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Testing your ideas against reality can be challenging. Not everything will go as planned. It’s about keeping an open mind, having a clear hypothesis and running multiple tests to see if you have enough directional evidence to keep going.
This is the How I Tested That Podcast, where David J Bland connects with entrepreneurs and innovators who had the courage to test their ideas with real people, in the market, with sometimes surprising results.
Join us as we explore the ups and downs of experimentation… together.
David J Bland (0:1.218)
Hey, welcome to the podcast, Aaron.
Aaron J Slessinger (0:3.794)
Hey David, so good to see you again. It's a pleasure to talk with you.
David J Bland (0:7.330)
Yeah, I remember we first met several years ago and you were doing all this amazing stuff at HP and everyone talks about how testing is so easy with software. You do hardware and software together and you've been there for over 25 years and I just thought maybe you can give our listeners a little context about you and your background before we jump into a testing story.
Aaron J Slessinger (0:28.626)
Yeah, sure, sure. Yeah, you know, it seems like it's actually longer than I thought that we had actually worked together when you first came. So like I said, it's great to keep in touch with you and it's great to continue to watch your success and everything that you're doing. Yeah, so like you said, I'm Aaron. I have been here almost 27 years actually, so a little wit, but I like to tell everyone that I've done multiple things here. So it's not like I've just sat in one place for 27 years. So.
But yeah, I think you're right. We skirt a fine line between a hardware and software piece. And the good thing about software is that you can change it quickly. The bad thing about hardware is that it's not as easy to change so quickly. So you have to really make a bet and then move forward with it. So yeah, I'm in the displays and docs group now. We have been working on, the display is not what it used to be. It's not just a panel on a stick. It's a little bit more involved now.
So we've been trying to really solve a lot of pain points related to mostly desk setups, whether that's at home, at the office, the hot desk, right? The hot desk for us is really just more along the lines of like the everyday general use desk that multiple people will use at the office. So yeah, we've been pretty heads down. You know, HP is known for hybrid work and solving pain points for hybrid work. And we're a very, very big part of that. So yeah, we've been doing some great things.
David J Bland (1:55.170)
So that's fascinating. So you have this problem where you have a desk, but multiple people might be using it or switching out throughout the day. And this idea of we're not stationary as much anymore. We have standing desks and sitting desks and all these different workspaces now, especially beyond the pandemic. So how are you testing your way through that? Or how do you come up with an idea and think, well, is there something there for us to test about this? Just explain a little bit of the thought process behind that.
Aaron J Slessinger (2:23.570)
Sure, sure. So, you know, before the pandemic, there was this notion of a hot desk that was around. And I think it was seen more so from a company perspective as like, this is a way for us to re -landscape our real estate and make the most efficient solution for the actual real estate itself. Great kind of thought logic, right? And then pandemic came along and we all went home. I'll come back to that in a second.
And then afterwards we were like, oh, well, hold on a second. Now we're going to come back to the office. And we think that might be the right thing to do, but we're really concerned about touch points. Who's touching? There's a health element to it that we necessarily didn't think about before. And then at the same time, when we all went home, and I'm sure you're the exact same way, like we've curated a setup that is perfect for us. Like we know, you know,
I personally, I have a curved display, I have a very nice camera, I don't have a headset on right now because I don't like to wear it at home, right? And then, like all of a sudden, you called me and said, hey, Aaron, come back to the office and come work on this monitor that's 10 years old, this old keyword that's clunky, et cetera. And I was like, I don't wanna come back to work on that. I got something perfect at home. So we've been trying to, one, skirt the bounds of like,
let's reintroduce the hot desk in a more meaningful way that is good for the end user, good for the IT decision maker, and at the same time really kind of makes people happy at the end of the day. You have to want to kind of come work there and touch our stuff. So.
