we're gonna discuss the look and feel design , the user interface design , and we're gonna evaluate the product . And the end result of this meeting has to be a decision on the details of this remote control , like absolute final decision ,  and then I'm gonna have to specify the final design in the final report . So  just from from last time to recap , we said we were gonna have a snowman shaped remote control with no L_C_D_ display , no need for talk-back , it was hopefully gonna be kinetic power and battery  with rubber buttons , maybe backlighting the buttons with some internal L_E_D_s to shine through the casing ,  hopefully a jog-dial , and incorporating the slogan somewhere as well . user interface: well look at the expense sheet , and  it turned to be quite a lot expensive to have open up and have lots of buttons and stuff inside , project manager:  . user interface: so instead we've  this is gonna be an L_C_D_ screen ,  just a a very very basic one , very small  with access to the menu through the the scroll wheel and  confirm  button . user interface: apart from that , it's just pretty much the same as we discussed last time . industrial designer: And there isn't  d it doesn't open up to the advanced functions ? the advanced functions are still hidden from you , but they're hidden in the sense that  they're not in use . marketing: Where are they ? industrial designer:  they're in the L_C_D_ panel and the jog-dial ? marketing: Ah , right . industrial designer: Okay 'cause project manager: So w what kind of thing  is gonna be marketing: Great . user interface: industrial designer: The L_C_D_ panel just displays  functionally what you're doing . If you're using an advanced function right , like  c brightness , contrast , whatever , it will just say marketing: Right . industrial designer: You know it's like it only has four columns , it's a very simple L_C_D_ like , whereas many the minimum amount we need that the user will automatically know like this is brightness or this is contrast . industrial designer: It might even be one , a bit more complex L_C_D_ panel with pictures like maybe the sun or the , you know , the the symbols of the various functions . project manager: Where are we gonna have the slogan ? industrial designer:  they're al along this user interface: You know , just like right inside there . industrial designer: You have this space here , and then you have this thing on the side as well , or at the bottom . project manager: industrial designer: 'Cause slogans are usually quite small , right , project manager: Okay . industrial designer: say a button's about this size , right , so you would still have plenty of space for a slogan , say even for that . project manager: So if this isn't to scale , what kind of dimensions are you thinking about here ? user interface: Well we want the other buttons to be big enough to push easily with a finger project manager: user interface: so we reckon maybe that'll be about the same size as the palm of your hand . industrial designer: Yep so that would be about a centimetre for a button , so one two three four centimetres . marketing: That'd be good , in fact a pen is about ten centimetres usually , so that would be that sounds like a really good size , if you see it there . Is these are these the colours that of production , or is this just what we had available ? user interface: Well I'm We're gonna have again the the sort of the foggy  yellow from last time that lit up when you pushed the button . project manager: Okay so just user interface:  project manager: could you just list all the things that it does s so I can write them in the report . user interface: But  this button  , because it's red it's sort of very prominent , we're gonna use it as  it can be the power button if you hold it for maybe two seconds it'll send a stand-by signal . user interface:  apart from that it's gonna be used as a confirm button for the L_C_D_ screen industrial designer: Sure . industrial designer: Oh we've discussed how h high it is , but how wide is it ? user interface: I don't know . marketing: How high is it ? industrial designer: No as in the height , but what about the width ? marketing: Yeah . project manager: Oh is this k to get an idea of scale from your from your thing there okay . project manager: So you can power on and off , what else can you do ? marketing: Three and a half . user interface: were gonna have the volume control here , but  because we've got the the L_C_D_ and the jog-dial we just thought we'd  use that as the volume . user interface:  you can use it for  more advanced functions like contrast , colour and project manager: Contrast , brightness , user interface:  yeah . project manager: yeah , and anything else ? user interface:  just whatever else we wanted to include as the advanced functions ,  we didn't actually go through and specify the project manager: Well of the designers what are they ? user interface:  what can a T_V_ do ? industrial designer: Okay things like  brightness , contrast , project manager: -huh . Are you having a V_C_R_ , are you having you know which input do you have ? marketing: - , industrial designer: Audio , we have like your basic y your base , your mid-range , your high range . industrial designer: Yep , left-right balance ,  maybe even pre-programmed sound modes , like  the user could determine like a series of sound modes , project manager: Okay . industrial designer: and then what could happen would be  when you click on that then it would go to that setting . project manager: is there anything else at all it can do ? That 'cause that's that's fine . Okay  right I g I guess that's it , so we can now  We can now have a little look at the the Excel sheet and price listing , and see if we need to  if we need to rethink anything at all . project manager: So  for this first part here power-wise , have we got battery ? industrial designer: The battery . industrial designer: We need an project manager: And that's because of cost restraints is it ? industrial designer: Yep . project manager:  what about the electronics here ? industrial designer: We need an advanced chip I think , yep . project manager: Okay  the case , what does it mean by single and double , do you know ? user interface:  I think single would just be sort of one sort of oval whereas double is this sort of thing . project manager: Is there any rubber at all in the buttons or any industrial designer: I think we're gonna have to skip the rubber . project manager: So I'll have to put that Oh no wait we ho how many colours have we got there ? industrial designer: For the case itself , one colour . industrial designer: 'Cause the case unit itself , the rest of our components go on top of it . project manager: Okay so interface-wise , is it this third option we have , the two of them there ? marketing:  . project manager: Okay and then buttons , we have what , two colours ? industrial designer: How many user interface:  we have  got some push buttons as well . user interface: So I reckon we've got one button for this thing 'cause it's just one big sheet of rubber . user interface: I'm not sure if that counts but industrial designer: Okay let's just be safe and put like say four buttons for that one . user interface: You can see we're we're all very far beyond the project manager: So w why are we arriving at the number four ? Where does the number four come from ? industrial designer: 'Cause that's one button by its the complexity of twelve buttons . project manager: Okay right , industrial designer: So we're just estimating that yeah it would be less . user interface: industrial designer: project manager: Now we're gonna something's gonna have to go .  we're at sixteen point eight and marketing:  how - how are we going to achieve this high-end product if project manager: Well we h something has to go to the tune of two point t three Euro , marketing: We only have very sparse project manager: so let me see , what are we  marketing: Two point three ? Four point three no ? project manager: oh yes sorry , four point three . user interface: Well we could take out ones by making it single curved , just fill in those bits . industrial designer: How much would that save us ? marketing: And then where is the project manager: How much would that save us ? industrial designer: That will only save you one . industrial designer: The other thing could be that  you could take away the L_C_D_ panel and the advanced chip together , project manager: One . industrial designer:  because when you do something on the T_V_ , the T_V_ responds and reacts as well , marketing: industrial designer: so the user could be looking at the T_V_ and pushing his thing so we may not need to user interface: That's fair enough , yeah . industrial designer: so when we scroll we need just some way to get the T_V_ to respond , marketing: industrial designer: which I think is a technically doable thing so project manager: Okay so marketing:  and we ha where are the four the four push buttons are where exactly now ? industrial designer: The twelve buttons that you see there . user interface: That's  one piece of rubber but it's gonna have twelve button things underneath so project manager: Yeah . industrial designer: Functionally you're gonna have to intercept So four is a good estimate for project manager: Do you think ? industrial designer: Yeah , so you can't actually cut It's like three times the number of buttons , four , eight , twelve . project manager: Like is is that one big button or is it twelve buttons , industrial designer: It It needs to be more than one big button because if you open up your phone , underneath there's actually one button underneath , it's just that the panel itself is a single panel . marketing: industrial designer: or the colours , you could take away s colours for th for the buttons . project manager: Well do you want colour differentiation here ? industrial designer: No that's not the button we're talking about . industrial designer: the buttons only refer to the pad so project manager: Right so industrial designer: Should we take that off  ? project manager: Ah . industrial designer:  so then these just become normal coloured buttons , so that might be some some way of cutting the cost . marketing: user interface: So I reckon project manager:  marketing: How about with embossing the logo , isn't that going to cost us some money ? project manager: Doesn't say so . Just one ? Does that mean that one button has a special form or user interface: I think there's just one button so project manager: Yeah okay . So we're not gonna have the L_C_D_ anymore , and we'll just gonna have an on t on the T_V_ it'll show you what you're doing , which I think is fair enough , and so this is gonna be one big thing here . marketing: Was the goal in your in your prototype design that it be as low profile as possible ? industrial designer: What do you mean by profile ? marketing: