The Design Process and Your Course Project
In Level 1 you saw that UX is about how people use a product, not only how it looks. This level covers the process designers follow to get from a vague problem to a working solution. By the end you will choose the small product problem you will carry through all 20 levels.
Why You Need a Process
Without a process, teams tend to jump straight to the first idea. A common example is someone saying "Let's build an app" before anyone has checked what the real problem is. A design process does three things:
- It makes you understand the problem before solving it.
- It makes you explore several options before committing to one.
- It gives the team shared names for each stage, so everyone knows where the work stands.
The Double Diamond
The Double Diamond was launched by the UK Design Council in 2004. It is drawn as two diamonds side by side. Each diamond first widens (divergent thinking: exploring and collecting many possibilities) and then narrows (convergent thinking: choosing and focusing).
| Phase | Diamond | Widens or narrows? | What you do |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Discover | First (the problem) | Widens | Learn what the problem really is by talking to and spending time with the people affected. Don't assume. |
| 2. Define | First (the problem) | Narrows | Use what you learned to frame one clear challenge to solve. |
| 3. Develop | Second (the solution) | Widens | Come up with many different answers to the defined problem, and draw on ideas from other people and fields. |
| 4. Deliver | Second (the solution) | Narrows | Test solutions at small scale, drop the ones that don't work and improve the ones that do. |
A simple way to remember it: the first diamond is about doing the right thing, and the second is about doing the thing right.
A worked example
Suppose a library's online renewal page gets many complaints.
- Discover: You watch members try to renew books and find that many don't know when their loans are due.
- Define: You reframe the problem. It is no longer "the renewal page is confusing" but "members miss due dates because nothing reminds them."
- Develop: You sketch several options: email reminders, automatic renewal, or a due-date banner on the app's home screen.
- Deliver: You try two of them with a small group, keep the one that works and refine it.
The real problem turned out to be different from the one in the complaints. Finding that out is the purpose of the first diamond.
Note: In practice the phases are not a strict one-way line. Teams often loop back. For example, testing in Deliver can show that the problem was defined wrongly.
Common Variants
Other processes use different names for the same pattern of widening and narrowing.
Design thinking (Stanford d.school)
It has five modes: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test.
- Empathize roughly matches Discover.
- Define matches Define.
- Ideate matches Develop. It is the stage for going wide and producing a large number of varied ideas.
- Prototype and Test roughly match Deliver.
- The d.school stresses that the modes need not happen in order. They can overlap or repeat.
Lean UX (Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden)
Lean UX is built for agile software teams and runs as a short, repeating cycle: Think, Make, Check.
- Think: Write down your assumptions about the users and the problem, then turn them into testable hypotheses.
- Make: Build the smallest thing that can test a hypothesis.
- Check: Get feedback from users, learn from it, then go round again.
How they compare
- The Double Diamond gives a clear big-picture map and puts its weight on getting the problem right first.
- Design thinking has more stages, with separate steps for building and testing prototypes.
- Lean UX runs in fast, small loops and treats your ideas as assumptions to test. It suits teams that release software often.
All three share one rule: understand people, explore options, then test before you commit.
Task: Choose Your Course Project
You will now pick one small product problem. Every later level adds one step to it.
Step 1. List three everyday frustrations. Choose ones you or people around you actually run into. Examples:
- Housemates arguing over shared bills
- Booking a slot in a shared laundry room
- Finding which local sports clubs welcome beginners
Step 2. Check each one against this list:
- Small: It could become a single app, website or feature.
- Real people: You can name at least two groups who have the problem.
- Reachable: You can talk to some of those people in later levels.
- Open: You don't already have a fixed solution in mind.
Step 3. Pick the one that best meets all four points.
Step 4. Write a one-paragraph brief that covers:
- The problem area, described in a sentence or two
- Who the likely users are
- Why the problem matters to them
- What you don't yet know
Example brief:
Residents of shared apartment buildings often struggle to get a turn in the communal laundry room. Machines are taken when they arrive, and paper sign-up sheets get ignored. The likely users are working tenants with fixed schedules, parents with heavy laundry loads and building managers who handle complaints. Wasted trips and disputes cause stress between neighbours. I don't yet know how people currently arrange turns or what causes most conflicts.
The brief describes a problem area, not a solution. It doesn't say "build a booking app." Deciding on a solution belongs in Develop. Keep the brief, because you will come back to it in the next level.
Key Takeaways
- The Double Diamond has four phases: Discover (widen), Define (narrow), Develop (widen), Deliver (narrow).
- The first diamond finds the right problem. The second finds the right solution.
- Design thinking (Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test) and Lean UX (Think, Make, Check) follow the same widen-then-narrow pattern. Lean UX does it in fast, repeating loops.
- Real projects loop back between phases. The process is a guide, not a rigid line.
- Your project brief should describe a problem area and its likely users, not a solution.