Management of Technology Seminar
UC Santa Cruz
John Schneider
October 27 th , 2005

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My role at Seagate
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Professional Background
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Seagate Technology Overview
• eBusiness Solutions
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Seagate Internships
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Usability Testing with Paper Prototypes
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Recent Internship Experience
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

 Worked in various roles at Seagate for 3 ½ years
 Currently an IT Program Manager
 Responsible for managing multiple projects, often global in nature
 Define business goals and strategic direction
 Analyze payback of IT investments
 Managing the project plan and budget
 Ensure resource availability
 Communicate progress to executives and stakeholders
 Participating in Seagate’s Tuition Reimbursement Plan
 Currently earning MBA from Santa Clara University
 Interest areas include organization theory and international business
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

 Graduated Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in June ‘99
 Major: Business
 Concentration: Management Information Systems
 Minor: French
 Systems Analyst for Deloitte Consulting in San Francisco
 Oracle ERP practice
 Consulted at HP, Beckman-Coulter, and Lucent
 Consultant for Vigilance in Sunnyvale
 Supply Chain Management Software
 Consulted at Seagate, LSI, Compaq and Avnet
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

• Seagate is the world’s leading provider of hard disc drives
– Q4 FY2005*: 27.3M drives shipped; revenue of $2.18B
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Provides drives for Enterprise, Desktop, Mobile Computing and Consumer Electronics applications
– Share leader in Desktop, Consumer Electronics and Enterprise
– 30% overall market share: highest in the industry
– Broadest product offering in the industry – Largest customer base
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Ownership and vertical integration of critical technologies: heads, media, motors, and printed circuit boards
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Approximately 45,205** employees worldwide
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Major operations and sales offices in 15 countries
* For fiscal quarter ended April 1, 2005
** Includes interns, contractors, and agency temps
© Seagate Confidential Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) October 27 th , 2005

Fremont,
Milpitas, San Jose,
Scotts Valley, CA
Longmont, CO
Minneapolis, MN
Pittsburgh, PA
Springtown & Limavady,
N. Ireland
Oklahoma City, OK
Paris, France
Beijing, China
Delhi, India
Wuxi, China
Shanghai, China
Bangkok & Korat,
Thailand
Penang & Senai, Malaysia
Ang Mo Kio, Science Park &
Woodlands, Singapore
Tokyo, Japan
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101)
Drives and Components
Regional HQ’s and Sales
© Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

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Innovation
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Reliability
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Partnership
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

Leadership Model
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Leading Technology
– Invest in R&D
– Own underlying technology
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Broadest Set of Products and Customers
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Lowest Cost Producer
– Superior operational flexibility and leverage
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

An Industry Experiencing…
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Long-term growth
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Dynamic, emerging markets outside of traditional compute space
– DVRs, Handheld Digital Audio players & Game boxes
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Cost of extending technology has driven consolidation
• Fewer players to serve a growing market…
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

Revenue
Net Income
EPS
Shipments
Margins
Inventory
$2.18 billion – up 63% from Q4FY04
$280 million – up from loss of (33) M in Q4FY04
$0.55 – up from loss of .07 in Q4FY04
27.3 million – up 9 million from Q4FY04
24.8% - compared to 17.1% in Q4FY04
Under 5 weeks – for 6 th consecutive quarter
© Seagate Confidential Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) October 27 th , 2005

SMG
8%
Toshiba
8%
HGST
15%
Others
1%
SMG
8%
Toshiba
7%
FUJ
7%
FUJ
7%
WDC
17%
STX
28%
WDC
16%
MXO
16%
Q3 FY05
88.3M Units
Growth
Y/Y = 35%
Q/Q = 3%
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101)
Source: Seagate Market Research
© Seagate Confidential
MXO
15%
Q4 FY05
90.9M Units
October 27 th , 2005
HGST
16%
Others
1%
STX
30%

75%: $17B 97%: $23B TAM: $23B
Network Storage
Server Storage
High Density Storage
Near Line
Low Cost Server
PC Commercial
PC Consumer
$6 billion in new revenue access
Notebook
PVR
Gaming/Audio/Other
Handheld
FY04 FY05
© Seagate Confidential Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) October 27 th , 2005

• Drive shipments will grow to almost 200 million units in 2007*
• Revenues will grow to $11.5 billion in 2007*
*Source: Seagate Market Research
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

 Drive strategy, design and development of seagate.com
 Provide a unified view of Seagate for users, and make it easy for users to do business with Seagate.
 Define and drive design standards and processes
 Improve the quality of solutions, and leverage resources and learning across the enterprise.
 Manage both applications and infrastructure
 SMC applications (e.g., CRM, online ordering, forecasting)
 Sales data mart for reporting
 www.seagate.com and enterprise portal, my.seagate.com, spp.seagate.com.
 Define, develop and implement processes and solutions to support transactional and decision support requirements for
SMC.
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

