About SCD

Bring your ideas. Your energy. Your personality. And your humor. Come ready for cross-collaboration and industry disruption. Get ready to think analytically - but also to get your hands dirty. We have the physical tools you need to build what you want. We also have the knowledge and resources to help you connect and learn what it is you don’t know yet.

By inviting all members of the campus community and community-at-large to our building on South Campus - and by getting to know every college, school, institute, and department really well -  SCD will continue to a) create optimum conditions for interdisciplinary collaboration and b) learn alongside our campus, community, and the collective world how to best use human-centered design to solve problems, using creativity and empathy.

Our Mission:

To practice, model, and teach design thinking, using human-centered design, in collaboration with others, to reimagine our campus, community, and collective world.

What is human-centered design? Human-centered design (HCD) is a problem-solving approach that uses design thinking to identify the unmet needs of a population in order to collaboratively and iteratively develop solutions. We believe that HCD is a flexible approach that allows anyone to solve problems in creative and innovative ways, using processes such as empathizing with people, brainstorming ideas, and prototyping solutions.

HCD relies on a “double arrow” to integrate research and practice. Human-centered design practice should be evidence-based, taking advantage of rigorous research. In all of our work, we want everyone’s strengths and insights to flow in both directions. Both research outcomes and practical design success drive us, inform our work, and create good outcomes in the world.

We work closely with educators, researchers, and students to share how human-centered design can be applied to any challenge and field. Our team is focused on evidence-based assessment of when HCD works, why it works, and how to improve it, and are building frameworks and tools that share those insights and best practices with everyone.

WHAT WE DO

WHO WE SERVE

WHAT WE BELIEVE

Our Space

Our stunning floor-to-ceiling windows, wide-open collaboration spaces, and both analog and digital maker spaces invite ideation, iteration, and prototyping under one awe-inspiring roof.

Details About the Building

Our Team

Meet our team and learn more about what we do. 

SCD Team

Be part of the SCD Team

From student positions to full-time gigs, we post all openings on our Jobs page. 

Job Openings