David J Bland (4:0.002)
That's amazing. So the pandemic changed this and I agree. My setup now is very particular setup at home. You know, I have my mic and everything and my lighting and does it reflect off my glasses and everything. And so this idea of coming back into a physical space, I can't bring all that with me. And so, you know, how do I navigate that? And you mentioned about the pandemic. What is it specifically you feel as if, like what kind of risky assumptions or things have come up with this?
hot desking post pandemic that you're trying to test your way through.
Aaron J Slessinger (4:31.378)
Yeah, so I think the biggest thing is, just one kind of starter thing is, before pandemic, we were asking users, what would you like? How could we make it better for you? But then when we went home,
A lot of companies actually gave stipends, if you remember, right? There was an element of like, hey, you don't have the stuff at home, so we're going to give you some dollars. You can go buy those things. Blessing and a curse actually, because blessing in the sense we all got something great. Curse because we, like I said, we curated something that was perfect for us. So what we've been doing is we've been testing and trying to learn specifically what those setups at home look like.
why they're more appealing and how we could emulate that at the office. So my team and I, we do a lot of in -user interviews and back to our conversations from years ago, right? Like we sit and we talk to the customers like big quant studies are great. Like, yeah, oh, people are interested in monitors. Perfect. I think we kind of know that, right? Productivity increased by 30 % with the second monitor. Okay, get it. I always try to start these interviews with some level of...
Hey, I would like to see a picture of your setup. What is it that you're working with today? Because it's quite telling, right? And I think it's quite telling in a sense of like what they're doing, why they've set up the way they have. And then I always love like the little hacks, right? So my favorite hack, by the way, is everyone takes a monitor and they set it like on a ream of paper or a book. And you're like, I'm like, well, why did you do that? Oh, well, we wanted it higher. Well, did you know that there's such thing as like a height adjust monitor? Oh.
there is. And I think a lot of it's just education awareness anyway, right? But nonetheless, like they saw a problem and they kind of solved it for themselves. Part of our part of our problem and what we're testing is more along the lines of like, yeah, how can we push technology further to solve the problem? But then there's also just let's drive awareness to we've got simple features like that. So.
David J Bland (6:33.538)
Yeah, in a previous session episode, we were going through this model of do people have the problem? Are they aware they have the problem? Are they actually seeking a solution to the problem? And it sounds as if stacking your monitor on a ream of paper or books, that's sort of their way to solve it. But it's probably not very good, not very stable. You know, they're all because of issues with it. And but they maybe don't know of other solutions or they're not aware of things that could be.
potentially solve that in a more elegant way.
Aaron J Slessinger (7:5.458)
Correct, correct. So here lately, I'll tell you kind of one of the big tests and we've done it a couple, we've done it, we started with ourselves, because we have a pool of 60 ,000 users in this company, so we might as well take advantage of that. And though we're all product people and we work on product, it's hard, sometimes it's hard to divorce yourself, but we have other functions that just don't create product and they don't know, right? So.
We decided that we would go roll out hot desk as well. And we, I would say for an IT company, we were a little short -sighted with this, honestly. We, we went out, we bought a bunch of equipment and we rolled it out to sites. And we, we chose particular sites. We didn't do everything at once. And, and I don't want to, I don't want to make it any, like it's meaningless or anything, but we hired what essentially is movers, facilities folks, right?
And they moved everything out. They set it up to the best that they knew how. And we said, hey, users, go out and enjoy your new hot desk. And we got quite a bit of complaints because nothing worked. Things weren't set up correctly, et cetera. And it turns out that these things are kind of hard. Setups are not, they shouldn't be overly hard, but they are kind of hard in the sense of like how many, even if I came to you, David, and I said,
Tell me what you know about USB -C connections and daisy chaining and connecting all your peripherals. You'd probably be like, I may have heard those words. Like the actual implantation of them is not so easy. So we quickly learned from our end users and we listened to them about what their problems were. And then the ones that did have success, we really listened to them too as to how you wanted to curate things. So we kind of redid a relaunch, I guess you would say, or a redeployment.
and we hired some IT engineers or we consulted them because we got them internal and we said, like, what should we have done, et cetera. And we built a playbook of how to go do this, right? So like, if I come to you and say, hey, David, like, you know, you've got 20 ,000 seats. Here's a bit of a guide as to how you should go deploy those 20 ,000 seats. So we did that. We know enough about it. We continue to get better, but we think we have a bit of a good, a good mistherapy.