Sort of flat as possible . user interface: sort of deep enough to be comfy to hold in your hands rather than being wide and flat . marketing: Yeah that's what I was thinking , to industrial designer: We didn't have enough Play-Doh to make it three D_ . industrial designer: So there's one more dimension to the thing which we need to to add , marketing: project manager: So just to well to be thorough then , width-wise we're looking at about what three centimetres or something ? industrial designer: Yeah . project manager: How how tall do you envisage it being ? About that big ? industrial designer: Two . Okay so can we close that ? This is what it's the final spec that it's gonna be . marketing:  it's probably just I dunno if it's worth getting into , but  just in in that we want this to be stylish , should we think a little bit more out of the box in terms of a button grid , because I've seen there's lots of devices out there that that instead of taking your standard nine nine square grid , and they have it sort of stylized or in different concept that that industrial designer: I think that's something that's very hard to catch , marketing: Yeah . industrial designer: The the look and the colour is something which is cool , marketing: Yeah , alright . industrial designer: but I think that there's also that factor of if it's too unfamiliar marketing: Okay , sure . industrial designer: then  because when you put it on the shelf marketing: What about button shape ? Square buttons ? industrial designer: Yeah button shape might be a good idea to change , rather than rather than positioning , marketing: Okay . industrial designer: 'cause I think positioning is we're kinda engrained into the the telephone kind of marketing: Yeah . So at this point we  , let me see , discuss  how satisfied we all are with  with these four points , with the room for creativity in the project , and leadership and teamwork , and the stuff we had around us I guess . project manager: let me see  marketing: Do you want me to d  Do you want me to do my  design evaluation last ? industrial designer: Maybe we should do the design evaluation first . project manager: Yeah I wasn't really sure what that was marketing: Or project manager: Yeah marketing: Evaluation .  , alright so the way this works , I'm gonna need to plug into PowerPoint , project manager: Okay . industrial designer: I don't think you need the power , marketing: industrial designer: so marketing: What's that ? industrial designer: No , that's okay that's okay . marketing: I don't need the PowerPoint ? industrial designer: No , the power cord itself . marketing: Oh course , industrial designer: Yeah , so then you have a bit more freedom to marketing: yeah that's true . marketing: so what this is is a set-up for us to   use a kind of a like a user interface: Is it ? industrial designer: You killed a monster . user interface: marketing: The idea is that I've set up I've reviewed all of the  the points of discussion from the beginning , and used that as a criteria of evaluation for the   for the current design  th or the plan , and  so we can review that .  I think it's gonna end up being sort of elementary because we're sort we're in n we're not gonna probably use it to change anything but Doesn't seem like it's going , does it ? project manager: Oh there it is .  and I'm gonna write up our results on the board , so this'll be a way for us to go through and decide if we're  sort of review where we stand with it . Okay , so  So to sort of b bring together two things , sort of design goals and also the market research that we had ,  when we rate this , one is v high in in succeeding or fitting to our original aim and seven is low , project manager:  'kay . So these i these i th are the and  we've been asked to  to collectively rate this , so what we can do is try and just y work on a consensus system so we just come to an agreement . project manager: What does anybody else think ? marketing: Yeah  me  my only reservation with it was that we basically went with yellow because it's the company's colour , project manager:  . industrial designer: It's one to seven , right ? project manager: Oh yes marketing: The project manager: sorry then marketing: So it meant three , project manager: then I would say two or three . industrial designer: Wait , what's the scale , one to seven , right ? project manager: Yeah . user interface: One's high-ish isn't it ? Ah , okay so yeah , two or three . project manager: Well it has the wee jog-dial marketing: We had to remove project manager: but marketing: Yeah , so we've had to remove a few of our features we wanted , project manager:  . marketing: but jog-dial industrial designer: Say it's more project manager: I'd go with three or four , marketing: 's good . marketing: I shouldn't have said colour , but just industrial designer: Okay , the blue the blue colours and don't re don't actually represent the colour , project manager: Well that's kind of marketing: Sorta . industrial designer: Yeah , the the yellow is more representative of the colour , project manager: couldn't it ? industrial designer: but the button itself , the blue can be anything else . project manager: Well yeah ,  it's really basic looking isn't it ? marketing: F f yeah f fairly basic , project manager:  I'd give that nearly a one .  , soft and spongy , have we achieved that ? We've used mostly plastic in the end so it's going to be quite a bit of a compromise for price . marketing: That's user interface: so it's probably gonna be marketing:  industrial designer: Yeah , company logo . marketing: could we have used an entirely rubber frame to it ? Was that an option ? industrial designer: I think it'll be cost prohibitive , user interface: I think I'd probably increase the cost . marketing: Okay , logo , we've got it in there , haven't we ? industrial designer: Yep . Gonna have that on the side , aren't we , like there or something ? marketing: Huh . marketing: Okay , so we can say then that  out of a possible or what would be our goal here ? project manager: Out of forty nine , I guess . marketing: I think 'cause if you turn that into a hundred it would be about project manager: Twice that , marketing: about thirty one , project manager: about thirty one . marketing: and then invert that , it's project manager: So yeah ab well yeah about sixty nine , seventy percent yeah . project manager: Is that you all have all finished , or marketing: Yeah that's that's me . I did have one other  one other frame I thought ,  I I d not knowing how we would deal with this information , I thought okay in theory this kind of a process would be about refining our design , revisiting our original goals . marketing: It's not something I need to p push through , but I thought should we thinking more about the dimensions ,  sort of like more of a three dimensional shapes as well as opposed to just that flat  project manager: marketing: Could our design involve a series of colours so that it's more of like a line where we have like sort of the , I don't know like the harvest line or the vibrant , industrial designer: Yep . marketing: I dunno the Whatever just some theme and then we have different tones , lime green , lemon . project manager: Okay , great  are you submitting the the  evaluation criteria or am I ? I don't know what your instructions have been . project manager:  just wondering if I need to include it in the minutes , user interface: project manager: because if you're submitting it anyway then marketing: I will , yeah . industrial designer: 'Kay I'm I'm listening I'm just trying to incorporate the logo into the the thing , so I'm playing with the Play-Doh as well . user interface: industrial designer: Just in case you're wondering , why is he still playing with the Play-Doh ? marketing: Huh . industrial designer: Just about right user interface: industrial designer: L_E_G_O_ Lego .  well do you wanna  just individually say what you think about about these four points and or not those four points , my four points , sorry , forgotten that .  do you wanna start Andrew ? marketing: Sure ,  so what is it you're asking of me now ? project manager: I don't know , just  your opinion on those four those four points really and how we used them . The the room  is fairly institutional , but  the main thing is , I think  our use of this space is more just to report on things as opposed to be creative and constructive and it would probably help to  have l sort of a cumulative effect of we have ideas and we come back and then the ideas are still in discussion , you know , project manager: -huh . marketing: as in other words this this room is sort of a centre point of creativity , whereas in reality as we've gone through this , it's not really the centre point of creativity , it's more just a project manager: Well d do you feel though that that you were able to have quite a lot of creative input into the thing ? marketing: d debating Yeah , yeah but that's just the thing is the quest in terms of the the first point there , the room , it feels as though the creativity goes on when we leave , and then we come here and then we kind of put out our ideas and then , you know . project manager: But I don't I don't think it means the room as in this room . I think it means like you know marketing: Oh , oh right right , oh right okay room for creativ project manager: Yeah . project manager: Well I dunno do you th I think it means  I think it means did you feel you were able to give creative input so marketing: Sorry . Yeah I th okay on th  yeah dif answering the question  in those terms I'd say that actually there's sort of a tease of creativity because we're asked to work through this , but actually the guidelines are fairly contrived in terms of  okay fashion trends , say fruit and vegetable colour scheme , project manager: We're told okay  think in terms of style and look and feel and technology , but build something for twelve and a half pounds , project manager: Okay . marketing: so actually the creativity was more more of like a  a f sort of a f formality then an actual industrial designer: You feel like you're caged within whatever y project manager: Okay . marketing: Yeah within the constraints industrial designer: It's like a balloon in a cage , it can only go so big and not hit the side . user interface:  I agree with his point it's  it is quite a lot of fun t to go and then you have sort of hit the end then go right , gotta cut everything out 'cause we don't have enough money . industrial designer: I think another point is that the meetings  are more brainstorming sessions than meetings , marketing: Yeah . industrial designer: Because for a brainstorming meeting you want a structure that allows you to allows ideas to get tossed ,  to be evaluated , and to be reviewed , and to get feedback and come back . industrial designer: And I guess that point about the room not being r very friendly to that , I think that's a very big thing , marketing: Yeah . industrial designer: and I think the fact that we're wearing these things restricts marketing: Yeah , sure . industrial designer: I feel it 'cause I wear m my glasses , right , and that but that irritates me right project manager: Yeah . industrial designer: it it it does actually you know affect how , w whether you feel comfortable to communicate . industrial designer: I feel like I'm hiding behind the equipment , rather than the equipment is helping me , and you know . project manager: So you think a more relaxed atmosphere would be more kind of conducive to creative thought or marketing: Right . industrial designer: Not not so much an atmosphere , the atmosphere is very relaxed , but the the gear project manager: Yeah , but actual environment ? industrial designer: yeah you know that creates boundaries to that  marketing:  .  