

The Human Centered Design Podcast (Premium)
This is HCD
This is HCD: The Podcast for Human-Centered Design EnthusiastsWelcome to This is HCD, the premier podcast for human-centered design, with over 1 million downloads and hosted by Gerry Scullion.Our mission is to empower designers, changemakers, and innovators to craft a more inclusive and thoughtful future. Each episode brings you engaging conversations with leading voices across service design, UX, interaction design, product management, and more. Together, we explore the nuances of what it means to excel in human-centered design, offering insights, skills, and perspectives to elevate your practice.Whether you’re a seasoned professional or just beginning your journey, This is HCD is your destination for actionable ideas and inspiration to drive meaningful change through intentional design.Join our growing, ethically conscious design community—connect, learn, and get involved. Together, we’re building a private LinkedIn-style network for human-centered designers ready to make an impact.Tune in, get inspired, and shape the future with This is HCD!
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jun 16, 2021 • 50min
Noel Hatch 'Local government and enabling neighbourhoods'
Welcome to another episode of Moments of Change. I am your host, Melanie Rayment and in this episode I speak with Noel Hatch, an incredible change maker from Camden Council in UK. We speak about his work as Head of Strategy at Camden Council and enabling neighbourhoods to exist and thrive.
I hope you enjoy it -
Mel
https://www.twitter.com/melrayment
Links in this episode
https://www.twitter.com/noelitomedium.com/@noelito

Jun 15, 2021 • 35min
Dorota Gazy & Dr Qin Han 'Doing Remote Research'
In this episode, you’ll hear from myself, Gerry Scullion and Dr Qin Han and Dorota Gazy of STBY - two world class design researchers who live and breathe design research every single day. They are running a session at the Doing Design Festival on June 18 2021 and also a 'Doing Remote Research' short course on June 23 (a link in the shownotes)
In this episode we chat about the shift during the pandemic to full remote research, what this meant, how they adapted their craft and what this means for design researchers moving forward.
Shownotes
Doing Design Festival on June 18: https://www.thisisdoing.com/the-doing-design-festival
Course: https://www.thisisdoing.com/courses/doing-remote-research-june-2021

Jun 2, 2021 • 1h 3min
Rachael Dietkus 'Exploring what it means to be trauma-informed in design'
Hey folks, welcome to Bringing Design Closer, the podcast focussed on discussing Designs role in tackling sometimes complex societal issues. My name is Gerry Scullion, and I’m a service designer, and founder of This is HCD and CEO of This is Doing - we provide live online design and innovation classes , providing training for people within the Design and change-making space. We also have our new Doing Design Festival series now, with the next event on June 18 with the theme ‘Doing Design Online’ with some of the TiD talking about loads of related its. More info see doingdesignfestival.com
Before we jump into this episode, I wanted to alert listeners that this episode may contain content that is triggering to some people. In it we discuss sexual abuse and working with Design alongside issues of trauma.
Today on the show we have Rachael Dietkus a phenomenal person and advocate for trauma led approaches in design.
First and foremost, Rachael is a social worker, based 2-hours south of Chicago in Urbana Champaign in Illinois. We speak in depth about trauma as a societal problem, that is owned by all. We go into the details around working in this space and the affects it can have on change-makers, and how we, as designer and change makers are very much exposed to this reality. How might we protect Designers from likely vicarious traumas in this space? How can we prepare the next wave of change-makers to be ready? We speak about what Designers need to be aware of when approaching some of the most sensitive subjects known, such as child sexual abuse, domestic violence etc. Can and should Design be seen as the saviour? It is a big conversation, and a wonderful one that is pretty raw.
https://twitter.com/rdietkus
https://www.socialworkerswho.design
Practicing Without a License: Design Research as Psychotherapy: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339844239_Practicing_Without_a_License_Design_Research_as_Psychotherapy
There’s also Gabor Maté’s new documentary The Wisdom of Trauma, which comes out June 8th: https://thewisdomoftrauma.com
In response to George Ayes post about IDEO recently, Rachael wrote this wonderful piece / https://medium.com/surviving-ideo/trauma-and-design-62838cc14e94

