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.
In 1991 Cross established, with colleagues at Delft University of Technology, the international series of Design Thinking Research Symposia (DTRS).
[7] The second DTRS meeting at Delft (1994) laid the foundations for much subsequent work on protocol and other studies of design activity.
[8] In 1982 Cross published a journal article 'Designerly Ways of Knowing',[9] 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 & Humanities.
[14][15] With Kees Dorst, Cross advanced the concept of 'co-evolution' in design,[16] observing how designers progress a project by developing the problem space and solution space in parallel, with activities in each 'space' cross-fertilising the other.