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How Did Project Manager and User Interface introduce the prototype of the remote control?
Project Manager: Yep. Soon as I get this. Okay. This is our last meeting. Um I'll go ahead and go through the minutes from the previous meeting. Uh and then we'll have a, the prototype presentation. {vocalsound} Um then we will um do an evaluation. Uh or we'll see what, what we need to have under the criteria for the evaluation. Then we'll go through the finance and see if we fall within the budget. Um then we'll do the evaluation, and then we can finish up after that with um any changes that we'll need to make, or hopefully everything will fall right in line. Um let's see, minutes from the last meeting. Um we looked at uh the the trends. We had uh the fashion trends that people want a fancy look-and-feel. It was twice as important as anything else. Um they liked fruit and vegetables in the new styles. Um and a spongy feel. So we were talking about trying to incorporate those into our prototype. Um they wanted limited buttons and simplicity. Um then we looked at the uh the method for coming up with our own remote. Um looking at other other devices. Um the iPod, we really liked the look of that. Um we also had uh the kid's remote for a simple idea. Um a two part remote, which was what were were originally looking at. Uh and then um there was talk of spee uh speech recognition um becoming more uh predominant and easier to use. But I think we've still decided not to go with that. {vocalsound} Then we looked at the components um the materials for the case, the different energy sources, the different types of chips, um and made a decision on what we were going to use to make our remote. Um and basically how, what were making for the prototype. So I'm going to leave it at that and let you guys take over.
User Interface: The prototype discussion.
Project Manager: The prototype yeah. Do you need a {disfmarker} this?
User Interface: No. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Can try to plug that in there
User Interface: There is our remo {gap} the banana.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker}
User Interface: Um {vocalsound} yeah basically we we st went with the colour yellow. Um working on the principle of a fruit which was mentioned, it's basically designed around a banana.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Um but it would be held in such a fashion,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: where it is, obviously it wouldn't be that floppy'cause this would be hard plastic. These would be like the rubber, the rubber grips. So that's so that would hopefully help with grip, or like the ergonomics of it. Um 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'd go through.
Project Manager: Very nice.
User Interface: And the the simplest functions would be um 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'd you sorta go, you press that and go through the menus. It's that that simple. That just represents the infrared uh beam. That's a simple on and off switch. Um I don't know, we could use the voice. T that blue bits should be yellow, that that'd be where the batteries would be I suppose. And um {vocalsound} that's about it. It's as simple as you, we could make it really.
Industrial Designer: Right.
User Interface: Is there anything you want to add?
Industrial Designer: That's what we have there. That's plastic. Plastic covered with rubber. We might uh add some more underneath here. Maybe give it, give it a form. I mean you're supposed to hold it like that, but um just if you grab it, take it from somewhere,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} yeah,
User Interface: Doesn't make much make much difference.
Industrial Designer: you have some rub yeah.
User Interface: You could work left-handed or right-handed I suppose.
Industrial Designer: Exactly, {gap} use both. Might as well think about {disfmarker}
User Interface: T the actual thing might be smaller.
Industrial Designer: Th think about the button as well. Like either put either one {gap} one on either side or
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: What but what's that button?
Industrial Designer: not do it at all. It's a quick on-off button.
User Interface: Just the on and off.
Project Manager: Uh,'kay.
Industrial Designer: That's um
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: yeah I think it's pretty important. So you don't have to fiddle with that.
Project Manager:'Kay.
Industrial Designer: Right? Um that's not um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I'd say a bit smaller would probably be nice. You wanna play with that over there.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: There you go.
User Interface: It's you know it's flimsy'cause it's made out of heavy Play-Doh,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Would you like to uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Right.
User Interface: but {disfmarker}
Marketing: Pretty impressive.
Project Manager: Well done.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Kind of a banana.
User Interface: And whether or not it would fall into the cost {gap} everything I suppose. With the scroll and the L_C_D_.
Project Manager: Well luckily we are going to find out. Or not luckily. Um do you have a marketing presentation for us.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I do. Okay. You guys are gonna help me do an evaluation of the criteria. Um. Okay. So first I'll 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'll do a group evaluation of the prototype. And then we will calculate the average score to see how we did. Um so the criteria we're gonna be looking at are the complaints um that we heard from the users who were interviewed earlier. So we're gonna 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. {gap}. Okay. So for the first one, we need to decide, did we solved the problem of the users who complained about an ugly remote? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I think it's definitely different than anything else out there.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: So if they think that what is out there is ugly, then yes I would say, I would say most definitely.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I would {gap}.
Project Manager: It's bright.
User Interface: It's bright. It's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: It still has your traditional black.
User Interface: It's curved. It's not {disfmarker} there's no sharp
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: angles to it.
Project Manager: Yep, not angular.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: I'd say, when it comes to the ergonomics, the form and stuff, yes that's definitely more beautiful than your average.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: However the colour, we don't have a say in that.
Marketing: Yeah I think the colours detract a little bit. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Some people might say it. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: That has been, that has been dictated pretty much by the company.
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: So uh to answer that honestly I would rather say like uh, we have not solved the problem completely with the ugly remote because the colour is ugly, definitely.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yep.
Marketing: That's true. Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer:'S nothing you can say about that. I mean I much prefer something like brushed chrome with that form.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah something more modern to go {disfmarker} a a modern colour to go with the modern form.
Industrial Designer: Right. Right. It's different. You don't want your uh three feet huge L_C_D_ dis display in your living room that's hanging from the wall to be controlled with something like that.
Marketing: Um okay so, do you think, since we {disfmarker} This was a a sign criteria, do you think maybe we should put it somewhere in the middle then?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Does that sound good?
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: What do you think? Three? Four?
Project Manager: I would say
Marketing: Five?
Project Manager: four. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Four is fair. Okay.
Project Manager: Very non-committal, four.
Marketing: Okay, the second one. Did we make it simple for new users?
Industrial Designer: It's very intuitive, I think yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. I think that was the main aim, one of the main aims that we had.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} S give it a one.
Marketing: One,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing:'kay. Okay. Um, do the controls now match the operating behaviour of the users?
User Interface: Uh yeah.'Cause we've we've brought it down to basically four controls {gap} most common, which are channel and volume.
Marketing: I'd say that {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Right.
User Interface: 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's a one.
Marketing: So one?
Project Manager: I think that's a one.
Marketing: Yeah? {vocalsound} Okay. Okay um 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 don't lose anymore.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Whether you want to or not, you're not gonna lose it. {vocalsound}
User Interface: It's bright yellow.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Bright yellow's hard to lose. But um 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'd we'd mentioned.
Project Manager: So if we incorporate speech recognition into it then it could {disfmarker}
User Interface: Just just to use, to find it when it was lost. But like I said, like I don't think you'd lose something so yellow so easily.
Industrial Designer: Oops. Hmm.
User Interface: And it's not gonna fall, like a rectangle would slip down behind things. That's gonna be a difficult shape to {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well what {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And it is quite bright and {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Maybe in the middle again, three or four or something?
Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: S
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: I mean you know {gap} loo losing things is one of those things that people can lose, I mean a million ways.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: You can pick it up and walk away with it and then you've lost it.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: That's true.
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.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah. You probably {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Probably two. You know. If we eliminate the fact that you know it's impossible to guarantee that it's not gonna be lost then
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: I'd say two.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: With the speech recognition, which of course may be changed depending on budget.
User Interface: Yeah.
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.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: We could add that but that's nothing we have thought of so far.
Project Manager: Which, which may be cheaper than speech recognition if it were just a {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yes.
User Interface: Yeah true. But I mean d just those whistling, clapping key rings you have. They're cheap.
Marketing: Annoying alarm or something?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It's it's {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: So it can't be that
Industrial Designer: Um the {disfmarker} it's based on this anti anti-theft technology for suitcases and stuff,
User Interface: expensive.
Project Manager: Some sort of proximity {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: where you have one piece that's attached to your luggage, another piece that starts beeping. That can't cost much.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: 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 {disfmarker} stick it behind your T_V_ and the other {disfmarker}
User Interface: {gap} stick it on the T_V_ {gap}.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Pray that you don't accidentally lose that piece. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Right.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: That'd be tough then. {vocalsound} Well also your remote would uh alarm you if somebody stole you t your television, yeah. Ran off with it without taking the beautiful remote control.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: So. Are we adding one of these two features?
Industrial Designer: Let's add one of those features and say yes. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap} gonna say {disfmarker} okay.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: So we're {vocalsound} back to a one?
User Interface: Two.
Marketing: Or a two?
Project Manager: Two.
Industrial Designer: Two.
Marketing: Two,'kay. Okay. Are we technologically innovative?
Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} I'd say so.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh don't get many mo remote controls with
Industrial Designer: It's all just {disfmarker}
User Interface: screens on.
Industrial Designer: It's all just stolen technology when it comes down to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah it's stolen technology.
Marketing: From iPod yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: But we have {gap}.
Project Manager: But there's not a lot of yellow, there's not a lotta yellow.
Industrial Designer: right
Marketing: But for remotes {disfmarker} yeah.
Project Manager: Course that wasn't really {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: right
User Interface: Fa
Industrial Designer: right right.
Project Manager: we were kinda forced to take that colour.
Marketing: Two? Three?
User Interface: {gap}'cause it's stolen.
Project Manager: I don't know that we are that innovative, to tell you the truth. {vocalsound}
User Interface: No maybe not.
Industrial Designer: Yeah not really.
Marketing: But how many remotes do you see like this?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: If we added the screaming factor {vocalsound} then we go up.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Not so many.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um I would say we're probably at four.
Industrial Designer: Right.
Marketing: Really? Okay. {vocalsound} That's gonna hurt us.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay. Um spongy material?
Industrial Designer: Yeah well you have that, kind of, sort of.
Project Manager: We have some spongy, yeah.
User Interface: Yeah as much as as needed, I think.
Marketing:'Kay.
Industrial Designer: It's not a one though.
Project Manager: No.
Industrial Designer: One would be the whole thing
Project Manager: Yeah. Because it's only got what, these parts are the grips and perhaps the back side {disfmarker} the bottom {disfmarker} the underneath on the back.
Industrial Designer: to fold and stuff. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So that's 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?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Y yes.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I'd say we did.
Project Manager: If your fashion is b is Carmen Miranda, you betcha. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: More {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well the recent fashion is rather displayed in the in the L_C_D_ and the way you operate it than the form and the colour,
User Interface: On the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: It's true.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: but it definitely is {disfmarker}
User Interface: Be what we were told, and they'd say yeah, definitely.
Industrial Designer: {gap}.
Marketing:'Kay. Alright. Now we just gotta calculate. Six eight twelve sixteen. Seventeen divided by s
User Interface: {gap}.
Project Manager: Seven is {disfmarker}
Marketing: Eight.
Project Manager: Two point {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {gap} two point four?
User Interface: Is that some long division? No.
Project Manager: Something.
Marketing: Well I haven't done math in years.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: What two {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I dunno.
User Interface: Just, I'm sure there's a {gap}.
Marketing: Okay we'll say two point four two. Right? How does that look?
Industrial Designer: I'm impressed. I can't do that without a calculator. {vocalsound}
User Interface: No I can't do long {gap}
Marketing: {vocalsound} It's been a while.
User Interface: very impressive.
Project Manager: And what what is the acceptable criteria? Is there like a scale that we have to hit?
Marketing: Oh no. They just told me to
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} pick my own criteria and have you guys evaluate it {vocalsound} basically.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright then.
Marketing: So that's that.
Project Manager: Okay. Well, let's see.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Now we get to do the budget numbers. You didn't know that you were gonna have a budget. But we do. Okay.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah so. You'd been going a long time dividing that. It's two point four two eight five se it just keeps going on.
Marketing: Oh my god.
User Interface: Two point four two basically.
Marketing: Okay. Yeah we'll go with that.
Project Manager: So I have here an {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Fifty percent, you're kidding.
Marketing: Not too shabby.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} P
Project Manager: We want a fifty percent profit on this. Oh you can't really see that very well.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Charge about three hundred quid for it.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Twelve and a half Euros is what supposed to cost us. Okay, so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It's too much.
Project Manager: Well let's see.
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: The f the {disfmarker} Wonder if I can make this {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: What the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Oh it won't let me do that. Okay. Alright so at top, I don't know if you guys can read that or not. I can't'cause I don't have my glasses on,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: but so we've got the energy source. There's uh four, five, six categories.
Industrial Designer: Battery.
Project Manager: We have energy source, electronics, case. Then we have case material supplements, interface type, and then button supplements. Okay so {disfmarker} Uh first of all energy source, we picked battery. Um and how many batteries do we think this will probably take?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Probably some e either two or four.
Industrial Designer: Two.
Project Manager: Two? {vocalsound} Like it. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: At four it's gonna be too heavy, so that that's not our problem. People can change it every month.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Excellent.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} They won't know until after they bought it.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: This is consumerism.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Alright so for the electronics our choices are simpl simple chip-on-print, regular chip-on-print, advanced chip-on-print, sample sensor, sample speaker.
Industrial Designer: {gap}.
User Interface: We're advanced chip are we?
Industrial Designer: That's the advanced chip-on-print, yeah.
Project Manager:'Kay, {gap} we have one of those.'Kay then the case is a {disfmarker} Probably it's double curved.
Industrial Designer: Double curved, yes.
Project Manager: Case materials are
Industrial Designer: Plastic.
Project Manager: plastic. Um I guess it's two, since one for the top, one for the bottom.
Industrial Designer: N no.
Project Manager: Is that right or is it just one?
Industrial Designer: No that's just one.
Project Manager: Maybe it's one because of the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It's just one mo single mould, we can do that.
Project Manager:'Kay.
User Interface: Yeah {gap} yeah.
Marketing: Right. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I guess it doesn't matter'cause the price on that one is zero, which is nice.
Industrial Designer: Exactly, right.
Marketing: Oh.
Project Manager: Special colour?
Industrial Designer: That's not a special colour. It's a specially ugly colour, but it's not special.
Marketing: Bright yellow.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Interface type. We have pushbutton, scroll-wheel interface, integrated scroll-wheel pushbutton, and an L_C_D_ display.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: S
Industrial Designer: S {vocalsound}
User Interface: That's {disfmarker} Yeah.
Project Manager: So we actually have the L_C_D_ display
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: And then {disfmarker}
Project Manager: and then is it the integrated or is it {disfmarker}
User Interface: I'd say the integrated.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yes unfortunately.
Project Manager:'Kay. Button supplement? Special colour?
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Um special form? Special material.
Industrial Designer: We could of course make the buttons wood.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Say mahogany or so
Marketing: {vocalsound} It'd look really lovely.
Project Manager: Or titanium.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm or titanium.
Project Manager: They cost us all the same.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
User Interface: {gap} remote control {gap}.
Project Manager: Well we only have one button so really we shouldn't be charged,
Industrial Designer: Uh just {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} we shouldn't be charged anything for the the button supplements.
User Interface: No that's getting a bit tiny.
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I'd ignore that.
Marketing: Leave it blank.
Project Manager: Okay. We're gonna leave that one blank because we run on a L_C_D_ and scroll. So our total is fifteen point five. Which I believe is
Industrial Designer: Yeah that's too much.
Project Manager: by three Euros over.
Industrial Designer: It's hard to believe. So we'll go for the hand dynamo huh? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So the only thing better than um a banana-shaped remote is one that you shake.
User Interface: If it w What if we completely took out the the one single button we've got on.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: And just had a scroll wheel interface. And the L_C_D_ display. I suppose the L_C_D_ C_ display's the one that's pushing it up a bit though.
Project Manager: Yeah'cause the {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well'cause we have to have both right?
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I mean let's let's face it, it also depends on the software on the on the television.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: You can have the the information that this thing transmits be being displayed on the on the screen.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So s yeah let's take away the {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah you could maybe take out the L_C_D_ dis display even,
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: if it if it comes up on the computer itsel on the T_V_ itself.
Industrial Designer: Right.
Project Manager: So we may not need the L_C_D_ display?
User Interface: Uh that is possible yeah.
Industrial Designer: Right. We may not need it. There you go.
Project Manager: Well there we go.
Industrial Designer: Perfect.
Project Manager: Twelve point five.
User Interface: There we go.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Perfect.
Project Manager: Okay. So we just remove our {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Screen.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: screen here.
User Interface: Make it a bigger dial.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Easier to use. Even easier to use then.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay, the {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Besides look at what the L_C_D_ does to our lovely remote.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Back to the design room boys.
Industrial Designer: So we can just take away a heck of a lot of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap}.
Industrial Designer: there you go. {gap} central?
Marketing: What's the blue part?
User Interface: That was just {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Oh that's just {disfmarker}
User Interface: we ran out of yellow. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh that's the batteries.
Industrial Designer: yeah.
Marketing: Okay. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: There you go
User Interface: There you go.
Industrial Designer: . Oops.
User Interface: Even simpler.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Looks more like a banana.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: There you go.
User Interface: For all those fruit lovers out there.
Industrial Designer: One more criteria.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so the costs under twelve point five Euro. Was no. We redesigned it. Now it's yes.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Next slide. Project evaluation. Uh project process, satisfaction with, for example, room for creativity, leadership, teamwork, means, new ideas found. Um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} I guess that {disfmarker} Let's see here. I think that perhaps the project evaluation's just supposed to be completed by me. But I'd like to hear your thoughts.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Fair enough. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Trying to fill in some time there. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh h what did you think of our project process? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Great. {vocalsound}
User Interface: I think we did {disfmarker} yeah I think we did quite well. Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Good.
Marketing: Good teamwork {gap}. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Just half a day, you have a remote. There you go.
User Interface: Yeah. Right from the start of the day.
Project Manager: Yeah I think {disfmarker}
User Interface: We sort of knew where we were going straight away I thought.
Project Manager: {gap} we st we started off a little little weak. Our leadership was quite weak in the beginning.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} um {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But as the day went along we had more idea of what we were doing. Um room for creativity? There was that. Um I think we tried a lotta different things and um I think it was um interesting as you guys brought up more um information and studies that we were right on with a lot of those things. Um you guys worked together well as a team. And um the means? Which was the whiteboard and the pens.
User Interface: Yeah. We've used the whiteboard.
Industrial Designer: Super super.
Project Manager: I had some problem with the pen I think, but {vocalsound} minus your p
Marketing: Minus your PowerPoint fiasco.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well that's not my fault. That's obviously the people I work for uh that work for me,
Marketing: No I know. I'm {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well {disfmarker}
Marketing: yeah. Incom {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: uh they've just you know {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Have a {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Heads are gonna roll, believe me.
Project Manager: we have a list of employees that you would like fired.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yes yes.
Project Manager: Okay. N new ideas found? Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm. Kinda.
Project Manager: Yes for the remote. Maybe no not f for
User Interface: Technology used.
Project Manager: technology. Alright. Closing. Costs are within the budget. Project is evaluated. Um complete the final questionnaire and meeting summary. That's it.
User Interface: Excellent.
Project Manager: And I still have to do my minutes for the last meeting. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Actually. Um so there will probably be another questionnaire coming up. And then we'll have to check with the main boss whether we can, what goes on after that.
Marketing: We might have a while though.
Industrial Designer: {gap}.
Project Manager: But that's the end of our meeting. | 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. | qmsum |
What did the team discuss during the product evaluation about its feature to solve customers'concerns?
Project Manager: Yep. Soon as I get this. Okay. This is our last meeting. Um I'll go ahead and go through the minutes from the previous meeting. Uh and then we'll have a, the prototype presentation. {vocalsound} Um then we will um do an evaluation. Uh or we'll see what, what we need to have under the criteria for the evaluation. Then we'll go through the finance and see if we fall within the budget. Um then we'll do the evaluation, and then we can finish up after that with um any changes that we'll need to make, or hopefully everything will fall right in line. Um let's see, minutes from the last meeting. Um we looked at uh the the trends. We had uh the fashion trends that people want a fancy look-and-feel. It was twice as important as anything else. Um they liked fruit and vegetables in the new styles. Um and a spongy feel. So we were talking about trying to incorporate those into our prototype. Um they wanted limited buttons and simplicity. Um then we looked at the uh the method for coming up with our own remote. Um looking at other other devices. Um the iPod, we really liked the look of that. Um we also had uh the kid's remote for a simple idea. Um a two part remote, which was what were were originally looking at. Uh and then um there was talk of spee uh speech recognition um becoming more uh predominant and easier to use. But I think we've still decided not to go with that. {vocalsound} Then we looked at the components um the materials for the case, the different energy sources, the different types of chips, um and made a decision on what we were going to use to make our remote. Um and basically how, what were making for the prototype. So I'm going to leave it at that and let you guys take over.
User Interface: The prototype discussion.
Project Manager: The prototype yeah. Do you need a {disfmarker} this?
User Interface: No. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Can try to plug that in there
User Interface: There is our remo {gap} the banana.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker}
User Interface: Um {vocalsound} yeah basically we we st went with the colour yellow. Um working on the principle of a fruit which was mentioned, it's basically designed around a banana.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Um but it would be held in such a fashion,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: where it is, obviously it wouldn't be that floppy'cause this would be hard plastic. These would be like the rubber, the rubber grips. So that's so that would hopefully help with grip, or like the ergonomics of it. Um 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'd go through.
Project Manager: Very nice.
User Interface: And the the simplest functions would be um 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'd you sorta go, you press that and go through the menus. It's that that simple. That just represents the infrared uh beam. That's a simple on and off switch. Um I don't know, we could use the voice. T that blue bits should be yellow, that that'd be where the batteries would be I suppose. And um {vocalsound} that's about it. It's as simple as you, we could make it really.
Industrial Designer: Right.
User Interface: Is there anything you want to add?
Industrial Designer: That's what we have there. That's plastic. Plastic covered with rubber. We might uh add some more underneath here. Maybe give it, give it a form. I mean you're supposed to hold it like that, but um just if you grab it, take it from somewhere,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} yeah,
User Interface: Doesn't make much make much difference.
Industrial Designer: you have some rub yeah.
User Interface: You could work left-handed or right-handed I suppose.
Industrial Designer: Exactly, {gap} use both. Might as well think about {disfmarker}
User Interface: T the actual thing might be smaller.
Industrial Designer: Th think about the button as well. Like either put either one {gap} one on either side or
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: What but what's that button?
Industrial Designer: not do it at all. It's a quick on-off button.
User Interface: Just the on and off.
Project Manager: Uh,'kay.
Industrial Designer: That's um
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: yeah I think it's pretty important. So you don't have to fiddle with that.
Project Manager:'Kay.
Industrial Designer: Right? Um that's not um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I'd say a bit smaller would probably be nice. You wanna play with that over there.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: There you go.
User Interface: It's you know it's flimsy'cause it's made out of heavy Play-Doh,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Would you like to uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Right.
User Interface: but {disfmarker}
Marketing: Pretty impressive.
Project Manager: Well done.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Kind of a banana.
User Interface: And whether or not it would fall into the cost {gap} everything I suppose. With the scroll and the L_C_D_.
Project Manager: Well luckily we are going to find out. Or not luckily. Um do you have a marketing presentation for us.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I do. Okay. You guys are gonna help me do an evaluation of the criteria. Um. Okay. So first I'll 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'll do a group evaluation of the prototype. And then we will calculate the average score to see how we did. Um so the criteria we're gonna be looking at are the complaints um that we heard from the users who were interviewed earlier. So we're gonna 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. {gap}. Okay. So for the first one, we need to decide, did we solved the problem of the users who complained about an ugly remote? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I think it's definitely different than anything else out there.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: So if they think that what is out there is ugly, then yes I would say, I would say most definitely.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I would {gap}.
Project Manager: It's bright.
User Interface: It's bright. It's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: It still has your traditional black.
User Interface: It's curved. It's not {disfmarker} there's no sharp
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: angles to it.
Project Manager: Yep, not angular.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: I'd say, when it comes to the ergonomics, the form and stuff, yes that's definitely more beautiful than your average.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: However the colour, we don't have a say in that.
Marketing: Yeah I think the colours detract a little bit. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Some people might say it. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: That has been, that has been dictated pretty much by the company.
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: So uh to answer that honestly I would rather say like uh, we have not solved the problem completely with the ugly remote because the colour is ugly, definitely.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yep.
Marketing: That's true. Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer:'S nothing you can say about that. I mean I much prefer something like brushed chrome with that form.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah something more modern to go {disfmarker} a a modern colour to go with the modern form.
Industrial Designer: Right. Right. It's different. You don't want your uh three feet huge L_C_D_ dis display in your living room that's hanging from the wall to be controlled with something like that.
Marketing: Um okay so, do you think, since we {disfmarker} This was a a sign criteria, do you think maybe we should put it somewhere in the middle then?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Does that sound good?
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: What do you think? Three? Four?
Project Manager: I would say
Marketing: Five?
Project Manager: four. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Four is fair. Okay.
Project Manager: Very non-committal, four.
Marketing: Okay, the second one. Did we make it simple for new users?
Industrial Designer: It's very intuitive, I think yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. I think that was the main aim, one of the main aims that we had.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} S give it a one.
Marketing: One,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing:'kay. Okay. Um, do the controls now match the operating behaviour of the users?
User Interface: Uh yeah.'Cause we've we've brought it down to basically four controls {gap} most common, which are channel and volume.
Marketing: I'd say that {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Right.
User Interface: 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's a one.
Marketing: So one?
Project Manager: I think that's a one.
Marketing: Yeah? {vocalsound} Okay. Okay um 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 don't lose anymore.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Whether you want to or not, you're not gonna lose it. {vocalsound}
User Interface: It's bright yellow.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Bright yellow's hard to lose. But um 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'd we'd mentioned.
Project Manager: So if we incorporate speech recognition into it then it could {disfmarker}
User Interface: Just just to use, to find it when it was lost. But like I said, like I don't think you'd lose something so yellow so easily.
Industrial Designer: Oops. Hmm.
User Interface: And it's not gonna fall, like a rectangle would slip down behind things. That's gonna be a difficult shape to {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well what {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And it is quite bright and {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Maybe in the middle again, three or four or something?
Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: S
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: I mean you know {gap} loo losing things is one of those things that people can lose, I mean a million ways.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: You can pick it up and walk away with it and then you've lost it.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: That's true.
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.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah. You probably {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Probably two. You know. If we eliminate the fact that you know it's impossible to guarantee that it's not gonna be lost then
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: I'd say two.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: With the speech recognition, which of course may be changed depending on budget.
User Interface: Yeah.
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.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: We could add that but that's nothing we have thought of so far.
Project Manager: Which, which may be cheaper than speech recognition if it were just a {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yes.
User Interface: Yeah true. But I mean d just those whistling, clapping key rings you have. They're cheap.
Marketing: Annoying alarm or something?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It's it's {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: So it can't be that
Industrial Designer: Um the {disfmarker} it's based on this anti anti-theft technology for suitcases and stuff,
User Interface: expensive.
Project Manager: Some sort of proximity {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: where you have one piece that's attached to your luggage, another piece that starts beeping. That can't cost much.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: 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 {disfmarker} stick it behind your T_V_ and the other {disfmarker}
User Interface: {gap} stick it on the T_V_ {gap}.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Pray that you don't accidentally lose that piece. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Right.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: That'd be tough then. {vocalsound} Well also your remote would uh alarm you if somebody stole you t your television, yeah. Ran off with it without taking the beautiful remote control.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: So. Are we adding one of these two features?
Industrial Designer: Let's add one of those features and say yes. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap} gonna say {disfmarker} okay.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: So we're {vocalsound} back to a one?
User Interface: Two.
Marketing: Or a two?
Project Manager: Two.
Industrial Designer: Two.
Marketing: Two,'kay. Okay. Are we technologically innovative?
Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} I'd say so.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh don't get many mo remote controls with
Industrial Designer: It's all just {disfmarker}
User Interface: screens on.
Industrial Designer: It's all just stolen technology when it comes down to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah it's stolen technology.
Marketing: From iPod yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: But we have {gap}.
Project Manager: But there's not a lot of yellow, there's not a lotta yellow.
Industrial Designer: right
Marketing: But for remotes {disfmarker} yeah.
Project Manager: Course that wasn't really {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: right
User Interface: Fa
Industrial Designer: right right.
Project Manager: we were kinda forced to take that colour.
Marketing: Two? Three?
User Interface: {gap}'cause it's stolen.
Project Manager: I don't know that we are that innovative, to tell you the truth. {vocalsound}
User Interface: No maybe not.
Industrial Designer: Yeah not really.
Marketing: But how many remotes do you see like this?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: If we added the screaming factor {vocalsound} then we go up.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Not so many.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um I would say we're probably at four.
Industrial Designer: Right.
Marketing: Really? Okay. {vocalsound} That's gonna hurt us.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay. Um spongy material?
Industrial Designer: Yeah well you have that, kind of, sort of.
Project Manager: We have some spongy, yeah.
User Interface: Yeah as much as as needed, I think.
Marketing:'Kay.
Industrial Designer: It's not a one though.
Project Manager: No.
Industrial Designer: One would be the whole thing
Project Manager: Yeah. Because it's only got what, these parts are the grips and perhaps the back side {disfmarker} the bottom {disfmarker} the underneath on the back.
Industrial Designer: to fold and stuff. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So that's 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?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Y yes.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I'd say we did.
Project Manager: If your fashion is b is Carmen Miranda, you betcha. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: More {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well the recent fashion is rather displayed in the in the L_C_D_ and the way you operate it than the form and the colour,
User Interface: On the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: It's true.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: but it definitely is {disfmarker}
User Interface: Be what we were told, and they'd say yeah, definitely.
Industrial Designer: {gap}.
Marketing:'Kay. Alright. Now we just gotta calculate. Six eight twelve sixteen. Seventeen divided by s
User Interface: {gap}.
Project Manager: Seven is {disfmarker}
Marketing: Eight.
Project Manager: Two point {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {gap} two point four?
User Interface: Is that some long division? No.
Project Manager: Something.
Marketing: Well I haven't done math in years.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: What two {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I dunno.
User Interface: Just, I'm sure there's a {gap}.
Marketing: Okay we'll say two point four two. Right? How does that look?
Industrial Designer: I'm impressed. I can't do that without a calculator. {vocalsound}
User Interface: No I can't do long {gap}
Marketing: {vocalsound} It's been a while.
User Interface: very impressive.
Project Manager: And what what is the acceptable criteria? Is there like a scale that we have to hit?
Marketing: Oh no. They just told me to
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} pick my own criteria and have you guys evaluate it {vocalsound} basically.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright then.
Marketing: So that's that.
Project Manager: Okay. Well, let's see.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Now we get to do the budget numbers. You didn't know that you were gonna have a budget. But we do. Okay.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah so. You'd been going a long time dividing that. It's two point four two eight five se it just keeps going on.
Marketing: Oh my god.
User Interface: Two point four two basically.
Marketing: Okay. Yeah we'll go with that.
Project Manager: So I have here an {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Fifty percent, you're kidding.
Marketing: Not too shabby.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} P
Project Manager: We want a fifty percent profit on this. Oh you can't really see that very well.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Charge about three hundred quid for it.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Twelve and a half Euros is what supposed to cost us. Okay, so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It's too much.
Project Manager: Well let's see.
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: The f the {disfmarker} Wonder if I can make this {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: What the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Oh it won't let me do that. Okay. Alright so at top, I don't know if you guys can read that or not. I can't'cause I don't have my glasses on,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: but so we've got the energy source. There's uh four, five, six categories.
Industrial Designer: Battery.
Project Manager: We have energy source, electronics, case. Then we have case material supplements, interface type, and then button supplements. Okay so {disfmarker} Uh first of all energy source, we picked battery. Um and how many batteries do we think this will probably take?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Probably some e either two or four.
Industrial Designer: Two.
Project Manager: Two? {vocalsound} Like it. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: At four it's gonna be too heavy, so that that's not our problem. People can change it every month.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Excellent.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} They won't know until after they bought it.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: This is consumerism.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Alright so for the electronics our choices are simpl simple chip-on-print, regular chip-on-print, advanced chip-on-print, sample sensor, sample speaker.
Industrial Designer: {gap}.
User Interface: We're advanced chip are we?
Industrial Designer: That's the advanced chip-on-print, yeah.
Project Manager:'Kay, {gap} we have one of those.'Kay then the case is a {disfmarker} Probably it's double curved.
Industrial Designer: Double curved, yes.
Project Manager: Case materials are
Industrial Designer: Plastic.
Project Manager: plastic. Um I guess it's two, since one for the top, one for the bottom.
Industrial Designer: N no.
Project Manager: Is that right or is it just one?
Industrial Designer: No that's just one.
Project Manager: Maybe it's one because of the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It's just one mo single mould, we can do that.
Project Manager:'Kay.
User Interface: Yeah {gap} yeah.
Marketing: Right. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I guess it doesn't matter'cause the price on that one is zero, which is nice.
Industrial Designer: Exactly, right.
Marketing: Oh.
Project Manager: Special colour?
Industrial Designer: That's not a special colour. It's a specially ugly colour, but it's not special.
Marketing: Bright yellow.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Interface type. We have pushbutton, scroll-wheel interface, integrated scroll-wheel pushbutton, and an L_C_D_ display.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: S
Industrial Designer: S {vocalsound}
User Interface: That's {disfmarker} Yeah.
Project Manager: So we actually have the L_C_D_ display
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: And then {disfmarker}
Project Manager: and then is it the integrated or is it {disfmarker}
User Interface: I'd say the integrated.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yes unfortunately.
Project Manager:'Kay. Button supplement? Special colour?
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Um special form? Special material.
Industrial Designer: We could of course make the buttons wood.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Say mahogany or so
Marketing: {vocalsound} It'd look really lovely.
Project Manager: Or titanium.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm or titanium.
Project Manager: They cost us all the same.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
User Interface: {gap} remote control {gap}.
Project Manager: Well we only have one button so really we shouldn't be charged,
Industrial Designer: Uh just {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} we shouldn't be charged anything for the the button supplements.
User Interface: No that's getting a bit tiny.
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I'd ignore that.
Marketing: Leave it blank.
Project Manager: Okay. We're gonna leave that one blank because we run on a L_C_D_ and scroll. So our total is fifteen point five. Which I believe is
Industrial Designer: Yeah that's too much.
Project Manager: by three Euros over.
Industrial Designer: It's hard to believe. So we'll go for the hand dynamo huh? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So the only thing better than um a banana-shaped remote is one that you shake.
User Interface: If it w What if we completely took out the the one single button we've got on.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: And just had a scroll wheel interface. And the L_C_D_ display. I suppose the L_C_D_ C_ display's the one that's pushing it up a bit though.
Project Manager: Yeah'cause the {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well'cause we have to have both right?
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I mean let's let's face it, it also depends on the software on the on the television.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: You can have the the information that this thing transmits be being displayed on the on the screen.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So s yeah let's take away the {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah you could maybe take out the L_C_D_ dis display even,
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: if it if it comes up on the computer itsel on the T_V_ itself.
Industrial Designer: Right.
Project Manager: So we may not need the L_C_D_ display?
User Interface: Uh that is possible yeah.
Industrial Designer: Right. We may not need it. There you go.
Project Manager: Well there we go.
Industrial Designer: Perfect.
Project Manager: Twelve point five.
User Interface: There we go.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Perfect.
Project Manager: Okay. So we just remove our {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Screen.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: screen here.
User Interface: Make it a bigger dial.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Easier to use. Even easier to use then.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay, the {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Besides look at what the L_C_D_ does to our lovely remote.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Back to the design room boys.
Industrial Designer: So we can just take away a heck of a lot of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap}.
Industrial Designer: there you go. {gap} central?
Marketing: What's the blue part?
User Interface: That was just {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Oh that's just {disfmarker}
User Interface: we ran out of yellow. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh that's the batteries.
Industrial Designer: yeah.
Marketing: Okay. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: There you go
User Interface: There you go.
Industrial Designer: . Oops.
User Interface: Even simpler.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Looks more like a banana.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: There you go.
User Interface: For all those fruit lovers out there.
Industrial Designer: One more criteria.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so the costs under twelve point five Euro. Was no. We redesigned it. Now it's yes.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Next slide. Project evaluation. Uh project process, satisfaction with, for example, room for creativity, leadership, teamwork, means, new ideas found. Um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} I guess that {disfmarker} Let's see here. I think that perhaps the project evaluation's just supposed to be completed by me. But I'd like to hear your thoughts.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Fair enough. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Trying to fill in some time there. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh h what did you think of our project process? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Great. {vocalsound}
User Interface: I think we did {disfmarker} yeah I think we did quite well. Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Good.
Marketing: Good teamwork {gap}. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Just half a day, you have a remote. There you go.
User Interface: Yeah. Right from the start of the day.
Project Manager: Yeah I think {disfmarker}
User Interface: We sort of knew where we were going straight away I thought.
Project Manager: {gap} we st we started off a little little weak. Our leadership was quite weak in the beginning.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} um {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But as the day went along we had more idea of what we were doing. Um room for creativity? There was that. Um I think we tried a lotta different things and um I think it was um interesting as you guys brought up more um information and studies that we were right on with a lot of those things. Um you guys worked together well as a team. And um the means? Which was the whiteboard and the pens.
User Interface: Yeah. We've used the whiteboard.
Industrial Designer: Super super.
Project Manager: I had some problem with the pen I think, but {vocalsound} minus your p
Marketing: Minus your PowerPoint fiasco.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well that's not my fault. That's obviously the people I work for uh that work for me,
Marketing: No I know. I'm {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well {disfmarker}
Marketing: yeah. Incom {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: uh they've just you know {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Have a {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Heads are gonna roll, believe me.
Project Manager: we have a list of employees that you would like fired.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yes yes.
Project Manager: Okay. N new ideas found? Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm. Kinda.
Project Manager: Yes for the remote. Maybe no not f for
User Interface: Technology used.
Project Manager: technology. Alright. Closing. Costs are within the budget. Project is evaluated. Um complete the final questionnaire and meeting summary. That's it.
User Interface: Excellent.
Project Manager: And I still have to do my minutes for the last meeting. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Actually. Um so there will probably be another questionnaire coming up. And then we'll have to check with the main boss whether we can, what goes on after that.
Marketing: We might have a while though.
Industrial Designer: {gap}.
Project Manager: But that's the end of our meeting. | 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. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
Project Manager: Yep. Soon as I get this. Okay. This is our last meeting. Um I'll go ahead and go through the minutes from the previous meeting. Uh and then we'll have a, the prototype presentation. {vocalsound} Um then we will um do an evaluation. Uh or we'll see what, what we need to have under the criteria for the evaluation. Then we'll go through the finance and see if we fall within the budget. Um then we'll do the evaluation, and then we can finish up after that with um any changes that we'll need to make, or hopefully everything will fall right in line. Um let's see, minutes from the last meeting. Um we looked at uh the the trends. We had uh the fashion trends that people want a fancy look-and-feel. It was twice as important as anything else. Um they liked fruit and vegetables in the new styles. Um and a spongy feel. So we were talking about trying to incorporate those into our prototype. Um they wanted limited buttons and simplicity. Um then we looked at the uh the method for coming up with our own remote. Um looking at other other devices. Um the iPod, we really liked the look of that. Um we also had uh the kid's remote for a simple idea. Um a two part remote, which was what were were originally looking at. Uh and then um there was talk of spee uh speech recognition um becoming more uh predominant and easier to use. But I think we've still decided not to go with that. {vocalsound} Then we looked at the components um the materials for the case, the different energy sources, the different types of chips, um and made a decision on what we were going to use to make our remote. Um and basically how, what were making for the prototype. So I'm going to leave it at that and let you guys take over.
User Interface: The prototype discussion.
Project Manager: The prototype yeah. Do you need a {disfmarker} this?
User Interface: No. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Can try to plug that in there
User Interface: There is our remo {gap} the banana.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker}
User Interface: Um {vocalsound} yeah basically we we st went with the colour yellow. Um working on the principle of a fruit which was mentioned, it's basically designed around a banana.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Um but it would be held in such a fashion,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: where it is, obviously it wouldn't be that floppy'cause this would be hard plastic. These would be like the rubber, the rubber grips. So that's so that would hopefully help with grip, or like the ergonomics of it. Um 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'd go through.
Project Manager: Very nice.
User Interface: And the the simplest functions would be um 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'd you sorta go, you press that and go through the menus. It's that that simple. That just represents the infrared uh beam. That's a simple on and off switch. Um I don't know, we could use the voice. T that blue bits should be yellow, that that'd be where the batteries would be I suppose. And um {vocalsound} that's about it. It's as simple as you, we could make it really.
Industrial Designer: Right.
User Interface: Is there anything you want to add?
Industrial Designer: That's what we have there. That's plastic. Plastic covered with rubber. We might uh add some more underneath here. Maybe give it, give it a form. I mean you're supposed to hold it like that, but um just if you grab it, take it from somewhere,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} yeah,
User Interface: Doesn't make much make much difference.
Industrial Designer: you have some rub yeah.
User Interface: You could work left-handed or right-handed I suppose.
Industrial Designer: Exactly, {gap} use both. Might as well think about {disfmarker}
User Interface: T the actual thing might be smaller.
Industrial Designer: Th think about the button as well. Like either put either one {gap} one on either side or
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: What but what's that button?
Industrial Designer: not do it at all. It's a quick on-off button.
User Interface: Just the on and off.
Project Manager: Uh,'kay.
Industrial Designer: That's um
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: yeah I think it's pretty important. So you don't have to fiddle with that.
Project Manager:'Kay.
Industrial Designer: Right? Um that's not um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I'd say a bit smaller would probably be nice. You wanna play with that over there.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: There you go.
User Interface: It's you know it's flimsy'cause it's made out of heavy Play-Doh,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Would you like to uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Right.
User Interface: but {disfmarker}
Marketing: Pretty impressive.
Project Manager: Well done.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Kind of a banana.
User Interface: And whether or not it would fall into the cost {gap} everything I suppose. With the scroll and the L_C_D_.
Project Manager: Well luckily we are going to find out. Or not luckily. Um do you have a marketing presentation for us.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I do. Okay. You guys are gonna help me do an evaluation of the criteria. Um. Okay. So first I'll 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'll do a group evaluation of the prototype. And then we will calculate the average score to see how we did. Um so the criteria we're gonna be looking at are the complaints um that we heard from the users who were interviewed earlier. So we're gonna 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. {gap}. Okay. So for the first one, we need to decide, did we solved the problem of the users who complained about an ugly remote? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I think it's definitely different than anything else out there.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: So if they think that what is out there is ugly, then yes I would say, I would say most definitely.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I would {gap}.
Project Manager: It's bright.
User Interface: It's bright. It's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: It still has your traditional black.
User Interface: It's curved. It's not {disfmarker} there's no sharp
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: angles to it.
Project Manager: Yep, not angular.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: I'd say, when it comes to the ergonomics, the form and stuff, yes that's definitely more beautiful than your average.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: However the colour, we don't have a say in that.
Marketing: Yeah I think the colours detract a little bit. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Some people might say it. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: That has been, that has been dictated pretty much by the company.
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: So uh to answer that honestly I would rather say like uh, we have not solved the problem completely with the ugly remote because the colour is ugly, definitely.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yep.
Marketing: That's true. Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer:'S nothing you can say about that. I mean I much prefer something like brushed chrome with that form.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah something more modern to go {disfmarker} a a modern colour to go with the modern form.
Industrial Designer: Right. Right. It's different. You don't want your uh three feet huge L_C_D_ dis display in your living room that's hanging from the wall to be controlled with something like that.
Marketing: Um okay so, do you think, since we {disfmarker} This was a a sign criteria, do you think maybe we should put it somewhere in the middle then?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Does that sound good?
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: What do you think? Three? Four?
Project Manager: I would say
Marketing: Five?
Project Manager: four. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Four is fair. Okay.
Project Manager: Very non-committal, four.
Marketing: Okay, the second one. Did we make it simple for new users?
Industrial Designer: It's very intuitive, I think yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. I think that was the main aim, one of the main aims that we had.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} S give it a one.
Marketing: One,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing:'kay. Okay. Um, do the controls now match the operating behaviour of the users?
User Interface: Uh yeah.'Cause we've we've brought it down to basically four controls {gap} most common, which are channel and volume.
Marketing: I'd say that {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Right.
User Interface: 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's a one.
Marketing: So one?
Project Manager: I think that's a one.
Marketing: Yeah? {vocalsound} Okay. Okay um 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 don't lose anymore.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Whether you want to or not, you're not gonna lose it. {vocalsound}
User Interface: It's bright yellow.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Bright yellow's hard to lose. But um 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'd we'd mentioned.
Project Manager: So if we incorporate speech recognition into it then it could {disfmarker}
User Interface: Just just to use, to find it when it was lost. But like I said, like I don't think you'd lose something so yellow so easily.
Industrial Designer: Oops. Hmm.
User Interface: And it's not gonna fall, like a rectangle would slip down behind things. That's gonna be a difficult shape to {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well what {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And it is quite bright and {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Maybe in the middle again, three or four or something?
Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: S
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: I mean you know {gap} loo losing things is one of those things that people can lose, I mean a million ways.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: You can pick it up and walk away with it and then you've lost it.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: That's true.
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.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah. You probably {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Probably two. You know. If we eliminate the fact that you know it's impossible to guarantee that it's not gonna be lost then
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: I'd say two.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: With the speech recognition, which of course may be changed depending on budget.
User Interface: Yeah.
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.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: We could add that but that's nothing we have thought of so far.
Project Manager: Which, which may be cheaper than speech recognition if it were just a {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yes.
User Interface: Yeah true. But I mean d just those whistling, clapping key rings you have. They're cheap.
Marketing: Annoying alarm or something?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It's it's {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: So it can't be that
Industrial Designer: Um the {disfmarker} it's based on this anti anti-theft technology for suitcases and stuff,
User Interface: expensive.
Project Manager: Some sort of proximity {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: where you have one piece that's attached to your luggage, another piece that starts beeping. That can't cost much.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: 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 {disfmarker} stick it behind your T_V_ and the other {disfmarker}
User Interface: {gap} stick it on the T_V_ {gap}.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Pray that you don't accidentally lose that piece. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Right.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: That'd be tough then. {vocalsound} Well also your remote would uh alarm you if somebody stole you t your television, yeah. Ran off with it without taking the beautiful remote control.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: So. Are we adding one of these two features?
Industrial Designer: Let's add one of those features and say yes. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap} gonna say {disfmarker} okay.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: So we're {vocalsound} back to a one?
User Interface: Two.
Marketing: Or a two?
Project Manager: Two.
Industrial Designer: Two.
Marketing: Two,'kay. Okay. Are we technologically innovative?
Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} I'd say so.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh don't get many mo remote controls with
Industrial Designer: It's all just {disfmarker}
User Interface: screens on.
Industrial Designer: It's all just stolen technology when it comes down to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah it's stolen technology.
Marketing: From iPod yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: But we have {gap}.
Project Manager: But there's not a lot of yellow, there's not a lotta yellow.
Industrial Designer: right
Marketing: But for remotes {disfmarker} yeah.
Project Manager: Course that wasn't really {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: right
User Interface: Fa
Industrial Designer: right right.
Project Manager: we were kinda forced to take that colour.
Marketing: Two? Three?
User Interface: {gap}'cause it's stolen.
Project Manager: I don't know that we are that innovative, to tell you the truth. {vocalsound}
User Interface: No maybe not.
Industrial Designer: Yeah not really.
Marketing: But how many remotes do you see like this?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: If we added the screaming factor {vocalsound} then we go up.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Not so many.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um I would say we're probably at four.
Industrial Designer: Right.
Marketing: Really? Okay. {vocalsound} That's gonna hurt us.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay. Um spongy material?
Industrial Designer: Yeah well you have that, kind of, sort of.
Project Manager: We have some spongy, yeah.
User Interface: Yeah as much as as needed, I think.
Marketing:'Kay.
Industrial Designer: It's not a one though.
Project Manager: No.
Industrial Designer: One would be the whole thing
Project Manager: Yeah. Because it's only got what, these parts are the grips and perhaps the back side {disfmarker} the bottom {disfmarker} the underneath on the back.
Industrial Designer: to fold and stuff. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So that's 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?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Y yes.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I'd say we did.
Project Manager: If your fashion is b is Carmen Miranda, you betcha. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: More {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well the recent fashion is rather displayed in the in the L_C_D_ and the way you operate it than the form and the colour,
User Interface: On the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: It's true.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: but it definitely is {disfmarker}
User Interface: Be what we were told, and they'd say yeah, definitely.
Industrial Designer: {gap}.
Marketing:'Kay. Alright. Now we just gotta calculate. Six eight twelve sixteen. Seventeen divided by s
User Interface: {gap}.
Project Manager: Seven is {disfmarker}
Marketing: Eight.
Project Manager: Two point {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {gap} two point four?
User Interface: Is that some long division? No.
Project Manager: Something.
Marketing: Well I haven't done math in years.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: What two {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I dunno.
User Interface: Just, I'm sure there's a {gap}.
Marketing: Okay we'll say two point four two. Right? How does that look?
Industrial Designer: I'm impressed. I can't do that without a calculator. {vocalsound}
User Interface: No I can't do long {gap}
Marketing: {vocalsound} It's been a while.
User Interface: very impressive.
Project Manager: And what what is the acceptable criteria? Is there like a scale that we have to hit?
Marketing: Oh no. They just told me to
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} pick my own criteria and have you guys evaluate it {vocalsound} basically.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright then.
Marketing: So that's that.
Project Manager: Okay. Well, let's see.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Now we get to do the budget numbers. You didn't know that you were gonna have a budget. But we do. Okay.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah so. You'd been going a long time dividing that. It's two point four two eight five se it just keeps going on.
Marketing: Oh my god.
User Interface: Two point four two basically.
Marketing: Okay. Yeah we'll go with that.
Project Manager: So I have here an {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Fifty percent, you're kidding.
Marketing: Not too shabby.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} P
Project Manager: We want a fifty percent profit on this. Oh you can't really see that very well.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Charge about three hundred quid for it.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Twelve and a half Euros is what supposed to cost us. Okay, so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It's too much.
Project Manager: Well let's see.
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: The f the {disfmarker} Wonder if I can make this {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: What the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Oh it won't let me do that. Okay. Alright so at top, I don't know if you guys can read that or not. I can't'cause I don't have my glasses on,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: but so we've got the energy source. There's uh four, five, six categories.
Industrial Designer: Battery.
Project Manager: We have energy source, electronics, case. Then we have case material supplements, interface type, and then button supplements. Okay so {disfmarker} Uh first of all energy source, we picked battery. Um and how many batteries do we think this will probably take?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Probably some e either two or four.
Industrial Designer: Two.
Project Manager: Two? {vocalsound} Like it. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: At four it's gonna be too heavy, so that that's not our problem. People can change it every month.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Excellent.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} They won't know until after they bought it.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: This is consumerism.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Alright so for the electronics our choices are simpl simple chip-on-print, regular chip-on-print, advanced chip-on-print, sample sensor, sample speaker.
Industrial Designer: {gap}.
User Interface: We're advanced chip are we?
Industrial Designer: That's the advanced chip-on-print, yeah.
Project Manager:'Kay, {gap} we have one of those.'Kay then the case is a {disfmarker} Probably it's double curved.
Industrial Designer: Double curved, yes.
Project Manager: Case materials are
Industrial Designer: Plastic.
Project Manager: plastic. Um I guess it's two, since one for the top, one for the bottom.
Industrial Designer: N no.
Project Manager: Is that right or is it just one?
Industrial Designer: No that's just one.
Project Manager: Maybe it's one because of the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It's just one mo single mould, we can do that.
Project Manager:'Kay.
User Interface: Yeah {gap} yeah.
Marketing: Right. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I guess it doesn't matter'cause the price on that one is zero, which is nice.
Industrial Designer: Exactly, right.
Marketing: Oh.
Project Manager: Special colour?
Industrial Designer: That's not a special colour. It's a specially ugly colour, but it's not special.
Marketing: Bright yellow.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Interface type. We have pushbutton, scroll-wheel interface, integrated scroll-wheel pushbutton, and an L_C_D_ display.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: S
Industrial Designer: S {vocalsound}
User Interface: That's {disfmarker} Yeah.
Project Manager: So we actually have the L_C_D_ display
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: And then {disfmarker}
Project Manager: and then is it the integrated or is it {disfmarker}
User Interface: I'd say the integrated.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yes unfortunately.
Project Manager:'Kay. Button supplement? Special colour?
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Um special form? Special material.
Industrial Designer: We could of course make the buttons wood.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Say mahogany or so
Marketing: {vocalsound} It'd look really lovely.
Project Manager: Or titanium.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm or titanium.
Project Manager: They cost us all the same.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
User Interface: {gap} remote control {gap}.
Project Manager: Well we only have one button so really we shouldn't be charged,
Industrial Designer: Uh just {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} we shouldn't be charged anything for the the button supplements.
User Interface: No that's getting a bit tiny.
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I'd ignore that.
Marketing: Leave it blank.
Project Manager: Okay. We're gonna leave that one blank because we run on a L_C_D_ and scroll. So our total is fifteen point five. Which I believe is
Industrial Designer: Yeah that's too much.
Project Manager: by three Euros over.
Industrial Designer: It's hard to believe. So we'll go for the hand dynamo huh? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So the only thing better than um a banana-shaped remote is one that you shake.
User Interface: If it w What if we completely took out the the one single button we've got on.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: And just had a scroll wheel interface. And the L_C_D_ display. I suppose the L_C_D_ C_ display's the one that's pushing it up a bit though.
Project Manager: Yeah'cause the {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well'cause we have to have both right?
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I mean let's let's face it, it also depends on the software on the on the television.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: You can have the the information that this thing transmits be being displayed on the on the screen.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So s yeah let's take away the {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah you could maybe take out the L_C_D_ dis display even,
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: if it if it comes up on the computer itsel on the T_V_ itself.
Industrial Designer: Right.
Project Manager: So we may not need the L_C_D_ display?
User Interface: Uh that is possible yeah.
Industrial Designer: Right. We may not need it. There you go.
Project Manager: Well there we go.
Industrial Designer: Perfect.
Project Manager: Twelve point five.
User Interface: There we go.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Perfect.
Project Manager: Okay. So we just remove our {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Screen.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: screen here.
User Interface: Make it a bigger dial.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Easier to use. Even easier to use then.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay, the {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Besides look at what the L_C_D_ does to our lovely remote.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Back to the design room boys.
Industrial Designer: So we can just take away a heck of a lot of the {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap}.
Industrial Designer: there you go. {gap} central?
Marketing: What's the blue part?
User Interface: That was just {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Oh that's just {disfmarker}
User Interface: we ran out of yellow. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh that's the batteries.
Industrial Designer: yeah.
Marketing: Okay. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: There you go
User Interface: There you go.
Industrial Designer: . Oops.
User Interface: Even simpler.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Looks more like a banana.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: There you go.
User Interface: For all those fruit lovers out there.
Industrial Designer: One more criteria.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so the costs under twelve point five Euro. Was no. We redesigned it. Now it's yes.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Next slide. Project evaluation. Uh project process, satisfaction with, for example, room for creativity, leadership, teamwork, means, new ideas found. Um {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} I guess that {disfmarker} Let's see here. I think that perhaps the project evaluation's just supposed to be completed by me. But I'd like to hear your thoughts.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Fair enough. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Trying to fill in some time there. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh h what did you think of our project process? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Great. {vocalsound}
User Interface: I think we did {disfmarker} yeah I think we did quite well. Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Good.
Marketing: Good teamwork {gap}. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Just half a day, you have a remote. There you go.
User Interface: Yeah. Right from the start of the day.
Project Manager: Yeah I think {disfmarker}
User Interface: We sort of knew where we were going straight away I thought.
Project Manager: {gap} we st we started off a little little weak. Our leadership was quite weak in the beginning.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} um {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But as the day went along we had more idea of what we were doing. Um room for creativity? There was that. Um I think we tried a lotta different things and um I think it was um interesting as you guys brought up more um information and studies that we were right on with a lot of those things. Um you guys worked together well as a team. And um the means? Which was the whiteboard and the pens.
User Interface: Yeah. We've used the whiteboard.
Industrial Designer: Super super.
Project Manager: I had some problem with the pen I think, but {vocalsound} minus your p
Marketing: Minus your PowerPoint fiasco.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well that's not my fault. That's obviously the people I work for uh that work for me,
Marketing: No I know. I'm {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well {disfmarker}
Marketing: yeah. Incom {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: uh they've just you know {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Have a {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Heads are gonna roll, believe me.
Project Manager: we have a list of employees that you would like fired.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yes yes.
Project Manager: Okay. N new ideas found? Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm. Kinda.
Project Manager: Yes for the remote. Maybe no not f for
User Interface: Technology used.
Project Manager: technology. Alright. Closing. Costs are within the budget. Project is evaluated. Um complete the final questionnaire and meeting summary. That's it.
User Interface: Excellent.
Project Manager: And I still have to do my minutes for the last meeting. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Actually. Um so there will probably be another questionnaire coming up. And then we'll have to check with the main boss whether we can, what goes on after that.
Marketing: We might have a while though.
Industrial Designer: {gap}.
Project Manager: But that's the end of our meeting. | Firstly, Project Manager reviewed the overall process that the team designed the remote control that they had viewed the fashion trends and incorporated the key features. After that, User Interface introduced the prototype of remote control based on the previous discussion of its function. The prototype was yellow like a banana with a simplest quick on-off button and could be used both-handed. Secondly, Marketing designed an evaluation test according to criteria found of the market trend as well as the customers'complaints and the team gave one to seven points to the shape, colour, material, controls and functions of the product. Thirdly, the team found that the current product exceeded the budget, so the team decided to completely discard the single button and LCD. Lastly, the team gave positive feedback on the project and the process. | qmsum |
Summarize the conclusion of the location function when discussing budget balancing.
Project Manager: That should hopefully do the trick, um.'Kay. Sorry about the small delay. Falling a little bit behind schedule. And that's uh fifteen twenty five. Okay. So just to try and roughly go over what we agreed in the last one, um we're gonna go for something uh uh how was it? Uh The new black, I believe.
Marketing: {gap}.
Project Manager: Um something that looks good'cause that seems to be in preference to actual functionality in the end, though we should never avoid functionality, of course. Uh many of our components are gonna be standard, off the shelf, but it seemed like we were gonna require at least an advanced chip and we were still very much for the idea of using an L_C_D_ display. Um other things were we were hoping to use rubber, most likely gonna be double curved, etcetera. Okay. So um due to your hard work, we might as well let the uh two designers go first, and uh show us the prototype.
User Interface: Okay, it's a {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Quite how the best way to do this is, I'm not sure,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {gap} I think if we both step up
Project Manager: but {disfmarker}
User Interface: and uh outline our ideas. Okay. Now do {disfmarker} uh doing the prototype gave us a bit more insight into the ergonomics of the design. Um for one thing, it turned out that the only point at which it needs to be articulated for handedness is um is h i is down here for the uh L_E_D_. As it turned out, the whole thing transfers from the right to left hand fairly well from the point of view of operating the uh function buttons and joystick, though it might be an idea to be able to a adjust the positions for the base of the joystick just a little bit for uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: {gap} ju just a thought. You could simply have a slightly ovoid shaped joystick that could then just be turn uh twisted round, so that the uh sticky uh so that the bit that sticks out a bit more is on one side or the other. But as you as you see with the uh {vocalsound} with holding it in the left hand, the L_ uh the L_C_D_ is nowhere useful, so that would need to be articulated uh if we're going to retain {gap} ergonomic design. Um now I I got your note about uh keeping the cost down.
Project Manager: I'm afraid yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: We'll go into that a bit more,
User Interface: {gap} this design could be done with um with uh plastic casing.
Project Manager: but please go on.
User Interface: Though I would recommend around the grip part here in the middle, having maybe just a rubber grip over that which would allow for a slightly more sort of bio-morphic form, and a bit more ergonomic as well. As for the um as for the single curve, um well this edge and this edge, like I say it would be nice to have some curvature to it, but it's not absolutely necessary. Really the curve that's most needed is the underside so that the jo so that the joystick rests over the the edge of the hand like this. Um and you have the uh transmitter here and a wee speaker for the uh for the uh for the uh fi uh for the remote control finder. So.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Any further comments?
Industrial Designer: Um obviously it's gonna be bulkier than how it looks, because it's gonna be flat on one side, so the L_C_D_ will be s sticking down like this, won't it?
User Interface: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Industrial Designer:'Cause it {disfmarker} you can't get it curved.
User Interface: Yeah, I mean the
Industrial Designer: Uh because of costs.
User Interface: uh {disfmarker} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And it's plastic as well, so it won't be as comfortable on the hand.
User Interface: Yeah. I mean with the with the rubber design it could i you know it could pretty much mould very much to the to the user's hand.
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: One nice wee feature if we could if we could still do the rubber, I though of was to have {gap} the uh rubber extend beyond the end of the uh {vocalsound} of the rigid substructure. So it has a wee sort of tail that you just drape over your wrist so it stays in position nicely.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm. Lovely. Um.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, {gap}. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, yeah. Great. Um.
Marketing: Right. Yeah I've got a {disfmarker} if you load up my evaluation document.
Project Manager: Yeah, okay {gap}.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Excellent work.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Um.
Marketing: Uh evaluation. {vocalsound} Basic point uh have a list of criteria that we need to rate the prototype by. {vocalsound} Um then we will {disfmarker} it's a seven s um seven seven step kinda evaluation process. So um not seven steps, seven scale. So after we've finished doing all the ratings for each criteria, we average that and that will give us some type of uh confidence in our prototype. And uh the criteria {gap} based on Real Reactions'kinda goals and policies, marketing strategies, and also those I put together from the user requirements phase.'Kay. Um if you flip the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So, those are the criteria. And uh perhaps I could have put'em a bit better, but you notice a few things that we've totally abandoned, which means {vocalsound} that uh the product will score very badly on some of those points.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Put it mildly. So we have um true? One, t Seven, eight, oh. Fourth. Okay, so we have to go through each point. If we imagine it's actually straight, and just give it a a score. So um how well would you say the prototype is uh 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, uh is the homing thing still {disfmarker} the locator, is that still {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, that's still part of the design.
Marketing: Sure. And Adam, we can keep that in?
Project Manager: Yeah, I believe so. So I mean I don't think anybody could actually stop a remote being lost,
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager:'cause that would mean doing something about the human element,
Marketing: {vocalsound} Sure.
Project Manager: but I'd like to think that we've done something about finding the damn thing once we have.
Marketing: T
User Interface: Mm. Mm. And making it a bright colour helps
Marketing: Sure.
User Interface: with the {disfmarker} personally I would have gone for purple {gap}. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm. Bright colour. So we still have that noise thing, yeah?
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Os on a scale of one to seven, how would you guys rate it for finding {gap} finding it once it's lost?
User Interface: I'd say number one.
Marketing: Number one?
Industrial Designer: One. Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay. Number number one for the first criteria.
User Interface: I think w if it was just the sounder then th {gap} I mean something I've found with uh w w with say tr trying to find uh a cordless phone or a m mobile, you can hear it, but you can't quite pin it dow pin down where it is.
Marketing: Yeah you can tell what room the mobile is {disfmarker}
User Interface: Bu
Industrial Designer: What about {disfmarker} what if the the volume on the T_V_'s turned up massively and uh you just wanna turn down the volume {gap} can't find remote. Suppose you have to go to the T_V_ and do it manually. Mm.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm. Um
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Like y you wouldn't hear the speaker {gap}.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: just before we go through all of the steps here, um well what we'll do is
Marketing: You wanna say something?
Project Manager: um if we can look at the criteria you're gonna evaluate, and then we'll come back to the product evaluation if that's alright.
Marketing: That's fine.
Project Manager: Yeah, is that {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh that's that's fine.
Project Manager: Um so is there anything here that you that you wanted to cover as in the criteria that you've covered? And then we'll come back pretty much promptly to this.
Marketing: What do you mean cr is there anything I wanna {disfmarker}
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: Um, a few. {vocalsound} 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're very big on fashion,
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: so. That's this bit right here. And uh this bit is this one easy to use for visitors or for anybody? I guess it's just the same as saying easy to use interface, so it's kinda condensed into one. And we can come back to it, you said.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: So.
Project Manager: No and which we will do very very shortly. Um. Okay. Slight problem we had was that we have an amazing four Euros over budget for what we were hoping to do. Um most of it stems from the use of the L_C_D_ which I think in the end accounted for about half of our expenditure because of course we required a chip as well. Um the only way to get this down was either to ditch the a L_C_D_, at which point we've removed a large part of how we were gonna interface, {gap} require more buttons, etcetera. Or what we did was that we um we as in I as I was quickly going over it was altering the actual structure. Um changing it to plastic and a solid unit with a single curve design would allow us to come back into the um proposed costs and we're just scraping it in, we've got point two of a Euro left over there. So we're just managing it really. Even then as well, um there was no criteria technically defined for a joystick so I've used what I think's appropriate. With any luck that won't mean that we've 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 U_S_B_ connection is definitely not viable now. Um.
Marketing: Different languages?
Project Manager: That should still be viable. We've got an advanced chip, we've got the use of the L_C_D_. So being able to communicate in multiple languages is still very much a possibility.
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um but what's something we need to decide on is how we're gonna go from here. {vocalsound} We do need to try and come up with an idea which could be continued with other people if need be. Um. We can I can bring the excel up sheet up and uh show you if you wish um. 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 L_C_D_ wouldn't 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: Mm-hmm I suppose o one thing that could be done is h {vocalsound} is have it um circular and have it s {vocalsound} so that the uh the pink {gap} actually goes a bit over the pinkie finger. Mm.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: So that uh th
Project Manager: It very much is about making concessions, unfortunately. Um.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: Do you have any data on how much um different prints cost? I mean can you get the entire thing printed with a design um?
Project Manager: Um b b b da is {disfmarker} you mean on the plastic, or?
Marketing: {gap}.
Project Manager: Let's have a look. You now have as much information as I do. {vocalsound} Um.
Marketing: Yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: So as you can see here, for example, the battery really not very little choice in that one. We've gone for one of the cheaper options as well. Unfortunately we require the advanced chip if we're gonna do what we're needing to. I've said single curved. We really do need it to be that way for the ergonomics of it. Um plastic for some reason incurs no cost, which I've had to very much make advantage of, despite the fact that rubber's only got a value of two Euros per unit. Problem comes here as you can see in the interface. Um if I've read this thing correctly, then we can save point five of a Euro here in that it's not per push button. That might make sense, because then a numeric keypad would come in at um 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're 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 L_C_ display um advanced chip and what would determine the scroll wheel here as well because it's an integrated scroll scroll wheel push button that wasn't 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's quite significantly expensive.
Project Manager: I {disfmarker} that's something you'll have to take up with the bean counters. Um
Marketing: {gap}.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm. {gap} yeah.
Project Manager: as you can see I mean that's taken up well over half of the price.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So um I'm very much open to suggestions of where we go, but because we need to shed what was four Euros off of the um 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 don't even have uh speakers here. The {disfmarker} like uh we uh {disfmarker} what about speakers and transmitters and stuff like that? Have we factored that in?
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Uh no, we haven't, not {disfmarker}
Marketing: Transmitter, receiver, speakers. Plus the extra device itself that's gonna be on a T_V_.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Is that gonna be a button, or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: That'll {gap} it literally would just be a button.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: We might have to {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: That's too expensive {gap} isn't it?
Project Manager: It looks like almost nothing {disfmarker} Mm. Oh good call, I missed that.
Marketing: I I mean it's not on here, but um.
Project Manager: {gap} that's a very valid point.
Marketing: Did they s do we have to use an advanced chip for the L_C_D_?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay. Well that's {disfmarker} yeah.
Project Manager: So if we're gonna go with the L_C_ display, then that's {disfmarker}
Marketing: What's a hand dyna dynamo? You have to wind it up?
Project Manager: I believe so, yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: That would probably not be in keeping with the um the fashion statement and such,
Marketing: {vocalsound} Technology. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Fashion.
Project Manager: yeah.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: So basically the only new thing is the L_C_D_ on the remote now.
Project Manager: Being manipulated by the joystick, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Oh, and joystick, yeah.
Project Manager: Which I'm defining as scroll wheel. Um.
Marketing: And we couldn't 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 {disfmarker} but is a scroll wheel not just back and forward?
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah it's just because there was no actual definition for what a joystick might be, that that's what I've labelled it for the purposes of this evaluation.
Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} The L_C_D_ basically is the big selling point of
Project Manager: If we remove the L_C_ display, we could save ourselves
Industrial Designer: the remote.
Project Manager: a fair amount. Which you could {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: But that's what makes it uh original though,
User Interface: Mm. I think {gap} if we remove the the L_C_ display then there was absolutely no point to any of these meetings
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: isn't it?
User Interface: and we just {gap} we could just put our branding on any other remote control.
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. Um. Uh k
Project Manager: It's a shame. We should possibly have {disfmarker} If we could've increased the price we could've manufactured that and we could've got something far closer to what we were hoping to.
Marketing: Does this does this bear in mind that {disfmarker} I mean it's a bit ridiculous that they're gonna charge us what is it, like this much money for three million if we're gonna buy three million components,
Project Manager: Again, you'll have to argue with the accountants on that one.
Marketing: you know.
Project Manager: Um but for the purposes of this meeting, I'm {disfmarker} we're gonna have to stick with these figures.
Marketing: Mm.'Kay.
Project Manager: So, I would say that it would seem like the general opinion is we're gonna keep the L_C_ display'cause it's about what really separates us, {vocalsound} despite the cost it's gonna incur. Um
Marketing: I think so.
Project Manager: are people maybe not happy with, but are willing to go ahead with this in going for a plastic solid case, to keep the L_C_D_?
User Interface: Mm-hmm. Um yeah {gap} I mean one thing, I mean ho uh how much extra would it be to to keep I mean {vocalsound} keep the um the articulation?
Project Manager: It's hard to tell. Um I would say that you're at least gonna take double curved,
User Interface: This is what I'm wondering.
Project Manager: and even then I'm not quite sure if that's incorporating the idea of articulation.
User Interface: Oh
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: no, I think I I it d that it needn't require it to be double curved.
Industrial Designer: It can be s yeah, it can still be single curved,
User Interface: It's uh it's just {vocalsound} it's just {vocalsound} it's just that the case would come in t {vocalsound} would be made in two parts and then joined together with an articulation.
Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Single curved with articulation?
Industrial Designer: You just {gap}.
Marketing: Could we could we not get rid of the curvy the curvous the curvaceousness and focus on the menu being the best interface?'Cause like we {disfmarker} do we have re restrictions on software?
Industrial Designer: That's what we need for the joystick I think though.
User Interface: Mm. Yeah, I mean
Marketing: Oh but there has to be {disfmarker}
User Interface: and {vocalsound} I mean the uh I mean if you look uh if you look closer at the uh at the prototype here, the lines here along the grip are actually quite straight. Um I mean {gap} yeah,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} But the curves all o over {gap} hand,
User Interface: on the {gap} on the L_C_D_ I mean although we've done it with a curve it
Project Manager: is it?
User Interface: could just as easily be done um without curves. The curve that's really needed is up here,
Marketing: {gap} joystick.
User Interface: to put uh to keep the joystick in a good ergonomic position for it to have it rest on the top of the hand.
Marketing: Okay. Sure. Okay, my bad.
Project Manager: We wouldn't 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.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Um unless we hear otherwise we could go ahead with that proposal.
Marketing: So I think the product is not gonna perform so well for my criteria.
Project Manager: Which is what we can get onto now. As long as {disfmarker} so are we gonna say {disfmarker} {gap} w we have to keep an eye on the time as well, but we're gonna say um single curved design {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh, wait a minute. Sample speaker? What is a sample speaker? Is that somewhat similar to what we want?
Project Manager: It could well be,
User Interface: Mm no
Project Manager: but at a cost of {disfmarker}
User Interface: that's that voice response thing that we got the email about.
Industrial Designer: Costs four.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: But I thought it was just completely pointless.
Marketing: You got a email about voice response?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I did not,
User Interface: Alright.
Marketing: so.
User Interface: B i basically it was {gap} 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 {gap}. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, yeah we'll definitely won't go with that one.
Marketing: We won't go with that one, did you say?
Project Manager: Yeah, that's voice recognition, so.
Marketing: I mean I {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} Okay, okay.
Project Manager: Um. So, okay yeah, battery definitely, {disfmarker}
Marketing: So it looks like we're gonna get rid of the whole loca {vocalsound} locator thing.
Project Manager: It looks like it unless we can manage to put it in under point two Euros, um.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay. {vocalsound} Okay.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Maybe even slight well oh yeah, pretty much point two Euros, I'd say. So we'll leave that one for now. {gap} we'll just have {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Are we going for a special colour at all?
Project Manager: It's uh a case of um I'm uh slightly unsure. One {disfmarker} point five of a Euro for one push button doesn't sound quite right. So maybe it's a case of a push button is maybe one or more. Um.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Well
Project Manager: At which point if {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I was {gap} 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's literally a case of whether or not this is correct. I'm not quite sure if they're {disfmarker} I don't think they mean point five Euros per button.
User Interface: Okay, well
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: l let's say that and then we can have our special coloured case
Project Manager: So
User Interface: and then we at least have {disfmarker} make it a little harder to lose.
Project Manager: There we go.
User Interface: 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's the default colour? White or black?
Project Manager: Black's probably the normal colour you'd say,
User Interface: Or grey.
Project Manager: yeah.
Marketing: Right.
Project Manager: I quite like that colour that you're fetching there,
User Interface: Yellow. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: it's uh definitely for make it glow in the dark even better.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} So will we go with that then?
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: It's not and we can see {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: we'll come back to uh your evaluation
Marketing: {vocalsound} Sure.
Project Manager: which you're probably now going to pan us but there we go.
Marketing: Okay. Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So uh {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Just to give you an idea, um you want to go maybe a bit quickly as well, I'm not sure how much time. We've not hit the five minute mark warning yet,
Marketing: Right okay. Okay.
Project Manager: but.
Industrial Designer: Think it's ten minutes left. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Ten.
Marketing:'Kay. Ability to stop remotes from being lost or to find them once they are lost. Um. Okay.
Industrial Designer: Special colour.
Marketing: Special colour.
Project Manager: Mm mm four?
Marketing: Uh uh four.
Project Manager: Three? Mm.
User Interface: Three. I think we can do three.
Marketing: Three if we're being generous, I feel.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Th the special colour doesn't {disfmarker} would I think make a difference.
Marketing: Think we're being generous here with three.
Industrial Designer: Three.
User Interface: It makes it stand out from {disfmarker} you know it's lost in a big pile of crap, it stands out from the rest of the crap. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm. Yeah. {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Reduce the number of unused buttons. We're down to t two buttons, is it?
User Interface: Two buttons and a joystick.
Project Manager: Two buttons.
Marketing: Okay, so that's a one. You know,
User Interface: Totally.
Marketing: where that's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. I'd say we're doing well there.
Marketing: Okay, that was good. Easy to use interface, buttons menu, menus {gap}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Mm-hmm.
Marketing: that's yeah that's good. {vocalsound}'Kay that's {disfmarker} we're not doing so badly. Um {vocalsound} easy to use {disfmarker} oh okay, let's forget that one. Fancy looking. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} As he models the {disfmarker}
User Interface: It doesn't get much fancier.
Marketing: Sure. And we could do whatever we like with the L_ L_C_D_. Yeah let's just assume it's a good L_C_D_ display.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Maybe I was panicking for no reason.
Industrial Designer: Are we going one on {gap}?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah,
Industrial Designer: I'd say we go two,'cause like f the fanciest would be the double curved.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: I'd {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Wouldn't it?
Marketing: w maybe you'd be a bit too {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: yeah. There we go. Yeah,
Industrial Designer: With the articulators. With bells on it.
Marketing: that's m that's that's better too. More accurate numbers. Technologically innovative. Well, we're getting rid of the locator thing
Project Manager: Which is a shame.
Marketing: which which
User Interface: Mm. I'd give it a three for this {disfmarker} for that.
Marketing: yeah {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: No need for teletext.
Marketing: {gap}.
User Interface: Yeah. I mean the menus thing is something you don't normally see on um on a remote,
Marketing:'Kay.
User Interface: but {vocalsound} you see it in a lot of other places.
Marketing: Yeah, mobile phones.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: And y what you're doing is moving the menu from the television to the remote control, so it's {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: You say three? I might go as far as two on that. Three.
User Interface: I'd give it a three.
Project Manager: I'd be tempted with three, yeah.
Marketing: Three. Okay.
Project Manager: We'll get panned on the next one, anyway.
Marketing: Okay. Materials that people find pleasing.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, w
Marketing: Sponginess is what they really would have wanted, apparently.
Project Manager: It is, yeah. Don't blame them.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um because of the way that we've minimalised the number of buttons and such.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Plastic, it sucks. But it's no worse than any of the other pl remote controls we have.
Marketing: That's true. It's not a step backwards.
Industrial Designer: {gap} five?
User Interface: Mm-hmm. I'd s I I'd give it a six, to be honest.
Industrial Designer: Six?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, okay let's give it a six.
Industrial Designer: Six, {gap}.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay, that's totally thrown everything off balance. Inspired by the latest interior and clothing fashion. W we could. What colour were we gonna make it?
Industrial Designer: Put a leopard print on it. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Well I I I would sa I would say give a s give a selection of colours.
Marketing: {vocalsound} I know,
User Interface: Um we went with yellow we went with yellow for the prototype
Marketing: but {disfmarker}
User Interface:'cause we had yellow. If I were buying one, I'd go for purple. Leopard print would be cool.
Marketing: But um by this I think it's more a case of fruit and veg, {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah we gotta {gap}. I'd say the colour of the border there world {disfmarker} you'd find that, {gap} that's that'd stand out.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Like yellow, yeah. It would also help keep the the product placement s
Industrial Designer: Logo, brand.
Project Manager: yeah.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Is it inspired by {gap} clothing fashion?
Marketing: But {disfmarker} Th th they're referring to the fruit and veg thing.
Industrial Designer: Mm'kay.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes.
Marketing: Is this like a banana type colour? Could we stretch {disfmarker} no still, it's not shaped like a banana is {disfmarker}
User Interface: That's kinda {disfmarker} {gap} i
Project Manager: It's kind o it
User Interface: it won't be when it's been
Project Manager: probably {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh is that'cause it's flat?
User Interface: budgeted.
Marketing: What is {disfmarker} what fruit or veg is flat?
User Interface: I I think s I I think this isn't {disfmarker} not particularly fruit and veggie. Um.
Marketing: Yeah. Or we might have to suffer badly for this one as well. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yellow courgette.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I mean it's probably more fruit and veg than most other things out there bar fruit and veg, so, {vocalsound} what, four?
Marketing: Four? Oh that's it's very ambitious,
Project Manager: Is that being too generous?
User Interface: Mm. I'd {vocalsound} I'd I don't think fruit and veg is the sole criterion. {vocalsound} Is the sole criterion for being um fashion {gap} fashionable or inspired by current fashions.
Marketing: yeah, um.
Project Manager: Oh dear, {gap}.
Marketing: Sure. Inspired by {gap}.
User Interface: Um I'd g I'd rate I'd rate this fairly highly from that point of view actually.
Industrial Designer: Well this this what we're gonna t this is their motto, like.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And we're we're 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 gonna be proportional to the marks. Might {disfmarker} we might wanna be a bit more skepible sceptical about this one.
Project Manager: What would you think yourself?
Marketing: I would say {disfmarker} I mean it's it's not at all, right? {vocalsound} In any way or shape or form.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well, it's kind of curved
Marketing: We didn't m
Project Manager: and we can make it yellow, and that's pretty much banana like.
Marketing: Okay, the the yellow banana like thing is I think is okay.
Project Manager: Si it's got a curve to it.
Marketing: Right five. Is that {vocalsound} sound reasonable?
Project Manager: Am I {disfmarker} do you think I'm stretching the uh the use of the banana?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, I'll go with five.
Marketing: Five. {vocalsound} Yeah.'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's {disfmarker} well this would be in the middle. So we it's it's not bad. It's in the good section.
Project Manager: It's not bad and considering the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} don't pick the pen. Um.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Oops. Sorry. {vocalsound} I'm I'm sorry.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Y oh and you've knocked batteries out.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um right okay it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer:'S bad design, that thing. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: considering the price we had to get this in, to have a positive {disfmarker} you know, even based on the four of us being heavily biased, um
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} it was gonna be quite hard to get anything standing out I'd say possibly, based on um the the cost features.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Mm, yeah.
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 {disfmarker} I mean we didn't we weren't that kinda optimistic too optim overly optimistic. You know like we didn't we didn't add we didn't subtract a whole seven points from these things, so I think we're definitely on the good bit.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Even if we gave this one seven and this one seven, that's still only three extra points over seven. You know, it's {disfmarker} yeah,
User Interface: Mm. Personally, I think given that the product um only replaces a single remote control
Marketing: we did it w it was okay. It was good.
User Interface: that you've already got, are people really gonna shell out twenty five Euros for something that's only marginally good?
Industrial Designer: Well, it depends who your {disfmarker} who's {disfmarker} what the target people are, like you'd say maybe the fashion conscious
Project Manager: Maybe it's been targeted {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: women would be going, oh look at that,'s cool, it looks like a {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: it's yellow, looks like a banana, it's cool it's gotta {disfmarker} look good in the sitting room.
Project Manager: Hide it in the fruit basket.
Industrial Designer: Rather than the L_C_D_ whereas uh more technical like like more uh people in with the latest technology {gap} it's good, it's got an L_C_D_ 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're usually the ones that buy pointless stuff.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I think so.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I mean my mum still has not learnt how to use text messaging on her phone, and she's had it for a long time, you know. She uses it to make phone calls and that's it.
Industrial Designer: {gap}.
Marketing: Yeah. So I think if sh if my mum saw a remote control like this with only two buttons and a joystick, I mean that'll probably be the first one she decides not to buy, you know.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: She'd be like is this a remote control, I don't {disfmarker} how do you use it, and stuff like that. So even if it is really user friendly to us, but we're used to using menus all the time.
User Interface: Mm-hmm. I s {vocalsound} I suppose one thing is that b because it's technically innovative, um for someone who's sort of technophobic, the fact that it simply looks unfamiliar would be daunting.
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Um.
Marketing: I think it's totally uh radical to have a remote control with no no numbered buttons,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: But like radical good, maybe.
Project Manager: Okay. Um don't know how lo much longer we've got. At least five minutes I think. Um quickly we'll pop onto project evaluation. Um. So, we've got these uh four criteria here for uh satisfaction. Does anybody want to um um do you have any opinions on any of them? For example um {disfmarker} we'll work backwards I suppose. The ability to work on this project using the technology we've been presented with. Um {gap} people made good use of the uh pen and paper?
User Interface: Yeah,
Project Manager: I would say {gap} {disfmarker}
User Interface: got notes and doodles.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Wrote nearly a page,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: but not {gap}.
Project Manager: I'm not quite sure what the advantage for us using a digital pen might be.
User Interface: Well I think this is a {disfmarker} I think the digital pen's mostly for the benefit of the uh
Marketing: I think tracking.
User Interface: of the researchers studying this. It's all p goes into their corpus.
Project Manager: It must {disfmarker}
User Interface: Though it would have been nice to be able to transfer the um transfer our n our paper notes onto the uh computer ourselves.
Marketing: Yeah, that woulda been pretty good.
Project Manager: It does seem like the paper's still a heavy consideration for taking notes. So maybe this is literally just a way around it. Um I dunno. How are people satisfied with the teamwork we've managed to display today?
User Interface: {gap}.
Marketing: I'd {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Good.
Marketing: yeah I liked it, yeah.
Project Manager: Leadership. As much as can be leadered in this uh thing.
Industrial Designer: Very good.
Marketing: I li yeah, top marks.
Project Manager: Um last one we've got is room for creativity.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Well {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Unti uh uh until uh until accounts came along,
Project Manager: Now, I think we got {disfmarker}
User Interface: {gap} squish.
Industrial Designer: We're burs bursting with creativity.
Marketing: yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah
Marketing: We we're not lacking in ideas, you know it's {disfmarker} that was not the problem.
Project Manager: I think of {disfmarker} in the end, ideas that can be used {gap} sadly {gap}. Not so much that we weren't full of ideas, but of ones that are gonna allow us to actually build the thing. It's a bit of a pity.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um I would have to agree on that. I think we needed a larger budget.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: If you're going to aim your a um product maybe at the technological kind of sector, then you can afford to maybe jack the price up slightly from what it is.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Because they will pay outrageous cash to {gap}
User Interface: Mm. I mean I th {vocalsound} I mean I think to r retaining the s the more sort of bio-morphic form in the articulation would gain more in s uh would gain more profit in sales than it would lose in uh
Project Manager: first on the market.
User Interface: in added expense.
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: And the price was like {disfmarker} it was twice the w assembly cost. And would it have to be twice that? It could be like coulda had the assembly {gap} like maybe fifteen Euro.
Project Manager: It could even {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: We'll still settle for twenty five {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: That's true, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Maybe. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um I suppose these are all that will have to be taken up with a at a different group at I guess. As to a {gap} the costs involved. But I mean we've got a a prototype.
User Interface: Such as it is.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I dunno, I I think it's gone okay today, considering the information that we've had at our disposal, and um such.
Marketing: Maybe the counts wou woulda been better if we had a list or more {disfmarker} Yeah, to begin with.
Industrial Designer: In the beginning, yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Probably would have {disfmarker} mean we could have come up with a lot more solid design in the end,
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: I would have to agree. It is very much a pity to um get so far into the stage and then find out that maybe some of your ideas are just a bit too expensive. Always hard to tell until you know the costs. Um. Okay. Are the costs within budget? Well,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: they are now that we have our slightly less than capable product.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: We've evaluated it, and we can say that we came out with a value of three.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Actually I want th one thing I would say {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I mean something that could perhaps be part of the product mm the um m product testing market research process would be to uh produce mock-ups of both versions and see just how much of a difference the over {gap} going over-budget um m would make to sales.
Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} yeah?
Marketing: And like response from consumers {gap}.
User Interface: And we could even you know, market two versions.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Wee cheapie version with the nice bio-morphic rubber. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And then the final one where you get to call it Hal.
User Interface: Yes.
Project Manager: But we'll go into that later.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Sure.
Project Manager: Right um
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: is there anything else that anybody would like to to add, um {gap} anything they think that's not been covered, before I quickly write up a final report. Um I dunno, I mean we've got a product. We maybe aren't as happy with it as we'd like to be, but we've got something we think we can maybe stick onto the the market and sell. And of course something we have been avoiding talking about'cause of we've no information is selling them directly to the manufacturers. There is a huge market.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: I mean we've briefly touched on it but we've no more knowledge then there's little we can say on that.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah. So um unless anybody's got anything they'd like to add, we can maybe round this up slightly earlier than we'd need to and then we can finish up the writing and such.
User Interface: And I can get my bus. Okay.
Project Manager: Yeah?
Marketing: Yeah. Okay, let's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Uh thank you for your participation.
Marketing: Thank you.
User Interface: Thank you.
Marketing: {vocalsound} I was actually kind of upset you know at the budget, and that we had to cut a lot of stuff. It's like man, we we can't have the locator thing. And s yeah that's just bad. Do you think maybe {gap} the prices were were made?
Project Manager: That {gap} a question we can ask {gap}. {vocalsound} | 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. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
Project Manager: That should hopefully do the trick, um.'Kay. Sorry about the small delay. Falling a little bit behind schedule. And that's uh fifteen twenty five. Okay. So just to try and roughly go over what we agreed in the last one, um we're gonna go for something uh uh how was it? Uh The new black, I believe.
Marketing: {gap}.
Project Manager: Um something that looks good'cause that seems to be in preference to actual functionality in the end, though we should never avoid functionality, of course. Uh many of our components are gonna be standard, off the shelf, but it seemed like we were gonna require at least an advanced chip and we were still very much for the idea of using an L_C_D_ display. Um other things were we were hoping to use rubber, most likely gonna be double curved, etcetera. Okay. So um due to your hard work, we might as well let the uh two designers go first, and uh show us the prototype.
User Interface: Okay, it's a {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Quite how the best way to do this is, I'm not sure,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {gap} I think if we both step up
Project Manager: but {disfmarker}
User Interface: and uh outline our ideas. Okay. Now do {disfmarker} uh doing the prototype gave us a bit more insight into the ergonomics of the design. Um for one thing, it turned out that the only point at which it needs to be articulated for handedness is um is h i is down here for the uh L_E_D_. As it turned out, the whole thing transfers from the right to left hand fairly well from the point of view of operating the uh function buttons and joystick, though it might be an idea to be able to a adjust the positions for the base of the joystick just a little bit for uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: {gap} ju just a thought. You could simply have a slightly ovoid shaped joystick that could then just be turn uh twisted round, so that the uh sticky uh so that the bit that sticks out a bit more is on one side or the other. But as you as you see with the uh {vocalsound} with holding it in the left hand, the L_ uh the L_C_D_ is nowhere useful, so that would need to be articulated uh if we're going to retain {gap} ergonomic design. Um now I I got your note about uh keeping the cost down.
Project Manager: I'm afraid yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: We'll go into that a bit more,
User Interface: {gap} this design could be done with um with uh plastic casing.
Project Manager: but please go on.
User Interface: Though I would recommend around the grip part here in the middle, having maybe just a rubber grip over that which would allow for a slightly more sort of bio-morphic form, and a bit more ergonomic as well. As for the um as for the single curve, um well this edge and this edge, like I say it would be nice to have some curvature to it, but it's not absolutely necessary. Really the curve that's most needed is the underside so that the jo so that the joystick rests over the the edge of the hand like this. Um and you have the uh transmitter here and a wee speaker for the uh for the uh for the uh fi uh for the remote control finder. So.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Any further comments?
Industrial Designer: Um obviously it's gonna be bulkier than how it looks, because it's gonna be flat on one side, so the L_C_D_ will be s sticking down like this, won't it?
User Interface: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Industrial Designer:'Cause it {disfmarker} you can't get it curved.
User Interface: Yeah, I mean the
Industrial Designer: Uh because of costs.
User Interface: uh {disfmarker} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And it's plastic as well, so it won't be as comfortable on the hand.
User Interface: Yeah. I mean with the with the rubber design it could i you know it could pretty much mould very much to the to the user's hand.
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: One nice wee feature if we could if we could still do the rubber, I though of was to have {gap} the uh rubber extend beyond the end of the uh {vocalsound} of the rigid substructure. So it has a wee sort of tail that you just drape over your wrist so it stays in position nicely.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm. Lovely. Um.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, {gap}. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, yeah. Great. Um.
Marketing: Right. Yeah I've got a {disfmarker} if you load up my evaluation document.
Project Manager: Yeah, okay {gap}.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Excellent work.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Um.
Marketing: Uh evaluation. {vocalsound} Basic point uh have a list of criteria that we need to rate the prototype by. {vocalsound} Um then we will {disfmarker} it's a seven s um seven seven step kinda evaluation process. So um not seven steps, seven scale. So after we've finished doing all the ratings for each criteria, we average that and that will give us some type of uh confidence in our prototype. And uh the criteria {gap} based on Real Reactions'kinda goals and policies, marketing strategies, and also those I put together from the user requirements phase.'Kay. Um if you flip the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So, those are the criteria. And uh perhaps I could have put'em a bit better, but you notice a few things that we've totally abandoned, which means {vocalsound} that uh the product will score very badly on some of those points.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Put it mildly. So we have um true? One, t Seven, eight, oh. Fourth. Okay, so we have to go through each point. If we imagine it's actually straight, and just give it a a score. So um how well would you say the prototype is uh 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, uh is the homing thing still {disfmarker} the locator, is that still {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, that's still part of the design.
Marketing: Sure. And Adam, we can keep that in?
Project Manager: Yeah, I believe so. So I mean I don't think anybody could actually stop a remote being lost,
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager:'cause that would mean doing something about the human element,
Marketing: {vocalsound} Sure.
Project Manager: but I'd like to think that we've done something about finding the damn thing once we have.
Marketing: T
User Interface: Mm. Mm. And making it a bright colour helps
Marketing: Sure.
User Interface: with the {disfmarker} personally I would have gone for purple {gap}. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm. Bright colour. So we still have that noise thing, yeah?
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Os on a scale of one to seven, how would you guys rate it for finding {gap} finding it once it's lost?
User Interface: I'd say number one.
Marketing: Number one?
Industrial Designer: One. Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay. Number number one for the first criteria.
User Interface: I think w if it was just the sounder then th {gap} I mean something I've found with uh w w with say tr trying to find uh a cordless phone or a m mobile, you can hear it, but you can't quite pin it dow pin down where it is.
