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Project Manager: Yep Soon as I get this This is our last meeting I will go ahead and go through the minutes from the previous meeting and then we will have a the prototype presentation then we will do an evaluation or we will see what what we need to have under the criteria for the evaluation Then we will go through the finance and see if we fall within the budget then we will do the evaluation and then we can finish up after that with any changes that we will need to make or hopefully everything will fall right in line let us see minutes from the last meeting we looked at the the trends We had the fashion trends that people want a fancy lookandfeel It was twice as important as anything else they liked fruit and vegetables in the new styles and a spongy feel So we were talking about trying to incorporate those into our prototype they wanted limited buttons and simplicity then we looked at the the method for coming up with our own remote looking at other other devices the iPod we really liked the look of that we also had the kids remote for a simple idea a two part remote which was what were were originally looking at and then there was talk of spee speech recognition becoming more predominant and easier to use But I think we have still decided not to go with that Then we looked at the components the materials for the case the different energy sources the different types of chips and made a decision on what we were going to use to make our remote and basically how what were making for the prototype So I am going to leave it at that and let you guys take over The prototype Do you need a this ? Industrial Designer: Can try to plug that in there User Interface: There is our remo the banana basically we we st went with the colour yellow working on the principle of a fruit which was mentioned it is basically designed around a banana but it would be held in such a fashion where it is obviously it would not be that floppy because this would be hard plastic These would be like the rubber the rubber grips So that is so that would hopefully help with grip or like the ergonomics of it but all the controlling would be done with this scroll wheel You have to use your imagination a little bit And this here represents the screen where you where you would go through And the the simplest functions would be almost identical to an iPod where that one way ch through channels that way th other way through channels Volume up and down And then to access the more complicated functions you would you sorta go you press that and go through the menus It is that that simple That just represents the infrared beam That is a simple on and off switch I do not know we could use the voice T that blue bits should be yellow that that would be where the batteries would be I suppose And that is about it It is as simple as you we could make it really Is there anything you want to add ? Industrial Designer: That is what we have there That is plastic Plastic covered with rubber We might add some more underneath here Maybe give it give it a form I mean you are supposed to hold it like that but just if you grab it take it from somewhere User Interface: Does not make much make much difference You could work lefthanded or righthanded I suppose Industrial Designer: Exactly use both Might as well think about User Interface: T the actual thing might be smaller Industrial Designer: Th think about the button as well Like either put either one one on either side or Project Manager: What but what is that button ? Industrial Designer: not do it at all It is a quick onoff button User Interface: Just the on and off Industrial Designer: I think it is pretty important So you do not have to fiddle with that Right ? that is not I would say a bit smaller would probably be nice You want to play with that over there

Project Manager introduced that the prototype incorporated fashion trends that people prefer fancy looking products like fruit and vegetable. After That, User Interface presented the product which looked like a banana and was bright yellow except for the blue button. The style was as simple as possible in order to fit the customers' need for simplicity. Also, the product could be curved and used both-handed with advanced chips hidden inside, which seemed quite creative and identical to iPod features. In the end, Industrial Designer commented that the remote control could be smaller in size.

Marketing: I do You guys are going to help me do an evaluation of the criteria So first I will just discuss some of the criteria that I found Just based on the past trend reports that I was looking at earlier And then we will do a group evaluation of the prototype And then we will calculate the average score to see how we did so the criteria we are going to be looking at are the complaints that we heard from the users who were interviewed earlier So we are going to be doing it based on a seven point scale And one is going to mean true that we did actually achieve that With seven being false we did not achieve that So for the first one we need to decide did we solved the problem of the users who complained about an ugly remote ? Project Manager: I think it is definitely different than anything else out there So if they think that what is out there is ugly then yes I would say I would say most definitely

Marketing had some evaluation criteria in mind, based on previous marketing strategy, on the latest trends, and on user preferences. The team should figure out whether their product could solve the complaints of the ugly remote control. There was a seven-point scale rating for each criterion. The team would give comments to each feature listed and agree on the final rating.

User Interface: It is bright It is Project Manager: It still has your traditional black User Interface: It is curved It is not there is no sharp Industrial Designer: I would say when it comes to the ergonomics the form and stuff yes that is definitely more beautiful than your average However the colour we do not have a say in that Marketing: I think the colours detract a little bit User Interface: Some people might say it Industrial Designer: That has been that has been dictated pretty much by the company So to answer that honestly I would rather say like we have not solved the problem completely with the ugly remote because the colour is ugly definitely S nothing you can say about that I mean I much prefer something like brushed chrome with that form Project Manager: something more modern to go a a modern colour to go with the modern form Industrial Designer: Right Right It is different You do not want your three feet huge LCD dis display in your living room that is hanging from the wall to be controlled with something like that Marketing: so do you think since we This was a a sign criteria do you think maybe we should put it somewhere in the middle then ? Does that sound good ? What do you think ? Three ? Four ? the second one Did we make it simple for new users ? Industrial Designer: It is very intuitive I think User Interface: I think that was the main aim one of the main aims that we had Industrial Designer: S give it a one Marketing: kay do the controls now match the operating behaviour of the users ? User Interface: Because we have we have brought it down to basically four controls most common which are channel and volume And then the other ones are just a matter of just going just scrolling further Project Manager: S scrolling through and selecting a few Industrial Designer: Right So that is a one Project Manager: I think that is a one Marketing: ? the fourth one How about the problem of a remote being easily lost ? One of the number one complaints Industrial Designer: Something that big and that yellow you just do not lose anymore Marketing: Whether you want to or not you are not going to lose it User Interface: Bright yellows hard to lose But if we were to if we were that the speech recognition That we could maybe just use that solely for the the finding thing That was what we would we would mentioned Project Manager: So if we incorporate speech recognition into it then it could User Interface: Just just to use to find it when it was lost But like I said like I do not think you would lose something so yellow so easily And it is not going to fall like a rectangle would slip down behind things That is going to be a difficult shape to Project Manager: And it is quite bright and User Interface: Maybe in the middle again three or four or something ? I mean you know loo losing things is one of those things that people can lose I mean a million ways You can pick it up and walk away with it and then you have lost it Project Manager: But if we do go with the with the speech recognition then it then our scale goes up quite a bit I think Probably two You know If we eliminate the fact that you know it is impossible to guarantee that it is not going to be lost then With the speech recognition which of course may be changed depending on budget Industrial Designer: Y you could add an extra feature actually Which makes this thing raise hell when you remove it too far from the television We could add that but that is nothing we have thought of so far Project Manager: Which which may be cheaper than speech recognition if it were just a User Interface: true But I mean d just those whistling clapping key rings you have They are cheap Marketing: Annoying alarm or something ? User Interface: So it can not be that Industrial Designer: the it is based on this anti antitheft technology for suitcases and stuff where you have one piece that is attached to your luggage another piece that starts beeping That can not cost much So that can also easily be integrated because these things are small enough to to hide so you have one piece you have to glue somewhere behind your stick it behind your TV and the other User Interface: stick it on the TV Project Manager: Pray that you do not accidentally lose that piece Industrial Designer: That would be tough then Well also your remote would alarm you if somebody stole you t your television Ran off with it without taking the beautiful remote control Marketing: So Are we adding one of these two features ? Industrial Designer: Let us add one of those features and say yes Marketing: So we are back to a one ?

Generally speaking, the team agreed that the product was intuitive and had successfully incorporated main aims that the team had. The team believed the customers were not likely to lose the remote control since it was big and bright yellow with speech recognition. Moreover, Industrial Designer suggested adding an extra feature for the product to raise volume like hell when it was removed so far from the TV. However, the team also noted that costs should be compared when deciding to use annoying alarms or others.

Marketing: Two kay Are we technologically innovative ? User Interface: do not get many mo remote controls with Industrial Designer: It is all just stolen technology when it comes down to Project Manager: But there is not a lot of yellow there is not a lotta yellow Course that was not really we were kind of forced to take that colour I do not know that we are that innovative to tell you the truth Marketing: But how many remotes do you see like this ? Project Manager: If we added the screaming factor then we go up I would say we are probably at four Marketing: Really ? That is going to hurt us Industrial Designer: well you have that kind of sort of User Interface: as much as as needed I think Industrial Designer: It is not a one though One would be the whole thing Project Manager: Because it is only got what these parts are the grips and perhaps the back side the bottom the underneath on the back Industrial Designer: So that is a four at most Project Manager: Probably a four at most Possibly even a five Marketing: And lastly did we put the fashion in electronics ? I would say we did Project Manager: If your fashion is b is Carmen Miranda you betcha Industrial Designer: Well the recent fashion is rather displayed in the in the LCD and the way you operate it than the form and the colour

To start with, the team agreed that the remote control was indeed innovative with the LCD display incorporated and the way it could be used both-handed with an alarming feature. Also, it aimed at the recent fashion trend since it looked like a banana with a special yellow colour. Although some of its features were identical to an iPod, the team believed that it was a creative design for remote control.

Project Manager: We have energy source electronics case Then we have case material supplements interface type and then button supplements so first of all energy source we picked battery and how many batteries do we think this will probably take ? Probably some e either two or four Industrial Designer: At four it is going to be too heavy so that that is not our problem People can change it every month They will not know until after they bought it Project Manager: Alright so for the electronics our choices are simpl simple chiponprint regular chiponprint advanced chiponprint sample sensor sample speaker User Interface: We are advanced chip are we ? Industrial Designer: That is the advanced chiponprint Project Manager: Kay we have one of those Kay then the case is a Probably it is double curved plastic I guess it is two since one for the top one for the bottom Is that right or is it just one ? Industrial Designer: No that is just one Project Manager: Maybe it is one because of the Industrial Designer: It is just one mo single mould we can do that Project Manager: I guess it does not matter because the price on that one is zero which is nice Industrial Designer: That is not a special colour It is a specially ugly colour but it is not special Project Manager: Interface type We have pushbutton scrollwheel interface integrated scrollwheel pushbutton and an LCD display So we actually have the LCD display and then is it the integrated or is it User Interface: I would say the integrated Project Manager: Kay Button supplement ? Special colour ? special form ? Special material Industrial Designer: We could of course make the buttons wood Marketing: It would look really lovely Project Manager: They cost us all the same Well we only have one button so really we should not be charged we should not be charged anything for the the button supplements User Interface: No that is getting a bit tiny Project Manager: We are going to leave that one blank because we run on a LCD and scroll So our total is fifteen point five Which I believe is Industrial Designer: It is hard to believe So we will go for the hand dynamo huh ? Project Manager: So the only thing better than a bananashaped remote is one that you shake User Interface: If it w What if we completely took out the the one single button we have got on And just had a scroll wheel interface And the LCD display I suppose the LCD C displays the one that is pushing it up a bit though Project Manager: Well because we have to have both right ? Industrial Designer: I mean let us let us face it it also depends on the software on the on the television You can have the the information that this thing transmits be being displayed on the on the screen So s let us take away the User Interface: you could maybe take out the LCD dis display even if it if it comes up on the computer itsel on the TV itself Project Manager: So we may not need the LCD display ? Industrial Designer: Right We may not need it There you go Project Manager: So we just remove our User Interface: Make it a bigger dial Easier to use Even easier to use then Project Manager: Besides look at what the LCD does to our lovely remote Back to the design room boys Industrial Designer: So we can just take away a heck of a lot of the there you go central ? Marketing: What is the blue part ? User Interface: we ran out of yellow Marketing: Oh that is the batteries Looks more like a banana User Interface: For all those fruit lovers out there

Project Manager first introduced the budget and broke it down to parts like batteries, electronics, case material supplements, interface type and then button supplements. The team agreed that the push button, integrated scroll-wheel and the LCD display cost a lot but case materials were all the same. In this case, the team decided to discard the LCD since the information it could transmit could also be simply displayed on the screen. As for the recognition feature, the team decided to make it a big deal to be alarming. And lastly, the product would be pure yellow instead of a blue button.

Project Manager: h what did you think of our project process ? User Interface: I think we did I think we did quite well Industrial Designer: Just half a day you have a remote There you go User Interface: Right from the start of the day We sort of knew where we were going straight away I thought Project Manager: we st we started off a little little weak Our leadership was quite weak in the beginning But as the day went along we had more idea of what we were doing room for creativity ? There was that I think we tried a lotta different things and I think it was interesting as you guys brought up more information and studies that we were right on with a lot of those things you guys worked together well as a team And the means ? Which was the whiteboard and the pens User Interface: We have used the whiteboard Project Manager: I had some problem with the pen I think but minus your p Industrial Designer: Well that is not my fault That is obviously the people I work for that work for me Marketing: No I know I am Industrial Designer: they have just you know Heads are going to roll believe me Project Manager: we have a list of employees that you would like fired N new ideas found ? Yes for the remote Maybe no not f for technology Alright Closing Costs are within the budget Project is evaluated complete the final questionnaire and meeting summary That is it

The team thought they had a really great team work experience. Everyone had put efforts into the process and gave opinions to design a good remote control. Also, the process incorporated different stages and new ideas could always be added based on the market finds.

