As you can see our agenda is to open up the meeting ,  become acquainted with each other ,  have a little training on tools ,  create a plan , discuss things and and we only have twenty minut twenty five minutes total . Okay , so we'll have a functional design individual work  with meeting and then conceptual design t and then detailed design . Kate , why don't you try it first , if you can either bring your things with you , I guess industrial designer:  yeah , if I can pick up with all these bits and pieces , hang on . project manager: And while you're doing that we'll try and figure out how to hook these things on as well , 'cause we're all gonna have to be able to walk around . project manager: industrial designer: Do you have to be able to recognise what animal it is ?  project manager:  I do not think so , user interface: Are we all gonna draw a cat ? project manager: I think it's just to try out the whiteboard . user interface: project manager: industrial designer: You can tell it's not a bunny rabbit by the ears . And the characteristics ? industrial designer:  the favourite characteristics of the cat  the whiskers I think ,  because they're the easiest to draw . Kate ? industrial designer: user interface: And they sit on your shoulder and whisper the answers to your homework in your ear when you're doing your homework . industrial designer: Gosh , user interface: A shark ? industrial designer: why didn't I think of fish ? That's even easier to draw than cat . marketing:  I like them because they're sleek project manager: Favourite characteristics ? marketing: and they have a lot of freedom but they also do n  swim in groups , project manager: 'Kay . industrial designer: marketing: Do you have a favourite one ? project manager: I'm afraid I'm with Steph . But I'm afraid I take the coward's way out , and the cat's looking the other way . Now  we have to get down to the nitty-gritty of how to make this and this remote control has to be sold  we're to sell it for twenty five Euros , with a profit aim ultimately of fifty million Euros .  would be an awful lot of these , would be like what , a hundred million of them  to make twenty five Euros on each one and to make a total profit of fifty million . Now if they cost twelve and a half , you're selling it for twenty five , you're making twelve and a half Euros each .  and we're to make a profit of fifty million , that's t  can you do the maths and how many are we selling ? marketing:  yeah . I was just wondering if that's the  If fifty percent is normal project manager: Mark-up ? marketing: B yeah . project manager: marketing: And and your question is how many do we have to sell ? project manager: Yes , 'cause our market  is international and your problem is has to do with marketing of you know , you gotta know how many we're going to be selling to know how big a market you have to target and who is that . Yeah , that's  project manager: To give you a pretty good idea of where you're looking . In order to make fifty million Euros , and you're only getting twelve and a half each marketing: And if we make Any of you use of remote control for a television or D_V_D_ or something ? You're both nodding , industrial designer: That that that's the sorta product we're talking about , one that will work for a in a home environment , for a T_V_s and marketing: Yeah . Well I've seen some remote controls that are for more than one device at a time , but I also have heard about them not working well or not well co-ordinated and you wind up working with this one for thi this three and then this one over here for another . user interface: It is true that you always sit around you know , you're sitting on your sofa and you wanna change something , there's five different remotes , and one for the D_V_D_ and one for the video and one for cable and one for whatever else . marketing: project manager: Are there any  ideas for the remote ? What would it be for and what group would be be for ? We have to think about that one . Like I've got one at home that has well , apart from the obvious , channels , channel up , channel down , volume , marketing: Yeah . user interface: you know , subtitles , mute , there's a lotta buttons that I've got no idea what they do , like . marketing: because I think one of the things that being somewhat computer literate , we tend to  go to menus and then make choices , you know , so if it's like an  volume button , you know , you can go in and say mute or or volume . We don't need to have like the l the numbers if we also have   channel up channel down . project manager: but the I think that's the industrial design is the first one , industrial designer:  . project manager: And user , that's you S Steph , for the technical functions design , and for marketing the user requirements specification . I think there's going to be a lot of we have to help each other and work through this as a group , and I think we all , you know , we like our kitty-cat and our rat and our fish , but I think we all have to like each other  to get this done .  as it says , we're gonna get individual instructions , but  I don't think they allowed a lot of extra time , so I think a little bit of less of this and more at do will set us in good stead .  then I don't see any reason to prolong it and f we should finish this meeting at ni right now and go into other things


I did took the minutes from the first meeting and I'll show them to you in a moment .  I know each of you have a presentation and  in thinking about the forty minutes , I thought it would take only like three minutes for the previous minutes ,  each of you having about seven minutes or maybe a little more , maybe a little less for your pre presentations and a little discussion , because there's I happen to have been told there were some new project requirements and we have to make some  decision on what functions it will have .  and after the meeting there'll be things to be done and as you can see it says we get to get lunch ,  and then some more individual work and then putting minutes away and individual actions . I opened the meeting , the product was developed  and reviewed , and we talked about the financial end of it .  and it had some implications ,  the four million sales target and new ideas of not too many buttons , bright colours and some of the influence of the Japanese . And we closed early so you could then proceed with your research and getting your reports together for tod this meeting Anybody have any questions on those minutes ? Are they complete , did they discuss everything that we covered last time ? 'Kay . industrial designer:  I think so , project manager: Did I miss something ? industrial designer: we we we talked about the the individual roles that we each had as well . I'm afraid I incorporated that when I said who was present , but yes , we did , industrial designer: Okay . project manager: and we did a little bit of  team building of  of making the pictures , marketing: Okay , I accept the minutes . One of the the biggest issues I found about  from last meeting was the fact that we need to sell four million of these  remote controls and I think that this is an opportunity to really take Real Reaction in the direction of of similar of handheld tools that have been used and are used by many of us and to kind of bring the remote control into the si same realm as an accessible  useful electronic device , as opposed to something that is lost in the couch and what have you . So  my main goal here is to re-envision the remote control in in this context and to think about menu functionality and current technology and the fact that it could be interactive with other tools .  some of the research  in the market has shown that people really are not happy with remote controls as they are now , and  that means we do need to make some decisions about what what keys or or buttons on the on the remote control to perhaps keep and and what ones to discard . And if we devote some energy into this , I think the  recent productions of Real Reaction , the I go everywhere power and the high definition D_V_D_ players although it makes immediate sense to have our remote control interact with these , I think we can also use this as a platform to make it interact with other tools . And  in fact I think the high definition D_V_D_ players and all of this will come along in the  will only benefit from the positive feedback from our well designed tool .  fifty percent I think of all these  numbers the most important is fifty percent of user say they only use ten percent of the buttons . And eighty percent of users , and if we think about this there are a lot of  television , D_V_D_ , stereo remote control users out there , eighty percent would spend more money on a remote control that looks fancy . industrial designer: Could can I ask where these figures come from , is this market research we've marketing:  it was market research and there were a hundred people in the room , so eighty out of a hundred said they would spend more money . project manager: Now in between , as the Project Manager , they sent me an email from the powers that be industrial designer: project manager: and the internet is coming in as important , but that they want this remote control to only be for T_V_  with incorporating the corporate image , colour and slogan . Well I think we can I I think we can really focus on this remote and and again bring the Real Reaction  brand in in and and get some positive marketing for our other tools , even if we directly don't  advertise for the I go everywhere line . marketing: Now the early adopters , those of us who grew up with technology and  luck lucky for us have the  cash to to pay for it , the young age group without the mortgages and responsibilities , ninety one percent of them would pay more for speech recognition in a remote control . Very interesting , I I leave this up to the group to decide if we wanna use this  if and you know , the the designers , project manager:  . marketing: but ninety one percent , fifteen to twenty five project manager: Is that a large enough target market to target it ? marketing: Well , I I I think especially in terms of growth , I think this would be a very smart group to target .  s three quarters of the next age group , twenty five to thirty five are interested , and  with the technologies improving , if we can get these  project manager: In real numbers , does the ninety one percent and the seventy six percent translate to ex in excess of the four million ? marketing: Yeah . But would you pay more and does it work and is it approachable and and did I know that it was it was an project manager:  . industrial designer:  marketing: I don't know if speech recognition should be  should be included , project manager:  . marketing: but I think it's an interesting I think that maybe shows more about  being open to technology . user interface:  it definitely needs  a lot more research marketing: Shall I go back ? user interface: on like how much more it would be and any , you know , existing examples , marketing: Yeah , yeah . industrial designer: How d I'm wondering how how ou how our target price compares with the the typical price of these things . I expect an Industrial Designer should know that , but if we're aiming to to build this thing for twelve Euros fifty ,  is that a lot or a little ? marketing: Exactly .  I I I  did not receive any information on that , but I think the competition , sussing out what other people are doing and what's in the pipeline is very very important , because  there is a question about do you want an L_C_D_ screen and and that wasn't responded to , but  some of the larger remotes do have screens where you can navigate , you know , so it turns into something  perhaps you all have seen  the Osbournes where Ozzy Osbourne is is attempting to manage his super entertainment system with something that looks like a  a small tray . marketing: You know , project manager: marketing: it's I a and I think , you know industrial designer: He must be w one of a s small population . But I think the key is to get the early adopters , people who are familiar with technology and and  they'll be project manager: But we're not looking at whether they're early adopters on that screen , marketing:  . I yes , and I'm making and I'm making the the   leap that people who are familiar younger people are l are more familiar with technology than than older people . marketing: I think the most important thing is an attractive streamlined remote control and to be extraordinarily reductionist , power , channel , volume and everything else is is  up to the designers . industrial designer: And if you want it to go into slide show mode , it's that little button there . user interface: Can I not just  do each one in order ? industrial designer: I you can if you like , it it that that just sets it up to do a p a p project manager: There we are . user interface: That ? industrial designer: Left , left a bit , left a bit , that one , yep .  