Marketing: Yeah you can tell what room the mobile is {disfmarker}
User Interface: Bu
Industrial Designer: What about {disfmarker} what if the the volume on the T_V_'s turned up massively and uh you just wanna turn down the volume {gap} can't find remote. Suppose you have to go to the T_V_ and do it manually. Mm.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm. Um
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Like y you wouldn't hear the speaker {gap}.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: just before we go through all of the steps here, um well what we'll do is
Marketing: You wanna say something?
Project Manager: um if we can look at the criteria you're gonna evaluate, and then we'll come back to the product evaluation if that's alright.
Marketing: That's fine.
Project Manager: Yeah, is that {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh that's that's fine.
Project Manager: Um so is there anything here that you that you wanted to cover as in the criteria that you've covered? And then we'll come back pretty much promptly to this.
Marketing: What do you mean cr is there anything I wanna {disfmarker}
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: Um, a few. {vocalsound} 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're very big on fashion,
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: so. That's this bit right here. And uh this bit is this one easy to use for visitors or for anybody? I guess it's just the same as saying easy to use interface, so it's kinda condensed into one. And we can come back to it, you said.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: So.
Project Manager: No and which we will do very very shortly. Um. Okay. Slight problem we had was that we have an amazing four Euros over budget for what we were hoping to do. Um most of it stems from the use of the L_C_D_ which I think in the end accounted for about half of our expenditure because of course we required a chip as well. Um the only way to get this down was either to ditch the a L_C_D_, at which point we've removed a large part of how we were gonna interface, {gap} require more buttons, etcetera. Or what we did was that we um we as in I as I was quickly going over it was altering the actual structure. Um changing it to plastic and a solid unit with a single curve design would allow us to come back into the um proposed costs and we're just scraping it in, we've got point two of a Euro left over there. So we're just managing it really. Even then as well, um there was no criteria technically defined for a joystick so I've used what I think's appropriate. With any luck that won't mean that we've 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 U_S_B_ connection is definitely not viable now. Um.
Marketing: Different languages?
Project Manager: That should still be viable. We've got an advanced chip, we've got the use of the L_C_D_. So being able to communicate in multiple languages is still very much a possibility.
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um but what's something we need to decide on is how we're gonna go from here. {vocalsound} We do need to try and come up with an idea which could be continued with other people if need be. Um. We can I can bring the excel up sheet up and uh show you if you wish um. 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 L_C_D_ wouldn't 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: Mm-hmm I suppose o one thing that could be done is h {vocalsound} is have it um circular and have it s {vocalsound} so that the uh the pink {gap} actually goes a bit over the pinkie finger. Mm.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: So that uh th
Project Manager: It very much is about making concessions, unfortunately. Um.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: Do you have any data on how much um different prints cost? I mean can you get the entire thing printed with a design um?
Project Manager: Um b b b da is {disfmarker} you mean on the plastic, or?
Marketing: {gap}.
Project Manager: Let's have a look. You now have as much information as I do. {vocalsound} Um.
Marketing: Yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: So as you can see here, for example, the battery really not very little choice in that one. We've gone for one of the cheaper options as well. Unfortunately we require the advanced chip if we're gonna do what we're needing to. I've said single curved. We really do need it to be that way for the ergonomics of it. Um plastic for some reason incurs no cost, which I've had to very much make advantage of, despite the fact that rubber's only got a value of two Euros per unit. Problem comes here as you can see in the interface. Um if I've read this thing correctly, then we can save point five of a Euro here in that it's not per push button. That might make sense, because then a numeric keypad would come in at um 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're 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 L_C_ display um advanced chip and what would determine the scroll wheel here as well because it's an integrated scroll scroll wheel push button that wasn't 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's quite significantly expensive.
Project Manager: I {disfmarker} that's something you'll have to take up with the bean counters. Um
Marketing: {gap}.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm. {gap} yeah.
Project Manager: as you can see I mean that's taken up well over half of the price.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So um I'm very much open to suggestions of where we go, but because we need to shed what was four Euros off of the um 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 don't even have uh speakers here. The {disfmarker} like uh we uh {disfmarker} what about speakers and transmitters and stuff like that? Have we factored that in?
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Uh no, we haven't, not {disfmarker}
Marketing: Transmitter, receiver, speakers. Plus the extra device itself that's gonna be on a T_V_.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Is that gonna be a button, or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: That'll {gap} it literally would just be a button.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: We might have to {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: That's too expensive {gap} isn't it?
Project Manager: It looks like almost nothing {disfmarker} Mm. Oh good call, I missed that.
Marketing: I I mean it's not on here, but um.
Project Manager: {gap} that's a very valid point.
Marketing: Did they s do we have to use an advanced chip for the L_C_D_?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay. Well that's {disfmarker} yeah.
Project Manager: So if we're gonna go with the L_C_ display, then that's {disfmarker}
Marketing: What's a hand dyna dynamo? You have to wind it up?
Project Manager: I believe so, yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: That would probably not be in keeping with the um the fashion statement and such,
Marketing: {vocalsound} Technology. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Fashion.
Project Manager: yeah.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: So basically the only new thing is the L_C_D_ on the remote now.
Project Manager: Being manipulated by the joystick, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Oh, and joystick, yeah.
Project Manager: Which I'm defining as scroll wheel. Um.
Marketing: And we couldn't 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 {disfmarker} but is a scroll wheel not just back and forward?
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah it's just because there was no actual definition for what a joystick might be, that that's what I've labelled it for the purposes of this evaluation.
Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} The L_C_D_ basically is the big selling point of
Project Manager: If we remove the L_C_ display, we could save ourselves
Industrial Designer: the remote.
Project Manager: a fair amount. Which you could {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: But that's what makes it uh original though,
User Interface: Mm. I think {gap} if we remove the the L_C_ display then there was absolutely no point to any of these meetings
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: isn't it?
User Interface: and we just {gap} we could just put our branding on any other remote control.
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. Um. Uh k
Project Manager: It's a shame. We should possibly have {disfmarker} If we could've increased the price we could've manufactured that and we could've got something far closer to what we were hoping to.
Marketing: Does this does this bear in mind that {disfmarker} I mean it's a bit ridiculous that they're gonna charge us what is it, like this much money for three million if we're gonna buy three million components,
Project Manager: Again, you'll have to argue with the accountants on that one.
Marketing: you know.
Project Manager: Um but for the purposes of this meeting, I'm {disfmarker} we're gonna have to stick with these figures.
Marketing: Mm.'Kay.
Project Manager: So, I would say that it would seem like the general opinion is we're gonna keep the L_C_ display'cause it's about what really separates us, {vocalsound} despite the cost it's gonna incur. Um
Marketing: I think so.
Project Manager: are people maybe not happy with, but are willing to go ahead with this in going for a plastic solid case, to keep the L_C_D_?
User Interface: Mm-hmm. Um yeah {gap} I mean one thing, I mean ho uh how much extra would it be to to keep I mean {vocalsound} keep the um the articulation?
Project Manager: It's hard to tell. Um I would say that you're at least gonna take double curved,
User Interface: This is what I'm wondering.
Project Manager: and even then I'm not quite sure if that's incorporating the idea of articulation.
User Interface: Oh
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: no, I think I I it d that it needn't require it to be double curved.
Industrial Designer: It can be s yeah, it can still be single curved,
User Interface: It's uh it's just {vocalsound} it's just {vocalsound} it's just that the case would come in t {vocalsound} would be made in two parts and then joined together with an articulation.
Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Single curved with articulation?
Industrial Designer: You just {gap}.
Marketing: Could we could we not get rid of the curvy the curvous the curvaceousness and focus on the menu being the best interface?'Cause like we {disfmarker} do we have re restrictions on software?
Industrial Designer: That's what we need for the joystick I think though.
User Interface: Mm. Yeah, I mean
Marketing: Oh but there has to be {disfmarker}
User Interface: and {vocalsound} I mean the uh I mean if you look uh if you look closer at the uh at the prototype here, the lines here along the grip are actually quite straight. Um I mean {gap} yeah,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} But the curves all o over {gap} hand,
User Interface: on the {gap} on the L_C_D_ I mean although we've done it with a curve it
Project Manager: is it?
User Interface: could just as easily be done um without curves. The curve that's really needed is up here,
Marketing: {gap} joystick.
User Interface: to put uh to keep the joystick in a good ergonomic position for it to have it rest on the top of the hand.
Marketing: Okay. Sure. Okay, my bad.
Project Manager: We wouldn't 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.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Um unless we hear otherwise we could go ahead with that proposal.
Marketing: So I think the product is not gonna perform so well for my criteria.
Project Manager: Which is what we can get onto now. As long as {disfmarker} so are we gonna say {disfmarker} {gap} w we have to keep an eye on the time as well, but we're gonna say um single curved design {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh, wait a minute. Sample speaker? What is a sample speaker? Is that somewhat similar to what we want?
Project Manager: It could well be,
User Interface: Mm no
Project Manager: but at a cost of {disfmarker}
User Interface: that's that voice response thing that we got the email about.
Industrial Designer: Costs four.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: But I thought it was just completely pointless.
Marketing: You got a email about voice response?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I did not,
User Interface: Alright.
Marketing: so.
User Interface: B i basically it was {gap} 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 {gap}. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, yeah we'll definitely won't go with that one.
Marketing: We won't go with that one, did you say?
Project Manager: Yeah, that's voice recognition, so.
Marketing: I mean I {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} Okay, okay.
Project Manager: Um. So, okay yeah, battery definitely, {disfmarker}
Marketing: So it looks like we're gonna get rid of the whole loca {vocalsound} locator thing.
Project Manager: It looks like it unless we can manage to put it in under point two Euros, um.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay. {vocalsound} Okay.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Maybe even slight well oh yeah, pretty much point two Euros, I'd say. So we'll leave that one for now. {gap} we'll just have {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Are we going for a special colour at all?
Project Manager: It's uh a case of um I'm uh slightly unsure. One {disfmarker} point five of a Euro for one push button doesn't sound quite right. So maybe it's a case of a push button is maybe one or more. Um.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Well
Project Manager: At which point if {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I was {gap} 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's literally a case of whether or not this is correct. I'm not quite sure if they're {disfmarker} I don't think they mean point five Euros per button.
User Interface: Okay, well
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: l let's say that and then we can have our special coloured case
Project Manager: So
User Interface: and then we at least have {disfmarker} make it a little harder to lose.
Project Manager: There we go.
User Interface: 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's the default colour? White or black?
Project Manager: Black's probably the normal colour you'd say,
User Interface: Or grey.
Project Manager: yeah.
Marketing: Right.
Project Manager: I quite like that colour that you're fetching there,
User Interface: Yellow. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: it's uh definitely for make it glow in the dark even better.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} So will we go with that then?
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: It's not and we can see {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: we'll come back to uh your evaluation
Marketing: {vocalsound} Sure.
Project Manager: which you're probably now going to pan us but there we go.
Marketing: Okay. Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So uh {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Just to give you an idea, um you want to go maybe a bit quickly as well, I'm not sure how much time. We've not hit the five minute mark warning yet,
Marketing: Right okay. Okay.
Project Manager: but.
Industrial Designer: Think it's ten minutes left. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Ten.
Marketing:'Kay. Ability to stop remotes from being lost or to find them once they are lost. Um. Okay.
Industrial Designer: Special colour.
Marketing: Special colour.
Project Manager: Mm mm four?
Marketing: Uh uh four.
Project Manager: Three? Mm.
User Interface: Three. I think we can do three.
Marketing: Three if we're being generous, I feel.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Th the special colour doesn't {disfmarker} would I think make a difference.
Marketing: Think we're being generous here with three.
Industrial Designer: Three.
User Interface: It makes it stand out from {disfmarker} you know it's lost in a big pile of crap, it stands out from the rest of the crap. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm. Yeah. {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Reduce the number of unused buttons. We're down to t two buttons, is it?
User Interface: Two buttons and a joystick.
Project Manager: Two buttons.
Marketing: Okay, so that's a one. You know,
User Interface: Totally.
Marketing: where that's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. I'd say we're doing well there.
Marketing: Okay, that was good. Easy to use interface, buttons menu, menus {gap}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Mm-hmm.
Marketing: that's yeah that's good. {vocalsound}'Kay that's {disfmarker} we're not doing so badly. Um {vocalsound} easy to use {disfmarker} oh okay, let's forget that one. Fancy looking. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} As he models the {disfmarker}
User Interface: It doesn't get much fancier.
Marketing: Sure. And we could do whatever we like with the L_ L_C_D_. Yeah let's just assume it's a good L_C_D_ display.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Maybe I was panicking for no reason.
Industrial Designer: Are we going one on {gap}?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah,
Industrial Designer: I'd say we go two,'cause like f the fanciest would be the double curved.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: I'd {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Wouldn't it?
Marketing: w maybe you'd be a bit too {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: yeah. There we go. Yeah,
Industrial Designer: With the articulators. With bells on it.
Marketing: that's m that's that's better too. More accurate numbers. Technologically innovative. Well, we're getting rid of the locator thing
Project Manager: Which is a shame.
Marketing: which which
User Interface: Mm. I'd give it a three for this {disfmarker} for that.
Marketing: yeah {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: No need for teletext.
Marketing: {gap}.
User Interface: Yeah. I mean the menus thing is something you don't normally see on um on a remote,
Marketing:'Kay.
User Interface: but {vocalsound} you see it in a lot of other places.
Marketing: Yeah, mobile phones.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: And y what you're doing is moving the menu from the television to the remote control, so it's {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: You say three? I might go as far as two on that. Three.
User Interface: I'd give it a three.
Project Manager: I'd be tempted with three, yeah.
Marketing: Three. Okay.
Project Manager: We'll get panned on the next one, anyway.
Marketing: Okay. Materials that people find pleasing.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, w
Marketing: Sponginess is what they really would have wanted, apparently.
Project Manager: It is, yeah. Don't blame them.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um because of the way that we've minimalised the number of buttons and such.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Plastic, it sucks. But it's no worse than any of the other pl remote controls we have.
Marketing: That's true. It's not a step backwards.
Industrial Designer: {gap} five?
User Interface: Mm-hmm. I'd s I I'd give it a six, to be honest.
Industrial Designer: Six?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, okay let's give it a six.
Industrial Designer: Six, {gap}.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay, that's totally thrown everything off balance. Inspired by the latest interior and clothing fashion. W we could. What colour were we gonna make it?
Industrial Designer: Put a leopard print on it. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Well I I I would sa I would say give a s give a selection of colours.
Marketing: {vocalsound} I know,
User Interface: Um we went with yellow we went with yellow for the prototype
Marketing: but {disfmarker}
User Interface:'cause we had yellow. If I were buying one, I'd go for purple. Leopard print would be cool.
Marketing: But um by this I think it's more a case of fruit and veg, {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah we gotta {gap}. I'd say the colour of the border there world {disfmarker} you'd find that, {gap} that's that'd stand out.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Like yellow, yeah. It would also help keep the the product placement s
Industrial Designer: Logo, brand.
Project Manager: yeah.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Is it inspired by {gap} clothing fashion?
Marketing: But {disfmarker} Th th they're referring to the fruit and veg thing.
Industrial Designer: Mm'kay.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes.
Marketing: Is this like a banana type colour? Could we stretch {disfmarker} no still, it's not shaped like a banana is {disfmarker}
User Interface: That's kinda {disfmarker} {gap} i
Project Manager: It's kind o it
User Interface: it won't be when it's been
Project Manager: probably {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh is that'cause it's flat?
User Interface: budgeted.
Marketing: What is {disfmarker} what fruit or veg is flat?
User Interface: I I think s I I think this isn't {disfmarker} not particularly fruit and veggie. Um.
Marketing: Yeah. Or we might have to suffer badly for this one as well. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yellow courgette.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I mean it's probably more fruit and veg than most other things out there bar fruit and veg, so, {vocalsound} what, four?
Marketing: Four? Oh that's it's very ambitious,
Project Manager: Is that being too generous?
User Interface: Mm. I'd {vocalsound} I'd I don't think fruit and veg is the sole criterion. {vocalsound} Is the sole criterion for being um fashion {gap} fashionable or inspired by current fashions.
Marketing: yeah, um.
Project Manager: Oh dear, {gap}.
Marketing: Sure. Inspired by {gap}.
User Interface: Um I'd g I'd rate I'd rate this fairly highly from that point of view actually.
Industrial Designer: Well this this what we're gonna t this is their motto, like.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And we're we're 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 gonna be proportional to the marks. Might {disfmarker} we might wanna be a bit more skepible sceptical about this one.
Project Manager: What would you think yourself?
Marketing: I would say {disfmarker} I mean it's it's not at all, right? {vocalsound} In any way or shape or form.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well, it's kind of curved
Marketing: We didn't m
Project Manager: and we can make it yellow, and that's pretty much banana like.
Marketing: Okay, the the yellow banana like thing is I think is okay.
Project Manager: Si it's got a curve to it.
Marketing: Right five. Is that {vocalsound} sound reasonable?
Project Manager: Am I {disfmarker} do you think I'm stretching the uh the use of the banana?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, I'll go with five.
Marketing: Five. {vocalsound} Yeah.'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's {disfmarker} well this would be in the middle. So we it's it's not bad. It's in the good section.
Project Manager: It's not bad and considering the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} don't pick the pen. Um.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Oops. Sorry. {vocalsound} I'm I'm sorry.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Y oh and you've knocked batteries out.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um right okay it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer:'S bad design, that thing. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: considering the price we had to get this in, to have a positive {disfmarker} you know, even based on the four of us being heavily biased, um
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} it was gonna be quite hard to get anything standing out I'd say possibly, based on um the the cost features.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Mm, yeah.
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 {disfmarker} I mean we didn't we weren't that kinda optimistic too optim overly optimistic. You know like we didn't we didn't add we didn't subtract a whole seven points from these things, so I think we're definitely on the good bit.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Even if we gave this one seven and this one seven, that's still only three extra points over seven. You know, it's {disfmarker} yeah,
User Interface: Mm. Personally, I think given that the product um only replaces a single remote control
Marketing: we did it w it was okay. It was good.
User Interface: that you've already got, are people really gonna shell out twenty five Euros for something that's only marginally good?
Industrial Designer: Well, it depends who your {disfmarker} who's {disfmarker} what the target people are, like you'd say maybe the fashion conscious
Project Manager: Maybe it's been targeted {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: women would be going, oh look at that,'s cool, it looks like a {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: it's yellow, looks like a banana, it's cool it's gotta {disfmarker} look good in the sitting room.
Project Manager: Hide it in the fruit basket.
Industrial Designer: Rather than the L_C_D_ whereas uh more technical like like more uh people in with the latest technology {gap} it's good, it's got an L_C_D_ 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're usually the ones that buy pointless stuff.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I think so.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I mean my mum still has not learnt how to use text messaging on her phone, and she's had it for a long time, you know. She uses it to make phone calls and that's it.
Industrial Designer: {gap}.
Marketing: Yeah. So I think if sh if my mum saw a remote control like this with only two buttons and a joystick, I mean that'll probably be the first one she decides not to buy, you know.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: She'd be like is this a remote control, I don't {disfmarker} how do you use it, and stuff like that. So even if it is really user friendly to us, but we're used to using menus all the time.
User Interface: Mm-hmm. I s {vocalsound} I suppose one thing is that b because it's technically innovative, um for someone who's sort of technophobic, the fact that it simply looks unfamiliar would be daunting.
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Um.
Marketing: I think it's totally uh radical to have a remote control with no no numbered buttons,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: But like radical good, maybe.
Project Manager: Okay. Um don't know how lo much longer we've got. At least five minutes I think. Um quickly we'll pop onto project evaluation. Um. So, we've got these uh four criteria here for uh satisfaction. Does anybody want to um um do you have any opinions on any of them? For example um {disfmarker} we'll work backwards I suppose. The ability to work on this project using the technology we've been presented with. Um {gap} people made good use of the uh pen and paper?
User Interface: Yeah,
Project Manager: I would say {gap} {disfmarker}
User Interface: got notes and doodles.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Wrote nearly a page,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: but not {gap}.
Project Manager: I'm not quite sure what the advantage for us using a digital pen might be.
User Interface: Well I think this is a {disfmarker} I think the digital pen's mostly for the benefit of the uh
Marketing: I think tracking.
User Interface: of the researchers studying this. It's all p goes into their corpus.
Project Manager: It must {disfmarker}
User Interface: Though it would have been nice to be able to transfer the um transfer our n our paper notes onto the uh computer ourselves.
Marketing: Yeah, that woulda been pretty good.
Project Manager: It does seem like the paper's still a heavy consideration for taking notes. So maybe this is literally just a way around it. Um I dunno. How are people satisfied with the teamwork we've managed to display today?
User Interface: {gap}.
Marketing: I'd {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Good.
Marketing: yeah I liked it, yeah.
Project Manager: Leadership. As much as can be leadered in this uh thing.
Industrial Designer: Very good.
Marketing: I li yeah, top marks.
Project Manager: Um last one we've got is room for creativity.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Well {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Unti uh uh until uh until accounts came along,
Project Manager: Now, I think we got {disfmarker}
User Interface: {gap} squish.
Industrial Designer: We're burs bursting with creativity.
Marketing: yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah
Marketing: We we're not lacking in ideas, you know it's {disfmarker} that was not the problem.
Project Manager: I think of {disfmarker} in the end, ideas that can be used {gap} sadly {gap}. Not so much that we weren't full of ideas, but of ones that are gonna allow us to actually build the thing. It's a bit of a pity.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um I would have to agree on that. I think we needed a larger budget.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: If you're going to aim your a um product maybe at the technological kind of sector, then you can afford to maybe jack the price up slightly from what it is.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Because they will pay outrageous cash to {gap}
User Interface: Mm. I mean I th {vocalsound} I mean I think to r retaining the s the more sort of bio-morphic form in the articulation would gain more in s uh would gain more profit in sales than it would lose in uh
Project Manager: first on the market.
User Interface: in added expense.
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: And the price was like {disfmarker} it was twice the w assembly cost. And would it have to be twice that? It could be like coulda had the assembly {gap} like maybe fifteen Euro.
Project Manager: It could even {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: We'll still settle for twenty five {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: That's true, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Maybe. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um I suppose these are all that will have to be taken up with a at a different group at I guess. As to a {gap} the costs involved. But I mean we've got a a prototype.
User Interface: Such as it is.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I dunno, I I think it's gone okay today, considering the information that we've had at our disposal, and um such.
Marketing: Maybe the counts wou woulda been better if we had a list or more {disfmarker} Yeah, to begin with.
Industrial Designer: In the beginning, yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Probably would have {disfmarker} mean we could have come up with a lot more solid design in the end,
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: I would have to agree. It is very much a pity to um get so far into the stage and then find out that maybe some of your ideas are just a bit too expensive. Always hard to tell until you know the costs. Um. Okay. Are the costs within budget? Well,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: they are now that we have our slightly less than capable product.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: We've evaluated it, and we can say that we came out with a value of three.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Actually I want th one thing I would say {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I mean something that could perhaps be part of the product mm the um m product testing market research process would be to uh produce mock-ups of both versions and see just how much of a difference the over {gap} going over-budget um m would make to sales.
Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} yeah?
Marketing: And like response from consumers {gap}.
User Interface: And we could even you know, market two versions.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Wee cheapie version with the nice bio-morphic rubber. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And then the final one where you get to call it Hal.
User Interface: Yes.
Project Manager: But we'll go into that later.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Sure.
Project Manager: Right um
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: is there anything else that anybody would like to to add, um {gap} anything they think that's not been covered, before I quickly write up a final report. Um I dunno, I mean we've got a product. We maybe aren't as happy with it as we'd like to be, but we've got something we think we can maybe stick onto the the market and sell. And of course something we have been avoiding talking about'cause of we've no information is selling them directly to the manufacturers. There is a huge market.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: I mean we've briefly touched on it but we've no more knowledge then there's little we can say on that.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah. So um unless anybody's got anything they'd like to add, we can maybe round this up slightly earlier than we'd need to and then we can finish up the writing and such.
User Interface: And I can get my bus. Okay.
Project Manager: Yeah?
Marketing: Yeah. Okay, let's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Uh thank you for your participation.
Marketing: Thank you.
User Interface: Thank you.
Marketing: {vocalsound} I was actually kind of upset you know at the budget, and that we had to cut a lot of stuff. It's like man, we we can't have the locator thing. And s yeah that's just bad. Do you think maybe {gap} the prices were were made?
Project Manager: That {gap} a question we can ask {gap}. {vocalsound} | Industrial Designer and User Interface presented a prototype of the new remote control according to the team's previous meetings. However, due to the budget limit, the team had to give up the spongy rubber material and the double-curved design. Instead, the remote control would be made of plastic and have only one curve. There would not be any location function, either. The team decided to make the remote control conspicuous by designing a bright yellow banana shape in case it got lost easily in a room. 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. At the end of the meeting, all team members expressed themselves about the teamwork sincerely. | qmsum |
What did Hefin David AM concern about the fee and access plans?
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Suzy Davies and there is no substitute. Janet Finch-Saunders is joining us from the Assembly offices in Colwyn Bay via video conference. Can I ask Members if there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. Item 2, then, this morning is a post-legislative scrutiny session on the Higher Education (Wales) Act 2015. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education, and Huw Morris, who is director of the skills, higher education and lifelong learning group in Welsh Government. Thank you, both, for attending, and thank you for the paper that you provided in advance. I will just start the questioning by asking whether you are planning to repeal the 2015 higher education Act, or will it be amended by the post-compulsory education and training Bill?
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you very much, Chair. I'm very pleased to be with the committee again this morning, although it's in slightly unusual circumstances. As a piece of post-legislative scrutiny, this was a Bill that was taken forward by a different Minister in a different administration, but I think it is really valuable work in the context of the question you just set out: what can we learn from the implementation of this piece of legislation as we move forward with our reform journey and with this Government and my proposals to introduce a new commission for tertiary education? There is much, at the moment, that lies within the 2015 Act that we will look to bring forward into the new legislation, but there are certainly experiences--and I'm sure we'll come on to some of the evidence that has been received about what's worked, what perhaps hasn't worked--that we all want to reflect on and be mindful of as we take forward the new Bill, including the report of this committee as part of it. So, it is our intention that this Bill will be superceded by the new PCETR Bill.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got a series of questions now from Sian Gwenllian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. Do you believe that the Act has fulfilled all the Government's objectives? Where are the weaknesses?
Kirsty Williams AM: Diolch yn fawr, Sian. As I've said, it's a bit difficult to place myself in the mind of the previous Minister when this legislation was first envisaged and then taken through. You'll 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 Government's 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 post-compulsory 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.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Do you feel perhaps that the legislation itself hasn't 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's 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's 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's really important, and those are principles that I am committed to in any legislation that I bring forward. We'll 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 don't think there's anything in the legislation per se that prevents those national priorities being articulated and being acted upon.
Sian Gwenllian AM: I don't think that's what HEFCW has said in their evidence. They've said that the Bill has been framed in a way where it's not possible for institutions to fulfil any requirements. You're talking about the remit letter; maybe you need to have that discussion there, but, in terms of the Bill itself, you can't make them fulfil any national outcomes. Shouldn't 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 don't 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 co-ordinating and funding the sector, to create a system of outcome agreements, where those outputs will reflect national priorities, and that's one of the things that we've consulted on, and will look to take forward in the new legislation.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. That's 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's 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: Okay. So, I think, first of all, it's 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's a really important distinction to make. So, currently, under the current legislation, unregulated providers can only access Welsh Government student support if they're designated on a case-by-case 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 case-by-case basis in the 2018-19 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're 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 isn't 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 don't know if there's 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've been keen to put students at the front of things to make sure that the institutions that they're enrolling with are strong and have good quality.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. So, what you're saying is that you will continue with a charitable status, or not--
Kirsty Williams AM: At this stage--
Sian Gwenllian AM: --or are you still thinking about it?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, at this stage, I think the charitable status will continue to be an important part of what we will take forward.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Just turning finally to part-time fees and postgraduate fees, do you have an intention to regulate this part in the new legislation?
Kirsty Williams AM: I have to say that, at present, we've not identified an urgent reason to designate these courses as qualifying courses for the purposes of a fee limit. And there are a number of reasons for that. Actually, the current Act--the 2015 Act--does not permit the fee regulation of postgraduate courses, other than PGCE courses for IT purposes. In the case of part-time courses, I'm currently content that fee levels are not exceeding the amount of student support made available by the Welsh Government. So, I think we are, at this moment, relaxed about that, and there are some difficulties around deciding and introducing fee limits on postgraduate courses. I think what's really important to me is the success at the moment of attracting people to postgraduate and part-time study in Wales, as a result of our reforms to student finance. But, clearly, we'll need to keep that under review. But, at this current moment, the Act precludes fee regulation in some areas and there's not a pressing policy need that we've identified to date.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Okay, we're going to move on now to some questions about the level of ambition in the higher education Act and any lessons for the PCET Bill, from Janet Finch-Saunders.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. To what extent has the 2012 university funding system limited Welsh Government's policy leverage over the sector, and how has the HE Act addressed this beyond the levers offered by fee and access plans?
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 HEFCW's 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 non-compliance by institutions. Personally, I wholeheartedly believe that tertiary education providers should contribute to national goals and outcomes as part of what I'd describe as a civic mission. I'm 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's 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'll be aware, in my remit letter, I am concerned about issues around how people working in the sector are paid. We've been able to successfully see all institutions sign up to becoming living wage employers, all institutions sign up to the Welsh Government's code of ethical procurement. So, it's not to say that the Act has meant that we've 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.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Minister. Do you share HEFCW's views on the benefits of having national targets to get institutions to address national priorities? Is this something you wish you could do?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it's not something I wish I could do; I think that we're doing it. Self-praise is no recommendation, but, because of the working relationship that we have, I think we're seeing some success in using the remit letter to influence national outcomes. So, I've just talked about living wage; we're also using our remit letter to drive transparency over senior leaders'pay, the gender pay gap within institutions. For instance, as part of this Government's commitment to improving mental health, we've 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're acting upon them and we're 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'm very grateful to them for doing that.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Are there plans to give the proposed new PCET funding body more effective policy levers to align the sector to the social, economic and civic needs of Wales? And, if so, how will this be done?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said in answer earlier, I'm determined that we ensure a sense of civic mission for the entirety of the sector, including our institutes of higher education. You'll be aware, Janet, that, in the consultation exercises that have been undertaken by the Government so far on PCET reform, we will be introducing more formal outcome agreements, whereby institutions might be given by the commission very clear expectations of how they're expected to contribute to national priorities.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thanks. We've heard that the HE Act, by focusing on individual institutions, did not encourage collaboration, even for widening access activity. Was this a missed opportunity and how will this be taken forward in the PCET Bill?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think we can strengthen our sector by closer collaboration. I think what sets us apart in Wales is that this Government is determined to create a legislative regime and a regulation regime that encourages collaboration and co-operation, which is in stark contrast to the marketisation and the competition that we see being regulated for and legislated for across the border in England. That's one of the reasons why we are going to introduce the new PCET reforms--to create collaboration, not just between different higher education institutes but actually across the sector. So, this is a prime opportunity where we can create a framework that demands and encourages collaboration, not just, as I said, in between individual institutions but across the entirety of the sector. We're doing that because that means we can avoid duplication, we can fill gaps that there currently are and we can create a system that allows for a seamless passage for students to move between the different parts of post-compulsory education that are currently available, where, sometimes, those students find barriers.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, Janet?
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you--that's great, thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now around HEFCW's powers of intervention from Dawn Bowden.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. We received substantial evidence from HEFCW suggesting that powers were inflexible and hard to use--I think HEFCW called them'threatening'--saying that they make sanctions difficult to use and so on. Are you satisfied that HEFCW's powers are useful on a preventative day-to-day basis?
Kirsty Williams AM: If I may disagree slightly, I don't think their powers are frightening. It's very clear what powers are available to HEFCW, and they're certainly more than just the ability to, maybe, lean on an institution. Clearly, there is a system by which there is the ability to, you know, ramp up and escalate levels of intervention in the sector by HEFCW, but I certainly wouldn't describe them as inflexible or not having weight.
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've 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 non-punitive 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's a very HEFCW thing to say.
Hefin David AM: --potentially institutions going bankrupt, and there don't seem to be many steps in between that. I'd invite you to say whether you'd like to remedy that in future.
Kirsty Williams AM: I think, as I said at the beginning of the session, this is why this post-legislative 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've missed out?
Huw Morris: Just to build on what the Minister has said, there's 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's 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's 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 work-based 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 HEFCW's comments is that before we had a loan-based system of student finance, there was a system of block grant allocations and conditions could be attached to those grant allocations by HEFCW. I don't think we're going to be going back to that system in the foreseeable future because of the pressures on public finances--
Hefin David AM: That wasn't how I understood it. I understood it to be the fact that you use these informal powers and then the next step up is quite a severe sanction and there's not much in between those.
Huw Morris: So, in--. Shall I carry on?
Kirsty Williams AM: Of course, yes.
Huw Morris: In the Hazelkorn review, there's 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're 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's that balance to be struck, isn't there, about creating a regulatory regime, which I'm very keen and the Act attempted to do, which was to enshrine institutional autonomy, and that's 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's the balance that we need to try and strike as we go forward with the new commission proposals.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Dawn.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. I think, in terms of the levels of measures--and I understand what you're 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 post-16 sector, however many we're talking--50 plus providers--it's 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's 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's really important to remember is that HEFCW will be replaced. We're not asking HEFCW suddenly to go from regulating a small number of institutions to suddenly regulating 50. We'll 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's my intention.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. 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're saying, you wouldn't be expecting that to happen. Just the fact that they've got the power doesn't necessarily mean that that's what they're going to do.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think it's 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 wouldn't 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 wouldn't describe that as a minor matter.
Dawn Bowden AM: No. That's fair enough. And, actually, on that point, we've had some recent high-profile issues in Swansea and Trinity St David, and HEFCW still haven't 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.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin David has some questions now on fee and access plans.
Hefin David AM: Are you concerned that neither the regulator nor the sector seem to have any confidence in fee and access plans?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think the concept of a fee and access plan is an important concept. Whether we can do them better, whether we can reflect on what's happened to date and create a better system of what's included in a fee and access plan and how those fee and access plans can be monitored, there's an opportunity to do that in forthcoming legislation.
Hefin David AM: So, have you been aware of specific issues yourself? Have they brought them to you?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, no, not in the sense that they've brought them to me to talk about specifically. From my perspective, fee and access plans are focused very much on inputs, and, really, I'd 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're into it, and then, the next thing you know, you're writing your next year's plan. So, I think there's 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're 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's part of a wider piece of work that I'd 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's still--. In a way, it's difficult to make a final judgment on whether fee and access plans in their current format have worked, because we need to know what'll happen to those students in the future. But undoubtedly, despite the limitations of them, I do think we're making progress in terms of access, but I don't 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're saying reflect some of the discussions we've had, but what was clear is that the process and bureaucratic nature of the way you present fee and access plans doesn't work, particularly given the fact that, four years on, early fee and access plans are still being evaluated. There's a real problem there. So, what you're saying--can I just pin down what you're saying--is that we may be moving away from yearly fee and access plans to something that's longer term and outcome focused.
Kirsty Williams AM: That's my preference. So, I think the principle--I'd 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're 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'm 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 vice-chancellors, and I've been very keen to develop a stronger working relationship with chairs, and perhaps we'll 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'm getting as chair of the cross-party group on higher education is that there could still be more direct consultation with stakeholders. That's the message I've received. Now, I've got no evidence to say it has or hasn't happened, but that's the message I've received.
Huw Morris: If I could just chip in for a moment, the Minister's 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's been a general consultation process and a technical consultation process--and wanting to make sure that the Bill that's laid next year hasn't 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 haven't been the subject of consultation--
Hefin David AM: Because that happens at Stage 1.
Huw Morris: Indeed, yes.
Hefin David AM: Okay. Sorry, can I move on to the next item?
Lynne Neagle AM: Oh, you're going on to the next section.
Hefin David AM: Yes, unless there's anything specific--
Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, I just wanted to clarify, if we're moving to a longer term approach to this, how will the new body be able to establish that things are actually working, that the powers are working, if we're working on a five-year time frame?
Kirsty Williams AM: As we've heard, we can't really properly assess fee and access plans in the current arrangements, because it takes time for those cohorts of students to go through and activities to go through. Being able to move to a system where fee and access plans, for instance, could be over a three-year period I think allows universities to be more strategic in some of their investments and some of their activities around fee and access. In a single-year plan, it's almost knee-jerk, it's the need to demonstrate that you're doing something, and doing that within that period of time, rather than a more strategic view--. Can I just say, I know it's not quite subject to this, but we're really moving forward in terms of access and broadening access into the HE sector. For me, student financial support is one aspect of it, but if we're really thinking about social mobility and attracting people into higher education that have never been part of higher education before, our early figures would suggest--they're early figures, and they're subject to change, but in terms of our change to our student support regime, we have seen a 58 per cent increase in the number of postgraduates applying for student support in Wales. When you think about it, when many of us went to university, a degree was the thing that set you apart. Now that more and more students are going to university, it is that postgraduate qualification that sets you apart, but your ability to carry on studying is often limited by access to financial support, so a 58 per cent increase in postgraduate I think is great for those individuals, but it's also great for our economy. We've seen a 35 per cent increase in part-time undergraduates that have been supported by the Student Loans Company; the Open University have reported a 67 per cent increase in students from Wales's most economically disadvantaged areas registering with them; a 57 per cent increase in disabled students; and a 30 per cent increase in black, minority ethnic learners. So, I think that's a really, really positive basis for our sector to continue to work on broadening access.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Sorry, Hefin--carry on.
Hefin David AM: I'll move on to managing risk, if that's okay. 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: Okay. Those were the words used by Universities Wales--
Kirsty Williams AM: No, no, I'm 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's in the interests of students, then, to be at private institutions--? I've seen those private institutions and how they operate; I've seen them at first-hand--they don't operate to the same rigour as public institutions, and they're 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 don't 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've 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 wouldn't tar them all with the same brush, necessarily.
Hefin David AM: But they fall outwith--if they're 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 course-by-course basis, so it's back to the issue of proportionality, isn't it? So, you are automatically regulated for all your courses, if you're one of our main universities, but there is a process that is run by HEFCW on a course-by-course 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'm 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 part-time students? Do you think the landscape may change in future and that the 2015 Act, as designed, wasn't equipped for that, and will the next Act, then, be equipped?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think it's right to say that maybe the previous legislation didn't futureproof for changes. I'm not anticipating a mass influx of alternative providers, in the sense that we've seen across the border, but we will need to ensure that the new commission has powers to regulate and to futureproof.
Hefin David AM: Okay. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn.
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's true and fair to say that the Bill does not directly address issues around governance in the sector. HEFCW do have well-established assurance practices in relation to governance that would predate the 2015 legislation. But governance--we've 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're 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 one-to-one relationship with them, not in the presence of their vice-chancellors. I challenge them, they challenge me, and I think we've deliberately tried to establish a regular routine of that since I took office. And you'll be aware that, collaboratively--and I'm glad that this has been done in this way because I think if you do it this way, we're 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's really important that parties have come together to recognise the issues and to agree to take action, because I think if we'd have tried to impose something, we'd 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's the Gillian Camm review. This is a review that, as I said, Universities Wales and HEFCW have agreed to do together. It's 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'm very supportive of that, and that's happening at the moment. As I said, I'm glad that there's 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're going to be taking into the PCET Bill, do you think?
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. We're 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 don't hold figures on it, but from an approximation that I've 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's 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's a gap 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's 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'll 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've 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 fast-changing nature of that activity.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, just before we move on, can I ask whether it's your plan to legislate on that, as they've done in Scotland?
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, I don't want to pre-empt scrutiny of the Bill, because we need to be able to come to the committee and do that in the entirety, rather than picking off individual bits of it, but we are absolutely exploring how the Bill could introduce a regulatory condition with regard to governance.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. We've got some questions now from Sian on quality assurance.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. We've heard evidence regarding the difficulties caused by HEFCW having a legal duty to quality-assure 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?
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you. My understanding--and as I said, it's a bit difficult, because I can't 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, HEFCW's 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's a lot of joint operation. I think, going forward, we would expect that to continue. We're looking to the new Bill to try to make that clearer. That was a theme in the general and technical consultation exercises that we've engaged in over the last couple of years.
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you're happy, therefore, that that partnership has worked. Are you happy with that?
Kirsty Williams AM: Certainly, in our consultation for the upcoming Act, we've generally heard, certainly from our further education colleges, that they've been quite content with the arrangements. No concerns about it, certainly from further education colleges.
Huw Morris: There are differences in the systems of quality assurance as they've historically applied to FE and HE, but I understand that that has meant that, as FE colleges become more interested in HE, they've had to learn new ways, and that's taken a little bit of time. But, I'm not aware of any dissatisfaction.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, which moves us on to this idea of having one quality assurance body or one quality assurance framework. Is that your intention and how will that work in practice?
Kirsty Williams AM: I am aware, and we've 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've 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 don't want to pre-empt 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're 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 UK-wide baseline standards. So, we don't 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 vice-chancellor has told us:
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, sometimes, I think it is necessary, maybe, to cause a stir. If we don't change things, it does beg the point of,'Why are any of us here if we're not here to sometimes move things forward?'And change is challenging always, but I would like to reassure all of our vice-chancellors and our sector as a whole that we're 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're seeing in the figures that the Minister outlined to you earlier about the growth in postgraduate and the growth in part-time 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 non-conventional institutional setting. Historically, the quality assurance regimes for work-based learning have tended to sit with Estyn; the assurance regimes for the universities have sat with the QAA. There's quite a lot of learning that all sides have got to engage in if we're going to be able to have continued high quality in these new areas that are being explored. That's 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're 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.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And finally, therefore, looking at overseas providers. Currently, of course, universities can award their degrees to students being taught by providers overseas. We know this created problems for the University of Wales in 2011. They faced a scandal; that's probably the best word to use there. Will the new Bill address these issues?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, certainly transnational education does present real opportunities for Welsh institutions, but if not managed appropriately and regulated appropriately can cause real risks to reputation to our sector. When I meet with vice-chancellors in universities in different parts of the world, and when I am visiting different countries, one of the great things that I'm able to say is that we have a sector that provides fantastic quality of teaching, excellence in research and a wonderful student experience, and that is undermined if institutions find themselves undertaking TNE activities that put that at risk. So, it's an important consideration for the health of the whole sector that any TNE undertaken by a Welsh institution has the appropriate quality guarantees built into that because it's a problem not just for an individual institution, but it could undermine the very strong reputation that the Welsh sector has as a whole. Huw, was there anything further about TNE?
Huw Morris: Well, just to say that we are live to that, as I know HEFCW and the QAA are. We've had conversations with both in the recent past. There is quality assurance of offshore activity through the QAA. When they visit institutions with their reviews they will look at a selection of those overseas activities and there are periodic thematic reviews of the activity in particular countries. I think we would hope and believe that HEFCW, in its conversations with the QAA, would be keeping that under review to minimise the risk and maximise the opportunities.
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you're not actually looking to use the new legislation to strengthen the regulation around this.
Huw Morris: The arrangements at the moment are that HEFCW uses the QAA to do the reviews and the inspections. I don't think we're currently looking to mandate the detail of how that should happen. The system at the moment works through co-operation between the institutions and the regulator to make sure the quality assurance system is improving and enhancing things. I think we would look to that as a primary mechanism.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you both for attending this morning and answering all our questions? As usual, you will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you both for your attendance this morning.
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3 then is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Education regarding the revised additional learning needs implementation plan. Paper to note 2 is additional information from HEFCW, following the meeting on 18 July, in relation to our post-legislative scrutiny of the Higher Education (Wales) Act. And paper to note 3 is a letter from us to the Welsh Local Government Association on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019. This is the letter that we agreed we would send last week. Can I ask Members if they're happy to note those? Yes. Thank you very much. Item 4 then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting and for item 1 on 2 October? Are Members content? Thank you. | 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. | qmsum |
How did Kirsty Williams AM plan to manage risks?
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Suzy Davies and there is no substitute. Janet Finch-Saunders is joining us from the Assembly offices in Colwyn Bay via video conference. Can I ask Members if there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. Item 2, then, this morning is a post-legislative scrutiny session on the Higher Education (Wales) Act 2015. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education, and Huw Morris, who is director of the skills, higher education and lifelong learning group in Welsh Government. Thank you, both, for attending, and thank you for the paper that you provided in advance. I will just start the questioning by asking whether you are planning to repeal the 2015 higher education Act, or will it be amended by the post-compulsory education and training Bill?
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you very much, Chair. I'm very pleased to be with the committee again this morning, although it's in slightly unusual circumstances. As a piece of post-legislative scrutiny, this was a Bill that was taken forward by a different Minister in a different administration, but I think it is really valuable work in the context of the question you just set out: what can we learn from the implementation of this piece of legislation as we move forward with our reform journey and with this Government and my proposals to introduce a new commission for tertiary education? There is much, at the moment, that lies within the 2015 Act that we will look to bring forward into the new legislation, but there are certainly experiences--and I'm sure we'll come on to some of the evidence that has been received about what's worked, what perhaps hasn't worked--that we all want to reflect on and be mindful of as we take forward the new Bill, including the report of this committee as part of it. So, it is our intention that this Bill will be superceded by the new PCETR Bill.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got a series of questions now from Sian Gwenllian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. Do you believe that the Act has fulfilled all the Government's objectives? Where are the weaknesses?
Kirsty Williams AM: Diolch yn fawr, Sian. As I've said, it's a bit difficult to place myself in the mind of the previous Minister when this legislation was first envisaged and then taken through. You'll 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 Government's 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 post-compulsory 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.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Do you feel perhaps that the legislation itself hasn't 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's 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's 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's really important, and those are principles that I am committed to in any legislation that I bring forward. We'll 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 don't think there's anything in the legislation per se that prevents those national priorities being articulated and being acted upon.
Sian Gwenllian AM: I don't think that's what HEFCW has said in their evidence. They've said that the Bill has been framed in a way where it's not possible for institutions to fulfil any requirements. You're talking about the remit letter; maybe you need to have that discussion there, but, in terms of the Bill itself, you can't make them fulfil any national outcomes. Shouldn't 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 don't 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 co-ordinating and funding the sector, to create a system of outcome agreements, where those outputs will reflect national priorities, and that's one of the things that we've consulted on, and will look to take forward in the new legislation.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. That's 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's 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: Okay. So, I think, first of all, it's 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's a really important distinction to make. So, currently, under the current legislation, unregulated providers can only access Welsh Government student support if they're designated on a case-by-case 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 case-by-case basis in the 2018-19 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're 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 isn't 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 don't know if there's 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've been keen to put students at the front of things to make sure that the institutions that they're enrolling with are strong and have good quality.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. So, what you're saying is that you will continue with a charitable status, or not--
Kirsty Williams AM: At this stage--
Sian Gwenllian AM: --or are you still thinking about it?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, at this stage, I think the charitable status will continue to be an important part of what we will take forward.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Just turning finally to part-time fees and postgraduate fees, do you have an intention to regulate this part in the new legislation?
Kirsty Williams AM: I have to say that, at present, we've not identified an urgent reason to designate these courses as qualifying courses for the purposes of a fee limit. And there are a number of reasons for that. Actually, the current Act--the 2015 Act--does not permit the fee regulation of postgraduate courses, other than PGCE courses for IT purposes. In the case of part-time courses, I'm currently content that fee levels are not exceeding the amount of student support made available by the Welsh Government. So, I think we are, at this moment, relaxed about that, and there are some difficulties around deciding and introducing fee limits on postgraduate courses. I think what's really important to me is the success at the moment of attracting people to postgraduate and part-time study in Wales, as a result of our reforms to student finance. But, clearly, we'll need to keep that under review. But, at this current moment, the Act precludes fee regulation in some areas and there's not a pressing policy need that we've identified to date.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Okay, we're going to move on now to some questions about the level of ambition in the higher education Act and any lessons for the PCET Bill, from Janet Finch-Saunders.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. To what extent has the 2012 university funding system limited Welsh Government's policy leverage over the sector, and how has the HE Act addressed this beyond the levers offered by fee and access plans?
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 HEFCW's 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 non-compliance by institutions. Personally, I wholeheartedly believe that tertiary education providers should contribute to national goals and outcomes as part of what I'd describe as a civic mission. I'm 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's 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'll be aware, in my remit letter, I am concerned about issues around how people working in the sector are paid. We've been able to successfully see all institutions sign up to becoming living wage employers, all institutions sign up to the Welsh Government's code of ethical procurement. So, it's not to say that the Act has meant that we've 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.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Minister. Do you share HEFCW's views on the benefits of having national targets to get institutions to address national priorities? Is this something you wish you could do?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it's not something I wish I could do; I think that we're doing it. Self-praise is no recommendation, but, because of the working relationship that we have, I think we're seeing some success in using the remit letter to influence national outcomes. So, I've just talked about living wage; we're also using our remit letter to drive transparency over senior leaders'pay, the gender pay gap within institutions. For instance, as part of this Government's commitment to improving mental health, we've 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're acting upon them and we're 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'm very grateful to them for doing that.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Are there plans to give the proposed new PCET funding body more effective policy levers to align the sector to the social, economic and civic needs of Wales? And, if so, how will this be done?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said in answer earlier, I'm determined that we ensure a sense of civic mission for the entirety of the sector, including our institutes of higher education. You'll be aware, Janet, that, in the consultation exercises that have been undertaken by the Government so far on PCET reform, we will be introducing more formal outcome agreements, whereby institutions might be given by the commission very clear expectations of how they're expected to contribute to national priorities.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thanks. We've heard that the HE Act, by focusing on individual institutions, did not encourage collaboration, even for widening access activity. Was this a missed opportunity and how will this be taken forward in the PCET Bill?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think we can strengthen our sector by closer collaboration. I think what sets us apart in Wales is that this Government is determined to create a legislative regime and a regulation regime that encourages collaboration and co-operation, which is in stark contrast to the marketisation and the competition that we see being regulated for and legislated for across the border in England. That's one of the reasons why we are going to introduce the new PCET reforms--to create collaboration, not just between different higher education institutes but actually across the sector. So, this is a prime opportunity where we can create a framework that demands and encourages collaboration, not just, as I said, in between individual institutions but across the entirety of the sector. We're doing that because that means we can avoid duplication, we can fill gaps that there currently are and we can create a system that allows for a seamless passage for students to move between the different parts of post-compulsory education that are currently available, where, sometimes, those students find barriers.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, Janet?
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you--that's great, thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now around HEFCW's powers of intervention from Dawn Bowden.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. We received substantial evidence from HEFCW suggesting that powers were inflexible and hard to use--I think HEFCW called them'threatening'--saying that they make sanctions difficult to use and so on. Are you satisfied that HEFCW's powers are useful on a preventative day-to-day basis?
Kirsty Williams AM: If I may disagree slightly, I don't think their powers are frightening. It's very clear what powers are available to HEFCW, and they're certainly more than just the ability to, maybe, lean on an institution. Clearly, there is a system by which there is the ability to, you know, ramp up and escalate levels of intervention in the sector by HEFCW, but I certainly wouldn't describe them as inflexible or not having weight.
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've 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 non-punitive 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's a very HEFCW thing to say.
Hefin David AM: --potentially institutions going bankrupt, and there don't seem to be many steps in between that. I'd invite you to say whether you'd like to remedy that in future.
Kirsty Williams AM: I think, as I said at the beginning of the session, this is why this post-legislative 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've missed out?
Huw Morris: Just to build on what the Minister has said, there's 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's 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's 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 work-based 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 HEFCW's comments is that before we had a loan-based system of student finance, there was a system of block grant allocations and conditions could be attached to those grant allocations by HEFCW. I don't think we're going to be going back to that system in the foreseeable future because of the pressures on public finances--
Hefin David AM: That wasn't how I understood it. I understood it to be the fact that you use these informal powers and then the next step up is quite a severe sanction and there's not much in between those.
Huw Morris: So, in--. Shall I carry on?
Kirsty Williams AM: Of course, yes.
Huw Morris: In the Hazelkorn review, there's 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're 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's that balance to be struck, isn't there, about creating a regulatory regime, which I'm very keen and the Act attempted to do, which was to enshrine institutional autonomy, and that's 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's the balance that we need to try and strike as we go forward with the new commission proposals.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Dawn.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. I think, in terms of the levels of measures--and I understand what you're 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 post-16 sector, however many we're talking--50 plus providers--it's 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's 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's really important to remember is that HEFCW will be replaced. We're not asking HEFCW suddenly to go from regulating a small number of institutions to suddenly regulating 50. We'll 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's my intention.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. 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're saying, you wouldn't be expecting that to happen. Just the fact that they've got the power doesn't necessarily mean that that's what they're going to do.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think it's 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 wouldn't 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 wouldn't describe that as a minor matter.
Dawn Bowden AM: No. That's fair enough. And, actually, on that point, we've had some recent high-profile issues in Swansea and Trinity St David, and HEFCW still haven't 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.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin David has some questions now on fee and access plans.
Hefin David AM: Are you concerned that neither the regulator nor the sector seem to have any confidence in fee and access plans?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think the concept of a fee and access plan is an important concept. Whether we can do them better, whether we can reflect on what's happened to date and create a better system of what's included in a fee and access plan and how those fee and access plans can be monitored, there's an opportunity to do that in forthcoming legislation.
Hefin David AM: So, have you been aware of specific issues yourself? Have they brought them to you?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, no, not in the sense that they've brought them to me to talk about specifically. From my perspective, fee and access plans are focused very much on inputs, and, really, I'd 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're into it, and then, the next thing you know, you're writing your next year's plan. So, I think there's 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're 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's part of a wider piece of work that I'd 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's still--. In a way, it's difficult to make a final judgment on whether fee and access plans in their current format have worked, because we need to know what'll happen to those students in the future. But undoubtedly, despite the limitations of them, I do think we're making progress in terms of access, but I don't 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're saying reflect some of the discussions we've had, but what was clear is that the process and bureaucratic nature of the way you present fee and access plans doesn't work, particularly given the fact that, four years on, early fee and access plans are still being evaluated. There's a real problem there. So, what you're saying--can I just pin down what you're saying--is that we may be moving away from yearly fee and access plans to something that's longer term and outcome focused.
Kirsty Williams AM: That's my preference. So, I think the principle--I'd 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're 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'm 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 vice-chancellors, and I've been very keen to develop a stronger working relationship with chairs, and perhaps we'll 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'm getting as chair of the cross-party group on higher education is that there could still be more direct consultation with stakeholders. That's the message I've received. Now, I've got no evidence to say it has or hasn't happened, but that's the message I've received.
Huw Morris: If I could just chip in for a moment, the Minister's 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's been a general consultation process and a technical consultation process--and wanting to make sure that the Bill that's laid next year hasn't 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 haven't been the subject of consultation--
Hefin David AM: Because that happens at Stage 1.
Huw Morris: Indeed, yes.
Hefin David AM: Okay. Sorry, can I move on to the next item?
Lynne Neagle AM: Oh, you're going on to the next section.
Hefin David AM: Yes, unless there's anything specific--
Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, I just wanted to clarify, if we're moving to a longer term approach to this, how will the new body be able to establish that things are actually working, that the powers are working, if we're working on a five-year time frame?
Kirsty Williams AM: As we've heard, we can't really properly assess fee and access plans in the current arrangements, because it takes time for those cohorts of students to go through and activities to go through. Being able to move to a system where fee and access plans, for instance, could be over a three-year period I think allows universities to be more strategic in some of their investments and some of their activities around fee and access. In a single-year plan, it's almost knee-jerk, it's the need to demonstrate that you're doing something, and doing that within that period of time, rather than a more strategic view--. Can I just say, I know it's not quite subject to this, but we're really moving forward in terms of access and broadening access into the HE sector. For me, student financial support is one aspect of it, but if we're really thinking about social mobility and attracting people into higher education that have never been part of higher education before, our early figures would suggest--they're early figures, and they're subject to change, but in terms of our change to our student support regime, we have seen a 58 per cent increase in the number of postgraduates applying for student support in Wales. When you think about it, when many of us went to university, a degree was the thing that set you apart. Now that more and more students are going to university, it is that postgraduate qualification that sets you apart, but your ability to carry on studying is often limited by access to financial support, so a 58 per cent increase in postgraduate I think is great for those individuals, but it's also great for our economy. We've seen a 35 per cent increase in part-time undergraduates that have been supported by the Student Loans Company; the Open University have reported a 67 per cent increase in students from Wales's most economically disadvantaged areas registering with them; a 57 per cent increase in disabled students; and a 30 per cent increase in black, minority ethnic learners. So, I think that's a really, really positive basis for our sector to continue to work on broadening access.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Sorry, Hefin--carry on.
Hefin David AM: I'll move on to managing risk, if that's okay. 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: Okay. Those were the words used by Universities Wales--
Kirsty Williams AM: No, no, I'm 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's in the interests of students, then, to be at private institutions--? I've seen those private institutions and how they operate; I've seen them at first-hand--they don't operate to the same rigour as public institutions, and they're 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 don't 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've 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 wouldn't tar them all with the same brush, necessarily.
Hefin David AM: But they fall outwith--if they're 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 course-by-course basis, so it's back to the issue of proportionality, isn't it? So, you are automatically regulated for all your courses, if you're one of our main universities, but there is a process that is run by HEFCW on a course-by-course 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'm 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 part-time students? Do you think the landscape may change in future and that the 2015 Act, as designed, wasn't equipped for that, and will the next Act, then, be equipped?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think it's right to say that maybe the previous legislation didn't futureproof for changes. I'm not anticipating a mass influx of alternative providers, in the sense that we've seen across the border, but we will need to ensure that the new commission has powers to regulate and to futureproof.
Hefin David AM: Okay. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn.
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's true and fair to say that the Bill does not directly address issues around governance in the sector. HEFCW do have well-established assurance practices in relation to governance that would predate the 2015 legislation. But governance--we've 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're 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 one-to-one relationship with them, not in the presence of their vice-chancellors. I challenge them, they challenge me, and I think we've deliberately tried to establish a regular routine of that since I took office. And you'll be aware that, collaboratively--and I'm glad that this has been done in this way because I think if you do it this way, we're 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's really important that parties have come together to recognise the issues and to agree to take action, because I think if we'd have tried to impose something, we'd 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's the Gillian Camm review. This is a review that, as I said, Universities Wales and HEFCW have agreed to do together. It's 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'm very supportive of that, and that's happening at the moment. As I said, I'm glad that there's 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're going to be taking into the PCET Bill, do you think?
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. We're 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 don't hold figures on it, but from an approximation that I've 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's 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's a gap 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's 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'll 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've 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 fast-changing nature of that activity.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, just before we move on, can I ask whether it's your plan to legislate on that, as they've done in Scotland?
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, I don't want to pre-empt scrutiny of the Bill, because we need to be able to come to the committee and do that in the entirety, rather than picking off individual bits of it, but we are absolutely exploring how the Bill could introduce a regulatory condition with regard to governance.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. We've got some questions now from Sian on quality assurance.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. We've heard evidence regarding the difficulties caused by HEFCW having a legal duty to quality-assure 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?
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you. My understanding--and as I said, it's a bit difficult, because I can't 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, HEFCW's 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's a lot of joint operation. I think, going forward, we would expect that to continue. We're looking to the new Bill to try to make that clearer. That was a theme in the general and technical consultation exercises that we've engaged in over the last couple of years.
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you're happy, therefore, that that partnership has worked. Are you happy with that?
Kirsty Williams AM: Certainly, in our consultation for the upcoming Act, we've generally heard, certainly from our further education colleges, that they've been quite content with the arrangements. No concerns about it, certainly from further education colleges.
Huw Morris: There are differences in the systems of quality assurance as they've historically applied to FE and HE, but I understand that that has meant that, as FE colleges become more interested in HE, they've had to learn new ways, and that's taken a little bit of time. But, I'm not aware of any dissatisfaction.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, which moves us on to this idea of having one quality assurance body or one quality assurance framework. Is that your intention and how will that work in practice?
Kirsty Williams AM: I am aware, and we've 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've 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 don't want to pre-empt 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're 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 UK-wide baseline standards. So, we don't 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 vice-chancellor has told us:
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, sometimes, I think it is necessary, maybe, to cause a stir. If we don't change things, it does beg the point of,'Why are any of us here if we're not here to sometimes move things forward?'And change is challenging always, but I would like to reassure all of our vice-chancellors and our sector as a whole that we're 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're seeing in the figures that the Minister outlined to you earlier about the growth in postgraduate and the growth in part-time 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 non-conventional institutional setting. Historically, the quality assurance regimes for work-based learning have tended to sit with Estyn; the assurance regimes for the universities have sat with the QAA. There's quite a lot of learning that all sides have got to engage in if we're going to be able to have continued high quality in these new areas that are being explored. That's 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're 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.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And finally, therefore, looking at overseas providers. Currently, of course, universities can award their degrees to students being taught by providers overseas. We know this created problems for the University of Wales in 2011. They faced a scandal; that's probably the best word to use there. Will the new Bill address these issues?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, certainly transnational education does present real opportunities for Welsh institutions, but if not managed appropriately and regulated appropriately can cause real risks to reputation to our sector. When I meet with vice-chancellors in universities in different parts of the world, and when I am visiting different countries, one of the great things that I'm able to say is that we have a sector that provides fantastic quality of teaching, excellence in research and a wonderful student experience, and that is undermined if institutions find themselves undertaking TNE activities that put that at risk. So, it's an important consideration for the health of the whole sector that any TNE undertaken by a Welsh institution has the appropriate quality guarantees built into that because it's a problem not just for an individual institution, but it could undermine the very strong reputation that the Welsh sector has as a whole. Huw, was there anything further about TNE?
Huw Morris: Well, just to say that we are live to that, as I know HEFCW and the QAA are. We've had conversations with both in the recent past. There is quality assurance of offshore activity through the QAA. When they visit institutions with their reviews they will look at a selection of those overseas activities and there are periodic thematic reviews of the activity in particular countries. I think we would hope and believe that HEFCW, in its conversations with the QAA, would be keeping that under review to minimise the risk and maximise the opportunities.
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you're not actually looking to use the new legislation to strengthen the regulation around this.
Huw Morris: The arrangements at the moment are that HEFCW uses the QAA to do the reviews and the inspections. I don't think we're currently looking to mandate the detail of how that should happen. The system at the moment works through co-operation between the institutions and the regulator to make sure the quality assurance system is improving and enhancing things. I think we would look to that as a primary mechanism.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you both for attending this morning and answering all our questions? As usual, you will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you both for your attendance this morning.
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3 then is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Education regarding the revised additional learning needs implementation plan. Paper to note 2 is additional information from HEFCW, following the meeting on 18 July, in relation to our post-legislative scrutiny of the Higher Education (Wales) Act. And paper to note 3 is a letter from us to the Welsh Local Government Association on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019. This is the letter that we agreed we would send last week. Can I ask Members if they're happy to note those? Yes. Thank you very much. Item 4 then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting and for item 1 on 2 October? Are Members content? Thank you. | 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. | qmsum |
What did Kirsty Williams AM react in response to concerns of the governance of universities?
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Suzy Davies and there is no substitute. Janet Finch-Saunders is joining us from the Assembly offices in Colwyn Bay via video conference. Can I ask Members if there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. Item 2, then, this morning is a post-legislative scrutiny session on the Higher Education (Wales) Act 2015. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education, and Huw Morris, who is director of the skills, higher education and lifelong learning group in Welsh Government. Thank you, both, for attending, and thank you for the paper that you provided in advance. I will just start the questioning by asking whether you are planning to repeal the 2015 higher education Act, or will it be amended by the post-compulsory education and training Bill?
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you very much, Chair. I'm very pleased to be with the committee again this morning, although it's in slightly unusual circumstances. As a piece of post-legislative scrutiny, this was a Bill that was taken forward by a different Minister in a different administration, but I think it is really valuable work in the context of the question you just set out: what can we learn from the implementation of this piece of legislation as we move forward with our reform journey and with this Government and my proposals to introduce a new commission for tertiary education? There is much, at the moment, that lies within the 2015 Act that we will look to bring forward into the new legislation, but there are certainly experiences--and I'm sure we'll come on to some of the evidence that has been received about what's worked, what perhaps hasn't worked--that we all want to reflect on and be mindful of as we take forward the new Bill, including the report of this committee as part of it. So, it is our intention that this Bill will be superceded by the new PCETR Bill.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got a series of questions now from Sian Gwenllian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. Do you believe that the Act has fulfilled all the Government's objectives? Where are the weaknesses?
Kirsty Williams AM: Diolch yn fawr, Sian. As I've said, it's a bit difficult to place myself in the mind of the previous Minister when this legislation was first envisaged and then taken through. You'll 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 Government's 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 post-compulsory 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.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Do you feel perhaps that the legislation itself hasn't 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's 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's 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's really important, and those are principles that I am committed to in any legislation that I bring forward. We'll 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 don't think there's anything in the legislation per se that prevents those national priorities being articulated and being acted upon.
Sian Gwenllian AM: I don't think that's what HEFCW has said in their evidence. They've said that the Bill has been framed in a way where it's not possible for institutions to fulfil any requirements. You're talking about the remit letter; maybe you need to have that discussion there, but, in terms of the Bill itself, you can't make them fulfil any national outcomes. Shouldn't 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 don't 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 co-ordinating and funding the sector, to create a system of outcome agreements, where those outputs will reflect national priorities, and that's one of the things that we've consulted on, and will look to take forward in the new legislation.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. That's 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's 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: Okay. So, I think, first of all, it's 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's a really important distinction to make. So, currently, under the current legislation, unregulated providers can only access Welsh Government student support if they're designated on a case-by-case 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 case-by-case basis in the 2018-19 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're 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 isn't 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 don't know if there's 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've been keen to put students at the front of things to make sure that the institutions that they're enrolling with are strong and have good quality.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. So, what you're saying is that you will continue with a charitable status, or not--
Kirsty Williams AM: At this stage--
Sian Gwenllian AM: --or are you still thinking about it?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, at this stage, I think the charitable status will continue to be an important part of what we will take forward.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Just turning finally to part-time fees and postgraduate fees, do you have an intention to regulate this part in the new legislation?
Kirsty Williams AM: I have to say that, at present, we've not identified an urgent reason to designate these courses as qualifying courses for the purposes of a fee limit. And there are a number of reasons for that. Actually, the current Act--the 2015 Act--does not permit the fee regulation of postgraduate courses, other than PGCE courses for IT purposes. In the case of part-time courses, I'm currently content that fee levels are not exceeding the amount of student support made available by the Welsh Government. So, I think we are, at this moment, relaxed about that, and there are some difficulties around deciding and introducing fee limits on postgraduate courses. I think what's really important to me is the success at the moment of attracting people to postgraduate and part-time study in Wales, as a result of our reforms to student finance. But, clearly, we'll need to keep that under review. But, at this current moment, the Act precludes fee regulation in some areas and there's not a pressing policy need that we've identified to date.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Okay, we're going to move on now to some questions about the level of ambition in the higher education Act and any lessons for the PCET Bill, from Janet Finch-Saunders.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. To what extent has the 2012 university funding system limited Welsh Government's policy leverage over the sector, and how has the HE Act addressed this beyond the levers offered by fee and access plans?
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 HEFCW's 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 non-compliance by institutions. Personally, I wholeheartedly believe that tertiary education providers should contribute to national goals and outcomes as part of what I'd describe as a civic mission. I'm 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's 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'll be aware, in my remit letter, I am concerned about issues around how people working in the sector are paid. We've been able to successfully see all institutions sign up to becoming living wage employers, all institutions sign up to the Welsh Government's code of ethical procurement. So, it's not to say that the Act has meant that we've 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.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Minister. Do you share HEFCW's views on the benefits of having national targets to get institutions to address national priorities? Is this something you wish you could do?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it's not something I wish I could do; I think that we're doing it. Self-praise is no recommendation, but, because of the working relationship that we have, I think we're seeing some success in using the remit letter to influence national outcomes. So, I've just talked about living wage; we're also using our remit letter to drive transparency over senior leaders'pay, the gender pay gap within institutions. For instance, as part of this Government's commitment to improving mental health, we've 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're acting upon them and we're 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'm very grateful to them for doing that.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Are there plans to give the proposed new PCET funding body more effective policy levers to align the sector to the social, economic and civic needs of Wales? And, if so, how will this be done?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said in answer earlier, I'm determined that we ensure a sense of civic mission for the entirety of the sector, including our institutes of higher education. You'll be aware, Janet, that, in the consultation exercises that have been undertaken by the Government so far on PCET reform, we will be introducing more formal outcome agreements, whereby institutions might be given by the commission very clear expectations of how they're expected to contribute to national priorities.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thanks. We've heard that the HE Act, by focusing on individual institutions, did not encourage collaboration, even for widening access activity. Was this a missed opportunity and how will this be taken forward in the PCET Bill?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think we can strengthen our sector by closer collaboration. I think what sets us apart in Wales is that this Government is determined to create a legislative regime and a regulation regime that encourages collaboration and co-operation, which is in stark contrast to the marketisation and the competition that we see being regulated for and legislated for across the border in England. That's one of the reasons why we are going to introduce the new PCET reforms--to create collaboration, not just between different higher education institutes but actually across the sector. So, this is a prime opportunity where we can create a framework that demands and encourages collaboration, not just, as I said, in between individual institutions but across the entirety of the sector. We're doing that because that means we can avoid duplication, we can fill gaps that there currently are and we can create a system that allows for a seamless passage for students to move between the different parts of post-compulsory education that are currently available, where, sometimes, those students find barriers.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, Janet?
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you--that's great, thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now around HEFCW's powers of intervention from Dawn Bowden.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. We received substantial evidence from HEFCW suggesting that powers were inflexible and hard to use--I think HEFCW called them'threatening'--saying that they make sanctions difficult to use and so on. Are you satisfied that HEFCW's powers are useful on a preventative day-to-day basis?
Kirsty Williams AM: If I may disagree slightly, I don't think their powers are frightening. It's very clear what powers are available to HEFCW, and they're certainly more than just the ability to, maybe, lean on an institution. Clearly, there is a system by which there is the ability to, you know, ramp up and escalate levels of intervention in the sector by HEFCW, but I certainly wouldn't describe them as inflexible or not having weight.
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've 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 non-punitive 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's a very HEFCW thing to say.
Hefin David AM: --potentially institutions going bankrupt, and there don't seem to be many steps in between that. I'd invite you to say whether you'd like to remedy that in future.
Kirsty Williams AM: I think, as I said at the beginning of the session, this is why this post-legislative 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've missed out?
Huw Morris: Just to build on what the Minister has said, there's 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's 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's 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 work-based 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 HEFCW's comments is that before we had a loan-based system of student finance, there was a system of block grant allocations and conditions could be attached to those grant allocations by HEFCW. I don't think we're going to be going back to that system in the foreseeable future because of the pressures on public finances--
Hefin David AM: That wasn't how I understood it. I understood it to be the fact that you use these informal powers and then the next step up is quite a severe sanction and there's not much in between those.
Huw Morris: So, in--. Shall I carry on?
Kirsty Williams AM: Of course, yes.
Huw Morris: In the Hazelkorn review, there's 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're 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's that balance to be struck, isn't there, about creating a regulatory regime, which I'm very keen and the Act attempted to do, which was to enshrine institutional autonomy, and that's 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's the balance that we need to try and strike as we go forward with the new commission proposals.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Dawn.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. I think, in terms of the levels of measures--and I understand what you're 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 post-16 sector, however many we're talking--50 plus providers--it's 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's 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's really important to remember is that HEFCW will be replaced. We're not asking HEFCW suddenly to go from regulating a small number of institutions to suddenly regulating 50. We'll 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's my intention.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. 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're saying, you wouldn't be expecting that to happen. Just the fact that they've got the power doesn't necessarily mean that that's what they're going to do.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think it's 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 wouldn't 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 wouldn't describe that as a minor matter.
Dawn Bowden AM: No. That's fair enough. And, actually, on that point, we've had some recent high-profile issues in Swansea and Trinity St David, and HEFCW still haven't 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.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin David has some questions now on fee and access plans.
Hefin David AM: Are you concerned that neither the regulator nor the sector seem to have any confidence in fee and access plans?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think the concept of a fee and access plan is an important concept. Whether we can do them better, whether we can reflect on what's happened to date and create a better system of what's included in a fee and access plan and how those fee and access plans can be monitored, there's an opportunity to do that in forthcoming legislation.
Hefin David AM: So, have you been aware of specific issues yourself? Have they brought them to you?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, no, not in the sense that they've brought them to me to talk about specifically. From my perspective, fee and access plans are focused very much on inputs, and, really, I'd 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're into it, and then, the next thing you know, you're writing your next year's plan. So, I think there's 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're 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's part of a wider piece of work that I'd 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's still--. In a way, it's difficult to make a final judgment on whether fee and access plans in their current format have worked, because we need to know what'll happen to those students in the future. But undoubtedly, despite the limitations of them, I do think we're making progress in terms of access, but I don't 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're saying reflect some of the discussions we've had, but what was clear is that the process and bureaucratic nature of the way you present fee and access plans doesn't work, particularly given the fact that, four years on, early fee and access plans are still being evaluated. There's a real problem there. So, what you're saying--can I just pin down what you're saying--is that we may be moving away from yearly fee and access plans to something that's longer term and outcome focused.
Kirsty Williams AM: That's my preference. So, I think the principle--I'd 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're 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'm 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 vice-chancellors, and I've been very keen to develop a stronger working relationship with chairs, and perhaps we'll 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'm getting as chair of the cross-party group on higher education is that there could still be more direct consultation with stakeholders. That's the message I've received. Now, I've got no evidence to say it has or hasn't happened, but that's the message I've received.
Huw Morris: If I could just chip in for a moment, the Minister's 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's been a general consultation process and a technical consultation process--and wanting to make sure that the Bill that's laid next year hasn't 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 haven't been the subject of consultation--
Hefin David AM: Because that happens at Stage 1.
Huw Morris: Indeed, yes.
Hefin David AM: Okay. Sorry, can I move on to the next item?
Lynne Neagle AM: Oh, you're going on to the next section.
Hefin David AM: Yes, unless there's anything specific--
Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, I just wanted to clarify, if we're moving to a longer term approach to this, how will the new body be able to establish that things are actually working, that the powers are working, if we're working on a five-year time frame?
Kirsty Williams AM: As we've heard, we can't really properly assess fee and access plans in the current arrangements, because it takes time for those cohorts of students to go through and activities to go through. Being able to move to a system where fee and access plans, for instance, could be over a three-year period I think allows universities to be more strategic in some of their investments and some of their activities around fee and access. In a single-year plan, it's almost knee-jerk, it's the need to demonstrate that you're doing something, and doing that within that period of time, rather than a more strategic view--. Can I just say, I know it's not quite subject to this, but we're really moving forward in terms of access and broadening access into the HE sector. For me, student financial support is one aspect of it, but if we're really thinking about social mobility and attracting people into higher education that have never been part of higher education before, our early figures would suggest--they're early figures, and they're subject to change, but in terms of our change to our student support regime, we have seen a 58 per cent increase in the number of postgraduates applying for student support in Wales. When you think about it, when many of us went to university, a degree was the thing that set you apart. Now that more and more students are going to university, it is that postgraduate qualification that sets you apart, but your ability to carry on studying is often limited by access to financial support, so a 58 per cent increase in postgraduate I think is great for those individuals, but it's also great for our economy. We've seen a 35 per cent increase in part-time undergraduates that have been supported by the Student Loans Company; the Open University have reported a 67 per cent increase in students from Wales's most economically disadvantaged areas registering with them; a 57 per cent increase in disabled students; and a 30 per cent increase in black, minority ethnic learners. So, I think that's a really, really positive basis for our sector to continue to work on broadening access.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Sorry, Hefin--carry on.
Hefin David AM: I'll move on to managing risk, if that's okay. 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: Okay. Those were the words used by Universities Wales--
Kirsty Williams AM: No, no, I'm 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's in the interests of students, then, to be at private institutions--? I've seen those private institutions and how they operate; I've seen them at first-hand--they don't operate to the same rigour as public institutions, and they're 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 don't 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've 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 wouldn't tar them all with the same brush, necessarily.
Hefin David AM: But they fall outwith--if they're 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 course-by-course basis, so it's back to the issue of proportionality, isn't it? So, you are automatically regulated for all your courses, if you're one of our main universities, but there is a process that is run by HEFCW on a course-by-course 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'm 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 part-time students? Do you think the landscape may change in future and that the 2015 Act, as designed, wasn't equipped for that, and will the next Act, then, be equipped?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think it's right to say that maybe the previous legislation didn't futureproof for changes. I'm not anticipating a mass influx of alternative providers, in the sense that we've seen across the border, but we will need to ensure that the new commission has powers to regulate and to futureproof.
Hefin David AM: Okay. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn.
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's true and fair to say that the Bill does not directly address issues around governance in the sector. HEFCW do have well-established assurance practices in relation to governance that would predate the 2015 legislation. But governance--we've 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're 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 one-to-one relationship with them, not in the presence of their vice-chancellors. I challenge them, they challenge me, and I think we've deliberately tried to establish a regular routine of that since I took office. And you'll be aware that, collaboratively--and I'm glad that this has been done in this way because I think if you do it this way, we're 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's really important that parties have come together to recognise the issues and to agree to take action, because I think if we'd have tried to impose something, we'd 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's the Gillian Camm review. This is a review that, as I said, Universities Wales and HEFCW have agreed to do together. It's 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'm very supportive of that, and that's happening at the moment. As I said, I'm glad that there's 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're going to be taking into the PCET Bill, do you think?
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. We're 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 don't hold figures on it, but from an approximation that I've 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's 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's a gap 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's 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'll 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've 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 fast-changing nature of that activity.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, just before we move on, can I ask whether it's your plan to legislate on that, as they've done in Scotland?
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, I don't want to pre-empt scrutiny of the Bill, because we need to be able to come to the committee and do that in the entirety, rather than picking off individual bits of it, but we are absolutely exploring how the Bill could introduce a regulatory condition with regard to governance.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. We've got some questions now from Sian on quality assurance.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. We've heard evidence regarding the difficulties caused by HEFCW having a legal duty to quality-assure 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?
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you. My understanding--and as I said, it's a bit difficult, because I can't 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, HEFCW's 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's a lot of joint operation. I think, going forward, we would expect that to continue. We're looking to the new Bill to try to make that clearer. That was a theme in the general and technical consultation exercises that we've engaged in over the last couple of years.
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you're happy, therefore, that that partnership has worked. Are you happy with that?
Kirsty Williams AM: Certainly, in our consultation for the upcoming Act, we've generally heard, certainly from our further education colleges, that they've been quite content with the arrangements. No concerns about it, certainly from further education colleges.
Huw Morris: There are differences in the systems of quality assurance as they've historically applied to FE and HE, but I understand that that has meant that, as FE colleges become more interested in HE, they've had to learn new ways, and that's taken a little bit of time. But, I'm not aware of any dissatisfaction.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, which moves us on to this idea of having one quality assurance body or one quality assurance framework. Is that your intention and how will that work in practice?
Kirsty Williams AM: I am aware, and we've 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've 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 don't want to pre-empt 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're 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 UK-wide baseline standards. So, we don't 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 vice-chancellor has told us:
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, sometimes, I think it is necessary, maybe, to cause a stir. If we don't change things, it does beg the point of,'Why are any of us here if we're not here to sometimes move things forward?'And change is challenging always, but I would like to reassure all of our vice-chancellors and our sector as a whole that we're 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're seeing in the figures that the Minister outlined to you earlier about the growth in postgraduate and the growth in part-time 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 non-conventional institutional setting. Historically, the quality assurance regimes for work-based learning have tended to sit with Estyn; the assurance regimes for the universities have sat with the QAA. There's quite a lot of learning that all sides have got to engage in if we're going to be able to have continued high quality in these new areas that are being explored. That's 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're 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.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And finally, therefore, looking at overseas providers. Currently, of course, universities can award their degrees to students being taught by providers overseas. We know this created problems for the University of Wales in 2011. They faced a scandal; that's probably the best word to use there. Will the new Bill address these issues?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, certainly transnational education does present real opportunities for Welsh institutions, but if not managed appropriately and regulated appropriately can cause real risks to reputation to our sector. When I meet with vice-chancellors in universities in different parts of the world, and when I am visiting different countries, one of the great things that I'm able to say is that we have a sector that provides fantastic quality of teaching, excellence in research and a wonderful student experience, and that is undermined if institutions find themselves undertaking TNE activities that put that at risk. So, it's an important consideration for the health of the whole sector that any TNE undertaken by a Welsh institution has the appropriate quality guarantees built into that because it's a problem not just for an individual institution, but it could undermine the very strong reputation that the Welsh sector has as a whole. Huw, was there anything further about TNE?
Huw Morris: Well, just to say that we are live to that, as I know HEFCW and the QAA are. We've had conversations with both in the recent past. There is quality assurance of offshore activity through the QAA. When they visit institutions with their reviews they will look at a selection of those overseas activities and there are periodic thematic reviews of the activity in particular countries. I think we would hope and believe that HEFCW, in its conversations with the QAA, would be keeping that under review to minimise the risk and maximise the opportunities.
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you're not actually looking to use the new legislation to strengthen the regulation around this.
Huw Morris: The arrangements at the moment are that HEFCW uses the QAA to do the reviews and the inspections. I don't think we're currently looking to mandate the detail of how that should happen. The system at the moment works through co-operation between the institutions and the regulator to make sure the quality assurance system is improving and enhancing things. I think we would look to that as a primary mechanism.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you both for attending this morning and answering all our questions? As usual, you will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you both for your attendance this morning.
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3 then is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Education regarding the revised additional learning needs implementation plan. Paper to note 2 is additional information from HEFCW, following the meeting on 18 July, in relation to our post-legislative scrutiny of the Higher Education (Wales) Act. And paper to note 3 is a letter from us to the Welsh Local Government Association on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019. This is the letter that we agreed we would send last week. Can I ask Members if they're happy to note those? Yes. Thank you very much. Item 4 then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting and for item 1 on 2 October? Are Members content? Thank you. | 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. | qmsum |
How did Kirsty Williams AM answer Sian Gwenllian AM's question about quality assurance?
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Suzy Davies and there is no substitute. Janet Finch-Saunders is joining us from the Assembly offices in Colwyn Bay via video conference. Can I ask Members if there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. Item 2, then, this morning is a post-legislative scrutiny session on the Higher Education (Wales) Act 2015. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education, and Huw Morris, who is director of the skills, higher education and lifelong learning group in Welsh Government. Thank you, both, for attending, and thank you for the paper that you provided in advance. I will just start the questioning by asking whether you are planning to repeal the 2015 higher education Act, or will it be amended by the post-compulsory education and training Bill?
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you very much, Chair. I'm very pleased to be with the committee again this morning, although it's in slightly unusual circumstances. As a piece of post-legislative scrutiny, this was a Bill that was taken forward by a different Minister in a different administration, but I think it is really valuable work in the context of the question you just set out: what can we learn from the implementation of this piece of legislation as we move forward with our reform journey and with this Government and my proposals to introduce a new commission for tertiary education? There is much, at the moment, that lies within the 2015 Act that we will look to bring forward into the new legislation, but there are certainly experiences--and I'm sure we'll come on to some of the evidence that has been received about what's worked, what perhaps hasn't worked--that we all want to reflect on and be mindful of as we take forward the new Bill, including the report of this committee as part of it. So, it is our intention that this Bill will be superceded by the new PCETR Bill.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got a series of questions now from Sian Gwenllian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. Do you believe that the Act has fulfilled all the Government's objectives? Where are the weaknesses?
Kirsty Williams AM: Diolch yn fawr, Sian. As I've said, it's a bit difficult to place myself in the mind of the previous Minister when this legislation was first envisaged and then taken through. You'll 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 Government's 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 post-compulsory 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.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Do you feel perhaps that the legislation itself hasn't 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's 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's 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's really important, and those are principles that I am committed to in any legislation that I bring forward. We'll 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 don't think there's anything in the legislation per se that prevents those national priorities being articulated and being acted upon.
Sian Gwenllian AM: I don't think that's what HEFCW has said in their evidence. They've said that the Bill has been framed in a way where it's not possible for institutions to fulfil any requirements. You're talking about the remit letter; maybe you need to have that discussion there, but, in terms of the Bill itself, you can't make them fulfil any national outcomes. Shouldn't 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 don't 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 co-ordinating and funding the sector, to create a system of outcome agreements, where those outputs will reflect national priorities, and that's one of the things that we've consulted on, and will look to take forward in the new legislation.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. That's 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's 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: Okay. So, I think, first of all, it's 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's a really important distinction to make. So, currently, under the current legislation, unregulated providers can only access Welsh Government student support if they're designated on a case-by-case 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 case-by-case basis in the 2018-19 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're 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 isn't 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 don't know if there's 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've been keen to put students at the front of things to make sure that the institutions that they're enrolling with are strong and have good quality.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. So, what you're saying is that you will continue with a charitable status, or not--
Kirsty Williams AM: At this stage--
Sian Gwenllian AM: --or are you still thinking about it?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, at this stage, I think the charitable status will continue to be an important part of what we will take forward.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Just turning finally to part-time fees and postgraduate fees, do you have an intention to regulate this part in the new legislation?
Kirsty Williams AM: I have to say that, at present, we've not identified an urgent reason to designate these courses as qualifying courses for the purposes of a fee limit. And there are a number of reasons for that. Actually, the current Act--the 2015 Act--does not permit the fee regulation of postgraduate courses, other than PGCE courses for IT purposes. In the case of part-time courses, I'm currently content that fee levels are not exceeding the amount of student support made available by the Welsh Government. So, I think we are, at this moment, relaxed about that, and there are some difficulties around deciding and introducing fee limits on postgraduate courses. I think what's really important to me is the success at the moment of attracting people to postgraduate and part-time study in Wales, as a result of our reforms to student finance. But, clearly, we'll need to keep that under review. But, at this current moment, the Act precludes fee regulation in some areas and there's not a pressing policy need that we've identified to date.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Okay, we're going to move on now to some questions about the level of ambition in the higher education Act and any lessons for the PCET Bill, from Janet Finch-Saunders.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. To what extent has the 2012 university funding system limited Welsh Government's policy leverage over the sector, and how has the HE Act addressed this beyond the levers offered by fee and access plans?
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 HEFCW's 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 non-compliance by institutions. Personally, I wholeheartedly believe that tertiary education providers should contribute to national goals and outcomes as part of what I'd describe as a civic mission. I'm 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's 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'll be aware, in my remit letter, I am concerned about issues around how people working in the sector are paid. We've been able to successfully see all institutions sign up to becoming living wage employers, all institutions sign up to the Welsh Government's code of ethical procurement. So, it's not to say that the Act has meant that we've 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.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Minister. Do you share HEFCW's views on the benefits of having national targets to get institutions to address national priorities? Is this something you wish you could do?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it's not something I wish I could do; I think that we're doing it. Self-praise is no recommendation, but, because of the working relationship that we have, I think we're seeing some success in using the remit letter to influence national outcomes. So, I've just talked about living wage; we're also using our remit letter to drive transparency over senior leaders'pay, the gender pay gap within institutions. For instance, as part of this Government's commitment to improving mental health, we've 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're acting upon them and we're 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'm very grateful to them for doing that.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Are there plans to give the proposed new PCET funding body more effective policy levers to align the sector to the social, economic and civic needs of Wales? And, if so, how will this be done?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said in answer earlier, I'm determined that we ensure a sense of civic mission for the entirety of the sector, including our institutes of higher education. You'll be aware, Janet, that, in the consultation exercises that have been undertaken by the Government so far on PCET reform, we will be introducing more formal outcome agreements, whereby institutions might be given by the commission very clear expectations of how they're expected to contribute to national priorities.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thanks. We've heard that the HE Act, by focusing on individual institutions, did not encourage collaboration, even for widening access activity. Was this a missed opportunity and how will this be taken forward in the PCET Bill?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think we can strengthen our sector by closer collaboration. I think what sets us apart in Wales is that this Government is determined to create a legislative regime and a regulation regime that encourages collaboration and co-operation, which is in stark contrast to the marketisation and the competition that we see being regulated for and legislated for across the border in England. That's one of the reasons why we are going to introduce the new PCET reforms--to create collaboration, not just between different higher education institutes but actually across the sector. So, this is a prime opportunity where we can create a framework that demands and encourages collaboration, not just, as I said, in between individual institutions but across the entirety of the sector. We're doing that because that means we can avoid duplication, we can fill gaps that there currently are and we can create a system that allows for a seamless passage for students to move between the different parts of post-compulsory education that are currently available, where, sometimes, those students find barriers.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, Janet?
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you--that's great, thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now around HEFCW's powers of intervention from Dawn Bowden.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. We received substantial evidence from HEFCW suggesting that powers were inflexible and hard to use--I think HEFCW called them'threatening'--saying that they make sanctions difficult to use and so on. Are you satisfied that HEFCW's powers are useful on a preventative day-to-day basis?
Kirsty Williams AM: If I may disagree slightly, I don't think their powers are frightening. It's very clear what powers are available to HEFCW, and they're certainly more than just the ability to, maybe, lean on an institution. Clearly, there is a system by which there is the ability to, you know, ramp up and escalate levels of intervention in the sector by HEFCW, but I certainly wouldn't describe them as inflexible or not having weight.
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've 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 non-punitive 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's a very HEFCW thing to say.
Hefin David AM: --potentially institutions going bankrupt, and there don't seem to be many steps in between that. I'd invite you to say whether you'd like to remedy that in future.
Kirsty Williams AM: I think, as I said at the beginning of the session, this is why this post-legislative 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've missed out?
Huw Morris: Just to build on what the Minister has said, there's 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's 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's 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 work-based 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 HEFCW's comments is that before we had a loan-based system of student finance, there was a system of block grant allocations and conditions could be attached to those grant allocations by HEFCW. I don't think we're going to be going back to that system in the foreseeable future because of the pressures on public finances--
Hefin David AM: That wasn't how I understood it. I understood it to be the fact that you use these informal powers and then the next step up is quite a severe sanction and there's not much in between those.
Huw Morris: So, in--. Shall I carry on?
Kirsty Williams AM: Of course, yes.
Huw Morris: In the Hazelkorn review, there's 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're 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's that balance to be struck, isn't there, about creating a regulatory regime, which I'm very keen and the Act attempted to do, which was to enshrine institutional autonomy, and that's 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's the balance that we need to try and strike as we go forward with the new commission proposals.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Dawn.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. I think, in terms of the levels of measures--and I understand what you're 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 post-16 sector, however many we're talking--50 plus providers--it's 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's 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's really important to remember is that HEFCW will be replaced. We're not asking HEFCW suddenly to go from regulating a small number of institutions to suddenly regulating 50. We'll 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's my intention.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. 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're saying, you wouldn't be expecting that to happen. Just the fact that they've got the power doesn't necessarily mean that that's what they're going to do.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think it's 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 wouldn't 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 wouldn't describe that as a minor matter.
Dawn Bowden AM: No. That's fair enough. And, actually, on that point, we've had some recent high-profile issues in Swansea and Trinity St David, and HEFCW still haven't 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.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin David has some questions now on fee and access plans.
Hefin David AM: Are you concerned that neither the regulator nor the sector seem to have any confidence in fee and access plans?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think the concept of a fee and access plan is an important concept. Whether we can do them better, whether we can reflect on what's happened to date and create a better system of what's included in a fee and access plan and how those fee and access plans can be monitored, there's an opportunity to do that in forthcoming legislation.
Hefin David AM: So, have you been aware of specific issues yourself? Have they brought them to you?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, no, not in the sense that they've brought them to me to talk about specifically. From my perspective, fee and access plans are focused very much on inputs, and, really, I'd 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're into it, and then, the next thing you know, you're writing your next year's plan. So, I think there's 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're 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's part of a wider piece of work that I'd 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's still--. In a way, it's difficult to make a final judgment on whether fee and access plans in their current format have worked, because we need to know what'll happen to those students in the future. But undoubtedly, despite the limitations of them, I do think we're making progress in terms of access, but I don't 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're saying reflect some of the discussions we've had, but what was clear is that the process and bureaucratic nature of the way you present fee and access plans doesn't work, particularly given the fact that, four years on, early fee and access plans are still being evaluated. There's a real problem there. So, what you're saying--can I just pin down what you're saying--is that we may be moving away from yearly fee and access plans to something that's longer term and outcome focused.