Marketing: evaluation Basic point have a list of criteria that we need to rate the prototype by then we will it is a seven s seven seven step kind of evaluation process So not seven steps seven scale So after we have finished doing all the ratings for each criteria we average that and that will give us some type of confidence in our prototype And the criteria based on Real Reactions kind of goals and policies marketing strategies and also those I put together from the user requirements phase Kay if you flip the So those are the criteria And perhaps I could have put them a bit better but you notice a few things that we have totally abandoned which means that the product will score very badly on some of those points Put it mildly So we have true ? One t Seven eight oh Fourth so we have to go through each point If we imagine it is actually straight and just give it a a score So how well would you say the prototype is how well have we realised the dream of being able to stop remotes from from being lost or to be able to find them once they are lost I mean is the homing thing still the locator is that still User Interface: that is still part of the design Marketing: Sure And Adam we can keep that in ? Project Manager: I believe so So I mean I do not think anybody could actually stop a remote being lost because that would mean doing something about the human element but I would like to think that we have done something about finding the damn thing once we have User Interface: Mm Mm And making it a bright colour helps with the personally I would have gone for purple Marketing: Mm Bright colour So we still have that noise thing ? Os on a scale of one to seven how would you guys rate it for finding finding it once it is lost ? User Interface: I would say number one Marketing: Number number one for the first criteria User Interface: I think w if it was just the sounder then th I mean something I have found with w w with say tr trying to find a cordless phone or a m mobile you can hear it but you can not quite pin it dow pin down where it is Marketing: you can tell what room the mobile is Industrial Designer: What about what if the the volume on the TVs turned up massively and you just want to turn down the volume can not find remote Suppose you have to go to the TV and do it manually Mm Like y you would not hear the speaker Project Manager: just before we go through all of the steps here well what we will do is Marketing: You want to say something ? Project Manager: if we can look at the criteria you are going to evaluate and then we will come back to the product evaluation if that is alright Marketing: Oh that is that is fine Project Manager: so is there anything here that you that you wanted to cover as in the criteria that you have covered ? And then we will come back pretty much promptly to this Marketing: What do you mean cr is there anything I want to Project Manager: I is there any of these criteria that need any explaining ? Or is there anything that yous thought tha really would stand out compared to the others ? Marketing: a few Something I neglected from my initial research is that Real Reactions has a a goal strategy that all of the products be inspired by material fashion and clothing fashion That is why fruit and veg being popular in the home and in clothing was important and they want all their products to be somehow inspired by current trends in fashion So they say we put the fashion in electronics well they really mean it they they are very big on fashion so That is this bit right here And this bit is this one easy to use for visitors or for anybody ? I guess it is just the same as saying easy to use interface so it is kind of condensed into one And we can come back to it you said Project Manager: No and which we will do very very shortly Slight problem we had was that we have an amazing four Euros over budget for what we were hoping to do most of it stems from the use of the LCD which I think in the end accounted for about half of our expenditure because of course we required a chip as well the only way to get this down was either to ditch the a LCD at which point we have removed a large part of how we were going to interface require more buttons etcetera Or what we did was that we we as in I as I was quickly going over it was altering the actual structure changing it to plastic and a solid unit with a single curve design would allow us to come back into the proposed costs and we are just scraping it in we have got point two of a Euro left over there So we are just managing it really Even then as well there was no criteria technically defined for a joystick so I have used what I thinks appropriate With any luck that will not mean that we have incurred more cost than we can actually afford to It blows a lot of our really good ideas kind of slightly to one side for example the possibility of having a USB connection is definitely not viable now That should still be viable We have got an advanced chip we have got the use of the LCD So being able to communicate in multiple languages is still very much a possibility but what is something we need to decide on is how we are going to go from here We do need to try and come up with an idea which could be continued with other people if need be We can I can bring the excel up sheet up and show you if you wish I really think as m much as it pains me is that we might have to go with plastic and some kind of solid design possibly meaning that the LCD would not be in this perfect place It might be s stuck like slightly between what would be good for left handed and what would be good for a right handed person User Interface: Mmhmm I suppose o one thing that could be done is h is have it circular and have it s so that the the pink actually goes a bit over the pinkie finger Mm Project Manager: It very much is about making concessions unfortunately Marketing: Do you have any data on how much different prints cost ? I mean can you get the entire thing printed with a design ? Project Manager: b b b da is you mean on the plastic or ? Let us have a look You now have as much information as I do So as you can see here for example the battery really not very little choice in that one We have gone for one of the cheaper options as well Unfortunately we require the advanced chip if we are going to do what we are needing to I have said single curved We really do need it to be that way for the ergonomics of it plastic for some reason incurs no cost which I have had to very much make advantage of despite the fact that rubbers only got a value of two Euros per unit Problem comes here as you can see in the interface if I have read this thing correctly then we can save point five of a Euro here in that it is not per push button That might make sense because then a numeric keypad would come in at what four point five Euros which is an awful lot so that could well be wrong Even if we save point five there it would just mean that we are most likely placing it in actually just gaining a colour for the unit which has had to be put to one side As you can see the use of an LC display advanced chip and what would determine the scroll wheel here as well because it is an integrated scroll scroll wheel push button that was not quite what I think they had in mind with a joystick Marketing: Why would why would that be more expensive than an individual push button and scroll wheel together ? That is quite significantly expensive Project Manager: I that is something you will have to take up with the bean counters as you can see I mean that is taken up well over half of the price So I am very much open to suggestions of where we go but because we need to she would what was four Euros off of the the price of for what we really desired this one comes in under price as you can see but this was the one that sacrificed the material for the case and for the actual case design Marketing: We do not even have speakers here The like we what about speakers and transmitters and stuff like that ? Have we factored that in ? Project Manager: no we have not not Marketing: Transmitter receiver speakers Plus the extra device itself that is going to be on a TV Is that going to be a button or Project Manager: That will it literally would just be a button Industrial Designer: That is too expensive is not it ? Project Manager: It looks like almost nothing Mm Oh good call I missed that Marketing: I I mean it is not on here but Project Manager: that is a very valid point Marketing: Did they s do we have to use an advanced chip for the LCD ? Project Manager: So if we are going to go with the LC display then that is Marketing: What is a hand dyna dynamo ? You have to wind it up ? Project Manager: That would probably not be in keeping with the the fashion statement and such Industrial Designer: So basically the only new thing is the LCD on the remote now Project Manager: Being manipulated by the joystick Which I am defining as scroll wheel Marketing: And we could not replace the joystick right ? Because we would need four extra buttons to replace it up down left and right and that would be more expensive than a but is a scroll wheel not just back and forward ? Project Manager: it is just because there was no actual definition for what a joystick might be that that is what I have labelled it for the purposes of this evaluation Industrial Designer: So The LCD basically is the big selling point of Project Manager: If we remove the LC display we could save ourselves a fair amount Which you could Industrial Designer: But that is what makes it original though User Interface: Mm I think if we remove the the LC display then there was absolutely no point to any of these meetings and we just we could just put our branding on any other remote control Project Manager: It is a shame We should possibly have If we could have increased the price we could have manufactured that and we could have got something far closer to what we were hoping to Marketing: Does this does this bear in mind that I mean it is a bit ridiculous that they are going to charge us what is it like this much money for three million if we are going to buy three million components Project Manager: Again you will have to argue with the accountants on that one but for the purposes of this meeting I am we are going to have to stick with these figures So I would say that it would seem like the general opinion is we are going to keep the LC display because it is about what really separates us despite the cost it is going to incur are people maybe not happy with but are willing to go ahead with this in going for a plastic solid case to keep the LCD ? User Interface: Mmhmm I mean one thing I mean ho how much extra would it be to to keep I mean keep the the articulation ? Project Manager: It is hard to tell I would say that you are at least going to take double curved User Interface: This is what I am wondering Project Manager: and even then I am not quite sure if that is incorporating the idea of articulation User Interface: no I think I I it d that it need not require it to be double curved Industrial Designer: It can be s it can still be single curved User Interface: It is it is just it is just it is just that the case would come in t would be made in two parts and then joined together with an articulation Project Manager: Single curved with articulation ? Marketing: Could we could we not get rid of the curvy the curvous the curvaceousness and focus on the menu being the best interface ? Because like we do we have re restrictions on software ? Industrial Designer: That is what we need for the joystick I think though Marketing: Oh but there has to be User Interface: and I mean the I mean if you look if you look closer at the at the prototype here the lines here along the grip are actually quite straight I mean Project Manager: But the curves all o over hand User Interface: on the on the LCD I mean although we have done it with a curve it could just as easily be done without curves The curve that is really needed is up here to put to keep the joystick in a good ergonomic position for it to have it rest on the top of the hand Project Manager: We would not actually save a lot by reducing it anyway so I mean for the purposes of this meeting maybe we can state that single curve still allows articulation unless we hear otherwise we could go ahead with that proposal Marketing: So I think the product is not going to perform so well for my criteria Project Manager: Which is what we can get onto now As long as so are we going to say w we have to keep an eye on the time as well but we are going to say single curved design Marketing: Oh wait a minute Sample speaker ? What is a sample speaker ? Is that somewhat similar to what we want ? Project Manager: but at a cost of User Interface: that is that voice response thing that we got the email about But I thought it was just completely pointless Marketing: You got a email about voice response ? User Interface: B i basically it was saying that our labs had come up with a chip that you could you know say hello to and it would say hello back in a friendly female voice Project Manager: we will definitely will not go with that one Marketing: We will not go with that one did you say ? Project Manager: that is voice recognition so Marketing: So it looks like we are going to get rid of the whole loca locator thing Project Manager: It looks like it unless we can manage to put it in under point two Euros Maybe even slight well oh pretty much point two Euros I would say So we will leave that one for now we will just have Industrial Designer: Are we going for a special colour at all ? Project Manager: It is a case of I am slightly unsure One point five of a Euro for one push button does not sound quite right So maybe it is a case of a push button is maybe one or more Industrial Designer: I was for a case Or had you already incorporated that ? Marketing: Oh special colour for the case Project Manager: Well you got point five there It is literally a case of whether or not this is correct I am not quite sure if they are I do not think they mean point five Euros per button User Interface: l let us say that and then we can have our special coloured case and then we at least have make it a little harder to lose Because most m most remotes are a fairly dingy colour that gets camouflaged under any pile of crap in a living room Marketing: W what is the default colour ? White or black ? Project Manager: Blacks probably the normal colour you would say I quite like that colour that you are fetching there it is definitely for make it glow in the dark even better So will we go with that then ? It is not and we can see we will come back to your evaluation which you are probably now going to pan us but there we go Just to give you an idea you want to go maybe a bit quickly as well I am not sure how much time We have not hit the five minute mark warning yet Industrial Designer: Think it is ten minutes left

The use of the LCD screen and the advanced chip cost the team half of the expenditure. Due to the budget limit, the team had to abandon some other designs such as the rubber material and the double-curved structure. The USB connection was not feasible for now as well. For the location function, a transmitter, a receiver and speakers could be incorporated on a TV instead.

User Interface: Mmhmm I mean one thing I mean ho how much extra would it be to to keep I mean keep the the articulation ? Project Manager: It is hard to tell I would say that you are at least going to take double curved User Interface: This is what I am wondering Project Manager: and even then I am not quite sure if that is incorporating the idea of articulation User Interface: no I think I I it d that it need not require it to be double curved Industrial Designer: It can be s it can still be single curved User Interface: It is it is just it is just it is just that the case would come in t would be made in two parts and then joined together with an articulation Project Manager: Single curved with articulation ? Marketing: Could we could we not get rid of the curvy the curvous the curvaceousness and focus on the menu being the best interface ? Because like we do we have re restrictions on software ? Industrial Designer: That is what we need for the joystick I think though Marketing: Oh but there has to be User Interface: and I mean the I mean if you look if you look closer at the at the prototype here the lines here along the grip are actually quite straight I mean Project Manager: But the curves all o over hand User Interface: on the on the LCD I mean although we have done it with a curve it could just as easily be done without curves The curve that is really needed is up here to put to keep the joystick in a good ergonomic position for it to have it rest on the top of the hand Project Manager: We would not actually save a lot by reducing it anyway so I mean for the purposes of this meeting maybe we can state that single curve still allows articulation unless we hear otherwise we could go ahead with that proposal

In the budget balancing, User Interface desired an articulation, which would, however, lead the remote control to be double-curved. Initially, Project Manager was not sure about this, for the double-curved design would go over the budget. Industrial Designer pointed out that a single curve would still allow the articulation. The remote control could be made in two parts and joined together with the articulation. Project Manager accepted Industrial Designer's proposal.

Marketing: Oh wait a minute Sample speaker ? What is a sample speaker ? Is that somewhat similar to what we want ? Project Manager: but at a cost of User Interface: that is that voice response thing that we got the email about But I thought it was just completely pointless Marketing: You got a email about voice response ? User Interface: B i basically it was saying that our labs had come up with a chip that you could you know say hello to and it would say hello back in a friendly female voice Project Manager: we will definitely will not go with that one Marketing: We will not go with that one did you say ? Project Manager: that is voice recognition so Marketing: So it looks like we are going to get rid of the whole loca locator thing Project Manager: It looks like it unless we can manage to put it in under point two Euros Maybe even slight well oh pretty much point two Euros I would say So we will leave that one for now we will just have Industrial Designer: Are we going for a special colour at all ? Project Manager: It is a case of I am slightly unsure One point five of a Euro for one push button does not sound quite right So maybe it is a case of a push button is maybe one or more Industrial Designer: I was for a case Or had you already incorporated that ? Marketing: Oh special colour for the case Project Manager: Well you got point five there It is literally a case of whether or not this is correct I am not quite sure if they are I do not think they mean point five Euros per button User Interface: l let us say that and then we can have our special coloured case and then we at least have make it a little harder to lose Because most m most remotes are a fairly dingy colour that gets camouflaged under any pile of crap in a living room Marketing: W what is the default colour ? White or black ? Project Manager: Blacks probably the normal colour you would say I quite like that colour that you are fetching there it is definitely for make it glow in the dark even better

User Interface told the team that the corporate had decided to incorporate a voice recognition chip into the remote control so that the team had to invent another method for users to locate the remote control once it got lost in a room. The team decided to make the remote control a special colour. Meanwhile, the remote control would be able to camouflage in the living room. Project Manager further proposed that the team could also make the remote control glow in the dark.

Marketing: Kay Ability to stop remotes from being lost or to find them once they are lost User Interface: Three I think we can do three Marketing: Three if we are being generous I feel User Interface: Th the special colour does not would I think make a difference Marketing: Think we are being generous here with three User Interface: It makes it stand out from you know it is lost in a big pile of crap it stands out from the rest of the crap Marketing: Reduce the number of unused buttons We are down to t two buttons is it ? User Interface: Two buttons and a joystick Marketing: so that is a one You know Project Manager: I would say we are doing well there Marketing: that was good Easy to use interface buttons menu menus that is that is good Kay that is we are not doing so badly easy to use oh let us forget that one Fancy looking User Interface: It does not get much fancier Marketing: Sure And we could do whatever we like with the L LCD let us just assume it is a good LCD display Maybe I was panicking for no reason Industrial Designer: Are we going one on ? I would say we go two because like f the fanciest would be the double curved Marketing: w maybe you would be a bit too Industrial Designer: With the articulators With bells on it Marketing: that is m that is that is better too More accurate numbers Technologically innovative Well we are getting rid of the locator thing User Interface: Mm I would give it a three for this for that I mean the menus thing is something you do not normally see on on a remote but you see it in a lot of other places Marketing: And y what you are doing is moving the menu from the television to the remote control so it is You say three ? I might go as far as two on that Three User Interface: I would give it a three Project Manager: I would be tempted with three We will get panned on the next one anyway Marketing: Materials that people find pleasing Sponginess is what they really would have wanted apparently Project Manager: It is Do not blame them because of the way that we have minimalised the number of buttons and such Plastic it sucks But it is no worse than any of the other pl remote controls we have Marketing: That is true It is not a step backwards User Interface: Mmhmm I would s I I would give it a six to be honest Marketing: let us give it a six that is totally thrown everything off balance Inspired by the latest interior and clothing fashion W we could What colour were we going to make it ? Industrial Designer: Put a leopard print on it User Interface: Well I I I would sa I would say give a s give a selection of colours we went with yellow we went with yellow for the prototype because we had yellow If I were buying one I would go for purple Leopard print would be cool Marketing: But by this I think it is more a case of fruit and veg Industrial Designer: we got to I would say the colour of the border there world you would find that that is that would stand out Project Manager: Like yellow It would also help keep the the product placement s Is it inspired by clothing fashion ? Marketing: But Th th they are referring to the fruit and veg thing Is this like a banana type colour ? Could we stretch no still it is not shaped like a banana is User Interface: That is kind of i Project Manager: It is kind o it User Interface: it will not be when it is been Marketing: Oh is that because it is flat ? What is what fruit or veg is flat ? User Interface: I I think s I I think this is not not particularly fruit and veggie Marketing: Or we might have to suffer badly for this one as well Project Manager: I mean it is probably more fruit and veg than most other things out there bar fruit and veg so what four ? Marketing: Four ? Oh that is it is very ambitious Project Manager: Is that being too generous ? User Interface: Mm I would I would I do not think fruit and veg is the sole criterion Is the sole criterion for being fashion fashionable or inspired by current fashions I would g I would rate I would rate this fairly highly from that point of view actually Industrial Designer: Well this this what we are going to t this is their motto like And we are we are not doing well on it Marketing: This is their strategy I m imagine we actually had some money invested in this and the amount that we invest is going to be proportional to the marks Might we might want to be a bit more skepible sceptical about this one Project Manager: What would you think yourself ? Marketing: I would say I mean it is it is not at all right ? In any way or shape or form Project Manager: Well it is kind of curved and we can make it yellow and that is pretty much banana like Marketing: the the yellow banana like thing is I think is Project Manager: Si it is got a curve to it Marketing: Right five Is that sound reasonable ? Project Manager: Am I do you think I am stretching the the use of the banana ? Industrial Designer: I will go with five Marketing: Five Kay so we have one two three four five six seven So five seven ten sixteen twenty one Which gives us an average of three It is well this would be in the middle So we it is it is not bad It is in the good section Project Manager: It is not bad and considering the do not pick the pen Marketing: Oops Sorry I am I am sorry Project Manager: Y oh and you have knocked batteries out Industrial Designer: S bad design that thing Project Manager: considering the price we had to get this in to have a positive you know even based on the four of us being heavily biased it was going to be quite hard to get anything standing out I would say possibly based on the the cost features Marketing: Even if we were to increase this entire thing by by seven we were to go down a grade to to four we would have to do I mean we did not we were not that kind of optimistic too optim overly optimistic You know like we did not we did not add we did not subtract a whole seven points from these things so I think we are definitely on the good bit Even if we gave this one seven and this one seven that is still only three extra points over seven You know it is User Interface: Mm Personally I think given that the product only replaces a single remote control Marketing: we did it w it was It was good User Interface: that you have already got are people really going to she will out twenty five Euros for something that is only marginally good ? Industrial Designer: Well it depends who your who is what the target people are like you would say maybe the fashion conscious Project Manager: Maybe it is been targeted Industrial Designer: women would be going oh look at that s cool it looks like a it is yellow looks like a banana it is cool it is got to look good in the sitting room Project Manager: Hide it in the fruit basket Industrial Designer: Rather than the LCD whereas more technical like like more people in with the latest technology it is good it is got an LCD screen s only got two buttons and a joystick So which which kind of people would be more likely to buy it ? Project Manager: Probably the people technologically They are usually the ones that buy pointless stuff Marketing: I mean my mum still has not learnt how to use text messaging on her phone and she is had it for a long time you know She uses it to make phone calls and that is it So I think if sh if my mum saw a remote control like this with only two buttons and a joystick I mean that will probably be the first one she decides not to buy you know She would be like is this a remote control I do not how do you use it and stuff like that So even if it is really user friendly to us but we are used to using menus all the time User Interface: Mmhmm I s I suppose one thing is that b because it is technically innovative for someone who is sort of technophobic the fact that it simply looks unfamiliar would be daunting Marketing: I think it is totally radical to have a remote control with no no numbered buttons But like radical good maybe

In the product evaluation, the team was satisfied with its success in reducing the number of unused buttons. The user interface was considered to be user-friendly enough. However, the team also admitted that there was still room for improvement on the location function, technological innovation, the material, as well as the fashion style of the remote control.