well I think first off , basically I do agree with what Sarah has defined as as  your personal preferences,yeah . And what we all need to discuss is whether we want these functions  pretty much the same as what existing remotes have . If we can build on this with the speech recognition , that's not something I'd thought about at all , but it's also something we can discuss . user interface:  and and I presume we can miss out the functions really to to a video or D_V_D_ remote control , if this is only gonna be a , you know , satellite , cable , T_V_ remote control . It also has seems to have channel up and channel down , which is which is more what you'd expect from a , you know , like a Sky or cable remote control project manager:  .  but I think we should be looking more along the lines of the one on the right , which has it also has play , stop and pause and everything , I don't think we need them at all . I think we just need channel selection , volume up , volume down and I think an an enter function where you can access it's not like teletext , but along the same lines , access things on the screen .  not related to the internet one that you mentioned , because that'd be far outside our budget and what we want this to do . user interface: So it really exceed the requirements , 'cause the requirements really are just want to be able to change channels and functions , which is more a text on the screen thing than  than actual buttons project manager: Okay . user interface: o I was thinking something some smooth , sleek , little remote control with big user-friendly buttons and  a menu that you can access . user interface: But we could go back to the pictures of the  , what're they called ? The pictures of the remote controls and possibly discuss what we think about them , marketing: Or if user interface: but maybe should hear what Kate has to say first . marketing: Maybe afterwards we could do a  whiteboard with that your the one on the right as a as a basis . project manager: I think the white that one on the right is , as well as less cluttered , marketing: user interface: Definitely less cluttered and  but still it's project manager: It's there user interface: Sorry project manager: but it's user interface: I was just I'll just  resume something else I was gonna say . user interface: I I I really think we need to  not only possibly even materials , like the type of plastic used , but everything including size and shape of buttons , positioning of buttons , the actual shape of the hand-held device , colours , just every e yeah , everything to do with this has to be revolutionised . Okay  , now I wanna bring us down to earth again I'm afraid and talk about the actual practicalities of how the thing needs to work .  basically I've been doing a little bit of web-based research , and if I had a design team , I would've been discussing my ideas with 'em . But the the net result is that I've come up with a first cut for the working design that I'd like to discuss with you . And the the basic components we've got to build in for our twelve Euros fifty are  an energy source , the user interface and which will  in incorporate  an integrated circuit that actually composes the message  based on what the which buttons the user presses , we turn that into a message ,  and then we need a sending mechanism to send it to the receiver . I would have have hoped to  do you a pretty PowerPoint slide of  my first cut design , but unfortunately the technology defeated me , so if you'll bear with me I'll do it on the whiteboard . And the main components in there are the the th the chip that actually has the intelligence of the machine that translates button presses into a message , which it then transfers to some sending mechanism , which encodes it and sends the message to the receiver . But those things as long as we can get those components , the block , that that rectangle for the user interface , is where the user comes in of what what does it look like ? What do the buttons look like ?  what does it feel like ? That's where the user interface is really coming into its own . project manager: The technical end is what's actually gonna be in there , but also it has to be easy enough to change or repair if something goes wrong . For example the battery energy source or  what if the chip , for whatever reason , breaks down after a certain amount of time , do you just replace it ?  is there any  because it may be in the same area with several other user interfaces , like for D_V_D_s , movies , whatever .  does it have to have a a way of being segregated from the others , in a different frequency or something ? industrial designer: Well I may be wrong here , but I'd been thinking of this device as being a a cheap mass-produced device . industrial designer:  that's that's , you know , that's almost one in every tenth household or whatever it is . industrial designer: you just if it goes wrong you chuck it out , and that's why I'm a bit concerned . I like the idea of speech recognition , that's a great idea , but I'm not convinced we can put it into this box for the price that we need gonna need to hit . marketing: Do we have  ki some idea of how much it would cost to create a device that has these basic elements ? user interface: Isn't that your job ? marketing: Because then project manager: Oh . industrial designer: I'm I'm I'm hoping that my personal coach is gonna give me some advice on that , if you're asking me , marketing: I I don't believe I know ,  . industrial designer: but marketing: Be because then we would ha ha figure out how much we had to play with in terms of user interface and this look and feel idea . user interface: It does it does seem as if we're just to do something really simple and mass-produced , the which is pretty much the same as these existing models , marketing: user interface: just maybe a little bit more inspired , marketing: Inspired ? user interface: but basically just the same . user interface: Although what what  suddenly came into my head is , you know how they always take two A_A_ batteries which which is really not very efficient at all . Could it be possible to have  , you know , like a rechargeable internal battery , like , well , like an M_P_ three player does ? With that you could jus or a mobile phone or whatever . user interface: You could you know , you just plug into a power source for a couple of hours , and then it's recharged for ages and ages and ages , and you don't have to worry with replacing A_A_ batteries , marketing: Well user interface: which are marketing: that has another element , which is if every time you're done using the remote you put it on a charger , then you then it has a place . marketing: Yeah , but it also has a place , user interface: And it's not stuck down the back of the sofa . user interface: But then again I d I don't know if this is within our price range or not . industrial designer: Well I  think that's a very interesting idea , but  I'm not a very good industrial designer and I don't know much about what these things cost . industrial designer: Well solar may not be so good when you're watching T_V_ in the night , marketing: Yeah , yeah . user interface: Well it is just so annoying how marketing: Depen project manager: It would have to sor store up the energy marketing:  . user interface: No , but just a rechargeable internal battery would probably  it might cost more to at first to develop and to install , marketing: - user interface: but for long-term use it'll be so much more convenient and economic than fiddling around trying to replace chunky A_A_ batteries and not having any in your kitchen drawer marketing: user interface: and industrial designer: So do you think we might make that a selling point if it was something that we found we could afford to develop ? user interface: you know f marketing: Definitely , project manager:  . marketing: 'cause I'm thinking in terms of   the loss and breakage of  remotes , how much of that is is to do with it not really having a  a home , a  a nest , a place to live , user interface:  . marketing: So if you can dock it ,  you know , you could s argue that this is project manager: And the dock could look very fancy and that could be your inspiration of having it looking decent . project manager: Are we agreed as to what our target group is though ? Pretty much , so that we'd be looking for the younger end . marketing: Well I I brought up some exactly , but I think you raised some good questions about are there enough of these people out there , or are they making purchasing decisions ? industrial designer:  . industrial designer: Yeah , marketing: You know , industrial designer: I was wondering that , marketing: these are the industrial designer: because I ag I agree that there there're people with  how can I put it , more money than sense and who are liable to buy something new , project manager: I I s usually put more money than brains . industrial designer: but Bu but what I was gonna say was , although they they may be buying  , you know , personal music devices and all that , marketing: Oh oh oh I'll make a note of that , Kate . industrial designer: are they necessarily buying T_V_ remote controls ? Because they probably live in a household that has a T_V_ if they're at the lower end of the age range , marketing: Yeah . marketing: It might be good to know   who , you know , who's actually buying televisions and are we in a   s region where people have more than one television in a home ? industrial designer:  . I think we've got a big hill to climb here , haven't we ?  we've gotta persuade people who've got a remote control 'cause it came with the telly that they should buy our product instead . project manager: Or do we s make sure that it goes to the man through the manufacturer ? We sell to the manufacturer as the remote that goes with it . project manager: What would be a more efficient way of doing it ? marketing: Yeah , and and some of our D_V_D_ players incidentally have them , because we have the relationship with our own department , but moreover we need to to go for the the manufacturers . user interface: We're not gonna get any resolutions by the end of the day , project manager: Probably not . Our functions , we've so far decided , I think , that power , channel , volume make it attractive . It has to have big user-friendly buttons and sh n definitely we wanna be inspired that the current styles are just plain awful . marketing: Do we need  let me project manager: Is that agreeable to everyone ? marketing: Br actually ,  industrial designer: industrial designer: Do you want the gizmo ? marketing: yeah , which might project manager: Throw some light on that . project manager:  actually we're , you know , we are almost a half hour out of the forty minutes , so we have to get close to finishing . marketing: Okay , I I my only comment is I think maybe  we could somehow include an enter key in like a power key if power power was enter and pow that was my only just really in terms of streamlining . Again , you know , project manager: Is that okay with you ? marketing: thinking of menus or user interface: Sorry , project manager: Would that industrial designer: H how does that work ? user interface: I was miles away . industrial designer: How so so how does that work , user interface: I was re I was reading the chart to be honest . industrial designer: how do you avoid switching the thing off when you actually wanna press enter ? marketing: if you're pressing enter , the the thing would already be on , and so maybe  when you press power , initially it turns it on , press power again and use that as an enter  project manager: Then you'd have to have an off te off key . marketing: so you press power after you've  well I was thinking maybe you to turn it off you'd have to press power twice in succession , industrial designer: Okay , yep , marketing: and maybe power follows something like a channel up channel down power , and then that would make that choice . industrial designer: It's not getting a bit complicated ? Could granny do this , marketing: Well industrial designer: or are we just not aiming at granny ? marketing: Or y yeah . user interface: Who's got an iPod then ? industrial designer: marketing: Yeah , project manager:  . Anyway ,  that was the only comment about  some of the the decisions people have made , what's most important . user interface: Yeah , things like screen settings and audio settings , I would generally do them on the actual television itself , marketing: Exactly . user interface: like here you have a you know , a little flap th with a little control panel on the actual box itself . user interface: I I wouldn't know how to do it using a remote control , marketing: Yeah . project manager: I guess easy to use is the other thing that we want 'em to be able to do . project manager: As you said , you know , don't make it too hard for the granny . project manager:  so are we agreed then of those things ? And let's go back to agenda marketing: D project manager: and hook me up . industrial designer: How do you do that ? How do you make it do both ? project manager:  you have to keep doing the financi the the F_N_ and F_ eight to five minutes to finish , industrial designer: Ah okay , it toggles through , project manager: thank you a lot for telling me .  