Gemini Canvas checklist: build and test a small prototype

A Gemini Canvas checklist can be a small interactive prototype rather than a static list of words. After this exercise, you can create three selectable items and check its counter, reset button and refresh behaviour. The result is a testable draft, not a production tool for storing your team's work.

Canvas is a workspace within Gemini for creating documents and apps. A prototype is an early example showing how an idea might behave. AI means artificial intelligence; here, it generates application code from your written requirements. You will practise specifying and checking behaviour rather than writing that code yourself.

Content last updated: 15 October 2026. The studio, checklist and acceptance criteria below are fictional teaching material. No live account build, security audit or measured time saving is reported. The fifteen-minute plan assumes an existing working account with Canvas access. Account registration and access troubleshooting are outside that allowance.

What should this first prototype demonstrate?

Imagine a small photography studio preparing a sample portfolio page. Its three practice items are choose an image, check its caption and confirm the layout. The app will not perform any of those jobs. It will show which boxes a user selected. A checked box is not evidence that a real image or page has been approved.

Use invented labels and no client information. Keep logins, file uploads, email delivery and a shared database out of this first request. Those additions would introduce different decisions before you know whether a three-item counter works. The point is to make a small interaction understandable and inspectable.

The procedure-writing guide addresses the actual work sequence. This prototype addresses how a simple interface responds to selections. Do not confuse documenting a procedure, assigning it to a colleague and building a system that records its completion. They are separate jobs.

Which requirements belong in the first prompt?

Write the expected states before asking for an interface. All boxes begin unchecked and the counter starts at 0/3. Selecting one produces 1/3; selecting all produces 3/3. Removing a selection reduces the count. Reset clears every box. These are your requirements for this exercise, not automatic guarantees about every Canvas app.

We deliberately want temporary selection state. The saved app project and the state a user creates inside it are different things. Google's help says Canvas changes are auto-saved. That does not establish whether a particular app remembers its checked items across visits. We will ask for and test the opposite behaviour here.

Save the requirements somewhere you can read while testing. A prompt is the written instruction sent to the assistant. If the output fails, you need the original brief to identify the mismatch. Changing the requirement after seeing the result makes it harder to tell whether anything was actually fixed.

For general task framing, the freelancer prompt examples offer other short briefs. Do not add every useful idea to this one. A date field, user accounts or a second checklist can wait until the first counter and reset behaviour pass the checks you chose.

How do you open Canvas and request the app?

Open gemini.google.com on your computer and sign in with an account you are allowed to use. In a new chat, find Canvas through the attachment or add menu near the message box. Google's current desktop instructions show Add files, then Canvas. Confirm that you selected the Canvas workspace rather than an ordinary text-only response.

Paste the request below and send it. No real files are needed. If the result is merely three written bullet points, it has not met the brief. Ask for an interactive app with a working preview. A preview is the displayed result in which you can try the generated controls.

Create a small interactive checklist app in Canvas. Title: Portfolio practice. Use three ordinary checkboxes with visible labels: Image chosen; Caption checked; Layout confirmed. Start with all boxes unchecked and a 0/3 counter. Selecting a box increases the count; clearing it reduces the count. Reset clears everything. Show Practice complete only when all three are selected. Display Prototype only. Do not write selections to persistent storage or a database; refreshing should return to the initial state. Add no external service, login form, file upload, AI feature or sharing feature. The checkboxes must also be usable by keyboard. Provide a working preview.

If Canvas is absent, check the account and available options and leave that stage unresolved. Do not assume a new subscription will fix an unexplained missing control. This article makes no promise about your plan, exact interface wording or generation speed. Treat the actual result as something to inspect, not as proof that all prompt restrictions were followed.

Which behaviours should you try before judging the design?

Begin with every box empty. Select the first item: expect 1/3. Clear it: expect 0/3 again. If another item changes at the same time, or the count increases twice, record the mismatch. There is no reason to spend the first review choosing colours while the basic selection behaviour is wrong.

Next select all three. Expect 3/3 and Practice complete. Clear the middle box: expect 2/3 and no completion message. This reverse transition matters. A prototype that reaches a success state but cannot leave it correctly has not passed the brief, even if the initial demonstration looked convincing.

With two boxes selected, press Reset. Expect all boxes empty, the completion message absent and 0/3 displayed. Then select one item and refresh the browser page. Reopen the preview if needed. Under our exercise requirement, selections should start empty again. If they remain, record that the requested temporary-state behaviour failed; do not generalise the observation to all Canvas apps.

Try a short keyboard pass as well. Use Tab to move focus towards the first checkbox and observe where the focus indicator goes. Try Space to toggle it. This is not an accessibility certification or a substitute for wider user testing. If you cannot reach or understand a control, record that concrete problem rather than calling the prototype ready.

Keep five main observations: one selection, removing a selection, selecting all, reset and refresh. Beside each, write the expected result, observed result and pass or fail. Add the keyboard observation separately. Untested is a valid status; it must not be replaced by pass simply because the app looks finished.

These checks evaluate the requested interaction, not the truth of a completed business task. Selecting Image chosen does not inspect an image. Selecting Layout confirmed does not review a real layout. Keeping that boundary visible prevents a demonstration interface from being mistaken for an approval system.

How do you request a focused repair?

Suppose clearing the first box leaves the counter at 1/3. Write: “I selected the first checkbox and cleared it. Expected 0/3, observed 1/3. Fix only the relationship between selection state and the counter. Keep the item labels unchanged.” Repeat the same test after the change instead of judging the explanation of the fix.

Google documents updating Canvas apps through written prompts. Code and console views are also available, but you do not need to change unfamiliar code randomly for this first exercise. If an error appears, copy its exact text and describe the action that preceded it. Do not let a proposed repair add a database or external connection without a separate decision.

In my earlier writing about effectiveness and perfection, I described projects delayed while I pursued every detail. Applying that principle here means checking three items and a counter before polishing colours. This is not a report of a photography-studio implementation or a measured productivity improvement.

What should remain after fifteen minutes?

1. Minutes one to three: read the brief and open Canvas. Expected output: a bounded three-item requirement.
2. Minutes four to seven: generate the app and open its preview. Expected output: selectable controls, not static prose.
3. Minutes eight to twelve: run the five behaviour checks and keyboard pass. Expected output: observations and unresolved failures.
4. Minutes thirteen to fifteen: revisit the chat and save the review note. Expected output: a findable prototype and repeatable tests.

This is a suggested allocation, not a measured time promise. Open Notepad or another text editor. Paste the prompt, the chat's name and your five expected-versus-observed results. Press Ctrl+S, choose Documents and save canvas-portfolio-01.txt. Close and reopen it. Also locate the prototype again through your Gemini conversation list; if that fails, keep the retrieval step open.

Do not create a public sharing link or enter real work records during this exercise. Google's Canvas safety guidance explains that apps can use persistent storage and that public links to multi-user apps can expose their associated data. A production team tool needs a separate review of access, storage, recovery and deletion behaviour.

If you only need a written checklist, the Gemini in Docs guide covers a different route. For assigning real responsibilities, use the delegation guide. The artificial intelligence guide provides broader background. Today's completion criterion remains a prototype with honestly recorded checks, not a new company system.