Marketing: Materials that people find pleasing Sponginess is what they really would have wanted apparently Project Manager: It is Do not blame them because of the way that we have minimalised the number of buttons and such Plastic it sucks But it is no worse than any of the other pl remote controls we have Marketing: That is true It is not a step backwards User Interface: Mmhmm I would s I I would give it a six to be honest Marketing: let us give it a six

The team had decided to replace the rubber with plastic due to the budget limit. When evaluating the material of the remote control, Marketing admitted that sponginess was what most users desired, which was the feel given by rubber. Project Manager agreed. However, Project Manager pointed out that a plastic remote control was no worse than other remote controls in the market, so it would not be a step-back at least.

Project Manager: Is it inspired by clothing fashion ? Marketing: But Th th they are referring to the fruit and veg thing Is this like a banana type colour ? Could we stretch no still it is not shaped like a banana is User Interface: That is kind of i Project Manager: It is kind o it User Interface: it will not be when it is been Marketing: Oh is that because it is flat ? What is what fruit or veg is flat ? User Interface: I I think s I I think this is not not particularly fruit and veggie Marketing: Or we might have to suffer badly for this one as well Project Manager: I mean it is probably more fruit and veg than most other things out there bar fruit and veg so what four ? Marketing: Four ? Oh that is it is very ambitious Project Manager: Is that being too generous ? User Interface: Mm I would I would I do not think fruit and veg is the sole criterion Is the sole criterion for being fashion fashionable or inspired by current fashions I would g I would rate I would rate this fairly highly from that point of view actually Industrial Designer: Well this this what we are going to t this is their motto like And we are we are not doing well on it

Marketing concluded from the market research that users expected the remote control to combine fruit and vegetable elements with its fashion design. User Interface disagreed with Marketing, for it was believed by User Interface that fruit and vegetable style was not the sole criterion for satisfactory fashion design of the remote control. Instead, User Interface implicated that all designs inspired by current fashions were likely to win the users over.

Kirsty Williams AM: Diolch yn fawr Siân As I have said it is a bit difficult to place myself in the mind of the previous Minister when this legislation was first envisaged and then taken through You will be aware that there were four main reasons for the introduction of the Bill : around regulation of institutions in Wales safeguarding the contribution made to public good arising from Welsh Governments financial support for the sector maintaining a focus on fair access and preserving and protecting the principle of institutional autonomy I think the evidence that has been received by the committee to date shows that there are different views about the effectiveness of whether all four strategic aims have been achieved I think those strategic aims are still really really important and certainly will underpin our thought process going forward but we have to recognise the higher education and research Bill across the border in England the implementation of new student support measures in Wales as well as the report that was done by Ellen Hazelkorn I think means it is appropriate that we move forward with different proposals not just regulation of the HE sector but the postcompulsory sector as a whole We will look to see what we can do to strengthen or whether there is more that we need to do to achieve those four objectives because I think those four objectives are still very very relevant But we have to have legislation now that is fit for the circumstances we currently find ourselves in and hopefully futureproofs us for how we want to see the sector develop in the future

Although highly challenged by the participants, Kirsty Williams AM argued that the Act had fulfilled the Government's objectives in regulating institutions, safeguarding contribution, managing fair access and protecting the principle of institutional autonomy. These strategic aims were still really important but in the new situation, it was required to recognise the higher education and research Bill across the border in England. In this case, to continue fulfilling its national outcomes, the Act should evolve by implementing new student support measures.

Sian Gwenllian AM: Do you feel perhaps that the legislation itself has not been strong enough and that you then have had to drive some of these objectives through the annual remit letter rather than through legislation and that is why the strengthening is required ? Kirsty Williams AM: Certainly I see the remit letter as a really really important way in which national priorities and the priorities of an elected Government can be clearly stated communicated to the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales and then HEFCW use their powers to ensure that that happens So certainly I see the remit letter as being a very important mechanism for ensuring as I said that those national priorities are clearly articulated and then change happens Sian Gwenllian AM: Has the current legislation been framed around institutional autonomy so that it is not possible for institutions to fulfil any national outcomes and is that going to be an element of the new Bill ? Kirsty Williams AM: Well certainly the 2015 Act contains numerous provisions that protect universities privileges and autonomy And that is really important and those are principles that I am committed to in any legislation that I bring forward We will certainly be looking to see how we can carry those protections into the forthcoming Bill but at the same time we do have to ensure appropriate regulation and accountability of institutions for their public funding and the privileges that they enjoy And I think there are a number of ways in which that can happen We have a very positive working relationship with the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales and I am very fortunate to have a very positive working relationship with the sector The remit letters are a really important way in which we can lay out those national priorities I do not think there is anything in the legislation per se that prevents those national priorities being articulated and being acted upon Sian Gwenllian AM: I do not think that is what HEFCW has said in their evidence They have said that the Bill has been framed in a way where it is not possible for institutions to fulfil any requirements You are talking about the remit letter maybe you need to have that discussion there but in terms of the Bill itself you can not make them fulfil any national outcomes Should not there be a discussion looking to move in a direction where there are national outcomes being set through legislation because there is public money going into that ? Kirsty Williams AM: Well I do not know whether we need national outcomes through legislation because those national priorities potentially will change over time What is really important and what we will be seeking to do in the new legislation is look to move to a system of outcome agreements So there is a very clear expectation that the commission will have in regulating the sector and coordinating and funding the sector to create a system of outcome agreements where those outputs will reflect national priorities and that is one of the things that we have consulted on and will look to take forward in the new legislation Sian Gwenllian AM: That is clear enough What about private providers ? The Act or the Act as it stands makes it a requirement for a regulated institution to be a charity and that means it is not possible to regulate alternative private providers under the Act even though they can provide higher education in Wales What is your view on this and will the new legislation continue with the requirement of being a charity ? Kirsty Williams AM: So I think first of all it is important to make the distinction between the scale of private providers and what could be termed as unregulated providers in the Welsh system as opposed to the English system And I think that is a really important distinction to make So currently under the current legislation unregulated providers can only access Welsh Government student support if they are designated on a casebycase basis So we do have a circumstance where—and a process in place to manage this So we have a specific designation policy which is operated on our behalf by HEFCW Only six organisations were designated on a casebycase basis in the 201819 academic year so the scale here is small Three of those were further education colleges So when we talk about a private provider perhaps people would have a view of a private university but actually three of those were FE colleges which we would all be familiar with And the three private providers were the Centre for Alternative Technology the training arm of the Church in Wales and the Newport and District Group Training Association All three of those are actual charities So in order for their courses to be specifically designated the three crucial questions that those providers have to answer are : quality—is what they are providing to students of a good quality the financial viability of the institution again to try to protect the interests of the students who may find themselves embarking on a course in an institution that is not viable as well as their contribution to private—sorry not to private good—public good And we are considering how that part of the sector will be regulated in the forthcoming legislation But Huw I do not know if there is anything else to add ? Huw Morris: Well just to say that there are a very small number of private providers as the Minister has outlined and in comparison with England where I think the last figures said that there were between 300 and 400 private providers in England you get a sense of the differences that exist there And if you look at what happened over recent years it has been those small private providers across the UK who have been most financially challenged and a number of them have stopped their operations with consequences for the students So we have been keen to put students at the front of things to make sure that the institutions that they are enrolling with are strong and have good quality

The Act was considered that the legislation itself was not strong enough by Sian Gwenllian AM and Kirsty Williams AM agreed that remit letters were a really important way in which national priorities could be preserved. Moreover, it was stressed that it was important to make the distinction between the scale of private providers, and what could be termed as 'unregulated providers' in the Welsh system. In this case, they should be designated on a case-by-case basis and always be able to protect the interests of the students. Besides, Kirsty Williams AM pointed out that the government had not identified an urgent reason to designate different types of courses as qualifying courses for the purposes of a fee limit, but in fact, the regulation for each type of them did differ from each other.

Kirsty Williams AM: Of course the Act was introduced as a direct result of the changing scenario around finance and the different ways in which because of the reduction in HEFCWs budget the level of influence that HEFCW would be able to exert over institutions through the imposition of terms and conditions of funding— So the Act was introduced in part to address that shift in influence and the Act also has provided HEFCW with a range of new powers of intervention and sanctions in the case of noncompliance by institutions Personally I wholeheartedly believe that tertiary education providers should contribute to national goals and outcomes as part of what I would describe as a civic mission I am determined that any legislation that I bring forward and any commission that I establish will be empowered to enable that to happen through its regulatory and funding powers Of course the funding situation has shifted again now because of the introduction of what is commonly known as the Diamond reforms but our new system of student finance does again shift the parameters of influence that HEFCW or any new tertiary commission could have But as I said earlier it is not to say that institutions have had a free reign We have been able to use the remit letter and our relationship with HEFCW to progress agendas that we would want to see So for instance you will be aware in my remit letter I am concerned about issues around how people working in the sector are paid We have been able to successfully see all institutions sign up to becoming living wage employers all institutions sign up to the Welsh Governments code of ethical procurement So it is not to say that the Act has meant that we have had no influence but there are opportunities now because of the change in financial circumstances once again to look at that in any forthcoming legislation

To answer this question, Kirsty Williams AM first introduced the achievements that the new system of student finance did again shift the parameters of influence that HEFCW or any new tertiary commission could have in the different situations, as a direct result of the changing scenario. Moreover, it was a great success to see all institutions sign up to becoming living wage employers, all institutions sign up to the Welsh Government's code of ethical procurement.

Kirsty Williams AM: Well it is not something I wish I could do I think that we are doing it Selfpraise is no recommendation but because of the working relationship that we have I think we are seeing some success in using the remit letter to influence national outcomes So I have just talked about living wage we are also using our remit letter to drive transparency over senior leaders pay the gender pay within institutions For instance as part of this Governments commitment to improving mental health we have been able to use the remit letter and some funding to be able to drive change and some improvements in mental health in the higher education sector These are national priorities and we are acting upon them and we are using the multiple levers we have at the moment to engage in universities And I have to say universities have risen to that challenge and I am very grateful to them for doing that

Currently, the government planned to use the remit letter to drive transparency over senior leaders' pay, the gender pay gap within institutions. For instance, it had been a success to use the remit letter and some funding to drive change and some improvements in mental health in the higher education sector. To conclude, Kirsty Williams AM suggested that the new PCET reforms were aimed to create a legislative regime and a regulation regime that encouraged collaboration and co-operation across the sector.

Dawn Bowden AM: I think they were saying it was difficult to use for swift interventions—they found it a bit cumbersome They explained to us that they often take informal measures or actions in their role as regulator and they have explained that the small size of the sector enables good relationships to be developed How can such measures work in the tertiary education body when there clearly will be many more than the 10 providers ? Kirsty Williams AM: Well looking ahead to the new Bill I would want to see and be very keen to ensure that there are sufficiently flexible—did you use the word soft—and soft regulatory powers that the commission could exercise Those powers for instance could include the ability to offer advice and guidance rather than maybe punitive interventions and powers to undertake enhanced monitoring of institutions to ensure compliance with regulatory conditions So I would expect the commission to be able to have a series of abilities to intervene from the soft flexible type which is nonpunitive but actually allows people to go in and support institutions through to something that would be as I said more punitive if they felt that an institution was in danger of not providing quality or financial failure Hefin David AM: Can I just come in there on the point that was made ? The issue that seemed to me to come from HEFCW and from the universities is that the dial seems to have only three steps So rather than having a graduated series of actions that they can take it seems to step from—what did he call it—a meeting without coffee to— Kirsty Williams AM: That is a very HEFCW thing to say Hefin David AM: —potentially institutions going bankrupt and there do not seem to be many steps in between that I would invite you to say whether you would like to remedy that in future Kirsty Williams AM: I think as I said at the beginning of the session this is why this postlegislative scrutiny is useful because we can reflect on that feedback As I said I would expect to be able to ensure that the commission had a range of powers that could address—from that soft power and those early conversations to being able to as I said issue perhaps advice and guidance to an institution so there would be a more graduated escalation Huw is there anything else that I have missed out ? Huw Morris: Just to build on what the Minister has said there is a range of ways in which we interact with all institutions that are going to be in the tertiary sector and some of that is about providing information So HEFCW provides information—it sends around circulars it produces reports and it holds events There is staff management and leadership development activity which can create a culture amongst the leaders of institutions but also amongst their governing bodies to help them move in a particular direction We would hope that is in the direction of the civic university approach that the Minister has outlined We use those mechanisms and informal interactions with FE college principals with the workbased learning provider network with sixth forms and others and we would want to see I hope in the tertiary sector some alignment of those things When things go badly wrong there are a range of mechanisms I think what stands behind HEFCWs comments is that before we had a loanbased system of student finance there was a system of block grant allocations and conditions could be attached to those grant allocations by HEFCW I do not think we are going to be going back to that system in the foreseeable future because of the pressures on public finances—

Dawn Bowden AM challenged that informal measures or actions had been taken in their role as regulator, and Kirsty Williams AM explained that the commission was expected to be able to have a series of abilities to intervene, from the soft, flexible type, which was non-punitive but actually allowed people to participate in it. Meanwhile, Huw Morris suggested that specific mechanisms and informal interactions with FE college principals, with the work-based learning provider network, etc had been used to hopefully achieve some alignment in the tertiary sector. Also, as a loan-based system of student finance, a system of block grant allocations and conditions could be attached to those grant allocations by HEFCW when things went wrong.

