Hi everyone, hope you had a nice lunch. Um.

Alright we're moving on to conceptual design.

'Scuse me..

Bless you.

Um, I'll just review what we did in our last meeting. Um, under marketing we targeted our audience, and Um, yeah. That was generally how helpful that was.

Um, then we considered some design options with how it should look, um, we discussed an iPod-like button system which, uh, we haven't concluded but we're Right, um So, if you all have presentations to do, we can see what where you've come from our last time. Does everyone have presentations?

Hmm.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yes.

Yes.

Would anybody like to go first?

Sure.

Okay.

So I've been looking at the components design. Um. Mostly by consulting remote control diagrams from the internet and also by incorporating design ideas from the last project meeting. Um, so we need some custom design parts, and other parts we'll just use standard. Um, I assume we'll be custom designing our case, probably a hard plastic or some other material case, to protect the remote and the locator. And we'll need to custom desi design a circuit board, because the circuit board has to take the button input and send it to the output so you have to design that each time. But once we come up with a design we'll send it to the circuit people and they'll just print it out. Um, standard parts include the buttons and the wheels, um the iPod-style wheel. The infrared L_E_D_ is actually gonna be included in the circuit board that comes with it. Um, we need a radio sender and receiver, those are standard. And al we also need a beeper or buzzer or other sort of noise thing for locating the remote. So we have some material options. Um, we can use rubber, plastic, wood or titanium. Um, I'd recommend against titanium because it can only be used in the flat cases and it's really heavy. Um, and the rubber case requires rubber buttons, so if we definitely want plastic buttons, we shouldn't have a rubber case.

And why not wood?

And,

And why not wood?.

hmm? Uh, well we can use wood. I don't know why we'd want to. Um and also we should note that if we want an iPod-style wheel button, it's gonna require a m qu slightly more expensive chip. We can't use the minimal chip, we need the next higher grade, which is called regular. I don't think it's much more expensive, but it is more expensive. So that's what I've got on design.

'S good.

Um, can I do next?'Cause I have to say something about the material

Hmm.

Yeah.

which is quite shocking.

Ha. Mm. Right, um, I have been searching the current trends, um, both on the web and via fashion-watchers, and the findings are that the first thing to aim for is a fashion uh, fancy look and feel. Um. Next comes technologic technology and the innovations to do with that. And th last thing is the easy to use um factor. Um, fancy look and feel goes far beyond the functionality of the thing, but I suppose that is included in in the ease of use. Um, our fashion-watchers in Milan and Paris have decided, well noticed, that f the fruit and vegetable theme is the is the current trend

and and therefore um we need to go for that if we want, you know, wh whatever our motto is. Um. For fashion, we go for fashion.

Mm.

The fashion in electronics. So we want to put the fashion electronics, we need to go fruit and vegetables. And also go for a spongy feel, so the the question of our technology whate is Industrial Designer. As to the material should be limited to I don't know how spongy it can be, should discuss this together, I don't know how spongy can be achieved but apparently that's the way to go. Um. I I have been thinking about this fruit and vegetable thing and I prefer fruits to vegetables,

but that's just a personal opinion.

I think

I think people like to have a fruit instead of a vegetables in their sitting room.

Uh those are just suggestions and also we need to decide whether this should be printed, so that still has to do with the material discuss should we print the fruit stuff, or should the actual remote look like a fruit?

Um, and finally again with the spongy. It has to be technologically innovative so maybe again our Industrial Designer should look into that or find come up with a solution that's better than mine. Um, yeah, to summarise these are the points that need to be um, touched in order to get a good decision, and hopefully our User Interface has more to say about the matter.

Mm-hmm.

Thank you for your attention.

So.

I think it's the next it's the blue one, yeah.

Oh, uh, there we go. Uh. Okay. Um. Well so that fruit and vegetables thing huh.

I actually wasn't aware of the new trends in electronics

and and uh.

Neither was I. Well it's a trend in fashion, in clothing and um fabrics..

Yeah but you're not gonna wear your remote control..

So so okay, let me get this right. Okay, uh Okay, alright anyway. Um here we go. Conceptual User Interface. Trying we're gonna try to talk about, um what kind of uh how people are actually going to be using this iPod-ish remote control, based on fruit vegetable design.

And, um, basically, so, this is a touched ba a touch-based graphical interface system. Uh, so people are going to be looking at this little screen. Um, kind of I mean I assume, are we still on the screen idea?

Oh we s hadn't discussed it last time.

'Cause if we're gonna have to ha if we have this it just seems like in order to have someone going around and using the um the wheel

You need a screen for it?

you it seems like you would need a screen.

You need a screen with music because you're looking for a specific song, like you know that band or whatever. With T_V_ channels it's, you know, one two three. So.

But like if you think about it yeah but if so is it just okay. So, b you you're gonna have to switch to like D_V_D_ and like other things like that, aren't you?

We're, um, we're actually not having D_V_D_,

Are we.

that was one of th I I was.

Yeah.

Okay.

sorry,

I I meant to update you on that. Um.

Alright. Okay.

But the screen can come up on the telly, the she said.

Okay. Okay.

Yeah.

That correct?

So anyway if well we just we need to Okay so if we're not gonna have a screen I think I was thinking okay. So basically it's just gonna be a wheel then? And you're just gonna I mean I think you're gonna have to have some kind of a right.

Graphical interface?

Yeah like you're g

Uh on the you can have it on the telly though.

Yeah.

yeah like you're gonna have to be able to switch to like a mode where you can okay we're not choosing that, I guess. But like choose channel control, like if you wa Because people aren't gonna be able to have like, um, you know, channels one two three four five six seven eight nine.

Yeah.

So that people seems to be well.

You've Yeah, I know what you're saying, you have to.

You know. But you're gonna have to scroll to get channels. So um I guess that's wh why I was thinking you may need to have some kind of a screen because So that people can go arou go back and forth and choose if or or then again if you just I guess I c I can see like some kind of a thing where like you sort of have like the number come up on the T_V_ like what channel you're on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

You can just scroll and you can just get to like five or like twelve or.

Yeah, yeah.

But but imagine someone with s

My flatmates actually had one with a wheel, and it it did show up on the T_V_.

I oh yeah?

But i what if you have satellite and you have like two hundred channels. Then to get to channel one eighty nine you have to.

'Cause you'll have to like.

Yeah.

They have to r wheel really fast.

but you can quickly s you can.

Yeah..

But I think the wheel goes through like a hundred channels,

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

at least on theirs.

Yeah if you do, it w so it would have to be you I mean so you basically just kinda need to figure out like what kind of, you know, range we need to have on the wheel, and um So you're either you're you know, th you're either doing this motion to like control the channels or like once once you stop that, you know, you can like tap for, um, different

Yeah.

uh, whatchamacallits, different um, you know, functions like volume or, like you can tap just to get to different channels. Like if you just wanted to go to like from five to six you could tap or someth

Right.