will be completed q questionnaire ,  then we'll have some time for individual work to continue our research  and I'll put some minutes of this meeting together .  your individual assignments are for  Kate to do the components , for you , Steph , to do the user interface and for you the trend-watching .  and you'd mentioned I I was just gonna say , could you reiterate the new project requirements , project manager: Okay . marketing: because it they were it has to be for a T_V_ , just to keep myself project manager:  the teletext is outdated , industrial designer: So we're still in meeting , aren't we ? project manager: the internet is important , marketing: Yeah , I think I've project manager: it's only to be for a T_V_ and it must include the corporate image , colour and slogan  marketing: Okay . Sorry , what what actually are these is that the yellow and black ? project manager: It doesn't tell me


our agenda should be  that we're opening the meeting , I have the minutes from the previous meeting are on the shared f drive at this point . It's twenty five after two at the moment , so forty minutes is five after three ,  which I'll be keeping an eye on the clock for us .  there are the decisions we have to turn to , but we'll come back to them in a minute after I take us to the minutes of the previous meeting . Right  as we remember , I opened the meeting , the four of us were present , the meeting the first meeting's minutes were reviewed and approved .  Sarah , you presented a marketing research report  which pretty much rep represented that fifteen to thirty five year olds  it has to be hand-held , power , channel , volume , number keys , possibly a speech recognition . And then Steph did a second presentation  that those functions plus streamlining them with big user-friendly keys that were easy to use . Kate presented a working design of going after going over the basics on the whiteboard  that it should be a simple mass-produced device , because of the twelve and a half Pence cost .  but we did talk about possibly using rechargeable batteries and having a docking place as a selling point .  and the new requirements that it for be for T_V_ only  and that it include the l so slogan and colour of the  corporate design be included . So we agreed that the target market would be fifteen to thirty five with more money than sense , that were decision makers . Alternatively it would be a manufacturer to enclose it with the T_V_ , but it still should meet those parameters .  and that the function we agreed was volume , power , numbers , enter , channels , a way to move between channels , easy to use and hand-held .  at that point we agreed that Sarah would look at the current cost of competition , what what do the current ones sell for . Sarah , I'm sorry if I misspelled your name , I didn't know whether it was S_A_R_A_ or S_A_R_H_ . marketing: Okay , first thing I want to address is  one of the points that Florence brought up , which was  current cost of the competition devices , similar to the ones that Stephanie  showed us and and they're  twenty to sixty Euros , depending on  branding . But I think that with the current  price that we're searching for , we're well within , even on the lower end , of the  of the market . So , I investigated the remote control market in greater detail , and my  the theme of what I was to work on was  trend watch . user interface: marketing: project manager: user interface: industrial designer: I'm glad to see the marketing budget is being so well spent on . marketing: project manager: marketing: I know that you all are a distance from cutting edge marketing research , industrial designer: marketing: so you know , I'm just gonna try to cloak it in really professional terms here . industrial designer: user interface: marketing: And this is all over the catwalks , Paris , Milan , and I'm talking about clothing , furniture , shoes . And I think if we're to refashion our view of what we want in a remote control , we should perhaps think about incorporating technologically interesting fabrics and some of the bold colours into a simple handset . And f the fancy , and that's exactly the term , I'm I'm thinking polished , elegant , you know , kind of innovative , but a cut above . This is interesting , 'cause I think in the last meeting we were talking about technology as being so important , but maybe what's innovative is having it simple with  with  technologically superior fabrics or  , you know , designed in interesting substances . Again , pretty low ,  it's the top three , but each of the  fancy and technologically innovative are far more important . Don't you ? marketing: Y yeah , you know project manager: It sounds like the the  covers that they use for the remote , you know , your t your cell phone . I was thinking though that instead of having something  like patterned , you know , so , you know , something similar to a summer dress . you know , it would have like fruit and veg , is that we actually make these spongy . marketing: They could be ini initially I thought we could start with kind of  fruit that would suit kind of  a long  hand-held , so banana , pineapple and pear .  it could actually the sleeve could take up a lot of the development and the remote control , we'd just need to get reductionist on it . user interface: marketing: They could be interchangeable , they're spongy , that goes back to ergonomic , and the youngsters love 'em , fun for the whole family , everyone can have their own . Everyone has a T_V_ remote , but then we add in the fact that they could each have their own individual fruit . marketing: Y yeah , but I think I think what this would allow is perhaps a person in the family who had the most opinion about it we all need a remote , project manager:  . marketing: but the person who is really perhaps active in personalising , I'm thinking the teenager , the someone fifteen to thirty five would go out and get this additional thing the same way as you mentioned that people would get the cell phone covers . user interface: So when your dad's sitting there , overriding your decision , going no we're gonna watch this , you can bring out your own remote and be like zap , no we're gonna watch this . So this is an idea and I I you know , this is exactly what the research has  has shown . industrial designer: Yeah , I I think we're gonna have some trouble when we get down to the component design on this . And as for as for  well budgeting as well , if we're gonna have lots of different interchangeable components . user interface: Is this to the market ? industrial designer: Yeah ,  basically we can make these things out of wood , titanium , plastic or rubber . user interface: I was thinking titanium , I was thinking it's just I have been influenced by pictures of iPods , and they're also minimalist and shiny . project manager: Are we talking about the device itself or the c or a cover for the device that would be an interchangeable cov cover as a separate product ? marketing: Well it would be  a a very simple product that would have a spongy sleeve that would be interchangeable . So project manager: Perhaps perhaps that desi that particular suggestion needs to go back to management user interface: Yeah , but it's kind of pointless , isn't it ? project manager: and perhaps go to another group to actually design as a separate product . W w would it be helpful if  I described the components a bit , because I think it would give you  maybe bring this discussion back to Earth of what we can actually physically do . Or project manager: Do you wanna be next or you want Kate to go next ? user interface: I think possibly it might be more useful if Kate went next . project manager: Okay , we'll move the user interface:  industrial designer: user interface: You can even have them in different flavours as well . So that if you just wanna sit there and chew on the remote , it could be like pear flavour , marketing: Yeah . marketing:  well I was really thinking a lot about the I_  the iMac kind of gel gem tone . industrial designer: I I I think some of this  user interface: industrial designer: you're gonna be a little disappointed with some of the things I have to tell you , but I'm afraid this is the real world . So  I've been looking at the the basics of how these devices actually have to work in order to operate , and I've had some discussions with the ma manufacturing division , who have told me what's actually available , you know , what the current state of the art in components is , and some of the exciting new things they've got , but I'm not sure that it's quite what you want  . Now this isn't a very good overhead , but this is just to show you , this is the innards of a remote control  . And this is a push-button one , so you see these little little buttons here , they're little rubber rubber buttons that go through onto the the board at the back and they push these buttons here . We got to have something that pushes the little buttons that  talk to the chip that encodes the message that sends the the message to the receiver . So  I wan I wanna go through not not just addressing the   the the points that you made , Sarah , but  doing my presentation in the order I wrote it . marketing: industrial designer:  we can have your bog standard double double A_ batteries in a replaceable  little compartment . marketing: industrial designer: a wind-up , yeah , which I think is quite an interesting concept for a sorry for a remote control , marketing: project manager: industrial designer: but i it maybe is doesn't quite go with the  the fruit and veg . industrial designer:  one that one that I think is quite interesting is the kinetic energy source , marketing: project manager: Remember , we only have forty minutes industrial designer: where  you you actually get the energy by moving the device , marketing:  . You have to it means that if it's sitting there for a long time it probably won't work , but you have to sort of throw it between your hands every now and then , it'll work . industrial designer: Now I'm afraid this is the options we've got on on the case . user interface: industrial designer:  and the nearest we've got to st to spongy there I guess is rubber , but  I'm gonna come back to the advantages of titanium , marketing:  . industrial designer: and basically it can have a flat surface , a curved surface or a double curved surface , but I think if we wanna use standard components , we're gonna have difficulty with anything much beyond that . industrial designer: Okay , what does the interface look like ?  