

This is HCD – Human-Centered Design, UX & Service Design Thinking Podcast
Gerry Scullion
Welcome to This is HCD – Human-Centered Design, UX & Service Design Thinking Podcast, the global show for designers, innovators, and changemakers who want to create better products, services, and experiences.
Hosted by Gerry Scullion, with over 1-million downloads worldwide.
Each episode dives into conversations with leading voices in service design, UX design, interaction design, customer experience, and design strategy. Together, we explore the methods, mindsets, and real-world stories that bring human-centered design and design thinking to life.
Whether you’re a UX researcher, service design practitioner, product manager, or design leader, you’ll find actionable insights, practical tools, and inspiration to elevate your practice and drive meaningful change.
Tune in and join the global human-centered design community — learn how to design with purpose, create inclusive solutions, and shape a more thoughtful future.
Hosted by Gerry Scullion, with over 1-million downloads worldwide.
Each episode dives into conversations with leading voices in service design, UX design, interaction design, customer experience, and design strategy. Together, we explore the methods, mindsets, and real-world stories that bring human-centered design and design thinking to life.
Whether you’re a UX researcher, service design practitioner, product manager, or design leader, you’ll find actionable insights, practical tools, and inspiration to elevate your practice and drive meaningful change.
Tune in and join the global human-centered design community — learn how to design with purpose, create inclusive solutions, and shape a more thoughtful future.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Dec 4, 2018 • 30min
Hazel White & Mike Press 'Making a difference through design'
We are building a global network of people doing human-centred work. Create an account, learn, listen, connect and network - for free → https://www.thisishcd.com/signup________________________Take the FREE Introduction to Journey Management course with Marc Stickdorn & Gerry Scullion → https://www.thisishcd.com/learning/introduction-to-journey-managementNow before we jump into the interview, i wanted to mention we have a shelf load of books to give-away as thank you to all of our listeners in 2018. To be in with a chance of winning the books, you need to be on our newsletter which you can subscribe on at thisishcd.com – we’ve got books from O’Reilly Media in NYC one of our biggest supporters, as well as exclusive TIHCD discounts for Rosenfeld Media books and also have 2 books from the guys at Smashing Magazine. We also have signed copies of Andy Polaines Service Design book and Gerry McGovern’s latest book, Top Tasks. Creators & Guests
Gerry Scullion - Host
Stef Murphy - Producer
________________________Discover & Connect → https://www.thisishcd.com/directoryTrain my organisation → https://www.thisishcd.com/trainingClaim partner discounts → https://www.thisishcd.com/partnersPublish an Article → https://www.thisishcd.com/blogCourses → https://www.thisishcd.com/courses________________________

Nov 20, 2018 • 20min
Andy Polaine 'Mindful Service Design'
We are building a global network of people doing human-centred work. Create an account, learn, listen, connect and network - for free → https://www.thisishcd.com/signup________________________Take the FREE Introduction to Journey Management course with Marc Stickdorn & Gerry Scullion → https://www.thisishcd.com/learning/introduction-to-journey-managementIn this episode, I caught up with a great friend of the podcast, Andy Polaine. Most of you will probably be familiar with Andy's work with Fjord and also as co-author of Service Design - from Insights to implementation on Rosenfeld Media, a book that has become one of the defining service design books over the last number of years.I was hosting Service design Days in Barcelona this year and had lots of fun meeting the European service design community. It was a jam-packed few days for me but managed to capture some great conversations that all followed a similar theme to what myself and John Thackara covered in his episode recently, and that is, we need to consider not only what we produce but how we actually produce it.Andy's keynote was fantastic and had some wonderful metaphors about how we have lost some of the natural cadence and craft through new work please like Agile and Lean.Links from this episodeAndy's slides from Service Design Days, BarcelonaConnect with Andy on @Apolaine on Twitter, his website at polaine.com, via Fjords website at Fjordnet.com Read the transcript of this episode at thisisHCD.comBuy Andy's book that he co-authored 'Service Design - From Insight to Implementation'Creators & Guests
Gerry Scullion - Host
Stef Murphy - Producer
________________________Discover & Connect → https://www.thisishcd.com/directoryTrain my organisation → https://www.thisishcd.com/trainingClaim partner discounts → https://www.thisishcd.com/partnersPublish an Article → https://www.thisishcd.com/blogCourses → https://www.thisishcd.com/courses________________________