And then there's also the concern about you know um how do you get to the menu if you wanna change the brightness of your television, or if you want to um you know switch around, I don't know, like, these different modes like turn on the timer or like something something like that,

Yeah I mean with that many options, you'd uh I'd think that the screen would be better,

like.

because you could have that menu option, sort of.

I would think so too, like So I mean and it seems it w it does seem a little silly to have this screen if you hardly are ever using it, you know, because.

Yeah.

but then again it would it does make kind of if the screen's sort of just like an option that, like, is just there and you're not really using it, that's kind of.

Yeah.

It's more expensive according to the design people.

m yeah.

Uh..

Yeah, that's the only thing though.

You have to get a an advanced chip if you wanna have a screen in, which is more expensive than the regular chip, which is more expensive than the minimal.

Yeah. So then basically it has to have some way to get to get to a mode on the television where you're doing, um.

Mm.

You can get to you know, you can Like maybe it'll be that central button that, like, then you hit that and then you can it brings up like the menu on the T_V_

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

and you can just scroll around, like, to do the timer, to do the.

Yeah.

So the T_V_ is the screen, that yeah

yeah, yeah.

So it would have all these different options of changing

Yeah. But the remote itself isn't really cluttered up.

to.

Look it even has settings.

Okay.

Hmm?

On the.

Yeah.

you can just take theirs and just.

Yeah, well we don't want the screen I guess,

Yeah.

but um'cause that just it does seem like, it that would be, like, incredibly expensive, but I dunno, and then so, it just im really all you need is, like, this little wheel then, and you can control everything.

So.

Um, right. What if I mean, if you're thinking of the design of it now, like the a you know, physical attributes,

Yeah.

um, and you just have this, it's like just a long silver thing,

or whatever we're thinking. I mean are you you gonna have any buttons on that besides power and this thing? Or.

It doesn't seem that you would need anything besides pow I mean and the power button could even be like hold down the menu button for like longer than one second and it turns on the T_V_.

Yeah. So can we imagine that this would be smaller than the remote controls that you showed us before. I mean.

Yeah. Yeah definitely.

okay.

Like, I think we're looking at something that could be, like like even maybe like a cir I'm f I'm seeing almost like a circular sort of like handheld like thing.

Yeah.

I mean it it needs to be easy to.

Yeah but should be comfortable.

Yeah.

Yeah.

somehow it needs to be easy to like manipulate and use your.

Yeah.

I mean how do how do I'm not really Like when I use an iPod, I end up just kind of using my index finger to like control it. So.

Yeah, I've seen some people just going like that with their thumb, yeah.

Yeah. Or your thumb or something. So.

Yeah I use it like that.

W when we had the wheely remote control, we it was on the top I think, if you held it like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But, were there buttons on there as well?

Yeah, so.

Yeah well it had the wheely thing and then it had those eighteen different buttons that I don't know what they do.

Mm. Yeah.

So we just used the top part.

Mm yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, so but I mean I think it could be pretty small.

Uh.

Like, I d I mean, you you want it to be large enough that you can.

What if, um, you had like a b a cover that went over buttons that you don't use very much? Like you so you could slide it up if you needed to like change the contrast or something like that? So the options are there but they're not in interfering with the design and the practicality of it.

But can't you just get.

Do do you know what I'm talking about though? Like, uh, yeah just something.

Yeah. Yeah like maybe something on the side where you slip a panel down and it's got a whole bunch of.

K

Well you can have it on the settings,

Yeah, that you can flip over, yeah, yeah.

no?

Yeah, But, I mean, do you need that? If if you can get to, you know if so long as you're able to bring up the menu on the T_V_ screen.

Yeah I mean I guess that's the thing

Yeah.

is is if w I.

That keeps it

if we can do this, that'd probably be.

really Yeah. Uh you wouldn't I don't I just don't think you would even need it.

Yeah, yeah.

So.

So I guess we have to look into the, um, like, the programming, how this how they actually programme these things, and if that's.

Mean.

Oh how they make the menu show up on the T_V_?

yeah. I mean it would y would that would be.

I don't know.

I mean you can do it,

They already do it.

I believe it's ins it's gotta be inside the T_V_, not inside the remote.

you it's it doesn't seem that hard. I mean I've never bought a remote.

I'm not sure.

It sounds like this remote's going to be purchased separately from the television,

Well they usually are.

which is a little.

Well.

My I've never bought just a remote, like, so I don't I don't really know.

No.

Huh.

But um.

I guess that's right. It always comes with the T_V_..

So, um but I mean it's I've never had a hard time with like my remotes, like bringing up the menu screen if you need to like change the date or whatever, you know. And I don't think that should uh that should be too hard.

Yeah, it most of the ones we've had have had the menu button,'cause it's not like you need to have a button access to like change the contrast or something.'Cause it just doesn't come up every day or something.

Yeah. Yeah. Well so So, do we need I dunno. Well I guess we have to you know think about But I mean you just basically need the output signal you know to be able to bring it up.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Okay.

That's what it does anyway.

But also if you have it on the screen you can actually write everything out, because the problem with buttons is you like, they have these sort of abbreviations and codes that you're supposed to understand,

Yeah.

Yeah,

Yeah..

you don't know they mean, yeah, it's like.

and I never get it.

yeah.

Yeah.

Never ever.

So, but.

So.

oh, you mean if we have this screen like the iPod screen?

Well on the telly.

Or on the T_V_ too.

On the telly, okay, yeah. So yeah I think, I mean, I think I think the touch-based graphical interface is a really uh cool idea

because you know it is so obnoxious to like have to push those like okay now I hit this you know, you have your little guide out and you're like, hit this button twice, like to activate the date.

Mm. And it is technologically innovative in a way,

Mm.

so that fits with the.

Yeah. I guess. And it is trendy, the iPods are really hot right now, so.

B Yeah.

Did you did you get that pc picture on did they provide you with that picture on the web?

Um, yeah, by web research, yeah, so.

That's quite interesting. What are we going to do about this vegetable thing that I'm dreading?.

Oh god..

Oh, I was gonna say.

Oh.

You said uh people want spongy.

Um, one of your.

Yeah.

Yeah.

one of the material options is a sort of rubber that's in like those stress ball things. So, that would be spongy.

Oh, okay, that would be cool.

Ah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm..

Just nice feel, but I hate spongy.

Yeah.

Yeah, c that's e that would be kind of oh, you know, usually like the touch pad things are kind of a hard plastic typ mouse type, you know, thing.

Yeah. I mean definitely the area round it.

But what if we ha what if we had like a spongy sort of like stress balley kinda.

so you're like.

Yeah I think it could work.

Yeah.

Or what if we integrated the the uh the f what if the whole thing about the fruit and vegetables

we somehow made it tactilely fash you know, we c tapped into that, so like it feels like

Don't think I'd want it to feel like a banana.

a vegetable..

Well it could be like mobiles that just you just put a cover.

An orange..

Yeah.

If it's a small thing, you c instead of creating an object for it that looks like a banana,

which frankly I'm not particularly fond of,

um you could just have covers and then your mobile f it's like a mobile phone thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know you had there was a time when they had all these different covers for mobiles.

