AI-driven design tools for academic websites: a comparative analysis and a Figma Make workflow

Abstract

The paper compares contemporary AI-driven design software and justifies the selection of Figma Make for a developing a multi-page academic department website built by a single student-designer. A two-tier review covers both classical UI/UX editors (Adobe XD, Sketch, Penpot, the classic Figma editor) and the new generation of AI-driven tools (v0 by Vercel, Lovable, Bolt.new, Pencil, and Figma Make). Eight practical requirements for an academic single-designer project are formulated and applied as comparison criteria. The methodological context of prompt-first design is examined, and a four-stage workflow — prompt, generate, refine, publish — is described and applied to the case of the Media Systems and Technologies Department website at Kharkiv National University of Radio Electronics. The study demonstrates that AI-driven design tools have become part of the standard professional toolkit, and that, among them, Figma Make uniquely combines a designer-friendly interface, a choice of language models, three complementary ways of editing, and built-in publishing.