28 April 2025
Practical Product Designer: The Setup
by Kati Best
Welcome to The Practical Product Designer Series!
In today’s episode, I’m diving into how a non-developer (like me!) can spin up the backend of a project with a little help from AI tools. As a designer at Launch Scout, my strengths lie in design and front-end code. But today, I’m taking on the backend with Cursor to show you how anyone can get started.
Here’s how I get going:
- Elixir is my language of choice. It’s the one I’ve been most comfortable with lately, so it’s my go-to for this project.
- Tailwind CSS is my styling framework – it pairs perfectly with Cursor, and I’ve made sure to get comfortable with it.
- I can spot errors in the terminal, which helps me decide when to push Cursor for a fix or stop a command before I go too far.
By the end of this, I’ve got a working Elixir app with some seed data! 🎉 Next time, I’ll be building out a dashboard using wireframes I’ve designed. Can’t wait for you to follow along! See you in the next episode!