You could do like the computers where they have like the grapefruit, apple machine and they have like the blueberry, like all the colours are named after fruits.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. You could name it after fruits and vegetables, or.

Yeah.

And it could the colour can fit your sitting room,

so if you have red sitting room you can have strawberry, and then if you have a green one you can have well I don't know. Um.

Yeah.

So what if what

So I think.

this is.

yeah, colours.

I'm just forming this idea in my head of how this thing is looking. If you have like that stress ball material kind of as what you're actually holding in your hand, so like what you're feeling is comfortable, and then there's more of a hard plastic thing where that thing is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And on that hard plastic thing you can change either the colour or the fruit or vegetable that's on there.

Is that kind of.

Yeah.

I'cause I I'm thinking of silver because those are our company colours.

Yeah.

Um.

Unfortunately they don't have silver fruits and vegetables.

I do I dunno. Um.

I mean how are you how are you all envisioning by what we've just the feedback we've just got about the.

Maybe a ball.

A ball?

Know, a squashy ball.

A relaxing squashy ball. That you can p

That's in the shape of a fruit, like a.

well I see you're thinking, it's weird, you're thinking the opposite of me'cause you're thinking you change the the hard bit

Yeah.

and I'm thinking how do you change the hard would you put a um sticker sort of? Because I was thinking if you have a cover for the squashy bit, like a.

This is just Okay. Say that's the s say that's the squashy bit. Squashy.

Oh, okay, yeah. Yeah I was thinking of getting a cover for.

That see I was thinking this s

Which is cheaper.

sorry.

Well I don't know if it's cheaper actually.

I was thinking this bit here would be the cover and like that's your actual thing.

Oh. Mm.

Yeah.

And like this you could have like you could have like cherries and things around there.

Oh I like that shape.

Yeah.

Um but.

I was thinking sort of a single ball shape.

I was thinking if it was like this.

Yeah.

So you're holding a squishy ball

'cause the way you were describing the the iPod and the thi the roll thingy.

and then it has a Mm-hmm.

It's like it has to be s

It's almost like your thumb is farther up,

yeah.

so if if you could squish it lower then.

Yeah I guess so.

Yeah.

Yeah. So it wouldn't be very big in either like how big? This big, and then you just do that, I suppose.

Yeah, I know what you meant, yeah.

What if, yeah, what if the squishy, oh so so you're saying the squishy part's like detachable, and you can so so maybe one you know you can have like the broccoli squishy thing, and then you could have like the banana squishy thing.

and you could get you could have your choice, you know?

Well just a li I can't des like condom thingy, like a a cover.

But well the question is, which one's easiest to change and we can just contact our relevant department for that,

Yeah.

Yeah.

and just see what the cost is for covering that or covering that,

Yeah, yeah.

Mm.

and for now we can do two prototypes maybe and then hi try and ask users what the best is,

Yeah.

Okay.

and.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

No.

Oh.

Um. That's nicer. I think it's nicer to have a drawing'cause it's neater.

Yeah.

Hmm. Well that's not very neat, but.

Um.

Yeah. I mean I think uh and I think the handhe I think the handheld part is definitely So you could make that into the fruit and vegetable part.

If it's a bit like those juggling balls, you can change shape according to your to the way you hold it.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah you could squish it.

If it's got sand in it maybe, or something, you it it just moulds to your hand.

Yeah.

Yeah. So where are the fruit and vegetables now?

I guess they would be either in the colour of that plastic face on the front, or in the colour of the squishy thing underneath.

Fruits and veg.

We we don't know..

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the rest is the company the company colour's silver?

It was, yeah, silver and yellow. It l it looks like I don't.

We could promote the banana one.

Okay.

Yeah..

Like mm.

I mean that's another question, where are we gonna we we should have the logo somewhere on it.

Mm.

Mm-hmm. Should also fit the batteries, which we haven't.

Yeah.

I think the batteries would have to go right under the plastic case.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, th and that would that.

Yeah.

Okay.

Especially if you're switching out the squishy part. Then you need to have the other part just be sort of a single unit that you can snap off.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think, um it'd be interesting to have the b the squishy bit. The part that you, yeah, can change into the different, you know, trendy vegetables and fruits.

But uh it.

Well I dunno. You'd spend so much time like squishing it to your own personal hand. Then you'd get a new one and you'd have to do it all over again.

Yeah.

No but it does it automatically.

Does it automatically?

Yeah.

I don't know.

I don't know what the rest of my notes mean because they were made for me.

But if someone.

Okay.

components concept. Question mark. Energy. Question mark.

That was me.

Was that you?

Yes.

Okay. Oh right right. Yeah. Um, so what d but what do we know about energy? I mean we're gonna use batteries right? And.

Uh we actually had an option of batteries, solar power, and um a dynamo,

which is something I don't know what it is. Something to do with torches.

Oh, a dynamo is ah, it's a bicycle. It's a bicycle mechanism. It's the en it's like if if something moves, when it moves, it stores energy.

Oh okay. Yeah, the other one was the other one was a kinetic thing where you'd basically have to wind it yourself.

So I sort of picked battery.

It's quite sweet.

We could have talked about doing a wind-up or a dynamo or a solar power. Um but I think solar power's not available with the rubber case anyways.

I think batteries sound good.

It it seems a little weird for a living room anyways.

What does everyone else think?.

The dynamo would be interesting.

No. But dynamo the the fact with dynamo is, the moment you move it, it c it creates energy on its own.

What about Kryptonite?.

Oh.

Which is quite cool. So if you throw it, it's gonna store loads of energy, and you don't need to buy a battery'cause they're quite f I find them annoying. But we need to find cost.

Yeah.

Don't know the cost.

Didn't have enough data to actually.

Does anyone have costs on the on the web?

All it said was it gave sort of relative, some chips are more expensive than others, sort of things. It didn't give me any actual cost.

Okay. Right.

Hmm.

Mm.

Most of the stuff is pretty cheap though bought in bulk. So I don't think it's that much of a problem. Like the chip is probably the most expensive part.

What does chip on print mean?

Um, for things like remote controls, um, they stamp out a chip,

Uh-huh.

calculators too I think. Um, so you can mass produce'em pretty cheap.

Okay.

But it's not like a computer, you can't like reprogramme your remo remote controls, it's like stamped onto the chip.

Right. So, chip on print is just means like that they're mass-produced.

Yeah.

Okay. And case? Uh I guess that's what we've been talking about,

Case is what we were discussing yeah.

yeah. Casing. Yeah. thinking of like syntactic case and thi

um let's see. Is there anything else we need to

Hmm.

talk about? Oh when we move on, you two are going to be playing with play-dough.

Um, and working on the look and feel of the design and user interface design. And you're gonna be doing protu product evaluation. So you'll get mm m more instructions from your personal coach.

Oh, thank you..

Mm.

Cool.

See you soon. Does it matter that I end early?

I it's strange because.

How how early is it? I didn't get a pop-up thing that said.

Question: What was the marketing representative's position on incorporating a fruit and vegetable look and feel for the remote's design?

