Why the double diamond isn’t enough
The design process doesn’t end with prototyping. Unfortunately, designers are more often than not are pulled off a project when the prototype is done and test results come back positive. Any design work needed after that is squeezed in where it can be. On-the-fly iterations happen as the inevitable well-hidden edges cases reveal themselves and the forgotten error screens are remembered. The work is rushed as new projects demand the designer’s attention. Sure, we should catch all of these things, but it rarely works out that way.
Moving to a system that expects design work to continue after prototyping makes working together more collaborative and smooth, which in turn builds positive relationships.
So, what’s wrong with the double diamond?
The double diamond is a fantastic tool to help everyone make sense of the steps involved in the design thinking process, their order and why repeating some steps is valuable.
This shared understanding brings everyone closer together meaning more collaboration and less confusion.
However, it could be clearer… Depending on how you interpret the various sections of the double diamond, you could think the output is a tested prototype or maybe an implemented real-world MVP. Two very different things.
Designers should work collaboratively with development teams (and others) while leading the design process up until the point of prototype testing. After, the development team should lead while the designer makes the changes that only become apparent when developers start to build this thing for real. It’s hard for developers to consider and remember every nuance of a build while giving feedback to a designer, so some design changes will usually be necessary later on. It’s just the way things go in the real world.
What’s better than a double diamond?
A triple diamond.
No seriously, a triple diamond makes planning, updating stakeholders on progress and working with development teams much clearer. It also bakes-in to designers workflow the need for them to work on the project after prototype testing finishes. When designers don’t have official time in their calendar to carry on with projects after the prototyping phase, the quality of work suffers and so do relationships.
The breakdown
Each of the three diamonds has a specific type of output. This will help you focus on why you are doing each and every piece of work, however small or large.
“What will I do with the output from this task? Does it contribute to the next milestone of this project?”
Diamond 1: Research
The output of the first diamond is a set of hypotheses. Gathering user research (and other types) is simply to form insight. The value of insight is simply to understand user pains and opportunities and if your existing product is doing a good job. All of this rolls up into the output in the form of hypotheses. You’ll use these in the next diamond.
Diamond 2: Proof of concept
Using the hypotheses, the second diamond takes us through ideation and prototyping to create a proof of concept. A proof of concept is a prototype or proposition test that is just good enough to get test results to demonstrate the potential value of it. Working this way, the team can move very quickly because you’re only doing the work that is needed to move to the next milestone. At this point, the team and stakeholders review the test results to decide if you should continue with the project or not.
Diamond 3: Build and test
Using the proof of concept you can finish designing the screens, flows, UI, copy etc safe in the knowledge that this project has the thumbs up from users and stakeholders and test results to back it all up. The output from the third diamond is a live release that you can get qual and quant test results from.
If all has gone well, a new product/feature is born and the continuous development, well… continues :)
In detail
Here are some of the tasks that can be done at each stage. Of course, not all of these tasks are needed and not in this order. It will depend on the type of project and team.
What about designing big products from scratch?
The triple diamond works well for this. Just move through twice. The first time through will stop at the second diamond and give you a proposition proof of concept. For me, this is usually a website selling the idea before I’ve built it. You can find out what potential users think of the idea before spend time and effort on prototyping. If you work in the financial sector you’ll want to jump over to my article on how to test product ideas within an FCA regulated industry.
The second time through will give you a prototype proof of concept that you can usability test. After that you continue designing out all the journeys while supporting the development team. There are lots of guides on how to usability test so I won’t go into that here.
Summary
- Get everyone on the same page by using and sharing the triple diamond approach.
- Design just enough to get a proof of concept, after that design the rest.
- Make sure you have time officially booked into your sprint to continue design work after prototyping.
