I agree with a lot of what you're sharing in your article. From my experience in companies that have had limited focus on the problem or the user, building products with a design thinking framework like the Double Diamond provides some level of guiding principles to kickstart solving in the right direction. So they need the predictability because otherwise there's difficulty in getting a buy-in from Executives.
For companies that have the experience, of course, changing and adapting the processes can further enhance the results - "emergent" as you call it. I have seen the Double Diamond serve a good role in introducing Design Thinking into a company to then step back and allow for the methodology to blossom in new and more appropriate for the company ways. But you can't master something that you haven't practiced in the first place.
The question is not whether to use the Double Diamond, but when to transform how you use it.
Hey Sevil, its a good point, the double diamond does have valid use cases, a couple great ones that you mentioned. Often the good uses cases to use the double diamond aren't when it comes to actually designing. The DD can communicate and visualize fundamental design principles and thats valuable. Like you you said thought, the risk is what happens after. Often what happens is that they accept the DD as THE process to designing, and slowly becomes the prescriptive process that should be avoided.
I wouldn't call the double diamond a design process. Design thinking is a methodology, where problems worth solving are first identified and selected and then potential solution and researched and validated.
The aim is to find a single solution to single problem. That does not mean, that several problems and solutions to them are not discussed. The whole idea of the design thinking process is to find the most the most valuable solution to the most valuable problem first.
The problems with design thinking stem from, insufficient facilitation and decision making and not defining or researching what actually is valuable.
Hey Jouni, thank you for this response. I would agree with you on some points. I think what I could have better described what this article is about. Its more a call against "process" in complex problems (which is what designers deal with). The double diamond has some useful applications and it is better used as a framework, but there is wide misuse of the double diamond as a "prescriptive process". This article is more against the common misuse of the double diamond as a prescriptive process. If thats where you're steering towards, I agree with you there.
I would say that even when thinking of the double diamond as a design tool or methodology. I don't get too much mileage out of the DD. I find that there is much more relevant factors to design than convergence or divergence. Its not the most important thing to me as I design to think if I should be making choices (converge) or creating options (diverge). I more often think about how many unknowns are still in play wether its from a problem or solution perspective.
I completely understand how the double diamond can be valuable to visualize design principles or other use case you might consider, but the issue isn't the double diamond, the issue is a "prescriptive process" for complex problems.
Thank you Jouni for your thoughts, much appreciated!
That is definitely problematic if Double Diamond is seen as definitive. I believe the whole point of it is trying to avoid that. I agree that DD itself doesn't really do anything as you say, but it should act as a reminder to focus on the problem not only the solution and that's the way I like it. I often catch designers designing the wrong thing, because they didn't ask the giver of the task what is the actual problem and instead just started doing what was asked or specified. The problem usually is the designer's lack of experience and robust personal design process, which affects the confidence to push for the problem. Also problem solving is exiting and problem definition is tedious and difficult and you can't do it alone...
Great article. No matter what I've done to try to follow a supposed ideal process, it never seems to feel right, even if in theory it should work. I resonate with the term "emergent" process because it's closer to how I think and approach problems. It allows me to be more responsive to the stakeholders or teammates involved in the project, rather than feel like things are going not well because the process is not being followed. My true creativity is listening to energy that can't be predicted and has no expectations of what comes out.
I've noticed a trend of discussion where senior designers (at least in tech) have a high ability to control, influence, predict, direct, change, make impact, give answers, provide structure, validate, be data-driven, etc. I know part of it is because we need to bring in non-designers to understand what comes out. But in my 4-5 years of being a designer in tech, I haven't really seen much dialogue of unstructured creativity, play, exploration, and seeing what "emerges."
Such a wonderful reflection! Always really interesting to hear how an article resonates with different people. I agree with you, it's often the case the designer feel they are doing design "wrong" because they aren't following the double diamond. Especially younger designers feel like to be good at design they need to learn the double diamond process.
I think a real negative outcome the double diamond has is that is assumes there's a right way to solving problems. Saying there's a right way kills creativity and problem solving process is a creative activity. It should be creative because often no two times you solve a problem is the process identical. Long story short I think the design community should accept more way to problem solve rather than hold the double diamond as the right way.