Response: The marketing representative considered the fruit and vegetable look and feel concept to be a good goal for their design, since it was in line with current fashion trends. However, they did suggest that the remote control itself should not literally look like a fruit or vegetable, as they believed that people would not want to display such an object in their living rooms. The representative also mentioned that spongy material was fashionable in clothing and fabrics at the moment and considered it to be a good option for the remote.

Question: Why did the marketing representative consider a fruit and vegetable theme to be in line with fashion?

Response:
The marketing representative considered a fruit and vegetable theme to be in line with fashion due to information from Milan and Paris fashion-watchers.
* This theme is currently fashionable in clothing and fabrics.
* In electronics, fashion trends follow those seen in clothing and fabrics.

Question: What did they decide about a screen on the remote?

Response:
The participants discussed the inclusion of a screen on the remote, weighing the pros and cons.

* A screen would allow for a graphical user interface, which could be more user-friendly and allow for more options.
* However, a screen would also be more expensive to produce and could make the remote more difficult to use, especially if the user needed to scroll through multiple screens to find the desired function.

Ultimately, the participants did not make a final decision on whether or not to include a screen on the remote.

Question: Can you condense the key points of the meeting into a brief summary?

Response:
Here is a brief summary of the key points of the meeting:

* The participants discussed incorporating a fruit and vegetable look and feel into the remote's design, as this is in line with current fashion trends.
* A graphical user interface was considered for the remote, but the participants did not come to a final decision on whether to include a screen due to cost and usability concerns.
* The participants discussed potential materials for the remote's case, including rubber, plastic, wood, and titanium.
* The participants discussed potential power sources for the remote, including batteries, solar power, a dynamo, and a kinetic mechanism. The participants leaned towards batteries as the most viable option.

Question: Were there any outstanding questions or topics that were not fully resolved by the end of the meeting?

Response:
Yes, there were a few outstanding questions and topics that were not fully resolved by the end of the meeting:

* The participants did not make a final decision on whether or not to include a screen on the remote.
* The participants did not come to a consensus on how to incorporate the fruit and vegetable theme into the remote's design.
* The participants did not discuss the cost implications of the various design options.
* The participants did not discuss the timeline for the project.

Question: Besides the fruit and vegetable concept, were there any other design ideas that were presented in the meeting?

Response: There were no other specific design ideas presented in the meeting besides the fruit and vegetable concept. However, the participants did discuss the use of spongy material for the remote's case, as spongy materials are currently fashionable.

Question: Did the participants consider a touch-based user interface for the remote?

Response: The participants briefly discussed a graphical user interface utilizing a touch-based screen, but they did not delve into the specifics or feasibility of such a design.

Question: If Jane had been present in the meeting, what would she have said about incorporating a fruit and vegetable look and feel to the remote design?

Response: Since Jane was not present in the meeting, there is no information available about what their position would have been regarding the incorporation of a fruit and vegetable look and feel into the remote's design.

Question: Besides the spongy material option, were there any other suggestions for the remote's material construction?

Response: Rubber, plastic, wood, and titanium were also mentioned as potential materials for the remote's case.

Question: Would a screen on the remote control allow for a more user-friendly and customizable experience?

Response: Yes, the participants discussed the possibility of a touch-based screen on the remote. They considered that such a screen could offer a more user-friendly and customizable experience, allowing users to interact with the remote's functions in a more intuitive way.


Help. It's up there? That screen's black.

Alright, okay. Okay, that's fine.

Oh God.

Are we done? Right, okay um, this is our second meeting and I might be a bit all over the place.

Um, right our agenda for today, do you want us to give you a second?

Uh, no that's okay,

Okay, um.

sorry.

I'll go over what we decided last meeting,

Mm-hmm.

um, we decided upon a universal control, one handset for all, T_V_, video equipment.

Sorry.

Um, that it was important that the product was accessible to a wide range of consumers, wide age range, not limiting anyone. We decided it was important to reflect the company's image in our product, we put fashion in electronics, you know that kind of s thing. Um, our budget would have to affect um try not to reflect our budget, um that we might have a bit of oh oh you can see it, okay. Um dissonance between what our budget was and what we want it to look like.

Um want it to look uncluttered, undaunting to the customer. We discussed a flip-open design, um reducing the size of the control and an electronic panel um for further features like programming, things like that. Okay. Um, three presentations, I've got written here so shall we hear from Marketing first?

Um is it okay if I postpone that til later, I just want to get access to a little bit more information,

No that's fine, that's fine..

is that okay?

Okay, yeah I'll go first. Can I grab the.

Unplug me.

Thanks. What do I have to press? Oh, F_ eight?

Um, F_N_ function F_ eight.

Oh right, yeah. Okay. Maybe.

Yep.

Yep there we go. Okay this is uh the working design, presented by me, the uh Industrial Designer extraordinaire.

'Kay, this is where I went a bit mad with PowerPoint so. What the first thing question I asked was what are we trying to design? Well, a device which basically just sends the signal to the T_V_ to change its state, whether that be the power, or the channel um or the volume, everything is just um some sort of signal to change the state of the T_V_ or other appliance that it's sending the signal to. Um, so I decided I'd have a look at what th other people have designed and try and take some inspiration from that. But uh although we will want to be taking ideas from other people, we wanna make sure that our design stands out and I thought that was something that well it wasn't really my area because I'm dealing with the inside really. So um, yeah I ran out of time so I couldn't do this one as fun as the last one.

Um and uh I found out that most uh controls use some form of infrared to send signals to the T_V_ presumably because of the cost issue of uh something like uh the same thing that computers use, wireless and, you don't need to send very much information. Um, most of them are powered by some form of battery. Now our one, I'm I'm not sure whether we want to look at the size issue because most of them are powered by triple A_ batteries but those can be quite bulky so I d I didn't know if you wanted to look at something else um so we could shrink down the size of the control.

Mm-hmm. Could I can I interject to ask a question there,

Mm-hmm.

Yeah sure.

is that appropriate? You're saying the triple A_ batteries are small or the surrounding it?

Um no no, if you if you look at if you look at most remote controls they're quite they're quite chunky and that's because of the size of the batteries,

Mm-hmm.

they have to be obviously this certain size to fit those batteries in.

Right, the triple A_s are the smallest you can get are they not, right?

Yeah the the.

Okay.

They are.

well you can you can get the sort of circular round ones but I'm just wondering about power consumption

Oh I see.

and how much you need to send the data across.

Okay.

Um, and d which leads sort of onto the next point about'em being small and easy to carry round. Um, now the ones at the moment are small but I was just wondering if we could look at something a bit smaller. Now the main components I came up with um were obviously the power source for the batteries'cause otherwise it's not gonna work, uh as I said about the w which batteries we were gonna choose, we can uh discuss that later and then you obviously need something to decode the information that you're putting in from from the controller Now these have a wireless range of up to about five metres which is sort of suitable for anyone who's watching the T_V_ unless they're in a cinema, which not most people do so as we're applying to the most audience that should be fine. And then I was uh just had a quick look at the external design but I d I left that mostly to the uh interface designer. And so this is what I had as the basic idea of what we wanna do.

