Understanding the Double Diamond design process

The process of developing a new product or streamlining user design (UX) is often complex, leading designers and developers down a winding path to success. However, limited budgets and tight deadlines demand the process be completed efficiently and cost-effectively. You need a process to identify and solve problems strategically to avoid wasting time and money, which is especially important if you want the design and development to align with business goals.

For many, the Double Diamond design process is the solution. The process provides a framework for clearly identifying a problem and delivering a relevant solution.

Determining whether the Double Diamond approach is the right framework for your development team requires you to take a closer look at the structure of the process and how it works.

The Design Council developed the Double Diamond design process in 2005 as a new approach to the creative process that involved breaking it down into sections.

The process can be visualized by two diamonds. The first, the “problem diamond,” represents the first two stages of the process: discover and define. The second diamond, “the solution diamond,” represents the third and fourth stages: development and delivery.

The Double Diamond process is built on the concepts of divergent thinking and convergent thinking.

The first diamond encourages divergent thinking—a creative process that generates multiple unique ideas or solutions. It involves exploring different perspectives, promoting open-ended exploration, and encouraging innovation.

The purpose of the steps in the second diamond is to encourage convergent thinking, which centers on focused action. It’s a logical process that narrows down ideas or solutions to find the best option, emphasizing analysis, problem-solving, and decision-making.

Let’s look at each of these four steps in more detail.

Discover phase

The first phase of the “problem” diamond is used to define the problem’s scope. This stage will be used to identify the project’s needs and challenges and users’ wants and behaviors.

The discovery phase of the project requires substantial research, which can include focus groups, interviews, and customer feedback. Once the information has been collected, cross-functional teams share perspectives and generate ideas. Research findings will be documented to guide the project.

Define phase

After the project data is collected, the define phase enables the team to condense it into clear and actionable information. Through data analysis, researchers will identify bottlenecks, technical considerations, and the potential for resource waste along with hidden opportunities to develop a premier product. They will use this information to prioritize tasks based on feasibility and strategic objectives.

This phase will ultimately establish what success means for the project.

Develop phase

By the first phase of the “solution” diamond, the team will have completed ample research and clearly defined the problem.

They will use the development phase to seek the best possible solutions based on the problems you have identified. This is peak collaboration time—teams brainstorm solutions and develop sketches, wireframes, and low-fi prototypes of the most viable solutions.

During this phase, it’s common for teams to develop customer personas and journey maps. Usability testing and user feedback sessions are most likely to be incorporated near the end of the development phase to prepare for delivery.

Deliver phase

The delivery phase is for implementing the best idea(s) into prototypes and usable products. It ensures that everything looks and functions how it is supposed to and provides assurance that the solution is built correctly before rollout.

This phase involves hands-on work, including iteration, testing, and validation. Designers may conduct usability testing and pilot programs to gather final data and complete final tests to ensure the solution complies with legal and regulatory standards.

Final design specifications are shared with stakeholders before final adaptations are made.

[“Double Diamond design process” by the Design Council, © 2024. Used under fair use for educational purposes. Original available at https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/our-resources/framework-for-innovation/.]

The Double Diamond framework is designed to create user-centered solutions for both digital and physical products. Dividing the process into a problem and solution framework ensures development teams focus on finding and delivering the most relevant solutions.

Service design

Service design is the process of creating or improving services to make them more user-centered, efficient, and enjoyable.

The Double Diamond process can be used in service design to create a collaborative environment where product designers and service designers use the same framework to streamline and improve development processes.

UX design

The Double Diamond process is highly relevant in UX design because it systematically guides designers through understanding user needs, defining core problems, exploring solutions, and delivering effective, user-centered designs.

It enables designers to apply creativity and focus, creating optimal UX design solutions. The design sprints frequently used in UX design feature many characteristics of the Double Diamond framework.

The Double Diamond framework offers key benefits for designers and teams.

Enhanced problem solving

With distinct phases for gathering information and developing solutions, the Double Diamond approach yields products that are most likely to meet user needs. That’s because it encourages teams to gather measurable data defining potential user pain points and gain a deep understanding of the problem before they begin the next phase. Designers are then able to develop multiple iterations of a product and deliver the best solution—one that truly meets users’ needs.

Improved collaboration

The Double Diamond framework is designed to bring various teams and stakeholders together to identify and solve problems by contributing different perspectives. It provides a shared language that gives everyone a chance to offer ideas and collaborate on effective solutions. This reduces communication bottlenecks, which slow effective decision-making.

Flexibility and iteration

Flexibility and iteration allow teams to continuously refine their understanding and solutions at each stage. The process’s flexible approach allows for revisiting and rethinking ideas, ensuring designs are responsive to new insights or feedback.

