"You've seen the diagrams. They're clean, they're confident, and they're plastered on the walls of agencies, startups, and design schools around the world. A perfect, linear path: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test. Or maybe it's the elegant loops of the double diamond, diverging and converging in a beautiful, predictable dance. These artifacts do more than just outline a workflow; they offer a promise of control."
"They are a professional security blanket, assuring our clients, our bosses, and even ourselves that we are rigorous engineers of solutions, not just chaotic artists. We sell this process in pitches and kickoff meetings, presenting ourselves as masters of a reliable, repeatable methodology. It's our shield against the perception that our work is purely subjective. They promise a neat, orderly journey from a messy problem to a brilliant solution."
Popular design frameworks portray product development as a neat, linear trajectory or as elegant diverging-and-converging loops. Those models act as a professional security blanket, projecting rigor, repeatability, and control to clients, bosses, and teams. The perceived certainty helps sell services and defend against claims of subjectivity. In reality, product development is messier, iterative, and context-dependent. Clinging to the myth of a tidy path obscures complexity, encourages rigid thinking, and reduces adaptability. Teams should acknowledge ambiguity, prioritize validated learning, and adopt flexible practices that respond to real user needs and changing conditions to produce better outcomes.
Read at Medium
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