v0's Amazing New Design Mode... Is Not Enough

V0 has now a design mode. Command AI In design mode, you can comment on something and basically stack a list of comments to your agent, so the agent can take care of it. As you see here, you start interacting with it and you just change color, sizing, whatever directly on the canvas. That's really cool about it. Uh it's not just there. I will show you in a second. You have a whole panel similar in a way to no-code tools like Webflow and Framer, where you can, as you see also here, you you see the layers, you can you can change stuff. I I also really really like this. So, this is a real really clean implementation of a design mode inside of an agentic tool. Mhm. But one thing is missing, and this is what we covered in the Framer video. That is a canvas, a free-form canvas where you can explore ideas, put them next to one another, compare them. That is missing for me, but the rest of it is really really nice. This is a bit ugly. Uh like we have Figma, you know, the the the style panel. We have the Webflow style panel, which is my favorite. We have Framer, which is also really clean. And they are so user-friendly, but I feel like this is just a you know, a a bit too cluttered or like not very easy to read. I mean, you can focus on on it if you want to, but it's yeah. I It just I find it odd in the world where we have uh Webflow perfecting that uh style panel, we still see new tools not really having having that level. I mean, with Webflow, you know, with the padding and the margin controls and also with the even with the border things, it's it's just things are just so so clear. Anyway, this is an interesting update. I did use V0 for some time. I had it with the Lenny's newsletter, but now I'm I'm not a paying customer. But this looks really nice. You ask your agent something [clears throat] and you go to design mode as you see here. And you just click stuff and and and change them. As we said before, this is the future. Like the no-code tools are adding agentic first UX and the agentic first tools are adding a design mode. So, both are becoming essentially the same thing. I just to comment on your, you know, we've got Webflow and this and that. And while whilst I agree with you, I think you're coming at it from like like a design first perspective, whereas like the dev first perspective is like, you know, we were happy with WordPress for ages. Just bunch of fields that we just type in what we want. Like with like with there's devs who are more technically minded that just can't think outside of that. Like if I want I want this to be that, then it's like you numbers will be perfectly fine rather than a UI. Um so, hopefully they'll get there. Hopefully they'll look at other no-code tools as inspiration and start improving it. But for sure, like I think that it's not as important for some people, you know, we which we're really entering a world where it's like one size could fit all, but it's just never going to satisfy anyone. And similarly, you know, the canvas thing. I wouldn't want that in V0. I don't want canvas in V0. Do you know what I mean? And also my question to you is like, why wouldn't you why wouldn't you just keep Figma for that? Like why why couldn't you be would you be happy with a Figma import? I'm I'm using Figma right now exactly for that and I'm super unhappy because I don't see a point in doing design and development in in a separated um fashion. They are the same thing. Like like if I'm creating this design in Figma, this is Claude code literally thinking in HTML and in code and implementing that in like translating that to Figma and then I translate that back to HTML. Like there is no point at that anymore. What I want is a canvas What I want is like essentially Framer. A canvas where you can explore, you can duplicate, you can play around with things also manually, not fully agentic, but also manually. Once you're happy with it it's already code. That's my point. It you don't do a translation again. It's already in code. You shouldn't worry what's happening under the hood, right? Translation It could translate back and forth back and forth a billion times. Like it shouldn't worry you that that's that's what's happening. But it's scattered. It's not in a seamless flow. I would argue and say actually I quite like the separation. Like if I was using V0, like I don't want this design mode interface. I wouldn't I wouldn't ever use that. I wouldn't care to I guess it would be nice, but like this is where you start to get like really cluttered applications. And but Framer is a great example of like that it's really good what you can do. You can have you have got that design mode, and you have got the the implementation, but it is a fairly basic tool for all intents and purposes. It sacrifices in its how far it can actually go for that, you know, universal sort of thing. But, I'm not going to I'm not going to say you're you're right or wrong. I'm just saying like it's just it's an example of like how this what you're never going to get this one-size-fits-all thing. So, it's you're going to have to just gravitate towards the tool that solves your your needs, cuz your needs are going to upset a bunch of other people. Yeah, but you can have it as an option. That's my point. My point is, just like as you said like with Framer, the the canvas is a separate thing. What I'm imagining is exactly that. You have You can have your own workflow. You can just work from the terminal and create the thing on, you know, whatever platform that is. Another person can use the platform directly with AI, and another person can do it on the canvas and manually. So, it's not one uh you know, just one linear way of doing it. Um it's just you have these options, and Framer has done a great job at making it still look like it's a very minimal UI. Well, a jack of all trades, master of none comes to mind in that, you know, if you try and do everything, they're not all going to be great, you know? And I do want those very dedicated tools, and I want them to be great. So, that's that's all I'd challenge that with. I don't know. I feel like if any of them add a canvas and a CMS, it's kind of like very close. V0 design mode, like every other tool, uh this is really cool. This is part of a larger conversation on my show, Command AI, which we stream live every single week. We discuss the news and all things related to AI in the world of design and web. Catch us next week and join in the banter. Command AI