Since I began using AI tools to be more efficient, I started developing my own prompts (If you need to know what a prompt is, do not worry — I will explain it below).

The ability to be creative when making a prompt is the most significant aspect of working with ChatGPT. The number of prompts lists on the internet is growing, and many people share the lists with others. While this is great, understanding our needs and developing prompts that meet them is the most important thing.

Let me illustrate it in another way; It’s like giving someone a recipe and asking them to cook it instead of explaining how to cook.

If you give someone a recipe, they can cook it, but if you explain the basics of cooking, they’ll really understand how to cook so the results will be much better.

In this article, I will show you some techniques for developing your creativity when writing prompts. The goal isn’t to give you a bunch of prompts and tell you to test them; it’s to show you how to communicate with ChatGPT so you can be more productive with ChatGPT.

What is a prompt?

A prompt is a short statement or question used to generate results. The results can be images, text, videos, and Figma screens.

For ChatGPT, a prompt is a short text used as a starting point for creating text. The text can be anything from a question to a statement to a request for information. By following the prompt, ChatGPT can generate text relevant to the topic.

Let’s say you want to write a product description for a new app that helps young people manage their salaries. You can provide a prompt to ChatGPT, such as:

“Write a short product description for a new app that helps young people manage their salaries by tracking expenses and providing budgeting tips.”

With this prompt, ChatGPT will generate a product description based on the information provided in the prompt. The more information you provide in the prompt, the more accurate the results. For example, if you write the app’s main features, the results will be more accurate for your app.

And if you want to see what the results of the prompt are, here it is:

Consult information vs executing task prompts

There are two main uses for ChatGPT prompts: consulting information and executing tasks. Using ChatGPT effectively requires understanding the difference between these two types of prompts.

You can write a prompt to consult information. You can ask chatGPT how to change the color of a text in Figma, and it will guide you step by step. Be aware that not all the information the chat provides is 100% accurate.

On the other hand, executing task prompts are used to direct ChatGPT to perform specific actions. For example, it is possible to ask ChatGPT to write an email draft that tells users that the next subscription payment is next week. That way, you can speed up the email writing process.

Using task prompts will save you time and effort by automating certain tasks. Consult information prompts will give you the information you need.

Please note that ChatGPT can only sometimes understand 100% of every prompt and may not always give accurate answers. However, it can still be a valuable tool for product designers to streamline their workflow and save time on different tasks.

The basic idea of how to write great prompts

When we write a text to ChatGPT, we want the results to be the most accurate to our desired results. To explain to ChatGPT what we want it to do for us, we need to write a very clear prompt.

I’ll try to illustrate it. Imagine that you are working with a designer, and you ask them to create a screen in Figma with your vision of a new app. The idea of the app is to explain to people how to cook. You can say to them:

1. Can you create an app that explains to people how to cook?
2. Could you make an app for the iOS platform that explains how to cook? Our main users will be teenagers who want to study cooking.
3. Can you create an app that explains how to cook to people? Our main audience will be teenagers who wish to learn cooking. We will start with an iOS app. The recipes will be written in text, include some videos, and allow users to list the ingredients they need to buy. The UI should be simple.

The third example is the most explicit, so the designer will be able to draw the vision more accurately. This is similar to prompts. The more detailed they are, the more accurate your results will be.

One important thing: ChatGPT cannot provide 100% accurate results even with excellent prompts. You will have to tweak the results manually and make adjustments until you are satisfied with them.

After saying that, let’s see some ideas that will help you to write great prompts and get excellent results.

Types of writing prompts and examples

Let’s look at examples and ideas on how to write the prompts.

ChatGPT can act like a professional

Designers can take advantage of ChatGPT’s ability to act as a professional.

It would be best if you simply thought about what you want AI to do and what role you want it to play. Imagine you are working on an app and need to write an email template that explains to the user that their credit card will expire soon.

In this case, you can ask ChatGPT to act as a UX writer and generate the text. Remember to explain to chatGPT the context and the tone of voice you prefer.

For example, you might write: “As a UX writer, write an email to the user explaining that their credit card will expire soon and they need to enter the app and fill it in their account again. The tone of voice should be friendly and informative.

Creating a table with ChatGPT

One great way to use ChatGPT is by writing prompts for it to create tables for you. For example, you can ask ChatGPT to create a table with all the tokens a button can have in a design system. The table can help you understand the information better.

Example:

I am a UX designer that works on a design system for a desktop app that includes three buttons: primary, secondary, and ghost. Can you write me a table with all the tokens a button can have for my case?

Here is the result:

ChatGPT for Information organization

As a product designer, you may often find yourself with a large amount of information you need to organize in a specific way. For example, organizing many items to create a great information architecture. It is exactly how chatGPT can automatize the task; instead of will making it manually.

Here’s a simple example:

Please sort the following car brands in ABC order: Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen, Ford, Chevrolet, Nissan, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, and Kia.