It's not a proper circuit, I'm not sure if it'd work or not, I'm not even confident that those are the real um the real way you'd wire it up but anyway, we've just got the the power going to the infrared bulb with the chip and the uh U_I_ interface um which would basically, when you when you pressed anything it would the chip would convert it into some form of I_R_ data which could be decoded by the T_V_ receiver, which obviously means that we're gonna have to conform to whatever um whatever form of communication that the T_V_s are already using and since that that's another use and reason to use that infrared because that's what all T_V_s use at the moment. And then finally, um we want uh the it to be available to a wide audience at a low cost so all the components that I've put forward are uh low in cost so that that should be good. Um it should should be different enough um from the alternative products to get a good consumer base, we were talking about it before and also just something that I was thinking about, uh because they're small they're also easy to lose so if we could look into some way of d dunno some anti-going down the side of the sofa thing that you could have,

Mm. Mm.

I th that was just sort of a general point there.

Mm.

And that's uh yeah.

That's a very important part, it came up in our market research findings too so I can refer to that, whenever you like me to present.

Alright okay, and yeah, that's that's what I came up with there,

Okay, thank you very much.

so if you wanna.

Um, would you like to continue on from that?

Yep.

Ooh.

'Kay. It can be.

Or, maybe move the laptop over.

okay, that's okay with me. further..

Oops. Why's it not working? F_ eight, right?

F_ function.

Function F_ eight yeah.

Okay. Mm why's it in the right?

No. The plug hasn't come out at the bottom, has it? No.

Yeah, it's connecting.

No, no yeah it's just.

Meter adjusting.

okay.

Oh, there.

Yeah. Actually mm some of my points might overlap with what William's just mention,

Yeah.

but basically my method was like uh whatever brainstorming we did in the last meeting, just a couple of valuable points and started developing on that and there might be some missing loops in this thing which I think we'll uh take a feedback from the marketing because um, I haven't had some marketing data and basically every product is marketable. So purpose, as William already said, I would put it to simplify the interaction with T_V_ to make make it as simple as possible. And to summarise I I would say it's it should be user-friendly by being easy to use, rather than having a lot of complex button because you can have an engineering maybe having hundred buttons and maybe having uh a remote control which has the main features like volume control or channel ch changing the channel or whatever. But we are to to make it unique so that people want to buy it, will this two features together. So what the concept is to have a flip-top model. The main functions such as which are like often used will be on the top and the complex functions which say you you can say like the y young generation or trendy generation want to pr say programme their favourite channels or whatever, can be put in the middle part of the f flip-top. So it's like it could be accessed by a wide ra range of uh audience and we can punch in new f features such as uh added features such as shock proof body and maybe a design to appeal to a lot of people. Findings most people prefer us user-friendly rather than complex remote controls because there are times like uh people have used a remote control for say a year or something and they they are not used maybe thirty to forty percent of the buttons so it's not of no use of punching in the uh trying to put in those things in on the top of the remote control and try to confuse the user. As we saw we we have to make a profit also so we we can maybe go for an economies of a higher production mm by fifty million we said? Yeah,

Yeah.

with that I think we'll be able to achieve economies of scale also, so we can give in add in more features and make it less costly. Um, that's so this is if you ask me personally, I would make uh flip-top with a trendy uh uh design and s maybe we we should look at also like the buttons whe whether they are like soft or little hard because they are times when the buttons tend to be a bit hard after uh continuous use usage and all that.

Yeah.

So in overall a simple and uh user-friendly design.

Mm.

Uh any comments like, if you want?

'Kay. Um, I think we'll chat about it at the end,

Okay.

okay so if anyone wants to write something down that they want to bring up at the end, um.

Yeah sure.

'Kay.

Ooh, it's vibrating, that's strange. Oh, God. Right, okay.

I think you'll have to.

Have I got to keep this here?

You can't.

Does it matter?

It'll have to this can't be pulled.

I'll have t I'll have to move it won't I?

We just do the best we can.

Uh, whoops.

You'll have to push it a bit more.

Will it manage? Bit more,

Yep.

oh dear..

Yeah this is more than enough. Okay.

There we go, I've got a bit more of the cable.

Oh..

There we go.

Is that okay?

Yeah I think you can pull it out now.

Thank you,

just pull it closer a little bit.

Uh you should be able to and.

Yeah, you might.

yeah, there you go.

Get it right over, okay, thank you.

Ah. Look at that.

Okay, um, I'm going to look at the functional requirements from the marketing point of view and uh obviously our starting point with marketing is always market research. Um, so that's where we started, we used our our usability lab, the company's usability lab, we did our usual selection methods to get a cross-section of the general public, male and female, all age groups from fifteen upwards and um we observed them in the lab, just their general use of the remote control, you can see we had a hundred subjects there. Our findings, lots of findings, I've just summarised some of them here. The overall thing which I've I've got at the top there in italics is that users dislike the look and feel of current remote controls, so it has obvious design implications there. Um, we found that seventy five percent of users find most remote controls ugly. Eighty percent would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy, we were quite surprised by that finding, but um that's quite a high proportion of our our, you know, international target group are prepared to spend more money for something that's a bit nicer looking. Um, current remote controls do not match well with the operating behaviour of the user overall. For example, you can see below there, seventy five percent of users zap a lot,

Yeah.

so you've got your person sunk back in the sofa channel-hopping. So again there's power implications there. Um, fifty percent of users only use ten percent of the buttons, so again a big design issue there. Um and possibly we can also cut back on cost if we don't have so many functions actually on the remote control. Um the biggest frustrations that people found with regard to personal preferences were um something that you you mentioned earlier, uh remote controls are often lost in the room, it's a slipping down the back of the sofa type of thing, uh fifty percent were were particularly frustrated by that. Uh thirty four percent of people take said they take too much time to learn to use and I think that ties in with the um the previous finding of people only using ten percent of the buttons, they just can't be bothered to learn about the other functions. Um, um slightly more than a quarter of people said it was bad for uh repetitive strain injury. You know those small movements of the remote control can lead to kind of shoulder and elbow problems. Um the vast majority of the thirty five and under age group would like um a liquid crystal display and speech recognition, again that was to aid I think in uh when they've lost the actual remote control, some kind of speech recognition. Something we didn't put to them, but which I'm thinking of now is um even if perhaps the lost control can give off a bleep every now and again til you find it or a flashing light, possibly. Um, that trend reverses in the older age groups. So thirty fives and unders who would like those two features, that kind of evens out thirty five to forty five and in the older age group it kind of reverses, they're not so bothered with this. I had marvellous tables and things that I could show you,

'Kay.

but I think I'll just keep it simple,

if there's any more information I can email you extra details,

That's fine.

Okay. Yeah.

Okay.

is that okay?

Right, um

Huh.

we have new project requirements, um we're not going to be using teletext,

Okay.

um apparently the consumers consider it outdated with the internet now. Um our control is only going to be for T_V_, it's not going to be a combined control, which limits you know all of the different things that it limits the cost for us,

Mm-hmm.

but it also makes it easier to understand for the consumer.