Kirsty Williams AM: That's my preference. So, I think the principle--I'd 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're 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'm 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 vice-chancellors, and I've been very keen to develop a stronger working relationship with chairs, and perhaps we'll 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'm getting as chair of the cross-party group on higher education is that there could still be more direct consultation with stakeholders. That's the message I've received. Now, I've got no evidence to say it has or hasn't happened, but that's the message I've received.
Huw Morris: If I could just chip in for a moment, the Minister's 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's been a general consultation process and a technical consultation process--and wanting to make sure that the Bill that's laid next year hasn't 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 haven't been the subject of consultation--
Hefin David AM: Because that happens at Stage 1.
Huw Morris: Indeed, yes.
Hefin David AM: Okay. Sorry, can I move on to the next item?
Lynne Neagle AM: Oh, you're going on to the next section.
Hefin David AM: Yes, unless there's anything specific--
Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, I just wanted to clarify, if we're moving to a longer term approach to this, how will the new body be able to establish that things are actually working, that the powers are working, if we're working on a five-year time frame?
Kirsty Williams AM: As we've heard, we can't really properly assess fee and access plans in the current arrangements, because it takes time for those cohorts of students to go through and activities to go through. Being able to move to a system where fee and access plans, for instance, could be over a three-year period I think allows universities to be more strategic in some of their investments and some of their activities around fee and access. In a single-year plan, it's almost knee-jerk, it's the need to demonstrate that you're doing something, and doing that within that period of time, rather than a more strategic view--. Can I just say, I know it's not quite subject to this, but we're really moving forward in terms of access and broadening access into the HE sector. For me, student financial support is one aspect of it, but if we're really thinking about social mobility and attracting people into higher education that have never been part of higher education before, our early figures would suggest--they're early figures, and they're subject to change, but in terms of our change to our student support regime, we have seen a 58 per cent increase in the number of postgraduates applying for student support in Wales. When you think about it, when many of us went to university, a degree was the thing that set you apart. Now that more and more students are going to university, it is that postgraduate qualification that sets you apart, but your ability to carry on studying is often limited by access to financial support, so a 58 per cent increase in postgraduate I think is great for those individuals, but it's also great for our economy. We've seen a 35 per cent increase in part-time undergraduates that have been supported by the Student Loans Company; the Open University have reported a 67 per cent increase in students from Wales's most economically disadvantaged areas registering with them; a 57 per cent increase in disabled students; and a 30 per cent increase in black, minority ethnic learners. So, I think that's a really, really positive basis for our sector to continue to work on broadening access.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Sorry, Hefin--carry on.
Hefin David AM: I'll move on to managing risk, if that's okay. 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: Okay. Those were the words used by Universities Wales--
Kirsty Williams AM: No, no, I'm 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's in the interests of students, then, to be at private institutions--? I've seen those private institutions and how they operate; I've seen them at first-hand--they don't operate to the same rigour as public institutions, and they're 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 don't 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've 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 wouldn't tar them all with the same brush, necessarily.
Hefin David AM: But they fall outwith--if they're 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 course-by-course basis, so it's back to the issue of proportionality, isn't it? So, you are automatically regulated for all your courses, if you're one of our main universities, but there is a process that is run by HEFCW on a course-by-course 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'm 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 part-time students? Do you think the landscape may change in future and that the 2015 Act, as designed, wasn't equipped for that, and will the next Act, then, be equipped?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think it's right to say that maybe the previous legislation didn't futureproof for changes. I'm not anticipating a mass influx of alternative providers, in the sense that we've seen across the border, but we will need to ensure that the new commission has powers to regulate and to futureproof.
Hefin David AM: Okay. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn.
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's true and fair to say that the Bill does not directly address issues around governance in the sector. HEFCW do have well-established assurance practices in relation to governance that would predate the 2015 legislation. But governance--we've 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're 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 one-to-one relationship with them, not in the presence of their vice-chancellors. I challenge them, they challenge me, and I think we've deliberately tried to establish a regular routine of that since I took office. And you'll be aware that, collaboratively--and I'm glad that this has been done in this way because I think if you do it this way, we're 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's really important that parties have come together to recognise the issues and to agree to take action, because I think if we'd have tried to impose something, we'd 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's the Gillian Camm review. This is a review that, as I said, Universities Wales and HEFCW have agreed to do together. It's 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'm very supportive of that, and that's happening at the moment. As I said, I'm glad that there's 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're going to be taking into the PCET Bill, do you think?
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. We're 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 don't hold figures on it, but from an approximation that I've 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's 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's a gap 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's 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'll 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've 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 fast-changing nature of that activity.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, just before we move on, can I ask whether it's your plan to legislate on that, as they've done in Scotland?
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, I don't want to pre-empt scrutiny of the Bill, because we need to be able to come to the committee and do that in the entirety, rather than picking off individual bits of it, but we are absolutely exploring how the Bill could introduce a regulatory condition with regard to governance.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. We've got some questions now from Sian on quality assurance.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. We've heard evidence regarding the difficulties caused by HEFCW having a legal duty to quality-assure 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?
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you. My understanding--and as I said, it's a bit difficult, because I can't 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, HEFCW's 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's a lot of joint operation. I think, going forward, we would expect that to continue. We're looking to the new Bill to try to make that clearer. That was a theme in the general and technical consultation exercises that we've engaged in over the last couple of years.
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you're happy, therefore, that that partnership has worked. Are you happy with that?
Kirsty Williams AM: Certainly, in our consultation for the upcoming Act, we've generally heard, certainly from our further education colleges, that they've been quite content with the arrangements. No concerns about it, certainly from further education colleges.
Huw Morris: There are differences in the systems of quality assurance as they've historically applied to FE and HE, but I understand that that has meant that, as FE colleges become more interested in HE, they've had to learn new ways, and that's taken a little bit of time. But, I'm not aware of any dissatisfaction.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, which moves us on to this idea of having one quality assurance body or one quality assurance framework. Is that your intention and how will that work in practice?
Kirsty Williams AM: I am aware, and we've 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've 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 don't want to pre-empt 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're 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 UK-wide baseline standards. So, we don't 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 vice-chancellor has told us:
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, sometimes, I think it is necessary, maybe, to cause a stir. If we don't change things, it does beg the point of,'Why are any of us here if we're not here to sometimes move things forward?'And change is challenging always, but I would like to reassure all of our vice-chancellors and our sector as a whole that we're 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're seeing in the figures that the Minister outlined to you earlier about the growth in postgraduate and the growth in part-time 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 non-conventional institutional setting. Historically, the quality assurance regimes for work-based learning have tended to sit with Estyn; the assurance regimes for the universities have sat with the QAA. There's quite a lot of learning that all sides have got to engage in if we're going to be able to have continued high quality in these new areas that are being explored. That's 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're 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.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And finally, therefore, looking at overseas providers. Currently, of course, universities can award their degrees to students being taught by providers overseas. We know this created problems for the University of Wales in 2011. They faced a scandal; that's probably the best word to use there. Will the new Bill address these issues?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, certainly transnational education does present real opportunities for Welsh institutions, but if not managed appropriately and regulated appropriately can cause real risks to reputation to our sector. When I meet with vice-chancellors in universities in different parts of the world, and when I am visiting different countries, one of the great things that I'm able to say is that we have a sector that provides fantastic quality of teaching, excellence in research and a wonderful student experience, and that is undermined if institutions find themselves undertaking TNE activities that put that at risk. So, it's an important consideration for the health of the whole sector that any TNE undertaken by a Welsh institution has the appropriate quality guarantees built into that because it's a problem not just for an individual institution, but it could undermine the very strong reputation that the Welsh sector has as a whole. Huw, was there anything further about TNE?
Huw Morris: Well, just to say that we are live to that, as I know HEFCW and the QAA are. We've had conversations with both in the recent past. There is quality assurance of offshore activity through the QAA. When they visit institutions with their reviews they will look at a selection of those overseas activities and there are periodic thematic reviews of the activity in particular countries. I think we would hope and believe that HEFCW, in its conversations with the QAA, would be keeping that under review to minimise the risk and maximise the opportunities.
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you're not actually looking to use the new legislation to strengthen the regulation around this.
Huw Morris: The arrangements at the moment are that HEFCW uses the QAA to do the reviews and the inspections. I don't think we're currently looking to mandate the detail of how that should happen. The system at the moment works through co-operation between the institutions and the regulator to make sure the quality assurance system is improving and enhancing things. I think we would look to that as a primary mechanism.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you both for attending this morning and answering all our questions? As usual, you will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you both for your attendance this morning.
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3 then is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Education regarding the revised additional learning needs implementation plan. Paper to note 2 is additional information from HEFCW, following the meeting on 18 July, in relation to our post-legislative scrutiny of the Higher Education (Wales) Act. And paper to note 3 is a letter from us to the Welsh Local Government Association on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019. This is the letter that we agreed we would send last week. Can I ask Members if they're happy to note those? Yes. Thank you very much. Item 4 then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting and for item 1 on 2 October? Are Members content? Thank you. | 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. | qmsum |
What did Kirsty Williams AM say about her plan for quality assurance?
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Suzy Davies and there is no substitute. Janet Finch-Saunders is joining us from the Assembly offices in Colwyn Bay via video conference. Can I ask Members if there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. Item 2, then, this morning is a post-legislative scrutiny session on the Higher Education (Wales) Act 2015. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education, and Huw Morris, who is director of the skills, higher education and lifelong learning group in Welsh Government. Thank you, both, for attending, and thank you for the paper that you provided in advance. I will just start the questioning by asking whether you are planning to repeal the 2015 higher education Act, or will it be amended by the post-compulsory education and training Bill?
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you very much, Chair. I'm very pleased to be with the committee again this morning, although it's in slightly unusual circumstances. As a piece of post-legislative scrutiny, this was a Bill that was taken forward by a different Minister in a different administration, but I think it is really valuable work in the context of the question you just set out: what can we learn from the implementation of this piece of legislation as we move forward with our reform journey and with this Government and my proposals to introduce a new commission for tertiary education? There is much, at the moment, that lies within the 2015 Act that we will look to bring forward into the new legislation, but there are certainly experiences--and I'm sure we'll come on to some of the evidence that has been received about what's worked, what perhaps hasn't worked--that we all want to reflect on and be mindful of as we take forward the new Bill, including the report of this committee as part of it. So, it is our intention that this Bill will be superceded by the new PCETR Bill.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got a series of questions now from Sian Gwenllian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. Do you believe that the Act has fulfilled all the Government's objectives? Where are the weaknesses?
Kirsty Williams AM: Diolch yn fawr, Sian. As I've said, it's a bit difficult to place myself in the mind of the previous Minister when this legislation was first envisaged and then taken through. You'll 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 Government's 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 post-compulsory 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.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Do you feel perhaps that the legislation itself hasn't 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's 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's 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's really important, and those are principles that I am committed to in any legislation that I bring forward. We'll 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 don't think there's anything in the legislation per se that prevents those national priorities being articulated and being acted upon.
Sian Gwenllian AM: I don't think that's what HEFCW has said in their evidence. They've said that the Bill has been framed in a way where it's not possible for institutions to fulfil any requirements. You're talking about the remit letter; maybe you need to have that discussion there, but, in terms of the Bill itself, you can't make them fulfil any national outcomes. Shouldn't 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 don't 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 co-ordinating and funding the sector, to create a system of outcome agreements, where those outputs will reflect national priorities, and that's one of the things that we've consulted on, and will look to take forward in the new legislation.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. That's 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's 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: Okay. So, I think, first of all, it's 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's a really important distinction to make. So, currently, under the current legislation, unregulated providers can only access Welsh Government student support if they're designated on a case-by-case 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 case-by-case basis in the 2018-19 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're 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 isn't 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 don't know if there's 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've been keen to put students at the front of things to make sure that the institutions that they're enrolling with are strong and have good quality.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. So, what you're saying is that you will continue with a charitable status, or not--
Kirsty Williams AM: At this stage--
Sian Gwenllian AM: --or are you still thinking about it?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, at this stage, I think the charitable status will continue to be an important part of what we will take forward.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Just turning finally to part-time fees and postgraduate fees, do you have an intention to regulate this part in the new legislation?
Kirsty Williams AM: I have to say that, at present, we've not identified an urgent reason to designate these courses as qualifying courses for the purposes of a fee limit. And there are a number of reasons for that. Actually, the current Act--the 2015 Act--does not permit the fee regulation of postgraduate courses, other than PGCE courses for IT purposes. In the case of part-time courses, I'm currently content that fee levels are not exceeding the amount of student support made available by the Welsh Government. So, I think we are, at this moment, relaxed about that, and there are some difficulties around deciding and introducing fee limits on postgraduate courses. I think what's really important to me is the success at the moment of attracting people to postgraduate and part-time study in Wales, as a result of our reforms to student finance. But, clearly, we'll need to keep that under review. But, at this current moment, the Act precludes fee regulation in some areas and there's not a pressing policy need that we've identified to date.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Okay, we're going to move on now to some questions about the level of ambition in the higher education Act and any lessons for the PCET Bill, from Janet Finch-Saunders.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. To what extent has the 2012 university funding system limited Welsh Government's policy leverage over the sector, and how has the HE Act addressed this beyond the levers offered by fee and access plans?
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 HEFCW's 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 non-compliance by institutions. Personally, I wholeheartedly believe that tertiary education providers should contribute to national goals and outcomes as part of what I'd describe as a civic mission. I'm 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's 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'll be aware, in my remit letter, I am concerned about issues around how people working in the sector are paid. We've been able to successfully see all institutions sign up to becoming living wage employers, all institutions sign up to the Welsh Government's code of ethical procurement. So, it's not to say that the Act has meant that we've 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.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Minister. Do you share HEFCW's views on the benefits of having national targets to get institutions to address national priorities? Is this something you wish you could do?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it's not something I wish I could do; I think that we're doing it. Self-praise is no recommendation, but, because of the working relationship that we have, I think we're seeing some success in using the remit letter to influence national outcomes. So, I've just talked about living wage; we're also using our remit letter to drive transparency over senior leaders'pay, the gender pay gap within institutions. For instance, as part of this Government's commitment to improving mental health, we've 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're acting upon them and we're 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'm very grateful to them for doing that.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Are there plans to give the proposed new PCET funding body more effective policy levers to align the sector to the social, economic and civic needs of Wales? And, if so, how will this be done?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said in answer earlier, I'm determined that we ensure a sense of civic mission for the entirety of the sector, including our institutes of higher education. You'll be aware, Janet, that, in the consultation exercises that have been undertaken by the Government so far on PCET reform, we will be introducing more formal outcome agreements, whereby institutions might be given by the commission very clear expectations of how they're expected to contribute to national priorities.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thanks. We've heard that the HE Act, by focusing on individual institutions, did not encourage collaboration, even for widening access activity. Was this a missed opportunity and how will this be taken forward in the PCET Bill?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think we can strengthen our sector by closer collaboration. I think what sets us apart in Wales is that this Government is determined to create a legislative regime and a regulation regime that encourages collaboration and co-operation, which is in stark contrast to the marketisation and the competition that we see being regulated for and legislated for across the border in England. That's one of the reasons why we are going to introduce the new PCET reforms--to create collaboration, not just between different higher education institutes but actually across the sector. So, this is a prime opportunity where we can create a framework that demands and encourages collaboration, not just, as I said, in between individual institutions but across the entirety of the sector. We're doing that because that means we can avoid duplication, we can fill gaps that there currently are and we can create a system that allows for a seamless passage for students to move between the different parts of post-compulsory education that are currently available, where, sometimes, those students find barriers.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, Janet?
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you--that's great, thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now around HEFCW's powers of intervention from Dawn Bowden.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. We received substantial evidence from HEFCW suggesting that powers were inflexible and hard to use--I think HEFCW called them'threatening'--saying that they make sanctions difficult to use and so on. Are you satisfied that HEFCW's powers are useful on a preventative day-to-day basis?
Kirsty Williams AM: If I may disagree slightly, I don't think their powers are frightening. It's very clear what powers are available to HEFCW, and they're certainly more than just the ability to, maybe, lean on an institution. Clearly, there is a system by which there is the ability to, you know, ramp up and escalate levels of intervention in the sector by HEFCW, but I certainly wouldn't describe them as inflexible or not having weight.
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've 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 non-punitive 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's a very HEFCW thing to say.
Hefin David AM: --potentially institutions going bankrupt, and there don't seem to be many steps in between that. I'd invite you to say whether you'd like to remedy that in future.
Kirsty Williams AM: I think, as I said at the beginning of the session, this is why this post-legislative 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've missed out?
Huw Morris: Just to build on what the Minister has said, there's 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's 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's 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 work-based 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 HEFCW's comments is that before we had a loan-based system of student finance, there was a system of block grant allocations and conditions could be attached to those grant allocations by HEFCW. I don't think we're going to be going back to that system in the foreseeable future because of the pressures on public finances--
Hefin David AM: That wasn't how I understood it. I understood it to be the fact that you use these informal powers and then the next step up is quite a severe sanction and there's not much in between those.
Huw Morris: So, in--. Shall I carry on?
Kirsty Williams AM: Of course, yes.
Huw Morris: In the Hazelkorn review, there's 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're 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's that balance to be struck, isn't there, about creating a regulatory regime, which I'm very keen and the Act attempted to do, which was to enshrine institutional autonomy, and that's 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's the balance that we need to try and strike as we go forward with the new commission proposals.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Dawn.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. I think, in terms of the levels of measures--and I understand what you're 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 post-16 sector, however many we're talking--50 plus providers--it's 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's 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's really important to remember is that HEFCW will be replaced. We're not asking HEFCW suddenly to go from regulating a small number of institutions to suddenly regulating 50. We'll 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's my intention.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. 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're saying, you wouldn't be expecting that to happen. Just the fact that they've got the power doesn't necessarily mean that that's what they're going to do.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think it's 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 wouldn't 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 wouldn't describe that as a minor matter.
Dawn Bowden AM: No. That's fair enough. And, actually, on that point, we've had some recent high-profile issues in Swansea and Trinity St David, and HEFCW still haven't 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.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin David has some questions now on fee and access plans.
Hefin David AM: Are you concerned that neither the regulator nor the sector seem to have any confidence in fee and access plans?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think the concept of a fee and access plan is an important concept. Whether we can do them better, whether we can reflect on what's happened to date and create a better system of what's included in a fee and access plan and how those fee and access plans can be monitored, there's an opportunity to do that in forthcoming legislation.
Hefin David AM: So, have you been aware of specific issues yourself? Have they brought them to you?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, no, not in the sense that they've brought them to me to talk about specifically. From my perspective, fee and access plans are focused very much on inputs, and, really, I'd 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're into it, and then, the next thing you know, you're writing your next year's plan. So, I think there's 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're 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's part of a wider piece of work that I'd 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's still--. In a way, it's difficult to make a final judgment on whether fee and access plans in their current format have worked, because we need to know what'll happen to those students in the future. But undoubtedly, despite the limitations of them, I do think we're making progress in terms of access, but I don't 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're saying reflect some of the discussions we've had, but what was clear is that the process and bureaucratic nature of the way you present fee and access plans doesn't work, particularly given the fact that, four years on, early fee and access plans are still being evaluated. There's a real problem there. So, what you're saying--can I just pin down what you're saying--is that we may be moving away from yearly fee and access plans to something that's longer term and outcome focused.
Kirsty Williams AM: That's my preference. So, I think the principle--I'd 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're 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'm 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 vice-chancellors, and I've been very keen to develop a stronger working relationship with chairs, and perhaps we'll 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'm getting as chair of the cross-party group on higher education is that there could still be more direct consultation with stakeholders. That's the message I've received. Now, I've got no evidence to say it has or hasn't happened, but that's the message I've received.
Huw Morris: If I could just chip in for a moment, the Minister's 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's been a general consultation process and a technical consultation process--and wanting to make sure that the Bill that's laid next year hasn't 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 haven't been the subject of consultation--
Hefin David AM: Because that happens at Stage 1.
Huw Morris: Indeed, yes.
Hefin David AM: Okay. Sorry, can I move on to the next item?
Lynne Neagle AM: Oh, you're going on to the next section.
Hefin David AM: Yes, unless there's anything specific--
Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, I just wanted to clarify, if we're moving to a longer term approach to this, how will the new body be able to establish that things are actually working, that the powers are working, if we're working on a five-year time frame?
Kirsty Williams AM: As we've heard, we can't really properly assess fee and access plans in the current arrangements, because it takes time for those cohorts of students to go through and activities to go through. Being able to move to a system where fee and access plans, for instance, could be over a three-year period I think allows universities to be more strategic in some of their investments and some of their activities around fee and access. In a single-year plan, it's almost knee-jerk, it's the need to demonstrate that you're doing something, and doing that within that period of time, rather than a more strategic view--. Can I just say, I know it's not quite subject to this, but we're really moving forward in terms of access and broadening access into the HE sector. For me, student financial support is one aspect of it, but if we're really thinking about social mobility and attracting people into higher education that have never been part of higher education before, our early figures would suggest--they're early figures, and they're subject to change, but in terms of our change to our student support regime, we have seen a 58 per cent increase in the number of postgraduates applying for student support in Wales. When you think about it, when many of us went to university, a degree was the thing that set you apart. Now that more and more students are going to university, it is that postgraduate qualification that sets you apart, but your ability to carry on studying is often limited by access to financial support, so a 58 per cent increase in postgraduate I think is great for those individuals, but it's also great for our economy. We've seen a 35 per cent increase in part-time undergraduates that have been supported by the Student Loans Company; the Open University have reported a 67 per cent increase in students from Wales's most economically disadvantaged areas registering with them; a 57 per cent increase in disabled students; and a 30 per cent increase in black, minority ethnic learners. So, I think that's a really, really positive basis for our sector to continue to work on broadening access.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Sorry, Hefin--carry on.
Hefin David AM: I'll move on to managing risk, if that's okay. 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: Okay. Those were the words used by Universities Wales--
Kirsty Williams AM: No, no, I'm 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's in the interests of students, then, to be at private institutions--? I've seen those private institutions and how they operate; I've seen them at first-hand--they don't operate to the same rigour as public institutions, and they're 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 don't 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've 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 wouldn't tar them all with the same brush, necessarily.
Hefin David AM: But they fall outwith--if they're 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 course-by-course basis, so it's back to the issue of proportionality, isn't it? So, you are automatically regulated for all your courses, if you're one of our main universities, but there is a process that is run by HEFCW on a course-by-course 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'm 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 part-time students? Do you think the landscape may change in future and that the 2015 Act, as designed, wasn't equipped for that, and will the next Act, then, be equipped?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think it's right to say that maybe the previous legislation didn't futureproof for changes. I'm not anticipating a mass influx of alternative providers, in the sense that we've seen across the border, but we will need to ensure that the new commission has powers to regulate and to futureproof.
Hefin David AM: Okay. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn.
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's true and fair to say that the Bill does not directly address issues around governance in the sector. HEFCW do have well-established assurance practices in relation to governance that would predate the 2015 legislation. But governance--we've 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're 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 one-to-one relationship with them, not in the presence of their vice-chancellors. I challenge them, they challenge me, and I think we've deliberately tried to establish a regular routine of that since I took office. And you'll be aware that, collaboratively--and I'm glad that this has been done in this way because I think if you do it this way, we're 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's really important that parties have come together to recognise the issues and to agree to take action, because I think if we'd have tried to impose something, we'd 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's the Gillian Camm review. This is a review that, as I said, Universities Wales and HEFCW have agreed to do together. It's 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'm very supportive of that, and that's happening at the moment. As I said, I'm glad that there's 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're going to be taking into the PCET Bill, do you think?
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. We're 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 don't hold figures on it, but from an approximation that I've 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's 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's a gap 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's 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'll 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've 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 fast-changing nature of that activity.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, just before we move on, can I ask whether it's your plan to legislate on that, as they've done in Scotland?
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, I don't want to pre-empt scrutiny of the Bill, because we need to be able to come to the committee and do that in the entirety, rather than picking off individual bits of it, but we are absolutely exploring how the Bill could introduce a regulatory condition with regard to governance.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. We've got some questions now from Sian on quality assurance.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. We've heard evidence regarding the difficulties caused by HEFCW having a legal duty to quality-assure 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?
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you. My understanding--and as I said, it's a bit difficult, because I can't 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, HEFCW's 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's a lot of joint operation. I think, going forward, we would expect that to continue. We're looking to the new Bill to try to make that clearer. That was a theme in the general and technical consultation exercises that we've engaged in over the last couple of years.
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you're happy, therefore, that that partnership has worked. Are you happy with that?
Kirsty Williams AM: Certainly, in our consultation for the upcoming Act, we've generally heard, certainly from our further education colleges, that they've been quite content with the arrangements. No concerns about it, certainly from further education colleges.
Huw Morris: There are differences in the systems of quality assurance as they've historically applied to FE and HE, but I understand that that has meant that, as FE colleges become more interested in HE, they've had to learn new ways, and that's taken a little bit of time. But, I'm not aware of any dissatisfaction.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, which moves us on to this idea of having one quality assurance body or one quality assurance framework. Is that your intention and how will that work in practice?
Kirsty Williams AM: I am aware, and we've 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've 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 don't want to pre-empt 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're 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 UK-wide baseline standards. So, we don't 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 vice-chancellor has told us:
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, sometimes, I think it is necessary, maybe, to cause a stir. If we don't change things, it does beg the point of,'Why are any of us here if we're not here to sometimes move things forward?'And change is challenging always, but I would like to reassure all of our vice-chancellors and our sector as a whole that we're 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're seeing in the figures that the Minister outlined to you earlier about the growth in postgraduate and the growth in part-time 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 non-conventional institutional setting. Historically, the quality assurance regimes for work-based learning have tended to sit with Estyn; the assurance regimes for the universities have sat with the QAA. There's quite a lot of learning that all sides have got to engage in if we're going to be able to have continued high quality in these new areas that are being explored. That's 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're 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.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And finally, therefore, looking at overseas providers. Currently, of course, universities can award their degrees to students being taught by providers overseas. We know this created problems for the University of Wales in 2011. They faced a scandal; that's probably the best word to use there. Will the new Bill address these issues?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, certainly transnational education does present real opportunities for Welsh institutions, but if not managed appropriately and regulated appropriately can cause real risks to reputation to our sector. When I meet with vice-chancellors in universities in different parts of the world, and when I am visiting different countries, one of the great things that I'm able to say is that we have a sector that provides fantastic quality of teaching, excellence in research and a wonderful student experience, and that is undermined if institutions find themselves undertaking TNE activities that put that at risk. So, it's an important consideration for the health of the whole sector that any TNE undertaken by a Welsh institution has the appropriate quality guarantees built into that because it's a problem not just for an individual institution, but it could undermine the very strong reputation that the Welsh sector has as a whole. Huw, was there anything further about TNE?
Huw Morris: Well, just to say that we are live to that, as I know HEFCW and the QAA are. We've had conversations with both in the recent past. There is quality assurance of offshore activity through the QAA. When they visit institutions with their reviews they will look at a selection of those overseas activities and there are periodic thematic reviews of the activity in particular countries. I think we would hope and believe that HEFCW, in its conversations with the QAA, would be keeping that under review to minimise the risk and maximise the opportunities.
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you're not actually looking to use the new legislation to strengthen the regulation around this.
Huw Morris: The arrangements at the moment are that HEFCW uses the QAA to do the reviews and the inspections. I don't think we're currently looking to mandate the detail of how that should happen. The system at the moment works through co-operation between the institutions and the regulator to make sure the quality assurance system is improving and enhancing things. I think we would look to that as a primary mechanism.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you both for attending this morning and answering all our questions? As usual, you will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you both for your attendance this morning.
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3 then is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Education regarding the revised additional learning needs implementation plan. Paper to note 2 is additional information from HEFCW, following the meeting on 18 July, in relation to our post-legislative scrutiny of the Higher Education (Wales) Act. And paper to note 3 is a letter from us to the Welsh Local Government Association on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019. This is the letter that we agreed we would send last week. Can I ask Members if they're happy to note those? Yes. Thank you very much. Item 4 then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting and for item 1 on 2 October? Are Members content? Thank you. | 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. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Suzy Davies and there is no substitute. Janet Finch-Saunders is joining us from the Assembly offices in Colwyn Bay via video conference. Can I ask Members if there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. Item 2, then, this morning is a post-legislative scrutiny session on the Higher Education (Wales) Act 2015. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education, and Huw Morris, who is director of the skills, higher education and lifelong learning group in Welsh Government. Thank you, both, for attending, and thank you for the paper that you provided in advance. I will just start the questioning by asking whether you are planning to repeal the 2015 higher education Act, or will it be amended by the post-compulsory education and training Bill?
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you very much, Chair. I'm very pleased to be with the committee again this morning, although it's in slightly unusual circumstances. As a piece of post-legislative scrutiny, this was a Bill that was taken forward by a different Minister in a different administration, but I think it is really valuable work in the context of the question you just set out: what can we learn from the implementation of this piece of legislation as we move forward with our reform journey and with this Government and my proposals to introduce a new commission for tertiary education? There is much, at the moment, that lies within the 2015 Act that we will look to bring forward into the new legislation, but there are certainly experiences--and I'm sure we'll come on to some of the evidence that has been received about what's worked, what perhaps hasn't worked--that we all want to reflect on and be mindful of as we take forward the new Bill, including the report of this committee as part of it. So, it is our intention that this Bill will be superceded by the new PCETR Bill.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We've got a series of questions now from Sian Gwenllian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. Do you believe that the Act has fulfilled all the Government's objectives? Where are the weaknesses?
Kirsty Williams AM: Diolch yn fawr, Sian. As I've said, it's a bit difficult to place myself in the mind of the previous Minister when this legislation was first envisaged and then taken through. You'll 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 Government's 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 post-compulsory 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.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Do you feel perhaps that the legislation itself hasn't 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's 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's 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's really important, and those are principles that I am committed to in any legislation that I bring forward. We'll 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 don't think there's anything in the legislation per se that prevents those national priorities being articulated and being acted upon.
Sian Gwenllian AM: I don't think that's what HEFCW has said in their evidence. They've said that the Bill has been framed in a way where it's not possible for institutions to fulfil any requirements. You're talking about the remit letter; maybe you need to have that discussion there, but, in terms of the Bill itself, you can't make them fulfil any national outcomes. Shouldn't 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 don't 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 co-ordinating and funding the sector, to create a system of outcome agreements, where those outputs will reflect national priorities, and that's one of the things that we've consulted on, and will look to take forward in the new legislation.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. That's 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's 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: Okay. So, I think, first of all, it's 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's a really important distinction to make. So, currently, under the current legislation, unregulated providers can only access Welsh Government student support if they're designated on a case-by-case 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 case-by-case basis in the 2018-19 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're 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 isn't 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 don't know if there's 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've been keen to put students at the front of things to make sure that the institutions that they're enrolling with are strong and have good quality.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. So, what you're saying is that you will continue with a charitable status, or not--
Kirsty Williams AM: At this stage--
Sian Gwenllian AM: --or are you still thinking about it?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, at this stage, I think the charitable status will continue to be an important part of what we will take forward.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Just turning finally to part-time fees and postgraduate fees, do you have an intention to regulate this part in the new legislation?
Kirsty Williams AM: I have to say that, at present, we've not identified an urgent reason to designate these courses as qualifying courses for the purposes of a fee limit. And there are a number of reasons for that. Actually, the current Act--the 2015 Act--does not permit the fee regulation of postgraduate courses, other than PGCE courses for IT purposes. In the case of part-time courses, I'm currently content that fee levels are not exceeding the amount of student support made available by the Welsh Government. So, I think we are, at this moment, relaxed about that, and there are some difficulties around deciding and introducing fee limits on postgraduate courses. I think what's really important to me is the success at the moment of attracting people to postgraduate and part-time study in Wales, as a result of our reforms to student finance. But, clearly, we'll need to keep that under review. But, at this current moment, the Act precludes fee regulation in some areas and there's not a pressing policy need that we've identified to date.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Okay, we're going to move on now to some questions about the level of ambition in the higher education Act and any lessons for the PCET Bill, from Janet Finch-Saunders.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. To what extent has the 2012 university funding system limited Welsh Government's policy leverage over the sector, and how has the HE Act addressed this beyond the levers offered by fee and access plans?
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 HEFCW's 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 non-compliance by institutions. Personally, I wholeheartedly believe that tertiary education providers should contribute to national goals and outcomes as part of what I'd describe as a civic mission. I'm 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's 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'll be aware, in my remit letter, I am concerned about issues around how people working in the sector are paid. We've been able to successfully see all institutions sign up to becoming living wage employers, all institutions sign up to the Welsh Government's code of ethical procurement. So, it's not to say that the Act has meant that we've 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.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Minister. Do you share HEFCW's views on the benefits of having national targets to get institutions to address national priorities? Is this something you wish you could do?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it's not something I wish I could do; I think that we're doing it. Self-praise is no recommendation, but, because of the working relationship that we have, I think we're seeing some success in using the remit letter to influence national outcomes. So, I've just talked about living wage; we're also using our remit letter to drive transparency over senior leaders'pay, the gender pay gap within institutions. For instance, as part of this Government's commitment to improving mental health, we've 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're acting upon them and we're 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'm very grateful to them for doing that.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Are there plans to give the proposed new PCET funding body more effective policy levers to align the sector to the social, economic and civic needs of Wales? And, if so, how will this be done?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said in answer earlier, I'm determined that we ensure a sense of civic mission for the entirety of the sector, including our institutes of higher education. You'll be aware, Janet, that, in the consultation exercises that have been undertaken by the Government so far on PCET reform, we will be introducing more formal outcome agreements, whereby institutions might be given by the commission very clear expectations of how they're expected to contribute to national priorities.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thanks. We've heard that the HE Act, by focusing on individual institutions, did not encourage collaboration, even for widening access activity. Was this a missed opportunity and how will this be taken forward in the PCET Bill?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think we can strengthen our sector by closer collaboration. I think what sets us apart in Wales is that this Government is determined to create a legislative regime and a regulation regime that encourages collaboration and co-operation, which is in stark contrast to the marketisation and the competition that we see being regulated for and legislated for across the border in England. That's one of the reasons why we are going to introduce the new PCET reforms--to create collaboration, not just between different higher education institutes but actually across the sector. So, this is a prime opportunity where we can create a framework that demands and encourages collaboration, not just, as I said, in between individual institutions but across the entirety of the sector. We're doing that because that means we can avoid duplication, we can fill gaps that there currently are and we can create a system that allows for a seamless passage for students to move between the different parts of post-compulsory education that are currently available, where, sometimes, those students find barriers.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, Janet?
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you--that's great, thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now around HEFCW's powers of intervention from Dawn Bowden.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. We received substantial evidence from HEFCW suggesting that powers were inflexible and hard to use--I think HEFCW called them'threatening'--saying that they make sanctions difficult to use and so on. Are you satisfied that HEFCW's powers are useful on a preventative day-to-day basis?
Kirsty Williams AM: If I may disagree slightly, I don't think their powers are frightening. It's very clear what powers are available to HEFCW, and they're certainly more than just the ability to, maybe, lean on an institution. Clearly, there is a system by which there is the ability to, you know, ramp up and escalate levels of intervention in the sector by HEFCW, but I certainly wouldn't describe them as inflexible or not having weight.
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've 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 non-punitive 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's a very HEFCW thing to say.
Hefin David AM: --potentially institutions going bankrupt, and there don't seem to be many steps in between that. I'd invite you to say whether you'd like to remedy that in future.
Kirsty Williams AM: I think, as I said at the beginning of the session, this is why this post-legislative 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've missed out?
Huw Morris: Just to build on what the Minister has said, there's 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's 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's 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 work-based 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 HEFCW's comments is that before we had a loan-based system of student finance, there was a system of block grant allocations and conditions could be attached to those grant allocations by HEFCW. I don't think we're going to be going back to that system in the foreseeable future because of the pressures on public finances--
Hefin David AM: That wasn't how I understood it. I understood it to be the fact that you use these informal powers and then the next step up is quite a severe sanction and there's not much in between those.
Huw Morris: So, in--. Shall I carry on?
Kirsty Williams AM: Of course, yes.
Huw Morris: In the Hazelkorn review, there's 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're 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's that balance to be struck, isn't there, about creating a regulatory regime, which I'm very keen and the Act attempted to do, which was to enshrine institutional autonomy, and that's 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's the balance that we need to try and strike as we go forward with the new commission proposals.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Dawn.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. I think, in terms of the levels of measures--and I understand what you're 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 post-16 sector, however many we're talking--50 plus providers--it's 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's 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's really important to remember is that HEFCW will be replaced. We're not asking HEFCW suddenly to go from regulating a small number of institutions to suddenly regulating 50. We'll 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's my intention.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. 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're saying, you wouldn't be expecting that to happen. Just the fact that they've got the power doesn't necessarily mean that that's what they're going to do.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, I think it's 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 wouldn't 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 wouldn't describe that as a minor matter.
Dawn Bowden AM: No. That's fair enough. And, actually, on that point, we've had some recent high-profile issues in Swansea and Trinity St David, and HEFCW still haven't 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.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin David has some questions now on fee and access plans.
Hefin David AM: Are you concerned that neither the regulator nor the sector seem to have any confidence in fee and access plans?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think the concept of a fee and access plan is an important concept. Whether we can do them better, whether we can reflect on what's happened to date and create a better system of what's included in a fee and access plan and how those fee and access plans can be monitored, there's an opportunity to do that in forthcoming legislation.
Hefin David AM: So, have you been aware of specific issues yourself? Have they brought them to you?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, no, not in the sense that they've brought them to me to talk about specifically. From my perspective, fee and access plans are focused very much on inputs, and, really, I'd 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're into it, and then, the next thing you know, you're writing your next year's plan. So, I think there's 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're 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's part of a wider piece of work that I'd 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's still--. In a way, it's difficult to make a final judgment on whether fee and access plans in their current format have worked, because we need to know what'll happen to those students in the future. But undoubtedly, despite the limitations of them, I do think we're making progress in terms of access, but I don't 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're saying reflect some of the discussions we've had, but what was clear is that the process and bureaucratic nature of the way you present fee and access plans doesn't work, particularly given the fact that, four years on, early fee and access plans are still being evaluated. There's a real problem there. So, what you're saying--can I just pin down what you're saying--is that we may be moving away from yearly fee and access plans to something that's longer term and outcome focused.
Kirsty Williams AM: That's my preference. So, I think the principle--I'd 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're 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'm 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 vice-chancellors, and I've been very keen to develop a stronger working relationship with chairs, and perhaps we'll 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'm getting as chair of the cross-party group on higher education is that there could still be more direct consultation with stakeholders. That's the message I've received. Now, I've got no evidence to say it has or hasn't happened, but that's the message I've received.
Huw Morris: If I could just chip in for a moment, the Minister's 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's been a general consultation process and a technical consultation process--and wanting to make sure that the Bill that's laid next year hasn't 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 haven't been the subject of consultation--
Hefin David AM: Because that happens at Stage 1.
Huw Morris: Indeed, yes.
Hefin David AM: Okay. Sorry, can I move on to the next item?
Lynne Neagle AM: Oh, you're going on to the next section.
Hefin David AM: Yes, unless there's anything specific--
Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, I just wanted to clarify, if we're moving to a longer term approach to this, how will the new body be able to establish that things are actually working, that the powers are working, if we're working on a five-year time frame?
Kirsty Williams AM: As we've heard, we can't really properly assess fee and access plans in the current arrangements, because it takes time for those cohorts of students to go through and activities to go through. Being able to move to a system where fee and access plans, for instance, could be over a three-year period I think allows universities to be more strategic in some of their investments and some of their activities around fee and access. In a single-year plan, it's almost knee-jerk, it's the need to demonstrate that you're doing something, and doing that within that period of time, rather than a more strategic view--. Can I just say, I know it's not quite subject to this, but we're really moving forward in terms of access and broadening access into the HE sector. For me, student financial support is one aspect of it, but if we're really thinking about social mobility and attracting people into higher education that have never been part of higher education before, our early figures would suggest--they're early figures, and they're subject to change, but in terms of our change to our student support regime, we have seen a 58 per cent increase in the number of postgraduates applying for student support in Wales. When you think about it, when many of us went to university, a degree was the thing that set you apart. Now that more and more students are going to university, it is that postgraduate qualification that sets you apart, but your ability to carry on studying is often limited by access to financial support, so a 58 per cent increase in postgraduate I think is great for those individuals, but it's also great for our economy. We've seen a 35 per cent increase in part-time undergraduates that have been supported by the Student Loans Company; the Open University have reported a 67 per cent increase in students from Wales's most economically disadvantaged areas registering with them; a 57 per cent increase in disabled students; and a 30 per cent increase in black, minority ethnic learners. So, I think that's a really, really positive basis for our sector to continue to work on broadening access.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Sorry, Hefin--carry on.
Hefin David AM: I'll move on to managing risk, if that's okay. 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: Okay. Those were the words used by Universities Wales--
Kirsty Williams AM: No, no, I'm 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's in the interests of students, then, to be at private institutions--? I've seen those private institutions and how they operate; I've seen them at first-hand--they don't operate to the same rigour as public institutions, and they're 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 don't 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've 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 wouldn't tar them all with the same brush, necessarily.
Hefin David AM: But they fall outwith--if they're 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 course-by-course basis, so it's back to the issue of proportionality, isn't it? So, you are automatically regulated for all your courses, if you're one of our main universities, but there is a process that is run by HEFCW on a course-by-course 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'm 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 part-time students? Do you think the landscape may change in future and that the 2015 Act, as designed, wasn't equipped for that, and will the next Act, then, be equipped?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think it's right to say that maybe the previous legislation didn't futureproof for changes. I'm not anticipating a mass influx of alternative providers, in the sense that we've seen across the border, but we will need to ensure that the new commission has powers to regulate and to futureproof.
Hefin David AM: Okay. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn.
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's true and fair to say that the Bill does not directly address issues around governance in the sector. HEFCW do have well-established assurance practices in relation to governance that would predate the 2015 legislation. But governance--we've 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're 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 one-to-one relationship with them, not in the presence of their vice-chancellors. I challenge them, they challenge me, and I think we've deliberately tried to establish a regular routine of that since I took office. And you'll be aware that, collaboratively--and I'm glad that this has been done in this way because I think if you do it this way, we're 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's really important that parties have come together to recognise the issues and to agree to take action, because I think if we'd have tried to impose something, we'd 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's the Gillian Camm review. This is a review that, as I said, Universities Wales and HEFCW have agreed to do together. It's 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'm very supportive of that, and that's happening at the moment. As I said, I'm glad that there's 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're going to be taking into the PCET Bill, do you think?
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. We're 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 don't hold figures on it, but from an approximation that I've 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's 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's a gap 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's 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'll 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've 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 fast-changing nature of that activity.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, just before we move on, can I ask whether it's your plan to legislate on that, as they've done in Scotland?
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, I don't want to pre-empt scrutiny of the Bill, because we need to be able to come to the committee and do that in the entirety, rather than picking off individual bits of it, but we are absolutely exploring how the Bill could introduce a regulatory condition with regard to governance.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. We've got some questions now from Sian on quality assurance.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. We've heard evidence regarding the difficulties caused by HEFCW having a legal duty to quality-assure 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?
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you. My understanding--and as I said, it's a bit difficult, because I can't 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, HEFCW's 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's a lot of joint operation. I think, going forward, we would expect that to continue. We're looking to the new Bill to try to make that clearer. That was a theme in the general and technical consultation exercises that we've engaged in over the last couple of years.
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you're happy, therefore, that that partnership has worked. Are you happy with that?
Kirsty Williams AM: Certainly, in our consultation for the upcoming Act, we've generally heard, certainly from our further education colleges, that they've been quite content with the arrangements. No concerns about it, certainly from further education colleges.
Huw Morris: There are differences in the systems of quality assurance as they've historically applied to FE and HE, but I understand that that has meant that, as FE colleges become more interested in HE, they've had to learn new ways, and that's taken a little bit of time. But, I'm not aware of any dissatisfaction.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay, which moves us on to this idea of having one quality assurance body or one quality assurance framework. Is that your intention and how will that work in practice?
Kirsty Williams AM: I am aware, and we've 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've 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 don't want to pre-empt 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're 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 UK-wide baseline standards. So, we don't 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 vice-chancellor has told us:
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, sometimes, I think it is necessary, maybe, to cause a stir. If we don't change things, it does beg the point of,'Why are any of us here if we're not here to sometimes move things forward?'And change is challenging always, but I would like to reassure all of our vice-chancellors and our sector as a whole that we're 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're seeing in the figures that the Minister outlined to you earlier about the growth in postgraduate and the growth in part-time 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 non-conventional institutional setting. Historically, the quality assurance regimes for work-based learning have tended to sit with Estyn; the assurance regimes for the universities have sat with the QAA. There's quite a lot of learning that all sides have got to engage in if we're going to be able to have continued high quality in these new areas that are being explored. That's 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're 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.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And finally, therefore, looking at overseas providers. Currently, of course, universities can award their degrees to students being taught by providers overseas. We know this created problems for the University of Wales in 2011. They faced a scandal; that's probably the best word to use there. Will the new Bill address these issues?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, certainly transnational education does present real opportunities for Welsh institutions, but if not managed appropriately and regulated appropriately can cause real risks to reputation to our sector. When I meet with vice-chancellors in universities in different parts of the world, and when I am visiting different countries, one of the great things that I'm able to say is that we have a sector that provides fantastic quality of teaching, excellence in research and a wonderful student experience, and that is undermined if institutions find themselves undertaking TNE activities that put that at risk. So, it's an important consideration for the health of the whole sector that any TNE undertaken by a Welsh institution has the appropriate quality guarantees built into that because it's a problem not just for an individual institution, but it could undermine the very strong reputation that the Welsh sector has as a whole. Huw, was there anything further about TNE?
Huw Morris: Well, just to say that we are live to that, as I know HEFCW and the QAA are. We've had conversations with both in the recent past. There is quality assurance of offshore activity through the QAA. When they visit institutions with their reviews they will look at a selection of those overseas activities and there are periodic thematic reviews of the activity in particular countries. I think we would hope and believe that HEFCW, in its conversations with the QAA, would be keeping that under review to minimise the risk and maximise the opportunities.
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, you're not actually looking to use the new legislation to strengthen the regulation around this.
Huw Morris: The arrangements at the moment are that HEFCW uses the QAA to do the reviews and the inspections. I don't think we're currently looking to mandate the detail of how that should happen. The system at the moment works through co-operation between the institutions and the regulator to make sure the quality assurance system is improving and enhancing things. I think we would look to that as a primary mechanism.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you both for attending this morning and answering all our questions? As usual, you will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you both for your attendance this morning.
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Item 3 then is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Education regarding the revised additional learning needs implementation plan. Paper to note 2 is additional information from HEFCW, following the meeting on 18 July, in relation to our post-legislative scrutiny of the Higher Education (Wales) Act. And paper to note 3 is a letter from us to the Welsh Local Government Association on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019. This is the letter that we agreed we would send last week. Can I ask Members if they're happy to note those? Yes. Thank you very much. Item 4 then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting and for item 1 on 2 October? Are Members content? Thank you. | The meeting between the Children, Young People and Education Committee and the Welsh Government was considered as a post-legislative scrutiny session on the Higher Education (Wales) Act 2015. To start with, Kirsty Williams AM suggested although the Bill was taken forward by a different Minister in a different administration, it was still valuable to discuss in the current context. The Act had partly fulfilled the Government's objectives in regulating institutions, safeguarding contribution, managing fair access and protecting the principle of institutional autonomy. Kirsty Williams AM also pointed out that new methods should be included to further regulate, co-ordinating and fund the sector. When it comes to the future of the Act, the meeting agreed that tertiary education providers should contribute to national goals and outcomes as part of the civic mission, and students'interests must be fully preserved. Meanwhile, some participants argued that HEFCW's powers were inflexible and fee plans from private providers were hard to regulate. Kirsty Williams AM agreed that a more flexible connection between the regulating sectors and the others should be attained. Besides, the meeting also talked about managing risk and agreed that the Act, in the future should include more alternative providers for students who were receiving long-term support. In the end, Kirsty Williams AM praised the contribution from overseas providers in supporting transnational education in Wales and agreed that rights of students in Wales should always be put in the first place. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
Project Manager: Okay we all all set? Right. Well this is the uh final detailed design meeting. Um we're gonna discuss the look and feel design, the user interface design, and we're gonna evaluate the product. And the end result of this meeting has to be a decision on the details of this remote control, like absolute final decision, um and then I'm gonna have to specify the final design in the final report. So um just from from last time to recap, we said we were gonna have a snowman shaped remote control with no L_C_D_ display, no need for talk-back, it was hopefully gonna be kinetic power and battery uh with rubber buttons, maybe backlighting the buttons with some internal L_E_D_s to shine through the casing, um hopefully a jog-dial, and incorporating the slogan somewhere as well. Anything I've missed?
Industrial Designer: No.
Project Manager: Okay um so uh if you want to present your prototype go ahead.
User Interface: Uh-oh. This is it? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Ninja Homer, made in Japan. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Um, there are a few changes we've made.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Um, well look at the expense sheet, and uh it turned to be quite a lot expensive to have open up and have lots of buttons and stuff inside,
Project Manager: Mm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: so instead we've um {disfmarker} this is gonna be an L_C_D_ screen, um just a a very very basic one, very small um with access to the menu through the the scroll wheel and uh confirm um button.
Marketing: Mm'kay.
User Interface: Uh, apart from that, it's just pretty much the same as we discussed last time.
Industrial Designer: And there isn't uh d it doesn't open up to the advanced functions? the advanced functions are still hidden from you, but they're hidden in the sense that um they're not in use.
Marketing: Where are they?
Industrial Designer: Um they're in the L_C_D_ panel and the jog-dial?
Marketing: Ah, right.
Industrial Designer: Okay'cause {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So w what kind of thing uh is gonna be {disfmarker}
Marketing: Great.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: The L_C_D_ panel just displays um functionally what you're doing. If you're using an advanced function right, like um c brightness, contrast, whatever, it will just say {disfmarker}
Marketing: Right. Okay.
Industrial Designer: You know it's like it only has four columns, it's a very simple L_C_D_ like, whereas many {disfmarker} the minimum amount we need that the user will automatically know like this is brightness or this is contrast.
Marketing: Right.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Okay cool.
Marketing: Right,'kay.
Industrial Designer: It might even be one, a bit more complex L_C_D_ panel with pictures like maybe the sun or the, you know, the the symbols of the various functions.
Marketing: Okay
Project Manager: Oh right okay.
Marketing: Mm-hmm, and what is this here?
Project Manager: Cool.
Industrial Designer: That's a number pad.
Marketing: Okay so the number pad is {disfmarker}'Kay, great.
Project Manager: Where are we gonna have the slogan?
Industrial Designer: Um they're al along this {disfmarker}
User Interface: You know, just like right inside there.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay cool.
Industrial Designer: You have this space here, and then you have this thing on the side as well, or at the bottom.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer:'Cause slogans are usually quite small, right,
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: they're not like huge
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: so they're s
Marketing: Yep.
Industrial Designer: Say a button's about
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Looks good.
Industrial Designer: say a button's about this size, right, so you would still have plenty of space for a slogan, say even for that.
Marketing: Yep. {vocalsound} Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So if this isn't to scale, what kind of dimensions are you thinking about here?
User Interface: {vocalsound} Well {vocalsound} we want the other buttons to be big enough to push easily with a finger
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: so we reckon maybe that'll be about the same size as the palm of your hand. {gap}
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yep so that would be about a centimetre for a button, so one two three four centimetres. Plus maybe half o five
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: six seven eight,
Marketing: About nine in total.
Project Manager: Six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Industrial Designer: about yeah nine total.
Project Manager: So we're talking about ten centimetres.
Marketing: That sounds good. Yeah.
Project Manager: That would be good. So ten centimetres in height.
Marketing: Yep.
Industrial Designer: Nine, ten. Yep.
Project Manager: Okay um {vocalsound}.
Marketing: That'd be good, in fact a pen is about ten centimetres usually, so that would be {disfmarker} that sounds like a really good size, if you see it there.
Project Manager: Yeah. That's great and it's very bright as well. So um okay.
Marketing: Mm. Is it possible {disfmarker} uh I'm just gonna bring up the idea of colours. Is these are these the colours that {disfmarker} of production, or is this just what we had available?
User Interface: Well I'm {disfmarker} We're gonna have again the the sort of the foggy um yellow from last time that lit up when you pushed the button.
Marketing: Right.
Project Manager: Okay so just {disfmarker}
User Interface: Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: could you just list all the things that it does s so I can write them in the report.
User Interface: But um {vocalsound} this button um, because it's red it's sort of very prominent, we're gonna use it as uh {disfmarker} it can be the power button if you hold it for maybe two seconds it'll send a stand-by signal.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Excuse me.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Um apart from that it's gonna be used as a confirm button for the L_C_D_ screen
Industrial Designer: Sure.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: and you use this as a jog-dial.
Project Manager: Okay so that's like an okay button, right.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Oh we've discussed how h high it is, but how wide is it? {vocalsound}
User Interface: I don't know. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: How high is it?
Industrial Designer: No as in the height, but what about the width?
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Oh oh
User Interface: Didn't put five centimetres.
Project Manager: like depth of the actual thing.
Industrial Designer: Do we need five? I don't think five is {disfmarker}
User Interface: Um.
Industrial Designer: be about th three and a half.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Oh is this k to get an idea of scale from your from your thing there okay.
User Interface: Something by there.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah.
Marketing: Sure.
Project Manager: So you can power on and off, what else can you do?
Marketing: Three and a half.
User Interface: Um you can skip straight to a channel using these buttons.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Um, were gonna have the volume control here, but um because we've got the the L_C_D_ and the jog-dial we just thought we'd um use that as the volume.
Project Manager: Okay jog-dial for volume. And what else do you do with the jog-dial?
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Um you can use it for um more advanced functions like contrast, colour and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Contrast, brightness,
User Interface: Um yeah.
Project Manager: yeah, and anything else?
User Interface: Um just whatever else we wanted to include as the advanced functions, um we didn't actually go through and specify the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well of the designers what are they?
User Interface: Uh what can a T_V_ do?
Industrial Designer: Okay things like um brightness, contrast,
Project Manager: Uh-huh.
Industrial Designer: um maybe tuning the channels.
Project Manager: Okay channel tuning.
Industrial Designer: Um.
Project Manager: That's a good one.
Industrial Designer: What else? Um the various inputs. Are you having a V_C_R_, are you having {disfmarker} you know which input do you have?
Marketing: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay auxiliary inputs.
Marketing: Mm-hmm,
Industrial Designer: Um.
Marketing: probably colour or sharpness.
Industrial Designer: Yep, colour, sharpness. Um a lot of these things will have to be um free and open for users to define them.
Project Manager: Sharpness. Okay what about uh sound settings
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: ? Uh d can you change any of those at all?
Marketing: Audio.
Industrial Designer: Audio, we have like your basic y your base, your mid-range, your high range.
User Interface: Um.
Industrial Designer: Um.
User Interface: {gap} the the balance hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yep, left-right balance, um maybe even pre-programmed sound modes, like um the user could determine like a series of sound modes,
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: and then what could happen would be um when you click on that then it would go to that setting.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay,
Marketing: Mm'kay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: is there anything else at all it can do? That {disfmarker}'cause that's that's fine. Just need to know so I can write it down. Okay um right I g I guess that's it, so we can now um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} We can now have a little look at the the Excel sheet and price listing, and see if we need to um if we need to rethink anything at all.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So um for this first part here power-wise, have we got battery?
Industrial Designer: The battery.
Project Manager: Do we have kinetic as well?
Industrial Designer: No.
Project Manager: No. Okay,
Industrial Designer: Um.
Project Manager: just battery.
Industrial Designer: We need an {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And that's because of cost restraints is it?
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Project Manager: Okay
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah advanced chip.
Project Manager: um what about the electronics here?
Industrial Designer: We need an advanced chip I think, yep.
Project Manager: Advanced chip.
Industrial Designer: Let me just confirm that. Yes I think so. Yep.
Project Manager: Okay um the case, what does it mean by single and double, do you know?
User Interface: Um I think single would just be sort of one sort of oval whereas double is this sort of thing.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: So we want double-curved?
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Project Manager: Okay. Um.
Industrial Designer: Plastic.
Project Manager: Is there any rubber at all in the buttons or any
Industrial Designer: I think we're gonna have to skip the rubber.
Project Manager: Okay,
Industrial Designer: Um.
Project Manager: um and we wanted special colours didn't we?
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Project Manager: So I'll have to put that {disfmarker} Oh no wait we {disfmarker} ho how many colours have we got there?
Industrial Designer: For the case itself, one colour. It's one special colour.
Project Manager: Just one colour, okay.
Industrial Designer:'Cause the case unit itself, the rest of our components go on top of it.
Project Manager: Okay so interface-wise, is it this third option we have, the two of them there?
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yes. One and the L_C_ display.
Project Manager: Okay and then buttons, we have what, two colours?
Industrial Designer: How many {disfmarker}
User Interface: Um we have um got some push buttons as well.
Marketing: Or even clear.
Industrial Designer: We've got push buttons as well.
Project Manager: Like uh oh wait so push button and integrated scroll wheel push
User Interface:'Kay.
Project Manager: okay.
User Interface: So I reckon we've got one button for this thing'cause it's just one big sheet of rubber.
Project Manager: Uh-huh.
User Interface: I'm not sure if that counts but {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay let's just be safe and put like say four buttons for that one.
Project Manager: Okay. Okay.
Industrial Designer: Okay um and maybe a special colour for the buttons, so maybe four again.
Project Manager: Four.
User Interface: You can see we're we're all very far beyond the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So w why are we arriving at the number four? Where does the number four come from?
Industrial Designer:'Cause that's one button by its the complexity of twelve buttons.
Project Manager: Okay right,
Industrial Designer: So we're just estimating that yeah it would be less.
Project Manager: so we're writing down four. {vocalsound} Okay. How about these? Are we wanting them in {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: No.
Project Manager: no they're just {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Project Manager: is everything gonna be plastic?
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Project Manager: Okay. So we're w w quite far over.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Now we're gonna {disfmarker} something's gonna have to go. Um we're at sixteen point eight and {disfmarker}
Marketing: Uh how mm-hmm {disfmarker} how are we going to achieve this high-end product if {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well we h something has to go to the tune of two point t three Euro,
Marketing: We only have very sparse {disfmarker}
Project Manager: so let me see, what are we {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker}
Marketing: Two point three? Four point three no?
Project Manager: oh yes sorry, four point three. My maths is all out.
User Interface: Well we could take out ones by making it single curved, just fill in those bits.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: How much would that save us?
Marketing: And then where is the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: How much would that save us?
Industrial Designer: That will only save you one.
User Interface: That is one.
Industrial Designer: The other thing could be that um you could take away the L_C_D_ panel and the advanced chip together,
Project Manager: One.
Industrial Designer: um because when you do something on the T_V_, the T_V_ responds and reacts as well,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: so the user could be looking at the T_V_ and pushing his thing so we may not need to {disfmarker}
User Interface: That's fair enough, yeah.
Industrial Designer: so when we scroll we need just some way to get the T_V_ to respond,
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: which I think is a technically doable thing so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay so {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So w what's our reviewed suggestion?
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um take away the L_C_ display?
Industrial Designer: Yep. And the advanced chip goes away as well.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: To be replaced with a
Industrial Designer: Regular chip.
Project Manager: regular chip.
Industrial Designer: Yep. So what that means is that um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} And so we've got point three to get rid of. Um and we ha where are the four {disfmarker} the four push buttons are where exactly now?
Industrial Designer: The twelve buttons that you see there {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: Twelve buttons.
User Interface: That's um one piece of rubber but it's gonna have twelve button things underneath so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Functionally you're gonna have to intercept {disfmarker} So four is a good estimate for {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Do you think?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, so you can't actually cut {vocalsound} {disfmarker} It's like three times the number of buttons, four, eight, twelve.
Project Manager: Like is is that one big button or is it twelve buttons,
Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} It needs to be more than one big button because if you open up your phone, underneath there's actually one button underneath, it's just that the panel itself is a single panel.
Project Manager: how can it be something in between?
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Mm. Okay
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: well we have point three to get rid of somewhere.
Industrial Designer: We just report that it has to be over budget {vocalsound},
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: or the colours, you could take away s colours for th for the buttons.
Project Manager: No can do.
Marketing: Yeah we could just go with um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah w
Industrial Designer: Normal coloured buttons.
Project Manager: Well do you want colour differentiation here?
Industrial Designer: No that's not the button we're talking about.
User Interface: Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh yeah sorry yeah then. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: the buttons only refer to the pad so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Right so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Should we take that off uh?
Project Manager: Ah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Hey it's back to the original.
Project Manager: That's it.
Marketing: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: Um so then these just become normal coloured buttons, so that might be some some way of cutting the cost.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm.
Project Manager: Okay, ach that's a shame. {vocalsound} Um right, so take away that completely? Ah. And now we're under budget. So we do have point five Euro to play with if we wanted.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} So I reckon {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: How about with embossing the logo, isn't that going to cost us some money?
Project Manager: Doesn't say so. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah. That's a freebie.
User Interface: Reckon that probably counts as a special form for the buttons.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah that's a good idea. Just one? Does that mean that one button has a special form or {disfmarker}
User Interface: I think {gap} there's just one button so
Project Manager: Yeah okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: handy {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: Well well there we go. So I'm just gonna have to redraw this now. So we're not gonna have the L_C_D_ anymore, and we'll just gonna have an on t on the T_V_ it'll show you what you're doing, which I think is fair enough, and so this is gonna be one big thing here. Um.
Marketing: Was the goal in your in your prototype design that it be as low profile as possible?
Industrial Designer: What do you mean by profile?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Sort of flat as possible.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: No.
User Interface: You see I envision it as being um quite deep
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: sort of {vocalsound} deep enough to be comfy to hold in your hands rather than being wide and flat.
Marketing: Yeah that's what I was thinking, to
Industrial Designer: We didn't have enough Play-Doh to make it three D_. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Sure, okay. Yeah alright yeah fair enough.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay, just thought I'd ask.
Industrial Designer: So there's one more dimension to the thing which we need to to add,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and you might want to add in the report, length, width, and height.
Project Manager: Right okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: So just to well to be thorough then, width-wise we're looking at about what three centimetres or something?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay and then so height-wise {disfmarker}
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: How how tall do you envisage it being? About that big?
Industrial Designer: Two.
User Interface: Yeah it works, yeah.
Project Manager: About two centimetres, okay.
Marketing: Two's not very high at all though.
Industrial Designer: This is about this is about two.
Marketing: Maybe a bit higher?
Industrial Designer: Slightly more than two, so {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
User Interface: See, about that thick.
Project Manager: Okay. Ach, that is {disfmarker}
Marketing: Maybe closer to three even or two and a half.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Yeah. Okay we'll s we'll say two point five. Okay um so we have it within cost anyway. Um so yeah project evaluation is this point. Um.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Right uh. Okay so can we close that? This is what it's {disfmarker} the final spec that it's gonna be. Someone is gonna have to {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: yeah that's fine that's fine.
Marketing: Um it's probably just {disfmarker} I dunno if it's worth getting into, but um just in in that we want this to be stylish, should we think a little bit more out of the box in terms of a button grid, because I've seen there's lots of devices out there that that instead of taking your standard nine nine square grid, and they have it sort of stylized or in different concept that that {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I think that's something that's very hard to catch,
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: so you you restrict the number of people who wanna try something.
Marketing: Sure, okay.
Industrial Designer: The the look and the colour is something which is cool,
Marketing: Yeah, alright.
Industrial Designer: but I think that there's also that factor of if it's too unfamiliar
Marketing: Okay, sure.
Industrial Designer: then um {disfmarker} because when you put it on the shelf {disfmarker}
Marketing: What about button shape? Square buttons?
Industrial Designer: Yeah button shape might be a good idea to change, rather than rather than positioning,
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer:'cause I think positioning is {disfmarker} we're kinda engrained into the the telephone kind of
Marketing: Yeah. Sure.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay.
Industrial Designer: pad.
Project Manager: Right um. So at this point we uh, let me see, discuss uh how satisfied we all are with um with these four points, with the room for creativity in the project, and leadership and teamwork, and the stuff we had around us I guess.
Marketing: Mm'kay.
Project Manager: Um, let me see uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Do you want me to d um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Do you want me to do my um design evaluation last?
Industrial Designer: Maybe we should do the design evaluation first.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah I wasn't really sure what that was {disfmarker}
Marketing: Or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah
Marketing: Evaluation.
Project Manager: , yeah go for that first. I wasn't entirely sure what uh {disfmarker} who was supposed to be doing that,
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: but y you go for it.
Marketing: Sure. Um, alright so the way this works, I'm gonna need to plug into PowerPoint,
Project Manager: {gap} Okay.
Marketing: I'll try and do it as quick as possible.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Um, this is um {disfmarker} I'll just go over your head if that's okay.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I don't think you need the power,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: What's that?
Industrial Designer: No, that's okay that's okay.
Marketing: I don't need the PowerPoint?
Industrial Designer: No, the power cord itself.
Marketing: Oh {gap} course,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, so then you have a bit more freedom to {disfmarker}
Marketing: yeah that's true. Let me get that. A bit more.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay,
Industrial Designer: You you still have your blue fingers.
Marketing: so what this is is a set-up for us to um uh use a kind of a like a {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Is it?
Industrial Designer: You killed a monster.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: The idea is that I've set up {disfmarker} I've reviewed all of the um the points of discussion from the beginning, and used that as a criteria of evaluation for the um uh for the current design uh th or the plan, and uh so we can review that. Uh I think it's gonna end up being sort of elementary because we're sort we're in n we're not gonna probably use it to change anything but {disfmarker} Doesn't seem like it's going, does it?
Project Manager: Oh there it is.
Marketing: Yeah, okay great. Uh and I'm gonna write up our results on the board, so this'll be a way for us to go through and decide if we're um {disfmarker} sort of review where we stand with it. Okay, so um {disfmarker} So to sort of b bring together two things, sort of design goals and also the market research that we had, uh when we rate this, one is v high in in succeeding or fitting to our original aim and seven is low,
Project Manager: Mm'kay.
Marketing: okay. So these i these i th are the {disfmarker} and um we've been asked to uh to collectively rate this, so what we can do is try and just y work on a consensus system so we just come to an agreement.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Okay? So the first one uh, stylish look and feel.
Industrial Designer: I rate that pretty highly.
Project Manager: Well yeah, I mean compared to most remote controls you see that's pretty good.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: I dunno like a six or something.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: What does anybody else think?
Marketing: Yeah um me uh my only reservation with it was that we basically went with yellow because it's the company's colour,
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: and I don't know if yellow's gonna really be a hit.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: I'm seeing five then.
Marketing: What do you guys think?
Project Manager: I would say five or six.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yep I'm fine with that.
Project Manager: David?
Marketing: Okay let's go with five then.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Fi oh uh just actually the opposite.
Industrial Designer: It's one to seven, right?
Project Manager: Oh yes
Marketing: The {disfmarker}
Project Manager: sorry then
Marketing: So it meant three,
Project Manager: , then I would say two or three.
Marketing: okay.
Industrial Designer: Wait, what's the scale, one to seven, right?
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, one is high.
User Interface: One's high-ish isn't it? Ah, okay so yeah, two or three.
Marketing:'Kay {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay, it's upside-down.
Marketing: Let's go with two point five then.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay, um {vocalsound} control {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: high tech innovation.
Project Manager: Well it has the wee jog-dial
Marketing: We had to remove {disfmarker}
Project Manager: but {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, so we've had to remove a few of our features we wanted,
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: but jog-dial
Industrial Designer: Say it's more
Project Manager: I'd go with three or four,
Marketing:'s good.
User Interface: Eight
Industrial Designer: medium,
Project Manager: maybe three.
User Interface: three.
Industrial Designer: but going towards a little bit higher than medium kind of thing.
Marketing: Okay,
Project Manager: Yeah about three, okay.
Marketing: three?
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Marketing: Okay, um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Style reflects a fruit inspired colour, design.
Industrial Designer: Lemon.
Marketing: I shouldn't have said colour, but just {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay, the blue the blue colours and {disfmarker} don't re don't actually represent the colour,
Project Manager: Well that's kind of {disfmarker}
Marketing: Sorta.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: except for the b the the red button,
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: they {disfmarker} because for want of a {disfmarker}
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: But the yellow, I mean it could be a lemon yellow colour,
Marketing: Right. Yeah, could be. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, the the yellow is more representative of the colour,
Project Manager: couldn't it?
Industrial Designer: but the button itself, the blue can be anything else.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay. Okay so we'll go two.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Yeah? Okay, and um design is simple to use, simple in features.
Project Manager: Well yeah, I mean it's really basic looking isn't it?
Marketing: F f yeah f fairly basic,
Project Manager: I mean I'd give that nearly a one.
Marketing: you guys think?
User Interface: Yeah {gap} one.
Industrial Designer: Yep, that's fine.
Marketing: Yeah, one? Okay. {vocalsound} Um, {vocalsound} soft and spongy, have we achieved that? We've used mostly plastic in the end so it's going to be quite a bit of a compromise for price.
User Interface: Yeah I think it's about five.
Marketing: Five?
Project Manager: Five? That's really low.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah well we have to use uh plastic
Project Manager: Yeah I suppose mm'kay.
Marketing: That's {disfmarker}
User Interface: so it's probably gonna be {disfmarker}
Marketing: Um
Industrial Designer: Yeah, company logo.
Marketing: could we have used an entirely rubber frame to it? Was that an option?
Industrial Designer: I think it'll be cost prohibitive,
User Interface: I think I'd probably increase the cost.
Marketing: It would cost more than plastic.
User Interface: We've only got {vocalsound} like what, ten cents left so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: yeah.
Marketing: Okay, logo, we've got it in there, haven't we?
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Project Manager: Yep. Gonna have that on the side, aren't we, like there or something?
Marketing: Huh. And um it's within budget, yep. It is, isn't it?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay, so we can say then that uh out of a possible {disfmarker} or what would be our goal here?
Project Manager: Out of forty nine, I guess.
Marketing: Yeah, out of forty nine with with zero being the highest. We are at uh two, seven, eight, ten, fifteen point five.
Project Manager:'S pretty good.
Marketing: So it's pretty good. Translates to something like about approximately seventy two percent efficacy of our original goal. Right?
Project Manager: Uh yeah.
Marketing: I think'cause if you turn that into a hundred it would be about
Project Manager: Twice that,
Marketing: about thirty one,
Project Manager: about thirty one.
Marketing: and then invert that, it's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So yeah ab well yeah about sixty nine, seventy percent yeah.
Marketing: Oh right, about seventy, yeah seventy percent.
Project Manager: It's pretty good.
Marketing: Okay, good. That was just a little formality for us to go through.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Yep, oh hundred pound pen. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Sorry {vocalsound} {vocalsound} alright.
Project Manager: Nobody saw it, honestly. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} No.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The cameras did. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: Is that you all have all finished, or {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah that's that's me. I did have one other um one other frame I thought, I mean I I d not knowing how we would deal with this information, I thought okay in theory this kind of a process would be about refining our design, revisiting our original goals.
Project Manager: Uh-huh.
Marketing: It's not something I need to p push through, but I thought should we thinking more about the dimensions, um sort of like more of a three dimensional shapes as well as opposed to just that flat um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Could our design involve a series of colours so that it's more of like a line where we have like sort of the, I don't know like the harvest line or the vibrant,
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Marketing: I dunno the {gap} {disfmarker} Whatever just some theme and then we have different tones, lime green, lemon.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: It's just discussion. I mean obviously we can just abandon this, it's fine. I'm just thinking about what we originally set out to do.
Project Manager: Right.
Marketing: Um, yep so there. That's all.
Project Manager: Okay, great um are you submitting the the um evaluation criteria or am I? I don't know what your instructions have been.
Marketing: Um, I think to record it and uh I haven't been asked to submit it yet.
Project Manager: Okay,
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: uh just wondering if I need to include it in the minutes,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: because if you're submitting it anyway then {disfmarker}
Marketing: I will, yeah.
Project Manager: Okay great.
Industrial Designer: It keeps getting too big.
Project Manager: Cool. Um right, uh well next up then, because we've done finance, is the project evaluation.
Industrial Designer:'Kay I'm I'm listening I'm just trying to incorporate the logo into the the thing, so I'm playing with the Play-Doh as well.
Project Manager: Oh right, okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Just in case you're wondering {vocalsound}, why is he still playing with the Play-Doh? {vocalsound}
Marketing: Huh.
Industrial Designer: Just about right
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: L_E_G_O_ Lego {vocalsound}. {gap}
User Interface: My leg. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Right, okay. Um well do you wanna um just individually say what you think about about these four points and {vocalsound} {disfmarker} or not those four points, my four points, sorry, forgotten that. {vocalsound} You got a different uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: {gap}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {gap}
Marketing: Yep. I like those printer cables that just have the two little butterfly clips like that.
Project Manager: Oh yeah, they're good aren't they, yeah.
Marketing: It's really quick.
Project Manager: Right okay,
Marketing: To use.
Project Manager: um yeah here we are. Uh as a note we'll do this alphabetically. {vocalsound} Um do you wanna start Andrew?
Marketing: Sure, um so what is it you're asking of me now?
Project Manager: I don't know, just um your opinion on those four those four points really and how we used them.
Marketing: Or sort of our work on setting this up.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. Well, is it {disfmarker} uh okay I'll just go through your system then. The the room uh is fairly institutional, but um the main thing is, I think um 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 um have l sort of a cumulative effect of we have ideas and we come back and then the ideas are still in discussion, you know,
Project Manager: Uh-huh.
Marketing: as in other words this this room is sort of a centre point of creativity, whereas in reality as we've gone through this, it's not really the centre point of creativity, it's more just a
Project Manager: Well d do you feel though that that you were able to have quite a lot of creative input into the thing?
Marketing: d debating {disfmarker} Yeah, yeah but that's just the thing is the quest in terms of the the first point there, the room, it feels as though the creativity goes on when we leave, and then we come here and then we kind of put out our ideas and then, you know.
Project Manager: But I don't I don't think it means the room as in this room. I think it means like you know {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh, oh right right, oh right okay room for creativ
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh right I just looked up and saw okay whiteboard, digital pens, the room.
Project Manager: Room. Oh yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: No, of course, yeah.
Project Manager: Well I dunno do you th I think it means um I think it means did you feel you were able to give creative input so {disfmarker}
Marketing: Sorry. Huh. Yeah. Yeah I th okay on th um yeah dif answering the question uh in those terms I'd say that actually there's sort of a tease of creativity because we're asked to work through this, but actually the guidelines are fairly contrived in terms of um okay fashion trends, say fruit and vegetable colour scheme,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: but then i then we're told okay use the co company company colours.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: So what do we do. We're told okay um think in terms of style and look and feel and technology, but build something for twelve and a half pounds,
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: so actually the creativity was more more of like a um a f sort of a f formality then an actual {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: You feel like you're caged within whatever y
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Yeah within the constraints
Industrial Designer: It's like a balloon in a cage, it can only go so big and not hit the side.
Marketing: the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: The constraints do come in very fast.
Project Manager: Okay uh do you know what,
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: actually let's take each point and everybody discuss it, I think.
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So still on the topic of room for creativity uh next up is Craig.
User Interface: Um I agree with his point it's um it is quite a lot of fun t to go and then you have sort of hit the end then go right, gotta cut everything out'cause we don't have enough money.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yep.
Industrial Designer: I think another point is that the meetings um are more brainstorming sessions than meetings,
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: so time is also a very s um strong factor, and structure.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Because for a brainstorming meeting you want a structure that allows you to {disfmarker} allows ideas to get tossed, um to be evaluated, and to be reviewed, and to get feedback and come back.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. {vocalsound} Yeah, yeah.
Industrial Designer: And I guess that point about the room not being r very friendly to that, I think that's a very big thing,
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and I think the fact that we're wearing these things restricts {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, sure.
Industrial Designer: I feel it'cause I wear m my glasses, right, and that but that irritates me right
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: it it it does actually you know affect how, w whether you feel comfortable to communicate.
Marketing: Yeah. New creativity.
Industrial Designer: I feel like I'm hiding behind the equipment, rather than the equipment is helping me, and you know.
Marketing: Yep.
Project Manager: So you think a more relaxed atmosphere would be more kind of conducive to creative thought or {disfmarker}
Marketing: Right.
Industrial Designer: Not not so much an atmosphere, the atmosphere is very relaxed, but the the gear
Project Manager: Yeah, but actual environment?
Industrial Designer: yeah you know that creates boundaries to that um
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: and and the time the time given also restricts {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Very good. Um what about leadership?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I don't know if that means like, if I did a good job or something.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I don't really know.
Marketing: Yeah, well well I mean my sense on that is sort of what kind of guidance and direction, encouragement {disfmarker}
Project Manager: From like your personal coach person and stuff like that, do you think maybe?
Marketing: Yeah from {disfmarker} and you as well I think, just sort of acting as team leader.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Um yeah I think I think it's
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Excuse me.
Marketing: I think it's good. I mean my personal views on on leadership is that effective effective leadership sort of um gives people a certain room for freedom and delegation, but then to come back with something that they take great ownership and
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: 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 {disfmarker} the meeting agenda is actually quite a quite a {vocalsound} 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 {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Uh-huh, okay.
Marketing: But it's not bad leadership, it's just sort of s fairly strong, you know. It turns it turns the individual into more of like a um sort of a predetermined mechanism, as opposed to a sort of a free {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So you think maybe a little too controlling or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, oh yeah, without without a doubt.
Industrial Designer: I think controlling is not the right word, I think the interactions are very structured.
Marketing: Yeah maybe not co confining.
Industrial Designer: I think structure is probably what you're saying that, each individual is structured to one particular task, and one parti rather than controlling.
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: I don't think there's a sense of control'cause all the decisions have been made in terms of a, like a consensus right, we go around and we think about it,
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: but that you know process actually says you have to do it in a certain way.
Project Manager: Uh-huh.
Marketing: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: It doesn't tell you, you know, some ways that you might wanna be a bit more creative in terms of the process you know, not the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Mm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, uh what about teamwork?
Marketing: Um did, you wanna comment Craig?
User Interface: Uh, reckon that was a bit hard because we could only discuss things in the meeting.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: If we could just go up to somebody outside the meeting and have a quick talk with them, that would've been a lot easier.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: I think you tried to use the common share folder to to to to communicate,
Marketing: Fully agree.
Industrial Designer: but um it just comes back to us so slow in the email
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: um it it doesn't have a, you know, a messenger will go {vocalsound}.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Did uh did you guys get the email I sent you?
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Oh that's alright.
User Interface: Not just yet.
Project Manager: I was wondering if that got there okay.
Marketing: Yeah, got the email.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Okay, um so um 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.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I think the tools that they were given, the tool set that were given to us are fancy but they don't support collaboration, I think that's the word.
Marketing: Yeah, in it {disfmarker} Mm-hmm,
Industrial Designer: They don't support the team working together, you know,
Marketing: mm-hmm, mm-hmm,
Project Manager: Oh right, okay.
Marketing: exactly. Yeah, I mean if you {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: they're still very individual tools.
Marketing: Yeah, I mean sort of taking upon that idea, w the way I see this i is that it's uh the the s the structure in which we've we've approached this whole task is quite contrary to the p principle of teamwork because the the tasks were d d sort of um divided, and then the work went on in isolation
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: I I don't know what you guys did while you were together, maybe that was a bit different,
Industrial Designer: We had Play-Doh fun {vocalsound}.
Marketing: but um yeah, but um but actually if you if you imagine not entire the completely same task given to us but us said okay, first thing we have to do is come up with um let's say um a design concept, and we sit here together and do it,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: well that's what teamwork is. To s to say okay go off and don't talk to each other, it's actually p sort of predisposes you to quite the contrary of teamwork.
Project Manager: Yeah. Okay.
Marketing: Um not that we haven't done I think the best we could have done.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: I'm not dissatisfied with it.
Project Manager: Right, uh anything else to say on teamwork at all?
Industrial Designer: No, not really.
Project Manager: Okay, um what about the you know how we used the whiteboard, the digital pens, the projector, stuff like that? Um did anybody think anything was like really useful,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: anything was pretty un f {vocalsound} unsupportive?
Marketing: I think the whiteboard, for me, is the kind of thing I would use all the time, but it's um 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 uh you know as opposed to in like in text.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: Um, 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's completely you know um 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: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And point at? Yeah.
Marketing: and and and in a way everybody's {disfmarker} as we discuss things in the {disfmarker} in theoretically and out of our notebooks, we're just {disfmarker} we're actually just each of us discussing something that's in each of our own minds. It wasn't until we had this here, you know,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: like at one point I peeked across and looked at Craig's paper and I'm like, now I know what he's thinking'cause I saw his book.
Project Manager: Ah.
Marketing: But the b the b whiteboard could've actually been this kind of continuing um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So do you think producing a prototype earlier in the process woulda been a good idea?
Marketing: Think could be, yeah.
Industrial Designer: I think um the the focus of it a lot was the PowerPoint as opposed to the to the whiteboard,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, yeah.
Industrial Designer: and I think that m um is also does you know hinder us and things I think.
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Industrial Designer: It will be cooler to have the whiteboard rather than the the PowerPoint,
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: or maybe the whiteboard and the PowerPoint in the same place,
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Industrial Designer: you know in the centre of the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Yeah, because the PowerPoint was provided to us while we had time to prepare, whereas I can imagine if I'd been encouraged to use Paintbrush, for example, or whatever, I would've actually used it,
Project Manager: Alright.
Marketing: um'ca you know, just'cause that's sorta how we {disfmarker} what we were set up to to use while we had our time.
Project Manager: Okay uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I think that there were too many PowerPoints in the meetings {vocalsound}.'Cause the plug-in and the plugging spent {disfmarker} we spent a lot of time doing that.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And a lot of the information on the PowerPoints, I don't think, you know, we needed to actually {disfmarker} it could have, we could have gone through it {gap} verbally,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: No, not quite.
Industrial Designer: especially my slides,
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I felt that they just you know {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: as opposed to having to present them.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: What about the digital pens, did you find them easy enough to use?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yep clunky.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Sure, yeah.
User Interface: Oh they're a bit clunky.
Industrial Designer: Agreed. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Yep.
Project Manager: Clunky, okay.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Having to tick it before you go off was a bit hindering as well,'cause you're half way through a thought, and then you run out of paper and then you have to jump.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: I know, I think at the very start of today I like wrote a whole load of stuff, didn't click note on one,
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: then went back and wrote one tiny wee thing on the another page, but then did click note, and so I'm quite worried that I've just written over the top of it or something,
Marketing: Hmm. Hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Project Manager: but they'll have my paper anyway um and haven't done that since.
Marketing: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: But I think the pen is v is very intuitive, everybody knows how to use it, we don't {gap} have to worry.
Project Manager: Yeah,
Marketing: Mm-hmm,
Industrial Designer: So I think the pen's good.
Project Manager: yeah.
Marketing: mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: It's about the best thing. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: And o on the topic of the technology, it just occurred to me that we actually didn't need to move our computers because each computer has all of the files.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: It just occurred to me that they all {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah we only needed one computer and {disfmarker}
Marketing: We only actually needed one computer.
Project Manager: Yeah, that's true.
Marketing: If there had been a fifth, that coulda just been sitting there ready to go the whole time.
User Interface: Good point.
Industrial Designer: And the computer may not um be conducive to a meeting because um you tend to look at your computer and wanna have the urge to check something, you know,
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: it's useful but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Do you think the computers just provide distraction in a meeting?
Industrial Designer: I think too many computers are just distracting.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay. I know I I like to have things written down in front of me actually, like a lot of the stuff that was emailed to me I ended up you know like writing down there or something so I could look at it really quickly and not have the distraction of all of that,
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: um I don't know about anybody else.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} what else uh any wh I do I'm not really sure what they're looking for when they say new ideas found. Um I don't know is {disfmarker}
User Interface: Is this for the project or {disfmarker}
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 uh 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. Yeah if we just had uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: So, that's kind of a new idea for me is like just sort of that idea, well you know it's kind of s hard to keep f working forward on a team a team based project when when you're told you must now work away from your team.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm. {vocalsound} Yeah I I dunno I think it was quite good that we had time limits on the meetings because they really could have run on and like my experience with meetings is that they really do, and you can spend a lot of time talking about {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: The only thing is though like when we had our meeting about the conceptual design, I thought there {disfmarker} maybe another fifteen minutes would have been useful there but um {vocalsound} yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Project Manager: I really thi i I think maybe if we'd like all been working in the one room, and they just said you know like every hour or something everybody make sure yo you know just have a have a short meeting and then just c
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: just to have like something written down, just like you know a a milestone if you like um rather than having meetings, but {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: There you go. Um so in closing,
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: I haven't got my five minutes to go. Thin Oh there it i Five minutes to go. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wonderful. Okay um are the costs within the budget, yes they are. And is the project evaluated, yes it is. So now celebrate {vocalsound}.
Marketing: Great.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: And we have Ninja Homer.
Marketing: So it {disfmarker} So now we {disfmarker}
User Interface: Oh yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
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?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I I don't know.
Project Manager: You dunno?
User Interface: Oh wow. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: That is lovely. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Hey yeah, I said Ninja Homer. {vocalsound}
Marketing: What did you call it?
Industrial Designer: Ninja Homer. See it looks like Homer Simpson
Marketing: Huh, huh.
Industrial Designer: but it's electronic so it's made in Japan.
Project Manager: So is that j is that just is that just a logo or does it do anything?
Marketing: Logo.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah it's just a logo.
Project Manager: Just a logo and then like Ninja Homer,
Marketing: Huh.
Industrial Designer: Ninja Homer. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: right okay. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: The the red is supposed to represent the whatever else you wanna print on the side of it.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: I think it's quite nice.
Marketing: Fashion technology or something.
Industrial Designer: You can wear Homer,
Project Manager: {gap}
Industrial Designer: you can throw Homer when you're frustrated, doh. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Hmm, hmm, hmm.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh no, that's cool, it's got {disfmarker} I'm kind of {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It's clunky.
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: I'm slightly gutted that we couldn't get plastic and rubber, I think that would have been nice.
Marketing: Yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ah well, maybe from now on real reaction should give us more money.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Oh, I did learn something new, Play-Doh is useful.
Marketing: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: No it is it is.
Project Manager: Play-Doh s
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It is useful and in in in in in in in um conceptualizing, in being creative.
Marketing: Huh. Huh.
Industrial Designer:'Cause like you say, it's something you can put your hands on and feel and touch and get a sense for.
Project Manager: Really?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Like we were playing with the Play-Doh and the ideas came with the Play-Doh rather than with everything else.
Project Manager: Did they?
Industrial Designer: You might wanna write that down. It's just, I'm just fiddling with the Play-Doh, and I'm going yeah yeah it's kinda cool.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. Play-Doh.
Marketing: No, it's true, yeah.
User Interface: Guess I'd forgot how good s Play-Doh smells.
Project Manager: Yeah, it smells funny doesn't it. Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: Hmm. And some Play-Dohs are actually I think edible aren't they?
Industrial Designer: No, all Play-Doh is edible.
Project Manager: Yeah like the stuff for {gap} {disfmarker}
User Interface: I think they're all non-toxic'cause it's aimed for like two-year-olds.
Project Manager: I think it has to be, yeah.
Industrial Designer: It's just wheat, it's the stuff that your mom could make with preservatives and uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah um so to
Marketing: Wow, hmm.
Project Manager: wha what are your summarising words about Play-Doh?
Industrial Designer: It's helpful to the creative process.
Marketing: Huh.
Industrial Designer: Um it engages all your senses not just your sight, but your sense of feel your sense of touch.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Yep.
Industrial Designer: And it helps you to understand
Marketing: Taste. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} dimension as well. I think that that's very helpful because it it starts to pop up,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: whereas on a piece of paper, on a computer, on a board, um even with a three D_ graphic thing it still, it requires a lot of
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm, yep. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: it's not very tangible.
Industrial Designer: yeah {disfmarker} tangible, that's a nice word.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm,
Industrial Designer: It becomes tangible.
Marketing: mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Tangible. Okay uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm. I don't know if there's anything else we needed to discuss.
Industrial Designer: Nope.
Project Manager: That that's 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 don't collaborate.
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: r reporting or what i
Project Manager: Well I dunno. Um I'm sure the little uh the little thing'll pop up any minute now.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Can we turn off the microphones?
Project Manager: Yeah, yeah if the meeting's over then yeah I guess so.
Marketing: {vocalsound} | This was the final meeting of detailed design. To start with, Project Manager introduced the planned scheme of the meeting, followed by User Interface and Industrial Designer indicating the possible changes into an LCD screen and a jog-dial. After that, the group continued to talk about the slogan, the button size, and the button color. However, considering the budget, they consistently abandoned some of the designs. These included kinetic power, rubber material, LCD panel, advanced chip, and special colored buttons. Marketing moved the discussion to evaluate the current design through collectively rating from one to seven. The final part was the project evaluation, including the system, leadership, teamwork, and tools given. | qmsum |
Summarize the presentation about the customer's functional requirements of the remote and the team's discussion about it.
Project Manager: Right uh. So um. So where's the PowerPoint presentation? Sorry? Microsoft PowerPoint, right. Right, okay. So. Right. Okay, so we've got uh so we've got new project requirements. Um. So basically we've got three things, and we've got forty minutes in which to uh {disfmarker} for this meeting to uh to discuss the various options. Um. Three presentations.
Industrial Designer: We have a {disfmarker} I guess we have a presentation each,'cause I've got one. Um.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah,
Project Manager: I see, right.
Marketing: I've got one too.
Project Manager: That's nice to know, one from each of you. Um new project requirements. Um so do we want to do the presentation first, or do we want to um {disfmarker} W I I got um {gap} or or three things basically, um relating to the remote being only for T_V_. We discussed that last time
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and in actual fact that was pr pretty well what we came up with anyway.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So in fact it actually f we won't be forestalled {vocalsound} in a sense.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Project Manager: Um we've got uh teletext outdated. Um did you get any information on that?
Industrial Designer: Uh we didn't, no.
User Interface: No.
Project Manager: Right and the corporate image was the uh final thing.
Industrial Designer: I d I didn't personally.
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: So I I got that in email form.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um. Right okay. So I guess if we go ahead with the uh with the three presentations. So we'll start with yourself on the basis that uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay that's fine. I'll just um I'll grab the wire out the back of this one.
Project Manager: Sorry, yep.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh. {vocalsound}
User Interface: What is it?
Industrial Designer: I'm not quite sure how it {disfmarker}
User Interface: I think you've got to do um control F_ eight.
Industrial Designer: Control {gap} {disfmarker} Doesn't seem to be quite working at the moment.
User Interface: Shift F_ eight. {vocalsound} {gap}
Industrial Designer: Alt function F_ eight. {vocalsound} Again not doing anything.
Marketing: {vocalsound} There's usually a little thing in the top right for the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Oh.
User Interface: Ah there,
Marketing: Oh hang on,
User Interface: it's doing something.
Marketing: it's just coming on.
Industrial Designer: {gap} pressed about five times now.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay, that's me {gap}. Okay, um I have to go {gap} again.
Project Manager: {gap} it going?
Industrial Designer: Hopefully that should be it this time. Okay, I think we're there. That's good. Okay, um {disfmarker} Okay I'm gonna be looking at the working design. Um {vocalsound} of the of the remote control. Um I've just got three sections, first is the research I made on the on the remote control itself um. And then that involves the components required in it and the systems uh design of the actual the actual remote. Um so having researched the existing models within the market, um I found my research off the internet. Um I've established what the components required for the remote control to function, actually are. And then also the methods in which these components interact together for the remote to actually do what you want it to do and how it connects with the television. Um the basic components are an energy source which I guess um in most existing models would be a battery supply. Whether that'll be sort of two batteries, four batteries, um it may vary.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: We then have the user interface, which is basically the like the the buttons on the actual remote. Um the various functions used for changing channel, uh channel up and down, volume, things like that. Um there's also a chip inside the remote which does all the computer type things. And then the sender, which um is usually, I've found, an infra-red device which sends a signal to the actual television. Um and the last part is receiver which is important in the system but is not actually part of the remote itself, because that's obviously found in the television. {gap}. Um I'm gonna have to actually draw on the board because uh it was a little tricky on PowerPoint to get this working, so. I'll just go through there. S um um do we have a cloth to wipe this down with, or? Oh I'll j
Project Manager: Uh there's the rubber on the right, I think.
