About the Social Design Directory
This website represents the culmination of a nearly-year-long collaboration between three professionals with very different career backgrounds: Natalia Rudiak, Joelle Atallah, and Mike Hepler.
Together, we seek to create a crowd-sourced directory of Human-Centered Design organizations and freelancers who have an explicit focus on social impact and directly address issues like justice and equity. By bringing together in one searchable database all of these resources, we hope to help newcomers and experts alike to navigate this growing sector, and find organizations with an explicit focus on social impact.
Each profile includes the region of the world in which practitioners operate, scale of operations, and links to social media.
If you are new to the field, looking to hire a practitioner, or connect with others, we hope this directory can serve you and the greater good.
We are always looking for feedback on the content, search criteria, and website experience. Contribute your suggestions and feedback to this growing community resource by going to our Contribute page, and be sure to make a profile to stay in the loop about new functionality and content!
What is Human-Centered Design?
Human-centered design (HCD) is a creative approach to work that puts humans at the center of the problem-solving process. It requires experts, stakeholders, and end-users to co-create tailored solutions through collaboration and empathy. HCD is a proven framework that anybody can use to create better outcomes. This directory focuses on HCD for social good. Check out our blog post on the topic and this article by MovingWorlds Institute to learn more.
How does the search work?
The Directory consists of hundreds of organizations, companies, and practitioners from around the globe. The website of each profile as well as many of the social media platforms have been compiled so that users can quickly learn more and easily find relevant information about the organization or practitioner. Users can filter the Directory through simple search criteria including:
- Organization or freelancer name
- Office Location (Region, Country, City)
- Geographic scale of work
We are always looking to expand and refine our search criteria to make this a living and useful resource. Give us your additions and feedback on the Contribute page.
Contact us
As before, we are always looking to expand the Directory and improve the search criteria. Please let us know what can be updated or added on the Contribute page. For further inquiries, please contact us at:
socialdesigndirectory@gmail.com
- The Social Design Directory Team