Design Council's Framework for innovation.
At the heart of the framework for innovation is Design Council’s design methodology, the Double Diamond – a clear, comprehensive and visual description of the design process.
The Double-Diamond has been used for twenty years as a visual aide in describing a design process (The four Ds). The first diamond represents the process of exploring an issue more broadly or deeply (Discover) and then focusing in to take action on a well-defined problem (Define).
- Discover. To understand, rather than simply assume, what the problem is. It involves speaking to and spending time with people who are affected by the issues.
- Define. The insight gathered from the discovery phase can help you to define the challenge in a different way.
The second diamond encourages different perspectives to the newly defined problem (Develop) and then demonstrating or testing out solutions in an iterative process (Deliver).
- Develop. Elicit different answers to the clearly defined problem, seeking inspiration from elsewhere and co-designing with a range of different people.
- Deliver. Delivery involves testing out different solutions at small-scale, rejecting those that will not work and improving the ones that will.
As well as highlighting the design process, Design Council’s framework for innovation also includes the key principles and design methods that designers and non-designers need to take, and the ideal working culture needed, to achieve significant and long-lasting positive change.
The Framework for Innovation and Double Diamond by the Design Council are licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license.