User Interface: I think it's that little {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Oh I see. Oh okay. I'll get rid of the bear. $
Project Manager: {gap} it's magic. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay that's great. Okay, so we start off with a um battery suppl Uh no, a power supply which we'd probably get {disfmarker} it's probably gonna be the battery. Um we then have a particular button, which may be {disfmarker} {gap} that's obviously there's lots and lots of different buttons. Um but this is how the basic system works. Um that sends {gap} after you press that that sends the message to the chip, which um then sends {disfmarker} It sort of interprets which button you've pressed and then sends the appropriate message to the sender. {vocalsound} Um. So that's {gap}. That's the remote in itself, that's the components of the remote and how they work together. So this is the uh user interface. Um this is the chip itself, which then {gap}, and that's the that's the infra-red sender. And then on the separate thing we have on the on the television we have a a receiver. And the sender sends a message to the receiver.'Kay.
Project Manager: So the the top bit's the power source, yes? {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Ah yes, that's the power source. Um. {gap} going on to personal preferences, I've said that battery seems the best option for the actual remote, just because of the size. You don't want a a cable attached to the remote otherwise it's not it's not really a remote. Um and then the sender,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: and infra-red um has been used quite successfully. If the battery's on reasonable power, they always seem to work fairly well. You don't have to be point directly at the television itself.
Project Manager: So the battery is the {disfmarker} in the sender.
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} Yes.'Kay and that's it for the moment.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Okay. So, now more design. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Right. Thank you. Mine's not quite as complicated as all that.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's what we like to hear. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Did I press function? Yeah.
Project Manager: Is it control function ei Oh, th there you go.
User Interface: Oh. Um. Okay so I'm gonna talk a bit about the technical functions design. I'm Louisa, the User Interface Designer, as you know. {vocalsound} Um 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. Um an example of the function could be to change the volume up or down, uh so obviously you need two different buttons for that. Um to change the channel, either by pressing the number that you want or by channel up or down. Um to switch the television on or off, maybe a standby button. Um here are two example remotes. Um by the look of it they both have um kind of play and fast forward, rewind functions, so I think they incorporate a kind of video function which we won't have to worry about. Uh but as you can see, the left remote is quite um quite busy looking, quite complicated. Um whereas the right remote is much simpler, it looks much more user friendly. Um so my personal preference would be the right remote. So, {vocalsound} it's got nice big buttons, it's got a very limited number of buttons. Um they're nice, kinda clearly labelled. Um I like the use of the kind of um symbols like the triangles and the squares and the arrows as well as the words on the um kind of play functions and all that. So it's very very user friendly, and it's got a little splash of colour. Could maybe do with some more colour. Um.
Project Manager: Well there's a couple of things there. Um we have to remember that we have our own um logo and colour scheme. So basically we'd have to uh we'd have to be putting that on um the the product.
User Interface: Hmm. Do we get to see that?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I haven't as yet, no.
User Interface: Will you be presenting that in a bit? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} But uh I got uh I got an email that basically said to uh make sure that uh whatever device we come up with at the end of the day had to incorporate um the corporate colour and slogan. So uh I'm guessing that uh uh I notice on the bottom there it's got uh what's that? A_P_O_G_E_E_ that might be the corporate colour scheme, although the only the only colour I can see in that is the red.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
User Interface: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: Would you be able to get rid of the the extra buttons here, the the sort of circular section, because that seems to be for a video as well. So we could dispense with that little bit as well and just get it down to just the numbers and the volume. Possibly?
User Interface: What do you mean by the circular section?
Industrial Designer: J yeah yeah yeah j yeah
User Interface: Like all of that bottom bit?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: just this little bit is that {disfmarker} I think that's still um a video remote part,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: so maybe we could get rid of that as well.
User Interface: Yeah. And I don't really think that you need nine numbers.
Project Manager: Well b uh w
User Interface: 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 {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Like how often do you hit nine?
Project Manager: Well uh for for general television purposes obviously you have channels one to five at this point in time,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and we'd have to have some room for uh future such channels. But but {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It's just people are used to seeing that, so if we didn't have them then they might think it's {disfmarker} {gap}
Project Manager: But, well possibly but the the other thing is that with um the current expansion of uh channels uh in the process of taking place, certainly the button up and down, but uh I mean {vocalsound} how many channels do we have to um {disfmarker} actual television channels do we have to uh prepare for? I would have thought that uh {gap} it's forever expanding and at the moment we've got {disfmarker} although you've onl you've got the five standard, you've got the B_B_C_ have come up with a further six
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and uh there's uh I don't know exactly how many channels there are on uh when you take into account uh Sky and various other um various others.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: So I would've thought that we wouldn't, you know, rather {disfmarker}
User Interface: Hmm.
Project Manager: Okay, if the time of flicking from one to other, but presumably it'll take a second
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager:'cause you have to be able to stop it. Maybe you could have a fast forward on the on the channels that w and then you could dispense with more otherwise. Y you'd want you'd want to get fairly quickly to the channel that you wanted.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Um some remotes have kind of favourite options where if you always flick from channel one to channel six, um if that's a favourite you just like by-pass two to five.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Project Manager: Yeah, I s I suppose in a sense you could have um if you've got a hundred channels then if you had sort of an easy way of getting {disfmarker} rather than having to go one to a hundred, you could go one to one to ten, ten to twenty
Industrial Designer: {gap}
User Interface: Hmm.
Project Manager: and then have a second button to get you to the actual channel you want
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and that would cut down your time.
User Interface: Mm. Um.
Project Manager: Anyway.
User Interface: But I think a lot of um like Cable and Sky and stuff, that would be tuned to one channel, and then you'd have another remote for all of those channels.
Industrial Designer: Okay, yeah.
User Interface: Like to get to fifty five and the higher numbers {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Whatever.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. Okay. Limit the number of buttons, user friendly.
User Interface: But I suppose nine's not really excessive.
Industrial Designer: I suppose with nine you've got the the like the last one which makes the tenth means you {disfmarker} uh it's like uh 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'd kind of by-pass any problems with {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah Well that's true, yeah,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: you could get fifty by five and a zero or whatever, that that makes sense.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.'Cause that facilitates having all the numbers you could ever need.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um.
Project Manager: Does.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So w so what was the circular thing that you were {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay. Um I think that's just for a video, so we wouldn't need any of that at all.
Industrial Designer: So we could get it down to what?
Project Manager: If it's just for T_V_, which is what it is at the moment.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So we get to {disfmarker} How many buttons have we got? We've just got ten, eleven twelve th We got fourteen that we need. I guess.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Um which isn't really too many. That'll be quite easy to make a user guide for a fourteen button remote.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Well we've we've got um that it's remote for T_V_ only otherwise project would become too complex with uh which would endanger the time to market {vocalsound} was one of the considerations.
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
Project Manager: I'm {disfmarker} I don't know d did you have that information behind the marketing,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: or was I meant to give you that information?
Marketing: Um I'm not sure. I had I've had some market information,
Project Manager: Right.
Marketing: but not from the company, no.
Project Manager: Right, okay, so basically time to market seems to be important, therefore speed of delivery.
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
Project Manager: We've only got about another four hours left. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {gap}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay, so is everyone happy with that?
Industrial Designer: Ah yes yes, that seems good.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Right well that's the end of my presentation.
Marketing:'Kay. I'm gonna pull this off. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I think if you just give it a second to maybe catch up.
Project Manager: Yeah, I think she said twenty seconds to um {disfmarker}
Marketing: Uh-huh.
Industrial Designer: I'm sure we'll have by the end of today.
Marketing: Okay. {vocalsound} I'll give it another go. Yeah, there we go. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Marketing: Right, we've done some research into the functional requirements that people want out of their remote control. And first off we should state that th the remote control's for controlling the T_V_ and um how do people use it? We asked them sort of which buttons were useful for them. Um how d how does a remote control look and feel for them, and what improvements would would they like to remote control. And we did that by sort of giving them a questionnaire that we'd prepared and asking them to fill in the answers. And three quarters of them found that remote controls are ugly and that a sort of even higher proportion would spend more for a sort of s uh 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, um they weren't used very often at all. People concentrated on the channel buttons and the volume buttons and the power buttons. Uh we also asked them about speech recognition uh 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 {disfmarker} forty five age group and older, people people weren't quite so keen on speech recognition. There's a lot more th there's a lot lot more older people who didn't know whether they wanted it or not as well. Um we also asked what frustrated people about remote controls and the number one frustration was that the remote was lost somewhere else in the room and that they couldn't find it. And the second second biggest frustration what that if they got a new remote control, it was difficult to learn um all the buttons and all the functions, and to find your way around it. {vocalsound} Okay, so {disfmarker} My personal preferences from the marketing is that we need to come up with some {vocalsound} sort of sleek sort of good looking high high-tech {disfmarker} A design which looks high-tech, basically. Um 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. Um we could maybe come up with a menu, a sort of a an L_C_D_ menu for other functions on the remote control. That's worth thinking about. Um and maybe we could think about speech recognition as well, because um sort of young people are perhaps the ones that are gonna buy buy our new product if we aim it at sort of you know sort of a high-tech design. That that might be the market that we're we're looking for. And we could maybe think about using speech recogniti recognition as a way to find the remote control if it's lost in a room, rather than sort of um having it to {vocalsound} speech recognition to change the channels.'Cause there's a problem with that in that the television makes noise, so it could end up talking to itself and changing its channel.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay um, and that's the end of the slide show. That's it. Cool.
Project Manager: What was that last wee bit there?
User Interface: Do {gap} a lot of um {disfmarker}
Marketing: Um about speech recognition?
Project Manager: Speech recognition,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: But that was only for young people that preferred it, older people didn't.
Marketing: Youn young people pref Yeah, they s they said that they'd be interested in a remote control which offered that possibility and as you go up through the age groups, people got less and less interested in sort of a a remote control that you could talk to, so.
Industrial Designer: No what I maybe think is um 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. Um.
Project Manager: Well that's right.
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And possibly the thing about the about the remote being lost we could have {disfmarker} 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 {disfmarker} {gap} some kind of buzzer system between the two. So you can press a button which is always kept in one place
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and then it maybe buzzes to somewhere else, wherever the remote actually is.
Marketing: Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah, we'd have t that would mean we'd have to put two products together as well,
Industrial Designer: That is true, yes.
Marketing: which which again would probably be a bit expensive, but {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
User Interface: There's key rings um that you kind of whistle at or clap at, I can't remember, and then they whistle back, or something like that.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Sounds reasonable.
User Interface: That'd probably be really simple,
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: they're cheap.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Yeah. So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: So I guess it'd be something we could like attach to the {disfmarker} or like the same technology could be put inside the inside the remote.
Project Manager: Well if you're trying to avoid having a second product'cause obviously you could have a second product that gave you the right pitch which would set the remote off to say here I am sort of thing, you know without sound recognition. But if you {disfmarker} I know. Um I was gonna say a sharp noise, you know a clapping of hand or whatever. {vocalsound} You'd want to try and av just have the one product that if {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah if we if we could have it in the actual remote like everything in one one device.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. Um I dunno um talking about vo I mean obviously if you've got voice recognition then you can do it in that way because it'll recognise the voice and you can give it a command, a set command whatever that happened to be.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: But you've then got the point if if you're not going with uh voice recognition then {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {gap} you could have an option to turn it off. Or {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Perhaps, um.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So that would solve the problems with the T_V_ kind of speaking to the remote and changing its own channels.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So uh {vocalsound} Any sugges Well, any conclusions?
Marketing: Um would it take quite a while to sort of develop the speech recognition software in the remote control?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well if it does then we can't.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Considering {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's that simple,
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: because we've got uh th th three um primary um uh requisites from uh from and email uh that was sent to me whereby we had {disfmarker} The design logo was one, which we've already mentioned. We've got um the remote was only for the television and not for {disfmarker} because that would make it too complex and we have to get it market quickly.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: And the uh third thing was that um teletext uh as far as uh the management is concerned, um is becoming dated uh due to the popularity of the internet. So that means that uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: so these are the sort of three um extra parameters that have been put on this uh project.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So we're being focused effectively directly at a television and it seems to me that the management is uh wanting us to go down a narrow path and not opening out.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Project Manager: So anything that uh 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 {disfmarker}
Project Manager: because time to market is is critical. S
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} I suppose if we could get something in which was quite quick and simple that would give us an advantage over the other remotes. Um.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: It would. But probably quick and simple is primary rather than added extras.
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
Project Manager: Added extras would be nice, but the primary consideration is to get the project finished within uh this short time window, which effectively now is sort of four hours.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So {disfmarker} and if {disfmarker} and we've gotta get to the end. Uh d d I think I think first and foremost we've gotta get to the end and then get to the end with um added extras if possible.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {gap} Right okay, uh so I need to {disfmarker} Right. So I don't know how long we have left of our uh time. But we have to make the decisions on uh the remote control functions
Marketing: About five minutes.
Project Manager: and how we were planning to proceed so that at the next uh meeting each person that's got a a a task to do is clear from this meeting what that task is.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: We'll also know w when the next meeting is
Industrial Designer: Um. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I um {disfmarker} so we'll know how long we've got to complete that task. And then we can report back at the next meeting and say right okay yes, we've achieved this or we haven't achieved this, this is how far we've progressed. Does that make reasonable sense?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yes that seems right.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay, yeah.
Project Manager: So we have to come effectively to the decision on the remote functions so that you can decide what you're gonna be doing. And if dur between the time of this meeting finishing and the next meeting starting, if you get any additional information that uh only you have at that point in time you'd think would be relevant to other people in terms of their des decision making um process, then we should communicate that as quickly as possible and not wait until the next meeting.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Do it via the email
Marketing: Okay. Yep.
Project Manager: so that rather than coming you know {disfmarker} If you get the information just before the next meeting that's fine. Come along with it in the next meeting, we can discuss it then and take whatever action is appropriate.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: But if you get it well before the next meeting, let everybody else know'cause that might have an impact on their uh {disfmarker} on what they come up with {vocalsound} effectively at the next meeting.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Right, is there {disfmarker}
Marketing: So do we need to decide on the functions now? S
Project Manager: I would guess so.
User Interface: Well I think it'd be really easy and it'd be a big advantage if we did have some sort of um kind of whistle back kind of function.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface:'Cause that'll solve kind of the frustration of losing it.
Marketing: Yeah and {disfmarker} Yeah and that was that was the number one sort of frustration that people said, so.
Project Manager: Yep.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I don't think there's anything else on the market that does that, so.
User Interface: Yeah. I don't really know about the voice recognition thing.
Project Manager: I {vocalsound} w well uh i
Industrial Designer: Maybe we should concentrate just on the whistle back function at the moment,
Project Manager: Something simple. Uh if if our primary consideration is to get it there in time, time's short,
Industrial Designer: and if something comes back {disfmarker}
Project Manager: you want something to meet the major concerns of the consumer so that we can have that as a selling point for the product,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: something that's quick and simple. So,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: sounds good.
User Interface: And that wouldn't put off the kind of older generation either,'cause everyone can whistle or clap, and they wouldn't have to be kind of scared of this new technology.
Project Manager: Well, so maybe a clap rather than a whistle would be {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: On the basis that if we've got {disfmarker} if we're catering to the whole age range, you want something that's easy to do,
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Project Manager: now something that doesn't like whis uh
Marketing: No not everyone can whistle, can they, though? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well I I I don't know. Well If you think that more people can whistle than clap then that's fine, then go for that option,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: but if {disfmarker} I would have thought that more people could clap rather than whistle,
Marketing: No,
Industrial Designer: I'd go more {disfmarker}
Marketing: clapping, I think clapping,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, f more for clap.
Marketing: yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: so uh so clap option.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface:'Kay we've already decided that we don't need a teletext button, haven't we?
Project Manager: Uh. Ef effectively that's what the that's what they're saying,
User Interface: Is that one of the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: that uh if uh if people are now using the internet then you don't need teletext,
User Interface: Hmm.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: so so take out teletext.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Taking out teletext, okay.
Industrial Designer: Did we decide on having the ten um the ten numbers
User Interface: Right.
Industrial Designer: and then the the little digit next to it which kind of enabled you to put them together.
User Interface: Yeah, I think so, so zero to nine.
Marketing: Mm. I think nowadays you can just get ones where it gives you a sort of a second or two to press another number,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: so you can press any two and it'll sort of put them together.
Industrial Designer: Okay, ten numbers
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: and then some kind of device to allow uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I'll put delay to allow um multiple numbers.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Or multiple digits.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Did we decide anything about um the other functions? As in setting the audio and tuning it and stuff like that? You had an had an idea about the menu?
Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} we could possibly put an L_ {disfmarker} a sort of a L_C_D_ menu in, but that again is probably an expense that {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: But just thinking um people probably {disfmarker} I mean you don't have {disfmarker} you only have to probably tune in the T_V_ once, but you have to be able to tune it that once.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So and if finally the T_V_ breaks, you get a new one, you're gonna have to be able to tune it. You can't really avoid that.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: No.
Industrial Designer: Except the new digital markets which do it by themselves.
User Interface: Hmm.
Project Manager: But the but that's relying on the television market changing to an automatic
Industrial Designer: So that'll be in {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Project Manager: and if it is at the moment, that's fine. But at the moment it's not, so it seems to me that you have to have a device that caters,'cause otherwise it would make it {disfmarker} uh your device would become inoperable, or only operable in certain circumstances
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: and the idea is to have an international market
Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: which is {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: And it's also m it's the the product we've got is something that's at the I would have said the lower end of the s of the cost scale, so we're not really going for something that's uh terribly high-tech.
Marketing: Yeah. I s I suppose um if people are buying remotes, then they're probably buying it to replace another remote
Project Manager: Possibly.
Marketing:'cause all most tellies come with remotes, so.
Project Manager: That's right.
Marketing: I mean we're maybe talking about replacing remotes for slightly older televisions, so we maybe need to keep the the tuning function in. {gap}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. So how would this menu function work?
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Would you maybe have like one menu button, then you'd use the other buttons, maybe the number buttons to actually do the separate functions.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah,
Marketing: Yeah,
User Interface: like the volume or something.
Marketing: that would be a good idea, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah,'cause you do need um kind of brightness and contrast and everything as well. My dad was watching a film the other week
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: and it was too dark, so I had to go through it and turn the brightness up.
Industrial Designer: {gap} {gap} we're gonna have the the individual numbers
Marketing: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: and then a menu function and maybe sort of a slightly more advanced um instruction booklet to come with it, to guide {disfmarker} Presu uh I think it'd be quite hard just for people to grasp um just off like the menu {gap} use different buttons you maybe have to have like some better instructions of how that would actually work.
Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} I'm not sure whether the sort of having people have a booklet'cause one {disfmarker} the second most annoying thing that people found was having to learn the new one.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Right, okay um.
Marketing: So maybe next to each of the buttons, you know each of them could have a number and then also a function written next to it, so you're basically pressing {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {gap} that also goes back to the original design when we saw those two, and there was the one on the left hand side which had all like the double functions and stuff which kind of looked too busy and had too much on it, so.
Marketing: Right.
Project Manager: Okay, well.
User Interface: Well, if we're trying to keep it slee sleek and sexy as well, have you seen those remotes where kind of um the bottom bit slides down, so there's kind of um everything else revealed?
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So y Ah That's a very good idea.
User Interface: So you don't use it that much, you don't have to see it all the time. But it's all there if you need it.
Industrial Designer: That is that is a good idea actually.
Marketing: Yeah, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Sor sort of a second.
Project Manager: So you keep um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Like a hidden panel.
Project Manager: Right we've got five minutes before we wind up this meeting, so I've been told. I don't know if you've got the same.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Uh not quite, but I guess {gap}.
Project Manager: Okay. So so keep um keep detailed functions um hidden at the back.
Industrial Designer: Keep the other buttons but hide them away.
User Interface: Hmm. And that'll be better for the older generation as well'cause, well my dad doesn't like anything that you've got to kinda flick through a menu,
Project Manager: Ah.
User Interface: but he can pretty much read a button if it's displayed properly.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So um {vocalsound} we're gonna have to have to work out what's gonna be on these other functions as as well. So we're gonna have like two separate two separate lists, I guess.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: That's right.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: {gap} data functions hidden at back. Can bring out when needed.
Marketing: So th the {disfmarker} The detailed ones would be sort of brightness,
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: uh sorta {disfmarker}
Project Manager: That's right so we're dis So you've got which ones are gonna be on the front and which ones are gonna be on the back. We have to decide.
Industrial Designer: So sh Should we decide in the next couple of minutes, and then {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: I guess so.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So on the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So on front,
Industrial Designer: {gap} about the number {gap}.
Project Manager: numbers,
Industrial Designer: Um the volume up and down.
User Interface: And the volume?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} volume.
Industrial Designer: Shall we have a mute button as well?
User Interface: Um.
Project Manager: Sorry?
Industrial Designer: A mute button as well.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Or {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah I think they're handy.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. And probably a power one as well. {vocalsound} Dunno.
User Interface: I know it's probably like um not an issue to raise here, but um the whole thing about not using your standby uh because of the like waste of electricity {gap}. Have you seen the adverts? Like if you boil the kettle that's full that's a waste.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: If you leave your telly on standby it powers Blackpool for a certain amount of time.
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Like we should maybe try to discourage people from standby.
Industrial Designer: But then they might not buy it if they haven't got one.'Cause people might just be too fickle and not want to change.
User Interface: Yeah, it's maybe too much of a big issue for here.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} So so are you having the stand-by on the front, then?
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: We can send out a flier with the device saying that you shouldn't leave it on stand-by.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh-oh danger sign.
Industrial Designer: I think you probably should.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah, but a little bit smaller.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Compromise.
Project Manager: Well {vocalsound} {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Um are we gonna have the channel up and down as well as the number buttons?
Marketing: Um'cause yeah the market research said there is quite a lot of people do just zap around and flick, so.
Industrial Designer: Okay, so we'll have um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Right.
Industrial Designer: So we've got ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen there?
Project Manager: Channel up and down.
Marketing: Um.
Project Manager: What else have we got? What was that, sixteen?
Marketing: Numbers is ten, volume is twelve,
Project Manager: Volume button. How many volumes?
Marketing: th Yeah si One up, one down.
Project Manager: Right okay.
User Interface: On mute.
Marketing: And a mute, yeah. That's sixteen isn't it, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Is there anything else? Um.
Marketing: I don't think so, no.
Project Manager: Power button, stand-by, channel, up and down. So is that it?
Industrial Designer: {gap}
User Interface: {gap} so.
Project Manager: Okay. That's sixteen buttons, you reckon. And then at the back?
Marketing: You've got brightness and contrast.
Industrial Designer: Maybe if we're gonna run out of time, one of us should come up with a list of these and then get back at the next meeting just at the start and say what they're gonna be.
User Interface: And then {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay. So on the back it'll have brightness, contrast,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: anything else? You're also gonna have the channel tuner {gap}, as it were.
User Interface: Uh there's audio functions.
Industrial Designer: So tuner up and down, I guess.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Tuner, would that have up and down? {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Um up {disfmarker} Tune one way, tune the o
User Interface: I think they normally do.
Project Manager: {gap} okay {gap}. Okay.
Industrial Designer: I I dunno I dunno possibly.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: And then maybe sort of an enter button for sort of s you know, saying that you want that particular thing tuned in. So you go up and down and then it pick it finds something and then you wanna press enter to select it, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah and th and a enter button just to select. Yeah, okay. Um I guess we're keeping s it simple. We don't really need any other audio funct uh functions because it's just volume up, volume down.
Project Manager: Um up volume, yeah, I would have thought so.
Industrial Designer: Um.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: So I think um there's quite a lot of like Dolby surround studio, surround sort of things.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Do they have their own {disfmarker} do they have their own controls on their actual products, then,
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Um maybe for the younger market.
Industrial Designer: or do you have to do it via the remote?
User Interface: Um I think they've got their own controls in this kind of like hidden panel.
Industrial Designer: Yeah I suppose if we've got their {disfmarker} if they've got their own controls then we can avoid it for ours just to keep it simple.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Oh no, I mean um like there's kind of individual buttons for them, like on the T_V_ remote.
Industrial Designer: Oh, okay. Right.
User Interface: But I don't really know what they're for,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: I've never used them.
Industrial Designer: Um.
User Interface: I just know they're something to do with Dolby.
Industrial Designer: Maybe unless something comes up then we should I think {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well you might get some research. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Well shall we look into that and just get back together.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Right so I'll do the minutes of uh this meeting.
User Interface: Right.
Marketing: Right.
Project Manager: And we'll meet back at I'm not sure. Um forty minutes, I believe is the time.
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
Marketing: Okay. {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Come on. | 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. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
Project Manager: Right uh. So um. So where's the PowerPoint presentation? Sorry? Microsoft PowerPoint, right. Right, okay. So. Right. Okay, so we've got uh so we've got new project requirements. Um. So basically we've got three things, and we've got forty minutes in which to uh {disfmarker} for this meeting to uh to discuss the various options. Um. Three presentations.
Industrial Designer: We have a {disfmarker} I guess we have a presentation each,'cause I've got one. Um.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah,
Project Manager: I see, right.
Marketing: I've got one too.
Project Manager: That's nice to know, one from each of you. Um new project requirements. Um so do we want to do the presentation first, or do we want to um {disfmarker} W I I got um {gap} or or three things basically, um relating to the remote being only for T_V_. We discussed that last time
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and in actual fact that was pr pretty well what we came up with anyway.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So in fact it actually f we won't be forestalled {vocalsound} in a sense.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Project Manager: Um we've got uh teletext outdated. Um did you get any information on that?
Industrial Designer: Uh we didn't, no.
User Interface: No.
Project Manager: Right and the corporate image was the uh final thing.
Industrial Designer: I d I didn't personally.
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: So I I got that in email form.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um. Right okay. So I guess if we go ahead with the uh with the three presentations. So we'll start with yourself on the basis that uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay that's fine. I'll just um I'll grab the wire out the back of this one.
Project Manager: Sorry, yep.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh. {vocalsound}
User Interface: What is it?
Industrial Designer: I'm not quite sure how it {disfmarker}
User Interface: I think you've got to do um control F_ eight.
Industrial Designer: Control {gap} {disfmarker} Doesn't seem to be quite working at the moment.
User Interface: Shift F_ eight. {vocalsound} {gap}
Industrial Designer: Alt function F_ eight. {vocalsound} Again not doing anything.
Marketing: {vocalsound} There's usually a little thing in the top right for the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Oh.
User Interface: Ah there,
Marketing: Oh hang on,
User Interface: it's doing something.
Marketing: it's just coming on.
Industrial Designer: {gap} pressed about five times now.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay, that's me {gap}. Okay, um I have to go {gap} again.
Project Manager: {gap} it going?
Industrial Designer: Hopefully that should be it this time. Okay, I think we're there. That's good. Okay, um {disfmarker} Okay I'm gonna be looking at the working design. Um {vocalsound} of the of the remote control. Um I've just got three sections, first is the research I made on the on the remote control itself um. And then that involves the components required in it and the systems uh design of the actual the actual remote. Um so having researched the existing models within the market, um I found my research off the internet. Um I've established what the components required for the remote control to function, actually are. And then also the methods in which these components interact together for the remote to actually do what you want it to do and how it connects with the television. Um the basic components are an energy source which I guess um in most existing models would be a battery supply. Whether that'll be sort of two batteries, four batteries, um it may vary.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: We then have the user interface, which is basically the like the the buttons on the actual remote. Um the various functions used for changing channel, uh channel up and down, volume, things like that. Um there's also a chip inside the remote which does all the computer type things. And then the sender, which um is usually, I've found, an infra-red device which sends a signal to the actual television. Um and the last part is receiver which is important in the system but is not actually part of the remote itself, because that's obviously found in the television. {gap}. Um I'm gonna have to actually draw on the board because uh it was a little tricky on PowerPoint to get this working, so. I'll just go through there. S um um do we have a cloth to wipe this down with, or? Oh I'll j
Project Manager: Uh there's the rubber on the right, I think.
User Interface: I think it's that little {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Oh I see. Oh okay. I'll get rid of the bear. $
Project Manager: {gap} it's magic. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay that's great. Okay, so we start off with a um battery suppl Uh no, a power supply which we'd probably get {disfmarker} it's probably gonna be the battery. Um we then have a particular button, which may be {disfmarker} {gap} that's obviously there's lots and lots of different buttons. Um but this is how the basic system works. Um that sends {gap} after you press that that sends the message to the chip, which um then sends {disfmarker} It sort of interprets which button you've pressed and then sends the appropriate message to the sender. {vocalsound} Um. So that's {gap}. That's the remote in itself, that's the components of the remote and how they work together. So this is the uh user interface. Um this is the chip itself, which then {gap}, and that's the that's the infra-red sender. And then on the separate thing we have on the on the television we have a a receiver. And the sender sends a message to the receiver.'Kay.
Project Manager: So the the top bit's the power source, yes? {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Ah yes, that's the power source. Um. {gap} going on to personal preferences, I've said that battery seems the best option for the actual remote, just because of the size. You don't want a a cable attached to the remote otherwise it's not it's not really a remote. Um and then the sender,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: and infra-red um has been used quite successfully. If the battery's on reasonable power, they always seem to work fairly well. You don't have to be point directly at the television itself.
Project Manager: So the battery is the {disfmarker} in the sender.
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} Yes.'Kay and that's it for the moment.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Okay. So, now more design. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Right. Thank you. Mine's not quite as complicated as all that.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's what we like to hear. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Did I press function? Yeah.
Project Manager: Is it control function ei Oh, th there you go.
User Interface: Oh. Um. Okay so I'm gonna talk a bit about the technical functions design. I'm Louisa, the User Interface Designer, as you know. {vocalsound} Um 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. Um an example of the function could be to change the volume up or down, uh so obviously you need two different buttons for that. Um to change the channel, either by pressing the number that you want or by channel up or down. Um to switch the television on or off, maybe a standby button. Um here are two example remotes. Um by the look of it they both have um kind of play and fast forward, rewind functions, so I think they incorporate a kind of video function which we won't have to worry about. Uh but as you can see, the left remote is quite um quite busy looking, quite complicated. Um whereas the right remote is much simpler, it looks much more user friendly. Um so my personal preference would be the right remote. So, {vocalsound} it's got nice big buttons, it's got a very limited number of buttons. Um they're nice, kinda clearly labelled. Um I like the use of the kind of um symbols like the triangles and the squares and the arrows as well as the words on the um kind of play functions and all that. So it's very very user friendly, and it's got a little splash of colour. Could maybe do with some more colour. Um.
Project Manager: Well there's a couple of things there. Um we have to remember that we have our own um logo and colour scheme. So basically we'd have to uh we'd have to be putting that on um the the product.
User Interface: Hmm. Do we get to see that?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I haven't as yet, no.
User Interface: Will you be presenting that in a bit? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} But uh I got uh I got an email that basically said to uh make sure that uh whatever device we come up with at the end of the day had to incorporate um the corporate colour and slogan. So uh I'm guessing that uh uh I notice on the bottom there it's got uh what's that? A_P_O_G_E_E_ that might be the corporate colour scheme, although the only the only colour I can see in that is the red.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
User Interface: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: Would you be able to get rid of the the extra buttons here, the the sort of circular section, because that seems to be for a video as well. So we could dispense with that little bit as well and just get it down to just the numbers and the volume. Possibly?
User Interface: What do you mean by the circular section?
Industrial Designer: J yeah yeah yeah j yeah
User Interface: Like all of that bottom bit?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: just this little bit is that {disfmarker} I think that's still um a video remote part,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: so maybe we could get rid of that as well.
User Interface: Yeah. And I don't really think that you need nine numbers.
Project Manager: Well b uh w
User Interface: 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 {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Like how often do you hit nine?
Project Manager: Well uh for for general television purposes obviously you have channels one to five at this point in time,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and we'd have to have some room for uh future such channels. But but {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It's just people are used to seeing that, so if we didn't have them then they might think it's {disfmarker} {gap}
Project Manager: But, well possibly but the the other thing is that with um the current expansion of uh channels uh in the process of taking place, certainly the button up and down, but uh I mean {vocalsound} how many channels do we have to um {disfmarker} actual television channels do we have to uh prepare for? I would have thought that uh {gap} it's forever expanding and at the moment we've got {disfmarker} although you've onl you've got the five standard, you've got the B_B_C_ have come up with a further six
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and uh there's uh I don't know exactly how many channels there are on uh when you take into account uh Sky and various other um various others.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: So I would've thought that we wouldn't, you know, rather {disfmarker}
User Interface: Hmm.
Project Manager: Okay, if the time of flicking from one to other, but presumably it'll take a second
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager:'cause you have to be able to stop it. Maybe you could have a fast forward on the on the channels that w and then you could dispense with more otherwise. Y you'd want you'd want to get fairly quickly to the channel that you wanted.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Um some remotes have kind of favourite options where if you always flick from channel one to channel six, um if that's a favourite you just like by-pass two to five.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Project Manager: Yeah, I s I suppose in a sense you could have um if you've got a hundred channels then if you had sort of an easy way of getting {disfmarker} rather than having to go one to a hundred, you could go one to one to ten, ten to twenty
Industrial Designer: {gap}
User Interface: Hmm.
Project Manager: and then have a second button to get you to the actual channel you want
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and that would cut down your time.
User Interface: Mm. Um.
Project Manager: Anyway.
User Interface: But I think a lot of um like Cable and Sky and stuff, that would be tuned to one channel, and then you'd have another remote for all of those channels.
Industrial Designer: Okay, yeah.
User Interface: Like to get to fifty five and the higher numbers {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Whatever.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. Okay. Limit the number of buttons, user friendly.
User Interface: But I suppose nine's not really excessive.
Industrial Designer: I suppose with nine you've got the the like the last one which makes the tenth means you {disfmarker} uh it's like uh 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'd kind of by-pass any problems with {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah Well that's true, yeah,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: you could get fifty by five and a zero or whatever, that that makes sense.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.'Cause that facilitates having all the numbers you could ever need.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um.
Project Manager: Does.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So w so what was the circular thing that you were {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay. Um I think that's just for a video, so we wouldn't need any of that at all.
Industrial Designer: So we could get it down to what?
Project Manager: If it's just for T_V_, which is what it is at the moment.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So we get to {disfmarker} How many buttons have we got? We've just got ten, eleven twelve th We got fourteen that we need. I guess.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Um which isn't really too many. That'll be quite easy to make a user guide for a fourteen button remote.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Well we've we've got um that it's remote for T_V_ only otherwise project would become too complex with uh which would endanger the time to market {vocalsound} was one of the considerations.
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
Project Manager: I'm {disfmarker} I don't know d did you have that information behind the marketing,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: or was I meant to give you that information?
Marketing: Um I'm not sure. I had I've had some market information,
Project Manager: Right.
Marketing: but not from the company, no.
Project Manager: Right, okay, so basically time to market seems to be important, therefore speed of delivery.
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
Project Manager: We've only got about another four hours left. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {gap}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay, so is everyone happy with that?
Industrial Designer: Ah yes yes, that seems good.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Right well that's the end of my presentation.
Marketing:'Kay. I'm gonna pull this off. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I think if you just give it a second to maybe catch up.
Project Manager: Yeah, I think she said twenty seconds to um {disfmarker}
Marketing: Uh-huh.
Industrial Designer: I'm sure we'll have by the end of today.
Marketing: Okay. {vocalsound} I'll give it another go. Yeah, there we go. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Marketing: Right, we've done some research into the functional requirements that people want out of their remote control. And first off we should state that th the remote control's for controlling the T_V_ and um how do people use it? We asked them sort of which buttons were useful for them. Um how d how does a remote control look and feel for them, and what improvements would would they like to remote control. And we did that by sort of giving them a questionnaire that we'd prepared and asking them to fill in the answers. And three quarters of them found that remote controls are ugly and that a sort of even higher proportion would spend more for a sort of s uh 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, um they weren't used very often at all. People concentrated on the channel buttons and the volume buttons and the power buttons. Uh we also asked them about speech recognition uh 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 {disfmarker} forty five age group and older, people people weren't quite so keen on speech recognition. There's a lot more th there's a lot lot more older people who didn't know whether they wanted it or not as well. Um we also asked what frustrated people about remote controls and the number one frustration was that the remote was lost somewhere else in the room and that they couldn't find it. And the second second biggest frustration what that if they got a new remote control, it was difficult to learn um all the buttons and all the functions, and to find your way around it. {vocalsound} Okay, so {disfmarker} My personal preferences from the marketing is that we need to come up with some {vocalsound} sort of sleek sort of good looking high high-tech {disfmarker} A design which looks high-tech, basically. Um 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. Um we could maybe come up with a menu, a sort of a an L_C_D_ menu for other functions on the remote control. That's worth thinking about. Um and maybe we could think about speech recognition as well, because um sort of young people are perhaps the ones that are gonna buy buy our new product if we aim it at sort of you know sort of a high-tech design. That that might be the market that we're we're looking for. And we could maybe think about using speech recogniti recognition as a way to find the remote control if it's lost in a room, rather than sort of um having it to {vocalsound} speech recognition to change the channels.'Cause there's a problem with that in that the television makes noise, so it could end up talking to itself and changing its channel.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay um, and that's the end of the slide show. That's it. Cool.
Project Manager: What was that last wee bit there?
User Interface: Do {gap} a lot of um {disfmarker}
Marketing: Um about speech recognition?
Project Manager: Speech recognition,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: But that was only for young people that preferred it, older people didn't.
Marketing: Youn young people pref Yeah, they s they said that they'd be interested in a remote control which offered that possibility and as you go up through the age groups, people got less and less interested in sort of a a remote control that you could talk to, so.
Industrial Designer: No what I maybe think is um 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. Um.
Project Manager: Well that's right.
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And possibly the thing about the about the remote being lost we could have {disfmarker} 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 {disfmarker} {gap} some kind of buzzer system between the two. So you can press a button which is always kept in one place
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and then it maybe buzzes to somewhere else, wherever the remote actually is.
Marketing: Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah, we'd have t that would mean we'd have to put two products together as well,
Industrial Designer: That is true, yes.
Marketing: which which again would probably be a bit expensive, but {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
User Interface: There's key rings um that you kind of whistle at or clap at, I can't remember, and then they whistle back, or something like that.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Sounds reasonable.
User Interface: That'd probably be really simple,
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: they're cheap.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Yeah. So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: So I guess it'd be something we could like attach to the {disfmarker} or like the same technology could be put inside the inside the remote.
Project Manager: Well if you're trying to avoid having a second product'cause obviously you could have a second product that gave you the right pitch which would set the remote off to say here I am sort of thing, you know without sound recognition. But if you {disfmarker} I know. Um I was gonna say a sharp noise, you know a clapping of hand or whatever. {vocalsound} You'd want to try and av just have the one product that if {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah if we if we could have it in the actual remote like everything in one one device.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. Um I dunno um talking about vo I mean obviously if you've got voice recognition then you can do it in that way because it'll recognise the voice and you can give it a command, a set command whatever that happened to be.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: But you've then got the point if if you're not going with uh voice recognition then {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {gap} you could have an option to turn it off. Or {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Perhaps, um.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So that would solve the problems with the T_V_ kind of speaking to the remote and changing its own channels.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So uh {vocalsound} Any sugges Well, any conclusions?
Marketing: Um would it take quite a while to sort of develop the speech recognition software in the remote control?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well if it does then we can't.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Considering {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's that simple,
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: because we've got uh th th three um primary um uh requisites from uh from and email uh that was sent to me whereby we had {disfmarker} The design logo was one, which we've already mentioned. We've got um the remote was only for the television and not for {disfmarker} because that would make it too complex and we have to get it market quickly.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: And the uh third thing was that um teletext uh as far as uh the management is concerned, um is becoming dated uh due to the popularity of the internet. So that means that uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: so these are the sort of three um extra parameters that have been put on this uh project.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So we're being focused effectively directly at a television and it seems to me that the management is uh wanting us to go down a narrow path and not opening out.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Project Manager: So anything that uh 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 {disfmarker}
Project Manager: because time to market is is critical. S
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} I suppose if we could get something in which was quite quick and simple that would give us an advantage over the other remotes. Um.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: It would. But probably quick and simple is primary rather than added extras.
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
Project Manager: Added extras would be nice, but the primary consideration is to get the project finished within uh this short time window, which effectively now is sort of four hours.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So {disfmarker} and if {disfmarker} and we've gotta get to the end. Uh d d I think I think first and foremost we've gotta get to the end and then get to the end with um added extras if possible.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {gap} Right okay, uh so I need to {disfmarker} Right. So I don't know how long we have left of our uh time. But we have to make the decisions on uh the remote control functions
Marketing: About five minutes.
Project Manager: and how we were planning to proceed so that at the next uh meeting each person that's got a a a task to do is clear from this meeting what that task is.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: We'll also know w when the next meeting is
Industrial Designer: Um. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I um {disfmarker} so we'll know how long we've got to complete that task. And then we can report back at the next meeting and say right okay yes, we've achieved this or we haven't achieved this, this is how far we've progressed. Does that make reasonable sense?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yes that seems right.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay, yeah.
Project Manager: So we have to come effectively to the decision on the remote functions so that you can decide what you're gonna be doing. And if dur between the time of this meeting finishing and the next meeting starting, if you get any additional information that uh only you have at that point in time you'd think would be relevant to other people in terms of their des decision making um process, then we should communicate that as quickly as possible and not wait until the next meeting.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Do it via the email
Marketing: Okay. Yep.
Project Manager: so that rather than coming you know {disfmarker} If you get the information just before the next meeting that's fine. Come along with it in the next meeting, we can discuss it then and take whatever action is appropriate.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: But if you get it well before the next meeting, let everybody else know'cause that might have an impact on their uh {disfmarker} on what they come up with {vocalsound} effectively at the next meeting.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Right, is there {disfmarker}
Marketing: So do we need to decide on the functions now? S
Project Manager: I would guess so.
User Interface: Well I think it'd be really easy and it'd be a big advantage if we did have some sort of um kind of whistle back kind of function.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface:'Cause that'll solve kind of the frustration of losing it.
Marketing: Yeah and {disfmarker} Yeah and that was that was the number one sort of frustration that people said, so.
Project Manager: Yep.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I don't think there's anything else on the market that does that, so.
User Interface: Yeah. I don't really know about the voice recognition thing.
Project Manager: I {vocalsound} w well uh i
Industrial Designer: Maybe we should concentrate just on the whistle back function at the moment,
Project Manager: Something simple. Uh if if our primary consideration is to get it there in time, time's short,
Industrial Designer: and if something comes back {disfmarker}
Project Manager: you want something to meet the major concerns of the consumer so that we can have that as a selling point for the product,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: something that's quick and simple. So,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: sounds good.
User Interface: And that wouldn't put off the kind of older generation either,'cause everyone can whistle or clap, and they wouldn't have to be kind of scared of this new technology.
Project Manager: Well, so maybe a clap rather than a whistle would be {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: On the basis that if we've got {disfmarker} if we're catering to the whole age range, you want something that's easy to do,
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Project Manager: now something that doesn't like whis uh
Marketing: No not everyone can whistle, can they, though? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well I I I don't know. Well If you think that more people can whistle than clap then that's fine, then go for that option,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: but if {disfmarker} I would have thought that more people could clap rather than whistle,
Marketing: No,
Industrial Designer: I'd go more {disfmarker}
Marketing: clapping, I think clapping,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, f more for clap.
Marketing: yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: so uh so clap option.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface:'Kay we've already decided that we don't need a teletext button, haven't we?
Project Manager: Uh. Ef effectively that's what the that's what they're saying,
User Interface: Is that one of the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: that uh if uh if people are now using the internet then you don't need teletext,
User Interface: Hmm.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: so so take out teletext.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Taking out teletext, okay.
Industrial Designer: Did we decide on having the ten um the ten numbers
User Interface: Right.
Industrial Designer: and then the the little digit next to it which kind of enabled you to put them together.
User Interface: Yeah, I think so, so zero to nine.
Marketing: Mm. I think nowadays you can just get ones where it gives you a sort of a second or two to press another number,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: so you can press any two and it'll sort of put them together.
Industrial Designer: Okay, ten numbers
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: and then some kind of device to allow uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I'll put delay to allow um multiple numbers.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Or multiple digits.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Did we decide anything about um the other functions? As in setting the audio and tuning it and stuff like that? You had an had an idea about the menu?
Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} we could possibly put an L_ {disfmarker} a sort of a L_C_D_ menu in, but that again is probably an expense that {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: But just thinking um people probably {disfmarker} I mean you don't have {disfmarker} you only have to probably tune in the T_V_ once, but you have to be able to tune it that once.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So and if finally the T_V_ breaks, you get a new one, you're gonna have to be able to tune it. You can't really avoid that.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: No.
Industrial Designer: Except the new digital markets which do it by themselves.
User Interface: Hmm.
Project Manager: But the but that's relying on the television market changing to an automatic
Industrial Designer: So that'll be in {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Project Manager: and if it is at the moment, that's fine. But at the moment it's not, so it seems to me that you have to have a device that caters,'cause otherwise it would make it {disfmarker} uh your device would become inoperable, or only operable in certain circumstances
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: and the idea is to have an international market
Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: which is {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: And it's also m it's the the product we've got is something that's at the I would have said the lower end of the s of the cost scale, so we're not really going for something that's uh terribly high-tech.
Marketing: Yeah. I s I suppose um if people are buying remotes, then they're probably buying it to replace another remote
Project Manager: Possibly.
Marketing:'cause all most tellies come with remotes, so.
Project Manager: That's right.
Marketing: I mean we're maybe talking about replacing remotes for slightly older televisions, so we maybe need to keep the the tuning function in. {gap}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. So how would this menu function work?
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Would you maybe have like one menu button, then you'd use the other buttons, maybe the number buttons to actually do the separate functions.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah,
Marketing: Yeah,
User Interface: like the volume or something.
Marketing: that would be a good idea, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah,'cause you do need um kind of brightness and contrast and everything as well. My dad was watching a film the other week
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: and it was too dark, so I had to go through it and turn the brightness up.
Industrial Designer: {gap} {gap} we're gonna have the the individual numbers
Marketing: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: and then a menu function and maybe sort of a slightly more advanced um instruction booklet to come with it, to guide {disfmarker} Presu uh I think it'd be quite hard just for people to grasp um just off like the menu {gap} use different buttons you maybe have to have like some better instructions of how that would actually work.
Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} I'm not sure whether the sort of having people have a booklet'cause one {disfmarker} the second most annoying thing that people found was having to learn the new one.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Right, okay um.
Marketing: So maybe next to each of the buttons, you know each of them could have a number and then also a function written next to it, so you're basically pressing {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {gap} that also goes back to the original design when we saw those two, and there was the one on the left hand side which had all like the double functions and stuff which kind of looked too busy and had too much on it, so.
Marketing: Right.
Project Manager: Okay, well.
User Interface: Well, if we're trying to keep it slee sleek and sexy as well, have you seen those remotes where kind of um the bottom bit slides down, so there's kind of um everything else revealed?
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So y Ah That's a very good idea.
User Interface: So you don't use it that much, you don't have to see it all the time. But it's all there if you need it.
Industrial Designer: That is that is a good idea actually.
Marketing: Yeah, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Sor sort of a second.
Project Manager: So you keep um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Like a hidden panel.
Project Manager: Right we've got five minutes before we wind up this meeting, so I've been told. I don't know if you've got the same.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Uh not quite, but I guess {gap}.
Project Manager: Okay. So so keep um keep detailed functions um hidden at the back.
Industrial Designer: Keep the other buttons but hide them away.
User Interface: Hmm. And that'll be better for the older generation as well'cause, well my dad doesn't like anything that you've got to kinda flick through a menu,
Project Manager: Ah.
User Interface: but he can pretty much read a button if it's displayed properly.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So um {vocalsound} we're gonna have to have to work out what's gonna be on these other functions as as well. So we're gonna have like two separate two separate lists, I guess.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: That's right.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: {gap} data functions hidden at back. Can bring out when needed.
Marketing: So th the {disfmarker} The detailed ones would be sort of brightness,
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: uh sorta {disfmarker}
Project Manager: That's right so we're dis So you've got which ones are gonna be on the front and which ones are gonna be on the back. We have to decide.
Industrial Designer: So sh Should we decide in the next couple of minutes, and then {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: I guess so.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So on the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So on front,
Industrial Designer: {gap} about the number {gap}.
Project Manager: numbers,
Industrial Designer: Um the volume up and down.
User Interface: And the volume?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} volume.
Industrial Designer: Shall we have a mute button as well?
User Interface: Um.
Project Manager: Sorry?
Industrial Designer: A mute button as well.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Or {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah I think they're handy.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. And probably a power one as well. {vocalsound} Dunno.
User Interface: I know it's probably like um not an issue to raise here, but um the whole thing about not using your standby uh because of the like waste of electricity {gap}. Have you seen the adverts? Like if you boil the kettle that's full that's a waste.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: If you leave your telly on standby it powers Blackpool for a certain amount of time.
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Like we should maybe try to discourage people from standby.
Industrial Designer: But then they might not buy it if they haven't got one.'Cause people might just be too fickle and not want to change.
User Interface: Yeah, it's maybe too much of a big issue for here.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} So so are you having the stand-by on the front, then?
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: We can send out a flier with the device saying that you shouldn't leave it on stand-by.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh-oh danger sign.
Industrial Designer: I think you probably should.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah, but a little bit smaller.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Compromise.
Project Manager: Well {vocalsound} {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Um are we gonna have the channel up and down as well as the number buttons?
Marketing: Um'cause yeah the market research said there is quite a lot of people do just zap around and flick, so.
Industrial Designer: Okay, so we'll have um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Right.
Industrial Designer: So we've got ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen there?
Project Manager: Channel up and down.
Marketing: Um.
Project Manager: What else have we got? What was that, sixteen?
Marketing: Numbers is ten, volume is twelve,
Project Manager: Volume button. How many volumes?
Marketing: th Yeah si One up, one down.
Project Manager: Right okay.
User Interface: On mute.
Marketing: And a mute, yeah. That's sixteen isn't it, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Is there anything else? Um.
Marketing: I don't think so, no.
Project Manager: Power button, stand-by, channel, up and down. So is that it?
Industrial Designer: {gap}
User Interface: {gap} so.
Project Manager: Okay. That's sixteen buttons, you reckon. And then at the back?
Marketing: You've got brightness and contrast.
Industrial Designer: Maybe if we're gonna run out of time, one of us should come up with a list of these and then get back at the next meeting just at the start and say what they're gonna be.
User Interface: And then {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay. So on the back it'll have brightness, contrast,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: anything else? You're also gonna have the channel tuner {gap}, as it were.
User Interface: Uh there's audio functions.
Industrial Designer: So tuner up and down, I guess.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Tuner, would that have up and down? {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Um up {disfmarker} Tune one way, tune the o
User Interface: I think they normally do.
Project Manager: {gap} okay {gap}. Okay.
Industrial Designer: I I dunno I dunno possibly.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: And then maybe sort of an enter button for sort of s you know, saying that you want that particular thing tuned in. So you go up and down and then it pick it finds something and then you wanna press enter to select it, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah and th and a enter button just to select. Yeah, okay. Um I guess we're keeping s it simple. We don't really need any other audio funct uh functions because it's just volume up, volume down.
Project Manager: Um up volume, yeah, I would have thought so.
Industrial Designer: Um.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: So I think um there's quite a lot of like Dolby surround studio, surround sort of things.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Do they have their own {disfmarker} do they have their own controls on their actual products, then,
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Um maybe for the younger market.
Industrial Designer: or do you have to do it via the remote?
User Interface: Um I think they've got their own controls in this kind of like hidden panel.
Industrial Designer: Yeah I suppose if we've got their {disfmarker} if they've got their own controls then we can avoid it for ours just to keep it simple.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Oh no, I mean um like there's kind of individual buttons for them, like on the T_V_ remote.
Industrial Designer: Oh, okay. Right.
User Interface: But I don't really know what they're for,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: I've never used them.
Industrial Designer: Um.
User Interface: I just know they're something to do with Dolby.
Industrial Designer: Maybe unless something comes up then we should I think {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well you might get some research. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Well shall we look into that and just get back together.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Right so I'll do the minutes of uh this meeting.
User Interface: Right.
Marketing: Right.
Project Manager: And we'll meet back at I'm not sure. Um forty minutes, I believe is the time.
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
Marketing: Okay. {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Come on. | The Project Manager gave a brief review of the team's last meeting, then Industrial Designer, User Interface and Marketing gave their presentation each. Industrial Designer's presentation is about the components and system of the remote control. User Interface gave the presentation about the design of the remote. The team agreed that there should be 17 buttons on the front of the remote and two on the back. Marketing's presentation is about the research into the functional requirements that people want out of their remote control. The team agreed that they could add a clap-back function to the remote. | qmsum |
Summarize Marketing's presentation on functional requirements.
Project Manager: Okay. Um welcome to our second meeting. This is the functional design meeting. And I hope you all had a good individual working time. Okay, let's get started. Okay, here's the agenda for the meeting. After the opening um I am going to fulfil the role of secretary, take the meeting minutes. And we're gonna have three presentations, one from each of you. Then we're gonna discuss some new project requirements. Um gonna come to a decision on the functions of the remote control. And then we're gonna close up the meeting. And we're gonna do this all in about forty minutes. {gap} Okay. First I want to discuss the goals of this meeting. First we need to determine the user requirements and the question that we can ask ourselves is what needs and desires are to be fulfilled by this remote control. And then we're going to determine the technical functions, what is the effect of the apparatus, what actually is it supposed to do, what do people pick up the remote and use it for. And then lastly we're going to determine its working design, how exactly will it perform its functions, that's the whole technical side of {disfmarker}'Kay I'll just give you a minute,'cause it looks like you're making some notes.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager:'Kay. Oh, well let's go ahead and,
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {gap} back, previous.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So what I wanna do right now is hear from all three of you, on your research that you just did. Who would like to start us off?'Kay.
User Interface: I don't mind going first.
Project Manager: Okay. Um do you have a PowerPoint or no?
User Interface: Yeah, it's in the {disfmarker} should be in the m Project.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Do you want us to do our PowerPoints now or {disfmarker}
User Interface: You know you could you could do it yourself actually.
Project Manager: Oh.
Industrial Designer: Did you send it?
Project Manager: Save it in the project documents.
User Interface: Put it in Project Documents,
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-mm-mm. This one?
User Interface: Sure. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Great.
User Interface: Okay. Um well, the function {vocalsound} of a remote control, as what uh we've been informed, is basically to send messages to the television set, for example, switch it on, switch it off, go to this channel, go to channel nine, turn the volume up, etcetera. Um some of the considerations is just um for example the what it needs to include it's the numbers, you know, zero to nine, so you can move to a channel, the power button on slash off, the channel going up and down, volume going up and down, and then mute, a mute function. And then functions for V_H_S_, D_V_D_, for example, play, rewind, fast-forward, stop, pause, enter. And enter would be for like, you know, the menus. {vocalsound} And then other menus for D_V_ as well as T_V_, whether that means like um we can go and decide the brightness of the screen, things like that, all the more complicated functions of menus.
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: And we can decide if that's what we want, {gap}, um if we want to include that on the remote, if that's something that would stay on the T_V_ itself, for example.
Project Manager: Okay. Okay.
User Interface: These are two examples. Um and you can see on the left, it's got a lot more buttons,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: and I don't know if you can read it, but it says, step, go to, freeze, um slow, repeat, program, mute, and so those are some of the buttons and so it gives you an idea of s one example. And then on the right, it's a lot more simpler, it's got volume, it's got the play the like circle set, which is play, rewind, but it's also what is {disfmarker} fast-forward is also like next on a menu. So you have functions that are d uh duplicating.
Project Manager: Right.
User Interface: And you have a mute button and then the numbers and the eject, and the power button. So that gives you two different kinds, a more complex and more simple version. Okay.
Project Manager: Ready.
User Interface: And then lastly, it's just the questions that we want to consider like what functions do we want it to include, and how simple, complex it should be? And what functions it needs to complete. Uh, what are needed to complete insulation process,'cause, you know, that's something that also has to be considered and it's gonna be hopefully a one-time thing, when you set it up it should be set to go, but we have to include the functions that can allow it to set up i in the first place.
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: So that's it.
Project Manager: Alright. Very good presentation. Thank you. You speak with such authority on the matter.
User Interface: Mm. Left.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. Who would like to um follow that one up? Now, that we've discussed {disfmarker}
Marketing: I can go.
Project Manager: Okay. Do you want me to run it or you wanna {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, you should run it.
Project Manager: Okay. {vocalsound} Functional requirements.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm yes.
Project Manager:'Kay. Alright. Now we have Courtney with the functional requirements.
Marketing: Yes, okay so we tested a hundred subjects in our lab, and we just we watched them and we also made them fill out a questionnaire, and we found that the {vocalsound} users are not typically happy with current remote controls. Seventy five percent think they're ugly. Eighty percent want {disfmarker} they've {disfmarker} are willing to spend more, which is good news for us um if we make it look fancier, and basically w we just need something that really I mean there's some other points up there, but they {disfmarker} it needs to be snazzy and it {disfmarker} but yet simple.
User Interface: {gap} Wait.
Marketing: So that's really what we need to do. And we need we need it to be simple, yet it needs to be high-tech looking. So {disfmarker}
User Interface: And that meaning what?
Marketing: Like {disfmarker} They like I guess use the buttons a lot.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {gap}
Marketing: I don't know. It's from my uh research.
Project Manager: Okay, what do you m
User Interface: Right.
Marketing: My team wasn't very clear.
Project Manager: Oh, I'm sorry.
User Interface: Only use ten percent of the buttons.
Project Manager: What do you mean by um the current remote controls do not match well with the operating behaviour of the user, like they have to press the buttons.
Marketing: {vocalsound} That's okay. I I think it's like the engineering versus user,
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: whereas like the engineering she showed that the engineering ones are more complex
Project Manager: Oh, right.
Marketing: and users don't really need all of the buttons that are contained on there, because they only use ten percent of the buttons really.
Project Manager: The buttons. Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. Okay.
Industrial Designer: We only use ten per cent of our brains. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Good point.
Project Manager: It works.
Marketing: It's a necessary evil.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ready for the next slide?
Marketing: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound} And so people say that they typically lose it, as you yourself know, because you probably lose your remote control all the time,
Project Manager: Hmm.
Marketing: much like any small appliance like a cellphone,
User Interface: Lost.
Marketing: and they {disfmarker} we need something simple, because most people, well thirty four percent say that it's just too much time to learn how to use a new one, and we don't want to go {disfmarker} we don't want to vary too far from the normal standard remote,
User Interface: S
Marketing: but I mean they do need to be able to identify it, and R_S_I_, I'm not very sure what that is.
Project Manager: It's okay. It's very important. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yes, it is important for the remote control world.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Wait, is that like your {disfmarker} ergonomics like your hand movements or something?
Marketing: Sh
Project Manager: Could be, yeah.
Marketing: Uh possibly.
Industrial Designer: Do we really need t to provide more information on what R_S_I_ is?
User Interface: Like {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh.
Marketing: Uh yeah, that's what my web site said, I
User Interface: Channel, volume, power.
Project Manager: I think that's a pretty good guess though.
Marketing: don't know.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, I would assume so.
User Interface: It's like if you're holding it {disfmarker}
Marketing: I think we're supposed to know it as remote control experts.
Project Manager: Yeah. It's okay. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} But also s so the channel, the volume and the power buttons are the most important on our company website you can find like the specific statistics concerning to how much each button is used, but those are the definitely the top ones.
Project Manager: Okay. Next slide?
Marketing: Yes. And so personally I think that we need a modern eye-catching design, but it it really needs to be simple. So saying from y your slide, your presentation, the engineering versus the user-specified remotes, I think that we should go with something that's more user-friendly.
Project Manager: User-friendly.
Marketing: Where the engineering ones, the boxes, tend to make it look more complicated than it really is. Um the functionality of the product really needs to be considered as to like what type of buttons do we really need on it. And it needs to be open to a wide range of consumers, so even though we need a small number of buttons, we also need to take in {disfmarker} like are most people going to be using it for a D_V_D_ player, a TiVo, what what exactly are we using it for, as well as the age range. So we need a hip, but not a corny marketing scheme for promoting our product.
User Interface: {gap}
Marketing: And also we found {disfmarker} our team found that speech recognition is {disfmarker} it's like an up-and-coming thing they really {disfmarker} consumers are really interested in it, and since our findings found that people are willing to pay more money for a remote for it to be more high-class we could consider it.
Project Manager: And so just to {disfmarker} just to clarify by speech recognition you mean they would say, channel five, and the thing would go to channel five?
Marketing: I guess so, yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: {gap} to just say, where are you, and thing beeps, you know. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh, that'd be lovely.
Marketing: Yeah, I guess we can interpret it like, we can just try out different types of speech recognition within our remote programme.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Didn't they {disfmarker} um didn't our rival companies manufacture a remote that you would press the button on the T_V_ and it would {disfmarker} the remote would beep so if you have lost it {disfmarker}
User Interface: It's kinda like what the remote phone used to do.
Project Manager: Mm. Oh, yeah, that's true.
User Interface: You know like go to the base.
Project Manager: We could definitely include that if we wanted to.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: If it's within our price. Okay. Are we ready for our last presentation, Amber?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, I'm just trying to move it.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer:'Kay. I think it should be there, working design.
User Interface: Working design.
Project Manager: There we go.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager:'Kay.
Industrial Designer:'Kay. Uh I didn't get a chance to complete this one,'cause some of the tools that I was given were frustrating.
Project Manager: Oh my bad. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh that's fine.
Industrial Designer: Uh okay, so method method of our design, I think I just start listing th some of the things that we actually need to put into this.
User Interface: Help me.
Industrial Designer: We need a power source, we're gonna need a smart chip if we're gonna make it multi-functional. Um extra functions will probably need an additional chip. Either that or the smart chip will have to be extremely smart.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: What exactly is a smart chip?
Industrial Designer: Usually a smart chip is just a chip that's been programmed and designed so that it can complete a fair range of functions.
User Interface: Well, how much extra would the additional chip be? Is that gonna push us over our production costs?
Industrial Designer: I wouldn't think so,'cause we could probably get it from like, in bulk, from a a newer company. And they tend to sell their chips pretty cheap.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay. Ready?
Industrial Designer: Um yep, nothing here.
Project Manager: That's okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Um power source, I figured, batteries,'cause they're easily available. Typically a remote has either two double A_s or four triple A_s, sometimes three. Uh it really kinda depends on the size of the actual remote itself.
User Interface: {gap}
Industrial Designer: Um a large on-off button, {vocalsound} demographically we're moving towards an older generation of people, so a large on-off button would probably be good.
User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap}
Project Manager: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: Selection button for various entertainment devices, so you want something that will permit you to select the D_V_D_ player or the T_V_ or the stereo system. Um smart chip that perverts {disfmarker} uh that permits, sorry, universal application again, something that'll allow us to skip over between devices, and that's kinda it.
Project Manager: {gap}
Industrial Designer: Uh this is my fifty second design.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Power source over here. We're gonna have a switch obviously between the power source and the rest of it, and you're gonna need the switch. Um extra bulb could just be for flashiness, um subcomponent which would be like a way of diverting the power to different parts of the the device. Um the chip and of course the infra-red bulb, so it can communicate with the various devices that it needs to talk to.
Marketing: So what exactly we are looking at, is this like the front of the remote?
Industrial Designer: This is just like a rough schematic.
Project Manager: So this would be the front?
Industrial Designer: So this is the internal workings.
Project Manager: So the red would be the front of the remote though, right?
Marketing: Oh okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah, that's gonna be what's communicating with the T_V_, but the other bulb, I think, is good to just to indicate, I'm doing something, it's sort of like a reassurance.
Project Manager: The l {vocalsound} the light up kind of {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, so you don't have to stare at that infra-red,
Marketing: Like that we know the battery's working.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer:'cause you know when the battery starts dying in your remote currently, you have to actually stare at that bulb and go, okay, when I push this button, is it working?
Project Manager: Hmm. It'd probably be lighting up the key too,
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: We can skip that whole thing.
Project Manager: right?
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Project Manager:'Kay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So you can put it in the dark. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: The buttons.
Marketing: Yeah, and that's good.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: We should make it glow in the dark. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, definitely.'Kay nex R Ready?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's it.
Project Manager:'Kay, any p'Kay?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm'kay.
Project Manager: Anything you wanna add for personal preferences though, you f you said already that we needed a large on-off button, you think. Anything else?
Industrial Designer: I think that that's a good idea, because you know that's one of the most important buttons.
User Interface: Just {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Well, should it be larger buttons in general, you know like uh the examples that I had, they were swi quite small. So should we try and go for something that has l larger buttons?
Marketing: I think we should. Like I think that would be in a as in {disfmarker} like in {disfmarker} for the design, sorry, um. I think we should definitely go with buttons that don't look like a normal remote,'cause most remotes have small square buttons,
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: I think we should do something like maybe bigger and round like bubbles.
User Interface: Ovals. Yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. Okay, let's talk about all of our {disfmarker} We'll come to decision later about all the components that we need to include, let's um wrap up this one, and {vocalsound} I'm gonna go back to my PowerPoint,'cause we need to discuss the new project requirements which you might've already seen flashed up on the screen a bit earlier. {vocalsound} Wait, come back. Alright. Sorry, let's go through this. Alright. Here we go. New product requirements. First it's only going to be a T_V_ remote. We're trying not to over-complicate things. So no D_V_D_, no TiVo, no stereo.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: It's not gonna be multi-functional.
User Interface: {gap}
Project Manager: Hey. And we th need to promote our company more, so we need to somehow include our colour and our company slogan on the remote. We're trying to get our name out there in the world. Okay.
User Interface: {gap}
Project Manager: And you know what teletext is?
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: {gap} in States we don't have it, but um it's like they just have this channel where just has news and weather, kind of sports,
User Interface: I know.
Marketing: What is it?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: it's very um bland looking, it's just text on the screen,
User Interface: Yeah,
Project Manager: not even {disfmarker}
User Interface: it's like black, black and white kind of {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, just black with just text.
Marketing: Like running along the bottom?
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: You can also get the kind of the T_V_ guide so {disfmarker}
User Interface: It'll give you the sports.
Marketing: Wait, is it like the Weather Channel where it's got like the ticker running on the bottom or something?
Project Manager: Kind of.
User Interface: Except the entire screen.
Project Manager: Yeah it's the whole screen.
Industrial Designer: It's the entire screen is just running information at random.
Project Manager: So anyway {disfmarker}
User Interface: You can pick sports, you can pick the news, you entertainment,
Industrial Designer: Seemingly.
User Interface: you know it's like {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Right.
Marketing: So it's like a separate channel from like what you're watching?
Project Manager: Right. But it's becoming out-dated now, because of the Internet.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Nobody needs to go to the teletext channel to check the news, {vocalsound} and we have twenty four hour news channels now too, so {disfmarker} Those are our new product requirements. Alright. Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: So, do we have to include the company colour within that?
Project Manager: Yes. It's part of the logo. Okay.
User Interface: Company colour being yellow. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: What we're going to do right now is come to some decisions, definitive that we can all agree on, about um the target group and the functions and just definite things that we need to do and then we'll close up the meeting. So. Alright. {gap} Whatever. Okay. So our target group is {disfmarker} You mentioned um older people? Would it just be universal for everyone, you think?
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Because I think even if something has large buttons, as long as they are not childishly large, like even technically {disfmarker}
User Interface: It's gonna make it nicer. Yeah.
Project Manager: non-technically challenged people are gonna use it. I mean they want something user-friendly, so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm well, even if we kept the regular standard size of remote, if we reduced the buttons down to the ones that people are saying that they use the most often and a couple extra,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer:'cause they're saying they only use ten per cent of them,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: then we should be able to accommodate fairly decent sized buttons.
Project Manager: Okay, so we want um for our target group would we say, I mean, young and old, all age ranges, all um, not kids obviously, right? Or kids?
Marketing: No, kids need to know how to use a remote, I would think.
Industrial Designer: Most of them will intuitively pick it up though.
Project Manager: {gap}
Marketing: They gotta change between Disney Channel, Cartoon Network.
Project Manager: Okay, so we're going to go anywhere from kids to adult in the age range {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, I think we need it all.
Project Manager: Um what about technic technical um specifications, like how how technically literate are these people who are going to be using our remote?
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Marketing: Um I would say we should say dumber than the average person.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: We should go for the lowest denominator.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Right, okay. So so they need no technical experience to operate {disfmarker}
User Interface: High school educated.
Industrial Designer: {gap} how'bout little to no, because there is no way that you are gonna be able to make it no.
Project Manager: Okay. And we also need to determine the specific functions of this, just to get it all out on paper. So we said it needs to send messages to the T_V_, needs to change the channel, turn on and off, just basic simple stuff like this. So if you have something just say it and we'll add it to my meeting minutes.
User Interface: Well it's channel, on-off button, volume, mute.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm, volume.
Marketing: And channel. Yeah. Those are the most important ones.
Project Manager: Right. And we wanna keep um {disfmarker} I'll make a note here that we wanna keep the number of buttons down. Correct, because people only use ten percent.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager:'Kay. Hey, what else?
User Interface: Um.
Project Manager: Um.
Industrial Designer: Do we want this thing to be able to be found easily?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I think so. What do you {disfmarker}
Marketing: Sure, yeah.
User Interface: {gap}
Project Manager: A finding kind of device or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: And
Marketing: I need {disfmarker} we we need a like homing device.
Project Manager: Yeah, ho homing device. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: like if this is gonna get lost underneath the coach, how are we going to accommodate the quick ability to find it?
User Interface: Oh right yeah okay.
Project Manager: Mm'kay.
User Interface: Tracking.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Because people really are looking for a remote that's more high-tech.
Project Manager: Right.
Industrial Designer: What if we gave it a charger? And on the charger, just like a phone, like you get a portable phone and it's got a charger, and if you d leave your phone somewhere, you push the button to find it, and it finds th the phone beeps for you.
User Interface: But you got a base.
Marketing: Do you think people'll really go for that though?
Industrial Designer: It's useful for the remote phone.
Marketing: Because {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Hmm.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Would that add to our costs at all, I wonder?
Marketing: I would think so, because you'd have to develop a base.
Project Manager: Right.
User Interface: Well, if you have the base, you could start putting in a charger and then you have a different kind of battery.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: Rechargeable batteries are cheaper usually.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. I I think we can make a decision about that later. Uh we'll still put that as a point that we need to discuss. So that would include battery source {disfmarker} Power source rather. Is it going to have a charger, or is it going to be run strictly off batteries? And we also need to deal with the issue you mentioned of speech recognition, if we want that.
Marketing: Right.
User Interface: Well, then we could {disfmarker}
Marketing: Do w
User Interface: If we have the speech recognition then we can start aiming at a like another kind of more handicapped disabled uh demo demographic.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: Well, th there's the people who desire speech recognition, there's the different demog demographics have different desires, I don't know if you guys ge
Project Manager: You could um {disfmarker} we could hook it up.
Marketing: It wouldn't copy onto the the thing'cause it's black,
Project Manager: Oh.
Marketing: but all the different age groups have different desires for speech recognition. So {vocalsound} basically older people don't really care.
User Interface: {gap}
Marketing: It's really the people twenty five to thirty five. I feel those are the people that really watch a lot of T_V_ though.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: They're the ones that get addicted to soap operas and
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And if and if we introduced it when they're this age, they're going to probably always buy a remote that has {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well {disfmarker}
Marketing: just sitcoms and stuff. Right.
User Interface: Well, then then do you put the voice recognition {disfmarker} do you put the r like receiver on the actual television, in the base, or in the actual remote,
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
User Interface:'cause then you've already got remote in your hand, why you just gonna speak to the remote,
Project Manager: Right.
User Interface: whereas if you just speak in general and you don't have to have the remote in your hand and like talk at it.
Project Manager: Yeah. {gap} and the speech recognition could be part of the lost and found device, too. If we said, find remote, locate remote, or something.
Marketing: Right.
Project Manager: A certain phrase then it could beep. I dunno. Just throwing it out there.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Still {gap} fifteen minutes.
Project Manager: Okay, anything else we wanna discuss?
User Interface: Um. Well, do we wanna include the numbers like zero through nine? Can we conceive of leaving them out?
Project Manager: Um.
Marketing: Wait, on the remote itself?
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: Yeah, like you have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, zero.
Project Manager: How how,
Marketing: Well, we definitely need those.
Project Manager: yeah, how would you leave those out?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Well, I don't know, I mean, if you can {gap} like well {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Unless you could say the channel.
User Interface: I don't know, if there's just a way of leaving them out?
Industrial Designer: I think people would find that too foreign.
Project Manager: Yeah, that's true.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: And also remember that in this day in age we need, you know, like a hundred button, too.
Marketing: You definitely need {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I used to have a remote that did not even go up past like fifty. {vocalsound} So I couldn't {disfmarker} whenever I got cable, I had to get a new T_V_.
Industrial Designer: It's when we get satellite.
Project Manager: Mm. {gap} get your own remote, or digital cable.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager:'Kay. Um. I guess, we're gonna discuss the project financing later, making sure that we can fit all of the stuff that we want to on our budget. Um.
Industrial Designer: Yeah,'cause I don't have any material pricing information available to me at the moment, so {disfmarker}
Project Manager:'Kay. And don't forget we need to include the colour of our company and the logo.
User Interface: The colour being yellow?
Marketing: Wait.
Project Manager: I'm guessing. And the R_R_.
User Interface: And how do we {disfmarker}
Marketing: I feel like a ye I feel like a yellow one would be too garish.
Industrial Designer: R_ the double R_.
Project Manager: We could just have the logo in yellow,
User Interface: Can't make it entirely {disfmarker}
Project Manager: or maybe a yellow light for the keys.
Industrial Designer: Or is the l
Marketing: Or put like stripes, oh yeah, yellow lights.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, {vocalsound} yellow could be and it could {disfmarker} doesn't have to be huge.
User Interface: Well if you have like a {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Hang on. If you have this sort of strip kind of down at the bottom {gap} the base of it, just like yellow with the R_R_.
Project Manager: Right. So we've simplified, we don't need all those um play, fast-forward, rewind,
User Interface: Right, yeah.
Project Manager: or no menu buttons.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So we've pretty much pared it down to on-off, volume, mute, channel up and down, um the numbers {disfmarker} Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um can we go back to {disfmarker} I'm gonna look really quickly back at those
User Interface: Two examples.
Project Manager: examples and see if there is anything.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Which one is yours, technical functions or functional requirement?
User Interface: Oh, it's a {disfmarker} Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Yeah, audi audio settings and screen settings, we need those like audio settings mono, stereo, pitch, screen settings like brightness, colour, or do we just want that accessed accessed from the television itself?
Project Manager: The T_V_. I think that that's fine just for the T_V_. I mean how often does the average user need to do that kind of stuff?
User Interface: Well, the other option is sort of like down at the bottom, like farther away, you just have this sort of box inset where it's like the buttons that you don't use as much, but occasionally you will use.
Project Manager: Hmm.
User Interface: and so it's like {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah,'cause we need to {disfmarker} we definitely need to have buttons for like sub-titles and things like that. It's'cause the foreign film market is expanding and stuff, and like on television like I know f k living in Los Angeles it's tons of Spanish network television if it has English sub-titles it's definitely helpful.
Project Manager: Couldn't we do that all through one button, something, a menu button, that pops up with a menu on the T_V_ that says, you know, audio, video, whatever, language,
User Interface: I don't {disfmarker} well, I don't know.
Project Manager: you know?
User Interface: Right.
Marketing: So we need up, down, and side-to-side buttons.
Project Manager: For the menus.
User Interface: Well, that could be {disfmarker} No you could just double up with like the channel or the volume buttons.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: That's true.
User Interface: Channel is just up and down.
Marketing: Yeah, okay. Okay, yeah.
User Interface: And then add a {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Something that looks mayb you know.
Marketing: Such as, yeah, the one the one over there on the left the engineering centred one.
Project Manager: Y right, right right right.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: That one?
User Interface: So we just have it like {disfmarker} add a menu button then for the various things needed,
Project Manager: Right.
User Interface: including v voice recognition if we have any like settings for voice recognition now
Project Manager: In the middle perhaps.
User Interface: included in the menu.
Project Manager: Yep.
Marketing: Ooh, I just got an idea for a design.
Project Manager: {gap} good. Anybody have anything else they'd like to bring up in this meeting?
Industrial Designer: I had something, but I forgot.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. {gap} get out of here. Let's go back to the meeting closure then and see what we need to do next. Mm. Alright. After this meeting we're gonna be sent a questionnaire and summary again which we need to reply to that e-mail. And then we're gonna have lunch break. And after lunch thirty minutes of individual work time. Um I'm gonna put the minutes {disfmarker} I put the minutes for the first meeting already in the project documents folder, if you'd like to review them. And I'm gonna type up the minutes for this one as well. Um here's what we're each going to do. The I_D_ is going to work on the components concept, um U_I_D_ the user interface concept, and you're going to do some trend watching.'Kay. Specific instructions will be sent to you by your personal coach. And if anybody has anything they would like to add? No? Okay, well, this meeting is officially over. Thank you all. | Marketing first shared the results of their lab tests. It was found that users preferred a fancier but yet simpler remote, and as a result, their product should be high-tech looking but also user-friendly. Since the research found that most users would only use ten percent of the buttons, they decided to only keep the most necessary ones on their remote. Users also claimed that remotes tend to be lost easily. Finally, since speech recognition was popular among users, the remote should have this function as well. | qmsum |
What could they do to make the remote more modern and high-class in regard to its function design?
Project Manager: Okay. Um welcome to our second meeting. This is the functional design meeting. And I hope you all had a good individual working time. Okay, let's get started. Okay, here's the agenda for the meeting. After the opening um I am going to fulfil the role of secretary, take the meeting minutes. And we're gonna have three presentations, one from each of you. Then we're gonna discuss some new project requirements. Um gonna come to a decision on the functions of the remote control. And then we're gonna close up the meeting. And we're gonna do this all in about forty minutes. {gap} Okay. First I want to discuss the goals of this meeting. First we need to determine the user requirements and the question that we can ask ourselves is what needs and desires are to be fulfilled by this remote control. And then we're going to determine the technical functions, what is the effect of the apparatus, what actually is it supposed to do, what do people pick up the remote and use it for. And then lastly we're going to determine its working design, how exactly will it perform its functions, that's the whole technical side of {disfmarker}'Kay I'll just give you a minute,'cause it looks like you're making some notes.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager:'Kay. Oh, well let's go ahead and,
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {gap} back, previous.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So what I wanna do right now is hear from all three of you, on your research that you just did. Who would like to start us off?'Kay.
User Interface: I don't mind going first.
Project Manager: Okay. Um do you have a PowerPoint or no?
User Interface: Yeah, it's in the {disfmarker} should be in the m Project.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Do you want us to do our PowerPoints now or {disfmarker}
User Interface: You know you could you could do it yourself actually.
Project Manager: Oh.
Industrial Designer: Did you send it?
Project Manager: Save it in the project documents.
User Interface: Put it in Project Documents,
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-mm-mm. This one?
User Interface: Sure. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Great.
User Interface: Okay. Um well, the function {vocalsound} of a remote control, as what uh we've been informed, is basically to send messages to the television set, for example, switch it on, switch it off, go to this channel, go to channel nine, turn the volume up, etcetera. Um some of the considerations is just um for example the what it needs to include it's the numbers, you know, zero to nine, so you can move to a channel, the power button on slash off, the channel going up and down, volume going up and down, and then mute, a mute function. And then functions for V_H_S_, D_V_D_, for example, play, rewind, fast-forward, stop, pause, enter. And enter would be for like, you know, the menus. {vocalsound} And then other menus for D_V_ as well as T_V_, whether that means like um we can go and decide the brightness of the screen, things like that, all the more complicated functions of menus.
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: And we can decide if that's what we want, {gap}, um if we want to include that on the remote, if that's something that would stay on the T_V_ itself, for example.
Project Manager: Okay. Okay.
User Interface: These are two examples. Um and you can see on the left, it's got a lot more buttons,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: and I don't know if you can read it, but it says, step, go to, freeze, um slow, repeat, program, mute, and so those are some of the buttons and so it gives you an idea of s one example. And then on the right, it's a lot more simpler, it's got volume, it's got the play the like circle set, which is play, rewind, but it's also what is {disfmarker} fast-forward is also like next on a menu. So you have functions that are d uh duplicating.
Project Manager: Right.
User Interface: And you have a mute button and then the numbers and the eject, and the power button. So that gives you two different kinds, a more complex and more simple version. Okay.
Project Manager: Ready.
User Interface: And then lastly, it's just the questions that we want to consider like what functions do we want it to include, and how simple, complex it should be? And what functions it needs to complete. Uh, what are needed to complete insulation process,'cause, you know, that's something that also has to be considered and it's gonna be hopefully a one-time thing, when you set it up it should be set to go, but we have to include the functions that can allow it to set up i in the first place.
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: So that's it.
Project Manager: Alright. Very good presentation. Thank you. You speak with such authority on the matter.
User Interface: Mm. Left.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. Who would like to um follow that one up? Now, that we've discussed {disfmarker}
Marketing: I can go.
Project Manager: Okay. Do you want me to run it or you wanna {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, you should run it.
Project Manager: Okay. {vocalsound} Functional requirements.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm yes.
Project Manager:'Kay. Alright. Now we have Courtney with the functional requirements.
Marketing: Yes, okay so we tested a hundred subjects in our lab, and we just we watched them and we also made them fill out a questionnaire, and we found that the {vocalsound} users are not typically happy with current remote controls. Seventy five percent think they're ugly. Eighty percent want {disfmarker} they've {disfmarker} are willing to spend more, which is good news for us um if we make it look fancier, and basically w we just need something that really I mean there's some other points up there, but they {disfmarker} it needs to be snazzy and it {disfmarker} but yet simple.
User Interface: {gap} Wait.
Marketing: So that's really what we need to do. And we need we need it to be simple, yet it needs to be high-tech looking. So {disfmarker}
User Interface: And that meaning what?
Marketing: Like {disfmarker} They like I guess use the buttons a lot.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {gap}
Marketing: I don't know. It's from my uh research.
Project Manager: Okay, what do you m
User Interface: Right.
Marketing: My team wasn't very clear.
Project Manager: Oh, I'm sorry.
User Interface: Only use ten percent of the buttons.
Project Manager: What do you mean by um the current remote controls do not match well with the operating behaviour of the user, like they have to press the buttons.
Marketing: {vocalsound} That's okay. I I think it's like the engineering versus user,
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: whereas like the engineering she showed that the engineering ones are more complex
Project Manager: Oh, right.
Marketing: and users don't really need all of the buttons that are contained on there, because they only use ten percent of the buttons really.
Project Manager: The buttons. Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. Okay.
Industrial Designer: We only use ten per cent of our brains. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Good point.
Project Manager: It works.
Marketing: It's a necessary evil.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ready for the next slide?
Marketing: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound} And so people say that they typically lose it, as you yourself know, because you probably lose your remote control all the time,
Project Manager: Hmm.
Marketing: much like any small appliance like a cellphone,
User Interface: Lost.
Marketing: and they {disfmarker} we need something simple, because most people, well thirty four percent say that it's just too much time to learn how to use a new one, and we don't want to go {disfmarker} we don't want to vary too far from the normal standard remote,
User Interface: S
Marketing: but I mean they do need to be able to identify it, and R_S_I_, I'm not very sure what that is.
Project Manager: It's okay. It's very important. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yes, it is important for the remote control world.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Wait, is that like your {disfmarker} ergonomics like your hand movements or something?
Marketing: Sh
Project Manager: Could be, yeah.
Marketing: Uh possibly.
Industrial Designer: Do we really need t to provide more information on what R_S_I_ is?
User Interface: Like {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh.
Marketing: Uh yeah, that's what my web site said, I
User Interface: Channel, volume, power.
Project Manager: I think that's a pretty good guess though.
Marketing: don't know.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, I would assume so.
User Interface: It's like if you're holding it {disfmarker}
Marketing: I think we're supposed to know it as remote control experts.
Project Manager: Yeah. It's okay. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} But also s so the channel, the volume and the power buttons are the most important on our company website you can find like the specific statistics concerning to how much each button is used, but those are the definitely the top ones.
Project Manager: Okay. Next slide?
Marketing: Yes. And so personally I think that we need a modern eye-catching design, but it it really needs to be simple. So saying from y your slide, your presentation, the engineering versus the user-specified remotes, I think that we should go with something that's more user-friendly.
Project Manager: User-friendly.
Marketing: Where the engineering ones, the boxes, tend to make it look more complicated than it really is. Um the functionality of the product really needs to be considered as to like what type of buttons do we really need on it. And it needs to be open to a wide range of consumers, so even though we need a small number of buttons, we also need to take in {disfmarker} like are most people going to be using it for a D_V_D_ player, a TiVo, what what exactly are we using it for, as well as the age range. So we need a hip, but not a corny marketing scheme for promoting our product.
User Interface: {gap}
Marketing: And also we found {disfmarker} our team found that speech recognition is {disfmarker} it's like an up-and-coming thing they really {disfmarker} consumers are really interested in it, and since our findings found that people are willing to pay more money for a remote for it to be more high-class we could consider it.
Project Manager: And so just to {disfmarker} just to clarify by speech recognition you mean they would say, channel five, and the thing would go to channel five?
Marketing: I guess so, yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: {gap} to just say, where are you, and thing beeps, you know. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh, that'd be lovely.
Marketing: Yeah, I guess we can interpret it like, we can just try out different types of speech recognition within our remote programme.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Didn't they {disfmarker} um didn't our rival companies manufacture a remote that you would press the button on the T_V_ and it would {disfmarker} the remote would beep so if you have lost it {disfmarker}
User Interface: It's kinda like what the remote phone used to do.
Project Manager: Mm. Oh, yeah, that's true.
User Interface: You know like go to the base.
Project Manager: We could definitely include that if we wanted to.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: If it's within our price. Okay. Are we ready for our last presentation, Amber?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, I'm just trying to move it.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer:'Kay. I think it should be there, working design.
User Interface: Working design.
Project Manager: There we go.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager:'Kay.
Industrial Designer:'Kay. Uh I didn't get a chance to complete this one,'cause some of the tools that I was given were frustrating.
Project Manager: Oh my bad. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh that's fine.
Industrial Designer: Uh okay, so method method of our design, I think I just start listing th some of the things that we actually need to put into this.
User Interface: Help me.
Industrial Designer: We need a power source, we're gonna need a smart chip if we're gonna make it multi-functional. Um extra functions will probably need an additional chip. Either that or the smart chip will have to be extremely smart.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: What exactly is a smart chip?
Industrial Designer: Usually a smart chip is just a chip that's been programmed and designed so that it can complete a fair range of functions.
User Interface: Well, how much extra would the additional chip be? Is that gonna push us over our production costs?
Industrial Designer: I wouldn't think so,'cause we could probably get it from like, in bulk, from a a newer company. And they tend to sell their chips pretty cheap.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay. Ready?
Industrial Designer: Um yep, nothing here.
Project Manager: That's okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Um power source, I figured, batteries,'cause they're easily available. Typically a remote has either two double A_s or four triple A_s, sometimes three. Uh it really kinda depends on the size of the actual remote itself.
User Interface: {gap}
Industrial Designer: Um a large on-off button, {vocalsound} demographically we're moving towards an older generation of people, so a large on-off button would probably be good.
User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap}
Project Manager: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: Selection button for various entertainment devices, so you want something that will permit you to select the D_V_D_ player or the T_V_ or the stereo system. Um smart chip that perverts {disfmarker} uh that permits, sorry, universal application again, something that'll allow us to skip over between devices, and that's kinda it.
Project Manager: {gap}
Industrial Designer: Uh this is my fifty second design.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Power source over here. We're gonna have a switch obviously between the power source and the rest of it, and you're gonna need the switch. Um extra bulb could just be for flashiness, um subcomponent which would be like a way of diverting the power to different parts of the the device. Um the chip and of course the infra-red bulb, so it can communicate with the various devices that it needs to talk to.
Marketing: So what exactly we are looking at, is this like the front of the remote?
Industrial Designer: This is just like a rough schematic.
Project Manager: So this would be the front?
Industrial Designer: So this is the internal workings.
Project Manager: So the red would be the front of the remote though, right?
Marketing: Oh okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah, that's gonna be what's communicating with the T_V_, but the other bulb, I think, is good to just to indicate, I'm doing something, it's sort of like a reassurance.
Project Manager: The l {vocalsound} the light up kind of {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, so you don't have to stare at that infra-red,
Marketing: Like that we know the battery's working.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer:'cause you know when the battery starts dying in your remote currently, you have to actually stare at that bulb and go, okay, when I push this button, is it working?
Project Manager: Hmm. It'd probably be lighting up the key too,
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: We can skip that whole thing.
Project Manager: right?
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Project Manager:'Kay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So you can put it in the dark. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: The buttons.
Marketing: Yeah, and that's good.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: We should make it glow in the dark. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, definitely.'Kay nex R Ready?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's it.
Project Manager:'Kay, any p'Kay?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm'kay.
Project Manager: Anything you wanna add for personal preferences though, you f you said already that we needed a large on-off button, you think. Anything else?
Industrial Designer: I think that that's a good idea, because you know that's one of the most important buttons.
User Interface: Just {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Well, should it be larger buttons in general, you know like uh the examples that I had, they were swi quite small. So should we try and go for something that has l larger buttons?
Marketing: I think we should. Like I think that would be in a as in {disfmarker} like in {disfmarker} for the design, sorry, um. I think we should definitely go with buttons that don't look like a normal remote,'cause most remotes have small square buttons,
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: I think we should do something like maybe bigger and round like bubbles.
User Interface: Ovals. Yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. Okay, let's talk about all of our {disfmarker} We'll come to decision later about all the components that we need to include, let's um wrap up this one, and {vocalsound} I'm gonna go back to my PowerPoint,'cause we need to discuss the new project requirements which you might've already seen flashed up on the screen a bit earlier. {vocalsound} Wait, come back. Alright. Sorry, let's go through this. Alright. Here we go. New product requirements. First it's only going to be a T_V_ remote. We're trying not to over-complicate things. So no D_V_D_, no TiVo, no stereo.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: It's not gonna be multi-functional.
User Interface: {gap}
Project Manager: Hey. And we th need to promote our company more, so we need to somehow include our colour and our company slogan on the remote. We're trying to get our name out there in the world. Okay.
User Interface: {gap}
Project Manager: And you know what teletext is?
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: {gap} in States we don't have it, but um it's like they just have this channel where just has news and weather, kind of sports,
User Interface: I know.
Marketing: What is it?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: it's very um bland looking, it's just text on the screen,
User Interface: Yeah,
Project Manager: not even {disfmarker}
User Interface: it's like black, black and white kind of {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, just black with just text.
Marketing: Like running along the bottom?
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: You can also get the kind of the T_V_ guide so {disfmarker}
User Interface: It'll give you the sports.
Marketing: Wait, is it like the Weather Channel where it's got like the ticker running on the bottom or something?
Project Manager: Kind of.
User Interface: Except the entire screen.
Project Manager: Yeah it's the whole screen.
Industrial Designer: It's the entire screen is just running information at random.
Project Manager: So anyway {disfmarker}
User Interface: You can pick sports, you can pick the news, you entertainment,
Industrial Designer: Seemingly.
User Interface: you know it's like {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Right.
Marketing: So it's like a separate channel from like what you're watching?
Project Manager: Right. But it's becoming out-dated now, because of the Internet.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Nobody needs to go to the teletext channel to check the news, {vocalsound} and we have twenty four hour news channels now too, so {disfmarker} Those are our new product requirements. Alright. Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: So, do we have to include the company colour within that?
Project Manager: Yes. It's part of the logo. Okay.
User Interface: Company colour being yellow. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: What we're going to do right now is come to some decisions, definitive that we can all agree on, about um the target group and the functions and just definite things that we need to do and then we'll close up the meeting. So. Alright. {gap} Whatever. Okay. So our target group is {disfmarker} You mentioned um older people? Would it just be universal for everyone, you think?
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Because I think even if something has large buttons, as long as they are not childishly large, like even technically {disfmarker}
User Interface: It's gonna make it nicer. Yeah.
Project Manager: non-technically challenged people are gonna use it. I mean they want something user-friendly, so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm well, even if we kept the regular standard size of remote, if we reduced the buttons down to the ones that people are saying that they use the most often and a couple extra,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer:'cause they're saying they only use ten per cent of them,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: then we should be able to accommodate fairly decent sized buttons.
