Does the Double Diamond make sense for AI-enabled teams?


Does the Double Diamond make sense for AI-enabled teams?

by Jeff Humble


Dear Reader,

For twenty years, the Double Diamond has been our north star. Discover, Define, Develop, Deliver.

It's elegant. It's teachable. It's in every junior's UX case study.

And it made sense…when it was created.

All that upfront research made economic sense when coding was the most expensive part of the process. Better to get it right before handoff because it's expensive for engineering to make changes later.

But that was before AI.

Before AI, making things was expensive. Every prototype required designers, developers, and hours of work.

So we front-loaded everything but the making.

We did interviews, we formed insights, we made problem statements, we got stakeholder input, and we checked feasibility with dev.

Now, AI tools enable the making to be 10x cheaper and faster.

If you can make three coded prototypes in 3 hours, rather than 3 days, do we still use the same process to design?

I did a little cost comparison that challenges everything we thought we knew about the Double Diamond.


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Until next week! ✌️

Jeff Humble
UX Strategist & Co-Founder
The Fountain Institute

The Fountain Institute

The Fountain Institute is an independent online school that teaches advanced UX & product skills.

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