 Objective:
 Identify challenging projects that give an intern real-world experience (projects last 1 to 2 terms in duration)
 Identify interns with the appropriate skills
 Help intern develop a project plan and gain access to stakeholders and tools required for the project
 General skills:
 Average to advanced skills in statistics (comfortable with Excel)
 Effective written and oral skills (comfortable writing PowerPoint presentations)
 Flexible and self-motivated
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

2004
Spring Summer
Software Enhancement
Tracking Process
Fall
2005
Winter Spring Summer Fall
2006
Winter Spring
Search
Optimization
Search
Usability
Web Analytics
Content
Authoring
Process
Online
Style
Guide
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

John Schneider
October 27 th , 2005

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What is usability testing?
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Why do usability testing?
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How to do usability testing.
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Why paper prototypes?
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Comparison of usability evaluation techniques.
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Usability testing demo.
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

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An empirical approach to evaluating how well users can use a system.
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A technique to involve real users in evaluation of a software product.
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A technique to evaluate how easy it is to perform real tasks using a software product.
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

• Ensure that software actually addresses users’ needs
• Get input from users before it’s too late to make changes
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Combat classic testing mistakes
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Find more usability problems than other techniques
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

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Costs per defects found in plan and design:
 .85 hour/defect
 $75 hour fully burdened rate ($150K year)
 $63.75 per defect
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Costs if found in integration test/system test:
 $750 to $3,000 per defect
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Cost if found in production:
 $10,000 per defect (HP)
 $140,000 per defect (IBM)
Source: Bender RBT, Inc.
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

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Not reporting usability problems
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A testing effort biased toward functional testing
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Not testing the documentation
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Not testing the installation procedures
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An overreliance on beta testing
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Testers are not domain experts
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Insisting that testers be able to program
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A testing team that lacks diversity
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Test suites that are understandable only by their owners
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Attempting to automate all tests
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Embracing code coverage with the devotion that only simple numbers can inspire
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101)
From: Classic Testing Mistakes, Brian Marick, 1997.
© Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

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Usability testing finds more global usability problems than other techniques
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Usability testing finds most significant problems; finding & fixing more problems may not be worth the effort
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Usability testing costs more than other techniques, but has lower per-problem-found cost
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Using any technique, software engineers are bad at finding usability problems
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

"Paper prototyping is a variation of usability testing where representative users perform realistic tasks by interacting with a paper version of the interface that is manipulated by a person ‘playing computer,’ who doesn’t explain how the interface is intended to work.”
- http://www.paperprototyping.com
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

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Set testing goals.
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Identify items to test.
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Establish test execution team.
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Invite testers.
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Prepare materials.
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Execute tests.
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Evaluate results.
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Take action!
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

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What do I need to know?
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When do I need to know it?
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What are the most risky aspects of the user experience?
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

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Software
 Which components?
 Which user tasks
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Documentation
 On-line
 Off-line
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Administrative functions
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Support functions
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

• “Computer”
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Interviewer
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Note-taker
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Observers
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

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Who needs to participate?
 User level (novice, power, etc.)
 User background
 Non-traditional users (e.g. sys admins, support staff)
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How many people need to participate?
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Who is available at the right time?
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

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Create paper prototypes
 Paper screen shots for each screen the testers may reach
 Sticky notes to represent drop-down menus
 Sticky notes for making on-the-fly adjustments
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Note-taking materials for testers
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Information packets, thank-yous, non-disclosure agreements, etc. for participants
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

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Interviewer discusses goals with participant and describes task
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Participant attempts to complete task while thinking aloud
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Interview interjects questions as necessary to understand what participant is thinking
• “Computer” operates paper prototype
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Note-taker records participant actions, thought processes, and other observations
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

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Identify areas where design failed to meet participant expectations
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Identify areas where participants showed confusion
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Identify tasks or actions participants were unable to complete
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

Testing of any sort only has value if the results are used to improve the product!
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005

Paper
Pros
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Cheap
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Fast
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Can be done very early in design
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Can be easily iterated
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Catches major problems
On-Line
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Closely mimics actual user experience
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Catches many usability problems
Cons
• Doesn’t mimic real use closely
• Doesn’t catch as many minor problems
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Expensive to create
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May set unrealistic performance expectations
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Hard to iterate
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Cannot be done as early
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Strong temptation to use prototype in final product
Management of Technology Seminar (ISM 101) © Seagate Confidential October 27 th , 2005