Project Manager: Okay, so we want um for our target group would we say, I mean, young and old, all age ranges, all um, not kids obviously, right? Or kids?
Marketing: No, kids need to know how to use a remote, I would think.
Industrial Designer: Most of them will intuitively pick it up though.
Project Manager: {gap}
Marketing: They gotta change between Disney Channel, Cartoon Network.
Project Manager: Okay, so we're going to go anywhere from kids to adult in the age range {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, I think we need it all.
Project Manager: Um what about technic technical um specifications, like how how technically literate are these people who are going to be using our remote?
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Marketing: Um I would say we should say dumber than the average person.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: We should go for the lowest denominator.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Right, okay. So so they need no technical experience to operate {disfmarker}
User Interface: High school educated.
Industrial Designer: {gap} how'bout little to no, because there is no way that you are gonna be able to make it no.
Project Manager: Okay. And we also need to determine the specific functions of this, just to get it all out on paper. So we said it needs to send messages to the T_V_, needs to change the channel, turn on and off, just basic simple stuff like this. So if you have something just say it and we'll add it to my meeting minutes.
User Interface: Well it's channel, on-off button, volume, mute.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm, volume.
Marketing: And channel. Yeah. Those are the most important ones.
Project Manager: Right. And we wanna keep um {disfmarker} I'll make a note here that we wanna keep the number of buttons down. Correct, because people only use ten percent.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager:'Kay. Hey, what else?
User Interface: Um.
Project Manager: Um.
Industrial Designer: Do we want this thing to be able to be found easily?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I think so. What do you {disfmarker}
Marketing: Sure, yeah.
User Interface: {gap}
Project Manager: A finding kind of device or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: And
Marketing: I need {disfmarker} we we need a like homing device.
Project Manager: Yeah, ho homing device. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: like if this is gonna get lost underneath the coach, how are we going to accommodate the quick ability to find it?
User Interface: Oh right yeah okay.
Project Manager: Mm'kay.
User Interface: Tracking.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Because people really are looking for a remote that's more high-tech.
Project Manager: Right.
Industrial Designer: What if we gave it a charger? And on the charger, just like a phone, like you get a portable phone and it's got a charger, and if you d leave your phone somewhere, you push the button to find it, and it finds th the phone beeps for you.
User Interface: But you got a base.
Marketing: Do you think people'll really go for that though?
Industrial Designer: It's useful for the remote phone.
Marketing: Because {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Hmm.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Would that add to our costs at all, I wonder?
Marketing: I would think so, because you'd have to develop a base.
Project Manager: Right.
User Interface: Well, if you have the base, you could start putting in a charger and then you have a different kind of battery.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: Rechargeable batteries are cheaper usually.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. I I think we can make a decision about that later. Uh we'll still put that as a point that we need to discuss. So that would include battery source {disfmarker} Power source rather. Is it going to have a charger, or is it going to be run strictly off batteries? And we also need to deal with the issue you mentioned of speech recognition, if we want that.
Marketing: Right.
User Interface: Well, then we could {disfmarker}
Marketing: Do w
User Interface: If we have the speech recognition then we can start aiming at a like another kind of more handicapped disabled uh demo demographic.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: Well, th there's the people who desire speech recognition, there's the different demog demographics have different desires, I don't know if you guys ge
Project Manager: You could um {disfmarker} we could hook it up.
Marketing: It wouldn't copy onto the the thing'cause it's black,
Project Manager: Oh.
Marketing: but all the different age groups have different desires for speech recognition. So {vocalsound} basically older people don't really care.
User Interface: {gap}
Marketing: It's really the people twenty five to thirty five. I feel those are the people that really watch a lot of T_V_ though.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: They're the ones that get addicted to soap operas and
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And if and if we introduced it when they're this age, they're going to probably always buy a remote that has {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well {disfmarker}
Marketing: just sitcoms and stuff. Right.
User Interface: Well, then then do you put the voice recognition {disfmarker} do you put the r like receiver on the actual television, in the base, or in the actual remote,
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
User Interface:'cause then you've already got remote in your hand, why you just gonna speak to the remote,
Project Manager: Right.
User Interface: whereas if you just speak in general and you don't have to have the remote in your hand and like talk at it.
Project Manager: Yeah. {gap} and the speech recognition could be part of the lost and found device, too. If we said, find remote, locate remote, or something.
Marketing: Right.
Project Manager: A certain phrase then it could beep. I dunno. Just throwing it out there.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Still {gap} fifteen minutes.
Project Manager: Okay, anything else we wanna discuss?
User Interface: Um. Well, do we wanna include the numbers like zero through nine? Can we conceive of leaving them out?
Project Manager: Um.
Marketing: Wait, on the remote itself?
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: Yeah, like you have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, zero.
Project Manager: How how,
Marketing: Well, we definitely need those.
Project Manager: yeah, how would you leave those out?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Well, I don't know, I mean, if you can {gap} like well {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Unless you could say the channel.
User Interface: I don't know, if there's just a way of leaving them out?
Industrial Designer: I think people would find that too foreign.
Project Manager: Yeah, that's true.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: And also remember that in this day in age we need, you know, like a hundred button, too.
Marketing: You definitely need {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I used to have a remote that did not even go up past like fifty. {vocalsound} So I couldn't {disfmarker} whenever I got cable, I had to get a new T_V_.
Industrial Designer: It's when we get satellite.
Project Manager: Mm. {gap} get your own remote, or digital cable.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager:'Kay. Um. I guess, we're gonna discuss the project financing later, making sure that we can fit all of the stuff that we want to on our budget. Um.
Industrial Designer: Yeah,'cause I don't have any material pricing information available to me at the moment, so {disfmarker}
Project Manager:'Kay. And don't forget we need to include the colour of our company and the logo.
User Interface: The colour being yellow?
Marketing: Wait.
Project Manager: I'm guessing. And the R_R_.
User Interface: And how do we {disfmarker}
Marketing: I feel like a ye I feel like a yellow one would be too garish.
Industrial Designer: R_ the double R_.
Project Manager: We could just have the logo in yellow,
User Interface: Can't make it entirely {disfmarker}
Project Manager: or maybe a yellow light for the keys.
Industrial Designer: Or is the l
Marketing: Or put like stripes, oh yeah, yellow lights.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, {vocalsound} yellow could be and it could {disfmarker} doesn't have to be huge.
User Interface: Well if you have like a {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Hang on. If you have this sort of strip kind of down at the bottom {gap} the base of it, just like yellow with the R_R_.
Project Manager: Right. So we've simplified, we don't need all those um play, fast-forward, rewind,
User Interface: Right, yeah.
Project Manager: or no menu buttons.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So we've pretty much pared it down to on-off, volume, mute, channel up and down, um the numbers {disfmarker} Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um can we go back to {disfmarker} I'm gonna look really quickly back at those
User Interface: Two examples.
Project Manager: examples and see if there is anything.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Which one is yours, technical functions or functional requirement?
User Interface: Oh, it's a {disfmarker} Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Yeah, audi audio settings and screen settings, we need those like audio settings mono, stereo, pitch, screen settings like brightness, colour, or do we just want that accessed accessed from the television itself?
Project Manager: The T_V_. I think that that's fine just for the T_V_. I mean how often does the average user need to do that kind of stuff?
User Interface: Well, the other option is sort of like down at the bottom, like farther away, you just have this sort of box inset where it's like the buttons that you don't use as much, but occasionally you will use.
Project Manager: Hmm.
User Interface: and so it's like {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah,'cause we need to {disfmarker} we definitely need to have buttons for like sub-titles and things like that. It's'cause the foreign film market is expanding and stuff, and like on television like I know f k living in Los Angeles it's tons of Spanish network television if it has English sub-titles it's definitely helpful.
Project Manager: Couldn't we do that all through one button, something, a menu button, that pops up with a menu on the T_V_ that says, you know, audio, video, whatever, language,
User Interface: I don't {disfmarker} well, I don't know.
Project Manager: you know?
User Interface: Right.
Marketing: So we need up, down, and side-to-side buttons.
Project Manager: For the menus.
User Interface: Well, that could be {disfmarker} No you could just double up with like the channel or the volume buttons.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: That's true.
User Interface: Channel is just up and down.
Marketing: Yeah, okay. Okay, yeah.
User Interface: And then add a {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Something that looks mayb you know.
Marketing: Such as, yeah, the one the one over there on the left the engineering centred one.
Project Manager: Y right, right right right.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: That one?
User Interface: So we just have it like {disfmarker} add a menu button then for the various things needed,
Project Manager: Right.
User Interface: including v voice recognition if we have any like settings for voice recognition now
Project Manager: In the middle perhaps.
User Interface: included in the menu.
Project Manager: Yep.
Marketing: Ooh, I just got an idea for a design.
Project Manager: {gap} good. Anybody have anything else they'd like to bring up in this meeting?
Industrial Designer: I had something, but I forgot.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. {gap} get out of here. Let's go back to the meeting closure then and see what we need to do next. Mm. Alright. After this meeting we're gonna be sent a questionnaire and summary again which we need to reply to that e-mail. And then we're gonna have lunch break. And after lunch thirty minutes of individual work time. Um I'm gonna put the minutes {disfmarker} I put the minutes for the first meeting already in the project documents folder, if you'd like to review them. And I'm gonna type up the minutes for this one as well. Um here's what we're each going to do. The I_D_ is going to work on the components concept, um U_I_D_ the user interface concept, and you're going to do some trend watching.'Kay. Specific instructions will be sent to you by your personal coach. And if anybody has anything they would like to add? No? Okay, well, this meeting is officially over. Thank you all. | One thing they could do was to design a lost-and-found function to accommodate the user's need to retrieve the remote when it was lost. Another way was to give it a modern eye-catching design that could distinguish the new remote from current standard ones. Also, given that speech recognition was an up-and-coming thing among their target group, they could include this function in the remote, allowing users to control their devices by simply speaking to it. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
User Interface: Hi.
Industrial Designer: Hi.
Project Manager: Hello.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Oh.
Project Manager: Good morning.
User Interface: Good morning.
Industrial Designer: Morning.
Marketing: Good morning.
Project Manager: Uh before I start with the with the meeting I have a few things to tell you about the the setting we're in, uh because we're uh being watched by uh Big Brother. So um {disfmarker}
Marketing: By Big Brother?
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: This uh {disfmarker} These are cameras, so are these. This thing uh that looks like a pie,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: are actually all microphones.
Marketing: Yeah. Okay.
Project Manager: So you must be careful with uh with uh all this. And uh as I can see you uh you have placed your laptops uh exactly on the place where it must be. And that has to do with the camera settings, so we don't have our uh laptops in front of the cameras.
Marketing: Of our faces.
Project Manager: And {disfmarker} Indeed. So they can see our faces.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Welcome at the kick-off meeting. My name is uh Danny Wolfs. {vocalsound} Uh this is the agenda for today. Uh first a little opening. Uh I will introduce myself, uh and uh I think it's very uh good to introduce uh yourself. Uh then uh a little bit of acquaintance, acquaintance to uh to to ourselves. So uh we get to know each other. Uh that will be done uh with a tool training from the he these two uh smart boards. Then the project plan. What we're going to do, and how we're going to do it. Uh and discussion about that and a little closing at the end. {vocalsound} Okay uh, my name is uh Danny Wolfs. I'm the Project Manager. What's your name?
User Interface: I'm Juergen Toffs. I'm the User Interface Designer.
Project Manager: User interface, okay.
Industrial Designer: Hi, my name's uh {gap}. I'm the Industrial Designer.
Project Manager: Industrial, yes.
Marketing: I'm uh Tim {gap}. Um my function is the Marketing Expert.
Project Manager: Okay, thank you. First a little about the project aim. Uh the the the aim is to make a new remote control. Uh maybe you have read uh read the website. It's a very uh, yeah, very uh ambitious uh company. They uh they wanna do something else. I w Uh there must be a new remote control. Uh first of all uh it must be original, uh and trendy. That's two things really uh close to each other. But at the same time uh user-friendly. And they have uh {disfmarker} Yeah, that's uh very important uh for them. Uh there are three stages. There is a functional design. So uh what are we going uh to uh to do? What are we going to uh uh make f uh kind of functions in the remote? And why are we going to do it? Then the conceptual design. How are going to do it? {vocalsound} And that's uh really global. Uh because at the detailed design, how, part two, uh we go uh to dig in uh really about how the the te the technical of {disfmarker} If it's uh it's possible technical-wise.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh each stage is uh {vocalsound} uh is broken up in two uh two stages, individual work and a meeting. So it's uh it's very straightforward. {vocalsound} Okay, the tool training. We have two smart boards. {vocalsound} This one is for the presentations, the PowerPoint presentations or the Word presentation of whatever you uh you had. Uh and this is uh only for uh drawing. So uh we uh must let it uh stand on this uh this programme. {vocalsound} This is called a smart board
Marketing: {vocalsound} Speaks for itself.
Project Manager: thing uh {disfmarker} Yeah, it speaks for itself. Um and as you uh may have heard, the documents in the shared folder uh can be uh showed on this screen. Not in y the the My Documents. So if you wanna show something, put it in the shared folder. {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} This uh is {gap} very straightforward, with the save, the print, the undo, the blank, the select, the pen. Well, I don't uh gonna explain it all,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: because I think you know uh how it works. Um we must not forget uh everything we draw on here, uh all must be saved. We we may not delete anything. So uh if you have uh drawn something, save it. Never delete it. That's a very important uh thing.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay. Uh little uh little {vocalsound} kinda exercise to uh know each other.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} At uh the white board on the left. Every uh every one of us uh must draw our favourite animal,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} and uh tell uh tell us why we uh had uh chosen that animal. Uh important is that we use different colours, {vocalsound} and uh different pen widths. Widths. Widths.
Marketing: I have a question.
Project Manager: Yes?
Marketing: Um this exercise, um did the company board tell you to do it,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: or uh did you just make it up yourself?
Project Manager: No no no. It's uh it's uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I I I must do it.
Marketing: It's part of the introduction,
Project Manager: Yeah, yeah, yeah.'Cause we uh really don't know each other,
Marketing: okay.
Project Manager: and uh it's kinda new. So getting used to each other, we can uh have a little fun then, before we uh dig in really to the hard stuff.
Marketing: Okay. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: That kind of thing. Would you start with drawing your uh favourite animal?
Marketing: Um, yeah. I don't know really how it works. But maybe you can show us first?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay, okay. Yeah, okay. Drawing goes with uh this thing. Do not touch your hand on uh this little uh thingy here. That's uh important.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So hold it uh like this.
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: You g you get electrocuted or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, kinda. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So, {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} You must p p uh push a little uh {disfmarker} Good. Because {disfmarker} And uh wait uh wait a few seconds. It's not uh fully real-time, so uh watch it.
User Interface: Ach. {gap}
Project Manager: Oh yeah. Well I'm gonna paint in the red.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh.
User Interface: Ooph.
Project Manager: That's the background colour. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well, undo. Um {disfmarker} The pen? No. One minute please. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, that's the one. Well, five. Okay. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} My favourite animal huh?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: It's like Pictionary? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, you can guess what it is.
Marketing: The the one who says it first {vocalsound} gets a raise.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} May uh paint uh next.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: It's a pork? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} No, it's not an orc. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: You don't see it uh at the ears?
Marketing: Mm yeah, I have it at home. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: You have an orc at home?
User Interface: Very artistic.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Thank you.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So it's a cat. {vocalsound}
Marketing: What's it called?
Project Manager: Simba.'Cause uh we have a cat at home
Marketing: Ah.
Project Manager: and he's called Simba.'Cause he looks like the uh the the lion from The Lion King.
User Interface: Okay. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Miniature size?
Project Manager: So we uh found it kinda cool to uh name it after a lion.
Marketing: Okay. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: He's happy with us, so uh he's smiling.
User Interface: Wow. He does have body uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Huh.
Project Manager: No, only the face. Because we have we have twen twenty five minutes. So we uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Okay. We have to speed up.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Remember you use uh different colours, and different pen widths.
Project Manager: Yeah. Okay, who wants to go next?
Marketing: I {disfmarker} Okay.
Project Manager: Yeah?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So choose a colour, choose a pen width and draw a {disfmarker}
User Interface: You don't have to change the colour and the pen width during uh the drawing.
Marketing: Save it.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Or {disfmarker}
Marketing: You have to save it.
Project Manager: Save it, okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I've done it. New?'Kay.
User Interface: You have to draw uh push hard on the pen or uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm uh {disfmarker} Not really.
Project Manager: Kind of firm touch.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: That one.
User Interface: Oh. Uh hmm.
Marketing: Yeah? Okay. Open. Which one is it? Smart board?
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay. And now? Okay. Okay, thanks.'Kay, I've speed up.'Kay, that's fine. Line width.
Industrial Designer: By the way, why was your cat uh red?
Project Manager: Because uh my cat is red uh at home.
User Interface: Oh.
Industrial Designer: Oh, okay. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And I have red hair, so uh must be red.
User Interface: It's a very bloody cat.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh, yeah, sure.
User Interface: It's a frog. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: No, it's a turtle. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh it's an apple. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} It's not an apple.
Industrial Designer: Must be a dog. {vocalsound}
User Interface: A dog? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Hmm. Colour. {vocalsound} Something like this. Smaller.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Huh?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Oh, it is a turtle.
Project Manager: It is a turtle. Why a turtle? Why? Tim?
Marketing: Um {disfmarker}'Cause I liked Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} You watched it a lot?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh?
Project Manager: You watched it a lot?
User Interface: It's uh inside its shell. You'll be uh finished sooner.
Marketing: No, it's uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: It's a scared turtle.
Marketing: No no. {vocalsound} It's coming up. Mm. Uh.
User Interface: Wow.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay, Tim. Thank you. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Something like this. {vocalsound} Okay, you know {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Very artistic.
Project Manager: Jurgen, you want to go next?
User Interface: Yes {gap}. Okay. Wha Thank you.
Marketing: Yeah? Here you go.
User Interface: Yeah. Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: How did it work?
Project Manager: Format? And then you have the the current colour,
User Interface: Performance?
Project Manager: you can change. So no red or green.
User Interface: And a pen?
Project Manager: And uh line uh width. I had five.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Tim had {disfmarker} Uh Tim, what kinda line width did you have?
User Interface: Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: Uh the big lines were like nine.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay. It's a dog.
User Interface: Well, very good. {vocalsound} I just uh thought I'd pick the easiest one.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh.
Project Manager: Okay. Why a dog? You have a dog at home?
User Interface: Well, we had a dog, a few years ago.
Project Manager: Had a dog?
Marketing: Uh, it's p
Project Manager: Yeah?
User Interface: And and it, {gap} yeah, when it died we didn't get a new one or something.
Project Manager: Ah.
User Interface: But uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: It's pretty good uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: You have an artistic uh inner middle.
Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} An artist.
Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh a Graphical User Designer, so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
User Interface: Hey.
Marketing: Think you uh picked the wrong uh function. Wrong job.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: No. Can work together. Ah colour.
Project Manager: So I think you can see it's real uh really a easy programme to use. Not difficult at all.
Marketing: Wha
User Interface: {vocalsound} Well,
Project Manager: Okay,
User Interface: it's okay {gap}.
Project Manager: thank you. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} That's enough,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: thanks. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Janus? The last one?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, sure.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Uh thanks.
Marketing: I wonder.
Project Manager: Yeah. After a cat, a turtle and a dog.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I think he's gonna draw an elephant. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I figure I should do something like that,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: but I'm gonna do something much more difficult.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh-oh.
User Interface: Uh-oh. Oh, he is the artistic {gap} design.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I'm gonna design a remote uh {vocalsound} remote control animal. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Remote control animal.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Exactly. Uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Sorry.
User Interface: Well with the interface, it might be easier to ha to draw here and display there uh.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: {gap}
Marketing: That that might be easier. But at the other hand, uh a pen like that is easy to hold in your hand, and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: No.
Marketing: I think it's easier to draw.
Project Manager: Better to draw with a with {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah. With a pen than with a mouse mouse.
User Interface: Than on the, with {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah, I m I mean like uh like on here, drawing drawing uh. And then displaying on screen, but {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mouth. Oh, okay. Yeah. W with this paper it's too mu too expensive. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But what is he uh?
User Interface: Too expensive, yeah.
Project Manager: Is it a rabbit?
Industrial Designer: Yes. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Do you have a rabbit at home?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: No.
Marketing: It's a rabbit with uh broken legs? {vocalsound}
User Interface: A green rabbit.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Is it a white rabbit f It's the white rabbit from The Matrix.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, exactly. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, then yeah.
User Interface: There, the g white green rabbit.
Industrial Designer: So.
User Interface: {vocalsound} He's a little bit stoned there. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh I figured this is a pretty b good impression of a rabbit.
Marketing: Yeah. It will do.
Industrial Designer: Uh uh {disfmarker} Uh well.
Project Manager: Okay. Finishing touch and then we're going further.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Project Manager? Uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah?
Industrial Designer: Where does the pen go? Just uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Have you been uh counting the time?
Project Manager: Yeah, a little. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay. Let's go on then.
Project Manager: Well, I think the dog is the the most uh artistic.
Industrial Designer: Uh I figured the rabbit was actually the most uh impressive. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Don't choose for youself.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh, sorry. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: That's selfish. Okay, now we're gonna dig into the to the serious stuff.
Marketing: It's pretty abstract.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh the selling price for the remote will be uh twenty five Euro, and the production cost uh may not be more than uh twenty and a half Euro. So uh from my point of view, I don't think it's uh gonna be very uh very high tech, high definition, uh ultra modern uh kinda remote, for twelve uh fift uh twelve and a half Euro.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh the profit we must make with uh the new remote is uh fifty million Euro. So that's a lot. We have to sell uh a lot of uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, how much is it?
Marketing: Like how much?
User Interface: Hundred million uh remotes or something?
Project Manager: Uh I think uh w when the selling price is twenty five, uh uh you got two million, two million remotes.
User Interface: Oh yeah.
Industrial Designer: Twenty million. Two million, oh yeah, two million. Yeah.
Project Manager: But our marketing range is uh, market range is international. So we have uh virtually the whole world we can sell uh we can sell our r remotes to. At least that uh countries which have uh a television.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} So now it's time uh for us to uh going uh to discuss a little uh things. You can think about uh experience with a remote control uh yourself, at home. What you think might be uh a useful uh new feature. What uh what can distinguish our new trendy remote control from all the others. Um so uh let's uh let's uh discuss a little. I'm gonna join you at the table. {vocalsound} Well what what's the most uh important thing at a remote control?
User Interface: Um well I think the most important thing of a remote control is that you can switch channels. And my opinion is you should keep it as basic as possible. Uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay. So not a not a remote control who uh uh which can uh can be used for television and a D_V_D_ and radio and {disfmarker} Or just only {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah. I think so. Uh but I have some points. Can I show them on the on the big screen? Maybe?
Project Manager: If you have them on uh {disfmarker} I can uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah, I can find {disfmarker} Uh.
Project Manager: Okay. Oh, in case you want it {disfmarker} This is a dead kind of fly. Between the the the, yeah, the the uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Screen?
Project Manager: Yeah, be The screens.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Is it possible to open pen drawings in this uh on this screen?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} No no no. Only {disfmarker} All the drawings go there, at the left uh {disfmarker} {gap}
User Interface: Uh but um which {disfmarker} The ones we made on the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh, that pen drawings. Uh no, I think uh when it is uh in Word and you have saved it in the Shared Documents folder, you can show it there.
User Interface: Oh, only in Word,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: okay.
Marketing: Okay, I have some uh points from marketing point of view.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Um just the standard thing li things like uh intuitive, uh small, fairly cheap. Uh it's pretty cheap, twenty five Euros. Uh brand independent. Um I think, it doesn't have to matter uh which brand your T_V_ or other thing is. Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. Okay. Five minutes.
Marketing: Five minutes?
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay, I'll wrap it up quickly. Um I personally think it has to be multi-purpose.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Uh most of the remote c uh remote controls are uh just for one purpose.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: And uh by making it multi-purpose, it uh has a new feature, adds a new feature to the market, and distinguish from uh from current products.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Um maybe some other technology than infrared. Uh I rather find it very annoying um, like when someone is standing in front of the T_V_ then you can't switch it. Um {vocalsound} think about um sending it over radio waves or bluetooth.
Project Manager: Okay. Okay.
Marketing: That might be a little bit uh expensive. Um {disfmarker} And something like an L_C_D_ screen.
User Interface: For what purpose?
Marketing: Um uh like I said here um {disfmarker} Maybe it's easy. It's nice as an added feature feature, that um, {vocalsound} when you're on a certain channel, you can see on the L_C_D_ screen uh what programmes are coming up or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay. So it be uh a multi-purpose uh very technically uh high uh
Marketing: From my point of view, yeah.
Project Manager: remote? Yeah, it must be really uh innovative, technical-wise?
Marketing: Yeah, it has to be uh {disfmarker} Yeah, our company is very uh good in making new innovative uh things.
Project Manager: Yeah. So yeah, I I agree with you.
User Interface: {vocalsound} We {disfmarker}
Marketing: So i i i i
Project Manager: So we must focus on things who are really uh really add something to uh to {disfmarker}
Marketing: To the current market.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Look, {vocalsound} you got some cheap uh remote controls there. They just uh {disfmarker} Yeah, you got a dozen of'em.
Project Manager: No.
Marketing: But when you enter a new market with a remote control and
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: uh wanna gain market share
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: you have to do something special, I think.
Project Manager: Yeah. But we have to keep an eye that it's {disfmarker} Uh at the beginning of such a project, it's it's it's very uh cool to talk about, well, this would be cool, that would be cool.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh but we must not uh lose uh sight of the the user uh uh friendly uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, of course.
User Interface: And and the price. {gap}
Marketing: But it's {disfmarker} But but this is just from marketing uh aspect.
Project Manager: Yeah okay. Yeah. Okay.
Marketing: I don't know anything about user interface or {vocalsound} design.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: {gap} And that's because we have him. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And and him. {vocalsound}
User Interface: And him. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, uh next meeting will start in thirty minutes. So uh you uh will have uh individual actions where I presume uh will be some feedback, uh via the m the mail. Um {vocalsound} the the the Industrial uh Designer has to uh look at the working design. {vocalsound} Uh the User Interface Designer has to look at the technical functions. So that's the thing we uh discussed.
User Interface: Yeah. Um one thing uh,
Project Manager: Yeah?
User Interface: we must first agree on uh what we're going to m going to make. Do we {disfmarker} Are we going to use um it it for multiple systems? Or uh {disfmarker} We should have some agreement on that before we {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay. Um wha
Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm uh I I don't think we have to be, we have to agree on that. Uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I figure we could get back to it on the next meeting actually.
Marketing: I think th that's a pha Yeah.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: That's a phase further.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Ju just uh make some mock-ups, some some general ideas.
User Interface: Ah okay.
Marketing: And and then we can plan {disfmarker} Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: We can plan further, I think.
Project Manager: Yeah. But maybe, because uh you are working on the user requirements, you are working on the technical functions, we uh must uh have a little or kinda uh uh uh {disfmarker} How do you call it? Uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Consensus on the, what we're gonna do.
Project Manager: Uh a little plan on on what we're going to do. So you don't uh uh come up with the user requirements who don't fit the the the the technical functions at all. Some basic things we co we want to going to do. Uh I think that's well uh {disfmarker} Yeah. Will come in handy.
Marketing: Mm yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I don't know. You decide. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: You're the Project Manager.
Project Manager: W {vocalsound} He says {disfmarker}
User Interface: if the technical functions have to be designed, I I've gotta know for what kind of machines they will be.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Or do we use it a text screen? Or uh will it be with uh with bluetooth or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well, th that's that's really a step further. But if you say uh {vocalsound} is it uh uh one way or multi-purpose, that's a {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay. Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Uh tha that's a same step further.
Project Manager: Why?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, actually it is.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Why?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Then looking at individual components,
Marketing: Uh.
Industrial Designer: so that's actually a f step further.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Like we all have a list of uh things that has to b that have to be in it, or how it has to be like. And then in the next meeting we decide
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, we can take it from there.
Marketing: w what it's gonna be.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, I agree uh, we can take it from there.
Marketing: A And then you s then you can delete uh
Industrial Designer: Or edit.
Marketing: the o the obsolete uh details.
Project Manager: Okay. So uh
Marketing: I think.
Project Manager: each individually i individually uh must think on what's uh at uh his point of view is the most important. And uh then we're going to fit uh all the pieces together the next meeting.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: I must finish off now,
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: so it's over. You uh will receive specific specific instructions uh by your personal coach. And I see you in uh thirty minutes. Thank you.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Okay, cheers.
User Interface: Sorry.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Be careful.
Marketing: Damn.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Success? {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. No. Come up. | Project Manager gave a brief introduction of the new remote control project for television sets. During team building, team members got to know each other by drawing their favorite animals with technical devices. When it came to the financial targets, Project Manager planned that the remote control would be priced at 25 Euros on the premise of the 12. 5-Euro production cost, and the profit is targeted at 50 million Euros. The market range would be international. Then, ideas about new technical features of the remote control were proposed, such as radio waves and bluetooth, in order to distinguish the product from current ones. Finally, some general arrangements for the next meeting about user requirements and technical functions were made by Project Manager and each team member was required to think on the most important thing from their own point of view. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting
Grad C: Yeah, we had a long discussion about how much w how easy we want to make it for people to bleep things out. So {disfmarker} Morgan wants to make it hard.
PhD D: It {disfmarker} it doesn't {disfmarker}
Grad C: Did {disfmarker} did {disfmarker} did it {disfmarker}? I didn't even check yesterday whether it was moving.
PhD D: It didn't move yesterday either when I started it.
Grad C: So.
PhD D: So I don't know if it doesn't like both of us {disfmarker}
Grad C: Channel three? Channel three?
PhD D: You know, I discovered something yesterday on these, um, wireless ones.
Grad B: Channel two.
Grad C: Mm - hmm?
PhD D: You can tell if it's picking up {pause} breath noise and stuff.
Grad C: Yeah, it has a little indicator on it {disfmarker} on the AF.
PhD D: Mm - hmm. So if you {disfmarker} yeah, if you breathe under {disfmarker} breathe and then you see AF go off, then you know {pause} it's p picking up your mouth noise.
PhD F: Oh, that's good. Cuz we have a lot of breath noises.
Grad C: Yep. Test.
PhD F: In fact, if you listen to just the channels of people not talking, it's like" @ @" . It's very disgust
Grad C: What? Did you see Hannibal recently or something?
PhD F: Sorry. Exactly. It's very disconcerting. OK. So, um,
Grad C:
PhD F: I was gonna try to get out of here, like, in half an hour, um, cuz I really appreciate people coming, and {vocalsound} the main thing that I was gonna ask people to help with today is {pause} to give input on what kinds of database format we should {pause} use in starting to link up things like word transcripts and annotations of word transcripts, so anything that transcribers or discourse coders or whatever put in the signal, {vocalsound} with time - marks for, like, words and phone boundaries and all the stuff we get out of the forced alignments and the recognizer. So, we have this, um {disfmarker} I think a starting point is clearly the {disfmarker} the channelized {pause} output of Dave Gelbart's program, which Don brought a copy of,
Grad C: Yeah. Yeah, I'm {disfmarker} I'm familiar with that. I mean, we {disfmarker} I sort of already have developed an XML format for this sort of stuff.
PhD F: um, which {disfmarker}
PhD D: Can I see it?
Grad C: And so the only question {disfmarker} is it the sort of thing that you want to use or not? Have you looked at that? I mean, I had a web page up.
PhD F: Right. So,
Grad C: So {disfmarker}
PhD F: I actually mostly need to be able to link up, or {disfmarker} I it's {disfmarker} it's a question both of what the representation is and {disfmarker}
Grad C: You mean, this {disfmarker} I guess I am gonna be standing up and drawing on the board.
PhD F: OK, yeah. So you should, definitely.
Grad C: Um, so {disfmarker} so it definitely had that as a concept. So tha it has a single time - line,
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: and then you can have lots of different sections, each of which have I Ds attached to it, and then you can refer from other sections to those I Ds, if you want to. So that, um {disfmarker} so that you start with {disfmarker} with a time - line tag." Time - line" . And then you have a bunch of times. I don't e I don't remember exactly what my notation was,
PhD A: Oh, I remember seeing an example of this.
Grad C: but it {disfmarker}
PhD F: Right, right.
PhD A: Yeah.
Grad C: Yeah," T equals one point three two" , uh {disfmarker} And then I {disfmarker} I also had optional things like accuracy, and then" ID equals T one, uh, one seven" . And then, {nonvocalsound} I also wanted to {disfmarker} to be i to be able to not specify specifically what the time was and just have a stamp.
PhD F: Right.
Grad C: Yeah, so these are arbitrary, assigned by a program, not {disfmarker} not by a user. So you have a whole bunch of those. And then somewhere la further down you might have something like an utterance tag which has" start equals T - seventeen, end equals T - eighteen" . So what that's saying is, we know it starts at this particular time. We don't know when it ends.
PhD F: OK.
Grad C: Right? But it ends at this T - eighteen, which may be somewhere else. We say there's another utterance. We don't know what the t time actually is but we know that it's the same time as this end time.
PhD A: Mmm.
Grad C: You know, thirty - eight, whatever you want.
PhD A: So you're essentially defining a lattice.
Grad C: OK. Yes, exactly.
PhD A: Yeah.
Grad C: And then, uh {disfmarker} and then these also have I Ds. Right? So you could {disfmarker} you could have some sort of other {disfmarker} other tag later in the file that would be something like, um, oh, I don't know, {comment} uh, {nonvocalsound}" noise - type equals {nonvocalsound} door - slam" . You know? And then, uh, {nonvocalsound} you could either say" time equals a particular time - mark" or you could do other sorts of references. So {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or you might have a prosody {disfmarker}" Prosody" right? D? T? D? T? T?
PhD F: It's an O instead of an I, but the D is good.
Grad C: You like the D? That's a good D.
PhD F: Yeah.
Grad C: Um, you know, so you could have some sort of type here, and then you could have, um {disfmarker} the utterance that it's referring to could be U - seventeen or something like that.
PhD F: OK. So, I mean, that seems {disfmarker} that seems g great for all of the encoding of things with time and,
Grad C: Oh, well.
PhD F: um {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I guess my question is more, uh, what d what do you do with, say, a forced alignment?
PhD A: How - how
PhD F: I mean you've got all these phone labels, and what do you do if you {disfmarker} just conceptually, if you get, um, transcriptions where the words are staying but the time boundaries are changing, cuz you've got a new recognition output, or s sort of {disfmarker} what's the, um, sequence of going from the waveforms that stay the same, the transcripts that may or may not change, and then the utterance which {disfmarker} where the time boundaries that may or may not change {disfmarker}?
PhD A: Oh, that's {disfmarker} That's actually very nicely handled here because you could {disfmarker} you could {disfmarker} all you'd have to change is the, {vocalsound} um, time - stamps in the time - line without {disfmarker} without, uh, changing the I Ds.
PhD F: Um. And you'd be able to propagate all of the {disfmarker} the information?
Grad C: Right. That's, the who that's why you do that extra level of indirection. So that you can just change the time - line.
PhD A: Except the time - line is gonna be huge. If you say {disfmarker}
Grad C: Yes.
PhD F: Yeah,
PhD A: suppose you have a phone - level alignment.
PhD F: yeah, especially at the phone - level.
PhD A: You'd have {disfmarker} you'd have {disfmarker}
PhD F: The {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we have phone - level backtraces.
Grad C: Yeah, this {disfmarker} I don't think I would do this for phone - level. I think for phone - level you want to use some sort of binary representation
PhD F: Um {disfmarker}
Grad C: because it'll be too dense otherwise.
PhD F: OK. So, if you were doing that and you had this sort of companion, uh, thing that gets called up for phone - level, uh, what would that look like?
PhD A: Why
Grad C: I would use just an existing {disfmarker} an existing way of doing it.
PhD F: How would you {disfmarker}?
PhD A: Mmm. But {disfmarker} but why not use it for phone - level?
PhD F: H h
PhD A: It's just a matter of {disfmarker} it's just a matter of it being bigger. But if you have {disfmarker} you know, barring memory limitations, or uh {disfmarker} I w I mean this is still the m
Grad C: It's parsing limitations. I don't want to have this text file that you have to read in the whole thing to do something very simple for.
PhD A: Oh, no. You would use it only {pause} for {pause} purposes where you actually want the phone - level information, I'd imagine.
PhD F: So you could have some file that configures how much information you want in your {disfmarker} in your XML or something.
Grad C: Right. I mean, you'd {disfmarker} y
PhD F: Um,
PhD A: You {disfmarker}
Grad C: I {disfmarker} I am imagining you'd have multiple versions of this depending on the information that you want.
PhD F: cuz th it does get very bush with {disfmarker} Right.
Grad C: Um, I'm just {disfmarker} what I'm wondering is whether {disfmarker} I think for word - level, this would be OK.
PhD F: Yeah.
Grad C: For word - level, it's alright.
PhD F: Yeah. Definitely.
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: For lower than word - level, you're talking about so much data that I just {disfmarker} I don't know. I don't know if that {disfmarker}
PhD F: I mean, we actually have {disfmarker} So, one thing that Don is doing, is we're {disfmarker} we're running {disfmarker} For every frame, you get a pitch value,
PhD D: Lattices are big, too.
PhD F: and not only one pitch value but different kinds of pitch values
Grad C: Yeah, I mean, for something like that I would use P - file
PhD F: depending on {disfmarker}
Grad C: or {disfmarker} or any frame - level stuff I would use P - file.
PhD F: Meaning {disfmarker}?
Grad C: Uh, that's a {disfmarker} well, or something like it. It's ICS uh, ICSI has a format for frame - level representation of features. Um.
PhD F: OK. That you could call {disfmarker} that you would tie into this representation with like an ID.
Grad C: Right. Right. Or {disfmarker} or there's a {disfmarker} there's a particular way in XML to refer to external resources.
PhD F: And {disfmarker} OK.
Grad C: So you would say" refer to this external file" . Um, so that external file wouldn't be in {disfmarker}
PhD F: So that might {disfmarker} that might work.
PhD D: But what {disfmarker} what's the advantage of doing that versus just putting it into this format?
Grad C: More compact, which I think is {disfmarker} is better.
PhD D: Uh - huh.
Grad C: I mean, if you did it at this {disfmarker}
PhD F: I mean these are long meetings and with {disfmarker} for every frame,
Grad C: You don't want to do it with that {disfmarker} Anything at frame - level you had better encode binary
PhD F: um {disfmarker}
Grad C: or it's gonna be really painful.
PhD A: Or you just compre I mean, I like text formats. Um, b you can always, uh, G - zip them, and, um, you know, c decompress them on the fly if y if space is really a concern.
PhD D: Yeah, I was thi I was thinking the advantage is that we can share this with other people.
Grad C: Well, but if you're talking about one per frame, you're talking about gigabyte - size files. You're gonna actually run out of space in your filesystem for one file.
PhD F: These are big files. These are really {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker}
Grad C: Right? Because you have a two - gigabyte limit on most O Ss.
PhD A: Right, OK. I would say {disfmarker} OK, so frame - level is probably not a good idea. But for phone - level stuff it's perfectly {disfmarker}
PhD F: And th it's {disfmarker}
PhD A: Like phones, or syllables, or anything like that.
PhD F: Phones are every five frames though, so. Or something like that.
PhD A: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but most of the frames are actually not speech. So, you know, people don't {disfmarker} v Look at it, words times the average {disfmarker} The average number of phones in an English word is, I don't know, {comment} five maybe?
PhD F: Yeah, but we actually {disfmarker}
PhD A: So, look at it, t number of words times five. That's not {disfmarker} that not {disfmarker}
PhD F: Oh, so you mean pause phones take up a lot of the {disfmarker} long pause phones.
PhD A: Exactly.
Grad C: Yep.
PhD A: Yeah.
PhD F: Yeah. OK. That's true. But you do have to keep them in there. Y yeah.
Grad C: So I think it {disfmarker} it's debatable whether you want to do phone - level in the same thing.
PhD F: OK.
Grad C: But I think, a anything at frame - level, even P - file, is too verbose.
PhD F: OK. So {disfmarker}
Grad C: I would use something tighter than P - files.
PhD F: Do you {disfmarker} Are you familiar with it?
Grad C: So.
PhD F: I haven't seen this particular format,
PhD A: I mean, I've {disfmarker} I've used them.
PhD F: but {disfmarker}
PhD A: I don't know what their structure is.
PhD F: OK.
PhD A: I've forgot what the str
PhD D: But, wait a minute, P - file for each frame is storing a vector of cepstral or PLP values,
Grad C: It's whatever you want, actually.
PhD D: right? Right.
Grad C: So that {disfmarker} what's nice about the P - file {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} i Built into it is the concept of {pause} frames, utterances, sentences, that sort of thing, that structure. And then also attached to it is an arbitrary vector of values. And it can take different types.
PhD F: Oh.
Grad C: So it {disfmarker} th they don't all have to be floats. You know, you can have integers and you can have doubles, and all that sort of stuff.
PhD F: So that {disfmarker} that sounds {disfmarker} that sounds about what I w
Grad C: Um. Right? And it has a header {disfmarker} it has a header format that {pause} describes it {pause} to some extent. So, the only problem with it is it's actually storing the {pause} utterance numbers and the {pause} frame numbers in the file, even though they're always sequential. And so it does waste a lot of space.
PhD A: Hmm.
Grad C: But it's still a lot tighter than {disfmarker} than ASCII. And we have a lot of tools already to deal with it.
PhD F: You do? OK. Is there some documentation on this somewhere?
Grad C: Yeah, there's a ton of it. Man - pages and, uh, source code, and me.
PhD F: OK, great. So, I mean, that sounds good. I {disfmarker} I was just looking for something {disfmarker} I'm not a database person, but something sort of standard enough that, you know, if we start using this we can give it out, other people can work on it,
Grad C: Yeah, it's not standard.
PhD F: or {disfmarker} {comment} Is it {disfmarker}?
Grad C: I mean, it's something that we developed at ICSI. But, uh {disfmarker}
PhD F: But it's {pause} been used here
Grad C: But it's been used here
PhD F: and people've {disfmarker}
Grad C: and {disfmarker} and, you know, we have a {pause} well - configured system that you can distribute for free, and {disfmarker}
PhD D: I mean, it must be the equivalent of whatever you guys used to store feat your computed features in, right?
PhD F: OK.
PhD A: Yeah, th we have {disfmarker} Actually, we {disfmarker} we use a generalization of the {disfmarker} the Sphere format.
PhD D: Mmm.
PhD A: Um, but {disfmarker} Yeah, so there is something like that but it's, um, probably not as sophist
Grad C: Well, what does H T K do for features?
PhD D: And I think there's {disfmarker}
Grad C: Or does it even have a concept of features?
PhD A: They ha it has its own {disfmarker} I mean, Entropic has their own feature format that's called, like, S - SD or some so SF or something like that.
PhD F: Yeah.
Grad C: I'm just wondering, would it be worth while to use that instead?
PhD D: Yeah.
PhD A: Hmm?
PhD F: Yeah. Th - this is exactly the kind of decision {disfmarker} It's just whatever {disfmarker}
PhD D: But, I mean, people don't typically share this kind of stuff, right?
PhD A: Right.
Grad C: They generate their own.
PhD D: I mean {disfmarker} Yeah.
PhD F: Actually, I {disfmarker} I just {disfmarker} you know, we {disfmarker} we've done this stuff on prosodics and three or four places have asked for those prosodic files, and we just have an ASCII, uh, output of frame - by - frame.
Grad C: Ah, right.
PhD F: Which is fine, but it gets unwieldy to go in and {disfmarker} and query these files with really huge files.
Grad C: Right.
PhD F: I mean, we could do it. I was just thinking if there's something that {disfmarker} where all the frame values are {disfmarker}
Grad C: And a and again, if you have a {disfmarker} if you have a two - hour - long meeting, that's gonna {disfmarker}
PhD F: Hmm? They're {disfmarker} they're fair they're quite large.
Grad C: Yeah, I mean, they'd be emo enormous.
PhD F: And these are for ten - minute Switchboard conversations,
Grad C: Right.
PhD F: and {disfmarker} So it's doable, it's just that you can only store a feature vector at frame - by - frame and it doesn't have any kind of,
PhD D: Is {disfmarker} is the sharing part of this a pretty important {pause} consideration
PhD F: um {disfmarker}
PhD D: or does that just sort of, uh {disfmarker} a nice thing to have?
PhD F: I {disfmarker} I don't know enough about what we're gonna do with the data. But I thought it would be good to get something that we can {disfmarker} that other people can use or adopt for their own kinds of encoding. And just, I mean we have to use some we have to make some decision about what to do.
Grad C: Yeah.
PhD F: And especially for the prosody work, what {disfmarker} what it ends up being is you get features from the signal, and of course those change every time your alignments change. So you re - run a recognizer, you want to recompute your features, um, and then keep the database up to date.
Grad C: Right.
PhD F: Or you change a word, or you change a {vocalsound} utterance boundary segment, which is gonna happen a lot. And so I wanted something where {pause} all of this can be done in a elegant way and that if somebody wants to try something or compute something else, that it can be done flexibly. Um, it doesn't have to be pretty, it just has to be, you know, easy to use, and {disfmarker}
Grad C: Yeah, the other thing {disfmarker} We should look at ATLAS, the NIST thing,
PhD F: Oh.
PhD A: Mmm.
Grad C: and see if they have anything at that level.
PhD F: Uh {disfmarker}
Grad C: I mean, I'm not sure what to do about this with ATLAS, because they chose a different route. I chose something that {disfmarker} Th - there are sort of two choices. Your {disfmarker} your file format can know about {disfmarker} know that you're talking about language {pause} and speech, which is what I chose, and time, or your file format can just be a graph representation. And then the application has to impose the structure on top. So what it looked like ATLAS chose is, they chose the other way, which was their file format is just nodes and links, and you have to interpret what they mean yourself.
PhD F: And why did you not choose that type of approach?
Grad C: Uh, because I knew that we were doing speech, and I thought it was better if you're looking at a raw file to be {disfmarker} t for the tags to say" it's an utterance" , as opposed to the tag to say" it's a link" .
PhD F: OK. OK.
Grad C: So, but {disfmarker}
PhD F: But other than that, are they compatible? I mean, you could sort of {disfmarker}
Grad C: Yeah, they're reasonably compatible.
PhD F: I mean, you {disfmarker} you could {disfmarker}
PhD D: You could probably translate between them.
Grad C: Yep.
PhD F: Yeah, that's w So,
Grad C: So, well, the other thing is if we choose to use ATLAS, which maybe we should just do, we should just throw this out before we invest a lot of time in it.
PhD F: OK. I don't {disfmarker} So this is what the meeting's about,
Grad C: Yeah.
PhD F: just sort of how to {disfmarker} Um, cuz we need to come up with a database like this just to do our work. And I actually don't care, as long as it's something useful to other people, what we choose.
Grad C: Yeah.
PhD F: So maybe it's {disfmarker} maybe oth you know, if {disfmarker} if you have any idea of how to choose, cuz I don't.
Grad C: The only thing {disfmarker} Yeah.
PhD A: Do they already have tools?
Grad C: I mean, I {disfmarker} I chose this for a couple reasons. One of them is that it's easy to parse. You don't need a full XML parser. It's very easy to just write a Perl script {pause} to parse it.
PhD A: As long as uh each tag is on one line.
Grad C: Exactly. Exactly. Which I always do.
PhD F: And you can have as much information in the tag as you want, right?
Grad C: Well, I have it structured. Right? So each type tag has only particular items that it can take.
PhD F: Can you {disfmarker} But you can add to those structures if you {disfmarker}
Grad C: Sure. If you have more information. So what {disfmarker} What NIST would say is that instead of doing this, you would say something like" link {nonvocalsound} start equals, um, you know, some node ID,
PhD F: Yeah. So {disfmarker}
Grad C: end equals some other node ID" , and then" type" would be" utterance" .
PhD A: Hmm.
Grad C: You know, so it's very similar.
PhD F: So why would it be a {disfmarker} a waste to do it this way if it's similar enough that we can always translate it?
PhD D: It probably wouldn't be a waste. It would mean that at some point if we wanted to switch, we'd just have to translate everything.
Grad C: Write a translator. But it se Since they are developing a big {disfmarker}
PhD F: But it {disfmarker} but that sounds {disfmarker}
PhD D: But that's {disfmarker} I don't think that's a big deal.
PhD F: As long as it is {disfmarker}
Grad C: they're developing a big infrastructure. And so it seems to me that if {disfmarker} if we want to use that, we might as well go directly to what they're doing, rather than {disfmarker}
PhD A: If we want to {disfmarker} Do they already have something that's {disfmarker} that would be useful for us in place?
PhD D: Yeah. See, that's the question. I mean, how stable is their {disfmarker} Are they ready to go,
Grad C: The {disfmarker} I looked at it {disfmarker}
PhD D: or {disfmarker}?
Grad C: The last time I looked at it was a while ago, probably a year ago, uh, when we first started talking about this.
PhD D: Hmm.
Grad C: And at that time at least {vocalsound} it was still not very {pause} complete. And so, specifically they didn't have any external format representation at that time. They just had the sort of conceptual {pause} node {disfmarker} uh, annotated transcription graph, which I really liked. And that's exactly what this stuff is based on. Since then, they've developed their own external file format, which is, uh, you know, this sort of s this sort of thing. Um, and apparently they've also developed a lot of tools, but I haven't looked at them. Maybe I should.
PhD A: We should {disfmarker} we should find out.
PhD F: I mean, would the tools {disfmarker} would the tools run on something like this, if you can translate them anyway?
Grad C: Um, th what would {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} what would worry me is that maybe we might miss a little detail
PhD A: It's a hassle
PhD F: I mean, that {disfmarker} I guess it's a question that {disfmarker}
PhD A: if {disfmarker}
PhD F: uh, yeah.
Grad C: that would make it very difficult to translate from one to the other.
PhD F: OK.
PhD A: I {disfmarker} I think if it's conceptually close, and they already have or will have tools that everybody else will be using, I mean, {vocalsound} it would be crazy to do something s you know, separate that {disfmarker}
PhD F: OK.
Grad C: Yeah, we might as well. Yep.
PhD F: Yeah.
Grad C: So I'll {disfmarker} I'll take a closer look at it.
PhD F: Actually, so it's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that would really be the question, is just what you would feel is in the long run the best thing.
Grad C: And {disfmarker} Right.
PhD F: Cuz {vocalsound} once we start, sort of, doing this I don't {disfmarker} we don't actually have enough time to probably have to rehash it out again
Grad C: The {disfmarker} Yep. The other thing {disfmarker} the other way that I sort of established this was as easy translation to and from the Transcriber format.
PhD F: and {disfmarker} s Right.
Grad C: Um,
PhD F: Right.
Grad C: but {disfmarker}
PhD F: I mean, I like this. This is sort of intuitively easy to actually r read,
Grad C: Yep.
PhD F: as easy it could {disfmarker} as it could be. But, I suppose that {pause} as long as they have a type here that specifies" utt" , um,
Grad C: It's almost the same.
PhD F: it's {disfmarker} yeah, close enough that {disfmarker}
Grad C: The {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the point is {disfmarker} with this, though, is that you can't really add any supplementary information. Right? So if you suddenly decide that you want {disfmarker}
PhD F: You have to make a different type.
Grad C: Yeah. You'd have to make a different type.
PhD F: So {disfmarker} Well, if you look at it and {disfmarker} Um, I guess in my mind I don't know enough {disfmarker} Jane would know better, {comment} about the {pause} types of annotations and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} But I imagine that those are things that would {disfmarker} well, you guys mentioned this, {comment} that could span any {disfmarker} it could be in its own channel, it could span time boundaries of any type,
Grad C: Right.
PhD F: it could be instantaneous, things like that. Um, and then from the recognition side we have backtraces at the phone - level.
Grad C: Right.
PhD F: If {disfmarker} if it can handle that, it could handle states or whatever. And then at the prosody - level we have frame {disfmarker} sort of like cepstral feature files,
Grad C: Yep.
PhD F: uh, like these P - files or anything like that. And that's sort of the world of things that I {disfmarker} And then we have the aligned channels, of course,
Grad C: Right.
PhD A: It seems to me you want to keep the frame - level stuff separate.
PhD F: and {disfmarker} Yeah.
PhD A: And then {disfmarker}
PhD F: I {disfmarker} I definitely agree and I wanted to find actually a f a nicer format or a {disfmarker} maybe a more compact format than what we used before.
Grad C: Right.
PhD F: Just cuz you've got {vocalsound} ten channels or whatever and two hours of a meeting. It's {disfmarker} it's a lot of {disfmarker}
Grad C: Huge.
PhD A: Now {disfmarker} now how would you {disfmarker} how would you represent, um, multiple speakers in this framework? Were {disfmarker} You would just represent them as {disfmarker}
Grad C: Um,
PhD A: You would have like a speaker tag or something?
Grad C: there's a spea speaker tag up at the top which identifies them and then each utt the way I had it is each turn or each utterance, {comment} I don't even remember now, had a speaker ID tag attached to it.
PhD A: Mm - hmm. OK.
Grad C: And in this format you would have a different tag, which {disfmarker} which would, uh, be linked to the link. So {disfmarker} so somewhere else you would have another thing {pause} that would be,
PhD F: Yeah.
Grad C: um {disfmarker} Let's see, would it be a node or a link? Um {disfmarker} And so {disfmarker} so this one would have, um, an ID is link {disfmarker} {comment} link seventy - four or something like that.
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: And then somewhere up here you would have a link that {disfmarker} that, uh, you know, was referencing L - seventy - four and had speaker Adam.
PhD A: Is i?
Grad C: You know, or something like that.
PhD F: Actually, it's the channel, I think, that {disfmarker}
PhD A: Well, channel or speaker or whatever.
PhD F: I mean, w yeah, channel is what the channelized output out
PhD A: It doesn't {disfmarker}
Grad C: This isn't quite right.
PhD A: Right.
Grad C: I have to look at it again.
PhD F: Yeah, but {disfmarker}
PhD A: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} so how in the NIST format do we express {vocalsound} a hierarchical relationship between, um, say, an utterance and the words within it? So how do you {pause} tell {pause} that {pause} these are the words that belong to that utterance?
Grad C: Um, you would have another structure lower down than this that would be saying they're all belonging to this ID.
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: So each thing refers to the {pause} utterance that it belongs to.
Grad C: Right. And then each utterance could refer to a turn,
PhD D: So it's {disfmarker} it's not hi it's sort of bottom - up.
Grad C: and each turn could refer to something higher up.
PhD F: And what if you actually have {disfmarker} So right now what you have as utterance, um, the closest thing that comes out of the channelized is the stuff between the segment boundaries that the transcribers put in or that Thilo put in, which may or may not actually be, like, a s it's usually not {disfmarker} um, the beginning and end of a sentence, say.
Grad C: Well, that's why I didn't call it" sentence" .
PhD F: So, right. Um, so it's like a segment or something.
Grad C: Yeah.
PhD F: So, I mean, I assume this is possible, that if you have {disfmarker} someone annotates the punctuation or whatever when they transcribe, you can say, you know, from {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} from the c beginning of the sentence to the end of the sentence, from the annotations, this is a unit, even though it never actually {disfmarker} i It's only a unit by virtue of the annotations {pause} at the word - level.
Grad C: Sure. I mean, so you would {disfmarker} you would have yet another tag.
PhD F: And then that would get a tag somehow.
Grad C: You'd have another tag which says this is of type" sentence" .
PhD F: OK. OK.
Grad C: And, what {disfmarker}
PhD F: But it's just not overtly in the {disfmarker}
PhD A: OK.
PhD F: Um, cuz this is exactly the kind of {disfmarker}
PhD A: So {disfmarker}
PhD F: I think that should be {pause} possible as long as the {disfmarker} But, uh, what I don't understand is where the {disfmarker} where in this type of file {pause} that would be expressed.
Grad C: Right. You would have another tag somewhere. It's {disfmarker} well, there're two ways of doing it.
PhD F: S so it would just be floating before the sentence or floating after the sentence without a time - mark.
Grad C: You could have some sort of link type {disfmarker} type equals" sentence" , and ID is" S - whatever" . And then lower down you could have an utterance. So the type is" utterance" {disfmarker} equals" utt" . And you could either say that {disfmarker} No. I don't know {disfmarker}
PhD A: So here's the thing.
Grad C: I take that back.
PhD A: Um {disfmarker}
Grad C: Can you {disfmarker} can you say that this is part of this,
PhD F: See, cuz it's {disfmarker}
PhD A: Hhh.
PhD F: it's {disfmarker}
PhD D: You would just have a r
PhD F: S
Grad C: or do you say this is part of this? I think {disfmarker}
PhD D: You would refer up to the sentence.
PhD F: But they're {disfmarker}
PhD A: Well, the thing {disfmarker}
PhD F: they're actually overlapping each other, sort of.
Grad C: So {disfmarker}
PhD A: the thing is that some something may be a part of one thing for one purpose and another thing of another purpose.
Grad C: Right.
PhD A: So f
PhD F: You have to have another type then, I guess.
PhD A: s Um, well, s let's {disfmarker} let's ta so let's {disfmarker}
Grad C: Well, I think I'm {disfmarker} I think w I had better look at it again
PhD F: Yeah.
PhD A: so {disfmarker}
Grad C: because I {disfmarker} I'm {disfmarker}
PhD F: OK. OK.
PhD A: y So for instance @ @ {comment} sup
Grad C: There's one level {disfmarker} there's one more level of indirection that I'm forgetting.
PhD A: Suppose you have a word sequence and you have two different segmentations of that same word sequence. f Say, one segmentation is in terms of, um, you know, uh, sentences. And another segmentation is in terms of, um, {vocalsound} I don't know, {comment} prosodic phrases. And let's say that they don't {pause} nest. So, you know, a prosodic phrase may cross two sentences or something.
Grad C: Right.
PhD A: I don't know if that's true or not but {vocalsound} let's as
PhD F: Well, it's definitely true with the segment.
PhD A: Right.
PhD F: That's what I {disfmarker} exactly what I meant by the utterances versus the sentence could be sort of {disfmarker}
PhD A: Yeah. So, you want to be s you want to say this {disfmarker} this word is part of that sentence and this prosodic phrase.
PhD F: Yeah.
PhD A: But the phrase is not part of the sentence
PhD F: Yeah.
PhD A: and neither is the sentence part of the phrase.
PhD F: Right.
Grad C: I I'm pretty sure that you can do that, but I'm forgetting the exact level of nesting.
PhD A: So, you would have to have {vocalsound} two different pointers from the word up {disfmarker} one level up, one to the sent
Grad C: So {disfmarker} so what you would end up having is a tag saying" here's a word, and it starts here and it ends here" .
PhD A: Right.
Grad C: And then lower down you would say" here's a prosodic boundary and it has these words in it" . And lower down you'd have" here's a sentence,
PhD A: Right.
PhD F: An - Right.
Grad C: and it has these words in it" .
PhD F: So you would be able to go in and say, you know," give me all the words in the bound in the prosodic phrase
Grad C: Yep.
PhD F: and give me all the words in the {disfmarker}" Yeah.
Grad C: So I think that's {disfmarker} that would wor
PhD F: Um, OK.
Grad C: Let me look at it again.
PhD A: Mm - hmm. The {disfmarker} the o the other issue that you had was, how do you actually efficiently extract, um {disfmarker} find and extract information in a structure of this type?
PhD F: OK.
Grad C: So.
PhD F: That's good.
PhD A: So you gave some examples like {disfmarker}
PhD F: Well, uh, and, I mean, you guys might {disfmarker} I don't know if this is premature because I suppose once you get the representation you can do this, but the kinds of things I was worried about is,
PhD A: No, that's not clear.
PhD F: uh {disfmarker}
PhD A: I mean, yeah, you c sure you can do it,
PhD F: Well, OK. So i if it {disfmarker}
PhD A: but can you do it sort of l l you know, it {disfmarker}
PhD F: I I mean, I can't do it, but I can {disfmarker} um,
PhD A: y y you gotta {disfmarker} you gotta do this {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you're gonna want to do this very quickly
Grad C: Well {disfmarker}
PhD A: or else you'll spend all your time sort of searching through very {vocalsound} complex data structures {disfmarker}
PhD F: Right. You'd need a p sort of a paradigm for how to do it. But an example would be" find all the cases in which Adam started to talk while Andreas was talking and his pitch was rising, Andreas's pitch" . That kind of thing.
Grad C: Right. I mean, that's gonna be {disfmarker} Is the rising pitch a {pause} feature, or is it gonna be in the same file?
PhD F: Well, the rising pitch will never be {pause} hand - annotated. So the {disfmarker} all the prosodic features are going to be automatically {disfmarker}
Grad C: But the {disfmarker} I mean, that's gonna be hard regardless,
PhD F: So they're gonna be in those {disfmarker}
Grad C: right? Because you're gonna have to write a program that goes through your feature file and looks for rising pitches.
PhD A: Yeah.
PhD F: So {disfmarker} Right. So normally what we would do is we would say" what do we wanna assign rising pitch to?" Are we gonna assign it to words? Are we gonna just assign it to sort of {disfmarker} when it's rising we have a begin - end rise representation? But suppose we dump out this file and we say, uh, for every word we just classify it as, w you know, rise or fall or neither?
Grad C: OK. Well, in that case you would add that to this {pause} format
PhD F: OK.
Grad C: r
PhD F: So we would basically be sort of, um, taking the format and enriching it with things that we wanna query in relation to the words that are already in the file,
Grad C: Right.
PhD F: and then querying it.
PhD A: You want sort of a grep that's {disfmarker} that works at the structural {disfmarker} on the structural representation.
PhD F: OK.
Grad C: You have that. There's a {pause} standard again in XML, specifically for searching XML documents {disfmarker} structured X - XML documents, where you can specify both the content and the structural position.
PhD A: Yeah, but it's {disfmarker} it's not clear that that's {disfmarker} That's relative to the structure of the XML document,
PhD F: If {disfmarker}
PhD A: not to the structure of what you're representing in the document.
Grad C: You use it as a tool. You use it as a tool, not an end - user. It's not an end - user thing.
PhD A: Right.
Grad C: It's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} you would use that to build your tool to do that sort of search.
PhD A: Right. Be Because here you're specifying a lattice.
PhD F: Uh {disfmarker}
PhD A: So the underlying {disfmarker} that's the underlying data structure. And you want to be able to search in that lattice.
PhD F: But as long as the {disfmarker}
Grad C: It's a graph, but {disfmarker}
PhD A: That's different from searching through the text.
PhD F: But it seems like as long as the features that {disfmarker}
Grad C: Well, no, no, no. The whole point is that the text and the lattice are isomorphic. They {pause} represent each other {pause} completely.
PhD A: Um {disfmarker}
Grad C: So that {disfmarker} I mean th
PhD F: That's true if the features from your acoustics or whatever that are not explicitly in this are at the level of these types.
PhD A: Hhh.
PhD F: That {disfmarker} that if you can do that {disfmarker}
Grad C: Yeah, but that's gonna be the trouble no matter what. Right? No matter what format you choose, you're gonna have the trou you're gonna have the difficulty of relating the {disfmarker} the frame - level features {disfmarker}
PhD F: That's right. That's true. That's why I was trying to figure out what's the best format for this representation.
Grad C: Yep.
PhD F: And it's still gonna be {disfmarker}
PhD A: Hmm.
PhD F: it's still gonna be, uh, not direct.
Grad C: Right.
PhD F: You know, it {disfmarker} Or another example was, you know, uh, where in the language {disfmarker} where in the word sequence are people interrupting? So, I guess that one's actually easier.
PhD D: What about {disfmarker} what about, um, the idea of using a relational database to, uh, store the information from the XML? So you would have {disfmarker} XML basically would {disfmarker} Uh, you {disfmarker} you could use the XML to put the data in, and then when you get data out, you put it back in XML. So use XML as sort of the {disfmarker} the transfer format,
Grad C: Transfer.
PhD D: uh, but then you store the data in the database, which allows you to do all kinds of {pause} good search things in there.
Grad C: The, uh {disfmarker} One of the things that ATLAS is doing is they're trying to define an API which is independent of the back store,
PhD F: Huh.
Grad C: so that, uh, you could define a single API and the {disfmarker} the storage could be flat XML files or a database.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: My opinion on that is for the s sort of stuff that we're doing, {comment} I suspect it's overkill to do a full relational database, that, um, just a flat file and, uh, search tools I bet will be enough.
PhD A: But {disfmarker}
Grad C: But that's the advantage of ATLAS, is that if we actually take {disfmarker} decide to go that route completely and we program to their API, then if we wanted to add a database later it would be pretty easy.
PhD D: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
PhD F: It seems like the kind of thing you'd do if {disfmarker} I don't know, if people start adding all kinds of s bells and whistles to the data. And so that might be {disfmarker} I mean, it'd be good for us to know {disfmarker} to use a format where we know we can easily, um, input that to some database if other people are using it.
Grad C: Yep.
PhD F: Something like that.
Grad C: I guess I'm just a little hesitant to try to go whole hog on sort of the {disfmarker} the whole framework that {disfmarker} that NIST is talking about, with ATLAS and a database and all that sort of stuff,
PhD F: So {disfmarker}
Grad C: cuz it's a big learning curve, just to get going.
PhD D: Hmm.
PhD A: Hmm.
Grad C: Whereas if we just do a flat file format, sure, it may not be as efficient but everyone can program in Perl and {disfmarker} and use it.
PhD F: OK.
Grad C: Right?
PhD A: But this is {disfmarker}
Grad C: So, as opposed to {disfmarker}
PhD A: I {disfmarker} I'm still, um, {vocalsound} not convinced that you can do much at all on the text {disfmarker} on the flat file that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} you know, the text representation. e Because the text representation is gonna be, uh, not reflecting the structure of {disfmarker} of your words and annotations. It's just {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker}
Grad C: Well, if it's not representing it, then how do you recover it? Of course it's representing it.
PhD A: No. You {disfmarker} you have to {disfmarker} what you have to do is you have to basically {disfmarker}
Grad C: That's the whole point.
PhD A: Y yeah. You can use Perl to read it in and construct a internal representation that is essentially a lattice. But, the {disfmarker} and then {disfmarker}
Grad C: OK.
PhD D: Yeah.
Grad C: Well, that was a different point.
PhD A: Right.
Grad C: Right? So what I was saying is that {disfmarker}
PhD A: But that's what you'll have to do. Bec - be
Grad C: For Perl {disfmarker} if you want to just do Perl. If you wanted to use the structured XML query language, that's a different thing. And it's a set of tools {vocalsound} that let you specify given the D - DDT {disfmarker} DTD of the document, um, what sorts of structural searches you want to do. So you want to say that, you know, you're looking for, um, a tag within a tag within a particular tag that has this particular text in it, um, and, uh, refers to a particular value. And so the point isn't that an end - user, who is looking for a query like you specified, wouldn't program it in this language. What you would do is, someone would build a tool that used that as a library. So that they {disfmarker} so that you wouldn't have to construct the internal representations yourself.
PhD F: Is a {disfmarker} See, I think the kinds of questions, at least in the next {disfmarker} to the end of this year, are {disfmarker} there may be a lot of different ones, but they'll all have a similar nature. They'll be looking at either a word - level prosodic, uh, an {disfmarker} a value,
Grad C: Mm - hmm.
PhD F: like a continuous value, like the slope of something. But you know, we'll do something where we {disfmarker} some kind of data reduction where the prosodic features are sort o uh, either at the word - level or at the segment - level,
Grad C: Right.
PhD F: or {disfmarker} or something like that. They're not gonna be at the phone - level and they're no not gonna be at the frame - level when we get done with sort of giving them simpler shapes and things. And so the main thing is just being able {disfmarker} Well, I guess, the two goals. Um, one that Chuck mentioned is starting out with something that we don't have to start over, that we don't have to throw away if other people want to extend it for other kinds of questions,
Grad C: Right.
PhD F: and being able to at least get enough, uh, information out on {disfmarker} where we condition the location of features on information that's in the kind of file that you {pause} put up there. And that would {disfmarker} that would do it,
Grad C: Yeah. I think that there are quick and dirty solutions,
PhD F: I mean, for me.
Grad C: and then there are long - term, big - infrastructure solutions. And so {vocalsound} we want to try to pick something that lets us do a little bit of both.
PhD F: In the between, right. And especially that the representation doesn't have to be thrown away,
Grad C: Um {disfmarker} Right.
PhD F: even if your tools change.
Grad C: And so it seems to me that {disfmarker} I mean, I have to look at it again to see whether it can really do what we want, but if we use the ATLAS external file representation, um, it seems like it's rich enough that you could do quick tools just as I said in Perl, and then later on if we choose to go up the learning curve, we can use the whole ATLAS inter infrastructure,
PhD F: Yeah. I mean, that sounds good to me.
Grad C: which has all that built in.
PhD F: I {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} So if {disfmarker} if you would l look at that and let us know what you think.
Grad C: Sure.
PhD F: I mean, I think we're sort of guinea pigs, cuz I {disfmarker} I want to get the prosody work done but I don't want to waste time, you know, getting the {disfmarker}
PhD A: Oh, maybe {disfmarker}
PhD F: Yeah?
PhD A: um {disfmarker}
Grad C: Well, I wouldn't wait for the formats, because anything you pick we'll be able to translate to another form.
PhD A: Well {disfmarker} Ma well, maybe you should actually look at it yourself too to get a sense of what it is you'll {disfmarker} you'll be dealing with,
PhD F: OK.
PhD A: because, um, you know, Adam might have one opinion but you might have another, so
Grad B: Yeah.
PhD F: Yeah, definitely.
PhD A: I think the more eyes look at this the better.
PhD F: Especially if there's, e um {disfmarker} you know, if someone can help with at least the {disfmarker} the setup of the right {disfmarker}
Grad C: Hi, Jane.
PhD F: Oh, hi.
PhD A: Mmm.
PhD F: the right representation, then, i you know, I hope it won't {disfmarker} We don't actually need the whole full - blown thing to be ready,
Grad C: Can you {disfmarker} Oh, well.
PhD F: so. Um, so maybe if you guys can look at it and sort of see what,
Grad B: Yeah.
Grad C: Sure.
PhD F: um {disfmarker} I think we're {disfmarker} we're {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we're actually just {disfmarker}
Grad C: We're about done.
PhD F: yeah,
Grad B: Hmm.
PhD F: wrapping up, but, um {disfmarker} Yeah, sorry, it's a uh short meeting, but, um {disfmarker} Well, I don't know. Is there anything else, like {disfmarker} I mean that helps me a lot,
Grad C: Well, I think the other thing we might want to look at is alternatives to P - file.
PhD F: but {disfmarker}
Grad C: I mean, th the reason I like P - file is I'm already familiar with it, we have expertise here, and so if we pick something else, there's the learning - curve problem. But, I mean, it is just something we developed at ICSI.
PhD A: Is there an {disfmarker} is there an IP - API?
Grad C: And so {disfmarker} Yeah.
PhD A: OK.
Grad C: There's an API for it. And, uh,
PhD A: There used to be a problem that they get too large,
Grad C: a bunch of libraries, P - file utilities.
PhD A: and so {pause} basically the {disfmarker} uh the filesystem wouldn't {disfmarker}
Grad C: Well, that's gonna be a problem no matter what. You have the two - gigabyte limit on the filesystem size. And we definitely hit that with Broadcast News.
PhD A: Maybe you could extend the API to, uh, support, uh, like splitting up, you know, conceptually one file into smaller files on disk so that you can essentially, you know, have arbitrarily long f
Grad C: Yep. Most of the tools can handle that.
PhD A: Yeah.
Grad C: So that we didn't do it at the API - level. We did it at the t tool - level. That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} most {disfmarker} many of them can s you can specify several P - files and they'll just be done sequentially.
PhD A: OK.
Grad C: So.
PhD F: So, I guess, yeah, if {disfmarker} if you and Don can {disfmarker} if you can show him the P - file stuff and see.
Grad C: Sure.
PhD F: So this would be like for the F - zero {disfmarker}
Grad B: True.
Grad C: I mean, if you do" man P - file" or" apropos P - file" , you'll see a lot.
Grad B: I've used the P - file, I think. I've looked at it at least, briefly, I think when we were doing s something.
PhD A: What does the P stand for anyway?
Grad C: I have no idea.
Grad B: Oh, in there.
Grad C: I didn't de I didn't develop it. You know, it was {disfmarker} I think it was Dave Johnson. So it's all part of the Quicknet library. It has all the utilities for it.
PhD A: No, P - files were around way before Quicknet. P - files were {disfmarker} were around when {disfmarker} w with, um, {vocalsound} RAP.
Grad C: Oh, were they?
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
PhD A: Right?
PhD F: It's like the history of ICSI.
PhD A: You worked with P - files.
Grad C: Mm - hmm.
PhD F: Like {disfmarker}
PhD D: No.
PhD A: I worked with P - files.
PhD F: Yeah?
PhD D: I don't remember what the" P" is, though.
PhD A: No.
Grad C: But there are ni they're {disfmarker} The {pause} Quicknet library has a bunch of things in it to handle P - files,
PhD A: Yeah.
Grad C: so it works pretty well.
PhD A:
PhD F: And that isn't really, I guess, as important as the {disfmarker} the main {disfmarker} I don't know what you call it, the {disfmarker} the main sort of word - level {disfmarker}
Grad C: Neither do I.
PhD D: Probably stands for" Phil" . Phil Kohn.
Grad C: It's a Phil file?
PhD D: Yeah. That's my guess.
PhD F: Huh. OK. Well, that's really useful. I mean, this is exactly the kind of thing that I wanted to settle. Um, so {disfmarker}
Grad C: Yeah, I've been meaning to look at the ATLAS stuff again anyway.
PhD F: Great.
Grad C: So, just keep {disfmarker}
PhD F: Yeah. I guess it's also sort of a political deci I mean, if {disfmarker} if you feel like that's a community that would be good to tie into anyway, then it's {disfmarker} sounds like it's worth doing.
Grad C: Yeah, I think it {disfmarker} it w
PhD A: j I think there's {disfmarker}
Grad C: And, w uh, as I said, I {disfmarker} what I did with this stuff {disfmarker} I based it on theirs. It's just they hadn't actually come up with an external format yet. So now that they have come up with a format, it doesn't {disfmarker} it seems pretty reasonable to use it.
PhD A: Mmm.
Grad C: But let me look at it again.
PhD F: OK, great.
Grad C: As I said, that {disfmarker}
PhD F: Cuz we actually can start {disfmarker}
Grad C: There's one level {disfmarker} there's one more level of indirection and I'm just blanking on exactly how it works. I gotta look at it again.
PhD F: I mean, we can start with, um, I guess, this input from Dave's, which you had printed out, the channelized input. Cuz he has all of the channels, you know, with the channels in the tag and stuff like that.
Grad C: Yeah, I've seen it.
PhD F: So that would be i directly,
Grad C: Yep. Easy {disfmarker} easy to map.
PhD F: um {disfmarker} Yeah. And so then it would just be a matter of getting {disfmarker} making sure to handle the annotations that are, you know, not at the word - level and, um, t to import the
Grad B: Where are those annotations coming from?
PhD F: Well, right now, I g Jane would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} would {disfmarker}
Grad C: Mm - hmm.
PhD F: Yeah.
Postdoc E: Are you talking about the overlap a annotations?
PhD F: Yeah, any kind of annotation {pause} that, like, isn't already there. Uh, you know, anything you can envision.
Postdoc E: Yeah. So what I was imagining was {disfmarker} um, so Dave says we can have unlimited numbers of green ribbons. And so put, uh, a {disfmarker} a green ribbon on for an overlap code. And since we w we {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think it's important to remain flexible regarding the time bins for now. And so it's nice to have {disfmarker} However, you know, you want to have it, uh, time time uh, located in the discourse. So, um, if we {disfmarker} if we tie the overlap code to the first word in the overlap, then you'll have a time - marking. It won't {disfmarker} it'll be independent of the time bins, however these e evolve, shrink, or whatever, increase, or {disfmarker} Also, you could have different time bins for different purposes. And having it tied to the first word in an overlap segment is unique, uh, you know, anchored, clear. And it would just end up on a separate ribbon.
Grad C: Right.
Postdoc E: So the overlap coding is gonna be easy with respect to that. You look puzzled.
PhD D: I {disfmarker} I just {disfmarker} I don't quite understand what these things are.
Postdoc E: OK.
PhD D: Uh.
Postdoc E: What, the codes themselves?
PhD D: Well, th overlap codes.
Postdoc E: Or the {disfmarker}?
PhD D: I'm not sure what that @ @ {disfmarker}
Grad C: Well, I mean, is that {disfmarker}
PhD D: It probably doesn't matter.
Postdoc E: Well, we don't have to go into the codes.
Grad C: I mean, it doesn't.
PhD D: No, I d
Postdoc E: We don't have to go into the codes.
Grad C: I mean, that {disfmarker} not for the topic of this meeting.
Postdoc E: But let me just {disfmarker} No. W the idea is just to have a separate green ribbon, you know, and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and let's say that this is a time bin. There's a word here. This is the first word of an overlapping segment of any length, overlapping with any other, uh, word {disfmarker} uh, i segment of any length. And, um, then you can indicate that this here was perhaps a ch a backchannel, or you can say that it was, um, a usurping of the turn, or you can {disfmarker} you know, any {disfmarker} any number of categories. But the fact is, you have it time - tagged in a way that's independent of the, uh, sp particular time bin that the word ends up in. If it's a large unit or a small unit, or
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
Postdoc E: we sh change the boundaries of the units, it's still unique and {disfmarker} and, uh, fits with the format,
PhD F: Right.
Postdoc E: flexible, all that.
PhD A: Um, it would be nice {disfmarker} um, eh, gr this is sort of r regarding {disfmarker} uh, uh it's related but not directly germane to the topic of discussion, but, when it comes to annotations, um, you often find yourself in the situation where you have {pause} different annotations {pause} of the same, say, word sequence. OK?
Postdoc E: Yeah.
PhD A: And sometimes the word sequences even differ slightly because they were edited s at one place but not the other.
Postdoc E: Yeah.
PhD A: So, once this data gets out there, some people might start annotating this for, I don't know, dialogue acts or, um, you know, topics or what the heck. You know, there's a zillion things that people might annotate this for. And the only thing that is really sort of common among all the versi the various versions of this data is the word sequence, or approximately.
Postdoc E: Yep.
PhD F: Or the time.
PhD A: Or the times. But, see, if you'd annotate dialogue acts, you don't necessarily want to {disfmarker} or topics {disfmarker} you don't really want to be dealing with time - marks.
PhD F: I guess.
PhD A: You'd {disfmarker} it's much more efficient for them to just see the word sequence, right?
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
PhD A: I mean, most people aren't as sophisticated as {disfmarker} as we are here with, you know, uh, time alignments and stuff. So {disfmarker} So the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the point is {disfmarker}
Grad C: Should {disfmarker} should we mention some names on the people who are n?
PhD A: Right. So, um, the p my point is that {pause} you're gonna end up with, uh, word sequences that are differently annotated. And {pause} you want some tool, uh, that is able to sort of merge these different annotations back into a single, uh, version. OK? Um, and we had this problem very massively, uh, at SRI when we worked, uh, a while back on, {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} well, on dialogue acts as well as, uh, you know, um, what was it? uh,
PhD F: Well, all the Switchboard in it.
PhD A: utterance types. There's, uh, automatic, uh, punctuation and stuff like that.
PhD F: Yeah.
PhD A: Because we had one set of {pause} annotations that were based on, uh, one version of the transcripts with a particular segmentation, and then we had another version that was based on, uh, a different s slightly edited version of the transcripts with a different segmentation. So, {vocalsound} we had these two different versions which were {disfmarker} you know, you could tell they were from the same source but they weren't identical. So it was extremely hard {vocalsound} to reliably merge these two back together to correlate the information from the different annotations.
Grad C: Yep. I {disfmarker} I don't see any way that file formats are gonna help us with that.
PhD A: No.
Grad C: It's {disfmarker} it's all a question of semantic.
PhD A: No. But once you have a file format, I can imagine writing {disfmarker} not personally, but someone writing a tool that is essentially an alignment tool, um, that mediates between various versions,
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: Yeah.
PhD A: and {disfmarker} uh, sort of like th uh, you know, you have this thing in UNIX where you have, uh, diff.
Grad C: Diff.
PhD F: W - diff or diff.
PhD A: There's the, uh, diff that actually tries to reconcile different {disfmarker} two diffs f {comment} based on the same original.
PhD F: Yeah.
Postdoc E: Is it S - diff?
Grad C: Yep.
Postdoc E: Mmm.
PhD A: Something like that, um, but operating on these lattices that are really what's behind this {disfmarker} uh, this annotation format.
Grad C: Yep.
PhD A: So {disfmarker}
Grad C: There's actually a diff library you can use {pause} to do things like that that {disfmarker} so you have different formats.
PhD F: You could definitely do that with the {disfmarker}
PhD A: So somewhere in the API you would like to have like a merge or some {disfmarker} some function that merges two {disfmarker} two versions.
Grad C: Yeah, I think it's gonna be very hard. Any sort of structured anything when you try to merge is really, really hard
PhD A: Right.
Grad C: because you ha i The hard part isn't the file format. The hard part is specifying what you mean by" merge" .
PhD A: Is {disfmarker} Exactly.
Grad C: And that's very difficult.
PhD F: But the one thing that would work here actually for i that is more reliable than the utterances is the {disfmarker} the speaker ons and offs. So if you have a good,
Grad C: But this is exactly what I mean, is that {disfmarker} that the problem i
PhD F: um {disfmarker} Yeah. You just have to know wha what to tie it to.
Grad C: Yeah, exactly. The problem is saying" what are the semantics,
PhD F: And {disfmarker}
Grad C: what do you mean by" merge" ?" PhD F: Right, right.
PhD A: Right. So {disfmarker} so just to let you know what we {disfmarker} where we kluged it by, uh, doing {disfmarker} uh, by doing {disfmarker} Hhh.
Grad C: So.
PhD A: Both were based on words, so, bo we have two versions of the same words intersp you know, sprinkled with {disfmarker} with different tags for annotations.
Grad C: And then you did diff.
PhD A: And we did diff. Exactly!
Grad C: Yeah, that's just what I thought.
PhD A: And that's how {disfmarker}
Grad C: That's just wh how I would have done it.
PhD A: Yeah. But, you know, it had lots of errors and things would end up in the wrong order, and so forth. Uh, so, um, if you had a more {disfmarker}
Grad C: Yep.
PhD A: Uh, it {disfmarker} it was a kluge because it was basically reducing everything to {disfmarker} uh, to {disfmarker} uh, uh, to textual alignment.
Grad C: A textual {disfmarker}
PhD A: Um, so {disfmarker}
PhD F: But, d isn't that something where whoever {disfmarker} if {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if the people who are making changes, say in the transcripts, cuz this all happened when the transcripts were different {disfmarker} ye um, if they tie it to something, like if they tied it to the acoustic segment {disfmarker} if they {disfmarker} You know what I mean? Then {disfmarker} Or if they tied it to an acoustic segment and we had the time - marks, that would help.
Grad C: Yep.
PhD F: But the problem is exactly as Adam said, that you get, you know, y you don't have that information or it's lost in the merge somehow,
Postdoc E: Well, can I ask one question?
PhD F: so {disfmarker}
Postdoc E: It {disfmarker} it seems to me that, um, we will have o an official version of the corpus, which will be only one {disfmarker} one version in terms of the words {disfmarker} where the words are concerned. We'd still have the {disfmarker} the merging issue maybe if coding were done independently of the {disfmarker}
PhD A: And you're gonna get that
Postdoc E: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker}
PhD A: because if the data gets out, people will do all kinds of things to it. And, uh, s you know, several years from now you might want to look into, um, the prosody of referring expressions. And someone at the university of who knows where has annotated the referring expressions. So you want to get that annotation and bring it back in line with your data.
Grad C: Right.
PhD A: OK?
Grad C: But unfortunately they've also hand - edited it.
Postdoc E: OK, then {disfmarker}
PhD F: But they've also {disfmarker} Exactly. And so that's exactly what we should {disfmarker} somehow when you distribute the data, say that {disfmarker} you know, that {disfmarker} have some way of knowing how to merge it back in and asking people to try to do that.
PhD A: Yeah.
Grad C: Yep.
PhD A: Right.
Postdoc E: Well, then the {disfmarker}
PhD D: What's {disfmarker} what's wrong with {pause} doing times? I {disfmarker}
Postdoc E: I agree. That was what I was wondering.
PhD F: Uh, yeah, time is the {disfmarker}
Grad C: Well,
Postdoc E: Time is unique. You were saying that you didn't think we should {disfmarker}
PhD F: Time is passing!
PhD A: Time {disfmarker} time {disfmarker} times are ephemeral.
Postdoc E: Andreas was saying {disfmarker} Yeah.
Grad C: what if they haven't notated with them, times?
PhD F: Yeah. He {disfmarker} he's a language modeling person, though.
PhD A: Um {disfmarker}
Grad C: So {disfmarker} so imagine {disfmarker} I think his {disfmarker} his example is a good one. Imagine that this person who developed the corpus of the referring expressions didn't include time.
PhD A: Mm - hmm. Yeah.
Grad C: He included references to words.
Postdoc E: Ach!
PhD A: Yeah.
Grad C: He said that at this word is when {disfmarker} when it happened.
Postdoc E: Well, then {disfmarker}
PhD A: Or she.
Grad C: Or she.
Postdoc E: But then couldn't you just indirectly figure out the time {pause} tied to the word?
PhD F: But still they {disfmarker} Exactly.
Grad C: Sure. But what if {disfmarker} what if they change the words?
PhD F: Yeah.
Postdoc E: Not {disfmarker} Well, but you'd have some anchoring point. He couldn't have changed all the words.
PhD D: But can they change the words without changing the time of the word?
Grad C: Sure. But they could have changed it a little. The {disfmarker} the point is, that {disfmarker} that they may have annotated it off a word transcript that isn't the same as our word transcript, so how do you merge it back in? I understand what you're saying.
PhD A: Mmm. Mm - hmm.
Grad C: And I {disfmarker} I guess the answer is, um, it's gonna be different every time. It's j it's just gonna be {disfmarker}
Postdoc E: Yeah.
PhD F: Yeah.
Grad C: I it's exactly what I said before,
PhD F: You only know the boundaries of the {disfmarker}
Grad C: which is that" what do you mean by" merge" ?" So in this case where you have the words and you don't have the times, well, what do you mean by" merge" ? If you tell me what you mean, I can write a program to do it.
PhD F: Right. Right. You can merge at the level of the representation that the other person preserved and that's it.
Grad C: Right. And that's about all you can do.
PhD F: And beyond that, all you know is {disfmarker} is relative ordering and sometimes even that is wrong.
Grad C: So {disfmarker} so in {disfmarker} so in this one you would have to do a best match between the word sequences,
PhD F: So.
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: extract the times f from the best match of theirs to yours, and use that.
PhD F: And then infer that their time - marks are somewhere in between.
Grad C: Right.
PhD F: Yeah, exactly.
Postdoc E: But it could be that they just {disfmarker} uh, I mean, it could be that they chunked {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they lost certain utterances and all that stuff,
Grad C: Right, exactly. So it could get very, very ugly.
Postdoc E: or {disfmarker}
PhD F: Definitely.
Postdoc E: Yeah.
PhD F: Definitely. Alright.
Postdoc E: That's interesting.
PhD F: Well, I guess, w I {disfmarker} I didn't want to keep people too long and Adam wanted t people {disfmarker} I'll read the digits. If anyone else offers to, that'd be great. And
PhD A: Ah, well.
Grad C: Yeah.
PhD F: if not, I guess {disfmarker}
PhD A: For th for the {disfmarker} {nonvocalsound} for the benefit of science we'll read the digits.
Grad C: More digits, the better. OK, this is
PhD F: Thanks {disfmarker} thanks a lot. It's really helpful. I mean, Adam and Don {nonvocalsound} will sort of meet and I think that's great. Very useful. Go next.
PhD D: Scratch that.
Postdoc E: O three
Grad C: Oh, right. | Meeting participants wanted to agree upon a standard database to link up different components of the transcripts. The current idea was to use an XML script, but it quickly seemed that other options, like a pfile or ATLAS, are more suitable. The reason being that they would make it easier to deal with different linguistic units, like frames and utterances. Eventually, the team was skeptical of using something that would be hard to learn, like ATLAS. Nonetheless, they wanted to explore their options. The meeting finished with some discussion about handling annotations. | qmsum |
Summarize the discussion of group warming and the introduction to the new remote control project.
User Interface: {gap}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} How do you wear this thing?
Project Manager: Hmm. Mm mm mm. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Not too many cables and stuff.
Marketing: {gap}
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Original. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is recorded? Okay? Okay so welcome everyone. So we are here for the kickoff meeting of uh the process of designing a new remote control. So I will first start with a warm welcome opening {vocalsound} stuff,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: then uh we will uh see what will be uh our product and what will be the different step we will have to design it. And uh then we will uh discuss if we have few ideas and we will uh end uh by uh dispatching the different task you will be {disfmarker} you will have to fulfil to complete this process. So {disfmarker}
User Interface: Uh. Just one thing. Uh, you said twenty-five minutes, but I have something else to do uh, so gotta have another meeting uh soon,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: so maybe you could hurry up a bit {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} sorry?
User Interface: It's true. I have another meeting so if you could uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: You have another meeting soon?
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: So you have to be quick.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah, for the lawnmower project.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: So the the goal is to have a remote control so to have an advantage over our competitors we have to be original, we have to be trendy and we have to also try to be user-friendly.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So uh the design step will be divided in three uh main points. First it will be the functional design. Third is the conceptual design and then is the desired design. So the functional design is to identify the main user needs, the technical function the remote control should fulfil. And then we will move to f conceptual design where we'll specify the different component involved, what kind of user interf interface we want and what are the different uh trend in user interface and stuff like that.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And then the desired devi design will consist in uh specifically implementing {vocalsound} and detailing the choice we've uh made in the second point. So I will now ask you which is very important for the design of a new remote control for to uh each of us to to draw uh your favourite animal on the white board.
User Interface: {vocalsound} What an original idea.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do you have any idea of which animal you want to show us? {vocalsound}
User Interface: Orangutan.
Project Manager: Okay {vocalsound} that's good.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: No no n
Project Manager: {vocalsound} n n {gap}
User Interface: Can I give you the
Project Manager: You should {disfmarker}
User Interface: {disfmarker} no? But I don't have to say anything. When I'm drawing the orangutan.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} If you want to react uh about this wonderful drawing uh {vocalsound} I'll let you uh comment.
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: It's an abstract drawing of an orangutan.
Project Manager: Okay it's an abstract drawing.
User Interface: Yes.
Project Manager: I think it's nice and original. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You should write y the name I think. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I don't have a red colour. Usually orangutans have red hair so this is a very important but I don't have red pen, so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes.
Project Manager: You want to draw something Christine? {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay uh sorry. You have to imagine a little bit {vocalsound} um.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: This {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Of course your animal is recorded so it's not lost. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Sorry too {vocalsound} uh.
User Interface: Yes. I know.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Is this uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Wha what is this strange beast?
Marketing: Is it beautiful? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Is it a monster?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Do you know? It's a cat.
User Interface: It's a cat?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Isn't it? {vocalsound}
User Interface: I thought these things did not exist.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes yes
Industrial Designer: Me {vocalsound}
Marketing: is it {disfmarker} like that.
User Interface: Ah yeah {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Ah yeah. Yeah.
Marketing: Is it better?
Project Manager: Ah okay it's pretty. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay it's your cat. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} It's my cat.
User Interface: Does have a name?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: The name is Caramel.
User Interface: Caramel. Ah-ha.
Industrial Designer: Caramel.
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay. Olivier, do you want to {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And you {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I think I'm too short for the cables. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay I go, but next time you'll do something I'm sure. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I'm a bit short on cable.
User Interface: Next time I concentrate.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay. So what could I draw? {vocalsound} Maybe I can draw like a very simplified cow. {vocalsound} I don't know if it looks like a cow {vocalsound}
User Interface: He looks like a bong.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Like a what? {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay. Sorry. No.
Industrial Designer: Quite squarey.
User Interface: Scary?
Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: He also. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I dunno it it looks more like a donkey in fact {vocalsound} I would say.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} I I think we will be finished this uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Okay so I hope that it helps you uh in the process of designing a remote control.