well push button , that's that's the one we're all familiar with . industrial designer: so you can have it like on a mouse where you can use it to go up and down , change volume or channel or something like that and push to select something .  you can have multiple scroll buttons ,  this is maybe getting a little bit complicated , but  it's it the technology is there . And we can also incorporate an L_C_D_ display in the remote , but this will increase the cost .  the electronics that actually makes the device work , we've basically got three , simple , regular , advanced , and the price goes up as we choose each of this . If you want the advanced chip it obviously costs more , but it that's what you need if you want the L_C_D_ display . Now I don't know what that is , but I think they think it's quite important and we might want to incorporate it somewhere .  ou our real expertise is in push buttons , I have to say , but maybe you think that's old technology . We can either go for a really cheap model , keep all of the costs down ,  which means a flat plastic case with an ordinary battery and simple push buttons . Or we can have something that looks a bit nicer , I think it ,  won't necessarily l  look like a pineapple , but  that may or may not be a good thing .  but it could have an L_C_D_ screen and it could have multiple scroll buttons , and it could have the the company's new development of the  sample sensor and speaker . industrial designer: Yeah , marketing:  do you have any idea if if this could if the fancy model could be done in twelve Euros fifty ? industrial designer: I'm afraid I don't have that information available . Because , you know what , I'm being quite serious when I say that that  the things I mentioned are hot . marketing: You know , if if what you're telling me is is  some of these things aren't just f aren't feasible , maybe we could something about naming , we could call it , you know , Blackberry . user interface: Bear bear in mind it has to be the colours and styles of the company , marketing: That's  user interface: so what I had been thinking was something chunky and yellow and plastic with black buttons with a logo on it . user interface: But  I I don't know how important that is to keep it exactly the colours of the Real Reaction company . But yeah , industrial designer: We we could we could do  a double curved rubber one , marketing: I'm trying to streamline mine a little bit . industrial designer: which would allow  say a banana , but  unfortunately I see from my notes that if we do that , we have to have a push button as the interface , marketing: Yeah . user interface: Shall we wait 'til I've 'til I've showed you what well , my extensive presentation on what sort of interfaces are available . industrial designer: user interface: F_N_ and F_ eight , did you say ? project manager: Yes . marketing: Oh I think  Florence resolved it by industrial designer: I If you do F_  F_N_ F_ eight again , it's it'll project manager: Do it again . project manager: Keep doing it until you get it in both you get it there , you get it yours without that one , industrial designer: I think it yeah , you you will do an project manager: and then you get it with both . I don't actually have a huge amount of different information then what Kate says , project manager: Okay . user interface: just that my method was to look at the , well , my my inspirations , which was a big collection of lots of different models of remote controls and other things that use a similar sort of thing , including M_P_ three players ,  like you know , hi-fi remotes , not just television and these things . user interface:  having a think about the feature of ea the features of each ones ,  what functions we actually need , and then how to group and arrange these on the actual the actual plastic or rubber hand-held piece .  I've been especially interested in the iPod style scroll wheel , which Well , I couldn't find a the picture of the iPod w only linked to a web browser , so I couldn't copy and paste it , but it had a similar thing to this thing on the right . user interface: So I was thinking that   a really simple a really simple interface with just a couple of scroll things on it  and then instead of a display the display could appear on the television screen . Like , you know , you press enter and it comes up with what's showing on that channel at the moment , and you can do you can scroll along and it'll show you what's on in the next half hour , and you scroll up marketing: user interface: and you can see what's on the other channels while you're watching the same channel on the screen . user interface:  which is really nice and fun and good to hold and nice , big , easy buttons to press , but still quite simple and quite cost effective . So project manager: user interface: what seems kind of ideal for me would be to just have a fairly simple ,  not fancy but not totally minimalist ,  just pretty simple plastic , probably , I was thinking , yellow and black , just because that's the company's colours , with very very few buttons , but that would correspond to a screen that would appear on the television screen , like , you know , just small along the bottom instead of instead of having the iPod style display screen on the actual remotes , which is far too expensive . user interface: And when you've got a screen sitting there in front of you , you might as well have it appearing  on the screen in front of you , it doesn't obscure much of the actual picture you're watching . user interface: And so on that you can , just much in the same way as an existing Sky remote , scroll along , scroll up and down .  titanium would be great , but I think it might be a bit too expensive and too kinda spacey . If we're k trying to keep it colourful and slightly organic , then I think titanium's too futuristic . industrial designer: It's difficult to make fancy shapes in it as well , we can't for example have a double curved case in titanium unfortunately . user interface:  then industrial designer: And the the having the the the screen on the television screen I think is a good idea , 'cause  otherwise we're we're putting up the price not only for putting building the L_C_D_ in , but for the electronics as well . user interface: Like when when when you've got when you've got the screen there , it doesn't have to be anything fancy , marketing: It's a duplication . user interface: just a little menu showing yeah , a menu , you go into one menu and then it can have your different options , whether you wanna change the settings or the you know , your information about programme that's on at the moment . But as for actually arranging them let me go back to the to the picture of the kiddie one . And I quite like it , 'cause it's just smooth and hand-held and it's got these easily reachable buttons that quite nicely  spaced out , so something a bit like that with buttons arranged in a kind of circle . industrial designer: Do you want scroll buttons in that as well ? user interface: I I was thinking not actually scroll , like a like mouse scroll , but you know , a I can't quite d  describe it . user interface: so you pick your menu and then your different options and when when you click on each one , it you can go into a new menu for that . marketing: user interface: Really we'd have to use something to show you , industrial designer: Yeah . I think I think that's a g nice clean design , user interface: but industrial designer: it's playing to our strengths which are in push button technology . But they all have this this feature of this  It's not quite a scroll wheel , but it's a kind of selection in this circle , project manager: It's a selection wheel . And then and then Yeah , so  either a channel up and down , volume up and down , next appearing programmes up and down ,  and then also when you get into the different menus on the screen , it's got your things like settings and contrast up and down . project manager: marketing: Do you think with  project manager: user interface: Might take up your whole living room . marketing: It seems that that  you guys are quite keen on the plastic , perhaps the something reminiscent of the child's remote . We we could actually do it in rubber instead of plastic if you'd rather if you feel if you like the spongy user interface: That also is possible . I'm thinking maybe we need to be a little bit more abstract if the design constraints are so project manager: Okay . user interface:  just something else I need to bring to your attention is have you have you seen these on a remote ? This is actually the volume up and down , project manager: user interface: which , when you first look at it , you expect that to be the down , because it looks like a downward pointing arrow , marketing: user interface: but it's actually the V_ to indicate that it's the volume , so  we do need to avoid little ambiguities like these . If we're having the scroll wheel , then it's gonna double up as all the other up and down functions . We have about ten minutes left , in which time we have to make some decisions on the remote control concepts .  we need to come up with some specifics of the components ,  the materials , things like making the decision on the energy  and the case and the interface type things . They want us to decide what form of energy are we going to use , which the choices that we've discussed were pretty much battery , kinetic or solar .  this is where Kate's expertise comes in , and our decision making will be a little bit guided by Kate at this point . industrial designer: project manager: The You were saying that the kinetic would be useful , that is you just have to move it some and you'd be able to use it  as opposed to a battery that you have to either put it in a recharger or  keep replacing the batteries .  or solar that you'd have difficulty with it if it's a dark day , that it'll die on you , and no way to do it . project manager:  so what's our pleasure here , what would be the cost consequences of each of the three ? industrial designer: Oh unfortunately I don't have costing information . industrial designer: I i in terms of workability , I I think the the two front-runners are the standard battery or the kinetic , project manager:  'kay . project manager: What's the  feelings of the group on the kinetic ? marketing: I've used kinetic in terms of watches and it's very very  handy , you don't even notice  that it's there . Sounds like it could be g a really good economical marketing: It's user interface: it would make the whole thing a lot lighter , more convenient . marketing: as  , you know , user interface: 'Cause it's really a quite attractive thought , marketing: throw the banana , you know , just gotta keep it moving . user interface: isn't it ? It's like yeah , project manager: So the consensus seems to be use the kinetic if it's at all possible . marketing: Be user interface: But it does depend how much  how much it costs and how much more development and research it needs . industrial designer: 'cause I'm conscious that watching T_V_ can be quite a sed sedentary activity . marketing: But I could market that as a  as a a I was thinking actually a a cost saver down the road , in terms of battery , you know . industrial designer: Oh right , okay , project manager:  the next thing that they wanted us to do was look at chip on print as a decision . industrial designer:  and I would certainly recommend it , I think , because I'm not sure I have an alternative . user interface: project manager: What about the ca industrial designer: I i it it's just the way that the the the  th the way it's ac it's actually built project manager: yeah .  what about the case ? I think they're talking there about do we want wood , plastic , titanium or rubber , industrial designer: project manager: and I think we've discussed not having titanium . What's the pleasure ? industrial designer: Well if if Sarah's keen on a spongy feel , the the rubber that we're talking about is the same as you have in those little stress balls , so it's marketing: That's exactly what I was thinking . project manager: What about you ? user interface: Do you not think it might need like a kind of a hard plastic inner shell with the actual delicate workings inside , and then a kind of spongy Yeah , s thick spongy cover , marketing:  . user interface: so it feels like the whole thing's spongy , but actually you're not damaging anything by squeezing it . user interface: Because  you could just get carried away with the with the tac industrial designer: I'd I'd need to talk to manufacturing again about whether that's actually possible , but I agree , it's  sounds like a nice idea if it is . Well you do get a bit carried away with things that are tactile , you just wanna stroke them and squeeze them , project manager:  . industrial designer: I should I should r marketing: I su project manager: I'm sorry to push you , but we only have a couple minutes to finish with . marketing: Then I'll just say I support either from a marketing point of view I support either decision that the designers make on that . No  a scroll Well , like four buttons , up , down , left and right with enter in the middle , that will correspond to a menu on the screen . industrial designer: Which I think technically is just push button and  I'd certainly support that that user interface: Yeah , industrial designer: that brings the cost down quite a lot user interface: I'd like push buttons with industrial designer: and it's something that we're an ex the company's an expert on . industrial designer: project manager: And they actually want a look and feel design , user interface design , you can look and see this as well as I can . industrial designer: You know , I think the the company's s next project should to design a better overhead device that switches immediately


