Cross-cultural vs Intercultural design

Good design depends on the designers empathic abilities, as the designer must understand the needs and desires of the target group. Usually, we can rely on our cultural heritage to define a basic guiding structure, but this becomes increasingly difficult when we attempt to consider design issues in unfamiliar places.
Design is impacted by culture and, in our connected present, it is easier to gain access to information on foreign cultures. From this vantage point, it is easy to assume that a contemporary design piece does not only inherit aspects of the designers culture, but also traits of different cultures, adding to the cultural relevance (and thus how interesting it is) of the object.
With regards to this, it is very important to differentiate between two types of culturally connecting design processes:

cross-cultural
adj. (Sociology) involving or bridging the differences between cultures

As the Collins English Dictionary suggests, cross-cultural revolves around the differences between two cultures.
Cross-cultural design is design that is impacted by other cultures. The designer is inspired or influenced by various cultural building blocks and researches them before interpreting them in an object. In many cases the aspects of the foreign culture are seen as categorical concepts by the designer: single elements that are easily detached from the rest of the culture and translated into the culture of the designers, often disregarding the context behind the cultural elements. In these cases, only cultural clichés and superficial aspects are examined instead of the complex intertwining concepts that form the culture.
This happens because the designer cannot take all cultural subtleties into full consideration since culture cannot be viewed and understood from the outside, but rather must be experienced through immersion - not merely researched.
Cross-cultural design is a designer's approach, estimation, or interpretation of a singular aspect of a foreign culture, not tailoring a solution to an acute problem but manipulating the problem in a way that a solution can be provided in a culture-spanning form of compromise.

The positive aspect of a generic solution is that it can be marketed much easier to a broader range of customers, but at the same time it fuels the fear of a globe-spanning unified non-culture (or melting pot) by finding one answer for all instead of bringing cultures together.
Cross-cultural design ensures usability and user experience across cultural boundaries, but at the price of losing or defaming cultural relevance, since it requires understanding of cultural differences and application of user-centered design methods which is too often not applied in the development phase.

intercultural
adj. Of, relating to, involving, or representing different cultures: an intercultural marriage; intercultural exchange in the arts.

Intercultural design can be understood as design that represents and involves more than one culture. As in intercultural relationships, both sides affect the outcome to the same extent.
It is similar to cross-cultural design in the way that the result is a compromise of aspects of both cultures; however, instead of manufacturing a solution that all cultures can sort of relate to in one way or another, intercultural design means communicating own cultural knowledge to a design partner of a foreign culture. Unlike cross-cultural design, in which certain cultural aspects are merely translated and streamlined, intercultural design builds on the communication - as well as miscommunication - between two cultures, bringing forth a product from the shared overlapping space between the two cultures.
The process is the same as the conventional design process, just elaborated. A problem is examined and elaborated upon by two trains of thought instead of one. The results of the initial research is compared, and the similarities as well as the differences are molded into an object with a unique signature sharing traits from both cultures.
This interaction makes the object a sort of intersection between the two cultures, resulting in an object that is not about culture; it has a shared heritage.

“The term cross-cultural design has become popular lately. Nobody designs in a vacuum, and we rarely design for people in the same life situation as ours. These days, it’s almost effortless to talk to and work with people all over the world. This is a fantastic development, and I think it’s really helped broaden people’s horizons. As a designer, though, it means we now have an extra set of responsibilities. The term “cross-cultural” implies that designers remain in their home culture and survey others from afar, designing from a distance. This isn’t enough.
I think it’s important to engage in intercultural design instead, in terms of how we think about problems and then act upon them. “Intercultural” implies more immersion and personal engagement.” Smitha Prasadh

As Prasadh hints, the key element to intercultural design is immersion, but as immersion into a new culture takes up large quantities of time, it has been nearly impossible to accomplish in the past. However, with the internet and modern communication growing faster than ever, we now have tools to skip certain gaps in the process. Instead of immersing ourselves, we could communicate our ideas and concepts with a foreigner and evaluate the reaction; or, better yet, with social networking platforms such as Facebook or Xing, we could find interested parties to work alongside with. For example:

Designer A has a concept that he shares with Designer B with the least possible                     
      information.
Designer B is inspired by and elaborates on the concept from his own cultural vantage
      point.

This method has been tested in the “Pingpong Intercultural Design Exchange”, a project hosted by rotweisskariert. The project paired up Japanese and Swiss new-generation designers who worked in graphics, fashion, textile or product design who designed objects in the aforementioned two step process.
The project gave way to various results of an intercultural exchange that did not rely on verbal communication, as the design works were developed on the basis of the cultural works and crafts alone.
Taking into account the beautiful results that the PINGPONG project yielded, there are still questions left to ponder, such as to think in which way the products would have profited from direct dialogue between the partners. Even if it is nonverbal, true two-way interaction would have yielded different results. A consequent back and forth between the two partners until the point where both are satisfied with the result could lead to an entirely different cultural message.

In the past, design has always been directly linked to the national culture of the designer, and for obvious reasons. The designer never needed to stray too far from home, as he had everything he ever required for his profession within the boundaries of the country. Producers were national - if not also local - and clients tended to be content with the products as they seldom were privileged with more exotic impulses. “Made in Germany”, “Made in Britain”, etc. became quality labels that the population would trust in, for they essentially trusted only that which they knew.
The craftsmanship and skills of a country will always stay deeply associated with the culture it springs from, yet this aspect does not necessarily apply  to the field of design anymore. With nationalities and cultures becoming intertwined and mixed at an accelerating rate, as well as the new media contributing to the border-less aspect of cultural understanding, design nationalism is becoming less and less influential. Intercultural communication, as well as networking skills, are no longer a commodity to be sought after; rather, they are becoming more and more core-essential skills that are necessary for any designer to understand in order to get their visions across correctly.
As design is becoming increasingly associated with being a contemporary art style, the designer is progressively faced with newer challenges of designing for a base of clients whose interests are much more diverse than they used to be in the past.

Intercultural design can face these challenges of this quickly changing world to a much greater effect and with much more ease than past ideas coming from design nationalism, as the concept of national identities on which the concept of design nationalism is built on no longer applies.