User Interface: Is it for uh for putting a {disfmarker} for logos, no.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Let's move on. So {disfmarker} Here the uh financial objective of our project. That is to say to to have a production cost lower than twelve point five Euros and have a selling price of twice that price t in order to target a profe profit of uh fifty uh million Euros.
User Interface: I is there a matter for a new remote control?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah if it's trendy, original I d fulfil the user needs.
User Interface: Is it uh a single device remote control or is it a multi-device remote control?
Project Manager: We have to discuss that point.
User Interface: Ah
Project Manager: On {disfmarker}
User Interface: this is not defined at all?
Project Manager: yeah you you can suggest points like this. So what what {disfmarker}
User Interface: Ah, okay.
Project Manager: so we have to decide for example if it can control one device or multiple. So what's {disfmarker} what are your ideas about that?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Maybe I can have the {disfmarker} your opinion from the marketing side?
User Interface: Well uh do we sell other stuff? Uh if if we bundle the remote control with something uh to sell then it could be a single device, otherwise it could be programmable one otherwise who would buy a remote control from us.
Project Manager: Okay, so if it selled uh by its own i it it would rather be for multiple device.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do you agree?
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Yeah. So maybe it should be for multiple devices. And uh do you have any ideas um of uh design ideas or any uh uh technical requirement we we should uh fulfil?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think we shouldn't have too many b for my part. I think {disfmarker}
User Interface: No, I couldn I cannot fi think of any requirements right now. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: If we don't have so many buttons could be nice.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Few buttons. Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And do you have it also to be {disfmarker} to be lighted in order to be used in the dark? Might be a good idea.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. And do you have any um any uh idea of the trend {disfmarker} the trend in domain, what it shouldn't {disfmarker} it should look like, or things like that?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Something which is not squarey maybe uh, not a box.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: With rou okay. Like for {disfmarker} okay.
User Interface: Something like that, least fits in your hand.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: The basic requirement.
Project Manager: So. Fit in your hand, yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Only a buck.
Project Manager: And also it have, i it may be {vocalsound} it may be important for the remote control to be uh {disfmarker} To, to resist to various shocks that can happen if it fall.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Waterproof. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Water-proof as well.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And I think we should have a device {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Maybe it is original because you can uh use it in your uh {disfmarker} in your bath whereas the others can't.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Maybe water-proof would be very original.
Industrial Designer: Sorry. {gap}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Havin having a water-proof remote control so that the people can uh use it in their bath.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: That could be uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: B it seems uh so, but uh if you don't have an waterproof remote control it means you can just cover it with some plastic and you can sort of f
Project Manager: Yeah but, it is still something uh you have to buy and that is um not maybe very {disfmarker}
User Interface: And, and that's one of the {disfmarker} that's one of the shock {disfmarker} I mean there are people that have a remote control and they are worried that it's going to break and they put some extra plastic around it.
Project Manager: Yeah, mayb B
User Interface: That's people {gap} they actually do it themselves.
Project Manager: But maybe we can bulk it with uh already this plastic thing and uh the waterproof uh stuff as well.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {gap} directly.
User Interface: I it will look a bulky in that case.
Project Manager: Yeah. Maybe we can sell uh all that together, so so plastic protection and uh and a waterproof box as well.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: That might be good uh track to follow.
User Interface: Like as an optional thing.
Project Manager: Optional or selled with it?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And I I think we should have something, most of the time I I lose my remote control.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: We should have s uh special bu button on the T_V_ to make the remote control beeping.
Project Manager: Maybe we can have uh {disfmarker} But we don't design the T_V_.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Maybe we can have uh something you whistle and uh the remote control uh beep.
Industrial Designer: Ah yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Barks.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, barks, yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Barks.
Project Manager: So we can uh have a whistle uh remote control?
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah whistle.
Project Manager: I don't know, whistle-able? {vocalsound} Th
Industrial Designer: Whistle tracking. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Whistle tracking yeah. Whistle tracking remote control. That's a good idea, that's very original and that's can uh improve.
User Interface: {vocalsound} That's that's quite cool, but uh of course we {disfmarker} you don't normally need uh any audio uh recording stuff on your remote control right?
Project Manager: Yeah d d uh.
User Interface: So i it's just going to add t to the cost.
Project Manager: Yeah but s still we have to mm we have to {vocalsound} have an advantage over our competitors. I think this is a good advantage.
User Interface: {vocalsound} It's cool. I think I like the idea, but I'm not sure about the what you,
Project Manager: Yeah. We have to ask {disfmarker}
User Interface: who is giving {disfmarker} who's giving who's giving our budget. Who's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. We have to ask the quest of that's uh design to the uh Industrial um Designer.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound} yeah {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Which is you.
User Interface:'Kay. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so try to find that for next meeting. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay. So next meeting is in thirty minutes or so uh. {vocalsound} Don't pani.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Don't panic. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So so I will ask the Industrial Designer to find out more about this industrial design so any working {disfmarker} any working function we have discussed.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So then I will ask the User Interf Interface Designer to to think about the point we discussed like the number of buttons, the the fact that is lighted or not, things like that, and what would be convenient for the user.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: And also um {vocalsound} I will ask the Market Expert to uh try to find out what are the absolute requirements, what is absolutely needed in a remote control uh for the user. So. And then uh I will uh just ask you to think about that and uh look at your mail because you will receive uh some good advice soon. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: So. Thank you I think that's all for this point.
User Interface: Good.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Thank you {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh, so we come back in five minutes? Half an hour.
Project Manager: Anyway you will receive some messages. {vocalsound} Be careful. You eat it? Does it move uh? Okay, but I don't know if it uh is still correctly uh {disfmarker} We'll see.
Industrial Designer: Ah. {gap} | Mutual greeting heralded the beginning of the meeting and the goal of the new remote control project was introduced by Project Manager to the conferees as to win over competitive products by being original, trendy and user-friendly. Then Project Manager continued with the introduction of the design process, which was divided into three main parts--functional design, conceptual design and desired design that respectively focused on the user-related technical functions, desirable user interface and different trends involved, and specific implementation and choice-detailing process of conceptual design. | qmsum |
What did the group discuss about differences of care provision in different parts of Wales?
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies for absence this morning. Can I ask if there are any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay. Thank you. Item 3 this morning then is a scrutiny session on early childhood education and care, and I'm very pleased to welcome Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Jo-anne Daniels, director of communities and tackling poverty at Welsh Government; and Nicola Edwards, deputy director of the childcare, play and early years division in Welsh Government. Thank you all for your attendance. We're very much looking forward to the session. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions, and the first ones are from Hefin David.
Hefin David AM: Good morning, Deputy Minister. What are your primary objectives? Is it supporting the development of children or getting parents into work?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, I think you'll be aware from the range of programmes that we've got that we do feel it's important to support both children and parents. There's obviously lots of evidence to show how important the early years are for children, how important they are for their development, and so, that is one of our primary objectives. But we also know how important it is for parents to have stable jobs, reasonably paid, so that can also help with the development of the children. So, we really see it that our plans are for both parents and children, and we believe that a high-quality, early-childhood education and care system can provide that. And, of course, in terms of when we talk about jobs as well, I think it's really important to remember that the childcare system is a big employer as well and a very important employer. So that, actually, itself provides jobs.
Hefin David AM: So, the evidence we've seen suggests that, historically, Governments in the UK and devolved have focused on primarily getting parents into work. So, are you suggesting then that your focus is to change that and move towards early child development?
Julie Morgan AM: No, what I'm saying is that we want to give parents the opportunity to work. We don't want childcare to be a barrier to parents working because we think that working is one the best routes out of poverty, but we do also want to make sure that children have the greatest experience that they can have in the early years. So, we see it as one.
Hefin David AM: Okay. And that's quite a policy challenge to deliver both at the same time.
Julie Morgan AM: The situation as it is is complex, and I think it needs simplifying. It is a challenge, but it's probably one of the most important challenges we've got in Government, because what we offer to families with young children is one of the most important things we do.
Hefin David AM: And in your evidence to the committee, you said that the Welsh Government's approach'will build on a wide variety of programmes that are continually developing in order to support parents, families and children during the early years.'And you've just said you want to simplify that. How do you simplify that, particularly with regard to the provision of funding and the way these things connect from the birth of a child into school? How will simplification look, and what will happen?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, we're not at the stage of being able to say what it will look like at the moment, but we're looking at ways of simplifying, because I think it's absolutely right, it is a very complex system, because it's grown up from all different routes. But we are having lots of pilot projects that are looking at ways of simplifying the system. We have got pathway projects in, I think it's eight local authorities, who are looking at ways of joining up the whole system. So, we are looking at that, and I absolutely except that it is very complex and we want to find ways of making it simpler and easier to understand. So, we are working with local authorities and health boards to see how we can actually work together and simplify things.
Hefin David AM: And it's good to hear that that's your objective. Can I just come back to the first thing you said:'We can't say yet what we're going to do'?
Julie Morgan AM: No.
Hefin David AM: So, when will we have a policy plan and something that we can interrogate in more detail?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, I think we are near getting to an announcement where we will be able to say what direction we're going in, and because we have had--. Some of this work has been going on for a year or so, and we're getting the results of those pathfinder projects coming in. So, when we do have all those results, we will be able to say the direction that we want to go in, and I hope we'll be able to do that very soon.
Hefin David AM: Before Christmas?
Julie Morgan AM: I hope so.
Hefin David AM: Okay. And finally from me--
Julie Morgan AM: I'm sorry I can't say too much about that because we haven't actually--. We need to--.
Hefin David AM: Well, it does sound like something is imminent.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes.
Hefin David AM: Okay. And that's as far as you're willing to go. And if that's as far as you're willing to go, then I'll stop asking.
Lynne Neagle AM: I've got a supplementary from Sian.
Hefin David AM: Okay.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes, that's fine.
Sian Gwenllian AM: I just want to understand a little about the pilot, the pathfinders in eight local authority areas. Is the focus there on the child or is it on parents returning to work?
Julie Morgan AM: The focus is on an early years system, but we've worked both locally and nationally. So, it's looking at both. I mean, actually, I think, perhaps, Nicola, would you like to or one of you like to describe one of the programmes?
Sian Gwenllian AM: And can you just explain the vision? Is it a child-centred early years provision that we're thinking of in these pathfinder--?
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, in'Prosperity for All', we set out that early years was one of the key priority areas, and within that we said that we wanted to create a more joined-up and more responsive system. So, when we talk about a system, we're talking about the services that are provided by health boards, so health visiting, midwifery, speech and language support, other kinds of therapeutic services, as well as all the important services that local authorities are providing, such as support for parenting, advice and guidance, employment support and childcare, obviously. And we've got eight pathfinders. I'll try and remember each of them. So, Flintshire, Newport, Blaenau Gwent, Neath Port Talbot, Swansea, Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire--and then I've missed one, I think, because I've only got to seven--who have been working with us to look at how all of those services are currently delivered in their local area and whether and how they can reorganise those services to improve accessibility, to improve take-up, but essentially to improve the efficacy of those programmes in terms of supporting children, but often, obviously, in supporting children you have to support parents too and support the home.
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, would you say it's a child-centred approach?
Jo-Anne Daniels: Absolutely, because it's about making sure that we deliver the best start in life for children in Wales, but obviously parents are a critical element of that, so can't be excluded.
Lynne Neagle AM: And how long have they been going for?
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, those eight pathfinders started their work in--I think it was--February this year. And they're still in the very early stages in terms of actually unpicking and mapping the current provision of services across their areas and then moving on to the stage where they'll develop proposals for how they might change the delivery of early years.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Julie.
Julie Morgan AM: Just to say also, the one in Flintshire is also testing the impact of consistent funding rates for education and childcare. So, that's been going longer than the others. So, that's another important area because there's an evaluation of that project under way at the moment.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you.
Jo-Anne Daniels: Sorry, but Caerphilly was the one that I forgot to mention.
Lynne Neagle AM: Oh dear. [Laughter. ]
Hefin David AM: That's absolutely unforgivable. [Laughter. ]
Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin. [Laughter. ]
Julie Morgan AM: Very significant.
Hefin David AM: In your report, the'Alignment of the Childcare Offer for Wales to the Foundation Phase', one of the recommendations was that'The Welsh Government, local authority education and childcare policy and delivery teams could merge'. So, looking behind the scenes, those disparate parts of policy, delivering the foundation phase and childcare offer should merge. Is that the case? Has that been put under way and should we be looking at this structure in more depth?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, probably not at the structure at this time because the report that you're referring to was looking at the first year of the delivery of the childcare offer and it did make a number of points, which we have taken on board. For example, we issued guidance last year regarding the delivery of the foundation phase, which supports widening the number of non-maintained settings that are able to deliver early education and we're also supporting co-location and partnership working between education and childcare providers through our capital investment programme. I think it's about PS81 million that we put into the capital investment where we are developing childcare facilities co-located with the education facilities, because that was one of the things that came out from this report you're referring to. And, I mean, obviously, early years is one of the key priorities within'Prosperity for All'and, obviously, education sits within one portfolio with the Minister for Education, and childcare is with me. But we're doing what we can to work together to try to bring those together, and that was one of the proposals in that report. But it's still very early to think about, at this stage, a structural change.
Hefin David AM: And I remember when you were on the committee here with me, sitting next to me, we had those discussions about co-location. I know the problem with not having co-location is that you could end up seeing a child travelling between three or more locations during the course of a day. Are you suggesting now that the actions you're taking will resolve that issue universally, or will it lead to a piecemeal resolution? And, if so, to what extent, what percentage of children will see that resolved as an issue?
Julie Morgan AM: Certainly, the co-location is not going to solve it universally because although we've been able to develop a lot of new facilities, or build on old facilities, there will be a lot of areas that we won't have covered. So, I can't say that there's going to be a situation where everything is going to be co-located because I don't think that would be feasible, and, for some of the providers, they wouldn't be in a position to move to a school. But ideally it's a good situation, but, certainly, I think the discussions that there were on the committee, it's not ideal to take children for long distances between different providers, let alone the effect it has on the climate change issue. It's whether it's good for children as well. So, I can't say that they will ever be co-located, but as I said in response to your earlier question, we are encouraging the development of the foundation phase in non-maintained settings, which, obviously, is quite significant.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. I've got some questions now from Janet Finch-Saunders.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. What is the Welsh Government doing to address the big differences in the amount of early childhood education and care provision available in different parts of Wales?
Julie Morgan AM: Right. Well, thank you very much for that question. I mean, obviously, it would be good to see a greater degree of consistency, but I think it's important to acknowledge that there are reasons for that variation. Now, early education, of course, is the responsibility of the Minister for Education, and we are aware that different local authorities have adopted different patterns of providing early education. For example, local authorities are funded to provide 10 hours minimum of the foundation phase for three and four-year-olds across Wales, but there's quite a variance in how much is actually provided, with some local authorities providing a lot more historically. So, it does mean that there is a different pattern across Wales, according to what local authorities do. But what I could say is, of course, the quality is very good, as the Estyn reports have shown; that the quality provided, the delivery of the foundation phase, is very good. But it does vary in terms of what is offered throughout Wales, and that is the decision of the local authorities, and it is a historical thing. I refer to this pilot in Flint, which is trying to test paying the same rate for foundation phase and childcare. We're going to have an independent evaluation on that soon, in November this year, so that will help us. Obviously, I think local authorities'role in all this is absolutely crucial because they are the local, nearest people to decide how things develop in their own areas. And then, of course, we've got Flying Start, which is geographically targeted, which uses the data from income benefit to decide which are the areas where that is being delivered. And that is delivered where the highest proportion of children aged nought to three are living in income-dependent households. So, again, that determines the pattern throughout Wales. With Flying Start being geographically targeted, with the education being determined by the local authorities about how much there is, we know that there is a variance throughout Wales. We'd like to see facilities developed in each local authority throughout Wales that would answer the needs of the families and the children in those areas.
Lynne Neagle AM: Before you move on, Janet, Sian's got a supplementary.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Just in terms of the foundation phase, there have been cuts, of course, in expenditure in that phase. How concerned are you about that and the impact that that will have on the way in which the foundation phase is taught in our schools? The foundation phase is now part of the education improvement grant, which has seen a reduction of 10 per cent, and it has to compete against other expenditure streams within that greater pot of funding. So, are you concerned that money is being lost and that that will have an impact on standards in the foundation phase?
Julie Morgan AM: I haven't seen any evidence. Obviously, I must reiterate the foundation phase does come under the Minister for Education, but I haven't seen any evidence of any standards being lowered, and the reports from Estyn are very good. In fact, I think the foundation phase is one of our great joys, that we absolutely celebrate it, and so I'd be very concerned if I thought there was any drop in standards in the foundation phase, and I certainly haven't had any evidence of that. I would want to guard against that.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Exactly, but if there are fewer teaching assistants in the system because of the cuts, it's going to impact on standards, at the end of the day.
Julie Morgan AM: I think we have to be very careful to see that lower standards are not implemented, because it was groundbreaking when we brought it in, and it has proved to be a great success, so we want to make sure that's guarded.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Janet.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Going back to my original question about the big differences in amounts of early childhood education and care provision in different parts of Wales, the Welsh and UK Governments have followed a demand-driven approach to the childcare market, with subsidies mainly given to working parents. Is that a mistake? Should it be more universally available?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, some of our provision is universally available in certain areas. For example, the Flying Start provision is universally available in geographically defined areas, and I think that's very important, because that does mean that there isn't stigma, and so, in those areas, everybody can take advantage of it, and yet it is reaching those who are most in need because it's reaching those areas. So, I think that there is a purpose behind that. In terms of when you say demand led, could you elaborate on that?
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I know that--we've just had a useful briefing from David Dallimore, and, basically, there is this theory that there are too many resources--the demand-driven approach is based more on certain factors: geographic spread in terms of it being more universal, and whether that's the right way. How do children then mix with peers from different backgrounds, in their own peer or age group?
Julie Morgan AM: It is demand--
Nicola Edwards: [Inaudible. ]--because the offer is targeted at working parents--
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, yes.
Nicola Edwards: --obviously, then the amount of availability is based on how many parents apply for it and take it up. Is that the context of demand led in that--
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes.
Nicola Edwards: Right, okay.
Julie Morgan AM: It is universally available to all parents who meet the eligibility criteria of working, and I think what you're saying is that it should be available to everybody.
Lynne Neagle AM: I think the point that Janet's making is that some areas have traditionally got more childcare anyway because they have traditionally had more demand in those areas, so there's not a level playing field to start from. Is that correct?
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes.
Julie Morgan AM: I think that, historically, that is definitely true, and when you look at the take-up of the childcare offer, it's certainly taken up in some areas with a very high take-up rate. I think Ynys Mon was nearly 90 per cent or something--
Sian Gwenllian AM: They need more money, because they haven't got enough funding.
Dawn Bowden AM: So does everywhere.
Sian Gwenllian AM: No, to meet the demand.
Julie Morgan AM: In other areas, it's much, much lower--in some of the cities, I know. So, there is a big range in take-up--
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: So, do you intend to bring something forward to address that?
Julie Morgan AM: We are planning to extend it. We're looking at the possibility of extending it to parents who are in education and training. So, we are widening the offer, yes. Obviously, we have to wait for the evaluation of that. It would be great to be able to offer it to absolutely everybody, but obviously we have got the finance to look at in terms of how we do that. But we are certainly planning to expand it.
Lynne Neagle AM: We've got questions on the offer in a little while. Janet.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Does the Welsh Government intend to develop an integrated approach, then, against all settings? If so, given the current inconsistencies, how can quality be assured?
Julie Morgan AM: We are developing a more integrated approach towards the early years. As I've said, we're trying to have the foundation phase operating in more non-maintained settings, and we're already developing that. But Estyn and CIW will continue to inspect and regulate the early years sector to ensure standards, and, since January 2019, CIW and Estyn have moved to joint inspections for the non-maintained settings that are offering the foundation phase. So, that is a very positive move, I think, and is absolutely making sure that standards are maintained, because if we are having the foundation phase in non-maintained settings, that is a challenge where we want to be sure that the standards and the philosophy of the foundation phase are maintained. So, we have got the system of inspection to ensure that.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: And finally from me, what specific steps have been put in place to take forward the commitments from the Welsh Government's 2017 childcare/play early years workforce plan to build a better understanding of the workforce's Welsh language skills to enable support for the sector to be targeted and to identify where capacity needs to be built for the future to meet the needs of the early years sector in a bilingual Wales?
Julie Morgan AM: We think this is very important, and we're pleased that 29 per cent of children taking up the childcare offer are in Welsh or bilingual settings, so we think that's very good. We have established a specific programme to develop Welsh language skills in the childcare and play workforce with the National Centre for Learning Welsh, to develop workplace Welsh language skills across the sector. So, we're actually working with that, and I think you've done something with those recently, haven't you? I don't know if you want to--
Nicola Edwards: Yes. So, we have a stakeholder group where we've brought together a variety of people with an interest in the early years, childcare and play sectors, and we had a presentation just last month from the national language centre about the education programmes that they're rolling out, and how this is all coming together, which is quite interesting. We've been working quite carefully to make sure that the variety of work-based learning programmes that we provide and offer are also available in Welsh and bilingually. Recruitment and retention within the childcare and play sector is quite challenging in any case. Recruiting and retaining staff with really good Welsh language skills adds an extra dimension to it, and that it's a point that Mudiad Meithrin makes to us quite regularly, that they do struggle to find staff with the right skills. So, upskilling the existing workforce is a key part of it, but also doing more to attract people in with Welsh language skills in the first place in terms of the training courses that we're taking forward, and thinking about that in the context of the targets within Cymraeg 2050 and the aim to get to one million Welsh speakers. So, as the Deputy Minister said, we've got quite a number of children accessing the offer in Welsh-medium or bilingual settings at the moment. We're going to be doing some baselining work against that in terms of local authorities'Welsh in education strategic plans and education places, and what we can then do to increase the number of childcare places in parallel with that so that you can make sure that you start that pathway through learning Welsh, interacting with education and childcare through Welsh at a much earlier stage.
Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you've got a supplementary.
Suzy Davies AM: Just on this early point, anybody who's been through the Welsh education system, which is 20 years now, will have some Welsh language skills, obviously to differing degrees. For the entrants that are coming into childcare training now, there are going to be very few of them, realistically, with no Welsh at all, so what's actually being incorporated into the early years care training to make sure, at that stage, that the Welsh language skills are being developed, as opposed to an add-on later on?
Nicola Edwards: You're quite right. Most people coming through the education system will have some awareness of Welsh although I think it's probably important to remember we do also employ people from outside of wales.
Suzy Davies AM: Yes, but the majority, being realistic.
Nicola Edwards: But they don't necessarily have Welsh that is appropriate. They've got Welsh that they've developed in school. It's not necessarily appropriate for then teaching that language to children, who may be coming from families who don't use Welsh at home. So, that might be the first interaction that child has with the language. So, there's a lot of that in terms of child development and how you develop children bilingually, particularly if they're coming from English-medium homes, and reinforcing the language in language choices. There will also be some people who are, perhaps--we see this quite a lot in the office--quite confident in terms of speaking Welsh but less so in terms of some of the paperwork, the reporting, the writing and the interacting with parents more officially, which we need to think about as well. But it is mainly about getting people to a point where they can transmit that language onwards in a confident and meaningful way.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And it's ingrained in the early years training.
Nicola Edwards: Yes.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. That's fine. Thank you for that. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Just before we move on, you said that 29 per cent of the take-up of the childcare offer is either through Welsh or is bilingual. Have you got any figures about how many children are accessing it in Welsh only?
Nicola Edwards: We will have. It becomes--. With the way we do it, it's because of the way that the setting defines their language category, and that's how we collect it. We do go down to individual child level, although it's anonymised, data collection on a termly basis. So I'll have a look and see if we can send you through the last term.
Lynne Neagle AM: Maybe if the committee could have a note, that would be really useful.
Nicola Edwards: Yes, that's fine.
Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now on childcare from Dawn Bowden.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Deputy Minister, the evaluation of the childcare offer, when it was published last year, said that there was very little evidence currently available to determine what its impact was. You're going to be producing a second evaluation in November this year; do you expect to see some indications now of the impact?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, the evaluation of the first year of the childcare offer was very limited, because the childcare offer wasn't available throughout the whole of Wales. And it was a very early implementation phase. So, obviously it takes time to grow. And the evaluation for year 2, I think, will also show a limited impact for the same reasons. The offer became available across the whole of Wales only last April. So we've only got since last April that it's actually been fully available. And the parental survey was released to parents in June 2019, therefore any impact on parents in the authorities coming on board in the second year will also be negligible. So, it's from the next one, however, we hope that we will get more information.
Dawn Bowden AM: So you think, by the time we get to November 2020, you might have a better picture.
Julie Morgan AM: The evaluation will be more meaningful, we think, then, yes.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. I take that point. What the first year's evaluation did show, however, was that 94 per cent of respondents said that they were already using formal childcare before the offer came into place. A couple of things, really: are you surprised at that, and is that likely to inform the way that you develop the offer in the future?
Julie Morgan AM: No, I'm not surprised at all. When it started off, it was only available in seven local authorities. In terms of how the families found out that it was available, they found it out through the childcare providers, where they already had their children there. So it was absolutely what we would have expected, and that will continue. But, of course, we were not able to fully advertise the childcare offer until it was available in all the local authorities, which was last April. So we are planning, this autumn, quite a big push now to try to make it available to everybody--so everybody knows about it. So, no, this is the pattern we would have expected, and I think anybody who's involved in starting up something in childcare will know you have to wait a number of years before you actually see it being fully taken up.
Dawn Bowden AM: I guess the question that it raises in my mind is: does this mean that, actually, it hasn't been an incentive to get somebody back into work, because they were already in work and already had childcare provision? What you've done is you've directed money to people who were already spending that money anyway. So it hasn't been a move towards getting people into work because they couldn't afford childcare.
Julie Morgan AM: Well I think that that is something that we are moving towards, because the take-up of the offer is actually increasing each month, which is why I call it a great success. At the end of July, we hit almost 16,000 children accessing the offer, which obviously means that there are 16,000 families benefiting from this, and the feedback that we have had from parents is that they have been able to--. They've got more money available, which is obvious, which is great, because obviously more money is available to plunge into the economy and carry out that sort of thing, and we've got examples of parents who've been supported into work through programmes like Parents, Childcare and Employment to begin with, and then have gone on to access the offer. So, that's again a progression. So, I think we are seeing signs that people are moving on, have got more ability to be flexible in the work that they're doing, but I hope that when we look at it again, we will be able to see people actually moving into work because of having the access to childcare.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Before--
Lynne Neagle AM: Are you going to move on? Sian's got a supplementary.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Just a question on funding for the childcare offer. If you foresee that there's going to be more people going to be taking up that offer through the fact that you're marketing it more, what if the same situation arises that has happened on Anglesey? The take-up has been very good there, but the money that the Welsh Government has been allocating to Anglesey doesn't match that. What if it happens in every local authority right across Wales? Are you confident there's going to be plenty of money available to respond to that demand?
Julie Morgan AM: Based on the current levels of take-up and looking at the rates of increase each month, we expect to spend in the region of PS50 million to PS55 million in this financial year. Our published plans already include the provision of PS40 million, and we're absolutely committed to making available the total funding that is needed to deliver on the offer. It is fantastic to see the offer being so well received on Ynys Mon, recognising, as Janet said earlier, it is demand led. We are managing it within the normal budgetary process. Local authorities will get the full funding that is needed. It's this year now that the big increase has happened; the previous two years--
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, local authorities won't have to find the extra money out of their own pots.
Julie Morgan AM: No, absolutely not. This is funded by the Welsh Government.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. You can assure them.
Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. You've already alluded to this in answer to Janet earlier on, about extending the childcare offer to those in training and education. You also talk about'on the cusp'of returning to work. So, I'm not quite sure what'on the cusp'of returning to work is, but from the committee's point of view, we're very pleased that you've reached that conclusion, because it was one of the recommendations that we had following the scrutiny of the Bill. So, can you say a little more about that, bearing in mind that I'm also conscious that you've told Hefin you're going to be making an announcement shortly? So you may not be able to say too much. But a little bit more about the inclusion of parents in training and education, what'on the cusp of returning to work'is--what that means from your perspective--and how you've arrived at that decision now, six months into the programme. What is it that's made you move towards that conclusion?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, obviously, the children and young persons committee made a very good case for education and training, in particular; I think that was one of the things that was at the top of the list. What we've committed to do is to review the programme, particularly looking at how we could bring in education and training, and that review will report early next year. So, early next year, we will have a view on how we could go forward. But the other thing that's also happened is that, obviously, with the new First Minister, that was one of his manifesto commitments--that he would bring education and training in. So, we're obviously following the--
Dawn Bowden AM: Because that was one of the key drivers for that as well.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes, so that is another of the key drivers, as you said--the committee and what the First Minister said. There are a wealth of programmes supporting parents into education, training or work, and many of those do provide support with childcare costs. But we have, by rolling out this programme, the childcare programme, highlighted some gaps where people have felt that they, particularly people who are in full-time education--and I can think of a number of people who are actually doing PhD studies--who are--the letters may have come in from some of your constituents--not able to access the offer as things stand. So, we are looking at people who are in full-time education and training. We're using the definition by the Office for National Statistics, aren't we, in terms of education and training. And on'on the cusp of work', maybe that will have to be something we have to look at differently--those people who are actually maybe undertaking very short training programmes, preparation for work, maybe actually having interviews, where they need help with childcare, that they're sort of almost there. So, they may have to be dealt with in a different way, but I think we do want to look at those. This is expanding the offer; it's not making it universal, but it's moving on.
Dawn Bowden AM: So, what are the--? Overall, then, what are the factors that you're having to take into account? Is it going to be what is needed in order to encourage people back into work? Is it going to be cost? Is it going to be a combination of all of those things? What are going to be the key factors that you're going to be looking at?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, the position now is that anybody who fulfills the criteria in terms of the number of hours they work, we would look at that in terms of education and training, and then, this expression'on the cusp of work'we may have to look at differently, because they may not fulfil those numbers in terms of number of hours training. So, we'll get a criteria, and then they will have access to the childcare offer. But I just have to emphasise that there are ways of getting help with childcare already, and we wanted to make sure we don't duplicate. That's why this field is so complex, shall we say, because there's so many different ways that you can actually get help, and we want to be sure that we don't duplicate--
Dawn Bowden AM: Sorry, Julie. So, all of this is going to be incorporated in this announcement that you're going to be making shortly--
Julie Morgan AM: No, this review will report early next year.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. My final question--
Lynne Neagle AM: Before you move on, sorry, I've got a couple of supplementaries. I've got Suzy, then Sian. Sorry, Dawn.
Suzy Davies AM: Just on the cost element, because if you do roll out this programme, obviously, on the back of evidence through a review, it is going to cost extra money. Early years is one of the eight priority areas for Government. There are fairly generous Barnett consequentials coming from the comprehensive spending review and announcements on schools from the UK Government, and while I accept that you've only got annual commitments there, they're still substantial. How much money have you managed to secure for early years from the most recent announcement, and when have you planned to actually use that, maybe for some of this work?
Julie Morgan AM: Have you got some information on that?
Nicola Edwards: The budget process is ongoing internally, so I think'secured'is probably a slightly premature phrase.
Suzy Davies AM: Am I allowed to ask instead how much you've asked for, then? All I'm after is some reassurance that you will be getting some of this money, and as it is one of the eight priorities, certainly we would expect to see you getting a substantial amount of money for early years.
Julie Morgan AM: As one of the Government's priorities, we would expect to get any money that came as a result of any Barnett consequentials.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And it will be in the draft budget that we know for sure if it is successful.
Julie Morgan AM: It's all in the process--
Lynne Neagle AM: And the committee will want to look very carefully at that, obviously.
Julie Morgan AM: It's in the process at the moment.
Suzy Davies AM: There we are. Just giving you a good warning.
Lynne Neagle AM: Sian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: How much would it cost to move to a child-centred approach, which means that every child would be able to access the childcare offer, rather than doing it from parents?
Julie Morgan AM: We are looking at that. We're having a longer-term review, in terms of what it would mean if every child had access to the childcare offer. We don't have those figures yet. We've got the one review looking at bringing in education and training. That should report early next year, and then we've got another longer-term review, looking at what a universal offer would mean.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Do we know how many children we're talking about?
Nicola Edwards: Yes. So, there are approximately, at any given time, around 73,000 three and four-year-olds in Wales. There's some slight rounding in the numbers there, but approximately 73,000 at any given time. Based on the current eligibility criteria for the offer, it's about 34,000 children, we believe, are eligible. This does, of course, vary, depending on a whole range of different factors, and we certainly know from what we're seeing from the offer that, even where people are entitled to something, they don't necessarily take it up. And even if they do take it up, they don't necessarily take up their full entitlement, which is also something that we'd have to think about in terms of any modelling on costings.
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, half the children are in non-working families.
Nicola Edwards: It's because of the requirement that, in a two-parent household, both parents must be in work.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. Two parent. Okay.
Lynne Neagle AM: One of the points that the committee made very strongly in our report on the Bill was that we wanted to see a much more child-centred focus, and one of the issues that came out in scrutiny was whether, actually, three and four-year-olds were the right age to be actually targeting if we're looking at things like child development. Have you given any consideration to the actual age group that's covered when we know that, for many children, it's the first 1,000 days that makes that fundamental difference?
Julie Morgan AM: We are aware that there is a case that says that two years old is a very important time. We are looking at that as part of the overall longer review, yes. We are aware of the information and what you're saying about the younger the better.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Dawn.
Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, my final question, Chair, thank you, is about the parent, childcare and employment programme, which is jointly funded by the European social fund and Welsh Government. It has been quite successful, in terms of its numbers anyway, in getting economically inactive parents into work. What are the plans for this programme, if and when we leave the EU and we lose the ESF funding for that?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, the programme has recently been extended, with delivery continuing until June 2022, with additional ESF funding of PS5. 6 million. That's recently happened, and obviously this programme provides intensive employment to parents who are not in education, employment or training or economically inactive and where the childcare is the main barrier, and it has been a very, very successful programme. So, the UK has guaranteed funding for all EU projects approved by December 2020, and this includes the PaCE programme. I think there was also another--. I only heard it verbally. I heard some other guarantees on the radio recently from the UK Treasury about guaranteeing some of these funds. I don't know whether anybody else heard that. But the Welsh Government can only draw on the UK Government guarantee for claims that aren't paid by the European Commission, and so the current arrangements are staying in place.
Dawn Bowden AM: Until when, sorry?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, June 2022.
Dawn Bowden AM: Oh, I see. Yes. So, that's when all the current commitments expire, basically. Yes. So, we don't know--. To do that it would have to be part of Government planning in terms of--
Julie Morgan AM: Well, we don't know what's happening with that--
Dawn Bowden AM: --what would happen beyond that.
Julie Morgan AM: --funding, but there have been some promises from the UK Government recently, but nothing definite.
Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, we're not holding our breath.
Julie Morgan AM: No.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Sian's got some specific questions now around the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019.
Sian Gwenllian AM: As we know, of course, the work with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs has ended, and I know you weren't the Minister who initiated this process, but what exactly has gone wrong? What are these issues that have come to light that have made you suspend that? It's very frustrating for us, as a committee, who scrutinised that extensively and raised a lot of concerns about that. And a lot of time has been spent talking about this funding Bill, and money--PS1 million, I understand--has been wasted, if you like, unnecessarily. So, what exactly has gone wrong? Why aren't you discussing these things with HMRC?
Julie Morgan AM:
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. So, thank you for that explanation.
Julie Morgan AM: I've got more to say as well.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but for your transparency around your particular view that it needs to be more flexible and expanded upon and, therefore, going down the HMRC route was--
Julie Morgan AM: It would have restricted us a lot.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. We knew that from the beginning. I mean, that's, you know--. So, it was a principle decision rather than any sort of technical matters to do with the Welsh language standards. That's been cited as one kind of--. But I'm really understanding more now that, really, what it's about is that you want to have a more flexible, and expand on the offer and that this would curtail--going through HMRC would put limits on that.
Julie Morgan AM: That is one of the reasons, but there were issues about the Welsh language, which we can go into in detail, if you'd like. There were some issues about that. They would be able to process things bilingually, and I think that was probably told to the committee when we looked at the HMRC. But, in terms of the Welsh language standards that the Minister has to use, there would be some difficulties in them doing it.
Sian Gwenllian AM: But would you say that your main change came about because you wanted to be more flexible rather than any difficulties--
Julie Morgan AM: One of the major reasons, I think--
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Good.
Julie Morgan AM: But there are--. As I say, there are other reasons. Those technical reasons probably do end up being quite important--
Sian Gwenllian AM: But the committee was told by the previous Minister that HMRC wouldn't have any problem at all with delivering according to the Welsh language standards.
Julie Morgan AM: Do you want to add something to this?
Nicola Edwards: So, in terms of some of the technical issues we had, if you want to start with the bilingual provision and the Welsh language standards, HMRC do provide a bilingual service at the moment for their customers in line with their Welsh language scheme, and I think we can all appreciate that schemes are quite different from the requirements of the standards. And there were some issues when we got into the detail of the standards that the Welsh Ministers are required to deliver to that caused some concerns in terms of how HMRC were going to do it, particularly in terms of the multiple IT systems that go into building up the childcare services. So, for example, there are a number of what are called'special characters'in the Welsh alphabet, such as the to bach, for example. The HMRC IT system has some issues with that.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, well, with due respect, the to bach has always been there--
Nicola Edwards: Oh, yes, I completely agree. Unfortunately, however--
Sian Gwenllian AM: --and HMRC would have been able to tell you, really early on, you would have thought, that it was--. I don't really want to go into it, because I think we've got to the crux of why HMRC was dropped. I think it's been dropped because Julie feels that the offer needs to be more flexible, and I can understand why you would say that.
Julie Morgan AM: If we bring in training and education, for example, we wouldn't be able to do that via the HMRC, it would have to be done by the local authorities. Foster parents have to be done via the local authorities. Any people of immigration status of no resource from public funds, that would have to be done via the local authorities. And with the local authorities also wanting to do it--. I mean, there are other things with using HMRC--if any changes were made with the English offer, for example, because this would be delivered via HMRC with the English offer, that would cause difficulties for the Welsh offer. So, we wanted something more flexible. I don't know if there's anything more you want to add on that.
Jo-Anne Daniels: The only thing I'd add is that--and, again, I think the Minister has referred to this--the costs that HMRC presented us with at the end of the discovery phase were significantly higher than the costs that had initially been outlined and that we outlined to the committee in the regulatory impact assessment. So, our conclusion is that we can deliver a cheaper system and a system that has the flexibility that the Deputy Minister has referred to by working with local authorities rather than HMRC. So, there is an important issue around value for money as well and making sure that the investment that we're making into developing the national system is one that--that, in a sense, that investment stays in Wales. So, obviously, the money that we're paying over to HMRC to run the system would be supporting HMRC and their employees wherever they may be based, many of them not based in Wales; investment in local authorities to administer the system means that we're retaining more of that investment here.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Well, I congratulate you on persuading local government and WLGA to change their minds, because they actually told this committee that they favoured the HMRC option--and this is only going back a few months--because it will remove--and this is quoting them--'it will remove the administrative burden of receiving applications and checking eligibility from local authorities'-- blah, blah, blah, blah. So, they've obviously changed their minds as well, which is, you know--. I congratulate you on that, but it does present us as a committee with a little bit of a problem, really, because, if we're told one thing a few months ago and then we're told something completely different today, you know, evidence--we have to go on evidence that we've heard, and the evidence has changed now.
Julie Morgan AM: I think, during the period since it was discussed on the committee, the work with the HMRC has helped highlight to us where we needed to go. So, I think we did learn a lot and it certainly has helped show to us where we think is the best place to go. I would like to pay tribute to the local authorities, because they've been great partners in this and they're very positive about moving forward keeping the work. And there's also a feeling that, because they are so much closer to the local public than HMRC is, they're able to build up links with families and help with some of these difficult issues. Because I'm sure many of you may have had individual cases--I certainly have--where there's been quite a lot of complexity about helping people fill in the forms and look at their eligibility. So, I say well done to the local authorities. And thanks to the HMRC, because we've had nothing but a very positive relationship with them.
Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you've got a supplementary.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Ms Daniels, you referred to value for money. How much is it actually going to cost to change this system from being a temporary arrangement with local authorities to a permanent one? And how much more is it going to cost for the more flexible system that you have in mind? They're not going to do this for nothing. How much extra are you giving them, and will they use it for this? How are you ensuring it's used for this?
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, at the moment, local--. So, two things. Just to start by saying the eligibility checking process is not undertaken by all 22 local authorities.
Suzy Davies AM: No, no, I realise that. Yes, I got all that.
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, part of the reason for using 10 is to try to ensure that we build economies of scale and that we have a more efficient operation. Those authorities that undertake that function are given a specific grant in order to do that. That grant is ring-fenced to that purpose.
Suzy Davies AM: Could you give us an idea of the price tag?
Jo-Anne Daniels: At the moment, it's about PS2. 5 million.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, just as a round figure--that's fine.
Nicola Edwards: Just for the administration. They get separate funding for the childcare, obviously.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you.
Jo-Anne Daniels: So that, as I said, is a ring-fenced sum that they use to administer the offer. We are now starting the detailed work to define the new system requirements so that we will have a single application process across Wales, moving forward. As part of that work, we'll need to consider the detailed costings, but our initial estimate suggests that it would be less than the cost proposed by HMRC.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, when those costings are worked up, perhaps we could have a note comparing the two figures.
Jo-Anne Daniels: Yes, we would be very happy to share more detail on that.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Sian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: If it became a universal offer, would those costs reduce? Would there be so much bureaucracy involved in checking eligibility and stuff if every child was open to the offer?
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, clearly, if every child is eligible, then a large part of the process falls away in terms of the need to verify income and so on. That doesn't mean that there's no administration. For example, with the foundation phase, which is universally available, there is an application process and there is an administrative function that sits alongside that. At this point in time, I couldn't give you any indication of--
Sian Gwenllian AM: But it would be substantially less, wouldn't it, because they wouldn't have to do all these eligibility checks and all those things?
Nicola Edwards: They wouldn't have to do the eligibility checks, but they would still have to make payments to the childcare providers and make sure they were paying for the right number of hours in respect of each child. So, parents would still need to tell them where their child was going, and there would still need to be some work alongside that.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Sian, do you want to ask about the Welsh language?
Sian Gwenllian AM: I think we've--. I'm happy with that.
Lynne Neagle AM: Really--?
Sian Gwenllian AM: I don't think that that was the real reason why the change happened.
Julie Morgan AM: One of the reasons.
Lynne Neagle AM: Nevertheless, the committee was given very concrete assurances that the Welsh language side of this was going to be covered off. Have you got anything that you want to add on that? Obviously, for us as a committee, we believe what we're told when we are given assurances. So, that's quite concerning for us, really, that that suddenly then became an issue, when both HMRC and the Minister at the time told us that this wasn't going to be a problem.
Nicola Edwards: So, I think it's the point that I was talking about earlier. There's a difference between a bilingual service in the context of what HMRC understood that to be, in the context of their scheme, and the very detail of the standards when they got into their IT systems.
Lynne Neagle AM: Shouldn't that have been something that was worked out at the beginning?
Nicola Edwards: Possibly, but they did need to do quite detailed work, not just into their own IT systems, but the feed-in systems from the Home Office, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Post Office as well, to understand the full complexity of how the standards would comply across all of that. They do provide a bilingual service. It was just some of the specific details of the requirements placed on the Welsh Ministers, because it is the Welsh Ministers'standards that they would need to deliver against that they were struggling with.
Lynne Neagle AM: Right, okay.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but those standards were there right from the very beginning.
Lynne Neagle AM: I think that the committee would feel that that should have been bottomed out at the beginning, really.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Nothing has changed in terms of the standards.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, just before we move on to Flying Start, can I just ask: the Minister mentioned a longer term review of the childcare offer. Are you able to give us any indication of when that will report, please?
Julie Morgan AM: Would we have any idea?
Nicola Edwards: We haven't set out a definitive timescale on that as of yet because we've been focusing very much on getting the review in terms of training, education and on the cusp of returning to work up and running. But sometime next year.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. So, it will report sometime next year.
Nicola Edwards: Yes.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We'll move on now to Flying Start and questions from Suzy Davies.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. Can I just begin by asking you how you respond to the assertion that children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds do better in a mixed socioeconomic environment than in a targeted environment?
Julie Morgan AM: I think that's what Flying Start does, isn't it? Yes, I would have thought that was likely.
Suzy Davies AM: Well, the reason I'm asking you that, of course, is because this committee has suggested, perhaps, changes to the outreach system to target more disadvantaged children, and not necessarily capture people who happen to be in a geographic area.
Julie Morgan AM: So, you're saying that you feel that a universal offer in certain areas is not advantageous to--
Suzy Davies AM: Well, I'm asking you, really. If it's the case that we're only going after disadvantaged children, which would take very precise targeting--
Julie Morgan AM: I'm not only going after disadvantaged children. I feel that we should be offering something for all children, and our considerations are for all children. The reason we've targeted Flying Start is because it would be great if we had enough money to have Flying Start throughout the whole of Wales, but we just don't have that sort of money. Because I think Flying Start has proved to be a great--very successful.
Suzy Davies AM: I'm going to ask you a few more questions on that. Because just in response to this committee's 2018 report, you did say that:'defined geographical targeting of Flying Start support will be considered as part of the Welsh Government's work on the Early Years system.'That suggests you still have geographic targeting in mind. So, if you're looking at a very mixed source of economic experience for children, what are the geographic boundaries you're considering?
Julie Morgan AM: At the moment, Flying Start can go beyond the geographical boundaries, with the extension--
Suzy Davies AM: With limits, yes.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes. I think they can use 10 per cent of their income to go beyond the geographical boundaries, and many of them have done that. But, obviously, there are four elements to Flying Start, and only those geographical areas have got the four elements, but there could be the opportunity of extending some of that beyond the Flying Start geographical areas. We're looking at this.
Suzy Davies AM: I accept what you say about the current system--
Julie Morgan AM: I believe it's much more--. I believe very strongly in having a universal system, where everybody is able to access it.
Suzy Davies AM: I appreciate that as well. But, obviously, there are huge cost implications for that--unless you're giving us some insight into what you're going to say next week, I don't know. But actually, defining anything geographically, which now seems to be fairly arbitrary, because it's not targeted purely at disadvantaged children--on what basis are we choosing the geographic areas we are choosing at the moment?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, they're chosen then because of the benefit take-up in those particular areas. So, it's reaching some of the poorest children, but not all of the poorest children, but it's reaching the poorest children in a way that is not stigmatising, and where the services are open to everybody, and I think that's very important.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, having established that, we have fairly recent research here that a third of children living in poverty in Wales are already falling behind at the age of five--that suggests that two thirds of them aren't, but it's still a very worrying statistic. Not all children live in Flying Start areas; how are you going to reach that third who, even at such an early age, are already falling behind? How many of them are in Flying Start areas?
Julie Morgan AM: I think the actual number of children in poverty, the most disadvantaged that we reach through the Flying Start areas--I think it's about 46 per cent. Is that--? Do you know the actual percentage?
Suzy Davies AM: It's about a quarter of total children are in there, but--
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, just to give you a few of the numbers, there are just over 36,000 children benefiting from Flying Start services. That equates to about 23 per cent of children, overall, in Wales. And because of the nature of the benefit take-up data, and because we don't assess eligibility within a Flying Start area, we can't be absolutely certain how many children within a Flying Start area are actually in poverty. So, it's an estimate, and it's a range, and the range is that around 45 per cent of children in Flying Start areas would be in poverty. FootnoteLink
Suzy Davies AM: Well, that's interesting. I would have expected it to be much higher than that, particularly if the geographic areas had been targeted on benefit claims, effectively. Are you disappointed that the proportion is--basically, 55 per cent of those children aren't living in poverty. That's what you're saying, isn't it?
Jo-Anne Daniels: Well, I'd offer two observations. One: the nature of poverty in Wales is actually, generally, more dispersed than perhaps sometimes is appreciated. Yes, we have very concentrated areas of--
Suzy Davies AM: Well, actually, we do appreciate it, which is why we're asking this question. [Laughter. ]
Jo-Anne Daniels: Okay. So that's one issue to think about. Sorry, I've lost my train of thought now, in terms of the second--oh, sorry: whether you're in or out of poverty is, in one sense, very black/white. But in reality of course--in terms of the income definition, it's very black/white. But, of course, there will be a large number of people who are just above, but also families who move in and out, so it's quite a transient population in some senses, in terms of people having incomes that aren't stable, people having jobs that go with that that aren't stable. So, at any one point in time, you're only sort of capturing a snapshot of what's happening. In reality, it's a bit more complex than that.
Suzy Davies AM: I accept that. I mentioned a third of children living in poverty had fallen behind at five; by the age of 14, half that number is still falling behind, so something has happened between that third and that half to improve the life chances of those individual children or young people. Is that attributable to Flying Start? Can you say that candidly? Or is it a happy coincidence, where there could be some causation, but we can't prove it?
Jo-Anne Daniels: We certainly think that Flying Start is making a positive impact, both on the point at which children go to school, and then subsequently. And I think as the committee knows, we've been working with the SAIL--secure anonymised information linkage--and the databank there to look at how we can do longitudinal studies to track children's progress, to look at the extent to which outcomes are effected by Flying Start interventions.
Suzy Davies AM: We probably don't have time for this level of detail today, but half of those children are still behind at the age of 14. So, I'd be curious to know if there's any immediate plans to help them catch up or make sure that their successors don't fall into the same position, the same trap. Have you got anything high level that you can mention at this stage?
Julie Morgan AM: Just in terms of what we're thinking of doing with Flying Start--. The key thing about Flying Start is the collaborative way that it works with the health visitors and all the speech and language therapists and childcare, and we're looking at ways of trying to get some of those elements to reach a wider group. And as I said, we talked about earlier the eight earlier years transformation pathfinders that we talked about in the local authorities--we talked about that earlier--so, that's where we're going to look at Flying Start and how we can try to make it more accessible to more children. So, we do want to extend the benefits of Flying Start. We do want to make it available to more children, and that's what we're looking at. And we're looking at that in those eight pathfinder areas. And you'll have to wait to see what we come up with--
Suzy Davies AM: No, no--we'll ask you more about that in due course. Actually, that job would be an awful lot easier if you knew how many children within Flying Start areas were taking up all four elements. Why don't you know that? Why is that data not collected?
Julie Morgan AM: Do we know why?
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, the approach that we've taken to evaluation in Flying Start--. The committee will have seen the various evaluation reports that have been published, and I know that you're familiar with the work that, as I say, we've been doing with SAIL. We're currently focusing on individual data collection, and through that we want to be able to report on levels of engagement, but also outcomes for children. We've been piloting that new approach in six local authorities. We hope to be able to extend that, and we hope to be able to provide more evidence about the interventions and the impact that they then achieve.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. All right. Because, to be honest, I would want to know if a child's chances have improved primarily because they're getting good-quality childcare or primarily because their parents are taking up parenting courses. There's got to be some indication somewhere in here about which of these four elements is making the greatest difference.
Jo-Anne Daniels: I would just caution in terms of expectations. It will always be quite difficult to definitively provide answers to that, because many parents will be taking these things up in combination. So, disentangling which has had the effect is, obviously, quite tricky--in particular, all parents will be getting the enhanced health visiting. Not every parent will take up parenting support, not every child will need speech and language help, so--
Suzy Davies AM: And that's why we need to know who is.
Jo-Anne Daniels: Disentangling what's helped and what hasn't I think will always be quite a difficult thing to do.
Suzy Davies AM: But it would also be helpful to know which combinations work best as well. Just on the final point from me--yes, 88 per cent of Flying Start's childcare offers were taken up, but we've had some local authorities where the take-up has dropped dramatically. I think Denbighshire was down a fair bit, wasn't it, and Ceredigion, I think, had had a poor take-up. Have you got any indication why? I'm thinking of Denbighshire particularly, where there is a tradition--taking up third-party childcare is cultural there, whereas in Ceredigion, for example, there are far fewer places available in the first place and less of a tradition of children taking up childcare. But what's happened in Denbighshire?
Julie Morgan AM: I think there are a number of different reasons why parents do decide not to use a facility, and, obviously, that always exists, but each local authority has a Flying Start account manager in place to support them in the delivery of the programme and the account management activities, and there are formal account meetings that look at this sort of thing once a year--
Suzy Davies AM: So, what have they told you?
Julie Morgan AM: --and these meetings will take place in November 2019. That's when the specific delivery issues will be discussed in depth, so that's when we'll find out what has happened and why there may have been a drop.
Suzy Davies AM: Can I just ask about the timing of that? Because if you already know that there's a 6 per cent drop, why will it take the best part of a year to--well, November's only next month, to be fair, now, but why will it take that length of time to establish why there's a drop? You'd have thought if you'd seen a trend like that--
Julie Morgan AM: Obviously, they meet at certain times and they will assess what's happened. That seems quite normal to me.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, but we'll get a note on that, is it? It's just that they knew this six months ago.
Julie Morgan AM: In November, we'll have more information about this, so we can let you have information about that.
Suzy Davies AM: That would be really helpful, just for--. I'm sure constituents in Denbighshire will want to know about that. And then finally from me, Chair, if I may, Flying Start beneficiaries--it's got a specific explanation of what a Flying Start beneficiary is, but I think, particularly in view of the evidence we've heard on this committee about parental support in connection with the removal of the defence of reasonable chastisement, for example, this committee is very concerned about what's out there in terms of parental support. Eighteen per cent of Flying Start beneficiaries have parents attending the informal parenting courses; that's 18 per cent, that's not very high. Any idea about what you might be able to do to encourage take-up or is that very locally decided?
Lynne Neagle AM: If I can add to that, obviously, somebody only has to attend one course--we've got no way of knowing whether parents are completing the whole of a course, really.
Julie Morgan AM: Obviously, the offer is there for parents to take up the parenting courses, and there are four elements to Flying Start, and maybe some of the parents don't feel that they want to or need to. I don't think we've got any more evidence on that for take-up--
Suzy Davies AM: Well, the reach of this is going to be important, because we need the reassurance on the back of the legislation that is going through at the moment.
Julie Morgan AM: Absolutely, yes.
Jo-Anne Daniels: Parenting courses are, of course, one aspect of parenting support, but not the only one, and they'll be appropriate for a lot of parents, but for some not. What all parents do get at an enhanced level in Flying Start is the support of the health visitor, so the health visitor is, in effect, providing a significant amount of support for parenting. Now, that can be practical things like weaning or potty training et cetera, but, actually, it's also about managing a child's behaviour, managing how a parent develops that bonding and that attachment with their child. So, the role of the health visitor in supporting a parent to be a parent is absolutely critical, and every parent in Flying Start areas will be getting that enhanced level of support. Of course, it's not just in Flying Start areas now, because with the Healthy Child Wales programme, the universal programme of health visiting visits, we have a much more consistent and standardised set of visits and engagements with parents that cover a lot of these areas. In addition, I'd also add that when parents use the childcare in Flying Start, or childcare generally outside of Flying Start areas, there is often a lot of working between the childcare setting and the parent over parenting--again, managing a child's behaviour, managing any issues that the childcare worker thinks are emerging in terms of whether it's eating or, again, toileting. So, parenting courses are important, but it's really essential that we see those in the broader context of the different ways in which lots of professionals interact with parents, providing them with advice, guidance and support, and actually what works for parents in terms of how they take on board some of that advice and that help. Sometimes a formal course is quite off-putting for parents, but the sort of quiet word, the top tips, the advice that a friendly professional gives can be very, very impactful.
Suzy Davies AM: That's a really helpful answer. It does raise, unfortunately, another question about whether a health visitor in those circumstances might find themselves in a difficult position if they're dealing with a parent who has smacked a child, but we'll leave that for Stage 3.
Julie Morgan AM: We'll be dealing with that, I'm sure.
Suzy Davies AM: But thank you; that was a helpful answer. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank the Minister and the officials for attending this morning? As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again for your attendance. Thank you.
Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Item 4 is papers to note. There's just one today: the letter from the WLGA regarding the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019 in response to our letter asking about the change in approach. Item 5 then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Thank you. | Julie Morgan insisted that they were aware that different local authorities actually had adopted different patterns of providing early education. And with the Flying Start programme being geographically targeted, with the education being determined by the local authorities, they knew that there was a variance throughout Wales. Then they would like to see facilities developed in each local authority throughout Wales that would answer the needs of the families and the children in those areas. And It was demand-led and universally available to all parents who meet the eligibility criteria of working, so they believed the programme should be available to everybody. | qmsum |
What did Janet Finch-Saunders think of childcare when discussing differences of care provision in different parts of Wales?
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies for absence this morning. Can I ask if there are any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay. Thank you. Item 3 this morning then is a scrutiny session on early childhood education and care, and I'm very pleased to welcome Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Jo-anne Daniels, director of communities and tackling poverty at Welsh Government; and Nicola Edwards, deputy director of the childcare, play and early years division in Welsh Government. Thank you all for your attendance. We're very much looking forward to the session. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions, and the first ones are from Hefin David.
Hefin David AM: Good morning, Deputy Minister. What are your primary objectives? Is it supporting the development of children or getting parents into work?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, I think you'll be aware from the range of programmes that we've got that we do feel it's important to support both children and parents. There's obviously lots of evidence to show how important the early years are for children, how important they are for their development, and so, that is one of our primary objectives. But we also know how important it is for parents to have stable jobs, reasonably paid, so that can also help with the development of the children. So, we really see it that our plans are for both parents and children, and we believe that a high-quality, early-childhood education and care system can provide that. And, of course, in terms of when we talk about jobs as well, I think it's really important to remember that the childcare system is a big employer as well and a very important employer. So that, actually, itself provides jobs.
Hefin David AM: So, the evidence we've seen suggests that, historically, Governments in the UK and devolved have focused on primarily getting parents into work. So, are you suggesting then that your focus is to change that and move towards early child development?
Julie Morgan AM: No, what I'm saying is that we want to give parents the opportunity to work. We don't want childcare to be a barrier to parents working because we think that working is one the best routes out of poverty, but we do also want to make sure that children have the greatest experience that they can have in the early years. So, we see it as one.
Hefin David AM: Okay. And that's quite a policy challenge to deliver both at the same time.
Julie Morgan AM: The situation as it is is complex, and I think it needs simplifying. It is a challenge, but it's probably one of the most important challenges we've got in Government, because what we offer to families with young children is one of the most important things we do.
Hefin David AM: And in your evidence to the committee, you said that the Welsh Government's approach'will build on a wide variety of programmes that are continually developing in order to support parents, families and children during the early years.'And you've just said you want to simplify that. How do you simplify that, particularly with regard to the provision of funding and the way these things connect from the birth of a child into school? How will simplification look, and what will happen?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, we're not at the stage of being able to say what it will look like at the moment, but we're looking at ways of simplifying, because I think it's absolutely right, it is a very complex system, because it's grown up from all different routes. But we are having lots of pilot projects that are looking at ways of simplifying the system. We have got pathway projects in, I think it's eight local authorities, who are looking at ways of joining up the whole system. So, we are looking at that, and I absolutely except that it is very complex and we want to find ways of making it simpler and easier to understand. So, we are working with local authorities and health boards to see how we can actually work together and simplify things.
Hefin David AM: And it's good to hear that that's your objective. Can I just come back to the first thing you said:'We can't say yet what we're going to do'?
Julie Morgan AM: No.
Hefin David AM: So, when will we have a policy plan and something that we can interrogate in more detail?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, I think we are near getting to an announcement where we will be able to say what direction we're going in, and because we have had--. Some of this work has been going on for a year or so, and we're getting the results of those pathfinder projects coming in. So, when we do have all those results, we will be able to say the direction that we want to go in, and I hope we'll be able to do that very soon.
Hefin David AM: Before Christmas?
Julie Morgan AM: I hope so.
Hefin David AM: Okay. And finally from me--
Julie Morgan AM: I'm sorry I can't say too much about that because we haven't actually--. We need to--.
Hefin David AM: Well, it does sound like something is imminent.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes.
Hefin David AM: Okay. And that's as far as you're willing to go. And if that's as far as you're willing to go, then I'll stop asking.
Lynne Neagle AM: I've got a supplementary from Sian.
Hefin David AM: Okay.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes, that's fine.
Sian Gwenllian AM: I just want to understand a little about the pilot, the pathfinders in eight local authority areas. Is the focus there on the child or is it on parents returning to work?
Julie Morgan AM: The focus is on an early years system, but we've worked both locally and nationally. So, it's looking at both. I mean, actually, I think, perhaps, Nicola, would you like to or one of you like to describe one of the programmes?
Sian Gwenllian AM: And can you just explain the vision? Is it a child-centred early years provision that we're thinking of in these pathfinder--?
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, in'Prosperity for All', we set out that early years was one of the key priority areas, and within that we said that we wanted to create a more joined-up and more responsive system. So, when we talk about a system, we're talking about the services that are provided by health boards, so health visiting, midwifery, speech and language support, other kinds of therapeutic services, as well as all the important services that local authorities are providing, such as support for parenting, advice and guidance, employment support and childcare, obviously. And we've got eight pathfinders. I'll try and remember each of them. So, Flintshire, Newport, Blaenau Gwent, Neath Port Talbot, Swansea, Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire--and then I've missed one, I think, because I've only got to seven--who have been working with us to look at how all of those services are currently delivered in their local area and whether and how they can reorganise those services to improve accessibility, to improve take-up, but essentially to improve the efficacy of those programmes in terms of supporting children, but often, obviously, in supporting children you have to support parents too and support the home.
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, would you say it's a child-centred approach?
Jo-Anne Daniels: Absolutely, because it's about making sure that we deliver the best start in life for children in Wales, but obviously parents are a critical element of that, so can't be excluded.
Lynne Neagle AM: And how long have they been going for?
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, those eight pathfinders started their work in--I think it was--February this year. And they're still in the very early stages in terms of actually unpicking and mapping the current provision of services across their areas and then moving on to the stage where they'll develop proposals for how they might change the delivery of early years.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Julie.
Julie Morgan AM: Just to say also, the one in Flintshire is also testing the impact of consistent funding rates for education and childcare. So, that's been going longer than the others. So, that's another important area because there's an evaluation of that project under way at the moment.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you.
Jo-Anne Daniels: Sorry, but Caerphilly was the one that I forgot to mention.
Lynne Neagle AM: Oh dear. [Laughter. ]
Hefin David AM: That's absolutely unforgivable. [Laughter. ]
Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin. [Laughter. ]
Julie Morgan AM: Very significant.
Hefin David AM: In your report, the'Alignment of the Childcare Offer for Wales to the Foundation Phase', one of the recommendations was that'The Welsh Government, local authority education and childcare policy and delivery teams could merge'. So, looking behind the scenes, those disparate parts of policy, delivering the foundation phase and childcare offer should merge. Is that the case? Has that been put under way and should we be looking at this structure in more depth?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, probably not at the structure at this time because the report that you're referring to was looking at the first year of the delivery of the childcare offer and it did make a number of points, which we have taken on board. For example, we issued guidance last year regarding the delivery of the foundation phase, which supports widening the number of non-maintained settings that are able to deliver early education and we're also supporting co-location and partnership working between education and childcare providers through our capital investment programme. I think it's about PS81 million that we put into the capital investment where we are developing childcare facilities co-located with the education facilities, because that was one of the things that came out from this report you're referring to. And, I mean, obviously, early years is one of the key priorities within'Prosperity for All'and, obviously, education sits within one portfolio with the Minister for Education, and childcare is with me. But we're doing what we can to work together to try to bring those together, and that was one of the proposals in that report. But it's still very early to think about, at this stage, a structural change.
Hefin David AM: And I remember when you were on the committee here with me, sitting next to me, we had those discussions about co-location. I know the problem with not having co-location is that you could end up seeing a child travelling between three or more locations during the course of a day. Are you suggesting now that the actions you're taking will resolve that issue universally, or will it lead to a piecemeal resolution? And, if so, to what extent, what percentage of children will see that resolved as an issue?
Julie Morgan AM: Certainly, the co-location is not going to solve it universally because although we've been able to develop a lot of new facilities, or build on old facilities, there will be a lot of areas that we won't have covered. So, I can't say that there's going to be a situation where everything is going to be co-located because I don't think that would be feasible, and, for some of the providers, they wouldn't be in a position to move to a school. But ideally it's a good situation, but, certainly, I think the discussions that there were on the committee, it's not ideal to take children for long distances between different providers, let alone the effect it has on the climate change issue. It's whether it's good for children as well. So, I can't say that they will ever be co-located, but as I said in response to your earlier question, we are encouraging the development of the foundation phase in non-maintained settings, which, obviously, is quite significant.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. I've got some questions now from Janet Finch-Saunders.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. What is the Welsh Government doing to address the big differences in the amount of early childhood education and care provision available in different parts of Wales?
Julie Morgan AM: Right. Well, thank you very much for that question. I mean, obviously, it would be good to see a greater degree of consistency, but I think it's important to acknowledge that there are reasons for that variation. Now, early education, of course, is the responsibility of the Minister for Education, and we are aware that different local authorities have adopted different patterns of providing early education. For example, local authorities are funded to provide 10 hours minimum of the foundation phase for three and four-year-olds across Wales, but there's quite a variance in how much is actually provided, with some local authorities providing a lot more historically. So, it does mean that there is a different pattern across Wales, according to what local authorities do. But what I could say is, of course, the quality is very good, as the Estyn reports have shown; that the quality provided, the delivery of the foundation phase, is very good. But it does vary in terms of what is offered throughout Wales, and that is the decision of the local authorities, and it is a historical thing. I refer to this pilot in Flint, which is trying to test paying the same rate for foundation phase and childcare. We're going to have an independent evaluation on that soon, in November this year, so that will help us. Obviously, I think local authorities'role in all this is absolutely crucial because they are the local, nearest people to decide how things develop in their own areas. And then, of course, we've got Flying Start, which is geographically targeted, which uses the data from income benefit to decide which are the areas where that is being delivered. And that is delivered where the highest proportion of children aged nought to three are living in income-dependent households. So, again, that determines the pattern throughout Wales. With Flying Start being geographically targeted, with the education being determined by the local authorities about how much there is, we know that there is a variance throughout Wales. We'd like to see facilities developed in each local authority throughout Wales that would answer the needs of the families and the children in those areas.
Lynne Neagle AM: Before you move on, Janet, Sian's got a supplementary.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Just in terms of the foundation phase, there have been cuts, of course, in expenditure in that phase. How concerned are you about that and the impact that that will have on the way in which the foundation phase is taught in our schools? The foundation phase is now part of the education improvement grant, which has seen a reduction of 10 per cent, and it has to compete against other expenditure streams within that greater pot of funding. So, are you concerned that money is being lost and that that will have an impact on standards in the foundation phase?
Julie Morgan AM: I haven't seen any evidence. Obviously, I must reiterate the foundation phase does come under the Minister for Education, but I haven't seen any evidence of any standards being lowered, and the reports from Estyn are very good. In fact, I think the foundation phase is one of our great joys, that we absolutely celebrate it, and so I'd be very concerned if I thought there was any drop in standards in the foundation phase, and I certainly haven't had any evidence of that. I would want to guard against that.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Exactly, but if there are fewer teaching assistants in the system because of the cuts, it's going to impact on standards, at the end of the day.
Julie Morgan AM: I think we have to be very careful to see that lower standards are not implemented, because it was groundbreaking when we brought it in, and it has proved to be a great success, so we want to make sure that's guarded.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Janet.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Going back to my original question about the big differences in amounts of early childhood education and care provision in different parts of Wales, the Welsh and UK Governments have followed a demand-driven approach to the childcare market, with subsidies mainly given to working parents. Is that a mistake? Should it be more universally available?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, some of our provision is universally available in certain areas. For example, the Flying Start provision is universally available in geographically defined areas, and I think that's very important, because that does mean that there isn't stigma, and so, in those areas, everybody can take advantage of it, and yet it is reaching those who are most in need because it's reaching those areas. So, I think that there is a purpose behind that. In terms of when you say demand led, could you elaborate on that?
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I know that--we've just had a useful briefing from David Dallimore, and, basically, there is this theory that there are too many resources--the demand-driven approach is based more on certain factors: geographic spread in terms of it being more universal, and whether that's the right way. How do children then mix with peers from different backgrounds, in their own peer or age group?
Julie Morgan AM: It is demand--
Nicola Edwards: [Inaudible. ]--because the offer is targeted at working parents--
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, yes.
Nicola Edwards: --obviously, then the amount of availability is based on how many parents apply for it and take it up. Is that the context of demand led in that--
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes.
Nicola Edwards: Right, okay.
Julie Morgan AM: It is universally available to all parents who meet the eligibility criteria of working, and I think what you're saying is that it should be available to everybody.
Lynne Neagle AM: I think the point that Janet's making is that some areas have traditionally got more childcare anyway because they have traditionally had more demand in those areas, so there's not a level playing field to start from. Is that correct?
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes.
Julie Morgan AM: I think that, historically, that is definitely true, and when you look at the take-up of the childcare offer, it's certainly taken up in some areas with a very high take-up rate. I think Ynys Mon was nearly 90 per cent or something--
Sian Gwenllian AM: They need more money, because they haven't got enough funding.
Dawn Bowden AM: So does everywhere.
Sian Gwenllian AM: No, to meet the demand.
Julie Morgan AM: In other areas, it's much, much lower--in some of the cities, I know. So, there is a big range in take-up--
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: So, do you intend to bring something forward to address that?
Julie Morgan AM: We are planning to extend it. We're looking at the possibility of extending it to parents who are in education and training. So, we are widening the offer, yes. Obviously, we have to wait for the evaluation of that. It would be great to be able to offer it to absolutely everybody, but obviously we have got the finance to look at in terms of how we do that. But we are certainly planning to expand it.
Lynne Neagle AM: We've got questions on the offer in a little while. Janet.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Does the Welsh Government intend to develop an integrated approach, then, against all settings? If so, given the current inconsistencies, how can quality be assured?
Julie Morgan AM: We are developing a more integrated approach towards the early years. As I've said, we're trying to have the foundation phase operating in more non-maintained settings, and we're already developing that. But Estyn and CIW will continue to inspect and regulate the early years sector to ensure standards, and, since January 2019, CIW and Estyn have moved to joint inspections for the non-maintained settings that are offering the foundation phase. So, that is a very positive move, I think, and is absolutely making sure that standards are maintained, because if we are having the foundation phase in non-maintained settings, that is a challenge where we want to be sure that the standards and the philosophy of the foundation phase are maintained. So, we have got the system of inspection to ensure that.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: And finally from me, what specific steps have been put in place to take forward the commitments from the Welsh Government's 2017 childcare/play early years workforce plan to build a better understanding of the workforce's Welsh language skills to enable support for the sector to be targeted and to identify where capacity needs to be built for the future to meet the needs of the early years sector in a bilingual Wales?
Julie Morgan AM: We think this is very important, and we're pleased that 29 per cent of children taking up the childcare offer are in Welsh or bilingual settings, so we think that's very good. We have established a specific programme to develop Welsh language skills in the childcare and play workforce with the National Centre for Learning Welsh, to develop workplace Welsh language skills across the sector. So, we're actually working with that, and I think you've done something with those recently, haven't you? I don't know if you want to--
Nicola Edwards: Yes. So, we have a stakeholder group where we've brought together a variety of people with an interest in the early years, childcare and play sectors, and we had a presentation just last month from the national language centre about the education programmes that they're rolling out, and how this is all coming together, which is quite interesting. We've been working quite carefully to make sure that the variety of work-based learning programmes that we provide and offer are also available in Welsh and bilingually. Recruitment and retention within the childcare and play sector is quite challenging in any case. Recruiting and retaining staff with really good Welsh language skills adds an extra dimension to it, and that it's a point that Mudiad Meithrin makes to us quite regularly, that they do struggle to find staff with the right skills. So, upskilling the existing workforce is a key part of it, but also doing more to attract people in with Welsh language skills in the first place in terms of the training courses that we're taking forward, and thinking about that in the context of the targets within Cymraeg 2050 and the aim to get to one million Welsh speakers. So, as the Deputy Minister said, we've got quite a number of children accessing the offer in Welsh-medium or bilingual settings at the moment. We're going to be doing some baselining work against that in terms of local authorities'Welsh in education strategic plans and education places, and what we can then do to increase the number of childcare places in parallel with that so that you can make sure that you start that pathway through learning Welsh, interacting with education and childcare through Welsh at a much earlier stage.
Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you've got a supplementary.
Suzy Davies AM: Just on this early point, anybody who's been through the Welsh education system, which is 20 years now, will have some Welsh language skills, obviously to differing degrees. For the entrants that are coming into childcare training now, there are going to be very few of them, realistically, with no Welsh at all, so what's actually being incorporated into the early years care training to make sure, at that stage, that the Welsh language skills are being developed, as opposed to an add-on later on?
Nicola Edwards: You're quite right. Most people coming through the education system will have some awareness of Welsh although I think it's probably important to remember we do also employ people from outside of wales.
Suzy Davies AM: Yes, but the majority, being realistic.
Nicola Edwards: But they don't necessarily have Welsh that is appropriate. They've got Welsh that they've developed in school. It's not necessarily appropriate for then teaching that language to children, who may be coming from families who don't use Welsh at home. So, that might be the first interaction that child has with the language. So, there's a lot of that in terms of child development and how you develop children bilingually, particularly if they're coming from English-medium homes, and reinforcing the language in language choices. There will also be some people who are, perhaps--we see this quite a lot in the office--quite confident in terms of speaking Welsh but less so in terms of some of the paperwork, the reporting, the writing and the interacting with parents more officially, which we need to think about as well. But it is mainly about getting people to a point where they can transmit that language onwards in a confident and meaningful way.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And it's ingrained in the early years training.
Nicola Edwards: Yes.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. That's fine. Thank you for that. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Just before we move on, you said that 29 per cent of the take-up of the childcare offer is either through Welsh or is bilingual. Have you got any figures about how many children are accessing it in Welsh only?
Nicola Edwards: We will have. It becomes--. With the way we do it, it's because of the way that the setting defines their language category, and that's how we collect it. We do go down to individual child level, although it's anonymised, data collection on a termly basis. So I'll have a look and see if we can send you through the last term.
Lynne Neagle AM: Maybe if the committee could have a note, that would be really useful.
Nicola Edwards: Yes, that's fine.
Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now on childcare from Dawn Bowden.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Deputy Minister, the evaluation of the childcare offer, when it was published last year, said that there was very little evidence currently available to determine what its impact was. You're going to be producing a second evaluation in November this year; do you expect to see some indications now of the impact?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, the evaluation of the first year of the childcare offer was very limited, because the childcare offer wasn't available throughout the whole of Wales. And it was a very early implementation phase. So, obviously it takes time to grow. And the evaluation for year 2, I think, will also show a limited impact for the same reasons. The offer became available across the whole of Wales only last April. So we've only got since last April that it's actually been fully available. And the parental survey was released to parents in June 2019, therefore any impact on parents in the authorities coming on board in the second year will also be negligible. So, it's from the next one, however, we hope that we will get more information.
Dawn Bowden AM: So you think, by the time we get to November 2020, you might have a better picture.
Julie Morgan AM: The evaluation will be more meaningful, we think, then, yes.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. I take that point. What the first year's evaluation did show, however, was that 94 per cent of respondents said that they were already using formal childcare before the offer came into place. A couple of things, really: are you surprised at that, and is that likely to inform the way that you develop the offer in the future?
Julie Morgan AM: No, I'm not surprised at all. When it started off, it was only available in seven local authorities. In terms of how the families found out that it was available, they found it out through the childcare providers, where they already had their children there. So it was absolutely what we would have expected, and that will continue. But, of course, we were not able to fully advertise the childcare offer until it was available in all the local authorities, which was last April. So we are planning, this autumn, quite a big push now to try to make it available to everybody--so everybody knows about it. So, no, this is the pattern we would have expected, and I think anybody who's involved in starting up something in childcare will know you have to wait a number of years before you actually see it being fully taken up.
Dawn Bowden AM: I guess the question that it raises in my mind is: does this mean that, actually, it hasn't been an incentive to get somebody back into work, because they were already in work and already had childcare provision? What you've done is you've directed money to people who were already spending that money anyway. So it hasn't been a move towards getting people into work because they couldn't afford childcare.
Julie Morgan AM: Well I think that that is something that we are moving towards, because the take-up of the offer is actually increasing each month, which is why I call it a great success. At the end of July, we hit almost 16,000 children accessing the offer, which obviously means that there are 16,000 families benefiting from this, and the feedback that we have had from parents is that they have been able to--. They've got more money available, which is obvious, which is great, because obviously more money is available to plunge into the economy and carry out that sort of thing, and we've got examples of parents who've been supported into work through programmes like Parents, Childcare and Employment to begin with, and then have gone on to access the offer. So, that's again a progression. So, I think we are seeing signs that people are moving on, have got more ability to be flexible in the work that they're doing, but I hope that when we look at it again, we will be able to see people actually moving into work because of having the access to childcare.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Before--
Lynne Neagle AM: Are you going to move on? Sian's got a supplementary.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Just a question on funding for the childcare offer. If you foresee that there's going to be more people going to be taking up that offer through the fact that you're marketing it more, what if the same situation arises that has happened on Anglesey? The take-up has been very good there, but the money that the Welsh Government has been allocating to Anglesey doesn't match that. What if it happens in every local authority right across Wales? Are you confident there's going to be plenty of money available to respond to that demand?
Julie Morgan AM: Based on the current levels of take-up and looking at the rates of increase each month, we expect to spend in the region of PS50 million to PS55 million in this financial year. Our published plans already include the provision of PS40 million, and we're absolutely committed to making available the total funding that is needed to deliver on the offer. It is fantastic to see the offer being so well received on Ynys Mon, recognising, as Janet said earlier, it is demand led. We are managing it within the normal budgetary process. Local authorities will get the full funding that is needed. It's this year now that the big increase has happened; the previous two years--
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, local authorities won't have to find the extra money out of their own pots.
Julie Morgan AM: No, absolutely not. This is funded by the Welsh Government.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. You can assure them.
Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. You've already alluded to this in answer to Janet earlier on, about extending the childcare offer to those in training and education. You also talk about'on the cusp'of returning to work. So, I'm not quite sure what'on the cusp'of returning to work is, but from the committee's point of view, we're very pleased that you've reached that conclusion, because it was one of the recommendations that we had following the scrutiny of the Bill. So, can you say a little more about that, bearing in mind that I'm also conscious that you've told Hefin you're going to be making an announcement shortly? So you may not be able to say too much. But a little bit more about the inclusion of parents in training and education, what'on the cusp of returning to work'is--what that means from your perspective--and how you've arrived at that decision now, six months into the programme. What is it that's made you move towards that conclusion?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, obviously, the children and young persons committee made a very good case for education and training, in particular; I think that was one of the things that was at the top of the list. What we've committed to do is to review the programme, particularly looking at how we could bring in education and training, and that review will report early next year. So, early next year, we will have a view on how we could go forward. But the other thing that's also happened is that, obviously, with the new First Minister, that was one of his manifesto commitments--that he would bring education and training in. So, we're obviously following the--
Dawn Bowden AM: Because that was one of the key drivers for that as well.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes, so that is another of the key drivers, as you said--the committee and what the First Minister said. There are a wealth of programmes supporting parents into education, training or work, and many of those do provide support with childcare costs. But we have, by rolling out this programme, the childcare programme, highlighted some gaps where people have felt that they, particularly people who are in full-time education--and I can think of a number of people who are actually doing PhD studies--who are--the letters may have come in from some of your constituents--not able to access the offer as things stand. So, we are looking at people who are in full-time education and training. We're using the definition by the Office for National Statistics, aren't we, in terms of education and training. And on'on the cusp of work', maybe that will have to be something we have to look at differently--those people who are actually maybe undertaking very short training programmes, preparation for work, maybe actually having interviews, where they need help with childcare, that they're sort of almost there. So, they may have to be dealt with in a different way, but I think we do want to look at those. This is expanding the offer; it's not making it universal, but it's moving on.
Dawn Bowden AM: So, what are the--? Overall, then, what are the factors that you're having to take into account? Is it going to be what is needed in order to encourage people back into work? Is it going to be cost? Is it going to be a combination of all of those things? What are going to be the key factors that you're going to be looking at?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, the position now is that anybody who fulfills the criteria in terms of the number of hours they work, we would look at that in terms of education and training, and then, this expression'on the cusp of work'we may have to look at differently, because they may not fulfil those numbers in terms of number of hours training. So, we'll get a criteria, and then they will have access to the childcare offer. But I just have to emphasise that there are ways of getting help with childcare already, and we wanted to make sure we don't duplicate. That's why this field is so complex, shall we say, because there's so many different ways that you can actually get help, and we want to be sure that we don't duplicate--
Dawn Bowden AM: Sorry, Julie. So, all of this is going to be incorporated in this announcement that you're going to be making shortly--
Julie Morgan AM: No, this review will report early next year.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. My final question--
Lynne Neagle AM: Before you move on, sorry, I've got a couple of supplementaries. I've got Suzy, then Sian. Sorry, Dawn.
Suzy Davies AM: Just on the cost element, because if you do roll out this programme, obviously, on the back of evidence through a review, it is going to cost extra money. Early years is one of the eight priority areas for Government. There are fairly generous Barnett consequentials coming from the comprehensive spending review and announcements on schools from the UK Government, and while I accept that you've only got annual commitments there, they're still substantial. How much money have you managed to secure for early years from the most recent announcement, and when have you planned to actually use that, maybe for some of this work?
Julie Morgan AM: Have you got some information on that?
Nicola Edwards: The budget process is ongoing internally, so I think'secured'is probably a slightly premature phrase.
Suzy Davies AM: Am I allowed to ask instead how much you've asked for, then? All I'm after is some reassurance that you will be getting some of this money, and as it is one of the eight priorities, certainly we would expect to see you getting a substantial amount of money for early years.
Julie Morgan AM: As one of the Government's priorities, we would expect to get any money that came as a result of any Barnett consequentials.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And it will be in the draft budget that we know for sure if it is successful.
Julie Morgan AM: It's all in the process--
Lynne Neagle AM: And the committee will want to look very carefully at that, obviously.
Julie Morgan AM: It's in the process at the moment.
Suzy Davies AM: There we are. Just giving you a good warning.
Lynne Neagle AM: Sian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: How much would it cost to move to a child-centred approach, which means that every child would be able to access the childcare offer, rather than doing it from parents?
Julie Morgan AM: We are looking at that. We're having a longer-term review, in terms of what it would mean if every child had access to the childcare offer. We don't have those figures yet. We've got the one review looking at bringing in education and training. That should report early next year, and then we've got another longer-term review, looking at what a universal offer would mean.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Do we know how many children we're talking about?
Nicola Edwards: Yes. So, there are approximately, at any given time, around 73,000 three and four-year-olds in Wales. There's some slight rounding in the numbers there, but approximately 73,000 at any given time. Based on the current eligibility criteria for the offer, it's about 34,000 children, we believe, are eligible. This does, of course, vary, depending on a whole range of different factors, and we certainly know from what we're seeing from the offer that, even where people are entitled to something, they don't necessarily take it up. And even if they do take it up, they don't necessarily take up their full entitlement, which is also something that we'd have to think about in terms of any modelling on costings.
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, half the children are in non-working families.
Nicola Edwards: It's because of the requirement that, in a two-parent household, both parents must be in work.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. Two parent. Okay.
Lynne Neagle AM: One of the points that the committee made very strongly in our report on the Bill was that we wanted to see a much more child-centred focus, and one of the issues that came out in scrutiny was whether, actually, three and four-year-olds were the right age to be actually targeting if we're looking at things like child development. Have you given any consideration to the actual age group that's covered when we know that, for many children, it's the first 1,000 days that makes that fundamental difference?
Julie Morgan AM: We are aware that there is a case that says that two years old is a very important time. We are looking at that as part of the overall longer review, yes. We are aware of the information and what you're saying about the younger the better.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Dawn.
Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, my final question, Chair, thank you, is about the parent, childcare and employment programme, which is jointly funded by the European social fund and Welsh Government. It has been quite successful, in terms of its numbers anyway, in getting economically inactive parents into work. What are the plans for this programme, if and when we leave the EU and we lose the ESF funding for that?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, the programme has recently been extended, with delivery continuing until June 2022, with additional ESF funding of PS5. 6 million. That's recently happened, and obviously this programme provides intensive employment to parents who are not in education, employment or training or economically inactive and where the childcare is the main barrier, and it has been a very, very successful programme. So, the UK has guaranteed funding for all EU projects approved by December 2020, and this includes the PaCE programme. I think there was also another--. I only heard it verbally. I heard some other guarantees on the radio recently from the UK Treasury about guaranteeing some of these funds. I don't know whether anybody else heard that. But the Welsh Government can only draw on the UK Government guarantee for claims that aren't paid by the European Commission, and so the current arrangements are staying in place.
Dawn Bowden AM: Until when, sorry?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, June 2022.
Dawn Bowden AM: Oh, I see. Yes. So, that's when all the current commitments expire, basically. Yes. So, we don't know--. To do that it would have to be part of Government planning in terms of--
Julie Morgan AM: Well, we don't know what's happening with that--
Dawn Bowden AM: --what would happen beyond that.
Julie Morgan AM: --funding, but there have been some promises from the UK Government recently, but nothing definite.
Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, we're not holding our breath.
Julie Morgan AM: No.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Sian's got some specific questions now around the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019.
Sian Gwenllian AM: As we know, of course, the work with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs has ended, and I know you weren't the Minister who initiated this process, but what exactly has gone wrong? What are these issues that have come to light that have made you suspend that? It's very frustrating for us, as a committee, who scrutinised that extensively and raised a lot of concerns about that. And a lot of time has been spent talking about this funding Bill, and money--PS1 million, I understand--has been wasted, if you like, unnecessarily. So, what exactly has gone wrong? Why aren't you discussing these things with HMRC?
Julie Morgan AM:
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. So, thank you for that explanation.
Julie Morgan AM: I've got more to say as well.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but for your transparency around your particular view that it needs to be more flexible and expanded upon and, therefore, going down the HMRC route was--
Julie Morgan AM: It would have restricted us a lot.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. We knew that from the beginning. I mean, that's, you know--. So, it was a principle decision rather than any sort of technical matters to do with the Welsh language standards. That's been cited as one kind of--. But I'm really understanding more now that, really, what it's about is that you want to have a more flexible, and expand on the offer and that this would curtail--going through HMRC would put limits on that.
Julie Morgan AM: That is one of the reasons, but there were issues about the Welsh language, which we can go into in detail, if you'd like. There were some issues about that. They would be able to process things bilingually, and I think that was probably told to the committee when we looked at the HMRC. But, in terms of the Welsh language standards that the Minister has to use, there would be some difficulties in them doing it.
Sian Gwenllian AM: But would you say that your main change came about because you wanted to be more flexible rather than any difficulties--
Julie Morgan AM: One of the major reasons, I think--
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Good.
Julie Morgan AM: But there are--. As I say, there are other reasons. Those technical reasons probably do end up being quite important--
Sian Gwenllian AM: But the committee was told by the previous Minister that HMRC wouldn't have any problem at all with delivering according to the Welsh language standards.
Julie Morgan AM: Do you want to add something to this?
Nicola Edwards: So, in terms of some of the technical issues we had, if you want to start with the bilingual provision and the Welsh language standards, HMRC do provide a bilingual service at the moment for their customers in line with their Welsh language scheme, and I think we can all appreciate that schemes are quite different from the requirements of the standards. And there were some issues when we got into the detail of the standards that the Welsh Ministers are required to deliver to that caused some concerns in terms of how HMRC were going to do it, particularly in terms of the multiple IT systems that go into building up the childcare services. So, for example, there are a number of what are called'special characters'in the Welsh alphabet, such as the to bach, for example. The HMRC IT system has some issues with that.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, well, with due respect, the to bach has always been there--
Nicola Edwards: Oh, yes, I completely agree. Unfortunately, however--
Sian Gwenllian AM: --and HMRC would have been able to tell you, really early on, you would have thought, that it was--. I don't really want to go into it, because I think we've got to the crux of why HMRC was dropped. I think it's been dropped because Julie feels that the offer needs to be more flexible, and I can understand why you would say that.
Julie Morgan AM: If we bring in training and education, for example, we wouldn't be able to do that via the HMRC, it would have to be done by the local authorities. Foster parents have to be done via the local authorities. Any people of immigration status of no resource from public funds, that would have to be done via the local authorities. And with the local authorities also wanting to do it--. I mean, there are other things with using HMRC--if any changes were made with the English offer, for example, because this would be delivered via HMRC with the English offer, that would cause difficulties for the Welsh offer. So, we wanted something more flexible. I don't know if there's anything more you want to add on that.
Jo-Anne Daniels: The only thing I'd add is that--and, again, I think the Minister has referred to this--the costs that HMRC presented us with at the end of the discovery phase were significantly higher than the costs that had initially been outlined and that we outlined to the committee in the regulatory impact assessment. So, our conclusion is that we can deliver a cheaper system and a system that has the flexibility that the Deputy Minister has referred to by working with local authorities rather than HMRC. So, there is an important issue around value for money as well and making sure that the investment that we're making into developing the national system is one that--that, in a sense, that investment stays in Wales. So, obviously, the money that we're paying over to HMRC to run the system would be supporting HMRC and their employees wherever they may be based, many of them not based in Wales; investment in local authorities to administer the system means that we're retaining more of that investment here.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Well, I congratulate you on persuading local government and WLGA to change their minds, because they actually told this committee that they favoured the HMRC option--and this is only going back a few months--because it will remove--and this is quoting them--'it will remove the administrative burden of receiving applications and checking eligibility from local authorities'-- blah, blah, blah, blah. So, they've obviously changed their minds as well, which is, you know--. I congratulate you on that, but it does present us as a committee with a little bit of a problem, really, because, if we're told one thing a few months ago and then we're told something completely different today, you know, evidence--we have to go on evidence that we've heard, and the evidence has changed now.
Julie Morgan AM: I think, during the period since it was discussed on the committee, the work with the HMRC has helped highlight to us where we needed to go. So, I think we did learn a lot and it certainly has helped show to us where we think is the best place to go. I would like to pay tribute to the local authorities, because they've been great partners in this and they're very positive about moving forward keeping the work. And there's also a feeling that, because they are so much closer to the local public than HMRC is, they're able to build up links with families and help with some of these difficult issues. Because I'm sure many of you may have had individual cases--I certainly have--where there's been quite a lot of complexity about helping people fill in the forms and look at their eligibility. So, I say well done to the local authorities. And thanks to the HMRC, because we've had nothing but a very positive relationship with them.
Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you've got a supplementary.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Ms Daniels, you referred to value for money. How much is it actually going to cost to change this system from being a temporary arrangement with local authorities to a permanent one? And how much more is it going to cost for the more flexible system that you have in mind? They're not going to do this for nothing. How much extra are you giving them, and will they use it for this? How are you ensuring it's used for this?
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, at the moment, local--. So, two things. Just to start by saying the eligibility checking process is not undertaken by all 22 local authorities.
Suzy Davies AM: No, no, I realise that. Yes, I got all that.
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, part of the reason for using 10 is to try to ensure that we build economies of scale and that we have a more efficient operation. Those authorities that undertake that function are given a specific grant in order to do that. That grant is ring-fenced to that purpose.
Suzy Davies AM: Could you give us an idea of the price tag?
Jo-Anne Daniels: At the moment, it's about PS2. 5 million.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, just as a round figure--that's fine.
Nicola Edwards: Just for the administration. They get separate funding for the childcare, obviously.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you.
Jo-Anne Daniels: So that, as I said, is a ring-fenced sum that they use to administer the offer. We are now starting the detailed work to define the new system requirements so that we will have a single application process across Wales, moving forward. As part of that work, we'll need to consider the detailed costings, but our initial estimate suggests that it would be less than the cost proposed by HMRC.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, when those costings are worked up, perhaps we could have a note comparing the two figures.
Jo-Anne Daniels: Yes, we would be very happy to share more detail on that.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Sian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: If it became a universal offer, would those costs reduce? Would there be so much bureaucracy involved in checking eligibility and stuff if every child was open to the offer?
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, clearly, if every child is eligible, then a large part of the process falls away in terms of the need to verify income and so on. That doesn't mean that there's no administration. For example, with the foundation phase, which is universally available, there is an application process and there is an administrative function that sits alongside that. At this point in time, I couldn't give you any indication of--
Sian Gwenllian AM: But it would be substantially less, wouldn't it, because they wouldn't have to do all these eligibility checks and all those things?
