Richard Sit opened the meeting just after 6:00 p.m. with introductions around the room. The first order of business was to conduct the election of MN-UPA officers for 2002. Here are the election results:
After elections were completed, two discussion topics were opened up. The first topic was "Technical Writing and Usability." Valerie Stoehr began the discussion by sharing insights and anecdotes from her own experiences. David Prigge followed with his assertion that "there is little difference between usability of documentation and all other usability" and expounded on this theory.
The second topic, "Rapid Prototyping Tools" was facilitated by Sara Hoeppner, Bill Gaskill, and Caryn Zang-Josephson. They each gave examples of techniques that had and hadn't worked well for them, based on experience. Some examples given were: PowerPoint, FrontPage, Dreamweaver, Visio, HTML, Visual Basic, Lotus Notes, construction paper, and good olí paper and pencil.
Website stuff: New website address! You can now access our chapterís UPA site at www.upamn.org There is a possibility that Marc Duisenberg, with the assistance of Richard Sit, will implement discussion topics as a part of the website in order to increase our online voice. Everyone is invited and encouraged to participate.
Another new addition to the website will be a consultant directory. If you are a consultant and would like your name and contact information listed in this area, please contact Marc Duisenberg.
There was no update on the holiday party. The committee consists of Pam Boehmer, Barbara Karyukina, and Liz Daube-Stanley. Please contact one of them if you'd like to help.
Next meeting is the annual holiday party. The date will be Thursday, December 13. Location and more information to come. There was no update on the Carlson School of Management event. They are hosting "A Day in the Life of a Business Analyst" a presentation of their use of a contextual inquiry study.
Attendees