May 31, 2021 • 38min
Kelly Ann McKercher 'Designing with, Designing for and Designing at'
Buy a ticket for the Doing Design Festival between June 1 - 3 and get a free €100 Gift Voucher for This is Doing.com
Hello and welcome to another episode of Bringing Design Closer. My name is Gerry Scullion, and I’m a service designer, and founder of This is HCD and CEO of This is Doing - we provide live online design and innovation classes , providing training for people within the Design and change-making space. We also have our new Doing Design Festival series now, with the next event on June 18 with the theme ‘Doing Design Online’ with some of the TiD talking about loads of related its.
More info see doingdesignfestival.com
In this episode I speak with the brilliant, the lovely, Kelly Ann McKercher - author of Beyond Sticky Notes and a wonderful designer to boot. We speak about DESIGN AT people - and go deeper into determining what this means for organisations. We speak about ways for teams and designers to help self-identify between DESIGNING AT and DESIGNING FOR people. We look at what this means whilst balancing DESIGN WITH and if this is the goal that we should be aiming for.
Lets get into it -
Kelly Ann on Twitter
Buy the book 'Beyond Sticky Notes'

May 21, 2021 • 34min
Christof Zürn 'The Power of Music Thinking'
Workshops & Course tickets now on sale for 'Doing Design Festival V2' - June 18 2021
Today on the show we have Christof Zürn founder of Creative Companion and MusicThinking.com.
We chat the interrelationship between Design and Music and what Design can learn from thinking like a musician. As an 'ex' musician and songwriter myself, I see the world of Design very much within the same family as music.
We drill a little deeper into Christofs Music Thinking framework and learn more about the value it can bring to teams and organisations.
Lets get into it.
Sign up for Chrstof's podcast: https://musicthinking.com/podcast/
https://musicthinking.com/
https://www.creative-companion.com
https://nl.linkedin.com/in/creativecompanion
More from This is HCD
https://linktr.ee/thisishcd
Join our Slack community / https://www.thisishcd.com/community/join/
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May 20, 2021 • 49min
Tom Greenwood 'Is digital the great accelerator of the climate crisis?'
Join Gerry McGovern at the Doing Design Festival on June 18 / See http://www.doingdesignfestival.com
The Website Carbon Calculator is a real go to tool for me when I want to find out how much CO2 a particular web page is creating. This, and many other great initiatives, comes from Wholegrain Digital, a company founded by Vineeta and Tom Greenwood in 2007. Tom has recently published an excellent book, Sustainable Web Design, from A Book Apart. I wanted to know how Vineeta and Tom got started so early in promoting a culture of sustainable web design.
Website Carbon Calculator: https://www.websitecarbon.com/
Sustainable Web Design, Tom Greenwood :https://abookapart.com/products/sustainable-web-design
Buy the book 'World Wide Waste by Gerry McGovern'

May 11, 2021 • 4min
Exclusive Music by SJ McArdle 'Chin Up'
As part of the Doing Design Festival V2 on June 18th we are delighted to welcome, one of Irelands most talented and respected musicians SJ McArdle who will be performing live for us at the event.
More about SJ McArdle.
As a solo singer-songwriter, SJ has also released three albums, most recently Blood and Bones in 2011. The songs feature contributions from some of SJ’s heroes like Rodney Crowell, guitarist Richard Bennett (Steve Earle’s Guitar Town) and the Love Sponge Strings (Bruce Springsteen’s The Rising).
Irish Times (photo by Frank Miller)
The album’s lead-off song, “Two Steps From Heaven” was the main song in the Cecelia Ahern-written movie Between Heaven and Here. Accompanying the album release was some significant media attention and reviews and very successful German and Irish tours.
Another of SJ’s songs, “Till The Docklands Drown”, is performed during Element Pictures’ A Date For Mad Mary (2016) and several of his readings of traditional Irish songs are featured in the 2019 movie End of Sentence, starring Sarah Bolger, Logan Lerman and John Hawkes.
He performed songs from Blood and Bones live on the Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show on Today FM and on Ireland AM on TV3.
In 2009 he completed a European arena tour as special guest to Reamonn, playing to 70,000 people over three weeks.
SJ has also been in occasional demand as a session musician, playing mandolin for Ricky Warwick as they opened shows for Bob Dylan (Odyssey, Belfast) and Sheryl Crow (Point, Dublin). He has also shared a stage or studio with Neil Hannon, Stewart Agnew, Joe Elliott and Miss Paula Flynn.
Praise for Kern’s False Deceiver:
“Quite lovely … an intriguing release. Those interested in trad music that crosses over into singer/songwriter territory will find this album particularly attractive, but its accessibility will have easy appeal to general audiences. Thumbs up!” – The Irish Echo
Praise for Blood and Bones:
“Bravo for an artist who has taken contemporary Irish music to parts it far too seldom reaches” – Hot Press
“SJ’s deep, sonorous voice brings authority to the songs. If Whipping Boy were raised in Nashville they might sound like this” – Mail On Sunday
“Spare couplets conjuring entire vistas with the focus of David Lynch” – The Irish Times