what about leadership ? industrial designer: project manager: I don't know if that means like , if I did a good job or something . marketing: Yeah , well well  my sense on that is sort of what kind of guidance and direction , encouragement project manager: From like your personal coach person and stuff like that , do you think maybe ? marketing: Yeah from and you as well I think , just sort of acting as team leader .  my personal views on on leadership is that effective effective leadership sort of  gives people a certain room for freedom and delegation , but then to come back with something that they take great ownership and industrial designer: project manager: In in reality I think here the the different elements of leadership such as the the original b briefing and then the personal coach and the and then you know having having you with your the meeting agenda is actually quite a quite a quite a con confining framework to work within . And so it is leadership almost to the point of sort of disempowering the the the team member , so project manager: -huh , okay . marketing: But it's not bad leadership , it's just sort of s fairly strong , you know . It turns it turns the individual into more of like a  sort of a predetermined mechanism , as opposed to a sort of a free project manager: So you think maybe a little too controlling or industrial designer: marketing: Yeah , oh yeah , without without a doubt . industrial designer: I think structure is probably what you're saying that , each individual is structured to one particular task , and one parti rather than controlling . industrial designer: I don't think there's a sense of control 'cause all the decisions have been made in terms of a , like a consensus right , we go around and we think about it , marketing: industrial designer: It doesn't tell you , you know , some ways that you might wanna be a bit more creative in terms of the process you know , not the project manager: Okay . project manager: Okay ,  what about teamwork ? marketing:  did , you wanna comment Craig ? user interface: reckon that was a bit hard because we could only discuss things in the meeting . user interface: If we could just go up to somebody outside the meeting and have a quick talk with them , that would've been a lot easier . industrial designer: I think you tried to use the common share folder to to to to communicate , marketing: Fully agree . project manager: Okay ,  so  to s to to summarize the teamwork issue , saying that if we could communicate outside the meeting , you know just like quick questions , quick thoughts , whatever , it probably would be bit easier . industrial designer: I think the tools that they were given , the tool set that were given to us are fancy but they don't support collaboration , I think that's the word . marketing: Yeah , in it - , industrial designer: They don't support the team working together , you know , marketing: - , - , project manager: Oh right , okay . marketing: Yeah ,  sort of taking upon that idea , w the way I see this i is that it's  the the s the structure in which we've we've approached this whole task is quite contrary to the p principle of teamwork because the the tasks were d d sort of  divided , and then the work went on in isolation project manager:  . marketing: I I don't know what you guys did while you were together , maybe that was a bit different , industrial designer: We had Play-Doh fun . marketing: but  yeah , but  but actually if you if you imagine not entire the completely same task given to us but us said okay , first thing we have to do is come up with  let's say  a design concept , and we sit here together and do it , project manager: Yeah . To s to say okay go off and don't talk to each other , it's actually p sort of predisposes you to quite the contrary of teamwork . project manager: Right ,  anything else to say on teamwork at all ? industrial designer: No , not really . project manager: Okay ,  what about the you know how we used the whiteboard , the digital pens , the projector , stuff like that ?  did anybody think anything was like really useful , marketing: project manager: anything was pretty un f unsupportive ? marketing: I think the whiteboard , for me , is the kind of thing I would use all the time , but it's  not quite as useful as to us as it could have been , maybe just in the way that we we use it , in the sense that once we have an idea out there or while work was going on in between meetings , that could have been up on a board  you know as opposed to in like in text . I know that people who design cars and you know in aviation they quite often just have a simple like fibreglass prototype and it's completely you know  abs abstract from the final product , but they use it as a kind of a context to sort of walk around and puzzle and and point and discuss project manager: marketing: and and and in a way everybody's as we discuss things in the in theoretically and out of our notebooks , we're just we're actually just each of us discussing something that's in each of our own minds . marketing: like at one point I peeked across and looked at Craig's paper and I'm like , now I know what he's thinking 'cause I saw his book . marketing: But the b the b whiteboard could've actually been this kind of continuing  project manager: So do you think producing a prototype earlier in the process woulda been a good idea ? marketing: Think could be , yeah . industrial designer: I think  the the focus of it a lot was the PowerPoint as opposed to the to the whiteboard , project manager: Yeah . industrial designer: and I think that m  is also does you know hinder us and things I think . industrial designer: It will be cooler to have the whiteboard rather than the the PowerPoint , marketing: industrial designer: or maybe the whiteboard and the PowerPoint in the same place , marketing: Yeah . marketing: Yeah , because the PowerPoint was provided to us while we had time to prepare , whereas I can imagine if I'd been encouraged to use Paintbrush , for example , or whatever , I would've actually used it , project manager: Alright . marketing:  'ca you know , just 'cause that's sorta how we what we were set up to to use while we had our time . industrial designer: And a lot of the information on the PowerPoints , I don't think , you know , we needed to actually it could have , we could have gone through it verbally , project manager: Yeah . project manager: What about the digital pens , did you find them easy enough to use ? industrial designer: Yep clunky . project manager:  industrial designer: Having to tick it before you go off was a bit hindering as well , 'cause you're half way through a thought , and then you run out of paper and then you have to jump . project manager: I know , I think at the very start of today I like wrote a whole load of stuff , didn't click note on one , marketing: Yeah . project manager: then went back and wrote one tiny wee thing on the another page , but then did click note , and so I'm quite worried that I've just written over the top of it or something , marketing:  . industrial designer: But I think the pen is v is very intuitive , everybody knows how to use it , we don't have to worry . project manager: Yeah , marketing: - , industrial designer: So I think the pen's good . marketing: user interface: marketing: And o on the topic of the technology , it just occurred to me that we actually didn't need to move our computers because each computer has all of the files . marketing: It just occurred to me that they all industrial designer: Yeah we only needed one computer and marketing: We only actually needed one computer . marketing: If there had been a fifth , that coulda just been sitting there ready to go the whole time . industrial designer: And the computer may not  be conducive to a meeting because  you tend to look at your computer and wanna have the urge to check something , you know , marketing: Yeah . marketing: project manager: Do you think the computers just provide distraction in a meeting ? industrial designer: I think too many computers are just distracting . I know I I like to have things written down in front of me actually , like a lot of the stuff that was emailed to me I ended up you know like writing down there or something so I could look at it really quickly and not have the distraction of all of that , marketing: project manager:  what else  any wh I do I'm not really sure what they're looking for when they say new ideas found .  