industrial designer: project manager:  almost , there's one more thing I have to get out of the I have to make sure that this attachment will open . Does it come up together or disappear one of them or what ? Ah , we came up together , we're good . Our agenda is , as before , for me to open the meeting , for us to go over the previous minutes , then for the two of you to present your prototype and for you to g  Sarah present the evaluation criteria . And I know what you're all thinking of , oh my ,  because we're only given a forty minute time period to get it all in , including the production evaluation . So the first thing I have to do is close this so that I can get to Where is it ? marketing: Red .  from meeting three , is it alright with you if I don't switch it to show , just use it as is ? 'Cause this way I can more easily flip it . Okay ,  obviously all of us were here for the last meeting , we reviewed the previous minutes before that ,  each of you made your presentations . The market trend of fruit and veg ,  spongy ,  fancy and elegant more than technologically innovative and that more than easy .  we would use plastic with a rubber casing , I think was the consensus , powered by kinetic energy .  looking like a scroll , but it's really a push button technology , excuse my spelling  that was actually in use , that is  behind the scenes is push button which we  according to Kate have a very good  grasp on doing that in production .  we decided that separate fashionable covers covering your fruit and veg might be a separate product that could be suggested to management .  and as suggested  yellow with black buttons with the company logo , a slogan and image might be a good idea based on the requirements that have been provided to us .  we did have a few production issues and coordination of the various bits and we had some conflict of ideas and cost constraints and we ran out of time . user interface: Yeah , well you see , each made one , we didn't have enough yellow dough . user interface: It is  curved , easy to hold , hand-held , nice and small with big easy buttons . This is like a scroll , but they are push buttons and they enter takes you into the different menus .  this is on off switch , 'cause I think we do need that , and I think it gives it a nice balance . user interface:  as for what it's actually made of well the function of these buttons is up , down , left and right in the different menus . The main feature of it is just a simple design , simple , lack of  buttons all over the place .  material , I think Kate's gonna tackle that quite a bit , but I think we have two different options , because we did make a another one , which wa  is in the shape of banana , it's just if you can imagine this as yellow with black buttons , like just like this but in the shape of a banana , project manager: user interface: which is also nice and easy to hold and feels good and has a similar sort of scroll push button technology , just a slightly different design . project manager: user interface: Also with on off switch and infrared  I had envisioned it in hard smooth plastic . So like  well , I dunno , what's it like ? I guess like an existing remote control , but molded and smooth . Whereas otherwise we'd thought , like with this one or mix and match , just we were gonna see what you thought , the  a more spongy rubber cover with spongy buttons . So we have the two options we can follow , either the smooth hard plastic or the spongy rubber , depending on cost restraints . user interface: Well colour , I think I definitely have a preference towards bright yellow with black buttons , because that's the company colours , but if anybody's got any other suggestions , I'm quite willing to consider them as well . So , it just depends what you think about these ideas and if I'm yeah , maybe , Kate , you better say what you think about them . We're not absolutely sure about a combination of the two , but it can be either of those .  and as for the the actual components  ,  Steph just said this is a quite a cheap device to manufacture .  the  the diode that actually does the  infrared is at the end , it's the stalk of the banana , or it's just the thing at the end of this version . user interface: I thin as for as for the fruit or organic theme , I guess this one is obviously fruit shaped . This one has no obvious connections to fruit , but because it's round and molded , it kinda makes you think sort of organic , touchy-feely , kiddie , it's more like yeah , you'd expect it to be like a child's sorta toy remote control instead of a real one , which I quite like that sort of image . 'Cause it's very big and chunky and child-friendly and industrial designer: Would you care to examine the prototypes , see how they feel in the hand ? user interface: Hold them , you see , you know . Curvature , is it to your liking ? project manager: Oh I see , the on-off's in the back . project manager: I could see this thing , unless it's reinforced , having a problem with the you know user interface: Breaking , project manager: yeah . Well you see , that's why hard plastic would be quite a good thing for it , because then it'd just be rigid . user interface: Yeah , we really like we really like that design , marketing: It's really kind of a user interface:  it looks just like a logo , that arrangement of the keys . user interface: just up , down , left and right , and we think we could make that quite a good feature . user interface:  it that's what it makes me think of , mobile phones , marketing: industrial designer: user interface: I was try I was thinking , moving your thumb like this , what does that remind me of ? industrial designer: And it's a very simple design , marketing: Yeah . marketing: It's also in terms of  being lost it's it's quite it looks quite different . marketing: You know , I I d I have several four remotes , and they all look the same until you get up close and you have to user interface: Yeah . user interface:  the thing is we do need to develop our technology of  actually how to program the menus and what sort of , you know , text box is gonna appear at the bottom of the screen , marketing: This is going to be a heavily interactive evaluation , and the method here is to evaluate the new remote control in terms of the user requirements and the hot trends introduced by the marketing department . So , this means we're going to go over the priorities that were raised by  the consumers a as well as incorporate all of our insight into this  evaluation exercise . So I'm going to go and use the whiteboard , and I've made a list of criteria to look at , and so I'm gonna I'm gonna leave this up as the last thing , but for the evaluation it's going to be one is true and seven is false , going over these different criteria , so one true seven false and I'm gonna now use the  the board . So  fancy , technologically innovative , easy to use , trendy , buttons , excess buttons , good buttons , ugly , sellable , and other . And in fact I hope that  you all introduce some additional terms , because these are things that  have been brought up , some of them seem rather close , user interface: Yeah , what about price , is that gonna go on there as well ? Price of materials . user interface: Not that we actually know anything about it , industrial designer: user interface: but we can we can pretend . marketing:  okay , so wha how do we feel in terms of is this fancy ? user interface: It depends what what you mean by fancy really , 'cause when I think of fancy , I think of it's got lots of extra sort of fripperies and , you know , like baroque curliness and which marketing: user interface: I'd call these quite  minimalist , industrial designer: Yes , a plain , simple , clean design . user interface: simple and plain , but  I do see what it is heavily reliant on appearance instead of pure functionality , marketing: user interface: I think just maybe we need a different word other than fancy , I'd say maybe aesthetic . marketing: Yeah , no these aren't the exact terms that the  user interface: like stylish or aesthetic . We're gon let's use elegant , although the the the people , the word on the street is is user interface: Fancy . N that  user interface: Did you just break the pen ? project manager: marketing: yeah  the  is fancy . we'll call it E_F_  , do we do we think that perhaps and maybe we should say the yellow ? Should we go with the yellow in terms of I think that's a really superior user interface: Yeah , I think we n we need to marketing: they're both user interface: they're both yellow with black buttons , it's just that we didn't have any more dough to represent  that , marketing: Yeah . user interface: So what we re really need to decide is whether we want the actual banana shape or just a a purely blob or some sort of abstraction in between the two marketing: Yeah . user interface: that isn't that is more curved , like a banana , but that isn't actually recognisable as a banana , you know , with the grooves and the stalk and stuff , marketing: As a banana . marketing: I think that many of us are abstract enough to look at the yellow one and say we'll call it the banana . marketing: And of the two I really like I m I like the banana , project manager: The chunk . user interface: So that's maybe not something we have to decide just right now , is it . Unless do you guys wanna evaluate both ? project manager: I think between the two , somewhere between the two is true . industrial designer: Yeah , I'd project manager: It's more true than false , about a two . user interface: industrial designer: I d I don't think that's what we're aiming at with this concept . industrial designer: I think we're using simple components that are gonna be robust but not particularly innovative . user interface: Well , maybe only a two or a three then , 'cause it's no we still haven't decided about specific sponginess or specific industrial designer: We have the worry about how robust it will be if it's it's curved as a banana but spongy . industrial designer: I think user interface: Yeah , I don't really think that's gonna work , industrial designer: yeah . Sellable ,  quirky , you know , something people industrial designer: Yeah , I think they're different , aren't they ? user interface: Well it is quite it is quite quirky I think . And I was I was thinking of other things  in terms of  could we say it's cost saving ? With the user interface: Oh , we also need tho think about the energy . user interface: Yeah , but we haven't completely developed that side of it yet , so we're not completely sure about that , marketing: Well user interface: but yeah . marketing: Anything else ? Including price , do you have any idea about price or other features ? industrial designer: Well I think our instinct is that it should be pretty cheap to develop . So true one or should I go to two or three ? industrial designer: I'd put it at one I think , but I dunno , what do you user interface: I would say maybe a two , marketing: Okay . user interface: 'cause we still we need to  get somebody in who is good with the programming for the menus and things . industrial designer: Yeah , true , user interface:  it's not just like  it's not like ev you know , on a normal chunky remote every button res  means something different , project manager: Yeah , that's not a cheap thing to get . user interface: whereas this one has only got the four buttons and they all they mean everything , depending on what menu you're in . marketing:  other ? Anything else you guys can thing of ? And I'm gonna actually change a couple of these so then I'm gonna instead of ugly I'm gonna say it's attractive and then make that true , so that user interface: Yeah . Yeah , be you know , user interface: As for marketing: so it doesn't ruin the polarity . user interface: see if we're technologically innovative , I'd say it is quite innovative , because there aren't really many that have this menu idea instead of all the extra buttons . user interface:  I know we're not doing anything involving internet or speech recognition but but we are at the upper end of the push button market . Well if you g  let me know if if any of these  if you if you all can think of any other  thing to change here if you th if you think I should change the innovative or add other features . We're a little over halfway through the meeting marketing: So project manager: and the next big thing is the finance . And we're going to raise what's called a sp a spreadsheet that they provided to me . project manager:  what's a hand dynamo ? industrial designer: That was the crank , wind-up crank on the side . Yeah , simple , 'cause we've just got push buttons , so we can do it all with simple which is the ch should be the cheapest . project manager: Okay , the case will be uncurved and flat or a single curve or a double curve . It's industrial designer: Yeah , that that one is single curve , project manager: that's   one . industrial designer: isn't it ?  do we have project manager: And that's user interface: What does double curved mean , I don't understand . Yeah , I do I don't think we need that for either of them , user interface: Oh no , we don't need that . industrial designer: you can do a banana in single curve , project manager: No , user interface: Single-curved , I'd say . And did we say plastic ? industrial designer: Yeah , can we do some what ifs , 'cause it may project manager: Yeah . industrial designer:  I I still quite like the idea of combining plastic and rubber myself , marketing: One , two , three , four , five , six . We'll come back , if we can , to the rubber being added at the moment , that's where we are . industrial designer: Do we need to say how many buttons , or project manager: Whoops , don't want that , not yet .  industrial designer: or d is it just one ? project manager: No , it just says push button interface . project manager: And the buttons Wha what is the buttons made of , rubber ? industrial designer:  they'll be rubber , yep . industrial designer: Actually , does tha does special material mean that plastic is not a special material ? 'Cause I think they can be plastic . industrial designer: It's just one , isn't it ? project manager:  we only need one of them .  and the total cost has been calculated as nine Pounds twenty out of the twelve and a half we were allowed . industrial designer: Do you do you need to double click on that to open it ? project manager: Yeah . That's the only Excel document that will be in there , so it's there for all of us . Okay , so , are they under twelve fifty ? Yes , go to the project evaluation , next slide . project manager: means , of having whiteboard , the digital pens and all that kind of good things . project manager: user interface: Yeah well , 'cause  it's so hard to describe what you mean just with words and pointing at photographs and saying , well we quite want this , but imagine it rounder . So much better just to go and , you know , this is it , this is what we want . project manager:  did we find any new ideas ? marketing: I think with the marketing element of  fruit shaped I  I that really opened my eyes . Good work as a design team , industrial designer: Yeah , I think we're a good team actually . user interface: because we industrial designer: I'm not sure all the wires are really great though . marketing: I can give you a number , industrial designer: hang on , Oh we haven't heard . marketing:  it's  the average evaluation score is one point eight eight , so it means w you know , I can I can spell it out . There were six true or ones , four  pardon me , two s almost true or close to true , so that was four points , and then  one false , seven points , so seventeen divided by nine we're between one and two . I would say that's ex excellent in terms of  ho how much we adhere to the ideals of the  market place . And the the only false one is because we've chosen to keep a simple old technology , marketing: To maintain old technology , exactly . user interface: which if it works perfectly well I see no point in improving on if it works , marketing: Yeah , yeah . project manager: And we've therefore we have to do the final questionnaire and do the meeting summary , I have a final report to present ,  and then we're done .  one thing I wa I wanna do is save everything in the right files , because I don't think everything is saved


So does anyone have any  thoughts as to the tool training that  is required ? industrial designer: Tool training user interface: I'm not exactly sure what you mean by tool training . user interface: marketing: project manager: Oh I see , so we shouldn't really be Oh right okay , so . So we have the project team , which is to  basically to come up with a new r remote control device . industrial designer: project manager:  we have  the starting base was the original which has been in existence now for a period of time . And  our idea is to  to make the new remote control device  more user friendly than the previous one , and to to be trendier , to be with it , and therefore to  to get a bigger market share and bigger audience . project manager: So  method of doing this is  split up as you can see into  the functional design , the conceptional design , and the detailed design . So  in each of these  phases we'll  basically be handing over to yourselves , the designers of this  this device . project manager: And  having  meetings so that we can  during the course of the day  come up with a better better inst implement than we had before . marketing: user interface: project manager: Right so everyone's to  supposedly  draw their favourite animal over on the white board over there . marketing: Your microphone's just project manager: I take it that user interface: Are we supposed to do this right now , do you think , or ? project manager: I would I would guess so .  and this would be because they're very independent ,  they're very intelligent , compared to dogs maybe . I'll I'll user interface: Shall I rub that out , actually ? project manager: I don't see as there's any need to . project manager: We've had more time to prepare over this side , industrial designer: There's one . I'm gonna go for the bear which I'm be able to draw very well , project manager: You get marks for artistic impression . user interface: project manager: user interface: marketing: industrial designer:  and I like my animal that looks nothing like a bear because  I dunno maybe because there's so many cartoon characters made up after the bear like the jungle book characters and stuff like that . And they're always happy , so whenever whenever you're feeling sort of a bit a bit down or tired , they're always coming up and they're always  quite excited . project manager: industrial designer: user interface: marketing: Okay , that's why I like dogs . Well I've not actually had too many pets  over my  time 'cause to be honest with you  I'm not too keen on them anyway . So what my daughters have got at the moment is they've got  a few fish and so hopefully  won't prove too difficult to draw . And  one of the best  things about fish is that they don't really take  too much looking after because  with most of the animals if you're going away on holiday or whatever , you've gotta spend money or get a friend or whatever to look after them for you . Whereas if you got fish , you just gotta put the food in a a a dripper feed which feeds them over the  couple of weeks that you're away and  change the water every couple of months , and buy in a few plants , so . Other than the fact that they keep dying , industrial designer: project manager:  fish are  are not are are are reasonable pets in that  they're low maintenance . And therefore making a profit margin of  well not actually a profit margin it's  because obviously you're gonna have overheads and various other costs to  take  from  from that to give you your profit margin per unit . And so depending what the  the overhead  costs are will determine  how many units we're  looking to sell or projecting to sell at this point in time . So I guess we're looking at  having a discussion at this point in time to help  you  folks design our our new model as it were . project manager: So  any any thoughts ? industrial designer:  I with some remote controls the buttons were a little small so they're quite hard to press so maybe we make something with  easy to press buttons . project manager: Okay , so so basically we're looking for some  we're looking for a device that is  robust and and therefore  won't get damaged too easily . project manager:  we're looking for a device that is  What was the other things you said there ? industrial designer:  sort of easy to use so the buttons are accessible . user interface: Can I just check ? Is this just a television remote ? Because a lot of  systems are kind of T_V_ video combined now , or T_V_ D_V_D_ combined . industrial designer: user interface: Or is it just a television that we're supposed to be doing ? marketing:  . industrial designer: project manager: But it seems to me sensible , user interface: project manager: 'cause as you rightly said , there's nothing more annoying than having three or four devices littered about the  about the room .  one of the things  we found from the market research is that people often get confused by the number of buttons on them as well . And  sometimes  they sort of remote controls defeat their own purpose because you're sat in the chair and the remote is somewhere else in the room . So whereas in the past you'd have to get up to change the channel , now you have to get up to sort of pick up the remote . So so I don't we need to sort of maybe think about how  we could maybe  develop a remote control which moves around the room . marketing: That's that's maybe something for the future when you can talk to your television , but industrial designer: Yeah . You can't have both the th the one device and then have few buttons on it to marketing: Yeah . project manager: 'cause you want you want simplicity as well , you want any idiot to be able to use it . project manager:  you could argue that experience of using devices and similar devices as people get more and more used to using remotes , therefore they're more with handling them , industrial designer: Yeah . Or are we just doing the design of the remote control itself , or sort of the instructions that would come with it ? project manager: Better instructions .  we've done some research  about sort of you know what the cutting edge sort of hand held devices are , and a lot of them sort of use you know they're like they're like mini laptops . marketing: So it's possible that we could devise a system where where you're you're basically sort of holding a a miniature computer which is controlling all your your sort of your television , your stereo , and where you know if you buy a new thing then it sort of you can link it to that as well , maybe . project manager: So  Right , so we've got I_D_ the Come on , where's my marketing: If you just click return it should be okay . So we've got function Oh what happened to the user interface: I think that might be back to the start . marketing: project manager: Okay , so we've got  the working design for I_D_ . Are we all clear what objectives we're looking to meet in the next thirty minutes ? industrial designer: project manager: And I guess I'll try and write up some minutes of  this meeting to  to give it to you for the next meeting . user interface: I'm not exactly clear on what we're designing the rem remote for . user interface: Is this a mun multi-functional one or do we decide that ourselves as we go away and work on it ? industrial designer: I think you just said at the start it was a television remote control , project manager: Television remote control . project manager: That's true , 'cause during during the course of our day we might make decisions based on information or meetings that would change where we're going . project manager: But at this point in time I think you're right that  shall we make it just a T_V_


