John Chris Jones

Who is John Chris Jones?

John Christopher Jones is a Welsh designer. He was born in 1927, in Aberystwyth, Wales. He studied engineering at the University of Cambridge, and went on to work for AEI in Manchester, England. His 1970 book Design Methods is considered a major text in design.

Collaborating with engineers, Jones advocated ergonomics and the consideration of user-centred issues not part of engineering skills and attitudes at the time. When the results of his ergonomic studies of user behavior were not utilized by the firm's designers, Jones set about studying the design process being used. Jones was also frustrated with the superficiality of industrial design at the time and become involved with ergonomics.

Design methods as an area was driven by:

⁕Inability to balance individual, group, societal, and ecological needs;

⁕Lack of purpose, order, and human scale;

⁕Aesthetic and functional failure in adapting to local physical and social environments;

⁕Development of materials and standardized components that were ill suited for use in any specific application;

⁕Creation of artifacts that people did not like

Jones wasn't actually addressing design as presently conceived. He set out an entirely original philosophy of design—one that questioned the aims, goals and purposes of designing. He stated that one of the reasons why he focused on Design Methods was