Huw Morris: In the Hazelkorn review there is quite a lot of focus on that and looking to learn from other national systems where outcome agreements provide a broader measure of the range of things the institutions do and a mechanism for tracking how things are done through the provision of information back to the institution to help them know how they are doing And potentially in some of these other institutions funding is linked to some of those things Kirsty Williams AM: And of course what always has to be— What we have to strike the balance of as well is at what point those powers seem to be—and the ability to direct—interfering with the principle of autonomy within an institution So there is that balance to be struck is not there about creating a regulatory regime which I am very keen and the Act attempted to do which was to enshrine institutional autonomy and that is really really important but also a regulatory regime the ability to influence and to develop and to deliver national outcomes and the power to intervene in that sector which you know better than probably anybody else in this room guards that institutional autonomy very very very dear indeed And that is the balance that we need to try and strike as we go forward with the new commission proposals Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you Chair I think in terms of the levels of measures—and I understand what you are saying—but I think what HEFCW were saying was that they try as far as possible to use informal measures and they are able to do that because of the size of the sector—just 10 institutions to work with The post16 sector however many we are talking—50 plus providers—it is probably going to be less likely that they would be able to have that sort of relationship with the leaders in those institutions So the informal measures might not be as prevalent as they are currently possibly Kirsty Williams AM: Yes but also what is incumbent upon me as the Minister is to ensure that the commission is set up in a way where it can have that relationship with the sector because what is really important to remember is that HEFCW will be replaced We are not asking HEFCW suddenly to go from regulating a small number of institutions to suddenly regulating 50 We will be creating a commission that will be structured in such a way that it can have those relationships Because of course whilst HEFCW will face changes our relationship with and how we manage the FE sector and the apprenticeship sector will also shift So the point is that we need to create a commission that will still be able to be close to the sector close enough to be able to provide that soft regulation those really important relationships in a way— So it has to be created in such a way and resourced in such a way that it allows that to happen and that is my intention Dawn Bowden AM: Well then of course the University of Wales said to us that they felt that there was the potential for HEFCW to issue directions enforceable by injunction to remedy minor matters So I think from what you are saying you would not be expecting that to happen Just the fact that they have got the power does not necessarily mean that that is what they are going to do Kirsty Williams AM: Well I think it is important to recognise when HEFCW can enforce its directions by way of an injunction If they were to do that because a university was breaking fee limits or because there were real questions about the quality of the provision or whether a university was not complying with the financial management code—personally I would not describe those as minor matters as a Minister if we had an institution that was significantly falling down on quality and HEFCW were using these powers to intervene I would not describe that as a minor matter Dawn Bowden AM: No That is fair enough And actually on that point we have had some recent highprofile issues in Swansea and Trinity St David and HEFCW still have not yet used their powers of intervention Do you find that surprising ? Kirsty Williams AM: I think what they have done in these circumstances is perhaps used their ability to support those institutions through what undoubtedly have been challenging times Given the fact that there are ongoing legal processes attached to Swansea University I think it would not be appropriate for me to comment any further because there are still matters in train with regard to that institution But clearly our expectation on HEFCW is to ensure that they are using their powers to support those universities and I would expect them if they felt necessary to use the full remit of their powers if they felt that that was what they needed to do Now I have to trust their professional judgment that that has not been necessary to date but our expectation is that they would do that if they felt it was necessary

Huw Morris started by introducing the focus on learning from other nations to track the information flows and help the universities in return. Meanwhile, Kirsty Williams AM suggested a balance to be achieved by each part of the participants. However, Dawn Bowden AM questioned about HEFCW's use of informal measures which might not be as prevalent as they currently are. Kirsty Williams AM answered that it should be remembered that HEFCW would surely be replaced, and a more flexible way would be adopted to control the financial codes of universities to assure the quality of the provision.

Kirsty Williams AM: Well no not in the sense that they have brought them to me to talk about specifically From my perspective fee and access plans are focused very much on inputs and really I would like to think about outputs and outcomes more importantly—what are the outcomes of the fee and access plan not necessarily just how much money has been spent on them I think certainly to really understand the success of the fee and access plan you have to question whether an annual basis is an appropriate timescale for a university to be working to and whether we could have something that was focused over a longer period of time Because when you think about it you write the plan and then you are into it and then the next thing you know you are writing your next years plan So I think there is an opportunity there to look to restructure So do I see a place for fee and access plans going forward as part of our outcome agreements ? Yes I do Can we do them differently to make them more effective ? Yes I think we can Hefin David AM: So why would introducing outcome agreements make them work any better ? Kirsty Williams AM: Well I think they are going to be a part of an outcome agreement—part of that wider expectation So fee and access plans are there to address an issue around primarily changing the nature of people who go to university and making sure that nobody is put off from pursuing that So that is part of a wider piece of work that I would want to see as an outcome agreement But as I said I think looking at outcomes for students and outcomes of that activity rather than the inputs of the activity over a longer period of time is probably a more effective way of doing it I think it is still— In a way it is difficult to make a final judgment on whether fee and access plans in their current format have worked because we need to know what will happen to those students in the future But undoubtedly despite the limitations of them I do think we are making progress in terms of access but I do not think we can necessarily point to the fee and access plans as being the driver for some of those improvements Hefin David AM: No I appreciate that and some of the things you are saying reflect some of the discussions we have had but what was clear is that the process and bureaucratic nature of the way you present fee and access plans does not work particularly given the fact that four years on early fee and access plans are still being evaluated There is a real problem there So what you are saying—can I just pin down what you are saying—is that we may be moving away from yearly fee and access plans to something that is longer term and outcome focused Kirsty Williams AM: That is my preference So I think the principle—I would like to think we can all agree around the principle of what a fee and access plan is hoping to achieve but I think there are better ways of doing it and I think we should take the opportunity of reform to look at how we can do it better Hefin David AM: So with that in mind I think we are talking about the future of the Bill the consultation on the PCET reforms closed in summer 2018—with these important issues in mind and things that are currently ongoing have you had further dialogue since then with key stakeholders like for example Universities Wales and others ? Kirsty Williams AM: On the Bill or on fee and access plans in particular ? Hefin David AM: I am thinking about fee and access plans as an issue that suggests that there is a need for deep consultation so with that in mind with things like that have you had further discussion ? Kirsty Williams AM: Oh my goodness me civil servants in the department are constantly in discussion with a range of stakeholders as we continue to develop legislative proposals I meet on a regular basis with both HEFCW—I meet separately with the vicechancellors and I have been very keen to develop a stronger working relationship with chairs and perhaps we will come on to issues of governance later So we are constantly discussing with stakeholders all options for change— Hefin David AM: I suppose the message I am getting as chair of the crossparty group on higher education is that there could still be more direct consultation with stakeholders That is the message I have received Now I have got no evidence to say it has or has not happened but that is the message I have received Huw Morris: If I could just chip in for a moment the Ministers outlined that there is very extensive ongoing communication both ways with the sector but the challenge of preparing a Bill is the balancing act between gathering in information—and there is been a general consultation process and a technical consultation process—and wanting to make sure that the Bill that is laid next year has not been discussed with anybody else before it comes to be considered by the Senedd So the broad principles have been discussed but specific details of what goes into a Bill or policy instructions that inform a Bill have not been the subject of consultation—

To answer Hefin David AM's question, Kirsty Williams AM first stressed that the success of the fee and access plan relied on the understanding of whether an annual basis was an appropriate timescale for a university to be working to, and whether a long period was suitable for the Act. Sometimes it was hard to make a final judgment since the futures of the students were unpredictable but the fee and access plans could always be one of the drivers for some of the improvements. In the meantime, constant efforts had been put into communications with a range of stakeholders to continue developing legislative proposals to assure the fee.

Hefin David AM: I will move on to managing risk if that is The feedback from Universities Wales suggests that with the outcome of the 2015 Act institutions with the strongest track records are more highly regulated than the riskier private alternative providers Do you think that Act has struck the right balance ? Kirsty Williams AM: I think the Act has created a system where the level of regulation is proportional to the amount and the nature of public moneys received by institutions Hefin David AM: Those were the words used by Universities Wales— Kirsty Williams AM: No no I am not disagreeing My view is : I believe that the Act has struck that proportionality When you look at public moneys going into institutions I think that the Act is proportionate myself Hefin David AM: So do you think it is in the interests of students then to be at private institutions— ? I have seen those private institutions and how they operate I have seen them at firsthand—they do not operate to the same rigour as public institutions and they are less regulated Huw Morris: Can I just chip in ? I think that the category private covers quite a wide range of things and many private institutions are also charities We do not have the presence of some of the large private charities that are present in other countries but Stanford and Harvard would count as private universities So I think we need to be careful in focusing on the inherent quality of things We have made charitable status a key reference point in the operation of things at the moment I think there has been attention drawn to some private providers particularly in England but I would not tar them all with the same brush necessarily Hefin David AM: But they fall outwith—if they are not charitable providers running validated courses for example they fall outwith the strength of regulation that is currently in place on the universities in Wales Kirsty Williams AM: So we would regulate them on a coursebycourse basis so it is back to the issue of proportionality is not it ? So you are automatically regulated for all your courses if you are one of our main universities but there is a process that is run by HEFCW on a coursebycourse basis to validate alternative providers And as Huw said I think we should recognise the nature of that is very very very small in Wales and there is a process to ensure quality provision If there were concerns about the quality of that provision that course could be deregulated Hefin David AM: And I am aware that there are a small number of private institutions in Wales but are you concerned that in the future the landscape may change particularly with the opportunity to recruit more parttime students ? Do you think the landscape may change in future and that the 2015 Act as designed was not equipped for that and will the next Act then be equipped ? Kirsty Williams AM: I think it is right to say that maybe the previous legislation did not futureproof for changes I am not anticipating a mass influx of alternative providers in the sense that we have seen across the border but we will need to ensure that the new commission has powers to regulate and to futureproof

Hefin David AM questioned about the right balance between institutions with the strongest track records that were more highly regulated and those riskier private alternative providers. Kirsty Williams AM argued that more attention should be paid to focus on the inherent quality of those charitable status which was regarded as a key reference point in the operation. Although there were some concerns of some private providers, particularly in England, they should not be treated the same. In this case, the government would regulate them on a course-by-course basis. Moreover, quality provision should be included and alternative providers would be given more attention.

Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you We had some evidence from the University and College Union that were concerned about the governance of universities actually as being a bigger problem than the regulatory framework in many ways Can you tell us perhaps how the HE Act addresses the issue of poor governance or is it really just limited to responding to the symptoms rather than the poor governance itself ? Kirsty Williams AM: Well I think it is true and fair to say that the Bill does not directly address issues around governance in the sector HEFCW do have wellestablished assurance practices in relation to governance that would predate the 2015 legislation But governance—we have talked briefly about some recent history within the sector that I think has certainly brought the issue of governance to the fore once again and I think there are two important things that we are trying to do about that in the current time prior to any legislative changes The first is as I just said to Hefin I have sought to have a more direct relationship with chairs of universities and have that onetoone relationship with them not in the presence of their vicechancellors I challenge them they challenge me and I think we have deliberately tried to establish a regular routine of that since I took office And you will be aware that collaboratively—and I am glad that this has been done in this way because I think if you do it this way we are more likely to get some success and change—Universities Wales and HEFCW have worked together to undertake an independent review of governance And I think it is really important that parties have come together to recognise the issues and to agree to take action because I think if we would have tried to impose something we would have more resistance So there is an independent review going on at the moment— Dawn Bowden AM: Is that the risk review process in— ? Kirsty Williams AM: That is the Gillian Camm review This is a review that as I said Universities Wales and HEFCW have agreed to do together It is chaired by Gillian Camm who is the chair of the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education and she is doing an independent review to advise on changes to governance And I welcome that I am very supportive of that and that is happening at the moment As I said I am glad that there is been recognition from within the sector themselves that they need to make sure and they need to give confidence that governance arrangements are what they should be Dawn Bowden AM: So is that something that you are going to be taking into the PCET Bill do you think ? Kirsty Williams AM: Yes absolutely We are exploring how the Bill could introduce a regulatory condition in respect of good governance and a commission would be able to set expectations with regard to good governance I think one of the concerns for me—and I know that this is a concern that is shared by the UCU—is the diversity of governance and who finds themselves in these really important positions HEFCW do not hold figures on it but from an approximation that I have asked officials to do for me currently in the universities that we have I would say that men make up around 56 per cent of membership of universities governing bodies women—44 per cent BME—as low as 4 per cent Of course in individual institutions it does vary but I think there is some way to go to making sure that our governing bodies are diverse and that there is an opportunity to look at the student voice in governance going forward the staff voice in governance going forward and these are things that we hope to have discussions on whilst we bring the legislation forward Dawn Bowden AM: But also I guess—sorry Chair—a greater understanding that anybody going in to become a governor of one of these institutions has a greater understanding of what is expected of them Do you think that that is a that needs to be plugged ? Huw Morris: One of the things that HEFCW have led on with AdvanceHE the body that encompasses the leadership foundation is a development programme for governing bodies and that started earlier—well it is been going on for some time but it was recommenced earlier this year with a session for all of the chairs of universities in Wales And I believe—I will need to check this—that there are plans to engage with each of the governing bodies because as you rightly say and this lies behind a lot of what we have been discussing the activities of these institutions have become much more complex over recent years and so there is a need for that training and development and understanding also of the fastchanging nature of that activity

Kirsty Williams AM first admitted that it was true that the Bill did not directly address issues around governance in the sector. However, establishing a more direct relationship with chairs of universities, especially one-to-one relationships with them, had been attached much importance and it was crucial to help the government understand each aspect of issues in universities. Moreover, ways to make sure that the governing bodies were diverse and it was able to include both student voice as well as the staff voice in governance going forward would be discussed in the future. Kirsty Williams AM stressed that there were plans to engage with each of the governing bodies since the situation was getting far more complex.

Sian Gwenllian AM: We have heard evidence regarding the difficulties caused by HEFCW having a legal duty to qualityassure all the provision in two further education colleges That sounds to me like some kind of an anomaly or an unintended consequence of the Act Could you clarify that and explain the situation in that instance ?

Sian Gwenllian AM argued that there was evidence regarding the difficulties caused by HEFCW having a legal duty to quality-assure all the provisions in two further education colleges. This process was regarded as an anomaly or an unintended consequence of the Act. Sian Gwenllian AM wanted Kirsty Williams AM to explain the situation in that instance and further methods to assure governing qualities.

Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you My understanding—and as I said it is a bit difficult because I can not put myself into the thought process of the Minister at the time and what his expectation was But certainly my understanding is that it was not an unintended consequence it was an expectation built into the Act that HEFCW and Estyn would work together on these matters The Act built on what were the quality assessment arrangements in the 1992 Act which required HEFCW to secure arrangements for the assessment of the quality of education provided by funding institutions So as a consequence of that approach HEFCWs quality assessment duty currently encompasses all the education provided by or on behalf of a regulated institution So it is complicated and Huw can help me out here if I get it wrong but my understanding is that it was not an unintended consequence that was the expectation of what would happen when the legislation was passed Huw Huw Morris: I would completely agree with what the Minister has said Kirsty Williams AM: As always Laughter At least in public Huw Huw Morris: There is the expectation that they will work together in concert There is a lot of joint operation I think going forward we would expect that to continue We are looking to the new Bill to try to make that clearer That was a theme in the general and technical consultation exercises that we have engaged in over the last couple of years

Kirsty Williams AM first explained that it was a bit difficult to put herself in the position of the former Minister but it was clear that it should not be intended. However, she explained that the Act was built on what were the quality assessment arrangements in the 1992 Act, which required HEFCW to secure arrangements for the assessment of the quality of education provided by funding institutions. So, as a consequence of that approach, HEFCW's quality assessment duty currently encompassesed all the education provided by or on behalf of a regulated institution. Huw Morris also helped to explain that a lot of joint operation was required during the process and the new Bill would try to make that clearer.

Kirsty Williams AM: I am aware and we have listened to stakeholders concerns regarding proposals to introduce a single quality assessment body As I said we recognise that stakeholders are broadly content with the current situation with regard to Estyn and QAA So we have been listening to that following the technical consultation and policy officials are working through options in regard to ensuring what quality assurance will look like in the commission As I said I do not want to preempt bringing forward the legislation but the principles underlying any assurance regime would need to be coherent need to be effective and need to be comprehensive What we are also very clear about and I think it is important to say is that any quality framework covering higher education will be compatible with ENQA which I think is really really important going forward And by an extension of that it would be compatible with current UKwide baseline standards So we do not want to create specific problems for the HE sector in Wales Sian Gwenllian AM: But you have touched on this there is substantial concern in the sector about this offer to move to one assurance body for the tertiary sector One vicechancellor has told us : Kirsty Williams AM: Well sometimes I think it is necessary maybe to cause a stir If we do not change things it does beg the point of Why are any of us here if we are not here to sometimes move things forward ? And change is challenging always but I would like to reassure all of our vicechancellors and our sector as a whole that we are not going to do anything in the quality assurance regime that would risk what is the very high reputation and standards that Welsh universities currently comply with or would set them apart from institutions across the border or in a European context Huw Huw Morris: I agree obviously I think the fear is misplaced but coming back to another theme in the conversation so far about futureproofing what we are seeing in the figures that the Minister outlined to you earlier about the growth in postgraduate and the growth in parttime is the desire of a greater number of people at different ages to engage in higher and tertiary education and quite often that will be in a workplace or it will be in a nonconventional institutional setting Historically the quality assurance regimes for workbased learning have tended to sit with Estyn the assurance regimes for the universities have sat with the QAA There is quite a lot of learning that all sides have got to engage in if we are going to be able to have continued high quality in these new areas that are being explored That is an issue not just in Wales The Augar report which was published earlier this year in England drew attention to this as being a major problem in the relationship over the border between Ofsted and the QAA So I think we are not looking to impose one institution on anybody but we are looking to encourage greater synergy in the ways in which quality assurance and enhancement is undertaken in those different areas of activity

Kirsty Williams AM shared that the government had listened to stakeholders' concerns regarding proposals to introduce a single quality assessment body. And she stressed that the principles underlying any assurance regime would need to be coherent, effective and comprehensive. Besides, the quality framework should cover higher education to make it compatible with ENQA, which was considered as highly important going forward, since it would be compatible with current UK-wide baseline standards to avoid specific problems for the HE sector in Wales. Although it might cause a stir, a change must be made in the new situation. Huw Morris also suggested that greater synergy would be encouraged in the ways in which quality assurance and enhancement was undertaken in different areas of activity.

