Guide
Change a website you already have
How to ask for a change without breaking the parts that work.
Difficulty: beginner
1. Say what stays before you say what changes
An agent that does not know what is precious will happily rewrite it. Naming the untouchable parts first is the cheapest insurance there is.
Keep the logo, the colours, and all the words on the About page exactly as they are.
2. Point at one thing
Name the page and the section. "The site feels dated" gives the agent permission to change everything, which is rarely what you meant.
On the home page, the section under the hero with the three grey boxes.
3. Describe the problem, not the fix
You know what is wrong better than you know what would fix it. Give the agent the problem and it can solve it in ways you would not have thought of.
Nobody scrolls past it. It is three paragraphs of text and none of it says what we actually sell.
4. Say how you will know it worked
A test turns a matter of taste into something you can both check.
Someone should be able to tell what we sell within five seconds of landing, without scrolling.
The failure mode here is different from building something new. With a new site a vague prompt gives you something generic. With an existing site a vague prompt gives you something broken, because the agent had to guess which parts it was allowed to touch.
Say what stays. Then say what moves.