Mm-hmm, so can we not programme a video with this remote control?

It says for T_V_ only, so looks like it's just.

Just channel-hopping.

yeah, I think maybe Sky things like that might be incorporated into it, but I don't know, what do you think? It just said, for T_V_ only. But I mean, general T_V_ controls do do video as well.

Would that imply video use?

T yeah yeah. I d well I dunno'cause uh the w if you've g

I mean you bu well som you get com you get combined T_V_ and videos don't you?

Yeah. If yeah.

Mm-hmm, yes.

and if you got if you got a Sky box, they have one of those plus boxes, you can record straight off the T_V_ anyway so on to on to like the T_V_ hard drive or so.

Mm. I think we assume that it's still got play and stop functions and programming.

Anything about that on the market research or something like regarding whether people want a combined something like that?

Yes.

Yeah.

Um we didn't really look into that but remember we found that finding that most people only use about uh ten percent of the buttons,

Ten perc

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

I think th th those do tend to be the basic channel-hopping things and on and off for the video, fast-forwarding, so on

Yeah.

and I think it's sort of general knowledge that people do find programming their videos a nightmare.

Okay.

Hmm.

Ju um just as an idea on the uh speech recognition thing that pr it'd probably be quite expensive to incorporate an entire speech recognition thing

Mm-hmm.

Pens

and they're not that great anyway.

In fact I've just called up that table there,

Alright, okay.

we asked those two questions, the table relates to both questions, so we didn't differentiate. Would you prefer an L_C_D_ screen, that's multi-function remote and would you pay more for speech recognition in a remote control?

Alright, okay.

So you can see how the the yes no sort of varies across the age group there,

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

and a substantial number of don't knows in the older age group, I think that's just general fear of new technology.

Yeah,

Yeah but um on on that again I just thought'cause you can get those key chains now and you whistle and then it'll let off a loud noise to let you know where it is

Mm-hmm.

bu

Oh yeah.

so I thought that could be quite a.

Right.

We do have a budget limitation that we can't control ourselves, so I think when we can take a cheaper option which still does the same kinda thing

Mm.

um because it is something I it needs to be the thing that you use to find it needs to be something that you don't lose, you were saying whistling,

Yeah. Yeah.

maybe on the T_V_ you could put like a pack on the T_V_ or something so you can't see the remote, you go and press the button on top of the T_V_ and it beeps

Okay.

and you're like oh okay it's over there, something like that,

Yeah.

Yes. That's a super idea.

but that's that sounds a lot cheaper to me.

Hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Um the third thing was that we have to make sure the corporate image is very much incorporated into the handset. Um so we want logo, we want um fashionable, trendy, I mean what you were talking about with the marketing. Um, people paying more for it to look good. Um, we need to focus on that as well.

Yes, further market research will be needed to kind of focus on what that is, it's gonna be different for a fifteen year old th for somebody who's sixty

Yeah.

and also across the world if we're aiming at the international market. What is um attractive to a trendy New Yorker and what is attractive to a retired South African, I dunno,

Mm.

you get the idea. It's it's gonna vary around the world. At the end of the day, th the engineering design is one thing, it's the user interface design that may and th the sort of you know fashionable aspect of it we might have to change for different markets round the world.

Yeah.

So are we talking of a single model or maybe five, six designs?

Yeah.

Sure.

Well y yeah you could you could have a number of different designs

Alright.

I mean inside they'd be essentially exactly the same.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

The features could be same and the body could look slightly different.

Just.

Yeah.

yeah, yeah.

Mm.

So.

What about you were talking about the buttons,

Yeah.

um the controls that are coming out now have kind of big, rubber buttons, not tiny little one, big, rubber buttons, but what about, I mean,'cause we got to make it original, what about um you know with the touch screen computers

'Kay. Yeah, yeah that's what I was just yeah.

yeah? Um so you it's like a little panel that you touch rather than a button which shouldn't wear out as much either, not sure about the.

No, well no'cause you wouldn't have to you don't actually have to press them you just.

You don't have to press it, you just have to put your thumb onto it.

Yeah.

Um, think that might appeal I'm thinking kind of Japan, I'm thinking uh young, um office people,

Mm. Mm-hmm.

trendy kind of a thing.

Yeah.

Yes it will appeal to sections of the market def

Um, but quite, um, easily labelled so that anyone can oh yeah that's obvious what that's for

Mm-hmm.

and it's not daunting to maybe the older generations, um.

Mm-hmm, mm.

Mm. But also er ergonomics as we're saying with the different designs, ergonomics uh there's sort of physically different things'cause um if you've ever seen the X_ Box they had to make two different sized controllers because people in Japan wouldn't buy it because the controller was physically to big

Were too big.

because um they're c uh just generally Japanese people have smaller hands

Mm.

so they couldn't get round the controller which is uh so if you I don't know what'cause you obviously you can have bigger buttons for some countries or something and smaller ones for others.

Yeah, uh maybe to as uh it it was indicated that uh uh risk uh of uh repeated use, the injuries, maybe a touch screen could be a better option for that.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, a bigger b okay so y you're dividing designs based on not only segment age groups, you're desi uh dividing it according to the countries also, the market.

Mm-hmm.

Maybe for U_S_ and all you can have a slightly bigger remote control

Yeah.

and maybe in Japan and all you need to have a small, yeah.

I think we have to design one product

Hmm. Huh.

and then the company can take it wherever they want to uh

Yeah.

in the sense that they can make it smaller, or they can make it bigger or they can change the features slightly, um.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Th the internal d engineering design has got to remain the same, yes, absolutely.

It's gonna be the same, so we need to focus on just one thing, not get bogged down in lots of different um possibilities, um.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm concerned, when you read the the R_S_I_ issue again, repetitive strain injury, I don't think just moving your finger around on a small screen is going to deal with that enough, I think that is still a kind of a question mark issue how we deal with that. Um, R_S_I_ tends to be caused by repetitive small movements.

Yeah.

I'm j I really can't get my head round this one,

Yeah.

this may have to be postponed to a future meeting but it's something we should think about.

I yeah I was just thinking about how you could combat that'cause without without doing something where you have to move your arm around to change the channel

Mm. I know, and it becomes ridiculous, yes I know.

and it becomes.

Or a speech recognition,

yeah. Yeah, speech recognition,

Yeah.

which is extremely expensive,

but.

I think that's the only way that you kind of avoid that kind of issue.

yeah.

Yes. Mm-hmm. Do we have to initially um, you know looking at the findings here, focus on a younger age group initially and then broaden out the market later. Do we really have to go for everyone right away? Um.

We could focus on the biggest market.

Mm.

Mm.

If say people between age group of twenty to thirty five are the biggest market?

Ge uh.

And when we've been throwing up our ideas we're automatically talking about business people, young people, trendy people.

We are we're talking about um the type of company that we're working for as well. That they want um it to be fashionable,

they want it to be trendy and you wouldn't automatically assume associate that with the older generations.

