This is HCD: a complete remake of a design community platform
A Next.js platform for a Human-Centered Design podcast and community, combining episodes, free courses, learning journeys and a global designer directory with Supabase and Sanity.
The product problem
This is HCD is an independent home for Human-Centered Design changemakers. Its content had grown into a large podcast archive, free courses and a community of designers worldwide. A podcast website alone could not hold that together. The complete remake needed public content, member accounts, structured learning and a searchable directory, all maintainable by a small team without developer help for everyday publishing.
The delivered scope
The complete platform remake covers 364 episodes with transcripts, free courses, learning journeys and a directory of more than 450 designers across more than 130 countries. Members can bookmark, comment, follow others and track course progress. An admin area moderates community posts and directory profiles. A separate worker assembles learning journey audio from episode segments. Next.js, Supabase, Sanity, TypeScript and Tailwind CSS form the stack.
Splitting editorial and member data
Editorial content and member activity have different owners and different rules. Sanity holds episodes, courses and editorial posts that the team curates; Supabase holds accounts, progress, comments and directory profiles. Heavy audio processing runs outside the web application. For a similar platform, decide early which data is edited, which is generated by members, and which work belongs in a background job.
What shipped
A community and learning platform combining a transcribed podcast archive, courses, learning journeys, a global directory and member features under one Next.js application.
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