Aaron J Slessinger (9:24.882)
We've actually taken that playbook and now we've given it to a lot of our sellers. So when they talk to our customers, they can go and say, hey, you're thinking about it. We have at least a foundation for you to start on. We have one customer we worked really close with and we told them, hey, why don't you let us test our guide with you? And they said, hey, we would love it. We'd love for you to do that. So they have...
It's on the round of about 30 ,000 users that they're going to deploy Desk for. And they've cut back real estate. They've asked only 60 % of their workforce to come back to the office. And we told them, like, here's our guide. Tell us what you think, one, from an ITDM perspective. And what was interesting about that is it's kind of simple. Here's the product suggestion. Here's how the setup would happen.
And then here's how we think you should roll it out. And it really gets interesting because not everyone's the same. Like this particular customer, they told us like, well, we don't have dedicated IT at every site. We only have, and where we do, it's easy for us to go do this deployment. Where we don't, we'd have to try to end up getting someone to come and tell us specifically, or get someone there to be able to do the deployment or then to like,
would that ever happen on time, all those things, right? So it gets kind of complicated even in the beginning. But the success there is we actually kind of went a little bit further because we were looking at different setups as well. So we tested four different setups with their end users. We went in, we set up a nice dual display setup, HP, you know, dual display, keyboard, mouse, nice poly headset, et cetera. And we set up dual display, a curved display, a gaming setup.
David J Bland (11:19.970)
Oh.
Aaron J Slessinger (11:20.146)
And then we actually set up a docking setup as well with dock versus just standard USB -C monitor. And we asked each of those users, it was like, they kind of publicized it a little bit and they invited everyone in and we let, but there were more than just four of it. There were multiple setups of the same thing. And we said, hey, users like sit at each of them for 30 minutes and tell us what you like and what you don't like. The beauty of that is there's survey and there's some data and some results that came from it.
The second beauty of it for me and my team specifically is we got to interview those end users as they were working. What do you like? Back to my hack around the Brema paper, what do you like? What do you don't like? Which applications are you using? Why would you like this setup versus that setup? And one example for them is this company is an insurance company. They use a lot of web -based apps. And a lot of them did not like a curved display.
because they use multiple windows and they really like the idea of having two dual display set up with dedicated windows that they didn't have to guess where things were, full screens and stuff like that. And normally, like curve is a wow factor for most people, so they're like all about it. But truly interesting in the sense that we got like one level deeper. We didn't just talk about the hardware, but we talked about the software pieces and the actual use case as to why they chose what they did.
Um, and at the end of the day, super successful, they ended up, this company ended up choosing one setup. There's one clear winner, which was dual display. And, um, at the same time, they, um, they decided this is what they were going to do. They decided this is what they would buy. And they're in the process of actually rolling out to their 30 ,000 seats today.
David J Bland (13:7.330)
I guess fascinating how you're testing your playbook with customers. You know, it's not necessarily testing on, but testing with, and they know it's kind of a test, but at the same time, it's pretty open that, look, we want to learn with you so you have the best experience when it comes to hot desking. So I really love that approach of, and that's what I'm seeing more from B2B clients that I have. It's, it's less of testing on it's more about, Hey, let's invite you in earlier in the process and let's co -create together. So we have the optimal experience.
I hope that continues to be a trend across the industry. And I was wondering when you were talking about that, you know, are there any steps before? Because with hardware, you know, it seems as if, well, there's 3D printing, you could use maybe paper prototyping with cardboard and such. Do you do that sort of testing as well where it's really low fidelity, you know, before you have the IT setup and everything with the curved monitors and all that?
