Prompt Writing Guide

The single biggest factor in the quality of an AI-generated design is the prompt you started with. Two people typing into the same Versizo mode with the same style selected will get very different results, and the difference is almost always the wording. This guide breaks down how a strong prompt is built, what to include, and the small habits that consistently lift the quality of every generation.

The shortcut: specific beats vague, every time. "Nice modern kitchen" gives the AI nothing to anchor on. "Modern kitchen with white stone benchtops, sage green cabinets, brass handles, herringbone tile splashback" gives it a picture to render. The rest of this page is about how to be specific without overloading the prompt.

Anatomy of a Good Prompt

A reliable prompt usually contains six ingredients. You don't have to hit all six every time, but the more you cover, the more predictable the output.

• Room type. Lead with what the room is. "Kitchen", "primary ensuite bathroom", "open-plan living and dining". This sets the AI's frame before anything else.
• Style direction. Either the style you've selected from the picker, or a one-line description if you're going off-piste. "Coastal", "Japandi", "warm minimalist".
• Materials and finishes. The single highest-leverage detail. Stone, timber, tile, paint colour, tapware finish: these are what make a generic room feel like a real one.
• Lighting. Time of day, direction, and source. "Morning light from a north-facing window", "warm pendant lights at dusk", "bright overcast daylight".
• Furniture and objects. A few signature pieces ("low timber bed, linen curtains, single ceramic lamp") shape the composition without cluttering the result.
• Atmosphere. One or two mood words to tie it all together. "Calm and considered", "warm and lived-in", "breezy and bright".

What this prompt does well: it names the room, sets the style, lists four specific materials with colours and finishes, calls out one statement feature (the splashback), names two pieces of joinery, and ends with a clear lighting cue. That's the whole template.

Compare that with what not to write:

• "Nice modern kitchen". No materials, no colours, no lighting. The AI will guess, and the guess will be generic.
• "Modern kitchen with everything new and beautiful luxury finishes". Many words, no specifics. Adjectives like beautiful and luxury don't describe surfaces; the AI can't render them.
• "Kitchen with marble, granite, timber, concrete, brass, copper, and black steel benchtops". Too many conflicting materials. Pick two or three and commit.

Common Mistakes

These are the four mistakes that come up most often when reviewing prompts that didn't produce what the writer expected.

• Too vague. Single adjectives doing all the work. "Beautiful living room" is not a prompt. It's a hope. Trade adjectives for materials, colours, and named pieces.
• Contradicting the selected style. You've chosen Coastal but written "dark moody walls with industrial steel beams". The AI tries to honour both and produces something muddy. Let the style and the prompt agree.
• Ignoring lighting. Lighting is half the mood of a room. A prompt with no lighting cue often comes back lit flat and lifeless. Add at least one light reference per prompt.
• Listing too many objects. Twenty items in a single sentence reads as clutter in the final image. Five well-chosen items usually beat fifteen vague ones.

Fixing any one of these usually lifts the output noticeably. Fixing all four is the difference between a draft and a keeper.

A Repeatable Structure

If you'd like a template to start from, this sentence shape works for almost any room:

[Style direction] [room type] with [2-3 materials with colours], [1-2 feature pieces], [lighting cue], [optional atmosphere word].

Plug your own details in. Generate. Adjust one element at a time. The fastest way to learn what the AI responds to is small, controlled iterations on a prompt that's already close.