I agree with a lot of what you're sharing in your article. From my experience in companies that have had limited focus on the problem or the user, building products with a design thinking framework like the Double Diamond provides some level of guiding principles to kickstart solving in the right direction. So they need the predictability because otherwise there's difficulty in getting a buy-in from Executives.
For companies that have the experience, of course, changing and adapting the processes can further enhance the results - "emergent" as you call it. I have seen the Double Diamond serve a good role in introducing Design Thinking into a company to then step back and allow for the methodology to blossom in new and more appropriate for the company ways. But you can't master something that you haven't practiced in the first place.
The question is not whether to use the Double Diamond, but when to transform how you use it.
Hey Sevil, its a good point, the double diamond does have valid use cases, a couple great ones that you mentioned. Often the good uses cases to use the double diamond aren't when it comes to actually designing. The DD can communicate and visualize fundamental design principles and thats valuable. Like you you said thought, the risk is what happens after. Often what happens is that they accept the DD as THE process to designing, and slowly becomes the prescriptive process that should be avoided.
Thank you for the thoughtful response Sevil!
I wouldn't call the double diamond a design process. Design thinking is a methodology, where problems worth solving are first identified and selected and then potential solution and researched and validated.
The aim is to find a single solution to single problem. That does not mean, that several problems and solutions to them are not discussed. The whole idea of the design thinking process is to find the most the most valuable solution to the most valuable problem first.
The problems with design thinking stem from, insufficient facilitation and decision making and not defining or researching what actually is valuable.
Hey Jouni, thank you for this response. I would agree with you on some points. I think what I could have better described what this article is about. Its more a call against "process" in complex problems (which is what designers deal with). The double diamond has some useful applications and it is better used as a framework, but there is wide misuse of the double diamond as a "prescriptive process". This article is more against the common misuse of the double diamond as a prescriptive process. If thats where you're steering towards, I agree with you there.
I would say that even when thinking of the double diamond as a design tool or methodology. I don't get too much mileage out of the DD. I find that there is much more relevant factors to design than convergence or divergence. Its not the most important thing to me as I design to think if I should be making choices (converge) or creating options (diverge). I more often think about how many unknowns are still in play wether its from a problem or solution perspective.
I completely understand how the double diamond can be valuable to visualize design principles or other use case you might consider, but the issue isn't the double diamond, the issue is a "prescriptive process" for complex problems.
Thank you Jouni for your thoughts, much appreciated!
That is definitely problematic if Double Diamond is seen as definitive. I believe the whole point of it is trying to avoid that. I agree that DD itself doesn't really do anything as you say, but it should act as a reminder to focus on the problem not only the solution and that's the way I like it. I often catch designers designing the wrong thing, because they didn't ask the giver of the task what is the actual problem and instead just started doing what was asked or specified. The problem usually is the designer's lack of experience and robust personal design process, which affects the confidence to push for the problem. Also problem solving is exiting and problem definition is tedious and difficult and you can't do it alone...
Great article. No matter what I've done to try to follow a supposed ideal process, it never seems to feel right, even if in theory it should work. I resonate with the term "emergent" process because it's closer to how I think and approach problems. It allows me to be more responsive to the stakeholders or teammates involved in the project, rather than feel like things are going not well because the process is not being followed. My true creativity is listening to energy that can't be predicted and has no expectations of what comes out.
I've noticed a trend of discussion where senior designers (at least in tech) have a high ability to control, influence, predict, direct, change, make impact, give answers, provide structure, validate, be data-driven, etc. I know part of it is because we need to bring in non-designers to understand what comes out. But in my 4-5 years of being a designer in tech, I haven't really seen much dialogue of unstructured creativity, play, exploration, and seeing what "emerges."
Tangent over. Thanks for reading!
Such a wonderful reflection! Always really interesting to hear how an article resonates with different people. I agree with you, it's often the case the designer feel they are doing design "wrong" because they aren't following the double diamond. Especially younger designers feel like to be good at design they need to learn the double diamond process.
I think a real negative outcome the double diamond has is that is assumes there's a right way to solving problems. Saying there's a right way kills creativity and problem solving process is a creative activity. It should be creative because often no two times you solve a problem is the process identical. Long story short I think the design community should accept more way to problem solve rather than hold the double diamond as the right way.
I'm with you there!