Is there anything before that that you're trying to do more like a quick scrappy way? I was just wondering if there was anything like that that you do.
Aaron J Slessinger (14:12.050)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. This one just quickly, one other point I wanted to make was not only are we testing with them, but I think the feedback we get is actually beneficial, back to your point about hardware, for us in general. We only improve our products by good customer feedback, via end user or IT folks. And then we just have better products at the end of the day. So it's critical that we have that interaction and whatnot.
This is a very kind of like, here's what we had, here's how we deploy a setup perspective. You know, your low fidelity testing, Uber, you know, we started this with you actually, all those years ago. And I remember like, when you gave us the list of material like cardboard and this and the other, I was like, I'm not exactly sure what exactly we're looking at, but okay. But I tell you, it's proof is the thing, it works. Recently, we've been looking at...
I'll give you another example of my curve display. One curve is not the same as another curve, right? There's a sense of more curve versus less curve and then perception of curve and whatnot. So we've been looking at a very large curve display and normally like our panel makers and stuff will come to us and say, here's what we got. Is this what you want? And...
We like to go one step further and just confirm that that will or will not work. So we've been testing curvature with quite a few end users. So we got out the cardboard and the X -Acto knife and we actually started building what is a curve display, so to say, right? And we've had some folks come in and we have them sit in front of each one and we have them tell us, and it doesn't really need to be a live video stream or anything. It's just more or less like,
How does it fit on the desk? Are there any interruptions to the other devices that you have on your desk, right? Do you need to turn your head any more amount or is it more uncomfortable for you to turn your head at this curvature versus another curvature, right? And if you get too curved, things kind of like protrude onto the desk and kind of get in the way of moving your mouse or where you would put your notebook or something. And then if it's not curved enough,
Aaron J Slessinger (16:32.722)
you feel like you're kind of looking off into the distance, so to say, right? So this low fidelity testing is super useful because it cuts out so much of the like high fidelity testing, I would say, and prototyping so that we can just narrow down to two things or ultimately we can just make a decision.
David J Bland (16:53.634)
Yeah, I think when we say software, well, with software companies, we say paper prototyping. It's like, I'm going to draw a workflow or everything. And I think there aren't as many stories about, well, we're literally just going to do cardboard and we're just going to bend things and get feedback. And that could potentially shape the final product, which I imagine it would be much more expensive to make a finished curve and then realize something was wrong versus catching it sooner. So I love that you bring people in.
Aaron J Slessinger (17:20.978)
Yeah.
David J Bland (17:22.658)
Are these mostly internal folks? Do you get external? Is it a mix?
Aaron J Slessinger (17:26.738)
We do both, actually. I think internal is good. The thing I don't like about internal is I feel like we're too smart, so to say. I'm sure you've read the book, The Mom Test, and things like that. I feel like we're in it every day, so we know too much about it. I feel like we need everyday user that isn't in it as much that would legitimately sit in front of it and then make an ultimate decision or, excuse me, or.
decide like quickly, I like this or I don't like this. That's the feedback that I feel like we really need. And we, you know, this brings up a good point that I wanted to make if I didn't stress it earlier enough. I talked about the end user and the IT decision maker. And I feel like a lot of times with B2B conversations, the buyer is the IT decision maker. And a lot of times we, you know, we, we tend to listen to them because they're the buyer. Yes.
But I think there's a shift in the industry right now where IT decision maker is really all about pleasing the end user now. And the end user is the one that has to use this stuff every day. And the more that we can get to the end user and it's almost kind of that B2C type of approach, the better because that's the true feedback that we get. Because I feel like IT decision maker is very much like internal. We know too much and they know too much as well.
We're not getting that raw feedback from an end user.