Professor B: Well but we never also we ve also never done it Postdoc A: This is the first cycle There are bound to be some glitches the first time through Professor B: So And and I m sorry responding without having much knowledge but the thing is I am like one of these people who gets a gazillion mails and and stuff comes in as Grad F: Well and that s exactly why I did it the way I did it which is the default is if you do nothing we are going to release it Because you know I have my pause stack of emails of to d to be done that you know fifty or sixty long and the ones at the top I m never going to get to PhD C: Move them to the bottom Professor B: So so the only thing we are missing is is some way to respond to easily to say `` OK go ahead `` or something Grad F: right So i this is going to mean PhD C: Just re mail them to yourself and then they are at the bottom Grad F: That s actually definitely a good point The m email does not specify that you can just reply to the email as op as opposed to going to the form Postdoc A: And it also does not give a a specific I did not think of it S I think it s a good idea an ex explicit time by which this will be considered definite And and it has to be a time earlier than that endpoint PhD H: This I ve seen this recently I got email and it i if I use a MIME capable mail reader it actually says you know click on this button to confirm receipt pause of the of the mail Grad D: It s like certified mail Grad F: A lot of mailers support return receipt But it does not confirm that they ve read it PhD H: No no no This is different This is not So I I know you can tell you know the mail delivery agent to to confirm that the mail was delivered to your mailbox But but no This was different Ins in the mail there was a th there was a button that when you clicked on it it would send you know a actual acknowledgement to the sender that you had actually looked at the mail Grad F: Oh Unfor we could do that But I hate that PhD H: But it o but it only works for you know MIME capable you know if you use Netscape or something like that for your n PhD E: You might as well just respond to the mail Professor B: And we actually need a third thing It s not that you ve looked at it it s that you ve looked at it and and and agree with one of the possible actions PhD H: No no You can do that You know you can put this button anywhere you want Professor B: Oh ? Oh I see PhD H: and you can put it the bottom of the message and say `` here by you know by clicking on this I I agree you know I acknowledge `` Professor B: That i i my first born children are yours and Grad F: Well I could put a URL in there without any difficulty and pause even pretty simple MIME readers can do that So Postdoc A: But why should not they just pause email back ? I do not see there s a problem It s very nice I I like the high tech aspect of it PhD H: No no no I actually do not I m just saying that Grad F: Well I cuz I use a text mail reader PhD H: if ev but I m PhD E: Do not you use VI for your mai ? Professor B: Wow That s that s my guy Alright Grad F: You you read email pause in VI ? PhD H: So I i There s these logos pause that you can put at the bottom of your web page like `` powered by VI `` Grad F: You could put wed bugs in the email PhD E: Like there were three meetings this time or so or how many ? Six ? But no of different people So I guess if you are in both these types of meetings you would have a lot But How I mean it also depends on how many Like if we release this time it s a fairly small number of meetings but what if we release like twenty five meetings to people ? In th Grad F: Well what my s expectation is is that we will send out one of these emails pause every time a meeting has been checked and is ready PhD E: I do not know Oh Oh OK So this time was just the first chunk OK Grad F: So Tha that was my intention It s just that we just happened to have a bunch all at once PhD E: Well that s a good idea Grad F: I mean maybe Is that pause the way it s going to be you think Jane ?

The team decided to release their data on July 15th, but they still wanted to give people time to bleep things from the transcripts. There was skepticism that they could actually reach out to people and get everyone's consent that they were okay with whatever was being released.

Professor B: It well it well you are right Sometimes somebody will be pause away and you know there s for any length of time that you choose pause there is some person sometime who will not pause end up reading it That s it s you know just a certain risk to take PhD H: S so maybe when Am I on by the way ? Grad F: I do not know You should be PhD H: Oh Hello ? Hello ? Grad F: You should be channel B PhD H: Oh OK Alright So The Maybe we should say in w you know when the whole thing starts when they sign the the agreement that you know specify exactly what you know how how they will be contacted and they can you know they can be asked to give a phone number and an email address or both And then Postdoc A: We did that I I believe PhD H: So A And then you know say very clearly that if they do not if we do not hear from them you know as Morgan suggested by a certain time or after a certain period after we contact them that is implicitly giving their agreement Grad F: Well they ve already signed a form PhD E: And nobody nobody really reads it anyway Grad F: So And the s and the form was approved by Human Subjects PhD H: Well if that s i tha if that s already if Grad F: so eh that s going to be a little hard to modify Postdoc A: Well the form Well the form does not say if you know `` if you do not respond by X number of days or X number of weeks `` PhD H: I see Oh OK So what does it say about the the the process of of y the review process ? Postdoc A: It does not have a time limit That you will be provided access to the transcripts and then allowed to pause remove things that you would like to remove before it goes to the general larger audience Grad F: You can read what you already signed PhD E: I guess when I pause read it I m not as diligent as Chuck but I had the feeling I should probably respond and tell Adam like `` I got this and I will do it by this date and if you do not hear from me by then `` You know in other words responding to your email pause once right away saying `` as soon as you get this could you please respond `` And then if you if the person thinks they will need more time because they are out of town or whatever they can tell you at that point ? Because Grad F: Oh I just I did not want to do that because I do not want to have a discussion with every person pause if I can avoid it So what I wanted to do was just send it out and say `` on the fifteenth the data is released if you want to do something about it do something about it but that s it `` Postdoc A: I I kind of like this PhD E: OK So we are assuming that PhD H: Well that s that would be great if but you should probably have a pause legal person look at this and pause make sure it s OK Because if you if you do this and you then there s a dispute later and some you know someone who understands these matters concludes that they did not have you know enough opportunity to actually exercise their their right PhD E: Or they they might never have gotten the email because although they signed this they do not know by which date to expect your email And so pause someone whose machine is down or whatever I mean we have no in internally we know that people are there Grad F: Well OK l Let me Let me reverse this PhD E: but we have no confirmation that they got the mail Grad F: So let s say someone I send this out and someone does not respond Do we delete every meeting that they were in ? I do not think so PhD E: It we are hoping that does not happen but that s why there s such a thing as registered mail Grad F: That will absolutely happen Because people do not read their email or they will read and say `` I do not care about that I m not going to delete anything `` and they don just will not reply to it PhD H: Maybe do we have mailing addresses for these people ? Grad F: No We have what they put on the speaker form which was just generic contact information Postdoc A: But the ones that we are dealing with now are all local except the ones who I mean we we are totally in contact with all the ones in those two groups So maybe I you know that s not that many people and if I if i i there is an advantage to having them admit and if I can help with with processing that I will It s it s there is an advantage to having them be on record as having received the mail and indicating Grad F: I mean I thought we had discussed this like a year ago And so it seems like this is a little odd for it to be coming up yet again Postdoc A: You are right Well I you know But sometimes Professor B: Well we we have not experienced it before PhD E: You will either wonder pause at the beginning or you will wonder at the end Postdoc A: Need to get it right PhD E: I mean there s no way to get around I It s pretty much the same am amount of work except for an additional email just saying they got the email And maybe it s better legally to wonder before you know a little bit earlier than Postdoc A: It s much easier to explain pause this way Grad F: OK Well why do not you talk pause t Postdoc A: T t to have it on record Grad F: Morgan can you talk to our lawyer about it and find out what the status is on this ? Cuz I do not want to do something that we do not need to Because what I m telling you people will not respond to the email No matter what you do you there are going to be people who pause you are going to have to make a lot of effort to get in contact with Postdoc A: Well then we make the effort Grad D: I mean i it s k Grad F: And do we want to spend that effort ? Grad D: It s kind of like signing up for a mailing list They have opt in and opt out And there are two different ways I mean and either way works probably I mean Postdoc A: Except I really think in this case I I m agr I agree with Liz that we need to be pause in the clear and not have to after the fact say `` oh but I assumed `` and `` oh I m sorry that your email address was just accumulating mail without notifying you `` you know Professor B: If this is a purely administrative task we can actually have administration do it But the thing is that you know I I I think without going through a whole expensive thing with our lawyers from my previous conversations with them my my sense very pause much is that we would want something on record pause as indicating that they actually were aware of this Grad F: Well we had talked about this before and I thought that we had even gone by the lawyers asking about that and they said you have to s they ve already signed away the f with that form that they ve already signed once Postdoc A: I do not remember that this issue of pause the time period allowed for response was ever covered Professor B: We never really talked about that PhD E: Or the date at which they would be receiving the email from you Postdoc A: Or or how they would indicate PhD E: They probably forgot all about it Professor B: We certainly did not talk about with them at all about the manner of them being made the materials available PhD H: We do it like with these Professor B: That was something that was sort of just within our implementation PhD H: We can use it we can use a a ploy like they use to you know that when they serve like comment you know like dead beat dads they they they make it look like they won something in the lottery and then they open the envelope and that Right ? Because and then the the the the thing is served So you just make it you know `` oh you won you know go to this web site and you ve you are `` PhD E: That s why you never open these things that come in the mail Grad F: Well it s just we ve gone from one extreme to the other where at one point a few months ago Morgan was you were saying let s not do anything PhD H: Right Right No it I it might Postdoc A: Well it does not matter PhD H: i i it it might well be the case Grad F: and now we are we are saying we have to follow up each person and get a signature ? I mean what are we going to doing here ? PhD H: It might well be the case that that this is perfectly you know this is enough to give us a basis t to just eh assume their consent if they do not reply But I m not you know me not being a lawyer I would not just want to do that without pause having the the expert opinion on that Postdoc A: And how many people ? Al altogether we ve got twenty people These people are people who read their email almost all the time Grad F: Then I think we had better find out so that we can find a Professor B: Let me look at this again Postdoc A: I I really do not see that it s a problem I I think that it s a common courtesy to ask them to expect for them to be able to have comment us try to contact them you just in case they had not gotten their email I think they would appreciate it Professor B: My Adam my my view before was about pause the nature of what was of the presentation of of how pause my my the things that we are questioning were along the lines of how easy h how m how much implication would there be that it s likely you are going to be changing something as opposed to That was the kind of dispute I was making before But the attorneys I I can guarantee you the attorneys will always come back with and we have to decide how stringent we want to be in these things but they will always come back with saying that you need to you want to have someth some paper trail or which includes electronic trail that they have in fact pause O K would it So I think that if you f i if pause we send the email as you have and if there s half the people say who do not respond pause at all by you know some period of time we can just make a list of these people and hand it to you know just give it to me and I will hand it to administrative staff or whatever and they will just call them up and say you know `` have you Is is this OK ? And would you please mail you know mail Adam that it is if i if it you know is or not `` So you know we can we can do that PhD E: The other thing that there s a psychological effect that at least for most people that if they ve responded to your email saying `` yes I will do it `` or `` yes I got your email `` they are more likely to actually do it comment pause later pause than to just ignore it And of course we do not want them to bleep things out but it it s a little bit better if we are getting the their final response once they ve answered you once than if they never answer you would comment at al at all That s how these mailing houses work So I mean it s not completely lost work because it might benefit us in terms of getting pause responses You know an official OK from somebody pause is better than no answer even if they responded that they got your email And they are probably more likely to do that once they ve responded that they got the email Postdoc A: I also think they would just simply appreciate it I think it s a good a good way of of fostering goodwill among our subjects Well our participants Professor B: I think the main thing is I mean what lawyers do is they always look at worst cases So they s so so Tha that s what they are paid to do And so it is certainly possible that somebody s server would be down or something and they would not actually hear from us and then they find this thing is in there and we ve already distributed it to someone So what it says in there in fact is that they will be given an opportunity to blah blah blah but if in fact if we sent them something or we thought we sent them something but they did not actually receive it for some reason then we have not given them that Grad F: Well so how far do we have to go ? Do we need to get someone s signature ? Or is email enough ? Professor B: I i i them email is enough Grad F: Do we have to have it notarized ? I mean OK Professor B: I mean I ve been through this I mean I m not a lawyer but I ve been through these things a f things f like this a few times with lawyers now so I I I I m pretty comfortable with that PhD C: Do you track when people log in to look at the ? Grad F: If they submit the form I get it If they do not submit the form it goes in the general web log But that s not sufficient Right ? Cuz if someone just visits the web site that does not pause imply anything in particular PhD C: Except that you know they got the mail Postdoc A: I I could get you on the notify list if you want me to Grad F: I m already on it Postdoc A: For that directory ? OK great Professor B: So again hopefully this should not be quite as odious a problem either way in any of the extremes we ve talked about because we are talking a pretty small pause number of people Grad F: W For this set I m not worried because pause we basically know everyone on it You know they are all more or less here or it s it s Eric and Dan and so on But for some of the others you are talking about visitors who are pause gone from ICSI whose email addresses may or may not work and So what are we going to do when we run into someone that we can not get in touch with ? Postdoc A: I do not think They are so recent these visitors I and and I they are also so They are prominent enough that they are easy to find through I I mean I I w I will be able to if you have any trouble finding them I really think I could find them Professor B: Cuz it what it what it really does promise here is that we will ask their permission and I think you know if you go into a room and close the door and and ask their permission and they are not there it does not seem comment that that s the intent of meaning here So Grad F: Well the qu the question is just whether how active it has to be I mean because they they filled out a contact information and that s where I m sending the information And so far everyone has done email There is not anyone who did any other contact method Professor B: Well the way ICSI goes people who were here ten years ago still have acc have forwards to other accounts and so on So it s unusual that that they Grad F: So my original impression was that that was sufficient that if they give us contact information and that contact information is not accurate that pause we fulfilled our burden PhD E: Then they just come back PhD C: All my files were still here Professor B: So if we get to a boundary case like that then maybe I will call the attorney about it But you know hopefully we will not need to Postdoc A: I d I just do not think we will For all the reasons that we ve discussed Professor B: So we will we will see if we do or not Grad F: Yep And we will see how many people respond to that email So far two people have Professor B: I think very few people will and and and you know people people see long emails about things that they do not think is going to be high priority they typically do not do not read it or half read it Postdoc A: I I did not anticipate this so I that s why I did not give this comment and it I this discussion has made me think it might be nice to have a follow up email within the next couple of days saying `` by the way you know we want to hear back from you by X date and please `` and then add what Liz said `` please respond to please indicate you received this mail `` Professor B: or e well maybe even additionally `` Even if you ve decided you have no changes you would like to make if you could tell us that `` Grad F: Respond to the email comment Yep Postdoc A: Mm It is the first time through the cycle PhD E: Right That would that would definitely work on me You know it makes you feel m like if you were going to p if you are predicting that you might not answer you have a chance now to say that Whereas I I mean I would be much more likely myself given all my email t to respond at that point saying `` you know what I m probably not going to get to it `` or whatever rather than just having seen the email thinking I might get to it and never really pushing myself to actually do it until it s too late PhD C: I was I was thinking that it also pause let us them know that they do not have to go to the page to pause accept this PhD E: Right R Right That s true PhD C: I mean I I So that way they could they can see from that email that if they just write back and say `` I got it no changes `` they are off the hook They do not have to go to the web page Professor B: I mean the other thing I ve learned from dealing with dealing with people sending in reviews and so forth is if you say `` you ve got three months to do this review `` people do it you know two and seven eighths months from now If you say `` you ve got three weeks to do this review `` they do do it you know two and seven eighths weeks from now they do the review And So if we make it pause a little less time I do not think it will be that much Grad F: Well and also if we want it ready by the fifteenth that means we better give them deadline of the first if we have any prayer of actually getting everyone to respond in time Professor B: There s the responding part and there s also what if I mean I hope this does not happen what if there are a bunch of deletions that have to get put in and changes ? Then we actually have to deal with that if we want it to Postdoc A: By the way has has Jeremy signed the form ? Grad F: oh my god ! I had not thought about that That for every meeting any meeting which has any bleeps in it we need yet another copy of Grad D: Can not you just do that channel ? PhD C: Oh no We have to do PhD E: You have to do all of them Grad F: You need all the channels PhD C: Do you have to do the other close talking ? PhD E: as well as all of these You have to do all You could just do it in that time period though Grad F: Yes Absolutely There s a lot of cross talk PhD E: but I guess it s a pain Grad F: Well but you have to copy the whole file Right ? Because we are going to be releasing the whole file Postdoc A: Well I you know I think at a certain point that copy that has the deletions will become the master copy Grad F: It s just I hate deleting any data So I I do not want I really would rather make a copy of it rather than bleep it out Professor B: Are you del are you bleeping it by adding ? Grad F: and then Overlapping So it s it s exactly a censor bleep So what I really think is `` bleep `` Professor B: I I I I understand but is is it summing signals Grad F: and then I want to Professor B: or do you pause delete the old one and put the new one in ? Grad F: I delete the old one put the new one in There s nothing left of the original signal Professor B: Oh Cuz if you were summing you could No But anyway Grad F: It would be qui quite easy to get it back again Postdoc A: But And then w I was going to say also that the they do not have to stay on the system as you know PhD E: Then someday we can sell the pause unedited versions Postdoc A: cuz cuz the the ones Once it s been successfully bleeped can not you rely on the ? PhD C: Or pause we will tell people the frequency of the beep and then they could subtract the beep out Postdoc A: Can not you rely on the archiving to preserve the older version ? Grad D: It would not be that hard to hide it Grad F: that s true Yep that s true PhD E: See this is good I wanted to create some pause side conversations in these meetings Professor B: You could encrypt it you know with a with a two hundred bit thousand bit Grad D: You can use spread spectrum PhD E: Cuz we do not have enough asides PhD H: I have an idea You reverse the signal so it it let us people say what they said backwards Grad D: Then you have like subliminal messages Grad F: But ha you ve seen the this the speech recognition system that reversed very short segments Did you read that paper ? It would not work The speech recognizer still works PhD E: And if you do it backward then PhD C: That s cuz they use forward backward Grad F: Forward but backward That s right PhD E: No it s backward forward Grad F: Good point A point Well I m sorry if I sound a little peeved about this whole thing It s just we ve had meeting after meeting after meeting a on this and it seems like we ve never gotten it resolved Professor B: Well but we never also we ve also never done it Postdoc A: This is the first cycle There are bound to be some glitches the first time through Professor B: So And and I m sorry responding without having much knowledge but the thing is I am like one of these people who gets a gazillion mails and and stuff comes in as Grad F: Well and that s exactly why I did it the way I did it which is the default is if you do nothing we are going to release it Because you know I have my pause stack of emails of to d to be done that you know fifty or sixty long and the ones at the top I m never going to get to

