Identity, Inclusion and Social Responsibility w/ Tess Mendes

NOMADS welcomes Tess Mendes as our first ever guest on our podcast! In this episode, we talk about Tess' unique backstory from pre-med to urban planning to UX, embracing her Latinx identity, social responsibilities of HCI, minimalism as a philosophy, and one of Tess' projects that has helped the people in the state of Michigan during the COVID-19 pandemic. What sort of backgrounds do you all come from? How have other parts of your identity influenced your practice in your respective field?

Connect with Tess Mendes:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tessamendes/
https://www.tmendes.com/

For further info on what we discussed:

• "User Experience as Legitimacy Trap" by Paul Dourish https://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/november-december-2019/user-experience-as-legitimacy-trap
• "White" by Kenya Hara https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6545885-white
• New online dashboard provides COVID-19 risk and trend data, helps inform MI Safe Start plan: https://www.michigan.gov/whitmer/0,9309,7-387-90499-530119--,00.html
• Muji Design Studio and Minimalism: https://www.muji.com/us/about/?area=header
• Dr. Colleen van lent and Web Design for Everybody: https://www.collemc.people.si.umich.edu

About US:
Sunny and Connie (Co-host) are grad students majoring in Human-Computer Interaction and are passionate about designing experiences to empower people around the world.