I don't know is user interface: Is this for the project or project manager: could you think of like anything else that would have been helpful today at all ? marketing: Well , the w main one for me is that  the process na in a natural f context would not have been interrupted by this necessity to discommunicate ourselves from each other . Yeah if we just had  marketing: So , that's kind of a new idea for me is like just sort of that idea , well you know it's kind of s hard to keep f working forward on a team a team based project when when you're told you must now work away from your team . Yeah I I dunno I think it was quite good that we had time limits on the meetings because they really could have run on and like my experience with meetings is that they really do , and you can spend a lot of time talking about marketing: Oh yeah . project manager: The only thing is though like when we had our meeting about the conceptual design , I thought there maybe another fifteen minutes would have been useful there but  yeah . project manager: I really thi i I think maybe if we'd like all been working in the one room , and they just said you know like every hour or something everybody make sure yo you know just have a have a short meeting and then just c marketing: project manager: just to have like something written down , just like you know a a milestone if you like  rather than having meetings , but marketing: What are you guys doing now ? user interface: Do we know what the other ones are ? industrial designer: marketing: I I don't know . project manager: So is that j is that just is that just a logo or does it do anything ? marketing: Logo . industrial designer: The the red is supposed to represent the whatever else you wanna print on the side of it . industrial designer: You can wear Homer , project manager: industrial designer: you can throw Homer when you're frustrated , doh . user interface: project manager: Oh no , that's cool , it's got I'm kind of industrial designer: It's clunky . project manager: I'm slightly gutted that we couldn't get plastic and rubber , I think that would have been nice . project manager: Play-Doh s marketing: industrial designer: It is useful and in in in in in in in  conceptualizing , in being creative . industrial designer: 'Cause like you say , it's something you can put your hands on and feel and touch and get a sense for . industrial designer: Like we were playing with the Play-Doh and the ideas came with the Play-Doh rather than with everything else . It's just , I'm just fiddling with the Play-Doh , and I'm going yeah yeah it's kinda cool . And some Play-Dohs are actually I think edible aren't they ? industrial designer: No , all Play-Doh is edible . project manager: Yeah like the stuff for user interface: I think they're all non-toxic 'cause it's aimed for like two-year-olds . industrial designer: It's just wheat , it's the stuff that your mom could make with preservatives and  project manager: Yeah  so to marketing: Wow ,  . project manager: wha what are your summarising words about Play-Doh ? industrial designer: It's helpful to the creative process . industrial designer:  it engages all your senses not just your sight , but your sense of feel your sense of touch . I think that that's very helpful because it it starts to pop up , project manager: Yeah . industrial designer: whereas on a piece of paper , on a computer , on a board ,  even with a three D_ graphic thing it still , it requires a lot of project manager: Yeah . marketing: Do we retreat to our , to continue our industrial designer: I think we could probably do it here as long as we don't collaborate . marketing: industrial designer: Can we turn off the microphones ? project manager: Yeah , yeah if the meeting's over then yeah I guess so


Right , my name's Adam Duguid , we're here because of real reaction , we have in the group marketing: Oh , Ebenezer Ademesoye . Would you like me to spell that ? project manager: yeah , marketing: S project manager: go for it mate . project manager: And you're going to be the User Interface , user interface: User Interface Defin Designer , yes . So , the reason we're here , we're gonna design a new remote control , as you probably all know . Course , we'll have to go into a bit more  detail than that , but  personally I think that the original is gonna be a very key aspect to this design .  , there's a lot of remote controls out there anyway , so we're gonna need something that's really gonna set it apart . We're gonna have the three kay phases , as you've probably already been told , the functional , architectural , and the detailed design . Second seems to be conceptual components , properties , materials , and the last one is a detailed analysis of our design so far . What can I say ? Ebenezer , you wanna have a you wanna draw your favourite animal ? industrial designer: marketing: Sure . Also , elephants have a very good memory , much like myself , industrial designer: marketing: and I can't remember back when I used to live back in Nigeria , but I think I used to have a pet elephant . So elephants are big , strong and gentle , and they have great memories , and they begin with the letter E_ , just like Ebenezer . project manager: Tarik , would you like to have a shot at a bit of artistry ? industrial designer: . industrial designer: Do we take them off ? marketing: I think you ga industrial designer: Oh right , project manager: You should also l  have your the lapel mic on as well . Yeah , industrial designer: Now where do I put the marketing: Just  somewhere project manager: Yep , the , it's just across there , that's it . project manager: You can probably just stick it in your pocket for now , I wouldn't worry too much . They're just they're big , they're biggest cats ,  I did a project on cats in the wild when I was a kid and  it was my favourite cat , just 'cause it was looks the best , the stripes , orange . My dad used to talk about he's from Bangladesh so he used to tell me all about them when he was when I was a kid . The one f  in fact this is a somewhat oblique reference in fact to  well my I have a three  three y year old daughter who h who who who is affectionately known as Miss Monkey . And  fr and from  from the point of view of sort of the study of human evolution they and other primates are terribly interesting . And and th th th th thi thi this one seems to have perhaps more attitude than most . Also not quite as feared as your average tiger , but  cats are one of my favourite animals , they're very independent , they're snotty as hell at the best of times , and  , what can you say , you got to love those qualities in an animal . I think we've all managed to master the whiteboard there by looks of it , so , on to it . That's not a terrible lot as far as I'm aware , and we're hoping to sell them for twenty five . If we're aiming for fifty million Euros we're gonna have to be selling an awful lot of them . marketing: Oh , that was profiting , that was an amount , so that's the amount made , project manager: Yep . project manager: Well , fifty million , and if you're making twelve point five Euros on each one , then , awful lot need to be sold . Any ideas of where you think a new remote control could go into this market ? user interface: Well , one thing I'm aware of is , th there   at the sort of v very high price end of the market there's there's a em emerging market for sort of touch screen L_C_D_ remotes that can be  programmed in m much more sophisticated ways than sort of conventional models , so you get the sort of you get  you you can redesign the interface to your own needs , you can programme in macros , and you get a much greater degree    you get in these sort of three in one , five in one , whatevers , but you can get integration between the different  the the the diff the different things that it's designed to control , to a much greater extent , and you can have one  you know one macro to turn the  you know turn the T_V_ to the right channel , get the  re  rewind the tape in the V_C_R_ and get it to play once it's rewound , for instance . user interface:  b it occurs to me there might be a niche for  for a remote that aimed towards some of that sort of functionality but using a just conventional push button design . project manager: Okay , yeah , tha that's true , with the price range we're looking at , going for a touch screen would probably be possibly out of our user interface: Absolutely prohibitive , project manager: yeah . user interface: Yeah ,  I wouldn't like to say you g  you get ones that you can switch between multiple units , but something that could  operate between multiple units in a more integrated fashion . project manager: Would the the idea something along the lines of , one on button would turn on say the video recorder , the T_V_ , maybe the sound system as well , all in one go , is that kind of user interface: For instance ,  let's say oh oh  , or  you know you pr  you press  say the play button for the D_V_D_ player and it turns the T_V_ on and onto the right channel as well ,  project manager: Okay , that sounds like a a good strong idea .  marketing: 'Kay project manager: Any takes on this ? marketing: Well  I've noticed that  gaming c is becoming quite popular with television ,  when I was younger we used to e play games using our cable , using the cable subscribed the cable providers , user interface: marketing: but our remote controls would get worn out really easily , and the remote control was not a great kind of keyboar ,  keypad , for playing games . They they've recently brought out this new remote control , for people to set their favourite channels , or  to record things . Instead of people entering in what time things start , you simply stri slide a bar to say what time it begins , project manager: Okay . marketing: and slide another bar to say what time it ends , you know that's project manager: Yeah I've heard I've seen the bar-code design before , industrial designer:  . marketing: Yeah , it's it's taken out the Y you don't have to be  really clever to use a remote control . I think for gaming , you know you want you want some big buttons for up , down , left and right , shoot . project manager: marketing: you wanna be able to change angles in interactive television , so you need buttons to change the television angle , the camera angles and stuff like that . project manager: we're beginning to run out of time now , so , we've got a couple of ideas , marketing: Yeah . project manager: we can we'll have to work fast , alright as you can see we've got thirty minutes until the next meeting , so we'll have to try and decide on some of the basic functionality , how the user interface might work , that'll be a key aspect especially if the idea of  some kind of macros facility because you have to program it , you have to have a lot of response back , or at least some kind . project manager: And we're gonna maybe n try and have to figure out marketing: What the user wants  . Has anybody got anything they'd like to add at this stage , anything they think that might have been missed so far ? industrial designer: Well when you're talking about gaming and stuff , do you think they should have some sort of stick on it , rather than buttons ? marketing: Oh . industrial designer: or is that a bit ridiculous ? project manager: I I don't see why not , almost everybody is probably used to a console by now , and all of them incorporate small keypads on them , in fact even the mobile phones these days are beginning to use them as well , so it's probably an interface that most people are used to . The other key feature that  that would be a good idea built into it is t is is to make something you know fairly sort of ergonomic , something that just fits fits as comfortably as possible into the hand . But of course ,  al al also allows for the possibility of a more sort of slightly unconventional or attractive  sha shape for it overall , . So , user interface: A curve , project manager: small , stylish , and something that's just a little different . Something sort of sort of sl slightly sort of biomorphic in form ,  which it would need to be to sort of conform to the shape of the hand more efficiently anyway . I'd say we finish this one up , we get started , I'll get in , I'll write up what we've  kind of quickly done , and I'll get that out to everybody . project manager: as far as I'm aware we leave the microphones here ,  unless we get told otherwise , and just take the laptops with us .