The team thought that people would not respond to their emails, which would be compounded by them being out of town over the summer. Based on knowledge about similar data collection, they thought that emails should be enough, but skepticism about getting consent with emails prevailed.

Grad F: So I do not expect anyone to But Professor B: So w what follows ? At some point y you go around and get people to sign something ? Grad F: No We had spoken w about this before and we had decided that they have they only needed to sign once And the agreement that they already signed simply said that we would give them an opportunity So as long as we do that we are covered Professor B: And how long of an opportunity did you tell them ?

Grad F was responsible for bringing up the topic. Apparently, no one had replied to the emails allowing people to bleep things out so far. According to Grad F, as long as the email was sent out, the team was covered. Grad F thought this had been settled when the project started and did not need to be revisited.

Postdoc A: And then I also the final thing I have for transcription is that I made a purchase of some other headphones because of the problem of low gain in the originals And and they very much appro they mu much prefer the new ones and actually I I mean I I think that there will be fewer things to correct because of the the choice We would originally chosen very expensive head headsets but they are just not as good as these in this with this respect to this particular task PhD H: Well return the old ones Grad F: It s probably impedance matching problems Postdoc A: I do not know exactly but we chose them because that s what s been used here by prominent projects in transcription So it i we had every reason to think they would work PhD H: So you have spare headsets ? You have spare headsets ? Grad F: They are just earphones They are not headsets They are not microphones PhD H: No no I mean just earphones ? because I I could use one on my workstation just to t because sometimes I have to listen to audio files and I do not have to b go borrow it from someone and Postdoc A: We have actua actually I have W Well the thing is that if we have four people come to work pause for a day I was I was hanging on to the others for eh for spares but I can tell you what I recommend Professor B: No but you would If you w we should get it Grad F: But if you need it just get it Postdoc A: It would just have to be a s a separate order an added order Grad D: I still I still need to get a pair too Professor B: They are they are they are they are pretty inexpensive PhD E: that We should order a cou t two or three or four actually Grad D: I m using one of these PhD H: I think I have a pair that I brought from home but it s f just for music listening Professor B: No Just just just just buy them PhD E: Sh Just get the model number PhD H: and it s not Nnn PhD E: and Where do you buy these from ? Postdoc A: Cambridge SoundWorks just down the street PhD E: Like ? You just b go and b Postdoc A: They always have them in stock PhD E: That would be a good idea Grad F: W could you email out the brand ? Cuz I think sounds like people are interested Postdoc A: It s made a difference in in how easy Professor B: I realized something I should talk about So what s the other thing on the agenda actually ? Grad F: the only one was Don wanted to talk about disk space yet again Grad D: you It s short I mean if you want to go we can just throw it in at the end Professor B: No no Why do not you why do not you go ahead since it s short Grad F: Oh I thought you meant the disk space we know disk space is short PhD H: The disk space was short That s what I thought too PhD E: That s a great ambiguity It s one of these it s it s social Professor B: It s I i i it i PhD E: See if I had that little pause scratch pad I would have made an X there Grad F: well we will give you one then Grad D: So without thinking about it when I offered up my hard drive last week this is always a suspect phrase PhD E: It was while I was out of town Grad D: But no I I realized that we are going to be doing a lot of experiments o for this paper we are writing so we are probably going to need a lot more We are probably going to need that disk space that we had on that eighteen gig hard drive But we also have someone else coming in that s going to help us out with some stuff Professor B: We ve just ordered a hundred gigabytes Grad D: So OK We just need to PhD E: I think we need like another eighteen gig disk pause to be safe Professor B: Well we are getting three thirty thirty sixes That are going into the main f file server PhD C: Markham s ordering and they should be coming in soon Grad D: I mean I guess the thing is is all I need is to hang it off like the person who s coming in Sonali s computer PhD H: Oh so so you mean the d the internal the disks on the machines that we just got ? Grad D: Whew Or we can move them PhD C: These are going to go onto Abbott Professor B: Onto Abbott the file server Grad D: So are we going to move the stuff off of my hard drive onto that when those come in ? Grad F: Once they come in Sure PhD E: Do when when is this planned for pause roughly ? PhD C: They should be I I imagine next week or something Grad F: If you are if you are desperate I have some space on my drive Grad D: I think if I m Grad F: But I I vacillate between no space free and pause a few gig free Grad D: I think I can find something if I m desperate and in the meantime I will just hold out That was the only thing I wanted to bring up PhD C: It should be soon We we should Professor B: So there s another hundred gig So OK It s great to be able to do it just say `` oh a hundred gig Grad F: A hundred gig here a hundred gig there PhD E: Well each meeting is like a gig or something Grad F: It s eventually real disk space

The team decided that it would be a good idea to purchase headphones. They also ordered a hundred gigabytes of disk space though they thought an extra eighteen for backup would not be a bad idea. This was good because the team was currently constrained by space.

Postdoc A: but they are just not as good as these in this with this respect to this particular task PhD H: Well return the old ones Grad F: It s probably impedance matching problems Postdoc A: I do not know exactly but we chose them because that s what s been used here by prominent projects in transcription So it i we had every reason to think they would work PhD H: So you have spare headsets ? You have spare headsets ? Grad F: They are just earphones They are not headsets They are not microphones PhD H: No no I mean just earphones ? because I I could use one on my workstation just to t because sometimes I have to listen to audio files and I do not have to b go borrow it from someone and Postdoc A: We have actua actually I have W Well the thing is that if we have four people come to work pause for a day I was I was hanging on to the others for eh for spares but I can tell you what I recommend Professor B: No but you would If you w we should get it Grad F: But if you need it just get it Postdoc A: It would just have to be a s a separate order an added order Grad D: I still I still need to get a pair too Professor B: They are they are they are they are pretty inexpensive PhD E: that We should order a cou t two or three or four actually Grad D: I m using one of these PhD H: I think I have a pair that I brought from home but it s f just for music listening Professor B: No Just just just just buy them PhD E: Sh Just get the model number PhD H: and it s not Nnn PhD E: and Where do you buy these from ? Postdoc A: Cambridge SoundWorks just down the street PhD E: Like ? You just b go and b Postdoc A: They always have them in stock

Postdoc A thought that the original headphones had low gain, so he purchased new earphones. He informed the team that he just bought them from Cambridge SoundWorks down the street. They always have them in stock.

Professor B: No but you would If you w we should get it Grad F: But if you need it just get it Postdoc A: It would just have to be a s a separate order an added order Grad D: I still I still need to get a pair too Professor B: They are they are they are they are pretty inexpensive PhD E: that We should order a cou t two or three or four actually Grad D: I m using one of these PhD H: I think I have a pair that I brought from home but it s f just for music listening Professor B: No Just just just just buy them PhD E: Sh Just get the model number PhD H: and it s not Nnn PhD E: and Where do you buy these from ? Postdoc A: Cambridge SoundWorks just down the street PhD E: Like ? You just b go and b Postdoc A: They always have them in stock PhD E: That would be a good idea Grad F: W could you email out the brand ? Cuz I think sounds like people are interested Postdoc A: It s made a difference in in how easy Professor B: I realized something I should talk about So what s the other thing on the agenda actually ? Grad F: the only one was Don wanted to talk about disk space yet again Grad D: you It s short I mean if you want to go we can just throw it in at the end Professor B: No no Why do not you why do not you go ahead since it s short Grad F: Oh I thought you meant the disk space we know disk space is short PhD H: The disk space was short That s what I thought too PhD E: That s a great ambiguity It s one of these it s it s social Professor B: It s I i i it i PhD E: See if I had that little pause scratch pad I would have made an X there Grad F: well we will give you one then Grad D: So without thinking about it when I offered up my hard drive last week this is always a suspect phrase PhD E: It was while I was out of town Grad D: But no I I realized that we are going to be doing a lot of experiments o for this paper we are writing so we are probably going to need a lot more We are probably going to need that disk space that we had on that eighteen gig hard drive But we also have someone else coming in that s going to help us out with some stuff Professor B: We ve just ordered a hundred gigabytes Grad D: So OK We just need to PhD E: I think we need like another eighteen gig disk pause to be safe Professor B: Well we are getting three thirty thirty sixes

The professor thought that anyone who needed headphones should purchase them since they were not very expensive. He wanted to get the discussion about disk space out of the way. He informed the team that he had ordered a hundred gigabytes.

Industrial Designer: they are in the LCD panel and the jogdial ? Project Manager: So w what kind of thing is going to be Industrial Designer: The LCD panel just displays functionally what you are doing If you are using an advanced function right like c brightness contrast whatever it will just say You know it is like it only has four columns it is a very simple LCD like whereas many the minimum amount we need that the user will automatically know like this is brightness or this is contrast It might even be one a bit more complex LCD panel with pictures like maybe the sun or the you know the the symbols of the various functions Marketing: Mmhmm and what is this here ? Industrial Designer: That is a number pad Marketing: so the number pad is Kay great Project Manager: Where are we going to have the slogan ? Industrial Designer: they are al along this User Interface: You know just like right inside there Industrial Designer: You have this space here and then you have this thing on the side as well or at the bottom Because slogans are usually quite small right they are not like huge say a buttons about this size right so you would still have plenty of space for a slogan say even for that Project Manager: So if this is not to scale what kind of dimensions are you thinking about here ? User Interface: Well we want the other buttons to be big enough to push easily with a finger so we reckon maybe that will be about the same size as the palm of your hand Industrial Designer: Yep so that would be about a centimetre for a button so one two three four centimetres Plus maybe half o five Project Manager: Six seven eight nine ten So we are talking about ten centimetres That would be good So ten centimetres in height Marketing: That would be good in fact a pen is about ten centimetres usually so that would be that sounds like a really good size if you see it there Project Manager: That is great and it is very bright as well So Marketing: Mm Is it possible I am just going to bring up the idea of colours Is these are these the colours that of production or is this just what we had available ? User Interface: Well I am We are going to have again the the sort of the foggy yellow from last time that lit up when you pushed the button Project Manager: could you just list all the things that it does s so I can write them in the report User Interface: But this button because it is red it is sort of very prominent we are going to use it as it can be the power button if you hold it for maybe two seconds it will send a standby signal apart from that it is going to be used as a confirm button for the LCD screen and you use this as a jogdial Project Manager: so that is like an button right Industrial Designer: Oh we have discussed how h high it is but how wide is it ? Marketing: How high is it ? Industrial Designer: No as in the height but what about the width ? User Interface: Did not put five centimetres Project Manager: like depth of the actual thing Industrial Designer: Do we need five ? I do not think five is be about th three and a half Project Manager: Oh is this k to get an idea of scale from your from your thing there So you can power on and off what else can you do ? User Interface: you can skip straight to a channel using these buttons were going to have the volume control here but because we have got the the LCD and the jogdial we just thought we would use that as the volume Project Manager: jogdial for volume And what else do you do with the jogdial ? User Interface: you can use it for more advanced functions like contrast colour and just whatever else we wanted to include as the advanced functions we did not actually go through and specify the Project Manager: Well of the designers what are they ? User Interface: what can a TV do ? Project Manager: That is a good one Industrial Designer: What else ? the various inputs Are you having a VCR are you having you know which input do you have ? Yep colour sharpness a lot of these things will have to be free and open for users to define them Project Manager: Sharpness what about sound settings ? d can you change any of those at all ? Industrial Designer: Audio we have like your basic y your base your midrange your high range Yep leftright balance maybe even preprogrammed sound modes like the user could determine like a series of sound modes and then what could happen would be when you click on that then it would go to that setting

User Interface indicated to have a simple LCD screen to cut down the budget, while Industrial Designer suggested the application of a little more complex LCD panel, like the number pad, could display the advanced functions possibly used by the users. Marketing and Project Manager agreed with Industrial Designer. Next, the group turned to discuss some details, like the total size for the button, and the various functions of the button as well as a jog-dial.

