mina zavary.

hi, i’m mina. phd candidate, ux researcher, instructor

i study how people navigate the high-stakes systems that measure them — and contribute design implications for supporting them.

i come to hci research as a designer and ux researcher, which is why the work doesn’t stop at findings. based at human centered design & engineering at the university of washington, where i also teach the department’s usability research course.

see the work read the cv
mina zavary

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my research

i study how people build the literacies to navigate the measurement systems that gate their access.

grades, credit scores, match rates, performance reviews. measurement decides who gets what — and almost nobody is taught to read it. two projects right now:

  • grades

    three years in — how students read, contest, and build their own tools around their grade data.

  • hiring

    just underway — how candidates navigate ai-run interviews, assessed by a system that won’t explain itself.

01 how do people develop the literacies to navigate measurement systems that shape their access and their sense of self — and what role do community-built tools, online spaces, and ai play in supporting or complicating that?
02 where do the gaps between agency and structural constraint emerge across contexts, and how do we design tools that help people not just live within these systems but question and reshape them?
what it means for design

we need to be thinking about the design of systems that support people through navigating opaque measurement.

selected work

research and design

nine projects across academic research and applied ux. filter by what you came for.

teaching

the courses i teach

hcde 417 is the department’s project-based usability course, and i’ve taught it five quarters. i also co-teach hcde 313, our intro user research course, and from winter 2027 i’m teaching info 356: moral reasoning and interaction design at the ischool.

“She treats her students as equals and it makes me want to come to class.”

hcde 417 course evaluation, autumn 2025
  • teaching methods repeatedly is how i find out which parts are load-bearing and which are ritual.
  • info 356 takes me somewhere new — a studio and seminar where students critique existing design patterns through ethical theory, then design against it. from how to run research to how to decide what’s worth building.
get in touch

i’m looking for a ux research internship for summer 2027.

and i’m always up for talking about measurement, grading, participatory methods, or what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a number that decides things for you.

zavarym@uw.edu linkedin cv