Design as More than a Process
Design is often explained with neat diagrams. The double diamond is probably the most familiar: diverge, converge, diverge again, converge again. It is simple, memorable, and easy to teach. The problem is that culture does not unfold this way. Life moves in loops, interruptions, pauses, and improvisations. When design is treated as a linear sequence of stages, it risks missing how deeply it is tied to the rhythms of lived experience.
Ethnography as Attention
This is where ethnography changes the picture. A diagram makes sense of things by stripping them down. Ethnography makes sense by thickening the view, by noticing what is often overlooked. It asks not only how a process looks in a model, but how it feels in practice.
Rituals are passed through generations. Symbols take on new meanings in different contexts. Everyday gestures carry weight. A pause before someone answers a question, the way a family arranges their living room, the silence around a boardroom table before a decision. None of this is trivial. It is the ground from which design emerges and in which it takes root.
More Than a Stage
In many design processes, research is treated as something to complete at the beginning. Observe, collect data, generate insights, and then move on. That view strips research of its depth. Ethnography is not a stage to pass through. It is a way of paying attention that runs through the entire process.
Culture does not reveal itself on command. It cannot be compressed into sticky notes or personas. Clifford Geertz described ethnography as “thick description,” which means not stopping at what happened but asking how it happened and why it mattered. This kind of depth requires immersion, time, and patience. It also means accepting that some questions will remain open.
The Value of Slowness
This slower pace is not a weakness. It is its strength. Ethnography resists the temptation to move too quickly from observation to solution. It keeps open the possibility that multiple meanings can exist at once.
Consider something as ordinary as a chair. In one setting it signals hierarchy, in another intimacy, in another hospitality. The form may stay the same, but the meaning changes with context. Ethnography reminds us to keep this awareness alive.
Design that ignores cultural meaning risks creating outcomes that are technically functional but hollow. It produces artifacts that may look polished but feel disconnected from the lives they are meant to serve.
Design Inside Culture
A persistent misconception in design is the belief that designers stand outside of culture, gathering insights and then applying them from above. Ethnography challenges this view. Designers are already part of culture, shaped by the same patterns and forces as everyone else. Design is not applied to culture. Design is culture.
This recognition has consequences. It means that success cannot be measured only in terms of utility or novelty. We also have to ask what kind of cultural work a design performs. Does a retail concept foster belonging or reinforce exclusion? Does a digital service create space for alternative voices or deepen existing hierarchies? These questions are not optional. They are at the core of design practice.
Conclusion
The double diamond promises clarity. Ethnography brings complexity. Where diagrams flatten, ethnography deepens. And in that depth lies the possibility of design that endures.
Design that lives only in diagrams rarely lasts. Design that engages with culture may be slower and sometimes more challenging, but it creates outcomes that are meaningful, resilient, and transformative.
If design is going to carry weight in the future, it must move beyond the diagram and into the practice of ethnography. Only then can it stop chasing universal solutions and begin cultivating the particular and the human.
