AI design tools are everywhere right now. But here's the question every designer is asking: Do they actually solve real UI problems - or just generate pretty mockups? To find out, I ran a simple experiment with one rule: no cherry-picking, no reruns - just raw, first-attempt results. I fed 10 common UI design prompts - from accessibility and error handling to minimalist layouts - into 5 different AI tools. The goal? To see which AI came closest to solving real design challenges, unfiltered.
I actually started out thinking I wanted to be a graphic designer. I was really into anime as a kid, and when I got my hands on a (very outdated and pirated) copy of Photoshop 6 at around age 11, I was hooked. In high school, I also taught myself how to code, which opened the door to doing small freelance jobs here and there while I was still in school.
The thing is, the company I was working for had a dedicated photo team that provided beautiful, high-quality images with numerous contextual and action shots, perfect for web pages. So when what came to my desk was a classic full-page hero of an image with a gradient, I wasn't exactly surprised. But it did frustrate me that we couldn't come up with something more bold.