Shape the tone of voice

You can control the tone of voice when writing ChatGPT prompts. You can tell ChatGPT to write in a specific tone, like informal, humorous, optimistic, etc.

ChatGPT can use its AI-powered algorithms to generate text that reflects the desired tone by providing specific instructions, such as the tone you want your writing to have.

This ability allows you to create a consistent writing style that meets your company’s tone or when you need to write a message for a different purpose. For instance, an error message’s tone differs from an email on a user’s birthday.

For example, If you want your ChatGPT-generated text to be humorous, you can provide instructions like “Please write in a humorous tone,” and the ChatGPT algorithms will adjust the text accordingly.

You can use this list of tones of voice: Friendly, Playful, Professional, Elegant, Bold, Minimal, Nostalgic, Futuristic, Natural, and Emotional.

Train the AI model to act as you want

It is possible to train ChatGPT by writing some examples for it that can generate specific outputs based on your desired results.

When you give the CharGPT a series of desired outputs, you can teach it to recognize patterns of the desired outputs. That way, it’ll be able to generate them when given new prompts.

For example, let’s say you want to write an error message for a 404 error page. You can provide ChatGPT with three examples of error messages in the style you want and then ask it to generate a new error message in the same style. This way, ChatGPT can learn from your examples and create a new message consistent with your desired style and tone.

Example:

Please write an error message based on these three examples for the 404 page on my website. My website is a magazine for ice cream lovers.

Example 1: “Oops! It looks like there’s a problem with the file you uploaded. Don’t worry; just check that the file is in the correct format and try uploading it again.”

Example 2: “Whoops! We couldn’t save your changes. Please make sure you have a stable internet connection and try again.”

Example 3: “Uh oh! It looks like the page you’re trying to access isn’t available right now. Please try again later or contact our support team for assistance.

Divide into two prompts

When dealing with a lot of information, you can break it down into steps.

Instead of asking ChatGPT to write an email based on five examples, tell it; here are five emails representing how I talk. For the next prompt, ask it to generate one based on some parameters you give it.

In this way, ChatGPT can calculate all the information. However, If you give it too much information at a time, it can become overwhelming and not be able to generate a response.

Ask for more than one result

By asking ChatGPT to generate several responses, you can easily compare different options and select the most accurate one. As a general rule, 3–5 results are a good amount.

3–5 results let you quickly and easily identify the most accurate solution that aligns with your desired outcome. Be aware that if you ask for a large number of results (for example, 50), ChatGPT can repeat the results.

Here’s an example of a prompt you could write for ChatGPT in product design:

Please generate 3–5 unique and informative messages explaining to the user how they can contact the customer success department.

Iteration is key when writing prompt

Don’t expect your first prompt to work perfectly. It may take some trial and error to get the results you’re looking for. Keep playing with your prompts until you get the output you desire.

Once you have your desired output, don’t simply copy and paste it. You’ll need to adjust the output to fit your specific needs. This could involve adding or removing information, changing the formatting, or finding the right words to suit your purpose.

Think of ChatGPT as a tool to generate ideas and inspiration rather than as a direct solution to your problem.

Save your successful prompts

Once you’ve found a prompt that works well for you, save it! This way, you can use it again in the future, saving you time and effort.

To make managing my prompts even easier, I created an app in Glide to keep track of all of my prompts in one place for quick access.

To summary

Writing effective prompts is crucial for those who want to be more productive and efficient while working with AI tools. This can be achieved by learning the fundamentals of good writing and experimenting with different prompts styles to understand better how AI tools interpret them.

As one of my first points, I explained what a prompt is and showed you that there are two types of prompts: information consultation and task execution. Understanding which type of prompt you are being asked is essential to provide the necessary information or executing the task effectively.

We reviewed how to write prompts, and I explained why it is vital to include important details in the prompt to get accurate results. I showed you some tips to work better with ChatGPT, like shaping the tone of voice of a message and creating a table.

And remember that even with excellent prompts, ChatGPT may not provide 100% accurate results, and one may have to make adjustments manually. Crafting the perfect prompt is similar to creating the perfect recipe. You have to include all the right ingredients in the right amounts and bake them together to get the desired results. Even when done correctly, some tweaking or adjustments may be needed after the fact to get the perfect final product.

? Learn AI for product design: enroll in my upcoming course

In this context, I would like to mention that I plan to launch a workshop in the near future showcasing different uses for AI writing and image generator tools.

If you’re interested, please enter here.

Thank you for reading the article. I hope the article helped you understand how to create prompts for ChatGPT. Please feel free to share it with your friends or team members, and if you have any questions, please let me know.

If you enjoyed my article, I suggest you follow me and subscribe so you’ll receive an email whenever I post.

Want to get the most out of Medium? Click here to become a member. As a member, you’ll support me and lots of other writers.