EDPS 6440: HumanComputer Interaction

HCI Exercise #2: User Interviews

Stakeholder(s)
Chrie Subject matter expert (SME) & employee of institution
Salt Lake Community College Academic Support Department

Design Challenge
Currently, Salt Lake Community College (SLCC) has no job task training for new incoming
academic administrative assistants. When a new administrative assistant is hired, they do not
attend, nor are they provided with any formal training of essential job functions. They often
have to scour websites, contact veteran personnel, as well as fragmented resources to find
relevant information to complete their job. This current system is time consuming, ineffective,
and often leads to incorrect completion of tasks and frustration. The essential job tasks of the
Administrative Assistant I position are similar enough that a single training could satisfy the
needs of this population across the academic departments as a whole as well as serve as a
reference for all admins. This would help centralize processes for consistency and correct any
incorrect processes that are currently being practiced by admins who have been employed at
the college for any amount of time.

Essential Job Tasks (include, but are not limited to):

Scheduling courses related to their specific department
Staffing adjunct faculty and parttime staff
Budget management
Learning proprietary software related to budgets
Desk copy and bookstore textbook orders
Calendar management for supervisor
Clerical duties:
Filing
Management of tenure documents and personnel files
Office supply orders
Minute taking
Reception
intake of students and faculty questions
processing any student/faculty complaints
Processing of new hire paperwork for adjunct faculty and staff
Keeping up to date on SLCC policies and procedures
Manage list of faculty and staff who need to complete required trainings
Time entry and tracking
Serving on committees around the department and college

Design Goal

The goal of this project is to design a centralized and effective training for new incoming
academic administrative assistants at Salt Lake Community College on essential job tasks in
order to be in alignment with SLCCs overall mission and goals. This training will be inperson
for new hire admins facilitated by a trainer (Chrie or Hailey), and available to all admins
asynchronously.

Users
Primary users Academic Administrative Assistants
Secondary users Parttime clerical staff and immediate supervisors
We anticipate users engaging in the training immediately after they are hired, during business
hours, during their first week of employment.

Recruiting Plan
Contact 57 admins of varying experience (colleagues) who represent the target demographic
for the training
Hold 1on1 interviews with the admins to assess their current knowledge

Motivation
Ability to affect change
Contribution to a resource that will be widely used by their peers and colleagues and even
themselves.

Interview Questions

In your previous jobs, please describe the best training experience you had.
What made it a successful training for you?
What was the worst training experience you had?
What made it an unsuccessful training?
What does the job title academic administrative assistant mean to you?
What do you see your main responsibilities being as an academic admin assistant?
Describe a typical day at the beginning of the semester.
Describe a typical day at the end of the semester.
What is the easiest part of your job?
What is the hardest part of your job?
If you run into barriers in completing a task, what do you do?
What job training have you received at SLCC for your current position? How satisfied were
you with the training you received?