May 10, 2021 • 17min
Renatus Hoogenraad 'Coaching for Designers & Changemakers'
In this episode, you’ll hear from Gerry Scullion and Renatus, Head of Coaching at This is Doing. We speak about What Coaching is, if it differs to Mentoring and what benefits it can bring to practitioners.
Let’s get stuck in.
View new Coaching service
Train with Renatus
Train with Gerry

May 7, 2021 • 35min
Shane Waring 'Exploring the rapid service experimentation model within local Councils'
Just announced 'Doing Design Festival V2' - June 18 2021
Hello and welcome to another episode of Bringing Design Closer. My name is Gerry Scullion, and I’m a service designer, and founder of This is HCD and CEO of This is Doing - we provide live online design and innovation classes, providing training for people within the Design and change-making space.
We also have our new Doing Design Festival series now, with the next event on June 18 with the theme ‘Doing Design Online’ with some of the TiD talking about loads of related its. More info see doing designfestival.com
Today on the show we have Shane Waring from Dublin City Council and founder of Dublin City BETA - a wonderful initiative that is focused on making Dublin City more liveable through service experimentation. We speak with Shane about the process behind the scenes and what makes this initiative different to typical initiatives in normal Councils and Governments.
We learn more about the background to some of Shanes work and go deeper into what the benefits are for Councils to approach this mindset of rapid service experimentation.
Links in this episode
https://ie.linkedin.com/in/shanewaring
https://www.twitter.com/shanewaring
https://www.DublinCityCouncil.ie
https://www.dccBETA.ie
Public Service Trello; https://trello.com/b/8jXnfMIO/beta-pipeline
https://www.twitter.com/DubCityCouncil
https://www.twitter.com/dccBETA
https://www.twitter.com/DublinCanvas
https://www.twitter.com/BikeBunkers
More from This is HCD
https://linktr.ee/thisishcd
Join our Slack community / https://www.thisishcd.com/community/join/
Join our newsletter / https://www.thisishcd.com/community/join-the-hcd-newsletter

May 5, 2021 • 24min
Adam Lawrence 'The Story of This is Service Design Doing'
Tickets on sale now / 'Doing Design Festival V2' - June 18 2021
In this conversation, Gerry Scullion (CEO of This is Doing) and Adam Lawrence (Co-Author of This is Service Design Doing & Trainer at This is Doing) chat about the story behind the best selling design book 'This is Service Design Doing' book that was released on O'Reilly Media in 2018.
We speak about the work that went into it by Marc, Markus, Adam and Jakob and all of the 200-300 practitioners around the world, some of whom are now part of This is Doing and generally about how it all came together.
Enjoy!
This is Service Design Doing / Essentials course begins June 7th 2021 / See https://www.thisisdoing.com/courses/this-is-service-design-doing-essentials-june-2021-english-language
Train with Adam / https://www.thisisdoing.com/team/adam-lawrence
Train with Markus / https://www.thisisdoing.com/team/markus-edgar-hormess
Train with Marc / https://www.thisisdoing.com/team/marc-stickdorn
Train with Jakob / https://www.thisisdoing.com/team/jakob-schneider
All courses / https://www.thisisdoing.com/courses