Design guidance

Pick from three design previews before RShift Sites builds, and steer typography, color, and layout when you want a specific look.

Design guidance helps you shape the visual direction of your project before RShift Sites starts building. Depending on your prompt, RShift Sites either:

shows three lightweight design directions,
asks a short set of design questions, or
builds directly when the visual direction is already clear.

Design directions help you compare different visual approaches before committing to one. Design questions help you steer typography, color, and layout when you already have preferences.

Both are designed to help you land closer to your intent on the first build, with fewer revision cycles.

Key benefits

See before you build. Compare three rendered previews side by side before committing to a direction.
Steer the visual identity. Choose typography, color palettes, and layouts when you want a specific look.
Refine without restarting. Iterate on a direction while keeping its overall design language consistent.
Explore variations later. Generate alternatives for specific sections of an existing project, such as a hero, navbar, pricing card, or footer.
Faster iteration. Start with a stronger visual foundation and reduce back-and-forth revisions.

Design directions

Design directions generate three different visual approaches for your project before RShift Sites starts the full build.

Each direction is rendered as a lightweight HTML and Tailwind preview so you can compare layouts, typography, color, spacing, and overall visual tone side by side.

When design directions appear

On a first message that asks for anything with a UI, RShift Sites shows three design directions by default. It builds directly only when your prompt already commits to a concrete visual direction. To commit to one from the start, use the style vocabulary and ready-made design prompts in the prompt library. RShift Sites shows directions when you:

Ask for design options, directions, alternatives, concepts, or variations.
Ask for something beautiful, polished, well-designed, high-end, visually impressive, or with strong visual quality.
Ask to explore or draft designs, or see different concepts.
Describe an open-ended UI without specifying colors, fonts, or a brand reference.
List the features, pages, or framework you want without describing how they should look.
Ask RShift Sites to redesign, modernize, or improve the look of an existing site or a URL you share, even when you keep its current theme or branding.

Example prompts that trigger three directions:

Build me a beautiful landing page for a coffee subscription
Design a polished portfolio site with a high-end feel
Create a visually impressive marketing page for a new product
Show me some design options for a portfolio site
Give me a few directions for a travel blog
Landing page for a trendy tech company
Explore some concepts for a pricing page
Make me an online bookstore for a small independent press, with a home page, browse-by-category, book detail page, and a checkout flow
Build a SaaS dashboard for managing customer support tickets, with a list view, ticket detail page, and an inbox
An app that shows the grades of student courses per term in a table
Analyze https://example.com and redesign it, improving the navigation and modernizing the look while keeping the current brand colors

How to use design directions

Describe your project

Open RShift Sites and write a prompt for what you want to build. Keep the prompt high-level if you want a wider range of visual ideas.

Compare the three directions

RShift Sites generates three design directions in parallel. You can:

compare them side by side,
open one full-screen,
and switch between directions using thumbnails.

Refine a direction

Each direction includes a Describe changes input and three suggestions with prompts for common next iterations. Click a suggestion to paste its prompt into the input field, then press the up-arrow to refine.

You can also type your own refinement prompt, for example:

    Make it warmer
    Improve readability
    Use more whitespace
    Make it feel more premium

RShift Sites preserves the overall design language while applying your requested changes.

You can refine up to six times total before submitting. Refinements can be on any of the three directions, in any order, and each one shows up as a new card.

Submit the direction

When you choose a direction, click Submit. RShift Sites locks in that visual direction and starts the full build.

Design directions for existing projects

Design directions also work on existing projects. Ask RShift Sites for variations of a specific section or component, such as:

Show me three options for the hero section
Three navbar variations
Give me three pricing card designs
Redesign the pricing page with three different concepts
Three options for the footer with a darker theme

You can also upload a screenshot of an existing section and ask RShift Sites to generate redesigns based on it.

