Beyond the Double Diamond: Establishing Design Observability in Professional Practice
Abstract
Human-Computer Interaction research and design pedagogy rely on idealized process models, such as the Double Diamond, to describe how user experiences are designed. These models assume an orderly, linear design process that, while easy to understand, fails to capture the iterative and collaborative reality of professional practice. A few qualitative studies have successfully captured this complexity -- still, they often suffer from retrospective narrative smoothing and lack systemic scale. To understand how design unfolds in real products, we analyzed historical snapshots of 102 Figma files from a multi-national technology company and investigated the true trajectories of the design process at scale. Our analysis reveals that while the established process models might be applicable, the operational details are highly non-linear. Rather than a straight line from ideation toward completion, design advances are repeatedly reset to the ideation stage as feedback is received. We argue that by treating design files as operational telemetry, the industry can move beyond abstract frameworks to build practices and collaborative tools that support the non-linear realities of modern product development.