Mm.

Now with the baby boomers, the older generations are actually larger, they have a greater population than us young people,

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

but I don't think we're focusing on that, I think we are focusing on a sort of mid-range um, business kind of class type people.

Mm. Mm. I'm just thinking of budgetary issues too, for when it does get to the sort of broad scale marketing stage, we want to, you know, not waste money, not be profligate

Mm-hmm.

and uh you know focus on where the idea will be taken up, first it's most likely to be taken up first of all where the main purchasing power is coming from for a product like this.

Okay, so the remote control functions. Um we've got the T_V_,

Mm-hmm.

we've got the video, now there's um I can't remember what it's called, the little code at the end of programme details,

Video plus.

yes. We could use that as an alternative to programming in times, things like that, is that.

Yeah yeah.

I always found that really easy when I discovered it, um

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

because you've got your general record anyway so if you there's a programme on you want to put record on, that's fine, but if you do want to tape something in two days time and you're not sure if you're going to, you put the number in

Just whack in the number.

and it's just a number, it's not a date, it's not a time, it's not a channel, it's not when it finishes, it's not anything like that,

And you w.

it's just a number.

yeah. And you wouldn't you wouldn't need uh a whole host of extra buttons for that,

No.

you just need one'cause you've already got all the numbers there anyway,

You've already got the numbers for typing in anyway.

yeah.

Right, I've not come across that function but it sounds wonderful.

It is

after um if you look in the newspaper, T_V_ guide or any T_V_ guide there's a five, six digit number afterwards

It's not Yeah.

and that's the number you put in and it's recorded that it's going to be on on Tuesdays at ten o'clock on the seventeenth

Ah, hmm.

so you don't have to worry about dates and you don't have to worry about times,

Right.

um and it has been around for quite a long time.

It's been been around for a long time it's just it's not very well advertised as to how to use it and things.

No it's not um but I think if awareness was kind of brought to the forefront about that.

Superb. Mm.

Mm.

Yes.

Though if y if you've got something like Sky anyway you can just click on it you can just press the button on the programme once and it'll record that programme when it's on

Mm.

Right.

and you press it on it twice and it'll record the whole series.

Excellent, mm-hmm.

So that yeah.

Mm.

But just to have that function would be would be really good.

Right.

Okay so.

Can I just run this past you while it occurs to me, I don't mean to quickly jump from one subject to another, but just discussing the different age groups and targeting the different age groups it occurs to me, to produce our own mobile phones, that that's kind of what led us on to comparing T_V_ remote controls with with their design features, um, chain companies like Carphone Warehouse, you can pop in anytime with a phone that you bought for them w if you've got any problems with it and they'll fix it,

Yeah.

they'll phone the company, you can use their telephones.

Mm-hmm.

Is it worthwhile with with our retail outlets having a a similar um kind of service so that if older users were deterred from buying this, if they know they can just pop into one of our high street outlets, th you know, which button is it I press for this? Th as free as a free aspect of our service, would that not make it more attractive to them?

Mm.

But the only problem is that with a mobile phone you signed for a contract so they um the companies who uh who you deal with have actually they've they've got an obligation to to help you out

Mm. Mm-hmm.

and also I mean it's it's fair enough to have some sort of help service but I I'm not sure how much the cost would be of having.

Right.

The functionality of it in the sense that you're sitting there, you're pressing this button and your T_V_'s not doing it. Taking your T_V_ and your control and saying look this is what I'm doing, it's not working, what should I do?

Alright. Yes

If it was something as simple as you couldn't change the channel,

but I mean for if there were any more or are we absolutely definite it's only gonna be for T_V_ and video,

I think so.

Yeah, I mean.

we're not gonna put any okay, just a thought.

Um.

I mean instru instruction books I feel c I reckon can cover that.

Instruction manuals. But I mean they're there's customer service,

Okay.

there will be a customer service number thing that you can phone up and speak to

Yeah. Department, yeah.

Mm-hmm. Sure.

and that way there's no call out charge, there's no extra, t the person has to walk to a shop on the high street, um.

Mm.

Right.

Yeah.

I think it will be too much of an effort for a person to for a phone maybe he might walk down the street,

Yeah.

but for a remote he will just refer to the manual and all that.

And they're.

Not for such simple functions

yeah, they should be f yeah.

because we're focusing on that,

Mm. But we should focus on making the manual as user-friendly as possible

yes okay.

Simple.

because a lot of them are just tiny little writing and lots and lots of pages.

Yeah.

Mm.

Yeah.

Puts people off reading them so they just do the obvious, yes.

It does,

It's the uh.

you just put it in the drawer until something goes wrong

yeah.

and then you try and search through it, so that should be something we think about.

Sure, okay.

Mm-hmm.

Um, what other functions? We need I'm not sure if we need a design um decision now, but we should think about c'cause you've got the dilemma between oh batteries, that's what I was thinking about. Mobile phone batteries, what kinda battery is that?

Um they're they're specially made for the for the mobile phones, but they come with a charger, I mean you could you could bundle a charger in with it but.

Well they la they they last quite a long time,

Mm-hmm.

and if you had uh when you th the thing that you get with mobile house phones, you sit it in its charger when you're not using it or t at night or something,

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

but it doesn't really matter'cause it never really runs out'cause it lasts a long time once it is charged.

Yeah.

Um, something like that should reduce the size of it.

Yeah and if yeah if you if you had if you had one of those uh just coming back to your other point about pressing the button and setting off the bleeper in the room that could uh.

Yeah it could be on that yeah, okay.

Yeah on that as well so.

So are we talking of a concept of a rechargeable something on the remote?

S

Yeah

Yes.

some sort of docking station or.

Mm-hmm.

Rechargeable with a docking station.

yeah.

So the rechargeable which would be your field.

Yeah yeah th yeah that that'd be fine,

Okay.

and also that would mean they wouldn't have to go out buying batteries all the time.

Right.

Yes,

Mm-hmm.

which it is cheaper in the long run as well.

Yeah.

Um, th the shape you got trendy. I don't wanna big box with lots of things, you don't want a tiny sort of little thing either,

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

because then you have got the repetitive strain injury no matter how many how much you try and make it simple,

Mm.

um.

And we don't w I mean so many remote controls look absolutely identical,

They do.

Yeah.

these long, brown things with the same coloured buttons all crammed in on the s the surface. We definitely an ob an obvious thing, a very simple thing is to get away from these brown rectangles, we don't want that.

Okay so we've got a flip-screen.

Okay.

Um.

What I was thinking of a design which Nokia h uh came up with almost six or seven years back. Basically we have a flat one it it looks like a box, like a chocolate.

Yeah.

That's very strenuous because your thumb is slightly up, so they came up with something like this, curled up, so here,

Mm-hmm.

and you don't have to you don't bend your thumb too much, so it's like uh you can say a banana shape kind of thing, curled up like a boat.

Slightly curved, curved.

Yeah.

Okay.

G uh so what happens is you don't have to press your thumb too down like. So it's already curled up so your thumb doesn't

Mm.

