Infotainment Music Player — Exploring How AI Expands Design

Goal
I wanted to explore how AI is changing the role of designers — moving from describing an experience to actually building it. My goal was to see what it feels like to create a working prototype that behaves like a real product using Figma Make.

What I created
I built a music player that simulates a turntable with a spinning record and a tonearm that moves as the music plays. The player can stream demo tracks and play user-uploaded MP3s, combining realistic motion with functional playback. The embedded music player above works. Try it out!.

What I learned
As I started adding functionality, I began seeing the design differently. Building a working prototype revealed use cases I wouldn’t have noticed with static visuals alone. For example, when testing playback, I realized the “skip previous” button didn’t behave correctly. I wanted it to restart the current song if more than five seconds had played and go to the previous track if less than five seconds had passed. Seeing the prototype in action exposed those small but important details that impact real use.

A traditional software process would have taken much longer to reach this point. It would involve me generating use case flows, mapping multiple screen states, visual designers interpreting my intent, developers translating that into code, and multiple rounds of feedback and QA before getting something close to the intended experience. With near-production prototypes built through AI, all of that gets streamlined. As the designer, I could see behaviors in real time and make immediate adjustments, eliminating layers of interpretation and delay.

Why it matters
This project showed me that AI tools are expanding the scope of UX work. Designers can now move beyond mockups to create prototypes that function and react, letting us identify gaps, validate decisions earlier, and design based on actual behavior instead of assumptions.

Looking ahead
I see the future of design as a blended role — part product manager, part UX designer, part UX researcher, part front-end developer, and part QA. AI tools make that possible by giving designers the ability to shape, test, and refine ideas directly rather than stopping at the concept stage.