Nov 6, 2018 • 48min
Steve Portigal 'Symbolic Lab Coats, ASMR and Coke-Fueled Lap Dances: More User Research War Stories'
We are building a global network of people doing human-centred work. Create an account, learn, listen, connect and network - for free → https://www.thisishcd.com/signup________________________Take the FREE Introduction to Journey Management course with Marc Stickdorn & Gerry Scullion → https://www.thisishcd.com/learning/introduction-to-journey-managementHello and welcome to another episode of This is HCD. I'm your host Chi Ryan, and in this episode, I'm speaking to researcher Steve Portigal. Steve is the Principal of Portigal Consulting and the author of two books: Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights, and Doorbells Danger and Dead Batteries: User Research War Stories.Creators & Guests
Gerry Scullion - Host
Stef Murphy - Producer
________________________Discover & Connect → https://www.thisishcd.com/directoryTrain my organisation → https://www.thisishcd.com/trainingClaim partner discounts → https://www.thisishcd.com/partnersPublish an Article → https://www.thisishcd.com/blogCourses → https://www.thisishcd.com/courses________________________

Oct 23, 2018 • 23min
John Thackara 'Designing for all of life, not just human life'
We are building a global network of people doing human-centred work. Create an account, learn, listen, connect and network - for free → https://www.thisishcd.com/signup________________________Take the FREE Introduction to Journey Management course with Marc Stickdorn & Gerry Scullion → https://www.thisishcd.com/learning/introduction-to-journey-managementIn this episode we discussed John's work at great detail, his keynote at Service Design Days, and spoke about the greater purpose of design and maybe even human centered design isn't broad enough as it should include animals and the greatest resource of them all, the earth. Now this episode is definitely one of those where you want to listen and then repeat.Creators & Guests
Gerry Scullion - Host
Stef Murphy - Producer
________________________Discover & Connect → https://www.thisishcd.com/directoryTrain my organisation → https://www.thisishcd.com/trainingClaim partner discounts → https://www.thisishcd.com/partnersPublish an Article → https://www.thisishcd.com/blogCourses → https://www.thisishcd.com/courses________________________

Oct 9, 2018 • 42min
Frank Long 'Designing a Design Culture to empower richer social outcomes'
We are building a global network of people doing human-centred work. Create an account, learn, listen, connect and network - for free → https://www.thisishcd.com/signup________________________Take the FREE Introduction to Journey Management course with Marc Stickdorn & Gerry Scullion → https://www.thisishcd.com/learning/introduction-to-journey-managementHello and welcome to another episode of this is HCD. My name is Gerry scullion and I'm a service design principal based in Ireland. In this episode, we caught up with Frank Long, one of Ireland's UX forefathers. Frank mentored me way back in the nineties and shortly after he began working in the usability and accessibility space for Frontend, one of Europe's oldest UX consultancies. A number of years ago when I was living in Sydney, I began to see Frontend winning awards, left right and center, such as at the iXDA awards in America, then again in Lyon and UX Awards and so on, beating some stiff competition to some of the biggest design awards in the design world. Now I wanted to go and dig a little deeper to understand what they were doing internally and how they were doing it and turns out they created an initiative called DesignFix.Creators & Guests
Gerry Scullion - Host
Stef Murphy - Producer
________________________Discover & Connect → https://www.thisishcd.com/directoryTrain my organisation → https://www.thisishcd.com/trainingClaim partner discounts → https://www.thisishcd.com/partnersPublish an Article → https://www.thisishcd.com/blogCourses → https://www.thisishcd.com/courses________________________

Sep 25, 2018 • 47min
Marc Stickdorn and Adam Lawrence 'A Service Design 360'
We are building a global network of people doing human-centred work. Create an account, learn, listen, connect and network - for free → https://www.thisishcd.com/signup________________________Take the FREE Introduction to Journey Management course with Marc Stickdorn & Gerry Scullion → https://www.thisishcd.com/learning/introduction-to-journey-managementHello and welcome to another episode of this is HCD. I'm your host Chi Ryan and Aussie designer, living in working in New York City. In this episode, I'm catching up with Marc Stickdorn and Adam Lawrence, co-authors of the cult service design books. This is Service Design Thinking and more recently This is Service Design Doing. If you aren't familiar with either of the books, we'll put the links into the show notes for this episode.Creators & Guests
Gerry Scullion - Host
Stef Murphy - Producer
________________________Discover & Connect → https://www.thisishcd.com/directoryTrain my organisation → https://www.thisishcd.com/trainingClaim partner discounts → https://www.thisishcd.com/partnersPublish an Article → https://www.thisishcd.com/blogCourses → https://www.thisishcd.com/courses________________________

