002: AI and the Double Diamond Model with Casey Hudetz

The British Design Council codified the Double Diamond model in 2005. If you’re not familiar with the Double Diamond Model, it’s a visual model that interprets the design process represented by 2 diamonds. First one is all about Discovery and Research. Second one is all about design and testing.

There are many articles written about it and many takes. We’ll break down the details and unpack it here. Chances are even if you’ve never heard of it and you’re a designer, this is your approach already. Google it and you can see the many visualizations.

Back to that British Design Council; their intention was to research how designers, well design. And they took a look at all kinds of designers with different backgrounds and mediums and this is what they came up with. But the fact of the matter is, designers have been approaching problem solving and creativity this way for arguably hundreds of years; and in some ways humanity as a whole, going all the way back to those iterations of hand tools thousands of years ago, that have been discovered. We create. We progress. Test. Iterate. The fact is, we all live this model.

But recently, I’ve been feeling an industry shift. You could say it started with the recent pandemic forcing changes in the way we live and work, but I think it was shifting way before that. I’ve created A76 to discuss this shift and speculate on the future of design. And talk about complicated topics that need to be unpacked.

Why did I feel compelled to create A76? To be fair, I prefer doing over talking. I love designing, managing design teams and solving problems with my clients. But this has all brought me forward and my criteria for this podcast; take a thorny subject that has threads to this shift, find a co-host that’s brave enough to get into it with me and have discussions with experts that will help unravel, clarify and find a road forward.

And this first season is all about a technology that feels like its playing by different rules and very much in the design zeitgeist right now, and that’s AI. And for this season, we’ll bounce the double diamond model up against AI and explore its continued relevance in this changing era.

And with me to co-host the first season of AI, is Casey Hudetz. Casey has been interested in how AI can enhance and impact the field of design for the better half of a decade. He has given talks around the world on the topic, created a docuseries and is currently a product design manager at DocuSign where he oversees a team of designers focused on the company's AI efforts.