David J Bland (18:52.162)
I like that. And your value prop might be different, slightly different to each, right? So the buyer, your value prop might be more about cost savings and things like that. Whereas your value prop to the end user is more about, well, this fits, this is comfortable, comfortable for me. This fits into my workflow, you know, and they're probably less, since they're not funding it, usually they're not, they're less price sensitive. And so it's a slightly different value prop there. So I could see where you'd want to go to the end user.
And maybe you could even use that as leverage in the conversation with the decision maker and the IT person. Yeah.
Aaron J Slessinger (19:27.762)
For sure. We've kind of, one, I would say that, you know, most end users, I think, there's always outliers like anything, right? But most end users, I would say, are, they're really focused on like, how do I make this better for me? How do I become more productive in what I'm doing? Because I think most people are just like, the lack of efficiency really hurts them, right? Like if you struggle to sit down and get ready to work and can work, it's just bothersome for you, right? It's annoying.
Most people just want to be productive and technology should not be a hindrance. It should be a benefit to you, right? That's one thing. And then I think the other thing is related to just the tech and those types of things itself is that people are very vocal. They like to tell you about stuff. And as long as you're open and you're truly customer or empathetic to their needs and the pain that they go through,
I think that it resonates very well with them, resonates with us. And I think that's a true part of it. Like we have to, one, be proud of what we build, but then two is, you know, it's very humbling to sit in front of someone that uses your stuff and take their feedback and you have to be ready to do that.
David J Bland (20:43.298)
I agree. I remember when we were collaborating, you know, we tried to design experiences where we'd spend the morning, you know, writing our interview scripts and talking about our riskiest assumptions and everything. And then we had people that we were interviewing around lunchtime. So that was a really short feedback loop. And what always fascinated me, and this isn't necessarily unique to your company, but people would fall in love with their idea by lunch. And then they get that feedback of...
Oh, maybe this isn't such a great idea already. So I think anything you could do, especially in hardware, to shorten that feedback loop seems like it would be beneficial to your overall design.
Aaron J Slessinger (21:10.098)
Yeah.
Aaron J Slessinger (21:17.554)
Yeah. You know, David, I would say it never, your point about like falling in love by lunch and then talking with people. I recently took over a new team in Taiwan actually, and they've not been exposed to as much customer interviews and things like that. Right. And the first thing I did was like, you guys got to get in front of people. You got to have these one -on -one conversations. And one is, it's like the realization like, oh, I have to talk to some random stranger.
type of a thing, right? Which I think is, it's a big thing actually, it's a blocker, so to say. But you know, once you do it, I think it's good because you start to really build those skills around like, yes, I can do this, the line of questioning that I'm supposed to be asking versus leading someone on and that type of thing. And then that's when the true magic comes, right? And we can really get some of those good pain points and user feedbacks that we can go solve. And those are the nuggets we really need.
David J Bland (22:17.122)
Yeah, so I was thinking while you were talking about, so you mentioned the mom test, which is a great book that I also recommend to our listeners and how you structure those interviews and everything. How are you taking what you've learned in those interviews and sorting through all that or trying to find insights? How are you finding that process, especially in hardware where you're trying to go fast, but there are also limitations with hardware that you maybe won't have with hardware.
Aaron J Slessinger (22:43.538)
Yeah, you know, that's a good one. I tell everyone, like, of the hundred interviews we do, we may get one little nugget. And I think that those are the important nuggets. I think we use all the data. One is we take the data and we try to at least validate what we think we knew or what we've done, or if it's still relevant, I would say, that type of thing, right? Because I feel like sometimes we always think that there has to be something new.
And a lot of times you've got an end user or B2C customer who is just experiencing something for the first time and it's kind of ground zero for them. And we have to kind of, we have to remember that, right? So there's an element of that piece of it. But then two is as we get, and as technology evolves and as we, you know, return to the office, come back to new spaces, those types of things, like our experience with these devices change and our want from them change as well.
