: All in one sticky note
The first prompt I used was very simple. I used only five items, so I would not need to wait long for every execution to see the results.
Write the list on a sticky note.
1. Apple
2. Banana
3. Cherry
4. Orange
5. Strawberry
Do not add anything else.
It did not perform well; the problem was that the AI Added all the items to one sticky note, but I wanted to put them separately.
Next iteration: I asked the AI to add each item to a separate sticky note.
The Second prompt: It generated for me a workshop
The Second promt I used was this:
Write the list on a sticky note.
Add each item to a separate sticky note.
1. Apple
2. Banana
3. Cherry
4. Orange
5. Strawberry
Do not add anything else.
It did not perform well because:
- It generated a workshop.
- It added fruits that were not on the list.
- It custard the fruits into groups
Next iteration: I wrote to the AI that I wanted all the items in one section to see if it would help.
The third prompt: AI hallucinations happen
The third prompt I used was this:
Write the list on a sticky note.
Add Each item to a separate sticky note.
All sticky notes should be in one section.
1. Apple
2. Banana
3. Cherry
4. Orange
5. Strawberry
Do not add anything else.
It works, but not 100%. I tested it several times, but in many cases, it added more items to the list and did not always add all the items from my list.
Before continuing, AI hallucination refers to an artificial intelligence system that produces content not based on actual data or information.
In the context of the prompt, the AI created a list of items not initially provided.
Next iteration: I added the exact number of items to the prompt.
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The fourth prompt: It worked well, but I want to be more accurate
This is the fourth prompt:
Add each item to a separate sticky note.
I wrote you a list with five fruits.
All sticky notes should be in one section.
In total, five sticky notes.
1. Apple
2. Banana
3. Cherry
4. Orange
5. Strawberry
Do not add anything else.
The results were great. I tested the prompt many times, and it always got great results. But there is one thing that I wanted to improve: It always added an empty sticky note. So, I wanted to get rid of the empty sticky note.
The fifth prompt: no more empty sticky notes
This is the fifth prompt:
Add each item to a separate sticky note.
I wrote you a list with five fruits.
All sticky notes should be in one section.
Do not add anything inside the section apart from the five sticky notes.
In total, five sticky notes.
1. Apple
2. Banana
3. Cherry
4. Orange
5. Strawberry
Do not add anything else.
It worked well. I wanted to see if I could name the section with the prompt.
The sixth prompt: It added the section name
This is the sixth prompt:
Add each item to a separate sticky note.
I wrote you a list with five fruits.
All sticky notes should be in one section. The section name is Fruits.
Do not add anything inside the section apart from the five sticky notes.
In total, five sticky notes.
1. Apple
2. Banana
3. Cherry
4. Orange
5. Strawberry
Do not add anything else.
The results were good now, and all the sticky notes were inside.
Can I create with the prompt 80 sticky notes?
Yes, it is possible, but I do not recommend doing it in one step; it is better to divide it into 2–3 steps because AI is not always accurate, and you must always review the results.
If you need to create many sticky notes, make them in groups so you can validate that the AI did a good job.
Although plugins can do it, why should you use AI?
While plugins exist for importing CSV data, like Spreadsheet to Sticky, I strongly suggest you begin practicing prompt writing.
The reason is straightforward: very shortly, interacting with AI will become more intuitive and direct. Instead of sifting through various plugins to find the one you need, you'll ask the AI to do the task directly.
AI will be capable of creating applications to execute these tasks seamlessly. This means that the real power lies not in finding the right plugin but in effectively communicating with the AI through well-crafted prompts.
This skill will become indispensable for designers. Thus, there's significant value in developing your prompt writing skills sooner rather than later.
More tips
Crafting a promt takes time
In the article, I presented the process of developing a prompt in a straightforward, step-by-step manner to help you grasp my thought process.
However, it's important to note that the development took longer than it would take to read. Patience is key when experimenting with AI.
Sometimes, it is necessary to run the prompt twice
I needed to run the same prompt 2–3 times to get the desired results. So, if you don't get the results, try 2-3 times before you modify the prompt.
I could use 'post-it' in the prompt, but in FigJam, it is called 'sticky note'
In FigJam, the Post-it is called a sticky note; I use the same name because I believe the app's brain calls it that way. I tested it while using Post-it, and it works also, but I prefer to speak the same “language” as FigJam.
The Efficiency of Short AI Prompts
Many say longer prompts are key to achieving the AI's best performance. While this is true for certain tasks, it's not a universal rule.
I've found efficiency in brevity, choosing the shortest prompts that still deliver the outcomes I need.
Although I have a collection of lengthy prompts for complex tasks, I prefer short prompts whenever they are efficient and effective.
Simply put, if you have a Ferrari, it does not mean you need to use it instead of walking one minute to the supermarket.
To summarize
In this post, I showed you how I developed a prompt for the FigJam AI, highlighting my journey in prompt engineering. We reviewed how I changed and tweaked the prompt to achieve the desired output.
In each step, I explained why I changed the prompt in a certain way, a crucial part of crafting prompts.
At the end, I shared some other tips, and the most important of them is that writing prompts takes time, so be patient. Once you succeed, you will think about how to automate many tasks with artificial intelligence.
Remember that you can use the same method of refining prompts when working with a generative AI tool like Midjourney to create AI art, content creation, or other visuals, for example, by specifying the artistic style you want the AI model to generate.
By the way, during the process, I discovered that this prompt will also make the job.
Act like a product designer that creates a design workshop.
I wrote you a list with five fruits.
You must write each of these fruits on a sticky note.
All sticky notes should be in one section.
In total, five sticky notes.
The section name is Fruits.
The Fruits:
1. Apple
2. Banana
3. Cherry
4. Orange
5. Strawberry
Do not add anything else.More resources about FigJam AI
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Thank you for reading the article. I hope this article helped you understand how to use effective prompt engineering techniques for FigJam AI.
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