Nicola Edwards: They wouldn't have to do the eligibility checks, but they would still have to make payments to the childcare providers and make sure they were paying for the right number of hours in respect of each child. So, parents would still need to tell them where their child was going, and there would still need to be some work alongside that.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Sian, do you want to ask about the Welsh language?
Sian Gwenllian AM: I think we've--. I'm happy with that.
Lynne Neagle AM: Really--?
Sian Gwenllian AM: I don't think that that was the real reason why the change happened.
Julie Morgan AM: One of the reasons.
Lynne Neagle AM: Nevertheless, the committee was given very concrete assurances that the Welsh language side of this was going to be covered off. Have you got anything that you want to add on that? Obviously, for us as a committee, we believe what we're told when we are given assurances. So, that's quite concerning for us, really, that that suddenly then became an issue, when both HMRC and the Minister at the time told us that this wasn't going to be a problem.
Nicola Edwards: So, I think it's the point that I was talking about earlier. There's a difference between a bilingual service in the context of what HMRC understood that to be, in the context of their scheme, and the very detail of the standards when they got into their IT systems.
Lynne Neagle AM: Shouldn't that have been something that was worked out at the beginning?
Nicola Edwards: Possibly, but they did need to do quite detailed work, not just into their own IT systems, but the feed-in systems from the Home Office, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Post Office as well, to understand the full complexity of how the standards would comply across all of that. They do provide a bilingual service. It was just some of the specific details of the requirements placed on the Welsh Ministers, because it is the Welsh Ministers'standards that they would need to deliver against that they were struggling with.
Lynne Neagle AM: Right, okay.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but those standards were there right from the very beginning.
Lynne Neagle AM: I think that the committee would feel that that should have been bottomed out at the beginning, really.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Nothing has changed in terms of the standards.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, just before we move on to Flying Start, can I just ask: the Minister mentioned a longer term review of the childcare offer. Are you able to give us any indication of when that will report, please?
Julie Morgan AM: Would we have any idea?
Nicola Edwards: We haven't set out a definitive timescale on that as of yet because we've been focusing very much on getting the review in terms of training, education and on the cusp of returning to work up and running. But sometime next year.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. So, it will report sometime next year.
Nicola Edwards: Yes.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We'll move on now to Flying Start and questions from Suzy Davies.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. Can I just begin by asking you how you respond to the assertion that children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds do better in a mixed socioeconomic environment than in a targeted environment?
Julie Morgan AM: I think that's what Flying Start does, isn't it? Yes, I would have thought that was likely.
Suzy Davies AM: Well, the reason I'm asking you that, of course, is because this committee has suggested, perhaps, changes to the outreach system to target more disadvantaged children, and not necessarily capture people who happen to be in a geographic area.
Julie Morgan AM: So, you're saying that you feel that a universal offer in certain areas is not advantageous to--
Suzy Davies AM: Well, I'm asking you, really. If it's the case that we're only going after disadvantaged children, which would take very precise targeting--
Julie Morgan AM: I'm not only going after disadvantaged children. I feel that we should be offering something for all children, and our considerations are for all children. The reason we've targeted Flying Start is because it would be great if we had enough money to have Flying Start throughout the whole of Wales, but we just don't have that sort of money. Because I think Flying Start has proved to be a great--very successful.
Suzy Davies AM: I'm going to ask you a few more questions on that. Because just in response to this committee's 2018 report, you did say that:'defined geographical targeting of Flying Start support will be considered as part of the Welsh Government's work on the Early Years system.'That suggests you still have geographic targeting in mind. So, if you're looking at a very mixed source of economic experience for children, what are the geographic boundaries you're considering?
Julie Morgan AM: At the moment, Flying Start can go beyond the geographical boundaries, with the extension--
Suzy Davies AM: With limits, yes.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes. I think they can use 10 per cent of their income to go beyond the geographical boundaries, and many of them have done that. But, obviously, there are four elements to Flying Start, and only those geographical areas have got the four elements, but there could be the opportunity of extending some of that beyond the Flying Start geographical areas. We're looking at this.
Suzy Davies AM: I accept what you say about the current system--
Julie Morgan AM: I believe it's much more--. I believe very strongly in having a universal system, where everybody is able to access it.
Suzy Davies AM: I appreciate that as well. But, obviously, there are huge cost implications for that--unless you're giving us some insight into what you're going to say next week, I don't know. But actually, defining anything geographically, which now seems to be fairly arbitrary, because it's not targeted purely at disadvantaged children--on what basis are we choosing the geographic areas we are choosing at the moment?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, they're chosen then because of the benefit take-up in those particular areas. So, it's reaching some of the poorest children, but not all of the poorest children, but it's reaching the poorest children in a way that is not stigmatising, and where the services are open to everybody, and I think that's very important.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, having established that, we have fairly recent research here that a third of children living in poverty in Wales are already falling behind at the age of five--that suggests that two thirds of them aren't, but it's still a very worrying statistic. Not all children live in Flying Start areas; how are you going to reach that third who, even at such an early age, are already falling behind? How many of them are in Flying Start areas?
Julie Morgan AM: I think the actual number of children in poverty, the most disadvantaged that we reach through the Flying Start areas--I think it's about 46 per cent. Is that--? Do you know the actual percentage?
Suzy Davies AM: It's about a quarter of total children are in there, but--
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, just to give you a few of the numbers, there are just over 36,000 children benefiting from Flying Start services. That equates to about 23 per cent of children, overall, in Wales. And because of the nature of the benefit take-up data, and because we don't assess eligibility within a Flying Start area, we can't be absolutely certain how many children within a Flying Start area are actually in poverty. So, it's an estimate, and it's a range, and the range is that around 45 per cent of children in Flying Start areas would be in poverty. FootnoteLink
Suzy Davies AM: Well, that's interesting. I would have expected it to be much higher than that, particularly if the geographic areas had been targeted on benefit claims, effectively. Are you disappointed that the proportion is--basically, 55 per cent of those children aren't living in poverty. That's what you're saying, isn't it?
Jo-Anne Daniels: Well, I'd offer two observations. One: the nature of poverty in Wales is actually, generally, more dispersed than perhaps sometimes is appreciated. Yes, we have very concentrated areas of--
Suzy Davies AM: Well, actually, we do appreciate it, which is why we're asking this question. [Laughter. ]
Jo-Anne Daniels: Okay. So that's one issue to think about. Sorry, I've lost my train of thought now, in terms of the second--oh, sorry: whether you're in or out of poverty is, in one sense, very black/white. But in reality of course--in terms of the income definition, it's very black/white. But, of course, there will be a large number of people who are just above, but also families who move in and out, so it's quite a transient population in some senses, in terms of people having incomes that aren't stable, people having jobs that go with that that aren't stable. So, at any one point in time, you're only sort of capturing a snapshot of what's happening. In reality, it's a bit more complex than that.
Suzy Davies AM: I accept that. I mentioned a third of children living in poverty had fallen behind at five; by the age of 14, half that number is still falling behind, so something has happened between that third and that half to improve the life chances of those individual children or young people. Is that attributable to Flying Start? Can you say that candidly? Or is it a happy coincidence, where there could be some causation, but we can't prove it?
Jo-Anne Daniels: We certainly think that Flying Start is making a positive impact, both on the point at which children go to school, and then subsequently. And I think as the committee knows, we've been working with the SAIL--secure anonymised information linkage--and the databank there to look at how we can do longitudinal studies to track children's progress, to look at the extent to which outcomes are effected by Flying Start interventions.
Suzy Davies AM: We probably don't have time for this level of detail today, but half of those children are still behind at the age of 14. So, I'd be curious to know if there's any immediate plans to help them catch up or make sure that their successors don't fall into the same position, the same trap. Have you got anything high level that you can mention at this stage?
Julie Morgan AM: Just in terms of what we're thinking of doing with Flying Start--. The key thing about Flying Start is the collaborative way that it works with the health visitors and all the speech and language therapists and childcare, and we're looking at ways of trying to get some of those elements to reach a wider group. And as I said, we talked about earlier the eight earlier years transformation pathfinders that we talked about in the local authorities--we talked about that earlier--so, that's where we're going to look at Flying Start and how we can try to make it more accessible to more children. So, we do want to extend the benefits of Flying Start. We do want to make it available to more children, and that's what we're looking at. And we're looking at that in those eight pathfinder areas. And you'll have to wait to see what we come up with--
Suzy Davies AM: No, no--we'll ask you more about that in due course. Actually, that job would be an awful lot easier if you knew how many children within Flying Start areas were taking up all four elements. Why don't you know that? Why is that data not collected?
Julie Morgan AM: Do we know why?
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, the approach that we've taken to evaluation in Flying Start--. The committee will have seen the various evaluation reports that have been published, and I know that you're familiar with the work that, as I say, we've been doing with SAIL. We're currently focusing on individual data collection, and through that we want to be able to report on levels of engagement, but also outcomes for children. We've been piloting that new approach in six local authorities. We hope to be able to extend that, and we hope to be able to provide more evidence about the interventions and the impact that they then achieve.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. All right. Because, to be honest, I would want to know if a child's chances have improved primarily because they're getting good-quality childcare or primarily because their parents are taking up parenting courses. There's got to be some indication somewhere in here about which of these four elements is making the greatest difference.
Jo-Anne Daniels: I would just caution in terms of expectations. It will always be quite difficult to definitively provide answers to that, because many parents will be taking these things up in combination. So, disentangling which has had the effect is, obviously, quite tricky--in particular, all parents will be getting the enhanced health visiting. Not every parent will take up parenting support, not every child will need speech and language help, so--
Suzy Davies AM: And that's why we need to know who is.
Jo-Anne Daniels: Disentangling what's helped and what hasn't I think will always be quite a difficult thing to do.
Suzy Davies AM: But it would also be helpful to know which combinations work best as well. Just on the final point from me--yes, 88 per cent of Flying Start's childcare offers were taken up, but we've had some local authorities where the take-up has dropped dramatically. I think Denbighshire was down a fair bit, wasn't it, and Ceredigion, I think, had had a poor take-up. Have you got any indication why? I'm thinking of Denbighshire particularly, where there is a tradition--taking up third-party childcare is cultural there, whereas in Ceredigion, for example, there are far fewer places available in the first place and less of a tradition of children taking up childcare. But what's happened in Denbighshire?
Julie Morgan AM: I think there are a number of different reasons why parents do decide not to use a facility, and, obviously, that always exists, but each local authority has a Flying Start account manager in place to support them in the delivery of the programme and the account management activities, and there are formal account meetings that look at this sort of thing once a year--
Suzy Davies AM: So, what have they told you?
Julie Morgan AM: --and these meetings will take place in November 2019. That's when the specific delivery issues will be discussed in depth, so that's when we'll find out what has happened and why there may have been a drop.
Suzy Davies AM: Can I just ask about the timing of that? Because if you already know that there's a 6 per cent drop, why will it take the best part of a year to--well, November's only next month, to be fair, now, but why will it take that length of time to establish why there's a drop? You'd have thought if you'd seen a trend like that--
Julie Morgan AM: Obviously, they meet at certain times and they will assess what's happened. That seems quite normal to me.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, but we'll get a note on that, is it? It's just that they knew this six months ago.
Julie Morgan AM: In November, we'll have more information about this, so we can let you have information about that.
Suzy Davies AM: That would be really helpful, just for--. I'm sure constituents in Denbighshire will want to know about that. And then finally from me, Chair, if I may, Flying Start beneficiaries--it's got a specific explanation of what a Flying Start beneficiary is, but I think, particularly in view of the evidence we've heard on this committee about parental support in connection with the removal of the defence of reasonable chastisement, for example, this committee is very concerned about what's out there in terms of parental support. Eighteen per cent of Flying Start beneficiaries have parents attending the informal parenting courses; that's 18 per cent, that's not very high. Any idea about what you might be able to do to encourage take-up or is that very locally decided?
Lynne Neagle AM: If I can add to that, obviously, somebody only has to attend one course--we've got no way of knowing whether parents are completing the whole of a course, really.
Julie Morgan AM: Obviously, the offer is there for parents to take up the parenting courses, and there are four elements to Flying Start, and maybe some of the parents don't feel that they want to or need to. I don't think we've got any more evidence on that for take-up--
Suzy Davies AM: Well, the reach of this is going to be important, because we need the reassurance on the back of the legislation that is going through at the moment.
Julie Morgan AM: Absolutely, yes.
Jo-Anne Daniels: Parenting courses are, of course, one aspect of parenting support, but not the only one, and they'll be appropriate for a lot of parents, but for some not. What all parents do get at an enhanced level in Flying Start is the support of the health visitor, so the health visitor is, in effect, providing a significant amount of support for parenting. Now, that can be practical things like weaning or potty training et cetera, but, actually, it's also about managing a child's behaviour, managing how a parent develops that bonding and that attachment with their child. So, the role of the health visitor in supporting a parent to be a parent is absolutely critical, and every parent in Flying Start areas will be getting that enhanced level of support. Of course, it's not just in Flying Start areas now, because with the Healthy Child Wales programme, the universal programme of health visiting visits, we have a much more consistent and standardised set of visits and engagements with parents that cover a lot of these areas. In addition, I'd also add that when parents use the childcare in Flying Start, or childcare generally outside of Flying Start areas, there is often a lot of working between the childcare setting and the parent over parenting--again, managing a child's behaviour, managing any issues that the childcare worker thinks are emerging in terms of whether it's eating or, again, toileting. So, parenting courses are important, but it's really essential that we see those in the broader context of the different ways in which lots of professionals interact with parents, providing them with advice, guidance and support, and actually what works for parents in terms of how they take on board some of that advice and that help. Sometimes a formal course is quite off-putting for parents, but the sort of quiet word, the top tips, the advice that a friendly professional gives can be very, very impactful.
Suzy Davies AM: That's a really helpful answer. It does raise, unfortunately, another question about whether a health visitor in those circumstances might find themselves in a difficult position if they're dealing with a parent who has smacked a child, but we'll leave that for Stage 3.
Julie Morgan AM: We'll be dealing with that, I'm sure.
Suzy Davies AM: But thank you; that was a helpful answer. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank the Minister and the officials for attending this morning? As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again for your attendance. Thank you.
Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Item 4 is papers to note. There's just one today: the letter from the WLGA regarding the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019 in response to our letter asking about the change in approach. Item 5 then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Thank you. | The Welsh and UK Governments had followed a demand-driven approach to the childcare market, with subsidies mainly given to working parents, which was a mistake and should be more universally available. The demand-driven approach was based more on certain factors: geographic spread in terms of it being more universal, and whether that's the right way. It was hard for children to mix with peers from different backgrounds and age groups? Next, some areas had traditionally got more childcare anyway because they had traditionally more demand in those areas, so there was not a level playing field to start from. | qmsum |
What did Julie Morgan recommend to do when discussing the demand of Welsh language skills and why?
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies for absence this morning. Can I ask if there are any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay. Thank you. Item 3 this morning then is a scrutiny session on early childhood education and care, and I'm very pleased to welcome Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Jo-anne Daniels, director of communities and tackling poverty at Welsh Government; and Nicola Edwards, deputy director of the childcare, play and early years division in Welsh Government. Thank you all for your attendance. We're very much looking forward to the session. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions, and the first ones are from Hefin David.
Hefin David AM: Good morning, Deputy Minister. What are your primary objectives? Is it supporting the development of children or getting parents into work?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, I think you'll be aware from the range of programmes that we've got that we do feel it's important to support both children and parents. There's obviously lots of evidence to show how important the early years are for children, how important they are for their development, and so, that is one of our primary objectives. But we also know how important it is for parents to have stable jobs, reasonably paid, so that can also help with the development of the children. So, we really see it that our plans are for both parents and children, and we believe that a high-quality, early-childhood education and care system can provide that. And, of course, in terms of when we talk about jobs as well, I think it's really important to remember that the childcare system is a big employer as well and a very important employer. So that, actually, itself provides jobs.
Hefin David AM: So, the evidence we've seen suggests that, historically, Governments in the UK and devolved have focused on primarily getting parents into work. So, are you suggesting then that your focus is to change that and move towards early child development?
Julie Morgan AM: No, what I'm saying is that we want to give parents the opportunity to work. We don't want childcare to be a barrier to parents working because we think that working is one the best routes out of poverty, but we do also want to make sure that children have the greatest experience that they can have in the early years. So, we see it as one.
Hefin David AM: Okay. And that's quite a policy challenge to deliver both at the same time.
Julie Morgan AM: The situation as it is is complex, and I think it needs simplifying. It is a challenge, but it's probably one of the most important challenges we've got in Government, because what we offer to families with young children is one of the most important things we do.
Hefin David AM: And in your evidence to the committee, you said that the Welsh Government's approach'will build on a wide variety of programmes that are continually developing in order to support parents, families and children during the early years.'And you've just said you want to simplify that. How do you simplify that, particularly with regard to the provision of funding and the way these things connect from the birth of a child into school? How will simplification look, and what will happen?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, we're not at the stage of being able to say what it will look like at the moment, but we're looking at ways of simplifying, because I think it's absolutely right, it is a very complex system, because it's grown up from all different routes. But we are having lots of pilot projects that are looking at ways of simplifying the system. We have got pathway projects in, I think it's eight local authorities, who are looking at ways of joining up the whole system. So, we are looking at that, and I absolutely except that it is very complex and we want to find ways of making it simpler and easier to understand. So, we are working with local authorities and health boards to see how we can actually work together and simplify things.
Hefin David AM: And it's good to hear that that's your objective. Can I just come back to the first thing you said:'We can't say yet what we're going to do'?
Julie Morgan AM: No.
Hefin David AM: So, when will we have a policy plan and something that we can interrogate in more detail?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, I think we are near getting to an announcement where we will be able to say what direction we're going in, and because we have had--. Some of this work has been going on for a year or so, and we're getting the results of those pathfinder projects coming in. So, when we do have all those results, we will be able to say the direction that we want to go in, and I hope we'll be able to do that very soon.
Hefin David AM: Before Christmas?
Julie Morgan AM: I hope so.
Hefin David AM: Okay. And finally from me--
Julie Morgan AM: I'm sorry I can't say too much about that because we haven't actually--. We need to--.
Hefin David AM: Well, it does sound like something is imminent.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes.
Hefin David AM: Okay. And that's as far as you're willing to go. And if that's as far as you're willing to go, then I'll stop asking.
Lynne Neagle AM: I've got a supplementary from Sian.
Hefin David AM: Okay.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes, that's fine.
Sian Gwenllian AM: I just want to understand a little about the pilot, the pathfinders in eight local authority areas. Is the focus there on the child or is it on parents returning to work?
Julie Morgan AM: The focus is on an early years system, but we've worked both locally and nationally. So, it's looking at both. I mean, actually, I think, perhaps, Nicola, would you like to or one of you like to describe one of the programmes?
Sian Gwenllian AM: And can you just explain the vision? Is it a child-centred early years provision that we're thinking of in these pathfinder--?
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, in'Prosperity for All', we set out that early years was one of the key priority areas, and within that we said that we wanted to create a more joined-up and more responsive system. So, when we talk about a system, we're talking about the services that are provided by health boards, so health visiting, midwifery, speech and language support, other kinds of therapeutic services, as well as all the important services that local authorities are providing, such as support for parenting, advice and guidance, employment support and childcare, obviously. And we've got eight pathfinders. I'll try and remember each of them. So, Flintshire, Newport, Blaenau Gwent, Neath Port Talbot, Swansea, Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire--and then I've missed one, I think, because I've only got to seven--who have been working with us to look at how all of those services are currently delivered in their local area and whether and how they can reorganise those services to improve accessibility, to improve take-up, but essentially to improve the efficacy of those programmes in terms of supporting children, but often, obviously, in supporting children you have to support parents too and support the home.
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, would you say it's a child-centred approach?
Jo-Anne Daniels: Absolutely, because it's about making sure that we deliver the best start in life for children in Wales, but obviously parents are a critical element of that, so can't be excluded.
Lynne Neagle AM: And how long have they been going for?
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, those eight pathfinders started their work in--I think it was--February this year. And they're still in the very early stages in terms of actually unpicking and mapping the current provision of services across their areas and then moving on to the stage where they'll develop proposals for how they might change the delivery of early years.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Julie.
Julie Morgan AM: Just to say also, the one in Flintshire is also testing the impact of consistent funding rates for education and childcare. So, that's been going longer than the others. So, that's another important area because there's an evaluation of that project under way at the moment.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you.
Jo-Anne Daniels: Sorry, but Caerphilly was the one that I forgot to mention.
Lynne Neagle AM: Oh dear. [Laughter. ]
Hefin David AM: That's absolutely unforgivable. [Laughter. ]
Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin. [Laughter. ]
Julie Morgan AM: Very significant.
Hefin David AM: In your report, the'Alignment of the Childcare Offer for Wales to the Foundation Phase', one of the recommendations was that'The Welsh Government, local authority education and childcare policy and delivery teams could merge'. So, looking behind the scenes, those disparate parts of policy, delivering the foundation phase and childcare offer should merge. Is that the case? Has that been put under way and should we be looking at this structure in more depth?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, probably not at the structure at this time because the report that you're referring to was looking at the first year of the delivery of the childcare offer and it did make a number of points, which we have taken on board. For example, we issued guidance last year regarding the delivery of the foundation phase, which supports widening the number of non-maintained settings that are able to deliver early education and we're also supporting co-location and partnership working between education and childcare providers through our capital investment programme. I think it's about PS81 million that we put into the capital investment where we are developing childcare facilities co-located with the education facilities, because that was one of the things that came out from this report you're referring to. And, I mean, obviously, early years is one of the key priorities within'Prosperity for All'and, obviously, education sits within one portfolio with the Minister for Education, and childcare is with me. But we're doing what we can to work together to try to bring those together, and that was one of the proposals in that report. But it's still very early to think about, at this stage, a structural change.
Hefin David AM: And I remember when you were on the committee here with me, sitting next to me, we had those discussions about co-location. I know the problem with not having co-location is that you could end up seeing a child travelling between three or more locations during the course of a day. Are you suggesting now that the actions you're taking will resolve that issue universally, or will it lead to a piecemeal resolution? And, if so, to what extent, what percentage of children will see that resolved as an issue?
Julie Morgan AM: Certainly, the co-location is not going to solve it universally because although we've been able to develop a lot of new facilities, or build on old facilities, there will be a lot of areas that we won't have covered. So, I can't say that there's going to be a situation where everything is going to be co-located because I don't think that would be feasible, and, for some of the providers, they wouldn't be in a position to move to a school. But ideally it's a good situation, but, certainly, I think the discussions that there were on the committee, it's not ideal to take children for long distances between different providers, let alone the effect it has on the climate change issue. It's whether it's good for children as well. So, I can't say that they will ever be co-located, but as I said in response to your earlier question, we are encouraging the development of the foundation phase in non-maintained settings, which, obviously, is quite significant.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. I've got some questions now from Janet Finch-Saunders.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. What is the Welsh Government doing to address the big differences in the amount of early childhood education and care provision available in different parts of Wales?
Julie Morgan AM: Right. Well, thank you very much for that question. I mean, obviously, it would be good to see a greater degree of consistency, but I think it's important to acknowledge that there are reasons for that variation. Now, early education, of course, is the responsibility of the Minister for Education, and we are aware that different local authorities have adopted different patterns of providing early education. For example, local authorities are funded to provide 10 hours minimum of the foundation phase for three and four-year-olds across Wales, but there's quite a variance in how much is actually provided, with some local authorities providing a lot more historically. So, it does mean that there is a different pattern across Wales, according to what local authorities do. But what I could say is, of course, the quality is very good, as the Estyn reports have shown; that the quality provided, the delivery of the foundation phase, is very good. But it does vary in terms of what is offered throughout Wales, and that is the decision of the local authorities, and it is a historical thing. I refer to this pilot in Flint, which is trying to test paying the same rate for foundation phase and childcare. We're going to have an independent evaluation on that soon, in November this year, so that will help us. Obviously, I think local authorities'role in all this is absolutely crucial because they are the local, nearest people to decide how things develop in their own areas. And then, of course, we've got Flying Start, which is geographically targeted, which uses the data from income benefit to decide which are the areas where that is being delivered. And that is delivered where the highest proportion of children aged nought to three are living in income-dependent households. So, again, that determines the pattern throughout Wales. With Flying Start being geographically targeted, with the education being determined by the local authorities about how much there is, we know that there is a variance throughout Wales. We'd like to see facilities developed in each local authority throughout Wales that would answer the needs of the families and the children in those areas.
Lynne Neagle AM: Before you move on, Janet, Sian's got a supplementary.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Just in terms of the foundation phase, there have been cuts, of course, in expenditure in that phase. How concerned are you about that and the impact that that will have on the way in which the foundation phase is taught in our schools? The foundation phase is now part of the education improvement grant, which has seen a reduction of 10 per cent, and it has to compete against other expenditure streams within that greater pot of funding. So, are you concerned that money is being lost and that that will have an impact on standards in the foundation phase?
Julie Morgan AM: I haven't seen any evidence. Obviously, I must reiterate the foundation phase does come under the Minister for Education, but I haven't seen any evidence of any standards being lowered, and the reports from Estyn are very good. In fact, I think the foundation phase is one of our great joys, that we absolutely celebrate it, and so I'd be very concerned if I thought there was any drop in standards in the foundation phase, and I certainly haven't had any evidence of that. I would want to guard against that.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Exactly, but if there are fewer teaching assistants in the system because of the cuts, it's going to impact on standards, at the end of the day.
Julie Morgan AM: I think we have to be very careful to see that lower standards are not implemented, because it was groundbreaking when we brought it in, and it has proved to be a great success, so we want to make sure that's guarded.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Janet.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Going back to my original question about the big differences in amounts of early childhood education and care provision in different parts of Wales, the Welsh and UK Governments have followed a demand-driven approach to the childcare market, with subsidies mainly given to working parents. Is that a mistake? Should it be more universally available?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, some of our provision is universally available in certain areas. For example, the Flying Start provision is universally available in geographically defined areas, and I think that's very important, because that does mean that there isn't stigma, and so, in those areas, everybody can take advantage of it, and yet it is reaching those who are most in need because it's reaching those areas. So, I think that there is a purpose behind that. In terms of when you say demand led, could you elaborate on that?
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I know that--we've just had a useful briefing from David Dallimore, and, basically, there is this theory that there are too many resources--the demand-driven approach is based more on certain factors: geographic spread in terms of it being more universal, and whether that's the right way. How do children then mix with peers from different backgrounds, in their own peer or age group?
Julie Morgan AM: It is demand--
Nicola Edwards: [Inaudible. ]--because the offer is targeted at working parents--
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, yes.
Nicola Edwards: --obviously, then the amount of availability is based on how many parents apply for it and take it up. Is that the context of demand led in that--
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes.
Nicola Edwards: Right, okay.
Julie Morgan AM: It is universally available to all parents who meet the eligibility criteria of working, and I think what you're saying is that it should be available to everybody.
Lynne Neagle AM: I think the point that Janet's making is that some areas have traditionally got more childcare anyway because they have traditionally had more demand in those areas, so there's not a level playing field to start from. Is that correct?
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes.
Julie Morgan AM: I think that, historically, that is definitely true, and when you look at the take-up of the childcare offer, it's certainly taken up in some areas with a very high take-up rate. I think Ynys Mon was nearly 90 per cent or something--
Sian Gwenllian AM: They need more money, because they haven't got enough funding.
Dawn Bowden AM: So does everywhere.
Sian Gwenllian AM: No, to meet the demand.
Julie Morgan AM: In other areas, it's much, much lower--in some of the cities, I know. So, there is a big range in take-up--
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: So, do you intend to bring something forward to address that?
Julie Morgan AM: We are planning to extend it. We're looking at the possibility of extending it to parents who are in education and training. So, we are widening the offer, yes. Obviously, we have to wait for the evaluation of that. It would be great to be able to offer it to absolutely everybody, but obviously we have got the finance to look at in terms of how we do that. But we are certainly planning to expand it.
Lynne Neagle AM: We've got questions on the offer in a little while. Janet.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Does the Welsh Government intend to develop an integrated approach, then, against all settings? If so, given the current inconsistencies, how can quality be assured?
Julie Morgan AM: We are developing a more integrated approach towards the early years. As I've said, we're trying to have the foundation phase operating in more non-maintained settings, and we're already developing that. But Estyn and CIW will continue to inspect and regulate the early years sector to ensure standards, and, since January 2019, CIW and Estyn have moved to joint inspections for the non-maintained settings that are offering the foundation phase. So, that is a very positive move, I think, and is absolutely making sure that standards are maintained, because if we are having the foundation phase in non-maintained settings, that is a challenge where we want to be sure that the standards and the philosophy of the foundation phase are maintained. So, we have got the system of inspection to ensure that.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: And finally from me, what specific steps have been put in place to take forward the commitments from the Welsh Government's 2017 childcare/play early years workforce plan to build a better understanding of the workforce's Welsh language skills to enable support for the sector to be targeted and to identify where capacity needs to be built for the future to meet the needs of the early years sector in a bilingual Wales?
Julie Morgan AM: We think this is very important, and we're pleased that 29 per cent of children taking up the childcare offer are in Welsh or bilingual settings, so we think that's very good. We have established a specific programme to develop Welsh language skills in the childcare and play workforce with the National Centre for Learning Welsh, to develop workplace Welsh language skills across the sector. So, we're actually working with that, and I think you've done something with those recently, haven't you? I don't know if you want to--
Nicola Edwards: Yes. So, we have a stakeholder group where we've brought together a variety of people with an interest in the early years, childcare and play sectors, and we had a presentation just last month from the national language centre about the education programmes that they're rolling out, and how this is all coming together, which is quite interesting. We've been working quite carefully to make sure that the variety of work-based learning programmes that we provide and offer are also available in Welsh and bilingually. Recruitment and retention within the childcare and play sector is quite challenging in any case. Recruiting and retaining staff with really good Welsh language skills adds an extra dimension to it, and that it's a point that Mudiad Meithrin makes to us quite regularly, that they do struggle to find staff with the right skills. So, upskilling the existing workforce is a key part of it, but also doing more to attract people in with Welsh language skills in the first place in terms of the training courses that we're taking forward, and thinking about that in the context of the targets within Cymraeg 2050 and the aim to get to one million Welsh speakers. So, as the Deputy Minister said, we've got quite a number of children accessing the offer in Welsh-medium or bilingual settings at the moment. We're going to be doing some baselining work against that in terms of local authorities'Welsh in education strategic plans and education places, and what we can then do to increase the number of childcare places in parallel with that so that you can make sure that you start that pathway through learning Welsh, interacting with education and childcare through Welsh at a much earlier stage.
Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you've got a supplementary.
Suzy Davies AM: Just on this early point, anybody who's been through the Welsh education system, which is 20 years now, will have some Welsh language skills, obviously to differing degrees. For the entrants that are coming into childcare training now, there are going to be very few of them, realistically, with no Welsh at all, so what's actually being incorporated into the early years care training to make sure, at that stage, that the Welsh language skills are being developed, as opposed to an add-on later on?
Nicola Edwards: You're quite right. Most people coming through the education system will have some awareness of Welsh although I think it's probably important to remember we do also employ people from outside of wales.
Suzy Davies AM: Yes, but the majority, being realistic.
Nicola Edwards: But they don't necessarily have Welsh that is appropriate. They've got Welsh that they've developed in school. It's not necessarily appropriate for then teaching that language to children, who may be coming from families who don't use Welsh at home. So, that might be the first interaction that child has with the language. So, there's a lot of that in terms of child development and how you develop children bilingually, particularly if they're coming from English-medium homes, and reinforcing the language in language choices. There will also be some people who are, perhaps--we see this quite a lot in the office--quite confident in terms of speaking Welsh but less so in terms of some of the paperwork, the reporting, the writing and the interacting with parents more officially, which we need to think about as well. But it is mainly about getting people to a point where they can transmit that language onwards in a confident and meaningful way.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And it's ingrained in the early years training.
Nicola Edwards: Yes.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. That's fine. Thank you for that. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Just before we move on, you said that 29 per cent of the take-up of the childcare offer is either through Welsh or is bilingual. Have you got any figures about how many children are accessing it in Welsh only?
Nicola Edwards: We will have. It becomes--. With the way we do it, it's because of the way that the setting defines their language category, and that's how we collect it. We do go down to individual child level, although it's anonymised, data collection on a termly basis. So I'll have a look and see if we can send you through the last term.
Lynne Neagle AM: Maybe if the committee could have a note, that would be really useful.
Nicola Edwards: Yes, that's fine.
Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now on childcare from Dawn Bowden.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Deputy Minister, the evaluation of the childcare offer, when it was published last year, said that there was very little evidence currently available to determine what its impact was. You're going to be producing a second evaluation in November this year; do you expect to see some indications now of the impact?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, the evaluation of the first year of the childcare offer was very limited, because the childcare offer wasn't available throughout the whole of Wales. And it was a very early implementation phase. So, obviously it takes time to grow. And the evaluation for year 2, I think, will also show a limited impact for the same reasons. The offer became available across the whole of Wales only last April. So we've only got since last April that it's actually been fully available. And the parental survey was released to parents in June 2019, therefore any impact on parents in the authorities coming on board in the second year will also be negligible. So, it's from the next one, however, we hope that we will get more information.
Dawn Bowden AM: So you think, by the time we get to November 2020, you might have a better picture.
Julie Morgan AM: The evaluation will be more meaningful, we think, then, yes.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. I take that point. What the first year's evaluation did show, however, was that 94 per cent of respondents said that they were already using formal childcare before the offer came into place. A couple of things, really: are you surprised at that, and is that likely to inform the way that you develop the offer in the future?
Julie Morgan AM: No, I'm not surprised at all. When it started off, it was only available in seven local authorities. In terms of how the families found out that it was available, they found it out through the childcare providers, where they already had their children there. So it was absolutely what we would have expected, and that will continue. But, of course, we were not able to fully advertise the childcare offer until it was available in all the local authorities, which was last April. So we are planning, this autumn, quite a big push now to try to make it available to everybody--so everybody knows about it. So, no, this is the pattern we would have expected, and I think anybody who's involved in starting up something in childcare will know you have to wait a number of years before you actually see it being fully taken up.
Dawn Bowden AM: I guess the question that it raises in my mind is: does this mean that, actually, it hasn't been an incentive to get somebody back into work, because they were already in work and already had childcare provision? What you've done is you've directed money to people who were already spending that money anyway. So it hasn't been a move towards getting people into work because they couldn't afford childcare.
Julie Morgan AM: Well I think that that is something that we are moving towards, because the take-up of the offer is actually increasing each month, which is why I call it a great success. At the end of July, we hit almost 16,000 children accessing the offer, which obviously means that there are 16,000 families benefiting from this, and the feedback that we have had from parents is that they have been able to--. They've got more money available, which is obvious, which is great, because obviously more money is available to plunge into the economy and carry out that sort of thing, and we've got examples of parents who've been supported into work through programmes like Parents, Childcare and Employment to begin with, and then have gone on to access the offer. So, that's again a progression. So, I think we are seeing signs that people are moving on, have got more ability to be flexible in the work that they're doing, but I hope that when we look at it again, we will be able to see people actually moving into work because of having the access to childcare.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Before--
Lynne Neagle AM: Are you going to move on? Sian's got a supplementary.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Just a question on funding for the childcare offer. If you foresee that there's going to be more people going to be taking up that offer through the fact that you're marketing it more, what if the same situation arises that has happened on Anglesey? The take-up has been very good there, but the money that the Welsh Government has been allocating to Anglesey doesn't match that. What if it happens in every local authority right across Wales? Are you confident there's going to be plenty of money available to respond to that demand?
Julie Morgan AM: Based on the current levels of take-up and looking at the rates of increase each month, we expect to spend in the region of PS50 million to PS55 million in this financial year. Our published plans already include the provision of PS40 million, and we're absolutely committed to making available the total funding that is needed to deliver on the offer. It is fantastic to see the offer being so well received on Ynys Mon, recognising, as Janet said earlier, it is demand led. We are managing it within the normal budgetary process. Local authorities will get the full funding that is needed. It's this year now that the big increase has happened; the previous two years--
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, local authorities won't have to find the extra money out of their own pots.
Julie Morgan AM: No, absolutely not. This is funded by the Welsh Government.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. You can assure them.
Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. You've already alluded to this in answer to Janet earlier on, about extending the childcare offer to those in training and education. You also talk about'on the cusp'of returning to work. So, I'm not quite sure what'on the cusp'of returning to work is, but from the committee's point of view, we're very pleased that you've reached that conclusion, because it was one of the recommendations that we had following the scrutiny of the Bill. So, can you say a little more about that, bearing in mind that I'm also conscious that you've told Hefin you're going to be making an announcement shortly? So you may not be able to say too much. But a little bit more about the inclusion of parents in training and education, what'on the cusp of returning to work'is--what that means from your perspective--and how you've arrived at that decision now, six months into the programme. What is it that's made you move towards that conclusion?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, obviously, the children and young persons committee made a very good case for education and training, in particular; I think that was one of the things that was at the top of the list. What we've committed to do is to review the programme, particularly looking at how we could bring in education and training, and that review will report early next year. So, early next year, we will have a view on how we could go forward. But the other thing that's also happened is that, obviously, with the new First Minister, that was one of his manifesto commitments--that he would bring education and training in. So, we're obviously following the--
Dawn Bowden AM: Because that was one of the key drivers for that as well.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes, so that is another of the key drivers, as you said--the committee and what the First Minister said. There are a wealth of programmes supporting parents into education, training or work, and many of those do provide support with childcare costs. But we have, by rolling out this programme, the childcare programme, highlighted some gaps where people have felt that they, particularly people who are in full-time education--and I can think of a number of people who are actually doing PhD studies--who are--the letters may have come in from some of your constituents--not able to access the offer as things stand. So, we are looking at people who are in full-time education and training. We're using the definition by the Office for National Statistics, aren't we, in terms of education and training. And on'on the cusp of work', maybe that will have to be something we have to look at differently--those people who are actually maybe undertaking very short training programmes, preparation for work, maybe actually having interviews, where they need help with childcare, that they're sort of almost there. So, they may have to be dealt with in a different way, but I think we do want to look at those. This is expanding the offer; it's not making it universal, but it's moving on.
Dawn Bowden AM: So, what are the--? Overall, then, what are the factors that you're having to take into account? Is it going to be what is needed in order to encourage people back into work? Is it going to be cost? Is it going to be a combination of all of those things? What are going to be the key factors that you're going to be looking at?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, the position now is that anybody who fulfills the criteria in terms of the number of hours they work, we would look at that in terms of education and training, and then, this expression'on the cusp of work'we may have to look at differently, because they may not fulfil those numbers in terms of number of hours training. So, we'll get a criteria, and then they will have access to the childcare offer. But I just have to emphasise that there are ways of getting help with childcare already, and we wanted to make sure we don't duplicate. That's why this field is so complex, shall we say, because there's so many different ways that you can actually get help, and we want to be sure that we don't duplicate--
Dawn Bowden AM: Sorry, Julie. So, all of this is going to be incorporated in this announcement that you're going to be making shortly--
Julie Morgan AM: No, this review will report early next year.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. My final question--
Lynne Neagle AM: Before you move on, sorry, I've got a couple of supplementaries. I've got Suzy, then Sian. Sorry, Dawn.
Suzy Davies AM: Just on the cost element, because if you do roll out this programme, obviously, on the back of evidence through a review, it is going to cost extra money. Early years is one of the eight priority areas for Government. There are fairly generous Barnett consequentials coming from the comprehensive spending review and announcements on schools from the UK Government, and while I accept that you've only got annual commitments there, they're still substantial. How much money have you managed to secure for early years from the most recent announcement, and when have you planned to actually use that, maybe for some of this work?
Julie Morgan AM: Have you got some information on that?
Nicola Edwards: The budget process is ongoing internally, so I think'secured'is probably a slightly premature phrase.
Suzy Davies AM: Am I allowed to ask instead how much you've asked for, then? All I'm after is some reassurance that you will be getting some of this money, and as it is one of the eight priorities, certainly we would expect to see you getting a substantial amount of money for early years.
Julie Morgan AM: As one of the Government's priorities, we would expect to get any money that came as a result of any Barnett consequentials.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And it will be in the draft budget that we know for sure if it is successful.
Julie Morgan AM: It's all in the process--
Lynne Neagle AM: And the committee will want to look very carefully at that, obviously.
Julie Morgan AM: It's in the process at the moment.
Suzy Davies AM: There we are. Just giving you a good warning.
Lynne Neagle AM: Sian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: How much would it cost to move to a child-centred approach, which means that every child would be able to access the childcare offer, rather than doing it from parents?
Julie Morgan AM: We are looking at that. We're having a longer-term review, in terms of what it would mean if every child had access to the childcare offer. We don't have those figures yet. We've got the one review looking at bringing in education and training. That should report early next year, and then we've got another longer-term review, looking at what a universal offer would mean.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Do we know how many children we're talking about?
Nicola Edwards: Yes. So, there are approximately, at any given time, around 73,000 three and four-year-olds in Wales. There's some slight rounding in the numbers there, but approximately 73,000 at any given time. Based on the current eligibility criteria for the offer, it's about 34,000 children, we believe, are eligible. This does, of course, vary, depending on a whole range of different factors, and we certainly know from what we're seeing from the offer that, even where people are entitled to something, they don't necessarily take it up. And even if they do take it up, they don't necessarily take up their full entitlement, which is also something that we'd have to think about in terms of any modelling on costings.
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, half the children are in non-working families.
Nicola Edwards: It's because of the requirement that, in a two-parent household, both parents must be in work.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. Two parent. Okay.
Lynne Neagle AM: One of the points that the committee made very strongly in our report on the Bill was that we wanted to see a much more child-centred focus, and one of the issues that came out in scrutiny was whether, actually, three and four-year-olds were the right age to be actually targeting if we're looking at things like child development. Have you given any consideration to the actual age group that's covered when we know that, for many children, it's the first 1,000 days that makes that fundamental difference?
Julie Morgan AM: We are aware that there is a case that says that two years old is a very important time. We are looking at that as part of the overall longer review, yes. We are aware of the information and what you're saying about the younger the better.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Dawn.
Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, my final question, Chair, thank you, is about the parent, childcare and employment programme, which is jointly funded by the European social fund and Welsh Government. It has been quite successful, in terms of its numbers anyway, in getting economically inactive parents into work. What are the plans for this programme, if and when we leave the EU and we lose the ESF funding for that?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, the programme has recently been extended, with delivery continuing until June 2022, with additional ESF funding of PS5. 6 million. That's recently happened, and obviously this programme provides intensive employment to parents who are not in education, employment or training or economically inactive and where the childcare is the main barrier, and it has been a very, very successful programme. So, the UK has guaranteed funding for all EU projects approved by December 2020, and this includes the PaCE programme. I think there was also another--. I only heard it verbally. I heard some other guarantees on the radio recently from the UK Treasury about guaranteeing some of these funds. I don't know whether anybody else heard that. But the Welsh Government can only draw on the UK Government guarantee for claims that aren't paid by the European Commission, and so the current arrangements are staying in place.
Dawn Bowden AM: Until when, sorry?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, June 2022.
Dawn Bowden AM: Oh, I see. Yes. So, that's when all the current commitments expire, basically. Yes. So, we don't know--. To do that it would have to be part of Government planning in terms of--
Julie Morgan AM: Well, we don't know what's happening with that--
Dawn Bowden AM: --what would happen beyond that.
Julie Morgan AM: --funding, but there have been some promises from the UK Government recently, but nothing definite.
Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, we're not holding our breath.
Julie Morgan AM: No.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Sian's got some specific questions now around the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019.
Sian Gwenllian AM: As we know, of course, the work with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs has ended, and I know you weren't the Minister who initiated this process, but what exactly has gone wrong? What are these issues that have come to light that have made you suspend that? It's very frustrating for us, as a committee, who scrutinised that extensively and raised a lot of concerns about that. And a lot of time has been spent talking about this funding Bill, and money--PS1 million, I understand--has been wasted, if you like, unnecessarily. So, what exactly has gone wrong? Why aren't you discussing these things with HMRC?
Julie Morgan AM:
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. So, thank you for that explanation.
Julie Morgan AM: I've got more to say as well.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but for your transparency around your particular view that it needs to be more flexible and expanded upon and, therefore, going down the HMRC route was--
Julie Morgan AM: It would have restricted us a lot.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. We knew that from the beginning. I mean, that's, you know--. So, it was a principle decision rather than any sort of technical matters to do with the Welsh language standards. That's been cited as one kind of--. But I'm really understanding more now that, really, what it's about is that you want to have a more flexible, and expand on the offer and that this would curtail--going through HMRC would put limits on that.
Julie Morgan AM: That is one of the reasons, but there were issues about the Welsh language, which we can go into in detail, if you'd like. There were some issues about that. They would be able to process things bilingually, and I think that was probably told to the committee when we looked at the HMRC. But, in terms of the Welsh language standards that the Minister has to use, there would be some difficulties in them doing it.
Sian Gwenllian AM: But would you say that your main change came about because you wanted to be more flexible rather than any difficulties--
Julie Morgan AM: One of the major reasons, I think--
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Good.
Julie Morgan AM: But there are--. As I say, there are other reasons. Those technical reasons probably do end up being quite important--
Sian Gwenllian AM: But the committee was told by the previous Minister that HMRC wouldn't have any problem at all with delivering according to the Welsh language standards.
Julie Morgan AM: Do you want to add something to this?
Nicola Edwards: So, in terms of some of the technical issues we had, if you want to start with the bilingual provision and the Welsh language standards, HMRC do provide a bilingual service at the moment for their customers in line with their Welsh language scheme, and I think we can all appreciate that schemes are quite different from the requirements of the standards. And there were some issues when we got into the detail of the standards that the Welsh Ministers are required to deliver to that caused some concerns in terms of how HMRC were going to do it, particularly in terms of the multiple IT systems that go into building up the childcare services. So, for example, there are a number of what are called'special characters'in the Welsh alphabet, such as the to bach, for example. The HMRC IT system has some issues with that.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, well, with due respect, the to bach has always been there--
Nicola Edwards: Oh, yes, I completely agree. Unfortunately, however--
Sian Gwenllian AM: --and HMRC would have been able to tell you, really early on, you would have thought, that it was--. I don't really want to go into it, because I think we've got to the crux of why HMRC was dropped. I think it's been dropped because Julie feels that the offer needs to be more flexible, and I can understand why you would say that.
Julie Morgan AM: If we bring in training and education, for example, we wouldn't be able to do that via the HMRC, it would have to be done by the local authorities. Foster parents have to be done via the local authorities. Any people of immigration status of no resource from public funds, that would have to be done via the local authorities. And with the local authorities also wanting to do it--. I mean, there are other things with using HMRC--if any changes were made with the English offer, for example, because this would be delivered via HMRC with the English offer, that would cause difficulties for the Welsh offer. So, we wanted something more flexible. I don't know if there's anything more you want to add on that.
Jo-Anne Daniels: The only thing I'd add is that--and, again, I think the Minister has referred to this--the costs that HMRC presented us with at the end of the discovery phase were significantly higher than the costs that had initially been outlined and that we outlined to the committee in the regulatory impact assessment. So, our conclusion is that we can deliver a cheaper system and a system that has the flexibility that the Deputy Minister has referred to by working with local authorities rather than HMRC. So, there is an important issue around value for money as well and making sure that the investment that we're making into developing the national system is one that--that, in a sense, that investment stays in Wales. So, obviously, the money that we're paying over to HMRC to run the system would be supporting HMRC and their employees wherever they may be based, many of them not based in Wales; investment in local authorities to administer the system means that we're retaining more of that investment here.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Well, I congratulate you on persuading local government and WLGA to change their minds, because they actually told this committee that they favoured the HMRC option--and this is only going back a few months--because it will remove--and this is quoting them--'it will remove the administrative burden of receiving applications and checking eligibility from local authorities'-- blah, blah, blah, blah. So, they've obviously changed their minds as well, which is, you know--. I congratulate you on that, but it does present us as a committee with a little bit of a problem, really, because, if we're told one thing a few months ago and then we're told something completely different today, you know, evidence--we have to go on evidence that we've heard, and the evidence has changed now.
Julie Morgan AM: I think, during the period since it was discussed on the committee, the work with the HMRC has helped highlight to us where we needed to go. So, I think we did learn a lot and it certainly has helped show to us where we think is the best place to go. I would like to pay tribute to the local authorities, because they've been great partners in this and they're very positive about moving forward keeping the work. And there's also a feeling that, because they are so much closer to the local public than HMRC is, they're able to build up links with families and help with some of these difficult issues. Because I'm sure many of you may have had individual cases--I certainly have--where there's been quite a lot of complexity about helping people fill in the forms and look at their eligibility. So, I say well done to the local authorities. And thanks to the HMRC, because we've had nothing but a very positive relationship with them.
Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you've got a supplementary.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Ms Daniels, you referred to value for money. How much is it actually going to cost to change this system from being a temporary arrangement with local authorities to a permanent one? And how much more is it going to cost for the more flexible system that you have in mind? They're not going to do this for nothing. How much extra are you giving them, and will they use it for this? How are you ensuring it's used for this?
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, at the moment, local--. So, two things. Just to start by saying the eligibility checking process is not undertaken by all 22 local authorities.
Suzy Davies AM: No, no, I realise that. Yes, I got all that.
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, part of the reason for using 10 is to try to ensure that we build economies of scale and that we have a more efficient operation. Those authorities that undertake that function are given a specific grant in order to do that. That grant is ring-fenced to that purpose.
Suzy Davies AM: Could you give us an idea of the price tag?
Jo-Anne Daniels: At the moment, it's about PS2. 5 million.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, just as a round figure--that's fine.
Nicola Edwards: Just for the administration. They get separate funding for the childcare, obviously.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you.
Jo-Anne Daniels: So that, as I said, is a ring-fenced sum that they use to administer the offer. We are now starting the detailed work to define the new system requirements so that we will have a single application process across Wales, moving forward. As part of that work, we'll need to consider the detailed costings, but our initial estimate suggests that it would be less than the cost proposed by HMRC.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, when those costings are worked up, perhaps we could have a note comparing the two figures.
Jo-Anne Daniels: Yes, we would be very happy to share more detail on that.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Sian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: If it became a universal offer, would those costs reduce? Would there be so much bureaucracy involved in checking eligibility and stuff if every child was open to the offer?
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, clearly, if every child is eligible, then a large part of the process falls away in terms of the need to verify income and so on. That doesn't mean that there's no administration. For example, with the foundation phase, which is universally available, there is an application process and there is an administrative function that sits alongside that. At this point in time, I couldn't give you any indication of--
Sian Gwenllian AM: But it would be substantially less, wouldn't it, because they wouldn't have to do all these eligibility checks and all those things?
Nicola Edwards: They wouldn't have to do the eligibility checks, but they would still have to make payments to the childcare providers and make sure they were paying for the right number of hours in respect of each child. So, parents would still need to tell them where their child was going, and there would still need to be some work alongside that.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Sian, do you want to ask about the Welsh language?
Sian Gwenllian AM: I think we've--. I'm happy with that.
Lynne Neagle AM: Really--?
Sian Gwenllian AM: I don't think that that was the real reason why the change happened.
Julie Morgan AM: One of the reasons.
Lynne Neagle AM: Nevertheless, the committee was given very concrete assurances that the Welsh language side of this was going to be covered off. Have you got anything that you want to add on that? Obviously, for us as a committee, we believe what we're told when we are given assurances. So, that's quite concerning for us, really, that that suddenly then became an issue, when both HMRC and the Minister at the time told us that this wasn't going to be a problem.
Nicola Edwards: So, I think it's the point that I was talking about earlier. There's a difference between a bilingual service in the context of what HMRC understood that to be, in the context of their scheme, and the very detail of the standards when they got into their IT systems.
Lynne Neagle AM: Shouldn't that have been something that was worked out at the beginning?
Nicola Edwards: Possibly, but they did need to do quite detailed work, not just into their own IT systems, but the feed-in systems from the Home Office, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Post Office as well, to understand the full complexity of how the standards would comply across all of that. They do provide a bilingual service. It was just some of the specific details of the requirements placed on the Welsh Ministers, because it is the Welsh Ministers'standards that they would need to deliver against that they were struggling with.
Lynne Neagle AM: Right, okay.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but those standards were there right from the very beginning.
Lynne Neagle AM: I think that the committee would feel that that should have been bottomed out at the beginning, really.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Nothing has changed in terms of the standards.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, just before we move on to Flying Start, can I just ask: the Minister mentioned a longer term review of the childcare offer. Are you able to give us any indication of when that will report, please?
Julie Morgan AM: Would we have any idea?
Nicola Edwards: We haven't set out a definitive timescale on that as of yet because we've been focusing very much on getting the review in terms of training, education and on the cusp of returning to work up and running. But sometime next year.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. So, it will report sometime next year.
Nicola Edwards: Yes.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We'll move on now to Flying Start and questions from Suzy Davies.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. Can I just begin by asking you how you respond to the assertion that children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds do better in a mixed socioeconomic environment than in a targeted environment?
Julie Morgan AM: I think that's what Flying Start does, isn't it? Yes, I would have thought that was likely.
Suzy Davies AM: Well, the reason I'm asking you that, of course, is because this committee has suggested, perhaps, changes to the outreach system to target more disadvantaged children, and not necessarily capture people who happen to be in a geographic area.
Julie Morgan AM: So, you're saying that you feel that a universal offer in certain areas is not advantageous to--
Suzy Davies AM: Well, I'm asking you, really. If it's the case that we're only going after disadvantaged children, which would take very precise targeting--
Julie Morgan AM: I'm not only going after disadvantaged children. I feel that we should be offering something for all children, and our considerations are for all children. The reason we've targeted Flying Start is because it would be great if we had enough money to have Flying Start throughout the whole of Wales, but we just don't have that sort of money. Because I think Flying Start has proved to be a great--very successful.
Suzy Davies AM: I'm going to ask you a few more questions on that. Because just in response to this committee's 2018 report, you did say that:'defined geographical targeting of Flying Start support will be considered as part of the Welsh Government's work on the Early Years system.'That suggests you still have geographic targeting in mind. So, if you're looking at a very mixed source of economic experience for children, what are the geographic boundaries you're considering?
Julie Morgan AM: At the moment, Flying Start can go beyond the geographical boundaries, with the extension--
Suzy Davies AM: With limits, yes.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes. I think they can use 10 per cent of their income to go beyond the geographical boundaries, and many of them have done that. But, obviously, there are four elements to Flying Start, and only those geographical areas have got the four elements, but there could be the opportunity of extending some of that beyond the Flying Start geographical areas. We're looking at this.
Suzy Davies AM: I accept what you say about the current system--
Julie Morgan AM: I believe it's much more--. I believe very strongly in having a universal system, where everybody is able to access it.
Suzy Davies AM: I appreciate that as well. But, obviously, there are huge cost implications for that--unless you're giving us some insight into what you're going to say next week, I don't know. But actually, defining anything geographically, which now seems to be fairly arbitrary, because it's not targeted purely at disadvantaged children--on what basis are we choosing the geographic areas we are choosing at the moment?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, they're chosen then because of the benefit take-up in those particular areas. So, it's reaching some of the poorest children, but not all of the poorest children, but it's reaching the poorest children in a way that is not stigmatising, and where the services are open to everybody, and I think that's very important.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, having established that, we have fairly recent research here that a third of children living in poverty in Wales are already falling behind at the age of five--that suggests that two thirds of them aren't, but it's still a very worrying statistic. Not all children live in Flying Start areas; how are you going to reach that third who, even at such an early age, are already falling behind? How many of them are in Flying Start areas?
Julie Morgan AM: I think the actual number of children in poverty, the most disadvantaged that we reach through the Flying Start areas--I think it's about 46 per cent. Is that--? Do you know the actual percentage?
Suzy Davies AM: It's about a quarter of total children are in there, but--
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, just to give you a few of the numbers, there are just over 36,000 children benefiting from Flying Start services. That equates to about 23 per cent of children, overall, in Wales. And because of the nature of the benefit take-up data, and because we don't assess eligibility within a Flying Start area, we can't be absolutely certain how many children within a Flying Start area are actually in poverty. So, it's an estimate, and it's a range, and the range is that around 45 per cent of children in Flying Start areas would be in poverty. FootnoteLink
Suzy Davies AM: Well, that's interesting. I would have expected it to be much higher than that, particularly if the geographic areas had been targeted on benefit claims, effectively. Are you disappointed that the proportion is--basically, 55 per cent of those children aren't living in poverty. That's what you're saying, isn't it?
Jo-Anne Daniels: Well, I'd offer two observations. One: the nature of poverty in Wales is actually, generally, more dispersed than perhaps sometimes is appreciated. Yes, we have very concentrated areas of--
Suzy Davies AM: Well, actually, we do appreciate it, which is why we're asking this question. [Laughter. ]
Jo-Anne Daniels: Okay. So that's one issue to think about. Sorry, I've lost my train of thought now, in terms of the second--oh, sorry: whether you're in or out of poverty is, in one sense, very black/white. But in reality of course--in terms of the income definition, it's very black/white. But, of course, there will be a large number of people who are just above, but also families who move in and out, so it's quite a transient population in some senses, in terms of people having incomes that aren't stable, people having jobs that go with that that aren't stable. So, at any one point in time, you're only sort of capturing a snapshot of what's happening. In reality, it's a bit more complex than that.
Suzy Davies AM: I accept that. I mentioned a third of children living in poverty had fallen behind at five; by the age of 14, half that number is still falling behind, so something has happened between that third and that half to improve the life chances of those individual children or young people. Is that attributable to Flying Start? Can you say that candidly? Or is it a happy coincidence, where there could be some causation, but we can't prove it?
Jo-Anne Daniels: We certainly think that Flying Start is making a positive impact, both on the point at which children go to school, and then subsequently. And I think as the committee knows, we've been working with the SAIL--secure anonymised information linkage--and the databank there to look at how we can do longitudinal studies to track children's progress, to look at the extent to which outcomes are effected by Flying Start interventions.
Suzy Davies AM: We probably don't have time for this level of detail today, but half of those children are still behind at the age of 14. So, I'd be curious to know if there's any immediate plans to help them catch up or make sure that their successors don't fall into the same position, the same trap. Have you got anything high level that you can mention at this stage?
Julie Morgan AM: Just in terms of what we're thinking of doing with Flying Start--. The key thing about Flying Start is the collaborative way that it works with the health visitors and all the speech and language therapists and childcare, and we're looking at ways of trying to get some of those elements to reach a wider group. And as I said, we talked about earlier the eight earlier years transformation pathfinders that we talked about in the local authorities--we talked about that earlier--so, that's where we're going to look at Flying Start and how we can try to make it more accessible to more children. So, we do want to extend the benefits of Flying Start. We do want to make it available to more children, and that's what we're looking at. And we're looking at that in those eight pathfinder areas. And you'll have to wait to see what we come up with--
Suzy Davies AM: No, no--we'll ask you more about that in due course. Actually, that job would be an awful lot easier if you knew how many children within Flying Start areas were taking up all four elements. Why don't you know that? Why is that data not collected?
Julie Morgan AM: Do we know why?
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, the approach that we've taken to evaluation in Flying Start--. The committee will have seen the various evaluation reports that have been published, and I know that you're familiar with the work that, as I say, we've been doing with SAIL. We're currently focusing on individual data collection, and through that we want to be able to report on levels of engagement, but also outcomes for children. We've been piloting that new approach in six local authorities. We hope to be able to extend that, and we hope to be able to provide more evidence about the interventions and the impact that they then achieve.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. All right. Because, to be honest, I would want to know if a child's chances have improved primarily because they're getting good-quality childcare or primarily because their parents are taking up parenting courses. There's got to be some indication somewhere in here about which of these four elements is making the greatest difference.
Jo-Anne Daniels: I would just caution in terms of expectations. It will always be quite difficult to definitively provide answers to that, because many parents will be taking these things up in combination. So, disentangling which has had the effect is, obviously, quite tricky--in particular, all parents will be getting the enhanced health visiting. Not every parent will take up parenting support, not every child will need speech and language help, so--
Suzy Davies AM: And that's why we need to know who is.
Jo-Anne Daniels: Disentangling what's helped and what hasn't I think will always be quite a difficult thing to do.
Suzy Davies AM: But it would also be helpful to know which combinations work best as well. Just on the final point from me--yes, 88 per cent of Flying Start's childcare offers were taken up, but we've had some local authorities where the take-up has dropped dramatically. I think Denbighshire was down a fair bit, wasn't it, and Ceredigion, I think, had had a poor take-up. Have you got any indication why? I'm thinking of Denbighshire particularly, where there is a tradition--taking up third-party childcare is cultural there, whereas in Ceredigion, for example, there are far fewer places available in the first place and less of a tradition of children taking up childcare. But what's happened in Denbighshire?
Julie Morgan AM: I think there are a number of different reasons why parents do decide not to use a facility, and, obviously, that always exists, but each local authority has a Flying Start account manager in place to support them in the delivery of the programme and the account management activities, and there are formal account meetings that look at this sort of thing once a year--
Suzy Davies AM: So, what have they told you?
Julie Morgan AM: --and these meetings will take place in November 2019. That's when the specific delivery issues will be discussed in depth, so that's when we'll find out what has happened and why there may have been a drop.
Suzy Davies AM: Can I just ask about the timing of that? Because if you already know that there's a 6 per cent drop, why will it take the best part of a year to--well, November's only next month, to be fair, now, but why will it take that length of time to establish why there's a drop? You'd have thought if you'd seen a trend like that--
Julie Morgan AM: Obviously, they meet at certain times and they will assess what's happened. That seems quite normal to me.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, but we'll get a note on that, is it? It's just that they knew this six months ago.
Julie Morgan AM: In November, we'll have more information about this, so we can let you have information about that.
Suzy Davies AM: That would be really helpful, just for--. I'm sure constituents in Denbighshire will want to know about that. And then finally from me, Chair, if I may, Flying Start beneficiaries--it's got a specific explanation of what a Flying Start beneficiary is, but I think, particularly in view of the evidence we've heard on this committee about parental support in connection with the removal of the defence of reasonable chastisement, for example, this committee is very concerned about what's out there in terms of parental support. Eighteen per cent of Flying Start beneficiaries have parents attending the informal parenting courses; that's 18 per cent, that's not very high. Any idea about what you might be able to do to encourage take-up or is that very locally decided?
Lynne Neagle AM: If I can add to that, obviously, somebody only has to attend one course--we've got no way of knowing whether parents are completing the whole of a course, really.
Julie Morgan AM: Obviously, the offer is there for parents to take up the parenting courses, and there are four elements to Flying Start, and maybe some of the parents don't feel that they want to or need to. I don't think we've got any more evidence on that for take-up--
Suzy Davies AM: Well, the reach of this is going to be important, because we need the reassurance on the back of the legislation that is going through at the moment.
Julie Morgan AM: Absolutely, yes.
Jo-Anne Daniels: Parenting courses are, of course, one aspect of parenting support, but not the only one, and they'll be appropriate for a lot of parents, but for some not. What all parents do get at an enhanced level in Flying Start is the support of the health visitor, so the health visitor is, in effect, providing a significant amount of support for parenting. Now, that can be practical things like weaning or potty training et cetera, but, actually, it's also about managing a child's behaviour, managing how a parent develops that bonding and that attachment with their child. So, the role of the health visitor in supporting a parent to be a parent is absolutely critical, and every parent in Flying Start areas will be getting that enhanced level of support. Of course, it's not just in Flying Start areas now, because with the Healthy Child Wales programme, the universal programme of health visiting visits, we have a much more consistent and standardised set of visits and engagements with parents that cover a lot of these areas. In addition, I'd also add that when parents use the childcare in Flying Start, or childcare generally outside of Flying Start areas, there is often a lot of working between the childcare setting and the parent over parenting--again, managing a child's behaviour, managing any issues that the childcare worker thinks are emerging in terms of whether it's eating or, again, toileting. So, parenting courses are important, but it's really essential that we see those in the broader context of the different ways in which lots of professionals interact with parents, providing them with advice, guidance and support, and actually what works for parents in terms of how they take on board some of that advice and that help. Sometimes a formal course is quite off-putting for parents, but the sort of quiet word, the top tips, the advice that a friendly professional gives can be very, very impactful.
Suzy Davies AM: That's a really helpful answer. It does raise, unfortunately, another question about whether a health visitor in those circumstances might find themselves in a difficult position if they're dealing with a parent who has smacked a child, but we'll leave that for Stage 3.
Julie Morgan AM: We'll be dealing with that, I'm sure.
Suzy Davies AM: But thank you; that was a helpful answer. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank the Minister and the officials for attending this morning? As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again for your attendance. Thank you.
Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Item 4 is papers to note. There's just one today: the letter from the WLGA regarding the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019 in response to our letter asking about the change in approach. Item 5 then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Thank you. | Julie Morgan recommended to believe the demand was very important, and to establish a specific programme to develop Welsh language skills in childcare and played workforce with the National Centre for Learning Welsh to develop workplace Welsh language skills across the sector. And also she agreed on Nicola Edwards's idea that they should have a stakeholder group where they had brought together a variety of people with an interest in the early years, childcare and play sectors. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies for absence this morning. Can I ask if there are any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay. Thank you. Item 3 this morning then is a scrutiny session on early childhood education and care, and I'm very pleased to welcome Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Jo-anne Daniels, director of communities and tackling poverty at Welsh Government; and Nicola Edwards, deputy director of the childcare, play and early years division in Welsh Government. Thank you all for your attendance. We're very much looking forward to the session. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions, and the first ones are from Hefin David.
Hefin David AM: Good morning, Deputy Minister. What are your primary objectives? Is it supporting the development of children or getting parents into work?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, I think you'll be aware from the range of programmes that we've got that we do feel it's important to support both children and parents. There's obviously lots of evidence to show how important the early years are for children, how important they are for their development, and so, that is one of our primary objectives. But we also know how important it is for parents to have stable jobs, reasonably paid, so that can also help with the development of the children. So, we really see it that our plans are for both parents and children, and we believe that a high-quality, early-childhood education and care system can provide that. And, of course, in terms of when we talk about jobs as well, I think it's really important to remember that the childcare system is a big employer as well and a very important employer. So that, actually, itself provides jobs.
Hefin David AM: So, the evidence we've seen suggests that, historically, Governments in the UK and devolved have focused on primarily getting parents into work. So, are you suggesting then that your focus is to change that and move towards early child development?
Julie Morgan AM: No, what I'm saying is that we want to give parents the opportunity to work. We don't want childcare to be a barrier to parents working because we think that working is one the best routes out of poverty, but we do also want to make sure that children have the greatest experience that they can have in the early years. So, we see it as one.
Hefin David AM: Okay. And that's quite a policy challenge to deliver both at the same time.
Julie Morgan AM: The situation as it is is complex, and I think it needs simplifying. It is a challenge, but it's probably one of the most important challenges we've got in Government, because what we offer to families with young children is one of the most important things we do.
Hefin David AM: And in your evidence to the committee, you said that the Welsh Government's approach'will build on a wide variety of programmes that are continually developing in order to support parents, families and children during the early years.'And you've just said you want to simplify that. How do you simplify that, particularly with regard to the provision of funding and the way these things connect from the birth of a child into school? How will simplification look, and what will happen?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, we're not at the stage of being able to say what it will look like at the moment, but we're looking at ways of simplifying, because I think it's absolutely right, it is a very complex system, because it's grown up from all different routes. But we are having lots of pilot projects that are looking at ways of simplifying the system. We have got pathway projects in, I think it's eight local authorities, who are looking at ways of joining up the whole system. So, we are looking at that, and I absolutely except that it is very complex and we want to find ways of making it simpler and easier to understand. So, we are working with local authorities and health boards to see how we can actually work together and simplify things.
Hefin David AM: And it's good to hear that that's your objective. Can I just come back to the first thing you said:'We can't say yet what we're going to do'?
Julie Morgan AM: No.
Hefin David AM: So, when will we have a policy plan and something that we can interrogate in more detail?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, I think we are near getting to an announcement where we will be able to say what direction we're going in, and because we have had--. Some of this work has been going on for a year or so, and we're getting the results of those pathfinder projects coming in. So, when we do have all those results, we will be able to say the direction that we want to go in, and I hope we'll be able to do that very soon.
Hefin David AM: Before Christmas?
Julie Morgan AM: I hope so.
Hefin David AM: Okay. And finally from me--
Julie Morgan AM: I'm sorry I can't say too much about that because we haven't actually--. We need to--.
Hefin David AM: Well, it does sound like something is imminent.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes.
Hefin David AM: Okay. And that's as far as you're willing to go. And if that's as far as you're willing to go, then I'll stop asking.
Lynne Neagle AM: I've got a supplementary from Sian.
Hefin David AM: Okay.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes, that's fine.
Sian Gwenllian AM: I just want to understand a little about the pilot, the pathfinders in eight local authority areas. Is the focus there on the child or is it on parents returning to work?
Julie Morgan AM: The focus is on an early years system, but we've worked both locally and nationally. So, it's looking at both. I mean, actually, I think, perhaps, Nicola, would you like to or one of you like to describe one of the programmes?
Sian Gwenllian AM: And can you just explain the vision? Is it a child-centred early years provision that we're thinking of in these pathfinder--?
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, in'Prosperity for All', we set out that early years was one of the key priority areas, and within that we said that we wanted to create a more joined-up and more responsive system. So, when we talk about a system, we're talking about the services that are provided by health boards, so health visiting, midwifery, speech and language support, other kinds of therapeutic services, as well as all the important services that local authorities are providing, such as support for parenting, advice and guidance, employment support and childcare, obviously. And we've got eight pathfinders. I'll try and remember each of them. So, Flintshire, Newport, Blaenau Gwent, Neath Port Talbot, Swansea, Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire--and then I've missed one, I think, because I've only got to seven--who have been working with us to look at how all of those services are currently delivered in their local area and whether and how they can reorganise those services to improve accessibility, to improve take-up, but essentially to improve the efficacy of those programmes in terms of supporting children, but often, obviously, in supporting children you have to support parents too and support the home.
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, would you say it's a child-centred approach?
Jo-Anne Daniels: Absolutely, because it's about making sure that we deliver the best start in life for children in Wales, but obviously parents are a critical element of that, so can't be excluded.
Lynne Neagle AM: And how long have they been going for?
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, those eight pathfinders started their work in--I think it was--February this year. And they're still in the very early stages in terms of actually unpicking and mapping the current provision of services across their areas and then moving on to the stage where they'll develop proposals for how they might change the delivery of early years.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Julie.
Julie Morgan AM: Just to say also, the one in Flintshire is also testing the impact of consistent funding rates for education and childcare. So, that's been going longer than the others. So, that's another important area because there's an evaluation of that project under way at the moment.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you.
Jo-Anne Daniels: Sorry, but Caerphilly was the one that I forgot to mention.
Lynne Neagle AM: Oh dear. [Laughter. ]
Hefin David AM: That's absolutely unforgivable. [Laughter. ]
Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin. [Laughter. ]
Julie Morgan AM: Very significant.
Hefin David AM: In your report, the'Alignment of the Childcare Offer for Wales to the Foundation Phase', one of the recommendations was that'The Welsh Government, local authority education and childcare policy and delivery teams could merge'. So, looking behind the scenes, those disparate parts of policy, delivering the foundation phase and childcare offer should merge. Is that the case? Has that been put under way and should we be looking at this structure in more depth?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, probably not at the structure at this time because the report that you're referring to was looking at the first year of the delivery of the childcare offer and it did make a number of points, which we have taken on board. For example, we issued guidance last year regarding the delivery of the foundation phase, which supports widening the number of non-maintained settings that are able to deliver early education and we're also supporting co-location and partnership working between education and childcare providers through our capital investment programme. I think it's about PS81 million that we put into the capital investment where we are developing childcare facilities co-located with the education facilities, because that was one of the things that came out from this report you're referring to. And, I mean, obviously, early years is one of the key priorities within'Prosperity for All'and, obviously, education sits within one portfolio with the Minister for Education, and childcare is with me. But we're doing what we can to work together to try to bring those together, and that was one of the proposals in that report. But it's still very early to think about, at this stage, a structural change.
Hefin David AM: And I remember when you were on the committee here with me, sitting next to me, we had those discussions about co-location. I know the problem with not having co-location is that you could end up seeing a child travelling between three or more locations during the course of a day. Are you suggesting now that the actions you're taking will resolve that issue universally, or will it lead to a piecemeal resolution? And, if so, to what extent, what percentage of children will see that resolved as an issue?
Julie Morgan AM: Certainly, the co-location is not going to solve it universally because although we've been able to develop a lot of new facilities, or build on old facilities, there will be a lot of areas that we won't have covered. So, I can't say that there's going to be a situation where everything is going to be co-located because I don't think that would be feasible, and, for some of the providers, they wouldn't be in a position to move to a school. But ideally it's a good situation, but, certainly, I think the discussions that there were on the committee, it's not ideal to take children for long distances between different providers, let alone the effect it has on the climate change issue. It's whether it's good for children as well. So, I can't say that they will ever be co-located, but as I said in response to your earlier question, we are encouraging the development of the foundation phase in non-maintained settings, which, obviously, is quite significant.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. I've got some questions now from Janet Finch-Saunders.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. What is the Welsh Government doing to address the big differences in the amount of early childhood education and care provision available in different parts of Wales?
Julie Morgan AM: Right. Well, thank you very much for that question. I mean, obviously, it would be good to see a greater degree of consistency, but I think it's important to acknowledge that there are reasons for that variation. Now, early education, of course, is the responsibility of the Minister for Education, and we are aware that different local authorities have adopted different patterns of providing early education. For example, local authorities are funded to provide 10 hours minimum of the foundation phase for three and four-year-olds across Wales, but there's quite a variance in how much is actually provided, with some local authorities providing a lot more historically. So, it does mean that there is a different pattern across Wales, according to what local authorities do. But what I could say is, of course, the quality is very good, as the Estyn reports have shown; that the quality provided, the delivery of the foundation phase, is very good. But it does vary in terms of what is offered throughout Wales, and that is the decision of the local authorities, and it is a historical thing. I refer to this pilot in Flint, which is trying to test paying the same rate for foundation phase and childcare. We're going to have an independent evaluation on that soon, in November this year, so that will help us. Obviously, I think local authorities'role in all this is absolutely crucial because they are the local, nearest people to decide how things develop in their own areas. And then, of course, we've got Flying Start, which is geographically targeted, which uses the data from income benefit to decide which are the areas where that is being delivered. And that is delivered where the highest proportion of children aged nought to three are living in income-dependent households. So, again, that determines the pattern throughout Wales. With Flying Start being geographically targeted, with the education being determined by the local authorities about how much there is, we know that there is a variance throughout Wales. We'd like to see facilities developed in each local authority throughout Wales that would answer the needs of the families and the children in those areas.
Lynne Neagle AM: Before you move on, Janet, Sian's got a supplementary.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Just in terms of the foundation phase, there have been cuts, of course, in expenditure in that phase. How concerned are you about that and the impact that that will have on the way in which the foundation phase is taught in our schools? The foundation phase is now part of the education improvement grant, which has seen a reduction of 10 per cent, and it has to compete against other expenditure streams within that greater pot of funding. So, are you concerned that money is being lost and that that will have an impact on standards in the foundation phase?
Julie Morgan AM: I haven't seen any evidence. Obviously, I must reiterate the foundation phase does come under the Minister for Education, but I haven't seen any evidence of any standards being lowered, and the reports from Estyn are very good. In fact, I think the foundation phase is one of our great joys, that we absolutely celebrate it, and so I'd be very concerned if I thought there was any drop in standards in the foundation phase, and I certainly haven't had any evidence of that. I would want to guard against that.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Exactly, but if there are fewer teaching assistants in the system because of the cuts, it's going to impact on standards, at the end of the day.
Julie Morgan AM: I think we have to be very careful to see that lower standards are not implemented, because it was groundbreaking when we brought it in, and it has proved to be a great success, so we want to make sure that's guarded.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Janet.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Going back to my original question about the big differences in amounts of early childhood education and care provision in different parts of Wales, the Welsh and UK Governments have followed a demand-driven approach to the childcare market, with subsidies mainly given to working parents. Is that a mistake? Should it be more universally available?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, some of our provision is universally available in certain areas. For example, the Flying Start provision is universally available in geographically defined areas, and I think that's very important, because that does mean that there isn't stigma, and so, in those areas, everybody can take advantage of it, and yet it is reaching those who are most in need because it's reaching those areas. So, I think that there is a purpose behind that. In terms of when you say demand led, could you elaborate on that?
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I know that--we've just had a useful briefing from David Dallimore, and, basically, there is this theory that there are too many resources--the demand-driven approach is based more on certain factors: geographic spread in terms of it being more universal, and whether that's the right way. How do children then mix with peers from different backgrounds, in their own peer or age group?
Julie Morgan AM: It is demand--
Nicola Edwards: [Inaudible. ]--because the offer is targeted at working parents--
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, yes.
Nicola Edwards: --obviously, then the amount of availability is based on how many parents apply for it and take it up. Is that the context of demand led in that--
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes.
Nicola Edwards: Right, okay.
Julie Morgan AM: It is universally available to all parents who meet the eligibility criteria of working, and I think what you're saying is that it should be available to everybody.
Lynne Neagle AM: I think the point that Janet's making is that some areas have traditionally got more childcare anyway because they have traditionally had more demand in those areas, so there's not a level playing field to start from. Is that correct?
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes.
Julie Morgan AM: I think that, historically, that is definitely true, and when you look at the take-up of the childcare offer, it's certainly taken up in some areas with a very high take-up rate. I think Ynys Mon was nearly 90 per cent or something--
Sian Gwenllian AM: They need more money, because they haven't got enough funding.
Dawn Bowden AM: So does everywhere.
Sian Gwenllian AM: No, to meet the demand.
Julie Morgan AM: In other areas, it's much, much lower--in some of the cities, I know. So, there is a big range in take-up--
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: So, do you intend to bring something forward to address that?
Julie Morgan AM: We are planning to extend it. We're looking at the possibility of extending it to parents who are in education and training. So, we are widening the offer, yes. Obviously, we have to wait for the evaluation of that. It would be great to be able to offer it to absolutely everybody, but obviously we have got the finance to look at in terms of how we do that. But we are certainly planning to expand it.
Lynne Neagle AM: We've got questions on the offer in a little while. Janet.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Does the Welsh Government intend to develop an integrated approach, then, against all settings? If so, given the current inconsistencies, how can quality be assured?
Julie Morgan AM: We are developing a more integrated approach towards the early years. As I've said, we're trying to have the foundation phase operating in more non-maintained settings, and we're already developing that. But Estyn and CIW will continue to inspect and regulate the early years sector to ensure standards, and, since January 2019, CIW and Estyn have moved to joint inspections for the non-maintained settings that are offering the foundation phase. So, that is a very positive move, I think, and is absolutely making sure that standards are maintained, because if we are having the foundation phase in non-maintained settings, that is a challenge where we want to be sure that the standards and the philosophy of the foundation phase are maintained. So, we have got the system of inspection to ensure that.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: And finally from me, what specific steps have been put in place to take forward the commitments from the Welsh Government's 2017 childcare/play early years workforce plan to build a better understanding of the workforce's Welsh language skills to enable support for the sector to be targeted and to identify where capacity needs to be built for the future to meet the needs of the early years sector in a bilingual Wales?
Julie Morgan AM: We think this is very important, and we're pleased that 29 per cent of children taking up the childcare offer are in Welsh or bilingual settings, so we think that's very good. We have established a specific programme to develop Welsh language skills in the childcare and play workforce with the National Centre for Learning Welsh, to develop workplace Welsh language skills across the sector. So, we're actually working with that, and I think you've done something with those recently, haven't you? I don't know if you want to--
Nicola Edwards: Yes. So, we have a stakeholder group where we've brought together a variety of people with an interest in the early years, childcare and play sectors, and we had a presentation just last month from the national language centre about the education programmes that they're rolling out, and how this is all coming together, which is quite interesting. We've been working quite carefully to make sure that the variety of work-based learning programmes that we provide and offer are also available in Welsh and bilingually. Recruitment and retention within the childcare and play sector is quite challenging in any case. Recruiting and retaining staff with really good Welsh language skills adds an extra dimension to it, and that it's a point that Mudiad Meithrin makes to us quite regularly, that they do struggle to find staff with the right skills. So, upskilling the existing workforce is a key part of it, but also doing more to attract people in with Welsh language skills in the first place in terms of the training courses that we're taking forward, and thinking about that in the context of the targets within Cymraeg 2050 and the aim to get to one million Welsh speakers. So, as the Deputy Minister said, we've got quite a number of children accessing the offer in Welsh-medium or bilingual settings at the moment. We're going to be doing some baselining work against that in terms of local authorities'Welsh in education strategic plans and education places, and what we can then do to increase the number of childcare places in parallel with that so that you can make sure that you start that pathway through learning Welsh, interacting with education and childcare through Welsh at a much earlier stage.
Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you've got a supplementary.
Suzy Davies AM: Just on this early point, anybody who's been through the Welsh education system, which is 20 years now, will have some Welsh language skills, obviously to differing degrees. For the entrants that are coming into childcare training now, there are going to be very few of them, realistically, with no Welsh at all, so what's actually being incorporated into the early years care training to make sure, at that stage, that the Welsh language skills are being developed, as opposed to an add-on later on?
Nicola Edwards: You're quite right. Most people coming through the education system will have some awareness of Welsh although I think it's probably important to remember we do also employ people from outside of wales.
Suzy Davies AM: Yes, but the majority, being realistic.
Nicola Edwards: But they don't necessarily have Welsh that is appropriate. They've got Welsh that they've developed in school. It's not necessarily appropriate for then teaching that language to children, who may be coming from families who don't use Welsh at home. So, that might be the first interaction that child has with the language. So, there's a lot of that in terms of child development and how you develop children bilingually, particularly if they're coming from English-medium homes, and reinforcing the language in language choices. There will also be some people who are, perhaps--we see this quite a lot in the office--quite confident in terms of speaking Welsh but less so in terms of some of the paperwork, the reporting, the writing and the interacting with parents more officially, which we need to think about as well. But it is mainly about getting people to a point where they can transmit that language onwards in a confident and meaningful way.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And it's ingrained in the early years training.
Nicola Edwards: Yes.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. That's fine. Thank you for that. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Just before we move on, you said that 29 per cent of the take-up of the childcare offer is either through Welsh or is bilingual. Have you got any figures about how many children are accessing it in Welsh only?
Nicola Edwards: We will have. It becomes--. With the way we do it, it's because of the way that the setting defines their language category, and that's how we collect it. We do go down to individual child level, although it's anonymised, data collection on a termly basis. So I'll have a look and see if we can send you through the last term.
Lynne Neagle AM: Maybe if the committee could have a note, that would be really useful.
Nicola Edwards: Yes, that's fine.
Lynne Neagle AM: We've got some questions now on childcare from Dawn Bowden.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. Deputy Minister, the evaluation of the childcare offer, when it was published last year, said that there was very little evidence currently available to determine what its impact was. You're going to be producing a second evaluation in November this year; do you expect to see some indications now of the impact?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, the evaluation of the first year of the childcare offer was very limited, because the childcare offer wasn't available throughout the whole of Wales. And it was a very early implementation phase. So, obviously it takes time to grow. And the evaluation for year 2, I think, will also show a limited impact for the same reasons. The offer became available across the whole of Wales only last April. So we've only got since last April that it's actually been fully available. And the parental survey was released to parents in June 2019, therefore any impact on parents in the authorities coming on board in the second year will also be negligible. So, it's from the next one, however, we hope that we will get more information.
Dawn Bowden AM: So you think, by the time we get to November 2020, you might have a better picture.
Julie Morgan AM: The evaluation will be more meaningful, we think, then, yes.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. I take that point. What the first year's evaluation did show, however, was that 94 per cent of respondents said that they were already using formal childcare before the offer came into place. A couple of things, really: are you surprised at that, and is that likely to inform the way that you develop the offer in the future?
Julie Morgan AM: No, I'm not surprised at all. When it started off, it was only available in seven local authorities. In terms of how the families found out that it was available, they found it out through the childcare providers, where they already had their children there. So it was absolutely what we would have expected, and that will continue. But, of course, we were not able to fully advertise the childcare offer until it was available in all the local authorities, which was last April. So we are planning, this autumn, quite a big push now to try to make it available to everybody--so everybody knows about it. So, no, this is the pattern we would have expected, and I think anybody who's involved in starting up something in childcare will know you have to wait a number of years before you actually see it being fully taken up.
Dawn Bowden AM: I guess the question that it raises in my mind is: does this mean that, actually, it hasn't been an incentive to get somebody back into work, because they were already in work and already had childcare provision? What you've done is you've directed money to people who were already spending that money anyway. So it hasn't been a move towards getting people into work because they couldn't afford childcare.
Julie Morgan AM: Well I think that that is something that we are moving towards, because the take-up of the offer is actually increasing each month, which is why I call it a great success. At the end of July, we hit almost 16,000 children accessing the offer, which obviously means that there are 16,000 families benefiting from this, and the feedback that we have had from parents is that they have been able to--. They've got more money available, which is obvious, which is great, because obviously more money is available to plunge into the economy and carry out that sort of thing, and we've got examples of parents who've been supported into work through programmes like Parents, Childcare and Employment to begin with, and then have gone on to access the offer. So, that's again a progression. So, I think we are seeing signs that people are moving on, have got more ability to be flexible in the work that they're doing, but I hope that when we look at it again, we will be able to see people actually moving into work because of having the access to childcare.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Before--
Lynne Neagle AM: Are you going to move on? Sian's got a supplementary.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Just a question on funding for the childcare offer. If you foresee that there's going to be more people going to be taking up that offer through the fact that you're marketing it more, what if the same situation arises that has happened on Anglesey? The take-up has been very good there, but the money that the Welsh Government has been allocating to Anglesey doesn't match that. What if it happens in every local authority right across Wales? Are you confident there's going to be plenty of money available to respond to that demand?
Julie Morgan AM: Based on the current levels of take-up and looking at the rates of increase each month, we expect to spend in the region of PS50 million to PS55 million in this financial year. Our published plans already include the provision of PS40 million, and we're absolutely committed to making available the total funding that is needed to deliver on the offer. It is fantastic to see the offer being so well received on Ynys Mon, recognising, as Janet said earlier, it is demand led. We are managing it within the normal budgetary process. Local authorities will get the full funding that is needed. It's this year now that the big increase has happened; the previous two years--
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, local authorities won't have to find the extra money out of their own pots.
Julie Morgan AM: No, absolutely not. This is funded by the Welsh Government.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. You can assure them.
Lynne Neagle AM: Dawn.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. You've already alluded to this in answer to Janet earlier on, about extending the childcare offer to those in training and education. You also talk about'on the cusp'of returning to work. So, I'm not quite sure what'on the cusp'of returning to work is, but from the committee's point of view, we're very pleased that you've reached that conclusion, because it was one of the recommendations that we had following the scrutiny of the Bill. So, can you say a little more about that, bearing in mind that I'm also conscious that you've told Hefin you're going to be making an announcement shortly? So you may not be able to say too much. But a little bit more about the inclusion of parents in training and education, what'on the cusp of returning to work'is--what that means from your perspective--and how you've arrived at that decision now, six months into the programme. What is it that's made you move towards that conclusion?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, obviously, the children and young persons committee made a very good case for education and training, in particular; I think that was one of the things that was at the top of the list. What we've committed to do is to review the programme, particularly looking at how we could bring in education and training, and that review will report early next year. So, early next year, we will have a view on how we could go forward. But the other thing that's also happened is that, obviously, with the new First Minister, that was one of his manifesto commitments--that he would bring education and training in. So, we're obviously following the--
Dawn Bowden AM: Because that was one of the key drivers for that as well.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes, so that is another of the key drivers, as you said--the committee and what the First Minister said. There are a wealth of programmes supporting parents into education, training or work, and many of those do provide support with childcare costs. But we have, by rolling out this programme, the childcare programme, highlighted some gaps where people have felt that they, particularly people who are in full-time education--and I can think of a number of people who are actually doing PhD studies--who are--the letters may have come in from some of your constituents--not able to access the offer as things stand. So, we are looking at people who are in full-time education and training. We're using the definition by the Office for National Statistics, aren't we, in terms of education and training. And on'on the cusp of work', maybe that will have to be something we have to look at differently--those people who are actually maybe undertaking very short training programmes, preparation for work, maybe actually having interviews, where they need help with childcare, that they're sort of almost there. So, they may have to be dealt with in a different way, but I think we do want to look at those. This is expanding the offer; it's not making it universal, but it's moving on.
Dawn Bowden AM: So, what are the--? Overall, then, what are the factors that you're having to take into account? Is it going to be what is needed in order to encourage people back into work? Is it going to be cost? Is it going to be a combination of all of those things? What are going to be the key factors that you're going to be looking at?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, the position now is that anybody who fulfills the criteria in terms of the number of hours they work, we would look at that in terms of education and training, and then, this expression'on the cusp of work'we may have to look at differently, because they may not fulfil those numbers in terms of number of hours training. So, we'll get a criteria, and then they will have access to the childcare offer. But I just have to emphasise that there are ways of getting help with childcare already, and we wanted to make sure we don't duplicate. That's why this field is so complex, shall we say, because there's so many different ways that you can actually get help, and we want to be sure that we don't duplicate--
Dawn Bowden AM: Sorry, Julie. So, all of this is going to be incorporated in this announcement that you're going to be making shortly--
Julie Morgan AM: No, this review will report early next year.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. My final question--
Lynne Neagle AM: Before you move on, sorry, I've got a couple of supplementaries. I've got Suzy, then Sian. Sorry, Dawn.
Suzy Davies AM: Just on the cost element, because if you do roll out this programme, obviously, on the back of evidence through a review, it is going to cost extra money. Early years is one of the eight priority areas for Government. There are fairly generous Barnett consequentials coming from the comprehensive spending review and announcements on schools from the UK Government, and while I accept that you've only got annual commitments there, they're still substantial. How much money have you managed to secure for early years from the most recent announcement, and when have you planned to actually use that, maybe for some of this work?
Julie Morgan AM: Have you got some information on that?
Nicola Edwards: The budget process is ongoing internally, so I think'secured'is probably a slightly premature phrase.
Suzy Davies AM: Am I allowed to ask instead how much you've asked for, then? All I'm after is some reassurance that you will be getting some of this money, and as it is one of the eight priorities, certainly we would expect to see you getting a substantial amount of money for early years.
Julie Morgan AM: As one of the Government's priorities, we would expect to get any money that came as a result of any Barnett consequentials.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. And it will be in the draft budget that we know for sure if it is successful.
Julie Morgan AM: It's all in the process--
Lynne Neagle AM: And the committee will want to look very carefully at that, obviously.
Julie Morgan AM: It's in the process at the moment.
Suzy Davies AM: There we are. Just giving you a good warning.
Lynne Neagle AM: Sian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: How much would it cost to move to a child-centred approach, which means that every child would be able to access the childcare offer, rather than doing it from parents?
Julie Morgan AM: We are looking at that. We're having a longer-term review, in terms of what it would mean if every child had access to the childcare offer. We don't have those figures yet. We've got the one review looking at bringing in education and training. That should report early next year, and then we've got another longer-term review, looking at what a universal offer would mean.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Do we know how many children we're talking about?
Nicola Edwards: Yes. So, there are approximately, at any given time, around 73,000 three and four-year-olds in Wales. There's some slight rounding in the numbers there, but approximately 73,000 at any given time. Based on the current eligibility criteria for the offer, it's about 34,000 children, we believe, are eligible. This does, of course, vary, depending on a whole range of different factors, and we certainly know from what we're seeing from the offer that, even where people are entitled to something, they don't necessarily take it up. And even if they do take it up, they don't necessarily take up their full entitlement, which is also something that we'd have to think about in terms of any modelling on costings.
Sian Gwenllian AM: So, half the children are in non-working families.
Nicola Edwards: It's because of the requirement that, in a two-parent household, both parents must be in work.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. Two parent. Okay.
Lynne Neagle AM: One of the points that the committee made very strongly in our report on the Bill was that we wanted to see a much more child-centred focus, and one of the issues that came out in scrutiny was whether, actually, three and four-year-olds were the right age to be actually targeting if we're looking at things like child development. Have you given any consideration to the actual age group that's covered when we know that, for many children, it's the first 1,000 days that makes that fundamental difference?