So basically we've got three things , and we've got forty minutes in which to  for this meeting to  to discuss the various options . industrial designer: We have a I guess we have a presentation each , 'cause I've got one .  so do we want to do the presentation first , or do we want to  W I I got  or or three things basically ,  relating to the remote being only for T_V_ . project manager: So in fact it actually f we won't be forestalled in a sense . user interface: What is it ? industrial designer: I'm not quite sure how it user interface: I think you've got to do  control F_ eight . user interface: Ah there , marketing: Oh hang on , user interface: it's doing something .  I've just got three sections , first is the research I made on the on the remote control itself  . And then also the methods in which these components interact together for the remote to actually do what you want it to do and how it connects with the television . industrial designer: We then have the user interface , which is basically the like the the buttons on the actual remote . And then the sender , which  is usually , I've found , an infra-red device which sends a signal to the actual television .  and the last part is receiver which is important in the system but is not actually part of the remote itself , because that's obviously found in the television .  I'm gonna have to actually draw on the board because  it was a little tricky on PowerPoint to get this working , so . S   do we have a cloth to wipe this down with , or ? Oh I'll j project manager:  there's the rubber on the right , I think . Okay , so we start off with a  battery suppl  no , a power supply which we'd probably get it's probably gonna be the battery .  we then have a particular button , which may be that's obviously there's lots and lots of different buttons .  that sends after you press that that sends the message to the chip , which  then sends It sort of interprets which button you've pressed and then sends the appropriate message to the sender . That's the remote in itself , that's the components of the remote and how they work together .  this is the chip itself , which then , and that's the that's the infra-red sender . going on to personal preferences , I've said that battery seems the best option for the actual remote , just because of the size . You don't want a a cable attached to the remote otherwise it's not it's not really a remote .  and then the sender , marketing: industrial designer: and infra-red  has been used quite successfully .  so the m basic method of this is to send a signal from the remote to the television set , so that a desired function is performed .  an example of the function could be to change the volume up or down ,  so obviously you need two different buttons for that .  by the look of it they both have  kind of play and fast forward , rewind functions , so I think they incorporate a kind of video function which we won't have to worry about . So , it's got nice big buttons , it's got a very limited number of buttons .  I like the use of the kind of  symbols like the triangles and the squares and the arrows as well as the words on the  kind of play functions and all that . user interface: Will you be presenting that in a bit ? project manager: But  I got  I got an email that basically said to  make sure that  whatever device we come up with at the end of the day had to incorporate  the corporate colour and slogan . So  I'm guessing that   I notice on the bottom there it's got  what's that ? A_P_O_G_E_E_ that might be the corporate colour scheme , although the only the only colour I can see in that is the red . industrial designer: Would you be able to get rid of the the extra buttons here , the the sort of circular section , because that seems to be for a video as well . So we could dispense with that little bit as well and just get it down to just the numbers and the volume . Possibly ? user interface: What do you mean by the circular section ? industrial designer: J yeah yeah yeah j yeah user interface: Like all of that bottom bit ? project manager: industrial designer: just this little bit is that I think that's still  a video remote part , user interface: Yeah . project manager: Well b  w user interface:  how often do you use seven , eight and nine ? I think just one to six and then channel up and down should be enough . project manager: Well th the on the user interface: Like how often do you hit nine ? project manager: Well  for for general television purposes obviously you have channels one to five at this point in time , marketing: But but industrial designer: It's just people are used to seeing that , so if we didn't have them then they might think it's project manager: But , well possibly but the the other thing is that with  the current expansion of  channels  in the process of taking place , certainly the button up and down , but   how many channels do we have to  actual television channels do we have to  prepare for ? I would have thought that  it's forever expanding and at the moment we've got although you've onl you've got the five standard , you've got the B_B_C_ have come up with a further six industrial designer: project manager: and  there's  I don't know exactly how many channels there are on  when you take into account  Sky and various other  various others . project manager: So I would've thought that we wouldn't , you know , rather user interface:  . project manager: Okay , if the time of flicking from one to other , but presumably it'll take a second user interface: project manager: 'cause you have to be able to stop it . Maybe you could have a fast forward on the on the channels that w and then you could dispense with more otherwise . industrial designer: user interface:  some remotes have kind of favourite options where if you always flick from channel one to channel six ,  if that's a favourite you just like by-pass two to five . industrial designer: project manager: Yeah , I s I suppose in a sense you could have  if you've got a hundred channels then if you had sort of an easy way of getting rather than having to go one to a hundred , you could go one to one to ten , ten to twenty industrial designer: user interface:  . project manager: and then have a second button to get you to the actual channel you want marketing: user interface: But I think a lot of  like Cable and Sky and stuff , that would be tuned to one channel , and then you'd have another remote for all of those channels . industrial designer: I suppose with nine you've got the the like the last one which makes the tenth means you  it's like  multiples you can put them together so you can make any number . industrial designer: So with that we'd kind of by-pass any problems with project manager: Yeah Well that's true , yeah , industrial designer: Yeah .  I think that's just for a video , so we wouldn't need any of that at all . industrial designer: So we could get it down to what ? project manager: If it's just for T_V_ , which is what it is at the moment . industrial designer: So we get to How many buttons have we got ? We've just got ten , eleven twelve th We got fourteen that we need . Well we've we've got  that it's remote for T_V_ only otherwise project would become too complex with  which would endanger the time to market was one of the considerations . project manager: I'm I don't know d did you have that information behind the marketing , marketing: project manager: or was I meant to give you that information ? marketing:  I'm not sure . project manager: Right , okay , so basically time to market seems to be important , therefore speed of delivery . industrial designer: user interface: marketing: user interface: Okay , so is everyone happy with that ? industrial designer: Ah yes yes , that seems good . industrial designer: marketing: Right , we've done some research into the functional requirements that people want out of their remote control . And first off we should state that th the remote control's for controlling the T_V_ and  how do people use it ? We asked them sort of which buttons were useful for them .  how d how does a remote control look and feel for them , and what improvements would would they like to remote control . And we did that by sort of giving them a questionnaire that we'd prepared and asking them to fill in the answers . And three quarters of them found that remote controls are ugly and that a sort of even higher proportion would spend more for a sort of s  a fancier remote control And that of all the buttons on the remote control , the sort of setting buttons for sort of the picture picture and brightness and the audio settings ,  they weren't used very often at all . And young people were quite receptive to this , but as soon as we got sort of over about into a thirty five to forty age forty five age group and older , people people weren't quite so keen on speech recognition . There's a lot more th there's a lot lot more older people who didn't know whether they wanted it or not as well .  we also asked what frustrated people about remote controls and the number one frustration was that the remote was lost somewhere else in the room and that they couldn't find it . And the second second biggest frustration what that if they got a new remote control , it was difficult to learn  all the buttons and all the functions , and to find your way around it . Okay , so My personal preferences from the marketing is that we need to come up with some sort of sleek sort of good looking high high-tech A design which looks high-tech , basically .  and that we should come up with fewer buttons than most of the controls on the market , and we should sort of concentrate on the channels and sort of power , and also volume and that sort of thing , as as Louisa said .  we could maybe come up with a menu , a sort of a an L_C_D_ menu for other functions on the remote control .  and maybe we could think about speech recognition as well , because  sort of young people are perhaps the ones that are gonna buy buy our new product if we aim it at sort of you know sort of a high-tech design . And we could maybe think about using speech recogniti recognition as a way to find the remote control if it's lost in a room , rather than sort of  having it to speech recognition to change the channels . 'Cause there's a problem with that in that the television makes noise , so it could end up talking to itself and changing its channel . project manager: What was that last wee bit there ? user interface: Do a lot of  marketing:  about speech recognition ? project manager: Speech recognition , user interface: marketing: Yeah . marketing: Youn young people pref Yeah , they s they said that they'd be interested in a remote control which offered that possibility and as you go up through the age groups , people got less and less interested in sort of a a remote control that you could talk to , so . industrial designer: No what I maybe think is  it seems the technology would be quite advanced for that and they might end up costing more than our twelve fifty budget for for the speech recognition . industrial designer: And possibly the thing about the about the remote being lost we could have You know with your mobile phone , you lose that and you can ring it . Maybe we can have some kind of sensor which is kept somewhere where you can some kind of buzzer system between the two . Yeah , we'd have t that would mean we'd have to put two products together as well , industrial designer: That is true , yes . user interface: There's key rings  that you kind of whistle at or clap at , I can't remember , and then they whistle back , or something like that . So industrial designer: So I guess it'd be something we could like attach to the or like the same technology could be put inside the inside the remote . project manager: Well if you're trying to avoid having a second product 'cause obviously you could have a second product that gave you the right pitch which would set the remote off to say here I am sort of thing , you know without sound recognition .  