Lesson 178 · 3 min
Describing an app so AI can build it
AI builds what you describe, so the clearer your description of users, screens and rules, the closer the first version is to what you need.
"Make me a booking app" leaves the AI to guess hundreds of things. Who books, what they book, on which device, what happens when a slot is taken? It will fill the gaps with average choices, and they may not be yours.
Start with the person and the job. "A guest of my homestay in Da Lat wants to see free dates and request a room from their phone." Then list the screens, what each one shows, and the main buttons.
Add the rules and edge cases: no booking in the past, maximum six guests, show prices in VND, what to say when nothing is free. Say what is out of scope for now, like online payment, so the AI does not add it.
Build the smallest version first and test it. Then add one feature at a time. Small steps make it easy to see which change broke something.
Do it now
Write a one-page app brief
- 1. Pick a small app idea from your own life or work.
- 2. Fill in the template in the prompt below.
- 3. Ask the AI to list its questions before it builds anything.
I want to build: [ONE-LINE IDEA]. User: [WHO] wants to [JOB] on [DEVICE]. Screens: [LIST]. Rules: [LIST]. Not included yet: [LIST]. Before building, ask me any questions you need answered. Then build the smallest working version.
Quick check
Keep going
Next →Fixing bugs with AIWords from this lesson
- Vibe coding
- Building software by describing what you want to an AI and accepting its code, often without reading it closely.
- Prompt
- The instruction or question you give an AI. Clearer prompts with context usually get much better answers.
- Prompt engineering
- The practice of wording, structuring and testing prompts to get reliable, useful results from AI.