And I think sometimes just hearing, like in the past, everyone used to always talk about like the 30 minutes I have at my desk versus in the meeting room and then the next conference room and that type of thing. And I just need to be overproductive in the 30 minute gap that I have between meetings, right? Not so much anymore. Like conversation around sitting at desk is really more like I want to be seen and heard appropriately on the meeting.
I'm the remote participant that's not in the conference room and I don't feel like I have enough equity for the conversation because no one's looking at me physically, that type of thing, right? So I think we don't only look at the specifics, but there's a trend around like the before and after and what people are thinking, et cetera. There's also a very much a generational.
understanding or perception of these things too, right? And I think that's, it's good to talk with everyone as well. Like, I always joke, my, one of my employees calls me an elder millennial. And I said, I don't think anyone wants to be called elder anything by the way, FYI, but like the way that I perceive and want to be seen and show up and communicate is very different than like a Gen Z or, or someone that's older, that type of thing. So.
David J Bland (24:59.426)
Thank you for elaborating on that. I'm wondering, we have a lot of listeners that are different corporations and recently we had Dave Masters from Ylter .com who was like a case study in the Testing Business Ideas book and I asked him, hey, for other people in big software companies, what kind of advice you would give them? You're working in hardware, there is software as well, and what kind of advice would you give to your fellow product people who want to work this way and other similar companies? Like what...
What kind of advice would you give them to help them start to see this process sort of have an impact?
Aaron J Slessinger (25:34.482)
Sure, I think there's two things. One is you just have to remove the barriers and talk to people, like talk to real people. Because...
In my case, as an example, like a monitor is not a new thing. It's been around for a long time and it's a blessing and a curse because there's a perception around it. But there's also an element of like, I saw something new. I want to do something different with it. I want to multipurpose with it, et cetera. So you just have to talk to people and listen to what they say. And I think that's the key important piece is listen and let them.
You'll be empathetic, let them tell you your pain points and stuff. I will say though, and for me, it's not hard, it's not software platform, I would say, but it's more like software enabling type of things, right? And I'll give you an example. We lead the industry in conferencing monitors. Those things don't just happen without software, right? There's an element of like, I have to have things as like the focus that is, that's on the webcam or,
the way that the webcam interacts with different operating systems and things like this, right? So I think even for just standard hardware folks, right? There's an element of the, even whatever you call it, enabling software, software layer, software application, whatever it is, however you describe it, there's an element of like this beauty in the marriage between those two.
to really deliver the best customer experience at the end of the day that we can. And that's what we want to do at the end of the day. We want to real rate products that people want to buy, but ultimately, day after day, when they sit in front of it, we want them to be happy with the experiences that they have.
David J Bland (27:20.002)
Yeah, so what I'm hearing is try to remove the barriers because doing this in a customer free zone is pretty challenging. There's no loop out to the customer and back or the user and therefore anything that they can do to help remove those barriers. Sounds like it would enable working this way.
Aaron J Slessinger (27:37.458)
100 % yeah.
David J Bland (27:39.522)
Great. Well, I wanted to thank you so much for spending time with us and going through how you're thinking about testing at HP. I'm just curious, how would people reach out to you? How would they find you, what you're working on? People that listen to this episode and want to reach out, where would they go to find you?
Aaron J Slessinger (27:56.434)
For sure. You know, I think the other thing, I'm a little bit of a LinkedIn junkie, so please, by all means, go search me out on LinkedIn. I am a very big proponent of HP, so there's a lot of HP posts out there, but I'm happy to connect with anyone and share my story advice, those types of things. It's probably the best way to get ahold of them.
David J Bland (28:17.922)
All right, so there you have it. You can reach out to a true product guy who's been at HP for over 27 years, has a lot of great experience about testing and hardware and software. So definitely take him up on his offer. Thank you for hanging out with us today and sharing some stories. I really appreciate it.
Aaron J Slessinger (28:32.146)
It's great to talk with you again, David. Good to see you. Thanks for having me.