A model of the design process drawn as two diamonds: Discover and Define frame the problem, Develop and Deliver shape the solution.
Are we exploring the problem widely enough before we commit to a solution?
The Double Diamond is a map of the design process drawn as two linked diamonds. Each diamond widens to explore broadly, then narrows to decide, so a team alternates between opening up the problem and closing in on a solutionSolutionDiscoveryA proposed approach to address an opportunityView reference →. It is a picture of how good design moves, not a rigid set of steps.
The Double Diamond was published by the British Design Council in 2004 as a plain way to describe the design process, after the council studied how leading design teams actually worked. The two-diamond shape captured a pattern those teams shared: divergent thinking to explore, then convergent thinking to refine, applied twice. The council later wrapped the model in its Framework for Innovation, adding principles and methods around the diamonds. The idea of alternating divergent and convergent phases is older than the Double Diamond and traces back to design-methods and creativity research from the 1960s onward, but the council's clean two-diamond drawing is what carried the concept into mainstream design and product practice.
The two diamonds cover four phases, split by a clear hinge in the middle. The first diamond is about the problem.
The second diamond is about the solution.
The hinge between Define and Develop carries the whole model. A team that rushes Discover and Define ends up designing an elegant answer to the wrong problem. The shape is a reminder that you earn the right to converge by exploring first, and that solution work should wait until the problem is framed. In practice the diamonds rarely run once in a straight line; teams loop back when Develop reveals the problem was framed wrongly.
It is a strong shared language for design and discovery work, and useful for onboarding stakeholdersStakeholderTeam & OrganisationA person with influence over the productView reference → who think design is only the visible craft at the end. It suits projects where the problem is genuinely uncertain and exploration will pay off, and it gives a team permission to spend real time in Discover before committing to a direction.
It is a model of the process, so it carries no specific methods; you bring your own research, ideation, and testing techniques to each phase. It can mislead when read as a strict linear gate, because real projects iterate and the phases overlap. For small, well-understood changes the full structure is overkill, and the ceremony can slow a team that already knows the problem. When the work is steady incremental delivery against a clear backlog, a continuous flow suits better than two large diamonds.
The Double Diamond is a flow framework in the design category. Each phase produces a different kind of artefact, and the Unified Product Graph models those artefacts as entities so the journey from problem to shipped solution stays traceable:
insightdesign_questiondesign_conceptprototypeBecause each phase is a typed node, the graph preserves the chain of reasoning: which insightInsightUser ResearchA synthesised finding from researchView reference → prompted the design questionDesign QuestionExperience DesignAn open design problem to exploreView reference →, which concepts answered it, and which prototype shipped. A reviewer can trace a finished product back to the research that started it, which is the lineage the Double Diamond drawing implies but cannot itself store.