Industrial Designer: say a buttons about this size right so you would still have plenty of space for a slogan say even for that Project Manager: So if this is not to scale what kind of dimensions are you thinking about here ? User Interface: Well we want the other buttons to be big enough to push easily with a finger so we reckon maybe that will be about the same size as the palm of your hand Industrial Designer: Yep so that would be about a centimetre for a button so one two three four centimetres Plus maybe half o five Project Manager: Six seven eight nine ten So we are talking about ten centimetres That would be good So ten centimetres in height Marketing: That would be good in fact a pen is about ten centimetres usually so that would be that sounds like a really good size if you see it there Project Manager: That is great and it is very bright as well So Marketing: Mm Is it possible I am just going to bring up the idea of colours Is these are these the colours that of production or is this just what we had available ? User Interface: Well I am We are going to have again the the sort of the foggy yellow from last time that lit up when you pushed the button Project Manager: could you just list all the things that it does s so I can write them in the report User Interface: But this button because it is red it is sort of very prominent we are going to use it as it can be the power button if you hold it for maybe two seconds it will send a standby signal apart from that it is going to be used as a confirm button for the LCD screen and you use this as a jogdial Project Manager: so that is like an button right Industrial Designer: Oh we have discussed how h high it is but how wide is it ? Marketing: How high is it ? Industrial Designer: No as in the height but what about the width ? User Interface: Did not put five centimetres Project Manager: like depth of the actual thing Industrial Designer: Do we need five ? I do not think five is be about th three and a half Project Manager: Oh is this k to get an idea of scale from your from your thing there So you can power on and off what else can you do ? User Interface: you can skip straight to a channel using these buttons

The button was red with a width of three centimeters and a half. As for the function, it could be used as a confirm button for the LCD screen and a power button if the user held it for around two seconds.

User Interface: were going to have the volume control here but because we have got the the LCD and the jogdial we just thought we would use that as the volume Project Manager: jogdial for volume And what else do you do with the jogdial ? User Interface: you can use it for more advanced functions like contrast colour and just whatever else we wanted to include as the advanced functions we did not actually go through and specify the Project Manager: Well of the designers what are they ? User Interface: what can a TV do ? Project Manager: That is a good one Industrial Designer: What else ? the various inputs Are you having a VCR are you having you know which input do you have ? Yep colour sharpness a lot of these things will have to be free and open for users to define them Project Manager: Sharpness what about sound settings ? d can you change any of those at all ? Industrial Designer: Audio we have like your basic y your base your midrange your high range Yep leftright balance maybe even preprogrammed sound modes like the user could determine like a series of sound modes and then what could happen would be when you click on that then it would go to that setting Project Manager: is there anything else at all it can do ? That because that is that is fine Just need to know so I can write it down right I g I guess that is it so we can now We can now have a little look at the the Excel sheet and price listing and see if we need to if we need to rethink anything at all

The jog dial can be used to control volume, contrast, brightness, channels, auxiliary inputs, color, sharpness, sound, audio, left-right balance, and pre-programmed sound modes.

Project Manager: then I would say two or three Industrial Designer: Wait what is the scale one to seven right ? User Interface: Ones highish is not it ? Ah so two or three Marketing: Let us go with two point five then Project Manager: Well it has the wee jogdial Marketing: so we have had to remove a few of our features we wanted Project Manager: I would go with three or four Industrial Designer: but going towards a little bit higher than medium kind of thing Marketing: Style reflects a fruit inspired colour design I should not have said colour but just Industrial Designer: the blue the blue colours and do not re do not actually represent the colour Project Manager: Well that is kind of Industrial Designer: except for the b the the red button they because for want of a Project Manager: But the yellow I mean it could be a lemon yellow colour Industrial Designer: the the yellow is more representative of the colour but the button itself the blue can be anything else Marketing: so we will go two ? and design is simple to use simple in features Project Manager: Well I mean it is really basic looking is not it ? Marketing: F f f fairly basic Project Manager: I mean I would give that nearly a one Marketing: one ? soft and spongy have we achieved that ? We have used mostly plastic in the end so it is going to be quite a bit of a compromise for price User Interface: I think it is about five Project Manager: Five ? That is really low User Interface: well we have to use plastic so it is probably going to be Marketing: could we have used an entirely rubber frame to it ? Was that an option ? Industrial Designer: I think it will be cost prohibitive User Interface: I think I would probably increase the cost Marketing: It would cost more than plastic User Interface: We have only got like what ten cents left so Marketing: logo we have got it in there have not we ? Project Manager: Yep Going To have that on the side are not we like there or something ? Marketing: Huh And it is within budget yep It is is not it ? so we can say then that out of a possible or what would be our goal here ? Project Manager: Out of forty nine I guess Marketing: out of forty nine with with zero being the highest We are at two seven eight ten fifteen point five So it is pretty good Translates to something like about approximately seventy two percent efficacy of our original goal Right ? I think because if you turn that into a hundred it would be about and then invert that it is Project Manager: So ab well about sixty nine seventy percent Marketing: Oh right about seventy seventy percent good That was just a little formality for us to go through Yep oh hundred pound pen Project Manager: Is that you all have all finished or Marketing: that is that is me I did have one other one other frame I thought I mean I I d not knowing how we would deal with this information I thought in theory this kind of a process would be about refining our design revisiting our original goals It is not something I need to p push through but I thought should we thinking more about the dimensions sort of like more of a three dimensional shapes as well as opposed to just that flat Could our design involve a series of colours so that it is more of like a line where we have like sort of the I do not know like the harvest line or the vibrant I do not know the Whatever just some theme and then we have different tones lime green lemon It is just discussion I mean obviously we can just abandon this it is fine I am just thinking about what we originally set out to do yep so there That is all Project Manager: great are you submitting the the evaluation criteria or am I ? I do not know what your instructions have been Marketing: I think to record it and I have not been asked to submit it yet Project Manager: just wondering if I need to include it in the minutes because if you are submitting it anyway then Industrial Designer: It keeps getting too big Project Manager: Cool right well next up then because we have done finance is the project evaluation Industrial Designer: Kay I am I am listening I am just trying to incorporate the logo into the the thing so I am playing with the PlayDoh as well Just in case you are wondering why is he still playing with the PlayDoh ? Project Manager: Right well do you want to just individually say what you think about about these four points and or not those four points my four points sorry forgotten that You got a different Marketing: Yep I like those printer cables that just have the two little butterfly clips like that Project Manager: Oh they are good are not they here we are as a note we will do this alphabetically do you want to start Andrew ? Marketing: Sure so what is it you are asking of me now ? Project Manager: I do not know just your opinion on those four those four points really and how we used them Marketing: Or sort of our work on setting this up Well is it I will just go through your system then The the room is fairly institutional but the main thing is I think our use of this space is more just to report on things as opposed to be creative and constructive and it would probably help to have l sort of a cumulative effect of we have ideas and we come back and then the ideas are still in discussion you know as in other words this this room is sort of a centre point of creativity whereas in reality as we have gone through this it is not really the centre point of creativity it is more just a Project Manager: Well d do you feel though that that you were able to have quite a lot of creative input into the thing ? Marketing: d debating but that is just the thing is the quest in terms of the the first point there the room it feels as though the creativity goes on when we leave and then we come here and then we kind of put out our ideas and then you know Project Manager: But I do not I do not think it means the room as in this room I think it means like you know Marketing: Oh oh right right oh right room for creativ Oh right I just looked up and saw whiteboard digital pens the room Project Manager: Well I do not know do you th I think it means I think it means did you feel you were able to give creative input so Marketing: Sorry Huh I th on th dif answering the question in those terms I would say that actually there is sort of a tease of creativity because we are asked to work through this but actually the guidelines are fairly contrived in terms of fashion trends say fruit and vegetable colour scheme but then i then we are told use the co company company colours So what do we do We are told think in terms of style and look and feel and technology but build something for twelve and a half pounds so actually the creativity was more more of like a a f sort of a f formality then an actual Industrial Designer: You feel like you are caged within whatever y It is like a balloon in a cage it can only go so big and not hit the side The constraints do come in very fast Project Manager: actually let us take each point and everybody discuss it I think So still on the topic of room for creativity next up is Craig User Interface: I agree with his point it is it is quite a lot of fun t to go and then you have sort of hit the end then go right got to cut everything out because we do not have enough money Industrial Designer: I think another point is that the meetings are more brainstorming sessions than meetings so time is also a very s strong factor and structure Because for a brainstorming meeting you want a structure that allows you to allows ideas to get tossed to be evaluated and to be reviewed and to get feedback and come back And I guess that point about the room not being r very friendly to that I think that is a very big thing and I think the fact that we are wearing these things restricts I feel it because I wear m my glasses right and that but that irritates me right it it it does actually you know affect how w whether you feel comfortable to communicate I feel like I am hiding behind the equipment rather than the equipment is helping me and you know Project Manager: So you think a more relaxed atmosphere would be more kind of conducive to creative thought or Industrial Designer: Not not so much an atmosphere the atmosphere is very relaxed but the the gear you know that creates boundaries to that and and the time the time given also restricts Project Manager: Very good what about leadership ? I do not know if that means like if I did a good job or something I do not really know Marketing: well well I mean my sense on that is sort of what kind of guidance and direction encouragement Project Manager: From like your personal coach person and stuff like that do you think maybe ? Marketing: from and you as well I think just sort of acting as team leader I think I think it is I think it is good I mean my personal views on on leadership is that effective effective leadership sort of gives people a certain room for freedom and delegation but then to come back with something that they take great ownership and you know innovative thought with In in reality I think here the the different elements of leadership such as the the original b briefing and then the personal coach and the and then you know having having you with your the meeting agenda is actually quite a quite a quite a con confining framework to work within And so it is leadership almost to the point of sort of disempowering the the the team member so But it is not bad leadership it is just sort of s fairly strong you know It turns it turns the individual into more of like a sort of a predetermined mechanism as opposed to a sort of a free Project Manager: So you think maybe a little too controlling or Marketing: oh without without a doubt Industrial Designer: I think controlling is not the right word I think the interactions are very structured I think structure is probably what you are saying that each individual is structured to one particular task and one parti rather than controlling I do not think there is a sense of control because all the decisions have been made in terms of a like a consensus right we go around and we think about it but that you know process actually says you have to do it in a certain way It does not tell you you know some ways that you might want to be a bit more creative in terms of the process you know not the Marketing: did you want to comment Craig ? User Interface: reckon that was a bit hard because we could only discuss things in the meeting If we could just go up to somebody outside the meeting and have a quick talk with them that would have been a lot easier Industrial Designer: I think you tried to use the common share folder to to to to communicate but it just comes back to us so slow in the email it it does not have a you know a messenger will go Project Manager: Did did you guys get the email I sent you ? I was wondering if that got there so to s to to summarize the teamwork issue saying that if we could communicate outside the meeting you know just like quick questions quick thoughts whatever it probably would be bit easier Industrial Designer: I think the tools that they were given the tool set that were given to us are fancy but they do not support collaboration I think that is the word They do not support the team working together you know Marketing: exactly I mean if you Industrial Designer: they are still very individual tools Marketing: I mean sort of taking upon that idea w the way I see this i is that it is the the s the structure in which we have we have approached this whole task is quite contrary to the p principle of teamwork because the the tasks were d d sort of divided and then the work went on in isolation I I do not know what you guys did while you were together maybe that was a bit different but but but actually if you if you imagine not entire the completely same task given to us but us said first thing we have to do is come up with let us say a design concept and we sit here together and do it well that is what teamwork is To s to say go off and do not talk to each other it is actually p sort of predisposes you to quite the contrary of teamwork not that we have not done I think the best we could have done I am not dissatisfied with it Project Manager: Right anything else to say on teamwork at all ? what about the you know how we used the whiteboard the digital pens the projector stuff like that ? did anybody think anything was like really useful anything was pretty un f unsupportive ? Marketing: I think the whiteboard for me is the kind of thing I would use all the time but it is not quite as useful as to us as it could have been maybe just in the way that we we use it in the sense that once we have an idea out there or while work was going on in between meetings that could have been up on a board you know as opposed to in like in text and then we could then keep our ideas sort of building on that I know that people who design cars and you know in aviation they quite often just have a simple like fibreglass prototype and it is completely you know abs abstract from the final product but they use it as a kind of a context to sort of walk around and puzzle and and point and discuss Project Manager: Mmhmm And point at ? Marketing: and and and in a way everybodys as we discuss things in the in theoretically and out of our notebooks we are just we are actually just each of us discussing something that is in each of our own minds It was not until we had this here you know like at one point I peeked across and looked at Craigs paper and I am like now I know what he is thinking because I saw his book But the b the b whiteboard could have actually been this kind of continuing Project Manager: So do you think producing a prototype earlier in the process would have been a good idea ? Industrial Designer: I think the the focus of it a lot was the PowerPoint as opposed to the to the whiteboard and I think that m is also does you know hinder us and things I think It will be cooler to have the whiteboard rather than the the PowerPoint or maybe the whiteboard and the PowerPoint in the same place you know in the centre of the Marketing: because the PowerPoint was provided to us while we had time to prepare whereas I can imagine if I would been encouraged to use Paintbrush for example or whatever I would have actually used it ca you know just because that is sorta how we what we were set up to to use while we had our time Industrial Designer: I think that there were too many PowerPoints in the meetings Because the plugin and the plugging spent we spent a lot of time doing that And a lot of the information on the PowerPoints I do not think you know we needed to actually it could have we could have gone through it verbally I felt that they just you know as opposed to having to present them Project Manager: What about the digital pens did you find them easy enough to use ? User Interface: Oh they are a bit clunky Industrial Designer: Having to tick it before you go off was a bit hindering as well because you are half way through a thought and then you run out of paper and then you have to jump Project Manager: I know I think at the very start of today I like wrote a whole load of stuff did not click note on one then went back and wrote one tiny wee thing on the another page but then did click note and so I am quite worried that I have just written over the top of it or something but they will have my paper anyway and have not done that since Industrial Designer: But I think the pen is v is very intuitive everybody knows how to use it we do not have to worry So I think the pens good It is about the best thing Marketing: And o on the topic of the technology it just occurred to me that we actually did not need to move our computers because each computer has all of the files It just occurred to me that they all Industrial Designer: we only needed one computer and Marketing: We only actually needed one computer If there had been a fifth that coulda just been sitting there ready to go the whole time Industrial Designer: And the computer may not be conducive to a meeting because you tend to look at your computer and want to have the urge to check something you know Project Manager: Do you think the computers just provide distraction in a meeting ? Industrial Designer: I think too many computers are just distracting Project Manager: I know I I like to have things written down in front of me actually like a lot of the stuff that was emailed to me I ended up you know like writing down there or something so I could look at it really quickly and not have the distraction of all of that I do not know about anybody else what else any wh I do I am not really sure what they are looking for when they say new ideas found I do not know is User Interface: Is this for the project or Project Manager: could you think of like anything else that would have been helpful today at all ? Marketing: Well the w main one for me is that the process na in a natural f context would not have been interrupted by this necessity to discommunicate ourselves from each other Project Manager: Mm if we just had Marketing: So that is kind of a new idea for me is like just sort of that idea well you know it is kind of s hard to keep f working forward on a team a team based project when when you are told you must now work away from your team Project Manager: Mmhmm I I do not know I think it was quite good that we had time limits on the meetings because they really could have run on and like my experience with meetings is that they really do and you can spend a lot of time talking about The only thing is though like when we had our meeting about the conceptual design I thought there maybe another fifteen minutes would have been useful there but I really thi i I think maybe if we would like all been working in the one room and they just said you know like every hour or something everybody make sure yo you know just have a have a short meeting and then just c just to have like something written down just like you know a a milestone if you like rather than having meetings but There you go so in closing I have not got my five minutes to go Thin Oh there it i Five minutes to go Wonderful are the costs within the budget yes they are And is the project evaluated yes it is So now celebrate Industrial Designer: And we have Ninja Homer Marketing: So it So now we Project Manager: Well apparently now I write the final report What are you guys doing now ? User Interface: Do we know what the other ones are ? Marketing: I I do not know Project Manager: You do not know ? User Interface: Hey I said Ninja Homer Marketing: What did you call it ? Industrial Designer: Ninja Homer See it looks like Homer Simpson but it is electronic so it is made in Japan Project Manager: So is that j is that just is that just a logo or does it do anything ? Industrial Designer: it is just a logo Project Manager: Just a logo and then like Ninja Homer Industrial Designer: The the red is supposed to represent the whatever else you want to print on the side of it Project Manager: I think it is quite nice Industrial Designer: you can throw Homer when you are frustrated doh Project Manager: Oh no that is cool it is got I am kind of I am slightly gutted that we could not get plastic and rubber I think that would have been nice Ah well maybe from now on real reaction should give us more money Industrial Designer: Oh I did learn something new PlayDoh is useful No it is it is It is useful and in in in in in in in conceptualizing in being creative Because like you say it is something you can put your hands on and feel and touch and get a sense for Like we were playing with the PlayDoh and the ideas came with the PlayDoh rather than with everything else You might want to write that down It is just I am just fiddling with the PlayDoh and I am going it is kind of cool User Interface: Guess I would forgot how good s PlayDoh smells Project Manager: it smells funny does not it Marketing: And some PlayDohs are actually I think edible are not they ? Industrial Designer: No all PlayDoh is edible User Interface: I think they are all nontoxic because it is aimed for like twoyearolds Project Manager: I think it has to be Industrial Designer: It is just wheat it is the stuff that your mom could make with preservatives and Project Manager: wha what are your summarising words about PlayDoh ? Industrial Designer: It is helpful to the creative process it engages all your senses not just your sight but your sense of feel your sense of touch And it helps you to understand dimension as well I think that that is very helpful because it it starts to pop up whereas on a piece of paper on a computer on a board even with a three D graphic thing it still it requires a lot of User Interface: it is not very tangible Industrial Designer: tangible that is a nice word Project Manager: Mm I do not know if there is anything else we needed to discuss That that is about it really Just sit still I guess for a little while Marketing: Do we retreat to our to continue our Industrial Designer: I think we could probably do it here as long as we do not collaborate Marketing: r reporting or what i Project Manager: Well I do not know I am sure the little the little thingll pop up any minute now Industrial Designer: Can we turn off the microphones ? Project Manager: if the meetings over then I guess so

Project Manager wanted the members to evaluate the whole process of the project, such as the system, leadership, teamwork, and tools given. The meeting system was considered creative yet inefficient as the early designs were found generally out of budget. As for leadership, the process was a bit too structured. As for teamwork, additional communications like the quick talk could further prompt the current system. Besides, the tools given were criticized for the isolation of each's tasks and thoughts.