project manager: No on the desktop you'll find you should find that there's a project documents link . We introduced ourselves , discussed the possibility of a macro facility , interac interacting the T_V_ a bit more ,  mentioning of bar-code , joystick for user manipulation ,  and ergonomics of the remote control as well .  also key is the corporate image should stay recognisable ,  f  your colour and slogan of course is down at the bottom there . Just to say quickly  I would have thought that only being used for a television the macro facility may now not be required .  I'd like to if possible hear from our Marketing Expert first , to help us gain an idea of where we're going to go . marketing: Okay , so  we did some research , we asked one hundred people their opinions on remote controls . We asked some  open ended questions , just , what are your opinions on the remote control , got a lot of re responses , and we asked some very specific questions , and we got a lot of good feedback . Please bear in mind this is only a hundred people , so even when the groups are divided into fifteen to twenty five , twenty five to thirty five , there's only maybe ten people fifteen people in each group . I often lose my remote control , the back of the couch , some place , and even if it's not lost permanently , it takes me a few minutes to find it . I remember trying to load a D_V_D_ player recently , and there were so many buttons , it took me I don't know maybe ten minutes to to go through each button , 'cause you have to press the shift button to access the yellow buttons , you know there's just a lot of stuff that no one really uses . I've seen some remote controls that are big , they have a lot of buttons , you have to hold down more than one key at one time to do something , they're just not great to use . Between the age of  fifteen and twenty five , most people would be willing to pay extra for voice recognition software . Most people'd be willing to pay for that  most people want remote controls to be pretty , they want it to be fancy , th they they want it to be different , everybody has a white remote control with black buttons , and a red button and a green button , not everybody wants that . It's a bit sketchy at some times , you're not gonna get good always accurate results , but for a very fixed number of words , you know you have , how many different words can you have for a remote control , up , down , left , right , channel five , channel seven , you know , how many , you can't have that many words . But after a while people may wanna return it , because if you have to to say som  most people use a remote control for switching to channels , and they say they do that about ninety eight percent of the time . Using the remote control , ninety eight percent of the time for changing channels , and that's for flickering through channels . So if you have to say up , up , up , up , if you have to do that all the time , then people might get a bit fed up with that and they may return it . However , oh , because the voice recognition software exists already , there's no need to spend money on research and development , but this does mean the need for microphones in the in the remote control , which is an unusual feature in my opinion . But if we do have the voice recognition thing , there's a lot of stuff that you can  get rid of . Either you have voice recognition by itself , which I think is a bit impractical for like night time if you wanna be watching television and you wanna be quiet , or I don't know you have a visitor coming round and the remote's only trained for you , it's a bit impractical to have just voice recognition by itself . But imagine you got rid of the regular remote part , then you can design the remote to look any way you want it to look , because there are no restrictions on physical size , or shape , it it could be as fancy as you want it to be , you know , it could be like a lollipop or something like that , something weird like that . marketing: So we have the three birds , we have the design , that we have the the fancy bit , right , the voice recognition's fancy , it's cool , it's different , it's radical , so , and then we have an extra bit I don't remember so I'm pretty sure people will buy the remote , but is it practical to have a voice recognition system in a remote control , I think is a big question .  , will people will people be willing to wait for the the period that it'll take to train the remote , 'cause I think it will the remote will  get better over time with the same user user , but for the first week or for the first two weeks are you willing to wait , are you willing to have a bad remote control . And  what if you have visitors come round , they stay the night , they wanna use the T_V_ , they can't use the remote because they speak differently to you .  , will people return the remote control , I think a lot of young people will buy the remote control , if they have the money , you know , so , project manager: If you could  marketing: do our audience have the money , but would they return it after a while because it's not as fast as pressing a button , it's not a practical . project manager: sor marketing: I think it's cool , project manager: if you could speed it up a bit , yeah . project manager: you've got your presentation now , industrial designer: How did where did user interface: Yeah , it's in the it's in the folder project manager: is it on the industrial designer: where did you get all your in information ? user interface: yeah . user interface: Okay , this is a brief run through of the  of the technical functions of the remote . As  is  the the the presentation is  already slightly obsolete because I had in mind something that would  be i be aimed at controlling multiple devices but  there's still stuff of relevance , so project manager: Okay . I've looked at looked at a num  couple of other  remote control models just for an idea of basic design principles .  and wasn't really satisfied by what I saw I have to say so this is more sort of springboard for  how these could be improved on .   basically the job of the device is to send commands to an appliance , in this case the television set . On the one hand and this  this particularly relates to its sort of earliest models where with you know i so so many buttons on it so about the size of the television set . And most of these functions are not going to be used , it creates a rather user unfriendly interface . And on the other hand there's a user focused approach that pares things down to just what what is most likely to get used .  With  a and a and of course there is a certain amount of sort of loss of function here obviously , but mostly that's relatively peripheral functions . And so you go for something that's fairly intuitive to use , and  well f the for the most part for T_V_ remote it's  tha that would be channel control and volume .  and if you if you if you are wanting to incorporate  control of a D_V_ D_V_D_ or  V_C_R_ presumably into that then there's a play , pause , stop , rewind , fast-forward , record , so forth .  but  the pro I think the problem with a lot of the sort of user focused designs that are about is that they sort of make assumptions in advance about what  what a given user's going to  want mo want to do from want it to do most . So , something that's  something that is more programmable , that  perh perhaps has the full range of functions available to it but you can then specify yourself what you're most likely to want .  so that those are then immediately accessible through fairly minimal number of controls ,  I liked Ebenezer's idea of including a joystick in that and  possibly a sort of fairly minimal number of sort of function buttons , and have a disp you then have some sort of basic display on it so that if you're  sort of cha changing from different modes for the device it'll tell you just exactly what  you know each direction of the  of the  joystick's going to do or wha or what each function button's going to do .  , this is actually a again slightly taking inspiration off of  games controllers , you know the Playstation control where you have four basic function buttons marketing:  . user interface: that are just marked with  distinctive  geometrical shapes but the and then dependent on what you're doing with it what game and so on  those  those functions are then sort of further specified . Click to save in where do I have to save it ? project manager: If you look on the desktop you'll find that there's a link to the project folder , or project documents .  project manager: Are you finding it okay or ? industrial designer: I'm just closing it now . marketing: Well like if you go to one ,  whichever one you were working industrial designer: that's it there , marketing: yeah , industrial designer: yeah . industrial designer: right I'm responsible for working design , this is basically the inside going on of the the  remote control . So we have the energy source , we have the user interface , this this is what I've seen .  the sender will push the button , the chip will respond ,  and then the dig digital signal is sent to the T_V_ . So   , if you go to next slide , you'll see you'll see  what do we need on the user interface . Do we need  many buttons , or do we need l many light bulbs that could be easier to  to realise which appliances are on or not .  , or would that take too much power , would we need more  components in there to supply the power ?  , the joystick is another thing , if we were gonna add that , there'd be more components to deal with that . industrial designer: so  we need to I dunno exactly what That's the design of the the the layout of the  electronic design ,  obviously there'll be more details once we've decided what we're putting on the user interface . marketing: industrial designer: I just used the it was a mess ,  I was just putting adding it together at the end there . industrial designer:  so you have the energy source obviously connected to the chip , and the user interface obviously contains everything . You have the switch turn it on , infrared bulb ,  will contact the T_V_ and will have whatever device or D_V_D_ player , the bulb will turn on to say it's on .  , so do we need on the control  different buttons to decide , or different light bulbs , would it be easier ?  , I dunno what we should decide on that . So , we've had some stuff put forward ,  along with the new user requirements ,  we've had a lot of kind of input I'd say so far . The power required ,  and the ability to the cost , it seems like for  an embedded system , this could cause us issues . project manager:  for example you see that there's fairly robust services on  computers via  via voice , I_B_M_ do  drag and dictate , but these require a lot of memory marketing:  voice activation could be an interesting idea but I think that our Ind Industrial Designer would probably upon some research say that it's maybe not feasible . project manager: however the idea of a joystick and then maybe an L_C_D_ which has been kind of put forward so far , it's almost like having a small T_ not T_V_ to say , but if you can control almost all of the functionality from the display , I don't know how much power an L_C_D_ would take , but it might be quite low ? marketing:  . I  industrial designer: L_C_D_ on the remote just telling you what's on , or  , interactive L_C_D_ or project manager: Well literally  if you can imagine the display maybe slightly larger than  those on a a mobile phone , user interface:  . project manager: something where you can read an an  fair amount of information , traverse maybe quite a few menus , if we maybe used mobile phones as a good example , they usually incorporate they have the keypad , and then evr all the other functionality is usually associated inside by traversing around .  