I dunno  talking about vo  obviously if you've got voice recognition then you can do it in that way because it'll recognise the voice and you can give it a command , a set command whatever that happened to be . project manager: But you've then got the point if if you're not going with  voice recognition then industrial designer: you could have an option to turn it off . industrial designer: So that would solve the problems with the T_V_ kind of speaking to the remote and changing its own channels . marketing: project manager: So  Any sugges Well , any conclusions ? marketing:  would it take quite a while to sort of develop the speech recognition software in the remote control ? user interface: project manager: Well if it does then we can't . project manager: because we've got  th th three  primary   requisites from  from and email  that was sent to me whereby we had The design logo was one , which we've already mentioned . We've got  the remote was only for the television and not for because that would make it too complex and we have to get it market quickly . project manager: And the  third thing was that  teletext  as far as  the management is concerned ,  is becoming dated  due to the popularity of the internet . project manager: So we're being focused effectively directly at a television and it seems to me that the management is  wanting us to go down a narrow path and not opening out . project manager: So anything that  is to be added , such as voice recognition et cetera has to be very simple and has to be very quick industrial designer: Has to be simple enough to project manager: because time to market is is critical . S industrial designer: I suppose if we could get something in which was quite quick and simple that would give us an advantage over the other remotes . project manager: Added extras would be nice , but the primary consideration is to get the project finished within  this short time window , which effectively now is sort of four hours .  d d I think I think first and foremost we've gotta get to the end and then get to the end with  added extras if possible . project manager: and how we were planning to proceed so that at the next  meeting each person that's got a a a task to do is clear from this meeting what that task is . And then we can report back at the next meeting and say right okay yes , we've achieved this or we haven't achieved this , this is how far we've progressed . project manager: So we have to come effectively to the decision on the remote functions so that you can decide what you're gonna be doing . And if dur between the time of this meeting finishing and the next meeting starting , if you get any additional information that  only you have at that point in time you'd think would be relevant to other people in terms of their des decision making  process , then we should communicate that as quickly as possible and not wait until the next meeting . project manager: so that rather than coming you know If you get the information just before the next meeting that's fine . Come along with it in the next meeting , we can discuss it then and take whatever action is appropriate . project manager: But if you get it well before the next meeting , let everybody else know 'cause that might have an impact on their  on what they come up with effectively at the next meeting . project manager: Right , is there marketing: So do we need to decide on the functions now ? S project manager: I would guess so . user interface: Well I think it'd be really easy and it'd be a big advantage if we did have some sort of  kind of whistle back kind of function . marketing: Yeah and Yeah and that was that was the number one sort of frustration that people said , so . user interface: marketing: I don't think there's anything else on the market that does that , so . project manager: I w well  i industrial designer: Maybe we should concentrate just on the whistle back function at the moment , project manager: Something simple .  if if our primary consideration is to get it there in time , time's short , industrial designer: and if something comes back project manager: you want something to meet the major concerns of the consumer so that we can have that as a selling point for the product , user interface: user interface: And that wouldn't put off the kind of older generation either , 'cause everyone can whistle or clap , and they wouldn't have to be kind of scared of this new technology . project manager: On the basis that if we've got if we're catering to the whole age range , you want something that's easy to do , industrial designer: project manager: now something that doesn't like whis  marketing: No not everyone can whistle , can they , though ? project manager: Well I I I don't know . Well If you think that more people can whistle than clap then that's fine , then go for that option , user interface: project manager: but if I would have thought that more people could clap rather than whistle , marketing: No , industrial designer: I'd go more marketing: clapping , I think clapping , industrial designer: Yeah , f more for clap . user interface: 'Kay we've already decided that we don't need a teletext button , haven't we ? project manager:  . Ef effectively that's what the that's what they're saying , user interface: Is that one of the project manager: that  if  if people are now using the internet then you don't need teletext , user interface:  . industrial designer: and then the the little digit next to it which kind of enabled you to put them together . I think nowadays you can just get ones where it gives you a sort of a second or two to press another number , project manager: Yeah . industrial designer: Okay , ten numbers user interface: industrial designer: and then some kind of device to allow  marketing: Yeah . industrial designer: Did we decide anything about  the other functions ? As in setting the audio and tuning it and stuff like that ? You had an had an idea about the menu ? marketing:  we could possibly put an L_ a sort of a L_C_D_ menu in , but that again is probably an expense that industrial designer: But just thinking  people probably  you don't have you only have to probably tune in the T_V_ once , but you have to be able to tune it that once . industrial designer: So and if finally the T_V_ breaks , you get a new one , you're gonna have to be able to tune it . project manager: But the but that's relying on the television market changing to an automatic industrial designer: So that'll be in marketing: Yeah . But at the moment it's not , so it seems to me that you have to have a device that caters , 'cause otherwise it would make it  your device would become inoperable , or only operable in certain circumstances industrial designer: Yeah . project manager: And it's also m it's the the product we've got is something that's at the I would have said the lower end of the s of the cost scale , so we're not really going for something that's  terribly high-tech . I s I suppose  if people are buying remotes , then they're probably buying it to replace another remote project manager: Possibly . marketing:  we're maybe talking about replacing remotes for slightly older televisions , so we maybe need to keep the the tuning function in . industrial designer: Would you maybe have like one menu button , then you'd use the other buttons , maybe the number buttons to actually do the separate functions . user interface: and it was too dark , so I had to go through it and turn the brightness up . industrial designer: and then a menu function and maybe sort of a slightly more advanced  instruction booklet to come with it , to guide Presu  I think it'd be quite hard just for people to grasp  just off like the menu use different buttons you maybe have to have like some better instructions of how that would actually work . marketing:  I'm not sure whether the sort of having people have a booklet 'cause one the second most annoying thing that people found was having to learn the new one . marketing: So maybe next to each of the buttons , you know each of them could have a number and then also a function written next to it , so you're basically pressing industrial designer: that also goes back to the original design when we saw those two , and there was the one on the left hand side which had all like the double functions and stuff which kind of looked too busy and had too much on it , so . user interface: Well , if we're trying to keep it slee sleek and sexy as well , have you seen those remotes where kind of  the bottom bit slides down , so there's kind of  everything else revealed ? marketing: Okay . user interface: So you don't use it that much , you don't have to see it all the time . project manager: Right we've got five minutes before we wind up this meeting , so I've been told . And that'll be better for the older generation as well 'cause , well my dad doesn't like anything that you've got to kinda flick through a menu , project manager: Ah . industrial designer: So  we're gonna have to have to work out what's gonna be on these other functions as as well . marketing:  sorta project manager: That's right so we're dis So you've got which ones are gonna be on the front and which ones are gonna be on the back . industrial designer: So sh Should we decide in the next couple of minutes , and then marketing: user interface: I know it's probably like  not an issue to raise here , but  the whole thing about not using your standby  because of the like waste of electricity . Have you seen the adverts ? Like if you boil the kettle that's full that's a waste . user interface: If you leave your telly on standby it powers Blackpool for a certain amount of time . project manager: So so are you having the stand-by on the front , then ? marketing: Yeah . industrial designer: We can send out a flier with the device saying that you shouldn't leave it on stand-by . industrial designer:  are we gonna have the channel up and down as well as the number buttons ? marketing:  'cause yeah the market research said there is quite a lot of people do just zap around and flick , so . industrial designer: So we've got ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen there ? project manager: Channel up and down . project manager: What else have we got ? What was that , sixteen ? marketing: Numbers is ten , volume is twelve , project manager: Volume button . industrial designer: Maybe if we're gonna run out of time , one of us should come up with a list of these and then get back at the next meeting just at the start and say what they're gonna be . project manager: anything else ? You're also gonna have the channel tuner , as it were . marketing: And then maybe sort of an enter button for sort of s you know , saying that you want that particular thing tuned in . So you go up and down and then it pick it finds something and then you wanna press enter to select it , yeah . We don't really need any other audio funct  functions because it's just volume up , volume down . user interface: So I think  there's quite a lot of like Dolby surround studio , surround sort of things . industrial designer: Do they have their own do they have their own controls on their actual products , then , marketing: Yeah . industrial designer: or do you have to do it via the remote ? user interface:  I think they've got their own controls in this kind of like hidden panel . industrial designer: Yeah I suppose if we've got their if they've got their own controls then we can avoid it for ours just to keep it simple . user interface: Oh no ,   like there's kind of individual buttons for them , like on the T_V_ remote . industrial designer: Maybe unless something comes up then we should I think project manager: Well you might get some research