Marketing: Sure so what is it you are asking of me now ? Project Manager: I do not know just your opinion on those four those four points really and how we used them Marketing: Or sort of our work on setting this up Well is it I will just go through your system then The the room is fairly institutional but the main thing is I think our use of this space is more just to report on things as opposed to be creative and constructive and it would probably help to have l sort of a cumulative effect of we have ideas and we come back and then the ideas are still in discussion you know as in other words this this room is sort of a centre point of creativity whereas in reality as we have gone through this it is not really the centre point of creativity it is more just a Project Manager: Well d do you feel though that that you were able to have quite a lot of creative input into the thing ? Marketing: d debating but that is just the thing is the quest in terms of the the first point there the room it feels as though the creativity goes on when we leave and then we come here and then we kind of put out our ideas and then you know Project Manager: But I do not I do not think it means the room as in this room I think it means like you know Marketing: Oh oh right right oh right room for creativ Oh right I just looked up and saw whiteboard digital pens the room Project Manager: Well I do not know do you th I think it means I think it means did you feel you were able to give creative input so Marketing: Sorry Huh I th on th dif answering the question in those terms I would say that actually there is sort of a tease of creativity because we are asked to work through this but actually the guidelines are fairly contrived in terms of fashion trends say fruit and vegetable colour scheme but then i then we are told use the co company company colours So what do we do We are told think in terms of style and look and feel and technology but build something for twelve and a half pounds so actually the creativity was more more of like a a f sort of a f formality then an actual Industrial Designer: You feel like you are caged within whatever y It is like a balloon in a cage it can only go so big and not hit the side The constraints do come in very fast Project Manager: actually let us take each point and everybody discuss it I think

Marketing thought Project Manager's system was fairly institutional with a central point of creativity, but the group ought to focus more on the stylish look and technology and make a proper consideration on the budget.

Industrial Designer: You feel like you are caged within whatever y It is like a balloon in a cage it can only go so big and not hit the side The constraints do come in very fast Project Manager: actually let us take each point and everybody discuss it I think So still on the topic of room for creativity next up is Craig User Interface: I agree with his point it is it is quite a lot of fun t to go and then you have sort of hit the end then go right got to cut everything out because we do not have enough money Industrial Designer: I think another point is that the meetings are more brainstorming sessions than meetings so time is also a very s strong factor and structure Because for a brainstorming meeting you want a structure that allows you to allows ideas to get tossed to be evaluated and to be reviewed and to get feedback and come back And I guess that point about the room not being r very friendly to that I think that is a very big thing and I think the fact that we are wearing these things restricts I feel it because I wear m my glasses right and that but that irritates me right it it it does actually you know affect how w whether you feel comfortable to communicate I feel like I am hiding behind the equipment rather than the equipment is helping me and you know Project Manager: So you think a more relaxed atmosphere would be more kind of conducive to creative thought or Industrial Designer: Not not so much an atmosphere the atmosphere is very relaxed but the the gear you know that creates boundaries to that and and the time the time given also restricts

Industrial Designer thought the meeting was not friendly to the brainstorming. The restriction was not about the atmosphere but related to the actual environment and the limited time for discussion. Besides, the interaction was structured, meaning each individual took charge of one particular task without enough collaboration between each other. Also, communication through email was inefficient.

User Interface: Right Thank you Mines not quite as complicated as all that Project Manager: That is what we like to hear User Interface: Did I press function ? Project Manager: Is it control function ei Oh th there you go User Interface: Oh so I am going to talk a bit about the technical functions design I am Louisa the User Interface Designer as you know 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 to change the channel either by pressing the number that you want or by channel up or down to switch the television on or off maybe a standby button here are two example remotes 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 will not have to worry about but as you can see the left remote is quite quite busy looking quite complicated whereas the right remote is much simpler it looks much more user friendly so my personal preference would be the right remote So it is got nice big buttons it is got a very limited number of buttons they are nice kind of clearly labelled 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 So it is very very user friendly and it is got a little splash of colour Could maybe do with some more colour Project Manager: Well there is a couple of things there we have to remember that we have our own logo and colour scheme So basically we would have to we would have to be putting that on the the product User Interface: Do we get to see that ? Project Manager: I have not as yet no 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 am guessing that I notice on the bottom there it is got what is that ? APOGEE 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 ? Like all of that bottom bit ? Industrial Designer: just this little bit is that I think that is still a video remote part so maybe we could get rid of that as well User Interface: And I do not really think that you need nine numbers I mean 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 and we would have to have some room for future such channels But but Industrial Designer: It is just people are used to seeing that so if we did not have them then they might think it is 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 I mean how many channels do we have to actual television channels do we have to prepare for ? I would have thought that it is forever expanding and at the moment we have got although you have onl you have got the five standard you have got the BBC have come up with a further six and there is I do not know exactly how many channels there are on when you take into account Sky and various other various others So I would have thought that we would not you know rather if the time of flicking from one to other but presumably it will take a second because 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 Y you would want you would want to get fairly quickly to the channel that you wanted User Interface: some remotes have kind of favourite options where if you always flick from channel one to channel six if that is a favourite you just like bypass two to five Project Manager: I s I suppose in a sense you could have if you have 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 and then have a second button to get you to the actual channel you want and that would cut down your time User Interface: But I think a lot of like Cable and Sky and stuff that would be tuned to one channel and then you would have another remote for all of those channels Like to get to fifty five and the higher numbers Project Manager: Limit the number of buttons user friendly User Interface: But I suppose nines not really excessive Industrial Designer: I suppose with nine you have got the the like the last one which makes the tenth means you it is like multiples you can put them together so you can make any number User Interface: I suppose it does make a good pattern Industrial Designer: So with that we would kind of bypass any problems with Project Manager: you could get fifty by five and a zero or whatever that that makes sense Industrial Designer: Because that facilitates having all the numbers you could ever need Project Manager: So w so what was the circular thing that you were User Interface: I think that is just for a video so we would not need any of that at all Industrial Designer: So we could get it down to what ? Project Manager: If it is just for TV which is what it is at the moment Industrial Designer: So we get to How many buttons have we got ? We have just got ten eleven twelve th We got fourteen that we need I guess which is not really too many That will be quite easy to make a user guide for a fourteen button remote Project Manager: Mmhmm Well we have we have got that it is remote for TV only otherwise project would become too complex with which would endanger the time to market was one of the considerations I am I do not know d did you have that information behind the marketing or was I meant to give you that information ? Marketing: I am not sure I had I have had some market information but not from the company no Project Manager: Right so basically time to market seems to be important therefore speed of delivery We have only got about another four hours left User Interface: so is everyone happy with that ? Industrial Designer: Ah yes yes that seems good User Interface: Right well that is the end of my presentation

User Interface preferred a more user-friendly remote with nice big buttons and limited number of buttons. She also gave her suggestions about the symbol and colour of the remote. Then, they discussed the number of buttons on the remote.

User Interface: Oh so I am going to talk a bit about the technical functions design I am Louisa the User Interface Designer as you know 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 to change the channel either by pressing the number that you want or by channel up or down to switch the television on or off maybe a standby button here are two example remotes 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 will not have to worry about but as you can see the left remote is quite quite busy looking quite complicated whereas the right remote is much simpler it looks much more user friendly so my personal preference would be the right remote So it is got nice big buttons it is got a very limited number of buttons they are nice kind of clearly labelled 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 So it is very very user friendly and it is got a little splash of colour Could maybe do with some more colour Project Manager: Well there is a couple of things there we have to remember that we have our own logo and colour scheme So basically we would have to we would have to be putting that on the the product User Interface: Do we get to see that ? Project Manager: I have not as yet no 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 am guessing that I notice on the bottom there it is got what is that ? APOGEE that might be the corporate colour scheme although the only the only colour I can see in that is the red

User Interface suggested that they could design the symbols and colours for the remote. However, the Project Manager reminded the team that they should put their own logo and colour scheme on the remote, which means that they could not design those things by themselves.

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 ? Like all of that bottom bit ? Industrial Designer: just this little bit is that I think that is still a video remote part so maybe we could get rid of that as well User Interface: And I do not really think that you need nine numbers I mean 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 and we would have to have some room for future such channels But but Industrial Designer: It is just people are used to seeing that so if we did not have them then they might think it is 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 I mean how many channels do we have to actual television channels do we have to prepare for ? I would have thought that it is forever expanding and at the moment we have got although you have onl you have got the five standard you have got the BBC have come up with a further six and there is I do not know exactly how many channels there are on when you take into account Sky and various other various others So I would have thought that we would not you know rather if the time of flicking from one to other but presumably it will take a second because 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 Y you would want you would want to get fairly quickly to the channel that you wanted User Interface: some remotes have kind of favourite options where if you always flick from channel one to channel six if that is a favourite you just like bypass two to five Project Manager: I s I suppose in a sense you could have if you have 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 and then have a second button to get you to the actual channel you want and that would cut down your time User Interface: But I think a lot of like Cable and Sky and stuff that would be tuned to one channel and then you would have another remote for all of those channels Like to get to fifty five and the higher numbers Project Manager: Limit the number of buttons user friendly User Interface: But I suppose nines not really excessive Industrial Designer: I suppose with nine you have got the the like the last one which makes the tenth means you it is like multiples you can put them together so you can make any number User Interface: I suppose it does make a good pattern Industrial Designer: So with that we would kind of bypass any problems with Project Manager: you could get fifty by five and a zero or whatever that that makes sense Industrial Designer: Because that facilitates having all the numbers you could ever need Project Manager: So w so what was the circular thing that you were User Interface: I think that is just for a video so we would not need any of that at all Industrial Designer: So we could get it down to what ? Project Manager: If it is just for TV which is what it is at the moment Industrial Designer: So we get to How many buttons have we got ? We have just got ten eleven twelve th We got fourteen that we need I guess which is not really too many That will be quite easy to make a user guide for a fourteen button remote

The team agreed that there should be 17 buttons on the remote, including number 0 to 9, volume up and down, mute, channel up and down, stand-by and power buttons. Besides the buttons of brightness and contrast should be put on the back of the remote.

Marketing: Right we have 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 controls for controlling the TV 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 would 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 were not used very often at all People concentrated on the channel buttons and the volume buttons and the power buttons we also asked them about speech recognition for remote control 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 were not quite so keen on speech recognition There is a lot more th there is a lot lot more older people who did not 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 could not 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 so My personal preferences from the marketing is that we need to come up with some sort of sleek sort of good looking high hightech A design which looks hightech 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 LCD menu for other functions on the remote control That is worth thinking about and maybe we could think about speech recognition as well because sort of young people are perhaps the ones that are going to buy buy our new product if we aim it at sort of you know sort of a hightech design That that might be the market that we are we are looking for And we could maybe think about using speech recogniti recognition as a way to find the remote control if it is lost in a room rather than sort of having it to speech recognition to change the channels Because there is a problem with that in that the television makes noise so it could end up talking to itself and changing its channel and that is the end of the slide show That is it Cool Project Manager: What was that last wee bit there ? But that was only for young people that preferred it older people did not Marketing: Youn young people pref they s they said that they would 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 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 So you can press a button which is always kept in one place and then it maybe buzzes to somewhere else wherever the remote actually is Marketing: Uhhuh we would have t that would mean we would have to put two products together as well which which again would probably be a bit expensive but User Interface: There is key rings that you kind of whistle at or clap at I can not remember and then they whistle back or something like that That would probably be really simple Industrial Designer: So I guess it would 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 are trying to avoid having a second product because 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 But if you I know I was going to say a sharp noise you know a clapping of hand or whatever You would want to try and av just have the one product that if Industrial Designer: if we if we could have it in the actual remote like everything in one one device Project Manager: I do not know talking about vo I mean obviously if you have got voice recognition then you can do it in that way because it will recognise the voice and you can give it a command a set command whatever that happened to be But you have then got the point if if you are not going with voice recognition then Industrial Designer: you could have an option to turn it off Or So that would solve the problems with the TV kind of speaking to the remote and changing its own channels 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 ? Project Manager: Well if it does then we can not because we have 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 have already mentioned We have 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 And the third thing was that teletext as far as the management is concerned is becoming dated due to the popularity of the internet So that means that so these are the sort of three extra parameters that have been put on this project So we are 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 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: It would But probably quick and simple is primary rather than added extras 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 So and if and we have got to get to the end d d I think I think first and foremost we have got to get to the end and then get to the end with added extras if possible

According to the research of Marketing, three quarters of the customers thought that their remotes are ugly. People only concentrated on the channel buttons, the volume buttons and the power buttons, and other buttons on the remote were seldom pressed. Many customers found it frustrating when their remotes were lost somewhere else in the room and they couldn't find them. Besides, it was difficult for people to learn all the functions on the remote. Then the team discussed the idea of a speech recognition system for the remote.

Marketing: Right we have 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 controls for controlling the TV 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 would 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 were not used very often at all People concentrated on the channel buttons and the volume buttons and the power buttons we also asked them about speech recognition for remote control 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 were not quite so keen on speech recognition There is a lot more th there is a lot lot more older people who did not 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 could not 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 so My personal preferences from the marketing is that we need to come up with some sort of sleek sort of good looking high hightech A design which looks hightech 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 LCD menu for other functions on the remote control That is worth thinking about and maybe we could think about speech recognition as well because sort of young people are perhaps the ones that are going to buy buy our new product if we aim it at sort of you know sort of a hightech design That that might be the market that we are we are looking for And we could maybe think about using speech recogniti recognition as a way to find the remote control if it is lost in a room rather than sort of having it to speech recognition to change the channels Because there is a problem with that in that the television makes noise so it could end up talking to itself and changing its channel and that is the end of the slide show That is it Cool Project Manager: What was that last wee bit there ? But that was only for young people that preferred it older people did not Marketing: Youn young people pref they s they said that they would 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

Marketing suggested that the remote should be good looking and high-tech. And they should concentrate on the functions of changing channels and volumes. Besides, they could also think about using speech recognition as a way for people to find the remote control if it's lost in a room.

Marketing: and that is the end of the slide show That is it Cool Project Manager: What was that last wee bit there ? But that was only for young people that preferred it older people did not Marketing: Youn young people pref they s they said that they would 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 thought that the technology would be quite advanced and they might end up costing more than 25 budgets for speech recognition.