and then we could have like say the common buttons as you say , volume control , changing channels user interface:  . I I was thinking that the remote the  sort of default functions for the joystick would be up and down for  volume , left and right for channels . project manager: We industrial designer: Do you think that people will get mixed up , like , they'll be looking at this screen and that screen and then , you know , trying to get everything working , would it be a bit confusing ? user interface:  I think probably for the first couple of hours of using it industrial designer: Yeah . user interface:  though  I w I would say that  we could probably probably be required to  mo most of the mobile phone displays you see these days are colour but we should probably try to stick to black and white .   colour could be a sort of subsequent development but  you know cost a bit of extra money f w w w w w once everyone's got the first , you know , oh colour's out , we'll have to replace it won't we . project manager: That would be my feeling as well , I think we could possibly create quite a useful user interface .  now  I don't marketing: Sure but the idea of a remote with a menu or and a joystick I think like I h if I was in the habit of buying remote controls then I would want one , project manager: sorry , go for it . marketing: but I think we don't have a specific audience , you know , like what is our target audience , what niche are niche are we trying to market and corner . You know , you know what I'm saying , like , for whom is this intended ? Everybody ? project manager: I think it could probably be aimed at most people who've used a mobile . project manager: if we are if we were to follow that avenue , we might be s you know  we're kind of almost relying on their experience with a mobile phone I suppose . project manager:  I imagine as well that the actual L_C_D_ and maybe to a certain extent the joystick as well would be for the additional functionality . Which maybe doesn't get used as often , maybe it makes it easy for them to figure out how to  change the channels as in the frequencies and such for reprogramming it . project manager:  and you can still have the main buttons that allow the people to turn the machine on and off , d up and down , it depends ,  maybe we have the fol  the joystick as a separate one for the other functions then , that there's just a a small number of as you were saying  buttons that have already been defined . And they can completely ignore most of the functionality which would be for say the o actual owner of the the T_V_ marketing: user interface: is that  you you you then basically you can then basically put it  for for T_ T_ for T_V_ remote alone , you could put   there are like I say the the the main things people do with a T_V_ remote control is the volume and the channel . user interface: But  but the but then o  obviously if  you know if you i if you wanted to access further functions i you you then get to sort of menu navigation .  with things like ch with things like tuning and channels  you know adjusting brightn  brightness and fiddly things that no one really bothers with , most T_V_s these days actually have menus anyway so this would be a fairly rational way of integra project manager: if we are  most of the  of the replacement remote market is sort of remote control rationalisation . user interface: you want one wo y you want one that'll do the job of all of them .  , if all you're replacing is one of the you know however many remotes you have in your living room ,  you know you still need separate remotes for everything else . user interface: I just think that  possibly project manager: Well this is a requirement that we have to stick to I'm afraid , user interface:  . project manager: So  this is this is one of the solid ones that has to be obeyed , for now . project manager: So I can understand your point , and I would agree with you , but this is our design spec for now .  user interface: Does that  would that include  access to say interactive functions on digital or cable ? marketing: Yeah . project manager: I would say so , yes , because then we have to be able to control the remote boxes , and that is a separate unit .  I think that it I would say that the design spec we've been with is for the television only for now . Maybe we'll hear differently , but for now marketing: So the joystick is just for differentness . Try and sell it t sell it to them to supply with  project manager: There is that possibility , yes . B However I don't know exactly where we'll be going with that , but it might not even be the avenue of the Marketing Expert , marketing:  . It's just , the way I figure it , twelve point five Euros per unit , we have to sell at least like three million or something like that , project manager: marketing: not to account for all the the money we waste on remotes that no one buys , you know , like if we made a perf if we made a ks for every remote we made someone bought it , then we have to sell a lot of remote controls . marketing: We just Is this gonna be enough to to sell ? project manager: Well , something else that you brought up was  the ability to lose a remote , which as you said you've done , in fact we've probably all done . project manager: I don't know if it's a gimmick or not , but have any of you ever seen those odd little key rings where if you whistle , it will beep and you tell you where it is . marketing: I had one of those , and my brother , and my dad , could have beat me up project manager:  . project manager: well I was going to say clapping ,   digital telephones ,  for example , one unit has of course you have to have that base unit , somewhere where there's a button , but maybe it's a button that you attach to the T_V_ . project manager: Something which you when you press that , it would beep to give its location away , on the remote unit . project manager: And that way , because we're attaching what would be a small button to the T_V_ , again say what , it would be a small transmitter ,  watch battery type scenario I would say , or something that if it was problems enough you could actually even just  I don't power that might be something that we could look into . Yeah , it's  putting a lot on your shoulders there , so  that could be something that separates us a bit from the market as well . Before we leave this meeting , it would be best to say this is what we're going this is the design we're gonna try and get , this is how we're gonna make ourselves look unique . project manager: Do we go for maybe a remote contro  sorry , we're gonna go for a remote control obviously , do we go for a small joystick that would operate say changing channels , up and down , and then , what , another button that would say that it's now being used to manoeuvre round the L_C_D_ . project manager: We could use say the left and right for changing channels and the up and down for volume , user interface: For volume . project manager: and marketing: But we have a frequency of how what people use a remote control for most . marketing: power is used like once per hour , industrial designer: I marketing: channel selection is used a hundred and sixty eight per hour , project manager: marketing: that's by far the biggest one , and then teletext , is still here , that's like fourteen , project manager: Vol Volume selection okay , yep , marketing: and volume selection . project manager: the teletext we're gambling with , and we're gonna say it's dead , the way of the dodo marketing: No , yeah , okay okay . Yeah ,  project manager: So we well , sorry , we could maybe even go as far as saying power button , small joystick , L_C_D_ , and then what maybe is it one more button to say that you're using the menu system , and with the possibility of pushing down on the joystick to say okay ? So we're having very very few buttons involved , user interface: Actually how project manager: but navigation around a menu for most things . user interface: Actually I would say maybe two two function buttons , the y we're now using the menus button and  and an og and an okay button .  certainly something I've found with the joystick on mo the joysticks on mobile phones is that a lot of the time th the device mistakes you trying to move it in one direction or the other for pushing down for okay . user interface: The o the o the other dis design constraint I think we should bear in mind is that people are you know very much used to using a remote control one handedly , so we need to make sure that e even with the joystick , you know something that can just sit comfortably in the palm of the hand and have the joystick just controlled by the thumb . Do we incorporate the idea of trying to f locate the remote control again via a beeping noise ? industrial designer: Yeah , think so . project manager: Do you mind looking ? marketing: I think because it's so small it might be an   if we only have like two three buttons it might be essential to have to have that project manager: The ability to locate it again . project manager: So that would require a  transmitter maybe attached to the T_V_ , just so that it says find me , and what , a basically a small microphone  on the actual unit , can maybe hide it in the base . So so industrial designer: no ? project manager: Sorry ? user interface: a small speaker you mean . user interface: project manager:  industrial designer: Nah , you'd see it anyway , if you hear it . project manager: E us we might be better with the sound possibly we could maybe incorporate marketing: W those little key-rings have both , industrial designer: Yeah . project manager: th e the true fact , considering the cost of an L_E_D_ , we could just incorporate it anyway . project manager: by the sounds of it , with what we're suggesting so far , your design  the user interface is still quite open , you could go for quite an interesting design . project manager: Because we're only going to have a very few key and you've got you know a small L_C_D_ , joystick , e I think it leaves you open to a a potential wide range of shapes , something that can make it stand out slightly . project manager:  if you could look into what we've suggested so far , the feasibility of  small transmitter ,  and such , maybe if an L_C_D_ screen requires too much power , or such . Ebenezer , Marketing Expert marketing: Well I can give you the frequency , what people what options people use most often , I guess that's gonna be important in the ts defining the the software side of the interface , right . project manager: yeah if you could maybe as well see what people think about the idea of this minimalist approach that we've taken , where of a joystick to control the very basic functions , and then the idea of manipulating it like you would a mobile . project manager: I don't know how easy that will be within the time frame , marketing: Okay . project manager: Feel free to email me if you think that  we've screwed something up and wanna get it rectified as soon as possible . industrial designer: So I should just look at  the speaker , the speaker and an L_E_D_ . user interface: project manager: Speaker and L_E_D_ for locating , industrial designer: And marketing: Transmitter .  , if we do end up trying to market this to television manufacturers then the  then the transmitter could actually be built into the television .  , and something that we can can easily be adopted at the last minute as well I'd say . project manager: The electronics could be s either placed externally or internally , makes no difference to the final product of the actual remote control , user interface: user interface:  if it w if we get a major television manufacturer to say y oh yeah we'll have that , save us the bother , then that's you know vast amounts of sales . industrial designer: P project manager: Oh , one thing that we've almost not talked about at all , my apologies for that , user interface , we also need to maybe get the slogan in here ,  it's , industrial designer: Fashion . industrial designer: yeah , the slogan's we put the fashion in electronics , isn't it ? project manager: My apologies .  , I think that's l almost the last minute thing industrial designer: 'S also look cool . project manager: So I'm not too concerned a that we haven't gone into depth about that . But it might be something you could consider when you're thinking about shapes ? user interface: project manager: In fact we might like to put a slogan on , and  possibly the two R_s to signify the company


