The Most Important Note in This Course
If you only remember one idea from this whole course, make it this one:
How clearly you describe what you want decides 99% of how good your website turns out.
Not the tools. Not the framework. Not which model you pick. Your description.
This part of the course is all about getting really good at that. It starts with understanding why it matters so much.
Claude Never Leaves a Blank
When you ask Claude for something, it has to decide hundreds of little things: the colors, the fonts, the layout, the wording, how the menu works, what goes at the bottom of the page…
Every one you don’t mention, Claude still has to decide. So it picks a safe default, the most common, middle-of-the-road choice.
Each default on its own is fine. But a site made of nothing but defaults looks like a thousand other sites. Bland. Forgettable. Not you.
Every gap you leave, Claude fills with a default. Enough defaults, and you get a generic website.
Vague vs Rich
Here’s the same wish, said two ways:
| Vague | Rich |
|---|---|
| “Make me a personal website.” | “A personal website to show my illustrations to people who might hire me.” |
| “Make it look nice.” | “Playful and warm, like a sketchbook. Blush pink and deep green. Rounded fonts.” |
| “Add my photos.” | “A gallery of my 12 drawings in the folder, big, with a short caption under each.” |
| “Add a contact thing.” | “A simple ‘say hi’ section at the bottom, with my email and Instagram link.” |
The vague version isn’t wrong. Claude will build something. But the rich version gets you something that feels made for you.
This Is the Real Skill
Developers have a name for working out exactly what you want: gathering requirements (the full, detailed list of what something must be and do). And then there’s conveying them: saying them clearly enough that someone else builds the right thing.
Here’s the twist that makes vibe coding exciting:
- Writing code used to be the hard part. Claude does that now.
- Knowing what you want, and saying it well, is the part that’s left. That’s yours.
The describing is the skill. Get good at it, and Claude becomes an incredible builder. Skip it, and Claude becomes a very fast way to build something generic.
What’s Coming in This Part
The next notes turn this into a method you can follow every time:
- Decide early: why changing your mind costs more the later you do it.
- Give requirements, ask for advice: how to talk to Claude like an expert helper.
- What good requirements cover: a checklist so nothing important gets left to a default.
- Describing the look: how to explain a feeling in words and pictures.
- A little design vocabulary: a few words that get dramatically better results.
- Responsive design: making it work on every screen.
- Plan mode: turning all of it into a step by step plan, before anything gets built.