Double Diamond
UK Design Council's discover-define-develop-deliver model with diverging and converging phases.
The Double Diamond was articulated by the UK Design Council in 2005 as a visual map of the design process, presenting design as four stages organized into two diamonds representing alternating divergent and convergent thinking. The four stages: (1) Discover — divergent exploration of the problem space through user research, observation, and information gathering; (2) Define — convergent synthesis of insights into a clear problem statement, the 'design brief' or focused challenge; (3) Develop — divergent generation of potential solutions through ideation, prototyping, and testing; (4) Deliver — convergent refinement to a final solution ready for implementation. The diamond shapes visualize the alternating expansion and contraction of options at each stage. The framework's central insight is the disciplined alternation between divergent thinking (generating possibilities) and convergent thinking (selecting and refining) — the key challenge in design is doing each well at the right times rather than mixing them. The Double Diamond gained substantial international adoption in design and innovation practice and was updated in 2019 to the 'Framework for Innovation' adding methods, principles, and design conditions around the original double-diamond shape. The framework is frequently used alongside or as alternative to Design Thinking's five-stage formulation, with Double Diamond emphasizing the diverge-converge rhythm while Design Thinking emphasizes the empathy-ideate-prototype methods. The two are largely compatible — both descend from broader human-centered design traditions and emphasize iterative user-grounded design.
Core components
- Four stages: Discover, Define, Develop, Deliver
- Two diamonds representing diverge-converge phases
- Divergent thinking (expanding options) and convergent thinking (narrowing options) as alternating disciplines
- Visual diamond-shape representation
- Connection to broader design-process literature
- 2019 Framework for Innovation extension (methods, principles, design conditions)
- Distinction from but compatibility with Design Thinking five-stage formulation
- Substantial international adoption particularly in UK and EU design practice
Primary use case
Design and innovation process framework particularly in UK and European design practice; foundation for substantial public-sector innovation work; reference framework in service design and digital design; basis for many design-process curricula; integration with broader human-centered design practice; pedagogical mnemonic for introducing design process to non-designers; foundation for some commercial design and innovation consulting.
Common criticisms
- Same general critiques as Design Thinking — commercial application can produce shallow workshop deliverables rather than substantive design improvement
- the diverge-converge rhythm is conceptually clean but operationally varied across implementations
- tendency for organizations to use the framework as decoration on linear processes that don't actually involve substantial divergent exploration
- the four-stage linear structure understates the iterative looping that characterizes substantive design work
- commercial design consultancies have produced compliance-style Double Diamond adoption with varying analytical fidelity
- integration with agile and continuous-delivery practices is incomplete
- tendency to spend substantial time on the first diamond (problem definition) at the expense of the second diamond (solution development)
- cross-cultural application of UK-design framings has uneven results
- the framework's pedagogical clarity has produced widespread adoption with varying substantive design improvement
- the 2019 Framework for Innovation extension addresses some critiques but adds complexity that may exceed practical utility.
Lineage
- Child of
- Human-Centered Design
- Siblings
- Design Thinking, Human-Centered Design
- Derived from
- Human-Centered Design