Even before today's AI tools, I've seen teams have real success with a forward-leaning designer driving future vision prototypes with clients. It creates something powerful: genuine co-creation and a shared vision between a key client and the company. The tools are allowing designers to bring this to life even more quickly and tangibly.
David - please correct me if I’m mistaken. But it looks like you had the right idea but then went onto using ChatGPT to get things out. I simply cannot engage in a written piece that has so many platitudes. Having read your writing for so many years this feels very different from your original tone. We need design leaders to write with conviction and gravitas. I’m obviously not saying you can’t use AI. But when everybody’s writing reads like everybody else’s then there’s no personality left. No soul.
+1 the collapse of the discover-design-validate loop. The 80% you can do independently isn't always the right part — it's whatever the team assumed was the problem.
I love this idea. It reminds me of a former human-centered design agency called MAYA where I worked for a bit. They believed in the same team of three (researcher, engineer, designer) deployed / embedded inside the complex systems you needed to build/re-build.
More of an evolution or expansion, I think. In times past I think it was more about the artifact generated and now we have the tools to create outputs.
Even before today's AI tools, I've seen teams have real success with a forward-leaning designer driving future vision prototypes with clients. It creates something powerful: genuine co-creation and a shared vision between a key client and the company. The tools are allowing designers to bring this to life even more quickly and tangibly.
David - please correct me if I’m mistaken. But it looks like you had the right idea but then went onto using ChatGPT to get things out. I simply cannot engage in a written piece that has so many platitudes. Having read your writing for so many years this feels very different from your original tone. We need design leaders to write with conviction and gravitas. I’m obviously not saying you can’t use AI. But when everybody’s writing reads like everybody else’s then there’s no personality left. No soul.
+1 the collapse of the discover-design-validate loop. The 80% you can do independently isn't always the right part — it's whatever the team assumed was the problem.
I love this idea. It reminds me of a former human-centered design agency called MAYA where I worked for a bit. They believed in the same team of three (researcher, engineer, designer) deployed / embedded inside the complex systems you needed to build/re-build.
Oh nice! I'll check out MAYA.
How do you see this as different than co-creation or participatory design? (if you do)
More of an evolution or expansion, I think. In times past I think it was more about the artifact generated and now we have the tools to create outputs.
great read, David 🙌🏼
i really want to do this - great post