Design questions

Design questions help you define a visual identity before RShift Sites builds your project. RShift Sites walks you through a short set of guided choices for:

Typography
Pick from font pairs (heading + body) grouped by feel: modern tech, editorial, creative, lifestyle, technical, and others.
Color palette
Pick from curated swatches grouped by mood: warm and earthy, cool and calm, bold and vibrant, soft pastels, professional, and more.
Layout
Pick from wireframe options: hero grid, single column, split screen, sidebar, masonry, bento grid, magazine, full-width sections, zigzag, card grid, asymmetric, broken grid, feed, gallery, and others.

After you submit, RShift Sites turns your choices into a detailed design brief with named fonts, hex colors, layout approach, and uses it as the spec for the build.

When design questions appear

RShift Sites shows design questions when the project benefits from a stronger visual identity, or your prompt leaves important visual decisions open-ended.

This commonly includes:

landing pages,
portfolios,
blogs,
marketing sites,
and other visually expressive surfaces.

You can also trigger design questions directly with prompts like:

Build me a portfolio site with a serif typeface
Landing page with a muted color palette
Marketing site with a split-screen layout

When RShift Sites skips design guidance

RShift Sites builds directly when the visual direction is already clear or unnecessary.

This includes prompts that:

specify fonts, colors, or branding,
reference another product or style directly,
include a URL to clone or copy exactly,
or use a named design system.

RShift Sites also skips design guidance for:

games, which need game-specific art and assets rather than UI design directions,
functional requests with little or no UI design work, such as authentication, database schema, RLS policies, and edge functions,
requests that need a library or runtime behavior the previews cannot show, such as 3D scenes, maps, rich drag-and-drop, or realtime updates,
projects created from a design template or connected to a design system, as the design is already set.

To skip design guidance intentionally, include a detailed visual brief directly in your prompt. Listing the features you want, or naming the framework to build with, does not replace a visual brief.

Limitations

Previews are placeholders. Generated previews use generic copy and image placeholders. The full build replaces them with content tailored to your app.
Generation adds time. The three-direction step takes a few seconds before the full build starts.
Refinements are capped. You can refine up to six times total before submitting. The dialog disables further refinements when the limit is reached.
Curated assets. The design questions flow draws from a curated set of font pairs, palettes, and layouts. To use custom tokens, components, or guidelines, see Design systems.
No off switch. To skip the design step, write a specific design brief into your prompt and RShift Sites will build directly.

FAQ

Can I get three directions for an existing project?

Yes. Ask for variations of a specific part. For example:

    Show me three options for the hero section
    Show me three navbar variations

RShift Sites generates alternatives you can pick from. You can also attach a screenshot of a section and ask for redesigns based on it.

What if I don’t like any of the three directions?

Ask RShift Sites to generate new ones, or refine and describe what you want changed in the Describe changes input on the closest direction.

Can I combine elements from different directions?

Yes. Pick the closest direction, then refine. For example:

    Use this layout but the warmer palette from the second option

RShift Sites keeps the overall visual language consistent while applying your requested changes.

How many times can I refine a direction?

Up to six refinements per round. Refinements can be on any of the three directions. After that, submit a direction to continue with the build, or generate a fresh set of three directions.

Can I bring my own typeface or palette?

Not through the design questions flow, as it draws from a curated list. You can choose Describe your own on any question to write a preference in your own words. To use custom tokens, components, or guidelines across projects, see Design systems.

Does this work for dashboards or internal tools?

RShift Sites focuses the design step on surfaces where the visual direction matters most, such as landing pages, marketing sites, blogs, and portfolios. Dashboards, admin panels, internal tools, and games skip the step and use RShift Sites’ standard build flow.

What happens if I’m using a design system or template?

RShift Sites skips design guidance automatically and builds using the existing tokens, components, and visual rules from the template or design system.

Does this cost extra credits?

No. Design guidance is treated as standard build usage and does not add credit costs beyond the messages you send.