How should someone who doesn't know what they're doing get started using Claude for a project?

The suggested approach is to work through it with Claude directly: tell it you don't know exactly what you're doing but have a goal, and don't want it to make changes yet. Ask it to plan first, review and adjust the plan as needed, then proceed step by step. In practice, this means pushing back on drafts repeatedly ("like pushing a ball against a wall") until you're happy with a final plan, and only then telling it to implement.