I think to sum up the last meeting , would be to say  the requirements that we've  set out . Those are we were going to go for what seemed to be a fairly minimal design based on  a small joystick , L_C_D_ and a couple of other buttons for navigation  with power being I suppose one of the main single purpose buttons .  we were also going to use novelty of being able to locate the remote control again via a small transmitter with any luck , the idea to try and separate us and also because of the minimal design  looks like we'll be able to be fairly adventurous in the actual physical shape of our remote control with any luck . So we'll just crack on ,  like to maybe start with the Industrial Designer if it's possible . industrial designer: I'll just project manager: This  meeting is the conceptual design phase and is  Sorry about this . And is to cover things like  what the parts might be made of , can we  outsource these from elsewhere ,  will we have to construct any items ourselves ? industrial designer:  I have a presentation I just saved it in the  the folder .  joystick we'll probably if we're gonna use it ,  could be plastic w or rubber even as well .  can either use a hand dynamo , or the kinetic type ones , you know that they use in watches , or else  a solar powered one . project manager: the kinetic one , we've 'cause that's the ones where like you the movement causes it . project manager:  the bat  the battery for a a watch wouldn't require a lot of power , would be my one query . project manager: Is a kinetic one going to be able to supply enough power ? user interface: There's also a watch moves around a great deal more . project manager: Which I suppose as well would allow us to go off the shelf again , you'd say ? industrial designer:  .  one is a flat one , and then more original ones are single curved one or one with a double curved .  the materials are tha there as you can see , but  you can't have a titanium one for a double curved , project manager: marketing: Titanium , the really strong metal , titanium ? industrial designer:  which would be Yeah , marketing: Is it not also it's expensive ? industrial designer: and light .  , I don't know if you'd be able to off the top of your head or not , the single curved and double curved , would you be able to give an example ? industrial designer:  . project manager:  could you maybe draw something ? I you don't doesn't have to be perfect , it's just 'cause I'm not quite sure if I understand the difference between the two . Well for a curved , well I was thinking to f for to sit in your the palm of your hand . industrial designer:  which obviously it looks better than the single curve , but  you can't have it in titanium , which is  a nice material . industrial designer: and for the buttons ,  it can have the scroll wheel which they use in mouses for com P_C_s .  but  it requires a more expensive chip to use , and if you wanna use L_C_D_ it's even more expensive .  if you want the buttons to be oh yeah , if you have a double curve  control and it's rubber , then you have these rubber buttons as well . But you're gonna ha I reckon you're gonna have to have  key a number keypad anyway for the amount of channels these days . You wouldn't want to just have to scroll through all the channels to get to the one you want .  so you've got a little bit about the the chip that we might require as well ? industrial designer: Yeah . So , depends where gonna spend the money if you want the f fancy L_C_D_ display . project manager: do you have any idea so far , like when we're saying that we'd need an advanced chip for an L_C_D_ , does that in shoot the cost up by a drastic amount ? Or ? marketing: Need an advanced chip for the L_C_D_ . project manager: if you press a button that sends a certain transmission through the infra-red , whereas I think if we're controlling the L_C_D_ we definitely require a much more powerful chip . Yeah ? industrial designer: Yeah i project manager: Okay ,  should I go on , or go back ? industrial designer:  marketing: if we only have twelve Pounds fifty , twelve Euros , not even twelve Pounds . Twelve Euros , what's that , like eight pounds or something like that , nine Pounds ? project manager: Well we'd also be relying on the  the bulk buying in producement and such . If you go to the one before that  so it just says what it does , translate the key press into an infra-red signal and this is received by the T_V_ .  the chip just needs to detect the signal or detect the key press and then  it'll send it to the tr the amplifier . industrial designer: And  then the next slide just shows how the  copper wires  interact with the buttons , the rubber buttons ,  to  get sent to the chip . So in the information that you've been supplied , how feasible would you say that the idea of using an L_C_D_ looks ? industrial designer:  I think we can do it if  we use conventional batteries and not have solar cells or kinetic . project manager:  I'm not sure if there's any cost differences between single and double curved and I'm I don't know about anybody else , but plastic or rubber as a traditional form of casing would seem to be a good way forward ? .  I'm actually gonna be bold and go oo go straight for rubber  for reasons I'll go into  in more detail . Now I'm gonna have to work between the  the slides and the  and the white board project manager: Yeah .   I was given a an H_T_M_L_ file giving  various ideas from  from other previous remote control designs , and pretty much decided to just dump them all . I wasn't very impressed by them and they didn't seem to re  nothing I saw seemed to meet the sorts of design specifications that we're going for today .  so what I ra rather than looking at other remotes ,  ra oomp be better to simply look at the human hand .  and try and f  and try and figure out a way of laying out the elements we've already decided on ,  so that if r a if so that the finger is e each finger or thumb is wherever it needs to be already .  and what we've basically decided on was the the  the joy  the joystick , two function buttons and the L_C_D_ , just keep it paired down to the absolute minimum . I don't actually think we need the  the numeric keypad because if you m because one of the menus that we could have available  v via via the L_C_D_ is one where you scroll through channels , so if there's something f and be bear in mind since this isn't meant to work for  marketing: digital . user interface: f f f for di for digital or  or for or for cable , whatever , industrial designer: Ah , okay . user interface: you're basically looking at four or five terrestrial channels , and then  your V_C_  and then the channel through your V_C_R_ and or D_V_D_ player . You must have two two modes , basic mode , where  the joystick's  left right left right for channels , up down for volume ,  and the   and the menu mode for  further functions .  now the reason I was particularly interested in using rubber for this is that if we're going to have a highly ergonomic design ,  it needs to be ergonomic for left or right handed people . project manager: That would suggest the double curved design's probably going to be most appropriate , then . user interface: basi basically what I basically what the what be having  , I would say , the the whole thing articulated at two points , so that if you if you're handing it from a lef  left or right handed user you can adjust it so that the  the L_C_ the L_C_D_ and the  The joystick would be in the right place . And also this is a rather nicer de  design gimmick that the the  you know the whole thing you know it should have sort of organic feel to it project manager:  . user interface: that it should be , you know , soft to touch and can be moved around all nice . Just to let you know we'll probably be quite tight for time as well , user interface: Okay . project manager: because I think you've probably got a lot you'd like to say , I guess . The  Assuming the hand the hand to be in about sort of this position ,  hol  holding the remote , the  the joystick unit should rest over the  the joint of the f of the  four finger so that it's directly accessible for the thumb .  and it would need t there would need to be a it would need to be articulated just below that so that it could be switched around for  left or right handed users . You then have a grip section that can be more or less the same irrespective of handedness . You just have big two big buttons that cover most of the area so it can in the upper part , one for the four finger , one for the middle finger .  , and that marketing: Is this the joystick ? user interface: Th this part here is the joystick . And you then have , at the  at the bottom , the L_C_D_ , and this would need to be articulated as well . And again , this part could be rotated , so it can So so so that it can be adjusted to either left or right handed user .  So the t  the top function button in basic mode would be the on off switch and menu mode would be the enter button . So I thought th the simplest way around that would be to have  a cable to connect it to the computer some some fair iv fairly fairly simple software on the computer just so that you on your computer just so that you could  pr program it at a rather in a rather more comfortable interface . And you could download programs for it from  for  T_V_s from all sort of main manufacturers .  though you i it would be necessary to have  have a m  have a ha have a mode for programming it without the computer ,  just in case there are there are still people left out there who don't have them yet . We compared  whether people want the remote control to do a lot of stuff or they want it to look cool . And then we we research  fashion trends in Europe , what's what's the new black , project manager: Okay .  we found , in order of importance , people want the remote control to look cool more than they want it to to be cool . As in they want it to do a lot of good s they want it to look like it does a lot , and if it does do a lot that's a bonus , but they don't care so much , you know . People want it to be that , but s still they care more about the way it looks than what it does . And easy to use , it it just so happens that  from the second point to the third point is twice as important  the second point is twice as important as the third point . People want it I is it has to be cooler than easy to use , you know , if it has the newest features , even if it's difficult to use , prefer it to have the newest features . The fashion , now this is seems a bit odd to me , but fruit and veg is the new is the new black for furniture , for clothes , for shoes . project manager: marketing: But I I see I come on to that in the next in the next slide . If it's the type of rubber that you can squeeze , you know , it's spongy , then can I skip the rest ? industrial designer: Oh yeah , I forgot to mention that . marketing: So  so my personal opinion ?  we want something fancy and techni technologically innovative , obviously . But what we what we need is something that looks like it's from the future that looks cool , that's that's different , you know , that's everyone has a white remote control , black remote control , you need something cool .  now the fruit and veg options , either we we go in that direction or we stay totally away from it .   