Sep 11, 2018 • 33min
Sarah Drummond ‘Kick-starting a design revolution’
We are building a global network of people doing human-centred work. Create an account, learn, listen, connect and network - for free → https://www.thisishcd.com/signup________________________Take the FREE Introduction to Journey Management course with Marc Stickdorn & Gerry Scullion → https://www.thisishcd.com/learning/introduction-to-journey-managementBefore I tell you a little bit about this episode, I wanted to congratulate Sarah (and Lou) who got married at the weekend. From everyone at This is HCD, we raise a glass an wish you a lifetime of happiness together!Hello and welcome to another episode of. This is HCD. My name is Gerry scullion and I'm a service design principle based in Dublin city, Ireland. I recently caught up with our next guest, Sarah. Sarah is a designer and CEO and cereal idea generator. She's co-founded, SNOOK, my police, Mydearest Scotland, our pride and the matter for this work. She was awarded a Google Fellowship for her work in technology and democratic innovation and named as one of Good Magazines 100-extraordinary individuals tackling global issues in a creative way daily. Sarah is a CEO of SNOOK an award-winning global design consultancy based in London and Glasgow. SNOOK on a mission to design a new program that works better for people and this is a perfect segue into what we discussed. We caught up recently in Dublin to talk about kickstarting a design revolution and what that actually means, how we can get design into the social consciousness -Sarah linksCreators & Guests
Gerry Scullion - Host
Stef Murphy - Producer
________________________Discover & Connect → https://www.thisishcd.com/directoryTrain my organisation → https://www.thisishcd.com/trainingClaim partner discounts → https://www.thisishcd.com/partnersPublish an Article → https://www.thisishcd.com/blogCourses → https://www.thisishcd.com/courses________________________

Aug 28, 2018 • 36min
Patrick Quattlebaum 'Breaking down tribes to enable the orchestration of experiences'
We are building a global network of people doing human-centred work. Create an account, learn, listen, connect and network - for free → https://www.thisishcd.com/signup________________________Take the FREE Introduction to Journey Management course with Marc Stickdorn & Gerry Scullion → https://www.thisishcd.com/learning/introduction-to-journey-managementHello and welcome to another episode of 'This is HCD'. My name is Gerry Scullion and I'm a service design principal now based in Dublin, Ireland. In this episode we caught up with the brilliant Patrick Quattlebaum, co-author (alongside Chris Risdon) of the fantastic new Rosenfeld media book 'Orchestrating Experiences'. Patrick is founder of StudioPQ and former managing director of the service design consultancy Adaptive Path before its acquisition, after of which he was the Head of Service Design and Senior Director of Design at Capital One.Creators & Guests
Gerry Scullion - Host
Stef Murphy - Producer
________________________Discover & Connect → https://www.thisishcd.com/directoryTrain my organisation → https://www.thisishcd.com/trainingClaim partner discounts → https://www.thisishcd.com/partnersPublish an Article → https://www.thisishcd.com/blogCourses → https://www.thisishcd.com/courses________________________

Aug 14, 2018 • 31min
Sarah Richards 'Content Design. What is it? And why it's so f#cking important in the delivery of a product and service'
We are building a global network of people doing human-centred work. Create an account, learn, listen, connect and network - for free → https://www.thisishcd.com/signup________________________Take the FREE Introduction to Journey Management course with Marc Stickdorn & Gerry Scullion → https://www.thisishcd.com/learning/introduction-to-journey-managementHello and welcome to another episode of ‘This is HCD'. My name is Gerry Scullion and I'm a service design principal now based in Dublin, Ireland. Recently I caught up with Sarah Richards in London. Sarah's a founder of Content Design in London, an organisation focused on delivering content designed training courses as well as working with organisations to help build the content design function internally.Sarah previously held the role of head content design within the GDS, the government digital services team for the gov.uk. And in this conversation we actually go back in time to discuss what that was like, working with people who had no idea what content design was and how Sarah worked around that. Also joining in in this conversation was Joris Beets, international service design director for EY Seren in London.Creators & Guests
Gerry Scullion - Host
Stef Murphy - Producer
________________________Discover & Connect → https://www.thisishcd.com/directoryTrain my organisation → https://www.thisishcd.com/trainingClaim partner discounts → https://www.thisishcd.com/partnersPublish an Article → https://www.thisishcd.com/blogCourses → https://www.thisishcd.com/courses________________________

Jul 31, 2018 • 53min
Gerry McGovern ‘The repositioning of trust in society’
We are building a global network of people doing human-centred work. Create an account, learn, listen, connect and network - for free → https://www.thisishcd.com/signup________________________Take the FREE Introduction to Journey Management course with Marc Stickdorn & Gerry Scullion → https://www.thisishcd.com/learning/introduction-to-journey-managementHello and welcome to another episode of This is HCD. My name is Gerry Scullion and I'm a human centred design practitioner based in Dublin, Ireland. In this episode, we caught up with Gerry McGovern, one of the most well known and loved customer experience advocates in the industry today. Gerry has developed a number of fantastic models over the years such as Top Tasks and also curates and creates one of the best weekly experience design newsletters on the internet.Creators & Guests
Gerry Scullion - Host
Stef Murphy - Producer
________________________Discover & Connect → https://www.thisishcd.com/directoryTrain my organisation → https://www.thisishcd.com/trainingClaim partner discounts → https://www.thisishcd.com/partnersPublish an Article → https://www.thisishcd.com/blogCourses → https://www.thisishcd.com/courses________________________