Iteration, especially in the develop and deliver phases, enables rapid prototyping and testing, improving final outcomes by addressing real user needs and issues early on. This adaptability results in a more dynamic, user-centered approach to problem-solving and delivering better results by reducing the risk of investing resources in ineffective solutions.

Despite its benefits, the Double Diamond process does present some issues.

Potential for overcomplication

The Double Diamond framework is divided into just four phases, but each has the potential to include seemingly limitless tasks.

The process must be flexible enough to fit into various design workflows. However, if designers overload the phases, the process can become too complex to be carried out efficiently.

Risk of over-iteration

The iterative nature of the Double Diamond can lead to excessive refinement, potentially delaying decisions and project completion. Teams will find it useful to set clear boundaries or timelines to prevent this from becoming an issue.

Time-consuming processes

The framework is comprehensive. It encourages thorough research, iteration, and refinement, which can quickly overburden teams as they need to dedicate ample time to each phase. This can make it challenging for them to meet tight deadlines.

A key reason for the Double Diamond design process’s popularity is its natural integration with the design thinking principles of divergence and convergence. We’ve already touched on these concepts, but let’s explore them in more detail.

Divergent thinking is non-linear and free-flowing to encourage creative thinking. It’s the process of exploring multiple angles and perspectives to gather the highest number of viable solutions for any problem. Convergent thinking uses a linear approach to assessing each idea for validity. It allows teams to focus on quality rather than quantity to find the “right” answer.

While divergence and convergence seem like opposing principles, both are necessary in the design process. The framework prioritizes divergent thinking in the first diamond and convergent thinking in the second diamond. The approach of using divergence for researching the problem and convergence for identifying the solution enables team members to get the most from both thinking principles.

The Double Diamond method is designed to be flexible—you can use it on various projects across multiple industries. However, this flexibility provides a wealth of freedom that ends up throwing some teams off track.

The following tips can help you make the most of the Double Diamond design process and achieve optimal results:

• Encourage collaboration by inviting multiple teams and stakeholders to participate in the process from the start.

• Brainstorm problems during the discovery phase without considering solutions.

• Use continuous discovery tactics to support divergent thinking.

• Move past the discovery phase when you’re repeating the same ideas or going in circles.

• Group research findings into themes to recognize different insights and opportunities during the define phase.

• Use strong, measurable data to narrow down ideas.

• Gather feedback to validate your ideas during the development phase.

• Don’t be afraid to go back to phases you thought were complete to take steps to produce a better solution.

The Double Diamond framework is designed to work with design thinking principles and established processes so that it aligns with development and design workflows. Using other design frameworks while following the Double Diamond model can add depth to your research and help you streamline results.

• Lean UX: a collaborative approach to design, the lean UX design method seeks to solve problems and minimize development through low-fidelity prototyping. Lean UX prioritizes collaboration, iterative design, and rapid experimentation, so it complements the discover and define phases of the Double Diamond model.

• Agile design: agile development uses a team-oriented approach to produce working products in quick iterations. The process demands frequent customer feedback and iterations. As a result, it aligns with both diamonds in the Double Diamond method. It can be used to prevent design teams from overcomplicating the model.

• Design sprint: design sprints are short, intense planning sessions that support efficient design. They can be used to define a timeline for each phase of the Double Diamond process and reduce internal disputes during collaboration.

Rapid changes in design practices and the advancement of digital products can leave forward-thinking design teams wondering if practices like the Double Diamond method are still relevant.

While the framework’s versatility makes it applicable to digital design, the method may be altered in the future. Currently, design and development teams adjust the process as necessary and use it alongside complementary frameworks to produce the highest levels of success.

Future alterations of the framework are most likely to consider the requirements of modern digital tools and the need for continuous improvement. Integrating these requirements into the Double Diamond method would likely require additional feedback to measure success. While the diamonds are considered scalable, a third diamond may be needed to complete the process by measuring success.

As AI and machine learning become part of practically every facet of the digital world, it’s possible that a newer Double Diamond process will demand the integration of such processes into the existing phases. Machine learning and automatic content generation bring about rapid ways to develop multiple ideas and consistently ask questions throughout the design process for potential product improvements. However, this could just be a complementary factor similar to aligning other frameworks alongside the Double Diamond process.

Nobody knows whether the Double Diamond framework will stand the test of time or go through a series of drastic changes to make it relevant in modern design. However, the framework’s current state makes it versatile enough to be highly effective for multiple modern use cases.

The four stages are:

1. Discover

2. Define

3. Develop

4. Deliver

Since the Double Diamond design process is designed to be flexible enough for a range of projects, it doesn’t operate in a specific timeline. The complexity of your project and the depth of your research will define your time requirements when using the Double Diamond design process.