Nigel Cross


Nigel Cross is a British academic, a design researcher and educator, Emeritus Professor of Design Studies at The Open University, United Kingdom, where he was responsible for developing the first distance-learning courses in design. He was an editor of the journal Design Studies since its inception in 1979 and is now Emeritus Editor in Chief. Cross helped clarify and develop the concept of design thinking as a domain-independent discipline. He is one of the key people of the Design Research Society.

Research

Nigel Cross began his design research in the 1960s with studies of "simulated" computer-aided design systems where the purported simulator was actually a human operator, using text and graphical communication via CCTV. Cross later referred to this as a kind of Reverse Turing test; in interaction design this kind of study later became known as a Wizard of Oz experiment. He also applied early forms of protocol analysis to these experiments. His PhD on ‘Human and Machine Roles in Computer Aided Design’ was expanded into the book The Automated Architect, which was critical of some of the computer-aided architectural design work of that time.
In 1971, Cross co-organised the first major conference of the Design Research Society, on Design Participation. He continued to play significant roles in DRS, and was its President from 2006-2017.
Early interests in design methods led to an edited book of foundational papers, Developments in Design Methodology and a textbook of Engineering Design Methods.
Subsequently his research interests turned more to design cognition or design thinking. In 1991 Cross established, with colleagues at Delft University of Technology, the international series of Design Thinking Research Symposia. The second DTRS meeting at Delft laid the foundations for much subsequent work on protocol and other studies of design activity.

Writings

In 1982 Cross published a journal article 'Designerly Ways of Knowing', drawing on design research to show Design as having its own intellectual and practical culture as a basis for education, and contrasting it with cultures of Science and Arts and Humanities. This is based on the idea that "There are things to know, ways of knowing them and ways of finding out about them that are specific to the design area". This paper developed the concept of design thinking as a domain-independent discipline, now widely adopted in modern design practice. Understanding "how designers think and work" has been a significant theme in his writings, culminating in the book Design Thinking. His focus has been on identifying cognitive and practical skills underlying design thinking and expertise in design.

Books