Welcome.
I’m Kendra Sarvadi, a designer drawn to the practice by its potential as a toolkit people can use to name, understand, and address the different challenges we face as humans, together.
A generalist working to strengthen my co-design and systems thinking skills, I have experience facilitating design discovery, guiding UX strategy and roadmapping, conducting research, and applying outcomes to design sturdy, useful products.
What I do:
Research, to get us off on the right foot
It’s true that if we head in any direction long enough, we’re bound to get somewhere. Research is how we figure out where we are, and decide where we want be, so that we end up where we intend to.
Design, to put all that info to good use
When we understand the problem a bit better, and we’ve learned some things about the people we’re designing for and the context in which they’ll use what we make, we can begin working on some ideas for solutions.
Testing, because we’re not done learning yet
And of course, when we’ve got some ideas to try out, it’s time to put them to the test.
This is a great time to evaluate designs against established principles and best practices before submitting them to testing with users.
Neglect preliminary research at your own peril.
Some recent work:
Improvements to existing web application tools ensure accurate eligibility determinations and clear guidance for next steps
A web application for service evaluations of health care providers
A mobile application for teams in a large medical facility
The first phase of an enterprise intranet redesign
The community visioning phase of a placemaking project
Mission:
I aim to help cultivate an equitable and just society by questioning assumptions about the problems we face as humans, and technology’s role in helping to solve them; by learning from and shifting power to those who experience specific problems most intimately; and by applying my skills and heart to the task of designing solutions that really work, together with the people most deeply and urgently affected.
Design is a tool for changing the world, but only if we use it that way.
And it’s a collaborative effort. If you want to team up and do good, I hope you’ll get in touch.