the research did come up with fruit and veg , so maybe it is important for it's the up to the interface guy . So if we stay away from it , s you know stay away from it , but if we're gonna go along with it then it doesn't necessarily have to be like an apple or something like that , or a kiwi fruit . It could be something like , I say potato peeler but I'm sure you guys have a have a much cooler idea than I do . I think maybe they were I don't know , back in the day when they first came up with remote controls , they had a reason for it being project manager: So  if we want something strong and sturdy , I say stay with plastic or titanium , but if we go with spongy , we can stress that you can drop this as many times as you want , it doesn't matter , it's spongy material , it's not gonna break , you know . I just don't know how the L_E_D_ and the lights are gonna fit into a spongy material because it's not gonna be completely squeezable . So how do things fit it ? And if we are gonna use spongy , we can say it's long lasting , you know it's damage resistant and stuff like that , so . So just to summarise , people want stuff that's cool , that's that looks like it's cool , and if it is cool then that's a bonus doesn't have to be  people like fruit and veg . If we're gonna use spongy material we have to think of how practical it is , and how we can further promote that idea . So , things change all the time , every year you know they they always talk about this year , this is the new black . project manager: Well ,  I would say that the most you could probably hope for is gaining a year's lead on most people anyway . You always have to bring out new designs , so if we can get next year then that's possibly a good place to start anyway . project manager: Seems like a a lot of the components could be off the shelf , so I don't exactly what cost would be incurred .  I can see your point about the number keypad , but I've I would say that we can probably incorporate it into the menu system if you need to do traversal of a large number of channels . industrial designer: project manager: My feeling would be that even if at a later date this was to be taking control of  boxes as well  having the use of the L_C_D_ and the joystick would probably allow you to manipulate enough channel numbers for you to be user interface: Yeah , actually if you've got a lot of channels , the number keypad can be quite annoying as well , becau it's you know if you're trying to remember what  , you know , what number's the discovery channel or whatever . user interface: But if you h but but but if you have a me but if you have a menu structure , then you can sub-group them . project manager: So what it looks like to me is we'll use a large number of standard components , say something like  lithium ion battery , the kind that you find in most  small hand held devices now . Though I'd have to say depending on how flexible it is , we might need to have some kind of inner frame . user interface: Yeah , I I would say definitely ,    the the idea of having it sort of articulated i th there would be basically two points of articulation . So project manager: Do you think there's any way we could maybe remove the articulation ? I can see why it looks appealing , but it could be a weak point in  the structure , do you think ? user interface:  . industrial designer: If you're going with the fruit and veg thing , looks like a banana . user interface: I d I don't thi I don't think that it would be a a structural weakness , marketing: . marketing: user interface:  if you have a firm s sub-structure , you can then incorporate articulation into that . If you then have a sort of outer skin of  flexible , spongy rubber then you have something that is you know very much you know organic , and I think would look rather co  mi rather cool .  my drawing there doesn't doesn't do it justice , it makes it makes it look more a little bit more like a vibrator than a than a  than a remote control , project manager: user interface: but  . industrial designer: project manager: However , one interesting point is , I don't know how serious you were there , but we if we take some of the ideas why don't we make the damn thing yellow to incorporate the des the colour of the logo ? industrial designer: Yeah . project manager: It's an certainly a different colour from your average  user interface: Make it harder to lose , as well . project manager: Was there anything in your research marketing: The noise for when you lose the banana ,  f yeah , for when you lose the remote control , it could be like a a monkey noise or something like that , rather than a standard beep beep . industrial designer: project manager: marketing: Y you know , you lose the monkey the banana , industrial designer: monkey . project manager: marketing: y you lose the banana , you press a button , and you hear like monkey screams or something like that to direct you towards the banana . user interface: I th   if it I think that's something that could perhaps be programmable , though maybe have monkey as default . Now I think it'd be cool if you had one remote control that could work with all T_V_s , you know you s you click a button and it finds the frequency that works with your particular television . marketing: But why you'd need to program it like as as a standard feature , I I don't know . user interface: Well basi basically the  for f for   e each manufacturer will have a partic will have a particular command set that  the T_V_ responds to . user interface: So  usually what's done is you have this big booklet full of different possi you'll have all of them sort of programmed in to the  remote , and you'll have this little booklet of codes you then find your  ma  find your manufacturer marketing: marketing: That's because televisions , they don't give the remote control any type of feedback when you send it . user interface: So that's that's quite annoying and we probably would still have to do that . But if we had  some sort of hook-up to your computer as an option , then if you've got a computer you can avoid that rather irritating thing . project manager: An interesting point is that if the person doesn't have the computer , we can still make the process easier because instead of having to look up codes , maybe we can have it that one of the options they have is that they look up the name of the company on the L_C_D_ user interface: Yeah . project manager: Or we have the remote control just go through them until it's like does this do the correct function , and such . marketing: Is it is it actually a book of names to digits , or is it like a few pages ? user interface:  booklet . This person probably need to use this feature like once , you know , when you first buy the remote control , or whenever they buy a new television , so user interface: Yeah . project manager: Doesn't have to be used very often marketing: once every s project manager: that's right , yeah . marketing: and it's user interface: And it's a nuisance very close to the to  to actually purchasing it , so it's something that you're likely to be thinking about . user interface: If you if there's w i if there's one in the shop that's that says it can avoid much of that nuisance , you might be favourably inclined towards it . project manager: Okay , this just to give us a rough idea of what we're meant to be doing for the next stage .  I think we've decided on what , you know , decided on standard items for most of  rubber and such , so we're now looking at the detailed design and what we need to be doing for the next meeting .  So for example ,  I'll just start at the top , you've got yourself and the Industrial Designer gonna be working quite closely at this stage 'cause it'll be hard not to , obviously .  The user interface design , They're kind of it looks they're the idea I've pushed forward so far is maybe more of a physical one there , whereas possibly be more interested in maybe how the L_C_D_'s going to incorporate , do you think ? user interface:  . project manager: Or do you s perceive that most the design design decisions still need to be based on the physical layout ? user interface:  well I I think other than ge getting a sort of more aesthetically pleasing form for it ,  mo most of the sort of layout design decisions are are made , I would say .  but then again , the  the menu structure to to a considerable extent that's gonna vary according to the model of television , and also any customisations that the user might wish to incorporate . So  and one of the nice things about having an L_C_D_ and a menu structure is that there is that flexibility to it . marketing: Yeah , you see I don't some of these things kinda logically follow the others . project manager: I I think we'd be yeah , no , it'd be more a case of how do we envisage us performing the product evaluation once we have a model to test with . project manager:  so it'd be a case of do you think that just bringing users in to have them test it out ,  maybe putting a certain number of products into the field in certain places which I suppose is quite similar . project manager: Or just kind of hitting the streets and you know saying this is a new remote control , what do you think of the look of it ?  marketing: Okay , sure . At this stage we still have no no target audience or project manager: I think the target audience is pretty much anybody under the age of say maybe sixty or something ludicrous . project manager:  the reason I'm saying that is we're just looking at a a replacement remote control , something that's stylish , so maybe you're even just maybe you're narrowing down your target audience simply by saying marketing: And it's stylish . project manager: if they're buying it that often or they're maybe looking to replace something then , they've got a bit of free cash , so that puts them potentially in the younger age bracket . project manager: Although of course  at twenty five Euros , I don't think we're looking at charging the earth for the  device . U_S_B_'s definitely one of the cheapest interfaces out there , but it might push the cost of the overall unit up 'cause it would require not just the connection but the chip for communicating with the rest of the system . project manager: The the idea was that maybe it could connect up for  allowing a software interface on the P_C_ for a larger programming industrial designer: Oh right , okay . project manager: due to the fact that we've gone for such a nice , easy minimal design , normally . marketing: We've w definitely talking some type of industrial designer: But didn't they just say it's just for T_V_ , or are we gonna project manager: It's just for T_V_ , but for marketing: Different . project manager: programming it to use your T_V_ , you might hook it up to the P_C_ . project manager: I'm not sure , but I'm thinking maybe that the additional cost of the U_S_B_ might be prohibitive . user interface: Yeah , marketing: But you're gonna need some type of flash memory or something . marketing: you wouldn't have to redo the whole thing once the batteries are changed , you know , once you turn off the power . The other thing  it  it would need to ha it would need to have  some sort of on board memory anyway . user interface:  f for one for one thing because I do think that the menu system should be    although you know , it's not going to be terribly complicated if it's just controlling one device , the menu system ought to be  o ought to be customisable and  marketing: Different languages ,  different skins and stuff like that . How  how  how you want say the  the the menu structure for flicking through channels if you've got lots of channels . I if it was customisable as in different languages and stuff , that does open it is supposed to be international , right ? So . marketing: It would make sense if you could project manager:  and we'd better be careful about the time as well . project manager: So  user interface: Where is the clay ? marketing: project manager: do I think we've got an idea of where we need to go for the next meeting , would you say ? marketing: Yeah . industrial designer: they're going with the fashion thing , like the design , spongy rubber . I th I think I would largely want to actually steer clear of the whole sort of fruit and veg thing . project manager: We seem to have quite a general consensus that the idea of the the r rubber could be quite marketing: Yeah . user interface: I having it i having it sort of br bright yellow I think that's quite a good idea , though maybe we could have options for colours as well .  we are trying to promote a remote control , but we wanna keep the company brand as well , user interface: project manager: So we always need to remember that somewhere we're meant to be getting the slogan on . Possibly I'm think I'm not sure but I'm seeing a little bit of space around maybe the joystick area which could be used . I was like like I said before I I think we should have the R_R_ on the  on the top function button