January 11, 2001

The January 11th UPA meeting was held at the Sunrise Park Middle School in White Bear Lake, MN. Noel Schmidt, the Associate Principal, was our host for a discussion on administrative software and computer use within the school. This was followed by the regular UPA meeting.

School Discussion and Tour:

Noel described the use of attendance and grade reporting software that is used by the administrative and teaching staffs of the school which creates reports sent out to parents.

The key usability issues were centered around how information is displayed on forms/reports. Many of the issues matched ones that the UPA group sees in their regular working environments -- they included:

- Display of internal (administrative) information that was confusing for parents to understand - Critical info (i.e. days absent) not displaying on Report Card form - Column/Row headers and content not lining up - Fields not labeled - Missing data - Design of report unappealing with large open spaces in layout - Entry fields with misplaced defaults which requires scrolling down to specific fields 50-200 times a day - Similar entry fields which do not share common data - i.e. parent's address - A Master Schedule program which does not handle complex team teaching so initial calendaring is done on paper

When these issues arise, Noel and colleagues generally do not call Tech Support as the Help Service is not helpful.

Next, Noel showed examples of some of the PowerPoint Presentation work the 6-8th grade kids and created and we toured the computer and technology labs. Kid's are working on basic keyboarding, database work, hyperstudio or PowerPoint presentations and researching projects on the web (during which they are monitored by teachers). Of interest to the group was the technology lab which provides opportunities for kids to work with different computers and industrial machines on topics such as: virtual reality, robotics, lasers, video and audio editing, etc..

Business Meeting:

  1. Welcome to John Kruse (3M) and Michelle Berkowitz (Imation and Minnesota State).
  2. Dues for 2001 are due - We would like them paid by March. Make checks payable to "Minnesota Chapter of UPA" for $15 and give them to Andrea Halverson at a future meeting or send it to Richard Sit (his address is listed below). As a reminder, you must be an active member of the UPA at the national level. You can find information about or join the national UPA organization at http://www.upaassoc.org

    Send $15 dues checks to: Richard Sit
    Dept. XTN
    IBM Corporation
    3605 Highway 52 N.
    Rochester, MN 55901

  3. Our website is up and running at http://www.mouseworksmedia.com/UPA - Thanks to Marc Duisenberg for his work. Marc would like members to review the Web site and send him feedback on suggestions for improvement. The Web site will be updated regularly and will be the main channel for communicating important information to members of the chapter. Please send Marc () information on:
    • Job postings
    • Course offerings
    • Member information - either to add or update
    • Current Events of interest to the chapter

  4. Upcoming Meeting topics were discussed, some ideas were:
  5. Technical writing
  6. e-tailing
  7. UPA national conference presentations
  8. The format and scope of the usability test report

  9. The process of usability testing: Time spent on the different phases of the process (user screening and recruiting, test development, test delivery, reporting, etc.)

    * In the near future, Richard Sit will be publishing a short survey on the chapter Web site to obtain members' feedback on desired future meeting topics.

Future UPA Meetings:

Feb. 8th at Dennis and Company Research - Dinner will be provided, RSVP to John Madsen at mlmadsen@hotmail.com March 8th at 3M - includes a tour of the Traffic Control Materials lab. Next Quarter - Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Note: Special thanks to Pam Boehmer for writing up these meeting minutes.

Last update: February 07, 2003