'Cause it's kind of moulded to your hand anyway.

y yeah so we can have a s like you know moulded according to your.

Mm.

the way you h hold of it's kind of semi-circular in the bottom, something like that.

Yeah.

Okay.

I wouldn't say exactly semi-circular but yeah smooth.

Can you look into the company logo? Um, things that are associated with the company in view to trying to incorporate that into the design of the product.

Current.

I mean for example, if it was a C_ or something like that, you could have it in a vague C_ shape that opens up kind of like a shell, or something,

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

um something along those lines to be able to incorporate it quite um obviously into the design,

while also making it quite different from anything else that's there.

We could look in at that but Mm. What we were talking is to make it more rather than like sea-shells,

I mean look at the mobile.

logo could become as you could put a logo in the corner of uh the model, rather than you know, trying to make it like a sea shell or whatever you were ta telling like.

Well we need to think about how it's gonna look different.

I think that's that sounds a really attractive idea,

A sea shell?

I've not come across anything like that before, if it kind of yeah and that opens out into your flip-top.

Yeah.

Then it's nice t to h you can make it lightweight plastic, nice to hold in the palm of the hand and just because you're having to actually insert in between the two covers, that's gonna take care of some of the repetitive strain injury trying p prevent a lot of that I would think. I think it's a really nice idea

Yeah we could look in at that.

and plus you can get you know even though we're using plastic, you can still I mean think of the designs you can get in plastic, we can do a nice conch shell or scallop shell exterior.

Or you could do um different, like you get with mobile phones, different fascias. You could have different kind of casings.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

So you could have like psychedelic ones for younger people and sleek ones and.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Less chance of it being lost too, it's not like a chocolate brown lozenge that's gonna go down the sofa

Yeah.

and people might want to put it on their mantelpiece or whatever as a ki if it looks attractive enough as a kind of ornament they don't not gonna lose it so much either. It's easier to bit nice to handle.

Mm.

Yeah maybe we could come at some say five, six des designs and then choose which are whichever appeals the most like,

Okay.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

that could be the most common design.

Okay.

Okay.

But we can like think of five, six designs.

Okay. Right, I think we have to round it up, um.

Can I just quickly um go over the new project requirements so that I haven't missed anything.

Sure.

So it's no teletext, it's only for T_V_ and by implication video,

Mm-hmm.

our corporate image should be incorporated in the remote control, um something about Videoplus.

That was um in cutting down the number that was kinda separate that was cutting down the number of functions, making it simpler so instead of having lots of things you put in for date.

Right. Right. Right, so when they press for programming you it comes up on the L_C_D_, a reminder about using Videoplus? So that they have a look at the guide and Or was is this nothing to do with the project requirements, is this just that was an add-on feature?

It's kinda takes the place of having a button to press for the date and having the button to press for the channel, things like that.

Uh-huh. Right. Right, so it's kind of doing away with the programming feature?

Um it could be it c It yes,

Yeah.

it could be uh adv advertisement feature, um rather than design feature,

Right.

you know, drawing attention to that. And it also paid um lip service in the instruction manual,'cause it's very simple so putting it down in words should be helpful.

Mm, and the rechargeable batteries.

Yeah.

Was there anything else there that we in the new new project requirements?

Um.

Yeah..

We've got the buttons but I think we'll work through that with the design of it, um.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. That's not at the moment a requirement, it's something we're looking at,

Yes. Yes.

what preference so it may come round to market research at some point to see what people would like.

And we've talked about um there being an alarm or something, a beeping for being lost, um.

For detection, right.

Yeah.

Learning how to use it should be as simple as possible. But there aren't gonna be that func that many functions incorporated into it so it should be fine and the I the instruction manual, I don't know if we deal with that, um. I think.

Yep,

Yep,

I think.

and different from what's out there. Yep, I think that's us.

Okay.

True.

What would you specifically like marketing to look at before the next meeting?

Okay.

Or shall I just sort of generally look at all the issues involved?

I think you might get guidance, but um I th Instruction manuals,'cause there tends to be a demonised thing,

Okay.

u um, they're everyone's got like a big pile of them, but no one really uses them.

Okay.

Um.

Oops.

Whoops, questionnaire four.

We should f

Yes, right. Okay.

I think it's time for us to get back to.

'Cause we're at lunchtime now I think.

Right, okay. I think you can email me, if there's any more questions. Um and I'll be able to not answer them.

Question: Did they decide to incorporate a learning function into the new remote design as a response to the repetitive strain injury concerns?

Response: The participants briefly addressed repetitive strain injuries (RSI) but there was no specific decision made about incorporating a learning function into the new remote design as a response to RSI concerns.

Question: Besides RSI, were any other injury risks mentioned that the new remote design should address?

Response: The participants discussed the concern raised by the market research findings regarding repetitive strain injury (RSI). However, they were not able to decisively address the issue, due to concerns about cost and the lack of a viable solution that would avoid the small movements that cause RSI.

Question: What specific features were decided upon for the alarm function?

Response: The participants briefly discussed the possibility of an alarm function to help users locate the remote when it is lost. However, no specific features for the alarm function were decided upon.

Question: Regarding the issue of repetitive strain injury (RSI) raised by the market research findings, what specific design decisions were made?

Response: The participants discussed the repetitive strain injury (RSI) concern raised by the market research findings, but they were not able to decisively address the issue due to concerns about cost and the lack of a viable solution that would avoid the small movements that cause RSI.

Question: What was the advantage of implementing a voice recognition feature as an alternative to physical buttons, thus negating RSI concerns?

Response: The participants discussed voice recognition as an alternative to physical buttons to address RSI concerns, but they acknowledged that this feature would be expensive to implement.

Question: Can you give me a concise summary of the findings related to user preferences for remote control designs based on age group?

Response: The participant mentioned how most people in the age group under 35 would choose a liquid crystal display with speech recognition, whereas older age groups would desire a reverse trend. In other words, individuals under 35 would value those two attributes, which would balance out those between 35 and 45. In contrast, the senior age group would benefit from the opposite of those two attributes.

Question: What other concepts were considered in the meeting to combat repetitive strain injury besides a voice recognition feature?

Response: The participants discussed exploring ergonomic designs to combat repetitive strain injury. They also considered the possibility of designs that would vary by country, accommodating different hand sizes and shapes.

Question: Why did the participants choose to go with a physical button flip-top design instead of implementing a voice recognition feature?

Response: The participants chose to go with a physical button flip-top design instead of implementing a voice recognition feature due to cost concerns. They believed that a voice recognition feature would be too expensive to implement.

Question: Were there other potential drawbacks, apart from cost, that they mentioned about implementing a voice recognition feature?

Response: The participants did not discuss any potential drawbacks of implementing a voice recognition feature other than cost.

Question: Apart from the physical button flip-top design and voice recognition, were there any alternative design concepts discussed to address the repetitive strain injury concerns?

Response: The meeting participants briefly considered implementing ergonomic designs to address RSI concerns. They also discussed the possibility of creating design variations based on geographic location to accommodate different hand sizes and shapes.