Julie Morgan AM: We are aware that there is a case that says that two years old is a very important time. We are looking at that as part of the overall longer review, yes. We are aware of the information and what you're saying about the younger the better.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Dawn.
Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, my final question, Chair, thank you, is about the parent, childcare and employment programme, which is jointly funded by the European social fund and Welsh Government. It has been quite successful, in terms of its numbers anyway, in getting economically inactive parents into work. What are the plans for this programme, if and when we leave the EU and we lose the ESF funding for that?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, the programme has recently been extended, with delivery continuing until June 2022, with additional ESF funding of PS5. 6 million. That's recently happened, and obviously this programme provides intensive employment to parents who are not in education, employment or training or economically inactive and where the childcare is the main barrier, and it has been a very, very successful programme. So, the UK has guaranteed funding for all EU projects approved by December 2020, and this includes the PaCE programme. I think there was also another--. I only heard it verbally. I heard some other guarantees on the radio recently from the UK Treasury about guaranteeing some of these funds. I don't know whether anybody else heard that. But the Welsh Government can only draw on the UK Government guarantee for claims that aren't paid by the European Commission, and so the current arrangements are staying in place.
Dawn Bowden AM: Until when, sorry?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, June 2022.
Dawn Bowden AM: Oh, I see. Yes. So, that's when all the current commitments expire, basically. Yes. So, we don't know--. To do that it would have to be part of Government planning in terms of--
Julie Morgan AM: Well, we don't know what's happening with that--
Dawn Bowden AM: --what would happen beyond that.
Julie Morgan AM: --funding, but there have been some promises from the UK Government recently, but nothing definite.
Dawn Bowden AM: Yes, we're not holding our breath.
Julie Morgan AM: No.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Sian's got some specific questions now around the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019.
Sian Gwenllian AM: As we know, of course, the work with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs has ended, and I know you weren't the Minister who initiated this process, but what exactly has gone wrong? What are these issues that have come to light that have made you suspend that? It's very frustrating for us, as a committee, who scrutinised that extensively and raised a lot of concerns about that. And a lot of time has been spent talking about this funding Bill, and money--PS1 million, I understand--has been wasted, if you like, unnecessarily. So, what exactly has gone wrong? Why aren't you discussing these things with HMRC?
Julie Morgan AM:
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. So, thank you for that explanation.
Julie Morgan AM: I've got more to say as well.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but for your transparency around your particular view that it needs to be more flexible and expanded upon and, therefore, going down the HMRC route was--
Julie Morgan AM: It would have restricted us a lot.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes. We knew that from the beginning. I mean, that's, you know--. So, it was a principle decision rather than any sort of technical matters to do with the Welsh language standards. That's been cited as one kind of--. But I'm really understanding more now that, really, what it's about is that you want to have a more flexible, and expand on the offer and that this would curtail--going through HMRC would put limits on that.
Julie Morgan AM: That is one of the reasons, but there were issues about the Welsh language, which we can go into in detail, if you'd like. There were some issues about that. They would be able to process things bilingually, and I think that was probably told to the committee when we looked at the HMRC. But, in terms of the Welsh language standards that the Minister has to use, there would be some difficulties in them doing it.
Sian Gwenllian AM: But would you say that your main change came about because you wanted to be more flexible rather than any difficulties--
Julie Morgan AM: One of the major reasons, I think--
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Good.
Julie Morgan AM: But there are--. As I say, there are other reasons. Those technical reasons probably do end up being quite important--
Sian Gwenllian AM: But the committee was told by the previous Minister that HMRC wouldn't have any problem at all with delivering according to the Welsh language standards.
Julie Morgan AM: Do you want to add something to this?
Nicola Edwards: So, in terms of some of the technical issues we had, if you want to start with the bilingual provision and the Welsh language standards, HMRC do provide a bilingual service at the moment for their customers in line with their Welsh language scheme, and I think we can all appreciate that schemes are quite different from the requirements of the standards. And there were some issues when we got into the detail of the standards that the Welsh Ministers are required to deliver to that caused some concerns in terms of how HMRC were going to do it, particularly in terms of the multiple IT systems that go into building up the childcare services. So, for example, there are a number of what are called'special characters'in the Welsh alphabet, such as the to bach, for example. The HMRC IT system has some issues with that.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, well, with due respect, the to bach has always been there--
Nicola Edwards: Oh, yes, I completely agree. Unfortunately, however--
Sian Gwenllian AM: --and HMRC would have been able to tell you, really early on, you would have thought, that it was--. I don't really want to go into it, because I think we've got to the crux of why HMRC was dropped. I think it's been dropped because Julie feels that the offer needs to be more flexible, and I can understand why you would say that.
Julie Morgan AM: If we bring in training and education, for example, we wouldn't be able to do that via the HMRC, it would have to be done by the local authorities. Foster parents have to be done via the local authorities. Any people of immigration status of no resource from public funds, that would have to be done via the local authorities. And with the local authorities also wanting to do it--. I mean, there are other things with using HMRC--if any changes were made with the English offer, for example, because this would be delivered via HMRC with the English offer, that would cause difficulties for the Welsh offer. So, we wanted something more flexible. I don't know if there's anything more you want to add on that.
Jo-Anne Daniels: The only thing I'd add is that--and, again, I think the Minister has referred to this--the costs that HMRC presented us with at the end of the discovery phase were significantly higher than the costs that had initially been outlined and that we outlined to the committee in the regulatory impact assessment. So, our conclusion is that we can deliver a cheaper system and a system that has the flexibility that the Deputy Minister has referred to by working with local authorities rather than HMRC. So, there is an important issue around value for money as well and making sure that the investment that we're making into developing the national system is one that--that, in a sense, that investment stays in Wales. So, obviously, the money that we're paying over to HMRC to run the system would be supporting HMRC and their employees wherever they may be based, many of them not based in Wales; investment in local authorities to administer the system means that we're retaining more of that investment here.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Well, I congratulate you on persuading local government and WLGA to change their minds, because they actually told this committee that they favoured the HMRC option--and this is only going back a few months--because it will remove--and this is quoting them--'it will remove the administrative burden of receiving applications and checking eligibility from local authorities'-- blah, blah, blah, blah. So, they've obviously changed their minds as well, which is, you know--. I congratulate you on that, but it does present us as a committee with a little bit of a problem, really, because, if we're told one thing a few months ago and then we're told something completely different today, you know, evidence--we have to go on evidence that we've heard, and the evidence has changed now.
Julie Morgan AM: I think, during the period since it was discussed on the committee, the work with the HMRC has helped highlight to us where we needed to go. So, I think we did learn a lot and it certainly has helped show to us where we think is the best place to go. I would like to pay tribute to the local authorities, because they've been great partners in this and they're very positive about moving forward keeping the work. And there's also a feeling that, because they are so much closer to the local public than HMRC is, they're able to build up links with families and help with some of these difficult issues. Because I'm sure many of you may have had individual cases--I certainly have--where there's been quite a lot of complexity about helping people fill in the forms and look at their eligibility. So, I say well done to the local authorities. And thanks to the HMRC, because we've had nothing but a very positive relationship with them.
Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy, you've got a supplementary.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. Ms Daniels, you referred to value for money. How much is it actually going to cost to change this system from being a temporary arrangement with local authorities to a permanent one? And how much more is it going to cost for the more flexible system that you have in mind? They're not going to do this for nothing. How much extra are you giving them, and will they use it for this? How are you ensuring it's used for this?
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, at the moment, local--. So, two things. Just to start by saying the eligibility checking process is not undertaken by all 22 local authorities.
Suzy Davies AM: No, no, I realise that. Yes, I got all that.
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, part of the reason for using 10 is to try to ensure that we build economies of scale and that we have a more efficient operation. Those authorities that undertake that function are given a specific grant in order to do that. That grant is ring-fenced to that purpose.
Suzy Davies AM: Could you give us an idea of the price tag?
Jo-Anne Daniels: At the moment, it's about PS2. 5 million.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, just as a round figure--that's fine.
Nicola Edwards: Just for the administration. They get separate funding for the childcare, obviously.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you.
Jo-Anne Daniels: So that, as I said, is a ring-fenced sum that they use to administer the offer. We are now starting the detailed work to define the new system requirements so that we will have a single application process across Wales, moving forward. As part of that work, we'll need to consider the detailed costings, but our initial estimate suggests that it would be less than the cost proposed by HMRC.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, when those costings are worked up, perhaps we could have a note comparing the two figures.
Jo-Anne Daniels: Yes, we would be very happy to share more detail on that.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Sian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: If it became a universal offer, would those costs reduce? Would there be so much bureaucracy involved in checking eligibility and stuff if every child was open to the offer?
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, clearly, if every child is eligible, then a large part of the process falls away in terms of the need to verify income and so on. That doesn't mean that there's no administration. For example, with the foundation phase, which is universally available, there is an application process and there is an administrative function that sits alongside that. At this point in time, I couldn't give you any indication of--
Sian Gwenllian AM: But it would be substantially less, wouldn't it, because they wouldn't have to do all these eligibility checks and all those things?
Nicola Edwards: They wouldn't have to do the eligibility checks, but they would still have to make payments to the childcare providers and make sure they were paying for the right number of hours in respect of each child. So, parents would still need to tell them where their child was going, and there would still need to be some work alongside that.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Sian, do you want to ask about the Welsh language?
Sian Gwenllian AM: I think we've--. I'm happy with that.
Lynne Neagle AM: Really--?
Sian Gwenllian AM: I don't think that that was the real reason why the change happened.
Julie Morgan AM: One of the reasons.
Lynne Neagle AM: Nevertheless, the committee was given very concrete assurances that the Welsh language side of this was going to be covered off. Have you got anything that you want to add on that? Obviously, for us as a committee, we believe what we're told when we are given assurances. So, that's quite concerning for us, really, that that suddenly then became an issue, when both HMRC and the Minister at the time told us that this wasn't going to be a problem.
Nicola Edwards: So, I think it's the point that I was talking about earlier. There's a difference between a bilingual service in the context of what HMRC understood that to be, in the context of their scheme, and the very detail of the standards when they got into their IT systems.
Lynne Neagle AM: Shouldn't that have been something that was worked out at the beginning?
Nicola Edwards: Possibly, but they did need to do quite detailed work, not just into their own IT systems, but the feed-in systems from the Home Office, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Post Office as well, to understand the full complexity of how the standards would comply across all of that. They do provide a bilingual service. It was just some of the specific details of the requirements placed on the Welsh Ministers, because it is the Welsh Ministers'standards that they would need to deliver against that they were struggling with.
Lynne Neagle AM: Right, okay.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but those standards were there right from the very beginning.
Lynne Neagle AM: I think that the committee would feel that that should have been bottomed out at the beginning, really.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Nothing has changed in terms of the standards.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, just before we move on to Flying Start, can I just ask: the Minister mentioned a longer term review of the childcare offer. Are you able to give us any indication of when that will report, please?
Julie Morgan AM: Would we have any idea?
Nicola Edwards: We haven't set out a definitive timescale on that as of yet because we've been focusing very much on getting the review in terms of training, education and on the cusp of returning to work up and running. But sometime next year.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. So, it will report sometime next year.
Nicola Edwards: Yes.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We'll move on now to Flying Start and questions from Suzy Davies.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you, Chair. Can I just begin by asking you how you respond to the assertion that children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds do better in a mixed socioeconomic environment than in a targeted environment?
Julie Morgan AM: I think that's what Flying Start does, isn't it? Yes, I would have thought that was likely.
Suzy Davies AM: Well, the reason I'm asking you that, of course, is because this committee has suggested, perhaps, changes to the outreach system to target more disadvantaged children, and not necessarily capture people who happen to be in a geographic area.
Julie Morgan AM: So, you're saying that you feel that a universal offer in certain areas is not advantageous to--
Suzy Davies AM: Well, I'm asking you, really. If it's the case that we're only going after disadvantaged children, which would take very precise targeting--
Julie Morgan AM: I'm not only going after disadvantaged children. I feel that we should be offering something for all children, and our considerations are for all children. The reason we've targeted Flying Start is because it would be great if we had enough money to have Flying Start throughout the whole of Wales, but we just don't have that sort of money. Because I think Flying Start has proved to be a great--very successful.
Suzy Davies AM: I'm going to ask you a few more questions on that. Because just in response to this committee's 2018 report, you did say that:'defined geographical targeting of Flying Start support will be considered as part of the Welsh Government's work on the Early Years system.'That suggests you still have geographic targeting in mind. So, if you're looking at a very mixed source of economic experience for children, what are the geographic boundaries you're considering?
Julie Morgan AM: At the moment, Flying Start can go beyond the geographical boundaries, with the extension--
Suzy Davies AM: With limits, yes.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes. I think they can use 10 per cent of their income to go beyond the geographical boundaries, and many of them have done that. But, obviously, there are four elements to Flying Start, and only those geographical areas have got the four elements, but there could be the opportunity of extending some of that beyond the Flying Start geographical areas. We're looking at this.
Suzy Davies AM: I accept what you say about the current system--
Julie Morgan AM: I believe it's much more--. I believe very strongly in having a universal system, where everybody is able to access it.
Suzy Davies AM: I appreciate that as well. But, obviously, there are huge cost implications for that--unless you're giving us some insight into what you're going to say next week, I don't know. But actually, defining anything geographically, which now seems to be fairly arbitrary, because it's not targeted purely at disadvantaged children--on what basis are we choosing the geographic areas we are choosing at the moment?
Julie Morgan AM: Well, they're chosen then because of the benefit take-up in those particular areas. So, it's reaching some of the poorest children, but not all of the poorest children, but it's reaching the poorest children in a way that is not stigmatising, and where the services are open to everybody, and I think that's very important.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Well, having established that, we have fairly recent research here that a third of children living in poverty in Wales are already falling behind at the age of five--that suggests that two thirds of them aren't, but it's still a very worrying statistic. Not all children live in Flying Start areas; how are you going to reach that third who, even at such an early age, are already falling behind? How many of them are in Flying Start areas?
Julie Morgan AM: I think the actual number of children in poverty, the most disadvantaged that we reach through the Flying Start areas--I think it's about 46 per cent. Is that--? Do you know the actual percentage?
Suzy Davies AM: It's about a quarter of total children are in there, but--
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, just to give you a few of the numbers, there are just over 36,000 children benefiting from Flying Start services. That equates to about 23 per cent of children, overall, in Wales. And because of the nature of the benefit take-up data, and because we don't assess eligibility within a Flying Start area, we can't be absolutely certain how many children within a Flying Start area are actually in poverty. So, it's an estimate, and it's a range, and the range is that around 45 per cent of children in Flying Start areas would be in poverty. FootnoteLink
Suzy Davies AM: Well, that's interesting. I would have expected it to be much higher than that, particularly if the geographic areas had been targeted on benefit claims, effectively. Are you disappointed that the proportion is--basically, 55 per cent of those children aren't living in poverty. That's what you're saying, isn't it?
Jo-Anne Daniels: Well, I'd offer two observations. One: the nature of poverty in Wales is actually, generally, more dispersed than perhaps sometimes is appreciated. Yes, we have very concentrated areas of--
Suzy Davies AM: Well, actually, we do appreciate it, which is why we're asking this question. [Laughter. ]
Jo-Anne Daniels: Okay. So that's one issue to think about. Sorry, I've lost my train of thought now, in terms of the second--oh, sorry: whether you're in or out of poverty is, in one sense, very black/white. But in reality of course--in terms of the income definition, it's very black/white. But, of course, there will be a large number of people who are just above, but also families who move in and out, so it's quite a transient population in some senses, in terms of people having incomes that aren't stable, people having jobs that go with that that aren't stable. So, at any one point in time, you're only sort of capturing a snapshot of what's happening. In reality, it's a bit more complex than that.
Suzy Davies AM: I accept that. I mentioned a third of children living in poverty had fallen behind at five; by the age of 14, half that number is still falling behind, so something has happened between that third and that half to improve the life chances of those individual children or young people. Is that attributable to Flying Start? Can you say that candidly? Or is it a happy coincidence, where there could be some causation, but we can't prove it?
Jo-Anne Daniels: We certainly think that Flying Start is making a positive impact, both on the point at which children go to school, and then subsequently. And I think as the committee knows, we've been working with the SAIL--secure anonymised information linkage--and the databank there to look at how we can do longitudinal studies to track children's progress, to look at the extent to which outcomes are effected by Flying Start interventions.
Suzy Davies AM: We probably don't have time for this level of detail today, but half of those children are still behind at the age of 14. So, I'd be curious to know if there's any immediate plans to help them catch up or make sure that their successors don't fall into the same position, the same trap. Have you got anything high level that you can mention at this stage?
Julie Morgan AM: Just in terms of what we're thinking of doing with Flying Start--. The key thing about Flying Start is the collaborative way that it works with the health visitors and all the speech and language therapists and childcare, and we're looking at ways of trying to get some of those elements to reach a wider group. And as I said, we talked about earlier the eight earlier years transformation pathfinders that we talked about in the local authorities--we talked about that earlier--so, that's where we're going to look at Flying Start and how we can try to make it more accessible to more children. So, we do want to extend the benefits of Flying Start. We do want to make it available to more children, and that's what we're looking at. And we're looking at that in those eight pathfinder areas. And you'll have to wait to see what we come up with--
Suzy Davies AM: No, no--we'll ask you more about that in due course. Actually, that job would be an awful lot easier if you knew how many children within Flying Start areas were taking up all four elements. Why don't you know that? Why is that data not collected?
Julie Morgan AM: Do we know why?
Jo-Anne Daniels: So, the approach that we've taken to evaluation in Flying Start--. The committee will have seen the various evaluation reports that have been published, and I know that you're familiar with the work that, as I say, we've been doing with SAIL. We're currently focusing on individual data collection, and through that we want to be able to report on levels of engagement, but also outcomes for children. We've been piloting that new approach in six local authorities. We hope to be able to extend that, and we hope to be able to provide more evidence about the interventions and the impact that they then achieve.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. All right. Because, to be honest, I would want to know if a child's chances have improved primarily because they're getting good-quality childcare or primarily because their parents are taking up parenting courses. There's got to be some indication somewhere in here about which of these four elements is making the greatest difference.
Jo-Anne Daniels: I would just caution in terms of expectations. It will always be quite difficult to definitively provide answers to that, because many parents will be taking these things up in combination. So, disentangling which has had the effect is, obviously, quite tricky--in particular, all parents will be getting the enhanced health visiting. Not every parent will take up parenting support, not every child will need speech and language help, so--
Suzy Davies AM: And that's why we need to know who is.
Jo-Anne Daniels: Disentangling what's helped and what hasn't I think will always be quite a difficult thing to do.
Suzy Davies AM: But it would also be helpful to know which combinations work best as well. Just on the final point from me--yes, 88 per cent of Flying Start's childcare offers were taken up, but we've had some local authorities where the take-up has dropped dramatically. I think Denbighshire was down a fair bit, wasn't it, and Ceredigion, I think, had had a poor take-up. Have you got any indication why? I'm thinking of Denbighshire particularly, where there is a tradition--taking up third-party childcare is cultural there, whereas in Ceredigion, for example, there are far fewer places available in the first place and less of a tradition of children taking up childcare. But what's happened in Denbighshire?
Julie Morgan AM: I think there are a number of different reasons why parents do decide not to use a facility, and, obviously, that always exists, but each local authority has a Flying Start account manager in place to support them in the delivery of the programme and the account management activities, and there are formal account meetings that look at this sort of thing once a year--
Suzy Davies AM: So, what have they told you?
Julie Morgan AM: --and these meetings will take place in November 2019. That's when the specific delivery issues will be discussed in depth, so that's when we'll find out what has happened and why there may have been a drop.
Suzy Davies AM: Can I just ask about the timing of that? Because if you already know that there's a 6 per cent drop, why will it take the best part of a year to--well, November's only next month, to be fair, now, but why will it take that length of time to establish why there's a drop? You'd have thought if you'd seen a trend like that--
Julie Morgan AM: Obviously, they meet at certain times and they will assess what's happened. That seems quite normal to me.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, but we'll get a note on that, is it? It's just that they knew this six months ago.
Julie Morgan AM: In November, we'll have more information about this, so we can let you have information about that.
Suzy Davies AM: That would be really helpful, just for--. I'm sure constituents in Denbighshire will want to know about that. And then finally from me, Chair, if I may, Flying Start beneficiaries--it's got a specific explanation of what a Flying Start beneficiary is, but I think, particularly in view of the evidence we've heard on this committee about parental support in connection with the removal of the defence of reasonable chastisement, for example, this committee is very concerned about what's out there in terms of parental support. Eighteen per cent of Flying Start beneficiaries have parents attending the informal parenting courses; that's 18 per cent, that's not very high. Any idea about what you might be able to do to encourage take-up or is that very locally decided?
Lynne Neagle AM: If I can add to that, obviously, somebody only has to attend one course--we've got no way of knowing whether parents are completing the whole of a course, really.
Julie Morgan AM: Obviously, the offer is there for parents to take up the parenting courses, and there are four elements to Flying Start, and maybe some of the parents don't feel that they want to or need to. I don't think we've got any more evidence on that for take-up--
Suzy Davies AM: Well, the reach of this is going to be important, because we need the reassurance on the back of the legislation that is going through at the moment.
Julie Morgan AM: Absolutely, yes.
Jo-Anne Daniels: Parenting courses are, of course, one aspect of parenting support, but not the only one, and they'll be appropriate for a lot of parents, but for some not. What all parents do get at an enhanced level in Flying Start is the support of the health visitor, so the health visitor is, in effect, providing a significant amount of support for parenting. Now, that can be practical things like weaning or potty training et cetera, but, actually, it's also about managing a child's behaviour, managing how a parent develops that bonding and that attachment with their child. So, the role of the health visitor in supporting a parent to be a parent is absolutely critical, and every parent in Flying Start areas will be getting that enhanced level of support. Of course, it's not just in Flying Start areas now, because with the Healthy Child Wales programme, the universal programme of health visiting visits, we have a much more consistent and standardised set of visits and engagements with parents that cover a lot of these areas. In addition, I'd also add that when parents use the childcare in Flying Start, or childcare generally outside of Flying Start areas, there is often a lot of working between the childcare setting and the parent over parenting--again, managing a child's behaviour, managing any issues that the childcare worker thinks are emerging in terms of whether it's eating or, again, toileting. So, parenting courses are important, but it's really essential that we see those in the broader context of the different ways in which lots of professionals interact with parents, providing them with advice, guidance and support, and actually what works for parents in terms of how they take on board some of that advice and that help. Sometimes a formal course is quite off-putting for parents, but the sort of quiet word, the top tips, the advice that a friendly professional gives can be very, very impactful.
Suzy Davies AM: That's a really helpful answer. It does raise, unfortunately, another question about whether a health visitor in those circumstances might find themselves in a difficult position if they're dealing with a parent who has smacked a child, but we'll leave that for Stage 3.
Julie Morgan AM: We'll be dealing with that, I'm sure.
Suzy Davies AM: But thank you; that was a helpful answer. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank the Minister and the officials for attending this morning? As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again for your attendance. Thank you.
Julie Morgan AM: Thank you very much.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Item 4 is papers to note. There's just one today: the letter from the WLGA regarding the Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019 in response to our letter asking about the change in approach. Item 5 then. Can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content? Thank you. | The meeting contains discussions of the main focus on early childhood education and care programmes. The team were working with local authorities and healthboards to see how to work together and simplify the Welsh Government's approach, looking forward to encouraging the development of the foundation phase in non-maintained settings. Addressing big differences in the amount of early childhood education in different parts of Wales, the team answered the needs of the families and the children in certain areas. Then the meeting discussed the demand-driven approach to the childcare market, asserting there was no evidence of cutting on the foundation. Then the team answered the question about the demand of Welsh language skills by obviously differing degrees and hiring workers of different backgrounds. When talking about the competition with existing formal childcare, the team believed it was expected. Then the team alleged they would do more investment and reviews on the programme, and discussed how to tackle the technical issues with HMRC. Next the extra cost was not yet defined, the price tag was announced to be PS2. 5million. Finally, the meeting discussed the necessity of adding eligibility checks to the beginning of the programme, and the details on the sample" Flying Start''programme. | qmsum |
What did the group discuss about speech recognition command?
Project Manager: Okay uh Agnes, you can help me for the slide when {gap}
User Interface: Yep. Sure.
Project Manager: okay. Okay, welcome back. I hope uh you have a fresh head and a fresh time. How t now the meeting actually we gathering here to discuss about the functional design meeting. Okay, and uh we'll issue some information from uh all of you. And it's in the, I think uh, in the sharing folder. And uh I will invite uh the Christine and the Ed and uh Agnes to discuss about on the various subjects. So can you go to the next slide? Yeah uh the agenda of the meeting is opening. Then uh I'm going to talk about uh the project management, what I'm going to do, and uh, of course, I'm doing the project management and secretary both, okay, to take the minutes of the meeting. And there are three presentations. One is uh new project requirements. And the second one about uh decision on remote control functions. And uh finally we are closing. Uh and the meeting time will be uh forty minutes, so you have to be very quick. And I have come up with the {disfmarker} management come with the new proposal, okay, and I have to discuss a few points on this. Uh both says new insights in the aim of your project. Uh the one is uh the teletext becomes uh outmoded, okay because if uh because of the computer systems and the new technology. So we don't need to consider really about the teletext all in our new project design. And the second one is about uh the remote control. Should be used only for the T_V_. That's what our uh management says. And the third point, it's very very important to establish our uh marketing or uh corporate image, okay, with this new project or new product. Okay. {vocalsound} So I will invite uh {disfmarker} Agnes, can you go to the third slide?
User Interface: No, this is the third slide.
Project Manager: Okay, {gap}. So, I'll invite uh Christine to discuss about uh the functional design.
Industrial Designer:'Kay, do you wanna open the {disfmarker}
User Interface: Sure. Um. You're participant s
Industrial Designer: I'm number two.
User Interface: Two?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: That's it.
User Interface: Do you want the mouse, or do you want me to {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I'll do the notes. Yeah, thanks.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So um well I I figured uh we should um identify some user requirements, and from my experience, I wanna uh, and from {vocalsound} research I did, uh the the device has to turn the television on and off the first time you press on the big button, you can't uh can't have like uh waffling on this point, you know.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Really have {disfmarker} It needs to be able y y have to be able to find it. Because one of the biggest problems with remote controls is finding them. So uh, I also, since we have to establish our corporate image on the basis of this new product, thought we better look at things that are popular and um ex go beyond those, and, as I said in the first meeting, um {vocalsound} and then uh we might wanna talk eventually about the materials that are appropriate to use in uh in the construction, especially in the the uh the outside of the product
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: so that it gives the appearance, and it is reliable, and so forth. {vocalsound} I did a little history on uh the the uh remote controls and when they were invented and so forth, so, I guess this guy Zenith uh created the Flashmatic, which I kinda like the idea,'cause it made me think of um um maybe the remote control made a big flash when uh you turn the T_V_ on and off, that might be interesting. And um {vocalsound} so it was highly directional flash light that uh you could turn the picture on and off, and the sound on and off, and change channels c so I think um those are still requirements we have today, uh fifty years later.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And uh it was really a pioneering innovation, but it was uh sensitive to the sun, so that uh it would get {disfmarker} would start off by the {disfmarker} you'd get {disfmarker} it would easily cause um problems. So, uh I {disfmarker} in addition to uh looking at the um {vocalsound} uh the functional requir so all these devices are examples of where uh mm {disfmarker} they {vocalsound} represent examples that are available today {vocalsound} {vocalsound} which I think the one in the middle is r um really uh something to keep in mind.
Marketing: Fantastic. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It'd be easy to find. And um it would uh y you'd {vocalsound} {disfmarker} you could throw it at things if if the T_V_ didn't turn on and off, you could use it for something else. And since I'm not really um {vocalsound} Industrial Designer, I didn't really know what to do with this slide. But um {vocalsound} I just {vocalsound} took some {vocalsound} different uh schematics and I put them into this, and I guess this is what a slide might look like if you were drawing a circuit board. {gap} I don't know why um we were asked to do this. So, uh {vocalsound} personal preferences, {vocalsound} um
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I think we could uh I I'm really thinking outside the box here, and I think that we should consider perhaps having an an an a a size uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} a remote control that changes in size depending on the user preference.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So something that's very very flexible and inflatable and then you could shrink it. I think um it could either be {disfmarker} you could go either one extreme, be very colourful, or you could make it clear, and um kind of blend in with things, so you didn't have to um {vocalsound} uh have a problem with the th the decoration of the {disfmarker} of the user's home. Um I think uh it needs to be waterproof, because uh sometimes they fall into cups
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: and, you know, it might be out by the swimming pool or something like that. Um {vocalsound} if you uh mi one of {disfmarker} one of my requirements was about needs t to tell you when it's done its job or not, because half the time, I keep pushing on the remote control, and I don't know if it's actually understood my message, so I think it should give you some sort of an oral cue. And uh, course I never wanna replace the battery. {vocalsound} So,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: that's {disfmarker} those are my f preferences, and that's my presentation.
Project Manager: Yeah, let me uh interrupt you uh if you can add other facility, other feature, like uh unbreakable.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Project Manager: Okay, because uh especially today, you know, you have the family and the kids,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: okay, and the kids throw it and they they play with their remotes and {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Run over it with a car.
Project Manager: Yes. Okay, so if you can add the feature, okay, for your uh fabric whatever in your outline design okay, with unbreakable, okay, I think that will give a lot of advantage for our product, if I'm not wrong. Maybe you can uh add it in that.
Industrial Designer: Good idea. Good idea, I'll I'll uh um {disfmarker} Yes, very good.
Project Manager: Okay, uh thank you Christine, and uh uh any questions or uh clarifications, or any discussion on the functional design?
User Interface: Do you have any preconceived ideas in terms of materials?'Cause, for example, in the unbreakable thing, doing something plastic would be harder,
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
User Interface: whereas having something like, I dunno, steel or titanium isn't really economically viable. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Titanium. Titanium would be {vocalsound} be heavy, too,
Marketing: Titanium. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: wouldn't it?
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: No, I haven't really um {disfmarker} I wanted feedback, I think we need to rate {disfmarker} rank these, but we'll see what your uh personal preferences are and your thoughts.
User Interface: Yeah. Sure, yeah. No, I just wondering whether {disfmarker} that you had any sort of {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I like titanium. It's light.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Uh {vocalsound} yeah
Marketing: Expensive.
User Interface: {vocalsound} The marketing comes out. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: but uh who who said {disfmarker} who said we were,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yes.
Industrial Designer: you know, nobody told me how mu what our financial objective is, so um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It'd be hard to inflate something ou made out of titanium though {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: Yeah the the {disfmarker} I'm sorry because uh the last meeting we supposed to discuss about the financial thing.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh let me go quickly, maybe if I can go back {vocalsound}. I know the project plan and the budget. So I can close this, {gap} not sure. Was in uh {disfmarker} S This. So let me see where is this file.
User Interface: That's Christine's.
Project Manager: This is Christine. {vocalsound}
User Interface: And that's mine, I think.
Project Manager: That's yours, okay. Saving.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap}
User Interface: In modified.
Marketing: I don't know,
Project Manager: Okay, uh
Marketing: I think verbally we can {disfmarker} we can pretty much sell.
Project Manager: I will {disfmarker} I will send you a mail, okay? The project may be the the project aim, okay. At the end of the day, the company uh wants to make at least uh the fifty million Euro. Okay, and uh of course the price will be very reasonable on the the sales side. Okay, that maybe Eddie will talk to you about uh how much uh the price and uh what's uh {disfmarker} how much its cost for the manufacturing and how much it's going to be {disfmarker} we sell in the market. Okay. Then uh you can come back with your feedback. And I I have one {disfmarker} maybe the suggestion or opinion. This remote control, okay, it can be for like universal, to use for any T_V_. Okay, and it will be slim, okay, and uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not fat?
Project Manager: Not fat.
Industrial Designer: Not fat, huh.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Might be hard to find, though.
Project Manager: Yep. But let's try it, okay, with the different uh {disfmarker} the designs, okay, the functional designs.
Marketing: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: Oh, okay.
Project Manager: Okay? So any other questions?
Marketing: Uh from her side, I don't think uh there's too many more questions.
Project Manager: Okay. Thank you Christine for uh time being,
Marketing: If you can come to the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: so then uh Ed, so can you tell about {disfmarker}
Marketing: Okay, from the marketing {disfmarker} yeah, from the marketing side, just to to give an idea what the management is looking for, I was looking for a a remote control to have a s
User Interface: S'scuse me for one sec.
Marketing: I have a sales price of twenty-five Euro, with a production price of uh twelve and a half Euro. For what uh I think from what we're trying to find, we're tr we're looking for, I don't think that price is exactly in the market. Okay?
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: I'll explain myself here now in the sense that uh in a {disfmarker} in the recent surveys, uh from the ages {disfmarker} fr from fifteen to thirty-five, eighty percent are willing to spend more money for something as fancy as trendy.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Twenty-five Euros, uh that's that's a preson reasonable price. That's a market price right now. Now if we're gonna take a risk, and push this up a bit, make it more expensive,
Project Manager: Yep.
Marketing: but give them added things that they don't have now,
Project Manager: Yep.
Marketing: then it w it could possibly sell. Obviously the risk is there. Too expensive, they're not gonna buy. But, I think uh there's one other thing interesting {disfmarker} two things that are interesting {gap} is that uh from the fifteen to thirty-five year-old group, which always spends more money on trendy new things, speech recognition is requested.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Speech recognition? .
Marketing: And we're talking between seventy-five to ninety percent of this group is willing to pay for speech recognition on a remote.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Obviously, we can't make a remote into a computer, but maybe simple commands. I dunno, louder, softer, on, off. That might be a possibility, even though it costs more, to be the first on the market to produce this.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Thirty-five percent say they're too difficult to use. So we have to figure out a way of making it um more user friendly. {vocalsound} Uh fifty percent say they can't find the remote half the time. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So maybe one word speech recognition commands, say remote, and there's a beep beep beep, and they can find it through, you know, ten tons of newspapers, magazines, whatever you have at home.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: But, in the cost that uh the management is looking for, that's not gonna be possible. But if it's trendy, if it's fancy, it's got some colour to it, if it's very easy {disfmarker} easy to use, if it's got simple remote {disfmarker} speech remote uh control, like I said, louder, softer, change channel, on, off, remote, it goes beep beep, I can find my my remote without spending half a day looking for it and getting all upset'cause I can't turn the T_V_ on. So we're gonna have to look at it in a {vocalsound} in this global idea, with the ideas of the industrial uh design.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: But, price obviously we have to talk about.
Project Manager: Yep. So what do you think about uh the design {gap}? Do you think you can make it or uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: D uh I'm sorry? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: What do you think about uh the design, uh what he was talking about {disfmarker} of the speech recognition?
Marketing: Speech recognition.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well, uh training is always an issue with uh commands.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So um {disfmarker} might uh {disfmarker} we can perhaps um {vocalsound} do it if the user is willing to spend some time in the training process, uh it could reduce th th uh the overall um cost. Not sure how. {vocalsound} But um anyway, um {vocalsound} I I think also that uh this might impact the battery life. And um so, maybe what we'll have to do is um add something where you can um recharge it wirelessly so that uh {vocalsound} y you know sen send power to it. So uh or maybe uh set it out in the sun and it uh, you know, gets uh, from the light, um a a solar cell inside there
User Interface: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: so that uh you have enough uh juice to do all these fancy things.
User Interface: It seems also like with the speech recognition, yeah, it's a great feature, but if you're watching T_V_, there's a lot of ambient sound, and it's words. It's not just, you know, noises like something hitting. It's actual speech, so then you have to make sure that the speech recognizer is good enough to filter out the T_V_ speech, and the the user's speech. Otherwise, you can say remote.
Industrial Designer: Off. {vocalsound}
User Interface: But if someone on the screen is saying the same thing, all of a sudden, you have someone in a movie saying off and your screen dies, because they've triggered the remote control and it's turned off your T_V_. {vocalsound} So, I think if we can find a speech recognizer that can handle those types of problems, then yeah, it'd be a really good marketing gimmick.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: But, I think we seriously need to consider how that would impact the situation.
Industrial Designer: Very good point.
Marketing: Because tha w {vocalsound} with speech recognition uh th I'm not that good at that idea
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: but th {vocalsound} if it's a one-word recognition,'cause I know with telephones and cars and things I've seen in the States,
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {gap} a friend of mine says call Mom, and it calls up Mom.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing:'Kay the radio can be on and everything.
Project Manager: Yep.
Marketing: Because I think s with speech recognition, if uh the the remote or like the telephone {vocalsound} {disfmarker} it has a exact word that it has to hear.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: I don't think it would come through a sentence in a television. If somebody's speaking on the se the television, they're not gonna stop and say remote,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: okay. So I think that uh something could be designed to recognise single word {disfmarker}
User Interface: Oh yeah. Yeah. No, I think it's a great idea if we can design it to to suit those requirements.
Marketing: Like the t like the telephone. No because I {gap} this is this is years ago in the United States where we're driving down and he said call home, and the telephone called immediately {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: so well, that's kinda cute. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well, what I can uh suggest to you, Christine, okay, uh if you need some uh {disfmarker} the technical feedback, or some training, okay, about uh this facility, especially for the speech recognition, I can recommend you some companies like uh Intel or I_B_M_, okay, because they're already in this uh speech recognition part, okay. And uh you can maybe have some uh technical backup from them, some kind of a technical tie-up. Okay, and uh if you want, I can coordinate, okay, to get some information, okay, and uh you can uh let me know, okay, so what kind of uh the details you require okay, to add this feature in this project. I don't think it's uh the difficult. And uh we need to know how much is the timeframe you need to develop, apart from uh what {gap} today.
Industrial Designer: Okay, we'll find that out.
Project Manager: Yep.
Marketing: From from your side uh, you're gonna have to go back the management and s be more s precise.
Project Manager: Yes.
Marketing: What do they want?
Project Manager: Yes.
Marketing: Uh {vocalsound}, a risk, take a risk on the market? Something that's gonna cost more, but could very easily s make a boom in the market?
Project Manager: Yes. Yep.
Marketing: Because it has to be something totally different, has to be total totally new. Something that nobody has right now.
Project Manager: Yeah but
Marketing: And it's gonna cost.
Project Manager: but end of the day, you're the sales guy, so I will come back and sit on your head because uh you are going to give your sales projection,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: okay. It's uh of course it's uh good to uh tell the management how much it's cost us
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and how much you are going to benefit,
Marketing: Sure. Sure.
Project Manager: okay. And uh, so I don't mind to convince, okay, the management to spend some more money on the project, okay, if you can make out of
Marketing: Obviously.
Project Manager: the money from this project.
Marketing: If the bottom line is positive. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yes, okay I don't mind to convince the the management,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: okay.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: The management says, okay, so they they don't want certain facilities, which it's already worked, okay, they want something uh new, okay. I think uh like uh speech recognit definitely they will agree, I don't think they'll say no for that, okay. And uh I hope I can convince the management on that, okay. So if you have any uh new ideas, okay, for uh your {disfmarker} you can always come up and uh you can tell me if you need any uh s special, okay, coordination, okay, between any uh technical companies, which you can uh hide their technology backup, okay, for your uh functional design or technical design, okay, then I am ready to do that. And uh what's your comments about uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Um well, I mean, maybe if I go through my presentation, you can sort of see what the user perspective is, and how it ties into the other two comments.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah, so you are finish, Ed, uh so I can uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yes. Mm.
Project Manager: Okay, I'll uh hand over to Agnes. Just gonna close this. T Uh where are you, here?
User Interface: Mm participant three.
Project Manager: Participant three.
User Interface: Nope, here {gap}
Project Manager: Okay, so I'll {disfmarker} yep. Okay.
User Interface: Good.
Project Manager: Is it okay?
User Interface: Thanks.
Project Manager: Alri
User Interface: Yeah, and that's fine. Okay. So, basically, the method that we usually use in the user interface design is that we need to look at what people like and what people don't like about existing products. So, in our case, existing remote controls. And then, what the good ideas are, and what the bad ideas are, and why they're bad and good, which isn't always as obvious. We seem to have intuitions about why things are good or things are bad, but when you look, technically, at how it works, sometimes that's not the case. Then we need to decide what functionalities we really want to keep,'cause that'll feed into both Ed's work and Christine's work. Um and then what the remote control should look like, obviously, once we've got a good idea of what the functionalities are. So, in terms of the functionalities that we need, you obviously need to be able to turn the T_V_ on and off. You need to change channels, both by directly going to a specific channel or by channel surfing. You need to be able to control the volume and then control any menus on the T_V_ to regulate contrast or whatever. So, the problems that people have expressed is that there's too many buttons on remote controls, in general. The buttons {disfmarker} it's not clear what they're supposed to do. Um often, you need to know specific button sequences {vocalsound} to get certain functionalities done, um which you don't necessarily always remember, especially if it's a functionality that you don't use very often. And that the buttons are too small. So, here we've got two examples where here on the left-hand side, you can see a remote control that has lots and lots of buttons.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: The buttons, in a lot of cases, are tiny. Um they're hard to see, and okay, they're labelled, but the labels don't necessarily tell you too much. Whereas, on the other side, you have a much simpler remote control that I think basically has the minimum functionalities {vocalsound} that are needed. And it sort of looks simpler and just less imposing when you first look at it. So, I would be inclined to go sort of towards this, in terms of design, rather than this. And if there's specific functionalities that require more buttons, then we can figure out how to do it with existing um buttons. So my personal preferences are to keep the number of buttons to a limit, or to a minimum, sorry, make frequently used buttons bigger and more strategically placed, so like the on button being really obvious one, the channel changing and the volume, and to keep the design basically sleek and simple.
Project Manager: Click mm.
User Interface: Which, I think ties into what Christine and Ed have both said fairly reasonably. Um so, that's pretty much it, an I don't know if you guys have any questions or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Oh, it's um, seems {vocalsound} very understandable. Clearly your research and uh {disfmarker} and ours uh heading in the same direction,
User Interface: Yep.
Industrial Designer: and um uh the only thing that I saw missing from uh your your research that we found was this uh ability to find the doggone thing when you need it.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yes, that's true. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So uh, you know, but that's okay. That's why we're all here at the table, so that if we think of it and our research indicates certain things and um w we it's complementary.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I also think that um uh th f the the feel of it is uh, when you hold it, is something that um uh was expressed more in in in in my uh design
User Interface: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and that's logical and normal'cause those are the parameters that an Industrial Designer's more thinking about, th th the look and the feel,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and uh, you're {disfmarker}
User Interface: Oh, that's definitely a very important factor, especially to users who are gonna be buying the thing and then using it almost on an {disfmarker} daily basis in a lot of cases, I think.
Industrial Designer: First. Yep. Mm-hmm. {vocalsound} Okay, so I don't have any questions. Sounds good.
Project Manager: So {vocalsound} for anybody need uh any help, for time being, on this uh subjects, okay, so please come back to me,
User Interface: Oh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: and uh Christine, maybe I can uh try to help you to get some uh the technical uh the companies to help you for uh make a design uh slim, okay, and to add some features, like we are talking about, the speech recognition and all.
User Interface: Should we maybe make a decision about what features we actually want to include,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface:'cause we've thrown a lot of features onto the table, but do we actually want to incorporate all of them, or have we missed anything?
Marketing: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: Do you wanna go back and look at the closing slide, maybe that would provide some guidance?
User Interface: Sure.
Industrial Designer: Doesn't really tell us.
Project Manager: So not really this one we are talk ab
Marketing: Individual actions. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Well it says individual actions,
Project Manager: Yep.
Industrial Designer: it says user interf so I'm supposed to do the components concept, supposed to work on the user interface concept,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and you're supposed to keep watching the trends. Um and specific instructions will be sent by our our coach. I think we should {vocalsound} do as many features as uh {disfmarker} start with all of them right now
User Interface: I thought {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: and eliminate them later in the process, that's my suggestion.
Project Manager: Okay, that will be great. {vocalsound} And uh I'll send you the the minutes of meet
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You can object if you want to {vocalsound}
User Interface: No, I I'm just thinking in terms of time,
Marketing: {vocalsound} She's objecting. {vocalsound}
User Interface: like if {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes, now I'm objecting. No, I mean, I was just thinking is it really practical to start designing something with features that we're just gonna end up throwing away? I mean, it takes a lot of time and effort for everyone to consider different features, um and s if we spend that time and effort on features that we're not gonna use, maybe it's better to spend it on the f thinking more about features that we actually do want, but {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I think we should take that as an action item for after the meeting,
Marketing: Oh th {vocalsound} we s we still have {disfmarker}
User Interface: guess {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer:'cause w our meeting time has run out.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Somebody else has go to use this room,
Marketing: Right.
User Interface: Sure.
Industrial Designer: and, you know, we can't hang out here
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and talk about this, so {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. Sure.
Project Manager: Okay, what we'll do is now we'll take for lunch break, okay, then uh we can discuss furthermore, okay, with our areas, and uh then we will come back again in the {disfmarker} in the next meeting. So thanks for coming and uh I'll send you minutes of meeting, and uh please put your all information in the sharing folder so everybody can share the information. Okay?
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: So let's go for lunch then. Thank you.
Industrial Designer: Thank you very much.
Marketing: Agreed. {vocalsound} | The group decided that the feature of speech recognition should be included to the remote control, even though it would exceed the cost constraint set by the management. Marketing believed that it is worth taking a risk because speech recognition is new to the market and customers would be willing to pay extra for this trendy function. What's more, Project Manager agreed to coordinate with some technical companies if Industrial Designer ever needed any technological backup. | qmsum |
Summarize the discussion about functional design of the product features.
Project Manager: Okay uh Agnes, you can help me for the slide when {gap}
User Interface: Yep. Sure.
Project Manager: okay. Okay, welcome back. I hope uh you have a fresh head and a fresh time. How t now the meeting actually we gathering here to discuss about the functional design meeting. Okay, and uh we'll issue some information from uh all of you. And it's in the, I think uh, in the sharing folder. And uh I will invite uh the Christine and the Ed and uh Agnes to discuss about on the various subjects. So can you go to the next slide? Yeah uh the agenda of the meeting is opening. Then uh I'm going to talk about uh the project management, what I'm going to do, and uh, of course, I'm doing the project management and secretary both, okay, to take the minutes of the meeting. And there are three presentations. One is uh new project requirements. And the second one about uh decision on remote control functions. And uh finally we are closing. Uh and the meeting time will be uh forty minutes, so you have to be very quick. And I have come up with the {disfmarker} management come with the new proposal, okay, and I have to discuss a few points on this. Uh both says new insights in the aim of your project. Uh the one is uh the teletext becomes uh outmoded, okay because if uh because of the computer systems and the new technology. So we don't need to consider really about the teletext all in our new project design. And the second one is about uh the remote control. Should be used only for the T_V_. That's what our uh management says. And the third point, it's very very important to establish our uh marketing or uh corporate image, okay, with this new project or new product. Okay. {vocalsound} So I will invite uh {disfmarker} Agnes, can you go to the third slide?
User Interface: No, this is the third slide.
Project Manager: Okay, {gap}. So, I'll invite uh Christine to discuss about uh the functional design.
Industrial Designer:'Kay, do you wanna open the {disfmarker}
User Interface: Sure. Um. You're participant s
Industrial Designer: I'm number two.
User Interface: Two?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: That's it.
User Interface: Do you want the mouse, or do you want me to {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I'll do the notes. Yeah, thanks.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So um well I I figured uh we should um identify some user requirements, and from my experience, I wanna uh, and from {vocalsound} research I did, uh the the device has to turn the television on and off the first time you press on the big button, you can't uh can't have like uh waffling on this point, you know.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Really have {disfmarker} It needs to be able y y have to be able to find it. Because one of the biggest problems with remote controls is finding them. So uh, I also, since we have to establish our corporate image on the basis of this new product, thought we better look at things that are popular and um ex go beyond those, and, as I said in the first meeting, um {vocalsound} and then uh we might wanna talk eventually about the materials that are appropriate to use in uh in the construction, especially in the the uh the outside of the product
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: so that it gives the appearance, and it is reliable, and so forth. {vocalsound} I did a little history on uh the the uh remote controls and when they were invented and so forth, so, I guess this guy Zenith uh created the Flashmatic, which I kinda like the idea,'cause it made me think of um um maybe the remote control made a big flash when uh you turn the T_V_ on and off, that might be interesting. And um {vocalsound} so it was highly directional flash light that uh you could turn the picture on and off, and the sound on and off, and change channels c so I think um those are still requirements we have today, uh fifty years later.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And uh it was really a pioneering innovation, but it was uh sensitive to the sun, so that uh it would get {disfmarker} would start off by the {disfmarker} you'd get {disfmarker} it would easily cause um problems. So, uh I {disfmarker} in addition to uh looking at the um {vocalsound} uh the functional requir so all these devices are examples of where uh mm {disfmarker} they {vocalsound} represent examples that are available today {vocalsound} {vocalsound} which I think the one in the middle is r um really uh something to keep in mind.
Marketing: Fantastic. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It'd be easy to find. And um it would uh y you'd {vocalsound} {disfmarker} you could throw it at things if if the T_V_ didn't turn on and off, you could use it for something else. And since I'm not really um {vocalsound} Industrial Designer, I didn't really know what to do with this slide. But um {vocalsound} I just {vocalsound} took some {vocalsound} different uh schematics and I put them into this, and I guess this is what a slide might look like if you were drawing a circuit board. {gap} I don't know why um we were asked to do this. So, uh {vocalsound} personal preferences, {vocalsound} um
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I think we could uh I I'm really thinking outside the box here, and I think that we should consider perhaps having an an an a a size uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} a remote control that changes in size depending on the user preference.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So something that's very very flexible and inflatable and then you could shrink it. I think um it could either be {disfmarker} you could go either one extreme, be very colourful, or you could make it clear, and um kind of blend in with things, so you didn't have to um {vocalsound} uh have a problem with the th the decoration of the {disfmarker} of the user's home. Um I think uh it needs to be waterproof, because uh sometimes they fall into cups
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: and, you know, it might be out by the swimming pool or something like that. Um {vocalsound} if you uh mi one of {disfmarker} one of my requirements was about needs t to tell you when it's done its job or not, because half the time, I keep pushing on the remote control, and I don't know if it's actually understood my message, so I think it should give you some sort of an oral cue. And uh, course I never wanna replace the battery. {vocalsound} So,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: that's {disfmarker} those are my f preferences, and that's my presentation.
Project Manager: Yeah, let me uh interrupt you uh if you can add other facility, other feature, like uh unbreakable.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Project Manager: Okay, because uh especially today, you know, you have the family and the kids,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: okay, and the kids throw it and they they play with their remotes and {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Run over it with a car.
Project Manager: Yes. Okay, so if you can add the feature, okay, for your uh fabric whatever in your outline design okay, with unbreakable, okay, I think that will give a lot of advantage for our product, if I'm not wrong. Maybe you can uh add it in that.
Industrial Designer: Good idea. Good idea, I'll I'll uh um {disfmarker} Yes, very good.
Project Manager: Okay, uh thank you Christine, and uh uh any questions or uh clarifications, or any discussion on the functional design?
User Interface: Do you have any preconceived ideas in terms of materials?'Cause, for example, in the unbreakable thing, doing something plastic would be harder,
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
User Interface: whereas having something like, I dunno, steel or titanium isn't really economically viable. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Titanium. Titanium would be {vocalsound} be heavy, too,
Marketing: Titanium. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: wouldn't it?
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: No, I haven't really um {disfmarker} I wanted feedback, I think we need to rate {disfmarker} rank these, but we'll see what your uh personal preferences are and your thoughts.
User Interface: Yeah. Sure, yeah. No, I just wondering whether {disfmarker} that you had any sort of {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I like titanium. It's light.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Uh {vocalsound} yeah
Marketing: Expensive.
User Interface: {vocalsound} The marketing comes out. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: but uh who who said {disfmarker} who said we were,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yes.
Industrial Designer: you know, nobody told me how mu what our financial objective is, so um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It'd be hard to inflate something ou made out of titanium though {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: Yeah the the {disfmarker} I'm sorry because uh the last meeting we supposed to discuss about the financial thing.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh let me go quickly, maybe if I can go back {vocalsound}. I know the project plan and the budget. So I can close this, {gap} not sure. Was in uh {disfmarker} S This. So let me see where is this file.
User Interface: That's Christine's.
Project Manager: This is Christine. {vocalsound}
User Interface: And that's mine, I think.
Project Manager: That's yours, okay. Saving.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap}
User Interface: In modified.
Marketing: I don't know,
Project Manager: Okay, uh
Marketing: I think verbally we can {disfmarker} we can pretty much sell.
Project Manager: I will {disfmarker} I will send you a mail, okay? The project may be the the project aim, okay. At the end of the day, the company uh wants to make at least uh the fifty million Euro. Okay, and uh of course the price will be very reasonable on the the sales side. Okay, that maybe Eddie will talk to you about uh how much uh the price and uh what's uh {disfmarker} how much its cost for the manufacturing and how much it's going to be {disfmarker} we sell in the market. Okay. Then uh you can come back with your feedback. And I I have one {disfmarker} maybe the suggestion or opinion. This remote control, okay, it can be for like universal, to use for any T_V_. Okay, and it will be slim, okay, and uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not fat?
Project Manager: Not fat.
Industrial Designer: Not fat, huh.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Might be hard to find, though.
Project Manager: Yep. But let's try it, okay, with the different uh {disfmarker} the designs, okay, the functional designs.
Marketing: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: Oh, okay.
Project Manager: Okay? So any other questions?
Marketing: Uh from her side, I don't think uh there's too many more questions.
Project Manager: Okay. Thank you Christine for uh time being,
Marketing: If you can come to the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: so then uh Ed, so can you tell about {disfmarker}
Marketing: Okay, from the marketing {disfmarker} yeah, from the marketing side, just to to give an idea what the management is looking for, I was looking for a a remote control to have a s
User Interface: S'scuse me for one sec.
Marketing: I have a sales price of twenty-five Euro, with a production price of uh twelve and a half Euro. For what uh I think from what we're trying to find, we're tr we're looking for, I don't think that price is exactly in the market. Okay?
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: I'll explain myself here now in the sense that uh in a {disfmarker} in the recent surveys, uh from the ages {disfmarker} fr from fifteen to thirty-five, eighty percent are willing to spend more money for something as fancy as trendy.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Twenty-five Euros, uh that's that's a preson reasonable price. That's a market price right now. Now if we're gonna take a risk, and push this up a bit, make it more expensive,
Project Manager: Yep.
Marketing: but give them added things that they don't have now,
Project Manager: Yep.
Marketing: then it w it could possibly sell. Obviously the risk is there. Too expensive, they're not gonna buy. But, I think uh there's one other thing interesting {disfmarker} two things that are interesting {gap} is that uh from the fifteen to thirty-five year-old group, which always spends more money on trendy new things, speech recognition is requested.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Speech recognition? .
Marketing: And we're talking between seventy-five to ninety percent of this group is willing to pay for speech recognition on a remote.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Obviously, we can't make a remote into a computer, but maybe simple commands. I dunno, louder, softer, on, off. That might be a possibility, even though it costs more, to be the first on the market to produce this.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Thirty-five percent say they're too difficult to use. So we have to figure out a way of making it um more user friendly. {vocalsound} Uh fifty percent say they can't find the remote half the time. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So maybe one word speech recognition commands, say remote, and there's a beep beep beep, and they can find it through, you know, ten tons of newspapers, magazines, whatever you have at home.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: But, in the cost that uh the management is looking for, that's not gonna be possible. But if it's trendy, if it's fancy, it's got some colour to it, if it's very easy {disfmarker} easy to use, if it's got simple remote {disfmarker} speech remote uh control, like I said, louder, softer, change channel, on, off, remote, it goes beep beep, I can find my my remote without spending half a day looking for it and getting all upset'cause I can't turn the T_V_ on. So we're gonna have to look at it in a {vocalsound} in this global idea, with the ideas of the industrial uh design.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: But, price obviously we have to talk about.
Project Manager: Yep. So what do you think about uh the design {gap}? Do you think you can make it or uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: D uh I'm sorry? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: What do you think about uh the design, uh what he was talking about {disfmarker} of the speech recognition?
Marketing: Speech recognition.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well, uh training is always an issue with uh commands.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So um {disfmarker} might uh {disfmarker} we can perhaps um {vocalsound} do it if the user is willing to spend some time in the training process, uh it could reduce th th uh the overall um cost. Not sure how. {vocalsound} But um anyway, um {vocalsound} I I think also that uh this might impact the battery life. And um so, maybe what we'll have to do is um add something where you can um recharge it wirelessly so that uh {vocalsound} y you know sen send power to it. So uh or maybe uh set it out in the sun and it uh, you know, gets uh, from the light, um a a solar cell inside there
User Interface: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: so that uh you have enough uh juice to do all these fancy things.
User Interface: It seems also like with the speech recognition, yeah, it's a great feature, but if you're watching T_V_, there's a lot of ambient sound, and it's words. It's not just, you know, noises like something hitting. It's actual speech, so then you have to make sure that the speech recognizer is good enough to filter out the T_V_ speech, and the the user's speech. Otherwise, you can say remote.
Industrial Designer: Off. {vocalsound}
User Interface: But if someone on the screen is saying the same thing, all of a sudden, you have someone in a movie saying off and your screen dies, because they've triggered the remote control and it's turned off your T_V_. {vocalsound} So, I think if we can find a speech recognizer that can handle those types of problems, then yeah, it'd be a really good marketing gimmick.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: But, I think we seriously need to consider how that would impact the situation.
Industrial Designer: Very good point.
Marketing: Because tha w {vocalsound} with speech recognition uh th I'm not that good at that idea
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: but th {vocalsound} if it's a one-word recognition,'cause I know with telephones and cars and things I've seen in the States,
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {gap} a friend of mine says call Mom, and it calls up Mom.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing:'Kay the radio can be on and everything.
Project Manager: Yep.
Marketing: Because I think s with speech recognition, if uh the the remote or like the telephone {vocalsound} {disfmarker} it has a exact word that it has to hear.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: I don't think it would come through a sentence in a television. If somebody's speaking on the se the television, they're not gonna stop and say remote,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: okay. So I think that uh something could be designed to recognise single word {disfmarker}
User Interface: Oh yeah. Yeah. No, I think it's a great idea if we can design it to to suit those requirements.
Marketing: Like the t like the telephone. No because I {gap} this is this is years ago in the United States where we're driving down and he said call home, and the telephone called immediately {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: so well, that's kinda cute. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well, what I can uh suggest to you, Christine, okay, uh if you need some uh {disfmarker} the technical feedback, or some training, okay, about uh this facility, especially for the speech recognition, I can recommend you some companies like uh Intel or I_B_M_, okay, because they're already in this uh speech recognition part, okay. And uh you can maybe have some uh technical backup from them, some kind of a technical tie-up. Okay, and uh if you want, I can coordinate, okay, to get some information, okay, and uh you can uh let me know, okay, so what kind of uh the details you require okay, to add this feature in this project. I don't think it's uh the difficult. And uh we need to know how much is the timeframe you need to develop, apart from uh what {gap} today.
Industrial Designer: Okay, we'll find that out.
Project Manager: Yep.
Marketing: From from your side uh, you're gonna have to go back the management and s be more s precise.
Project Manager: Yes.
Marketing: What do they want?
Project Manager: Yes.
Marketing: Uh {vocalsound}, a risk, take a risk on the market? Something that's gonna cost more, but could very easily s make a boom in the market?
Project Manager: Yes. Yep.
Marketing: Because it has to be something totally different, has to be total totally new. Something that nobody has right now.
Project Manager: Yeah but
Marketing: And it's gonna cost.
Project Manager: but end of the day, you're the sales guy, so I will come back and sit on your head because uh you are going to give your sales projection,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: okay. It's uh of course it's uh good to uh tell the management how much it's cost us
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and how much you are going to benefit,
Marketing: Sure. Sure.
Project Manager: okay. And uh, so I don't mind to convince, okay, the management to spend some more money on the project, okay, if you can make out of
Marketing: Obviously.
Project Manager: the money from this project.
Marketing: If the bottom line is positive. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yes, okay I don't mind to convince the the management,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: okay.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: The management says, okay, so they they don't want certain facilities, which it's already worked, okay, they want something uh new, okay. I think uh like uh speech recognit definitely they will agree, I don't think they'll say no for that, okay. And uh I hope I can convince the management on that, okay. So if you have any uh new ideas, okay, for uh your {disfmarker} you can always come up and uh you can tell me if you need any uh s special, okay, coordination, okay, between any uh technical companies, which you can uh hide their technology backup, okay, for your uh functional design or technical design, okay, then I am ready to do that. And uh what's your comments about uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Um well, I mean, maybe if I go through my presentation, you can sort of see what the user perspective is, and how it ties into the other two comments.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah, so you are finish, Ed, uh so I can uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yes. Mm.
Project Manager: Okay, I'll uh hand over to Agnes. Just gonna close this. T Uh where are you, here?
User Interface: Mm participant three.
Project Manager: Participant three.
User Interface: Nope, here {gap}
Project Manager: Okay, so I'll {disfmarker} yep. Okay.
User Interface: Good.
Project Manager: Is it okay?
User Interface: Thanks.
Project Manager: Alri
User Interface: Yeah, and that's fine. Okay. So, basically, the method that we usually use in the user interface design is that we need to look at what people like and what people don't like about existing products. So, in our case, existing remote controls. And then, what the good ideas are, and what the bad ideas are, and why they're bad and good, which isn't always as obvious. We seem to have intuitions about why things are good or things are bad, but when you look, technically, at how it works, sometimes that's not the case. Then we need to decide what functionalities we really want to keep,'cause that'll feed into both Ed's work and Christine's work. Um and then what the remote control should look like, obviously, once we've got a good idea of what the functionalities are. So, in terms of the functionalities that we need, you obviously need to be able to turn the T_V_ on and off. You need to change channels, both by directly going to a specific channel or by channel surfing. You need to be able to control the volume and then control any menus on the T_V_ to regulate contrast or whatever. So, the problems that people have expressed is that there's too many buttons on remote controls, in general. The buttons {disfmarker} it's not clear what they're supposed to do. Um often, you need to know specific button sequences {vocalsound} to get certain functionalities done, um which you don't necessarily always remember, especially if it's a functionality that you don't use very often. And that the buttons are too small. So, here we've got two examples where here on the left-hand side, you can see a remote control that has lots and lots of buttons.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: The buttons, in a lot of cases, are tiny. Um they're hard to see, and okay, they're labelled, but the labels don't necessarily tell you too much. Whereas, on the other side, you have a much simpler remote control that I think basically has the minimum functionalities {vocalsound} that are needed. And it sort of looks simpler and just less imposing when you first look at it. So, I would be inclined to go sort of towards this, in terms of design, rather than this. And if there's specific functionalities that require more buttons, then we can figure out how to do it with existing um buttons. So my personal preferences are to keep the number of buttons to a limit, or to a minimum, sorry, make frequently used buttons bigger and more strategically placed, so like the on button being really obvious one, the channel changing and the volume, and to keep the design basically sleek and simple.
Project Manager: Click mm.
User Interface: Which, I think ties into what Christine and Ed have both said fairly reasonably. Um so, that's pretty much it, an I don't know if you guys have any questions or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Oh, it's um, seems {vocalsound} very understandable. Clearly your research and uh {disfmarker} and ours uh heading in the same direction,
User Interface: Yep.
Industrial Designer: and um uh the only thing that I saw missing from uh your your research that we found was this uh ability to find the doggone thing when you need it.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yes, that's true. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So uh, you know, but that's okay. That's why we're all here at the table, so that if we think of it and our research indicates certain things and um w we it's complementary.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I also think that um uh th f the the feel of it is uh, when you hold it, is something that um uh was expressed more in in in in my uh design
User Interface: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and that's logical and normal'cause those are the parameters that an Industrial Designer's more thinking about, th th the look and the feel,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and uh, you're {disfmarker}
User Interface: Oh, that's definitely a very important factor, especially to users who are gonna be buying the thing and then using it almost on an {disfmarker} daily basis in a lot of cases, I think.
Industrial Designer: First. Yep. Mm-hmm. {vocalsound} Okay, so I don't have any questions. Sounds good.
Project Manager: So {vocalsound} for anybody need uh any help, for time being, on this uh subjects, okay, so please come back to me,
User Interface: Oh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: and uh Christine, maybe I can uh try to help you to get some uh the technical uh the companies to help you for uh make a design uh slim, okay, and to add some features, like we are talking about, the speech recognition and all.
User Interface: Should we maybe make a decision about what features we actually want to include,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface:'cause we've thrown a lot of features onto the table, but do we actually want to incorporate all of them, or have we missed anything?
Marketing: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: Do you wanna go back and look at the closing slide, maybe that would provide some guidance?
User Interface: Sure.
Industrial Designer: Doesn't really tell us.
Project Manager: So not really this one we are talk ab
Marketing: Individual actions. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Well it says individual actions,
Project Manager: Yep.
Industrial Designer: it says user interf so I'm supposed to do the components concept, supposed to work on the user interface concept,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and you're supposed to keep watching the trends. Um and specific instructions will be sent by our our coach. I think we should {vocalsound} do as many features as uh {disfmarker} start with all of them right now
User Interface: I thought {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: and eliminate them later in the process, that's my suggestion.
Project Manager: Okay, that will be great. {vocalsound} And uh I'll send you the the minutes of meet
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You can object if you want to {vocalsound}
User Interface: No, I I'm just thinking in terms of time,
Marketing: {vocalsound} She's objecting. {vocalsound}
User Interface: like if {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes, now I'm objecting. No, I mean, I was just thinking is it really practical to start designing something with features that we're just gonna end up throwing away? I mean, it takes a lot of time and effort for everyone to consider different features, um and s if we spend that time and effort on features that we're not gonna use, maybe it's better to spend it on the f thinking more about features that we actually do want, but {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I think we should take that as an action item for after the meeting,
Marketing: Oh th {vocalsound} we s we still have {disfmarker}
User Interface: guess {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer:'cause w our meeting time has run out.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Somebody else has go to use this room,
Marketing: Right.
User Interface: Sure.
Industrial Designer: and, you know, we can't hang out here
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and talk about this, so {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. Sure.
Project Manager: Okay, what we'll do is now we'll take for lunch break, okay, then uh we can discuss furthermore, okay, with our areas, and uh then we will come back again in the {disfmarker} in the next meeting. So thanks for coming and uh I'll send you minutes of meeting, and uh please put your all information in the sharing folder so everybody can share the information. Okay?
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: So let's go for lunch then. Thank you.
Industrial Designer: Thank you very much.
Marketing: Agreed. {vocalsound} | Industrial Designer suggested that the remote control needed to be able to turn the television on and off, control the volume and the menu, change channels, both by directly going to a specific channel or by channel surfing. As for the material used for the construction of the outer case, it needed to be not only flexible and inflatable, but also waterproof. The product itself would be better if it could change in size depending on user preference. In addition, the remote control should be able to respond to the user by sending out an oral cue in order to show that it understood your message correctly. | qmsum |
What features did User Interface think the remote control should have for its buttons?
Project Manager: Okay uh Agnes, you can help me for the slide when {gap}
User Interface: Yep. Sure.
Project Manager: okay. Okay, welcome back. I hope uh you have a fresh head and a fresh time. How t now the meeting actually we gathering here to discuss about the functional design meeting. Okay, and uh we'll issue some information from uh all of you. And it's in the, I think uh, in the sharing folder. And uh I will invite uh the Christine and the Ed and uh Agnes to discuss about on the various subjects. So can you go to the next slide? Yeah uh the agenda of the meeting is opening. Then uh I'm going to talk about uh the project management, what I'm going to do, and uh, of course, I'm doing the project management and secretary both, okay, to take the minutes of the meeting. And there are three presentations. One is uh new project requirements. And the second one about uh decision on remote control functions. And uh finally we are closing. Uh and the meeting time will be uh forty minutes, so you have to be very quick. And I have come up with the {disfmarker} management come with the new proposal, okay, and I have to discuss a few points on this. Uh both says new insights in the aim of your project. Uh the one is uh the teletext becomes uh outmoded, okay because if uh because of the computer systems and the new technology. So we don't need to consider really about the teletext all in our new project design. And the second one is about uh the remote control. Should be used only for the T_V_. That's what our uh management says. And the third point, it's very very important to establish our uh marketing or uh corporate image, okay, with this new project or new product. Okay. {vocalsound} So I will invite uh {disfmarker} Agnes, can you go to the third slide?
User Interface: No, this is the third slide.
Project Manager: Okay, {gap}. So, I'll invite uh Christine to discuss about uh the functional design.
Industrial Designer:'Kay, do you wanna open the {disfmarker}
User Interface: Sure. Um. You're participant s
Industrial Designer: I'm number two.
User Interface: Two?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: That's it.
User Interface: Do you want the mouse, or do you want me to {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I'll do the notes. Yeah, thanks.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So um well I I figured uh we should um identify some user requirements, and from my experience, I wanna uh, and from {vocalsound} research I did, uh the the device has to turn the television on and off the first time you press on the big button, you can't uh can't have like uh waffling on this point, you know.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Really have {disfmarker} It needs to be able y y have to be able to find it. Because one of the biggest problems with remote controls is finding them. So uh, I also, since we have to establish our corporate image on the basis of this new product, thought we better look at things that are popular and um ex go beyond those, and, as I said in the first meeting, um {vocalsound} and then uh we might wanna talk eventually about the materials that are appropriate to use in uh in the construction, especially in the the uh the outside of the product
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: so that it gives the appearance, and it is reliable, and so forth. {vocalsound} I did a little history on uh the the uh remote controls and when they were invented and so forth, so, I guess this guy Zenith uh created the Flashmatic, which I kinda like the idea,'cause it made me think of um um maybe the remote control made a big flash when uh you turn the T_V_ on and off, that might be interesting. And um {vocalsound} so it was highly directional flash light that uh you could turn the picture on and off, and the sound on and off, and change channels c so I think um those are still requirements we have today, uh fifty years later.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And uh it was really a pioneering innovation, but it was uh sensitive to the sun, so that uh it would get {disfmarker} would start off by the {disfmarker} you'd get {disfmarker} it would easily cause um problems. So, uh I {disfmarker} in addition to uh looking at the um {vocalsound} uh the functional requir so all these devices are examples of where uh mm {disfmarker} they {vocalsound} represent examples that are available today {vocalsound} {vocalsound} which I think the one in the middle is r um really uh something to keep in mind.
Marketing: Fantastic. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It'd be easy to find. And um it would uh y you'd {vocalsound} {disfmarker} you could throw it at things if if the T_V_ didn't turn on and off, you could use it for something else. And since I'm not really um {vocalsound} Industrial Designer, I didn't really know what to do with this slide. But um {vocalsound} I just {vocalsound} took some {vocalsound} different uh schematics and I put them into this, and I guess this is what a slide might look like if you were drawing a circuit board. {gap} I don't know why um we were asked to do this. So, uh {vocalsound} personal preferences, {vocalsound} um
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I think we could uh I I'm really thinking outside the box here, and I think that we should consider perhaps having an an an a a size uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} a remote control that changes in size depending on the user preference.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So something that's very very flexible and inflatable and then you could shrink it. I think um it could either be {disfmarker} you could go either one extreme, be very colourful, or you could make it clear, and um kind of blend in with things, so you didn't have to um {vocalsound} uh have a problem with the th the decoration of the {disfmarker} of the user's home. Um I think uh it needs to be waterproof, because uh sometimes they fall into cups
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: and, you know, it might be out by the swimming pool or something like that. Um {vocalsound} if you uh mi one of {disfmarker} one of my requirements was about needs t to tell you when it's done its job or not, because half the time, I keep pushing on the remote control, and I don't know if it's actually understood my message, so I think it should give you some sort of an oral cue. And uh, course I never wanna replace the battery. {vocalsound} So,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: that's {disfmarker} those are my f preferences, and that's my presentation.
Project Manager: Yeah, let me uh interrupt you uh if you can add other facility, other feature, like uh unbreakable.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Project Manager: Okay, because uh especially today, you know, you have the family and the kids,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: okay, and the kids throw it and they they play with their remotes and {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Run over it with a car.
Project Manager: Yes. Okay, so if you can add the feature, okay, for your uh fabric whatever in your outline design okay, with unbreakable, okay, I think that will give a lot of advantage for our product, if I'm not wrong. Maybe you can uh add it in that.
Industrial Designer: Good idea. Good idea, I'll I'll uh um {disfmarker} Yes, very good.
Project Manager: Okay, uh thank you Christine, and uh uh any questions or uh clarifications, or any discussion on the functional design?
User Interface: Do you have any preconceived ideas in terms of materials?'Cause, for example, in the unbreakable thing, doing something plastic would be harder,
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
User Interface: whereas having something like, I dunno, steel or titanium isn't really economically viable. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Titanium. Titanium would be {vocalsound} be heavy, too,
Marketing: Titanium. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: wouldn't it?
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: No, I haven't really um {disfmarker} I wanted feedback, I think we need to rate {disfmarker} rank these, but we'll see what your uh personal preferences are and your thoughts.
User Interface: Yeah. Sure, yeah. No, I just wondering whether {disfmarker} that you had any sort of {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I like titanium. It's light.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Uh {vocalsound} yeah
Marketing: Expensive.
User Interface: {vocalsound} The marketing comes out. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: but uh who who said {disfmarker} who said we were,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yes.
Industrial Designer: you know, nobody told me how mu what our financial objective is, so um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It'd be hard to inflate something ou made out of titanium though {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: Yeah the the {disfmarker} I'm sorry because uh the last meeting we supposed to discuss about the financial thing.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh let me go quickly, maybe if I can go back {vocalsound}. I know the project plan and the budget. So I can close this, {gap} not sure. Was in uh {disfmarker} S This. So let me see where is this file.
User Interface: That's Christine's.
Project Manager: This is Christine. {vocalsound}
User Interface: And that's mine, I think.
Project Manager: That's yours, okay. Saving.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap}
User Interface: In modified.
Marketing: I don't know,
Project Manager: Okay, uh
Marketing: I think verbally we can {disfmarker} we can pretty much sell.
Project Manager: I will {disfmarker} I will send you a mail, okay? The project may be the the project aim, okay. At the end of the day, the company uh wants to make at least uh the fifty million Euro. Okay, and uh of course the price will be very reasonable on the the sales side. Okay, that maybe Eddie will talk to you about uh how much uh the price and uh what's uh {disfmarker} how much its cost for the manufacturing and how much it's going to be {disfmarker} we sell in the market. Okay. Then uh you can come back with your feedback. And I I have one {disfmarker} maybe the suggestion or opinion. This remote control, okay, it can be for like universal, to use for any T_V_. Okay, and it will be slim, okay, and uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not fat?
Project Manager: Not fat.
Industrial Designer: Not fat, huh.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Might be hard to find, though.
Project Manager: Yep. But let's try it, okay, with the different uh {disfmarker} the designs, okay, the functional designs.
Marketing: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: Oh, okay.
Project Manager: Okay? So any other questions?
Marketing: Uh from her side, I don't think uh there's too many more questions.
Project Manager: Okay. Thank you Christine for uh time being,
Marketing: If you can come to the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: so then uh Ed, so can you tell about {disfmarker}
Marketing: Okay, from the marketing {disfmarker} yeah, from the marketing side, just to to give an idea what the management is looking for, I was looking for a a remote control to have a s
User Interface: S'scuse me for one sec.
Marketing: I have a sales price of twenty-five Euro, with a production price of uh twelve and a half Euro. For what uh I think from what we're trying to find, we're tr we're looking for, I don't think that price is exactly in the market. Okay?
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: I'll explain myself here now in the sense that uh in a {disfmarker} in the recent surveys, uh from the ages {disfmarker} fr from fifteen to thirty-five, eighty percent are willing to spend more money for something as fancy as trendy.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Twenty-five Euros, uh that's that's a preson reasonable price. That's a market price right now. Now if we're gonna take a risk, and push this up a bit, make it more expensive,
Project Manager: Yep.
Marketing: but give them added things that they don't have now,
Project Manager: Yep.
Marketing: then it w it could possibly sell. Obviously the risk is there. Too expensive, they're not gonna buy. But, I think uh there's one other thing interesting {disfmarker} two things that are interesting {gap} is that uh from the fifteen to thirty-five year-old group, which always spends more money on trendy new things, speech recognition is requested.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Speech recognition? .
Marketing: And we're talking between seventy-five to ninety percent of this group is willing to pay for speech recognition on a remote.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Obviously, we can't make a remote into a computer, but maybe simple commands. I dunno, louder, softer, on, off. That might be a possibility, even though it costs more, to be the first on the market to produce this.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Thirty-five percent say they're too difficult to use. So we have to figure out a way of making it um more user friendly. {vocalsound} Uh fifty percent say they can't find the remote half the time. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So maybe one word speech recognition commands, say remote, and there's a beep beep beep, and they can find it through, you know, ten tons of newspapers, magazines, whatever you have at home.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: But, in the cost that uh the management is looking for, that's not gonna be possible. But if it's trendy, if it's fancy, it's got some colour to it, if it's very easy {disfmarker} easy to use, if it's got simple remote {disfmarker} speech remote uh control, like I said, louder, softer, change channel, on, off, remote, it goes beep beep, I can find my my remote without spending half a day looking for it and getting all upset'cause I can't turn the T_V_ on. So we're gonna have to look at it in a {vocalsound} in this global idea, with the ideas of the industrial uh design.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: But, price obviously we have to talk about.
Project Manager: Yep. So what do you think about uh the design {gap}? Do you think you can make it or uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: D uh I'm sorry? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: What do you think about uh the design, uh what he was talking about {disfmarker} of the speech recognition?
Marketing: Speech recognition.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well, uh training is always an issue with uh commands.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So um {disfmarker} might uh {disfmarker} we can perhaps um {vocalsound} do it if the user is willing to spend some time in the training process, uh it could reduce th th uh the overall um cost. Not sure how. {vocalsound} But um anyway, um {vocalsound} I I think also that uh this might impact the battery life. And um so, maybe what we'll have to do is um add something where you can um recharge it wirelessly so that uh {vocalsound} y you know sen send power to it. So uh or maybe uh set it out in the sun and it uh, you know, gets uh, from the light, um a a solar cell inside there
User Interface: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: so that uh you have enough uh juice to do all these fancy things.
User Interface: It seems also like with the speech recognition, yeah, it's a great feature, but if you're watching T_V_, there's a lot of ambient sound, and it's words. It's not just, you know, noises like something hitting. It's actual speech, so then you have to make sure that the speech recognizer is good enough to filter out the T_V_ speech, and the the user's speech. Otherwise, you can say remote.
Industrial Designer: Off. {vocalsound}
User Interface: But if someone on the screen is saying the same thing, all of a sudden, you have someone in a movie saying off and your screen dies, because they've triggered the remote control and it's turned off your T_V_. {vocalsound} So, I think if we can find a speech recognizer that can handle those types of problems, then yeah, it'd be a really good marketing gimmick.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: But, I think we seriously need to consider how that would impact the situation.
Industrial Designer: Very good point.
Marketing: Because tha w {vocalsound} with speech recognition uh th I'm not that good at that idea
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: but th {vocalsound} if it's a one-word recognition,'cause I know with telephones and cars and things I've seen in the States,
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {gap} a friend of mine says call Mom, and it calls up Mom.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing:'Kay the radio can be on and everything.
Project Manager: Yep.
Marketing: Because I think s with speech recognition, if uh the the remote or like the telephone {vocalsound} {disfmarker} it has a exact word that it has to hear.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: I don't think it would come through a sentence in a television. If somebody's speaking on the se the television, they're not gonna stop and say remote,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: okay. So I think that uh something could be designed to recognise single word {disfmarker}
User Interface: Oh yeah. Yeah. No, I think it's a great idea if we can design it to to suit those requirements.
Marketing: Like the t like the telephone. No because I {gap} this is this is years ago in the United States where we're driving down and he said call home, and the telephone called immediately {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: so well, that's kinda cute. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well, what I can uh suggest to you, Christine, okay, uh if you need some uh {disfmarker} the technical feedback, or some training, okay, about uh this facility, especially for the speech recognition, I can recommend you some companies like uh Intel or I_B_M_, okay, because they're already in this uh speech recognition part, okay. And uh you can maybe have some uh technical backup from them, some kind of a technical tie-up. Okay, and uh if you want, I can coordinate, okay, to get some information, okay, and uh you can uh let me know, okay, so what kind of uh the details you require okay, to add this feature in this project. I don't think it's uh the difficult. And uh we need to know how much is the timeframe you need to develop, apart from uh what {gap} today.
Industrial Designer: Okay, we'll find that out.
Project Manager: Yep.
Marketing: From from your side uh, you're gonna have to go back the management and s be more s precise.
Project Manager: Yes.
Marketing: What do they want?
Project Manager: Yes.
Marketing: Uh {vocalsound}, a risk, take a risk on the market? Something that's gonna cost more, but could very easily s make a boom in the market?
Project Manager: Yes. Yep.
Marketing: Because it has to be something totally different, has to be total totally new. Something that nobody has right now.
Project Manager: Yeah but
Marketing: And it's gonna cost.
Project Manager: but end of the day, you're the sales guy, so I will come back and sit on your head because uh you are going to give your sales projection,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: okay. It's uh of course it's uh good to uh tell the management how much it's cost us
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and how much you are going to benefit,
Marketing: Sure. Sure.
Project Manager: okay. And uh, so I don't mind to convince, okay, the management to spend some more money on the project, okay, if you can make out of
Marketing: Obviously.
Project Manager: the money from this project.
Marketing: If the bottom line is positive. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yes, okay I don't mind to convince the the management,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: okay.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: The management says, okay, so they they don't want certain facilities, which it's already worked, okay, they want something uh new, okay. I think uh like uh speech recognit definitely they will agree, I don't think they'll say no for that, okay. And uh I hope I can convince the management on that, okay. So if you have any uh new ideas, okay, for uh your {disfmarker} you can always come up and uh you can tell me if you need any uh s special, okay, coordination, okay, between any uh technical companies, which you can uh hide their technology backup, okay, for your uh functional design or technical design, okay, then I am ready to do that. And uh what's your comments about uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Um well, I mean, maybe if I go through my presentation, you can sort of see what the user perspective is, and how it ties into the other two comments.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah, so you are finish, Ed, uh so I can uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yes. Mm.
Project Manager: Okay, I'll uh hand over to Agnes. Just gonna close this. T Uh where are you, here?
User Interface: Mm participant three.
Project Manager: Participant three.
User Interface: Nope, here {gap}
Project Manager: Okay, so I'll {disfmarker} yep. Okay.
User Interface: Good.
Project Manager: Is it okay?
User Interface: Thanks.
Project Manager: Alri
User Interface: Yeah, and that's fine. Okay. So, basically, the method that we usually use in the user interface design is that we need to look at what people like and what people don't like about existing products. So, in our case, existing remote controls. And then, what the good ideas are, and what the bad ideas are, and why they're bad and good, which isn't always as obvious. We seem to have intuitions about why things are good or things are bad, but when you look, technically, at how it works, sometimes that's not the case. Then we need to decide what functionalities we really want to keep,'cause that'll feed into both Ed's work and Christine's work. Um and then what the remote control should look like, obviously, once we've got a good idea of what the functionalities are. So, in terms of the functionalities that we need, you obviously need to be able to turn the T_V_ on and off. You need to change channels, both by directly going to a specific channel or by channel surfing. You need to be able to control the volume and then control any menus on the T_V_ to regulate contrast or whatever. So, the problems that people have expressed is that there's too many buttons on remote controls, in general. The buttons {disfmarker} it's not clear what they're supposed to do. Um often, you need to know specific button sequences {vocalsound} to get certain functionalities done, um which you don't necessarily always remember, especially if it's a functionality that you don't use very often. And that the buttons are too small. So, here we've got two examples where here on the left-hand side, you can see a remote control that has lots and lots of buttons.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: The buttons, in a lot of cases, are tiny. Um they're hard to see, and okay, they're labelled, but the labels don't necessarily tell you too much. Whereas, on the other side, you have a much simpler remote control that I think basically has the minimum functionalities {vocalsound} that are needed. And it sort of looks simpler and just less imposing when you first look at it. So, I would be inclined to go sort of towards this, in terms of design, rather than this. And if there's specific functionalities that require more buttons, then we can figure out how to do it with existing um buttons. So my personal preferences are to keep the number of buttons to a limit, or to a minimum, sorry, make frequently used buttons bigger and more strategically placed, so like the on button being really obvious one, the channel changing and the volume, and to keep the design basically sleek and simple.
Project Manager: Click mm.
User Interface: Which, I think ties into what Christine and Ed have both said fairly reasonably. Um so, that's pretty much it, an I don't know if you guys have any questions or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Oh, it's um, seems {vocalsound} very understandable. Clearly your research and uh {disfmarker} and ours uh heading in the same direction,
User Interface: Yep.
Industrial Designer: and um uh the only thing that I saw missing from uh your your research that we found was this uh ability to find the doggone thing when you need it.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yes, that's true. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So uh, you know, but that's okay. That's why we're all here at the table, so that if we think of it and our research indicates certain things and um w we it's complementary.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I also think that um uh th f the the feel of it is uh, when you hold it, is something that um uh was expressed more in in in in my uh design
User Interface: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and that's logical and normal'cause those are the parameters that an Industrial Designer's more thinking about, th th the look and the feel,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and uh, you're {disfmarker}
User Interface: Oh, that's definitely a very important factor, especially to users who are gonna be buying the thing and then using it almost on an {disfmarker} daily basis in a lot of cases, I think.
Industrial Designer: First. Yep. Mm-hmm. {vocalsound} Okay, so I don't have any questions. Sounds good.
Project Manager: So {vocalsound} for anybody need uh any help, for time being, on this uh subjects, okay, so please come back to me,
User Interface: Oh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: and uh Christine, maybe I can uh try to help you to get some uh the technical uh the companies to help you for uh make a design uh slim, okay, and to add some features, like we are talking about, the speech recognition and all.
User Interface: Should we maybe make a decision about what features we actually want to include,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface:'cause we've thrown a lot of features onto the table, but do we actually want to incorporate all of them, or have we missed anything?
Marketing: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: Do you wanna go back and look at the closing slide, maybe that would provide some guidance?
User Interface: Sure.
Industrial Designer: Doesn't really tell us.
Project Manager: So not really this one we are talk ab
Marketing: Individual actions. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Well it says individual actions,
Project Manager: Yep.
Industrial Designer: it says user interf so I'm supposed to do the components concept, supposed to work on the user interface concept,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and you're supposed to keep watching the trends. Um and specific instructions will be sent by our our coach. I think we should {vocalsound} do as many features as uh {disfmarker} start with all of them right now
User Interface: I thought {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: and eliminate them later in the process, that's my suggestion.
Project Manager: Okay, that will be great. {vocalsound} And uh I'll send you the the minutes of meet
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You can object if you want to {vocalsound}
User Interface: No, I I'm just thinking in terms of time,
Marketing: {vocalsound} She's objecting. {vocalsound}
User Interface: like if {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes, now I'm objecting. No, I mean, I was just thinking is it really practical to start designing something with features that we're just gonna end up throwing away? I mean, it takes a lot of time and effort for everyone to consider different features, um and s if we spend that time and effort on features that we're not gonna use, maybe it's better to spend it on the f thinking more about features that we actually do want, but {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I think we should take that as an action item for after the meeting,
Marketing: Oh th {vocalsound} we s we still have {disfmarker}
User Interface: guess {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer:'cause w our meeting time has run out.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Somebody else has go to use this room,
Marketing: Right.
User Interface: Sure.
Industrial Designer: and, you know, we can't hang out here
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and talk about this, so {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. Sure.
Project Manager: Okay, what we'll do is now we'll take for lunch break, okay, then uh we can discuss furthermore, okay, with our areas, and uh then we will come back again in the {disfmarker} in the next meeting. So thanks for coming and uh I'll send you minutes of meeting, and uh please put your all information in the sharing folder so everybody can share the information. Okay?
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: So let's go for lunch then. Thank you.
Industrial Designer: Thank you very much.
Marketing: Agreed. {vocalsound} | Based on user perspective feedback, User Interface pointed out that the buttons on remote controls are generally too many and too small. Even though they were sometimes labeled, it was still not clear for the users to tell what each button was supposed to do. Given this, User Interface preferred to keep the number of buttons to a minimum and make frequently used buttons bigger and more strategically placed. He believed a simpler design would make the product less imposing. | qmsum |
Summarize the discussion about the components concept of industrial design.
Project Manager: So we come to the third meetings. I have {gap} good.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um so in the last meeting we have discussed the functional design and now we will talk about the conceptual design. So we will talk about some specific details.
Industrial Designer: Okay so I think I will do my presentation on the components concept so can you please uh open uh {disfmarker} I'm participant two.
Project Manager: This {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Components design.
Project Manager: {gap}
Industrial Designer: Okay so uh the first thing uh I have done is to to made a review together with the uh manufactural uh department and have which components was uh available to build a remote control. So for energy sources we have we have to choose between the solar energy, hand dynamo and uh kinetic um well uh kinetic uh technique {vocalsound} to to store the energy.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: We also um {vocalsound} we also can put a regular battery in the in the remote control. Now {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Uh this is what we have decided in the last meeting. But if we use battery {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah b uh f well uh I meant uh by by battery I meant uh I will not have a uh a wire between the remote control and the energy source but uh I didn't fou we didn't decide yet which kind of battery we will put inside the the remote. So uh it's a point to discuss. Then uh the case material we have uh uh also several choices, like wood, rubber, titanium or latex. {vocalsound} But uh well it's not a a re uh well a real issue for the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} from the technical uh point of view. Concerning the interface uh we can we can put mm just simple buttons or scrolls or buttons uh much more complicated, but it also requires that the chip to process the button is more complicated so.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And uh this is the last point, the choice of chips. So what I have f found is that I think basic battery or kinetic uh energy uh collection is the is the better way to provide energy because I think solar energy wi won't work {vocalsound} in a cluttered uh {vocalsound} uh environment.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: So um so I think we can start with these two main things. For the case uh well uh I think that uh titanium is um is a good choice because it's trendy and it's uh it's uh well it's modern and uh user are are are {disfmarker} mm will be uh very happy to have a {vocalsound} a a nice remote. For the interface uh I think that we can ach achieve uh all the desired functionalities by s just uh using uh rubber buttons, simple buttons and th thus this allow to use a regular chip {vocalsound} that are uh well cheaper. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: And s so uh we can move to the next slide.
User Interface: Sorry.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: What is this single curved {disfmarker} what does it mean?
Industrial Designer: Well uh uh i i it's uh it's the the shape of the um of the remote.
User Interface: So it's it's not {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: You you will have the {disfmarker} well um the the curve will fit into your hand when you grab the {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yo l yeah. When you hold on it, it is comfortable to hold.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. It's more confog f comfortable that if these uh it's completely flat.
User Interface: Okay. Yeah. And the battery, is it kind of a rechargeable or it doesn't matter?
Industrial Designer: Yeah the um that's the point. The kinetic one is uh y you can recharge uh by the um {disfmarker}
User Interface: That that's what it means by kinetic.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah and by {disfmarker} well by just by moving the ar uh your arm the mm well the remote will uh accumulate energy.
User Interface: Okay. Mm-hmm. Okay.
Industrial Designer: But I d I don't know it's {disfmarker} if it is feasible because I don't know if yet if if the user will move enough to provide the remote um all the necessary energy.
User Interface: Mm. {vocalsound} Mm. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. We we might check with our R_ and D_ department to see if they have this product {vocalsound} ready for market. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound} And {disfmarker} yeah and so can you go to the next slide please. So and uh that's uh that summarize well what I have said.
User Interface: Mm mm. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Wha
Industrial Designer: So uh you're right we can uh see in our uh R_ and D_ uh {vocalsound} if the kinetic metal is sufficient to provide enough energy.
User Interface: Ah the department. Mm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's it.
User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} So I um keep in touch with the R_ and D_ department.
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I take care, it's all right.
User Interface: {vocalsound} So the titanium case is the normal case that {disfmarker} I'll show you some pictures that I have and you tell me whether they are titanium case or not.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} All right. Yeah.
User Interface:'Cause I am not very sure, plastic, titanium or whatever. There's another point I want to make, is that the uh {disfmarker} well you've seen them I le na my presentation that um I point out some {disfmarker} why buttons are not the mm not the only ways you can {vocalsound} use {disfmarker} Yeah. Yeah, maybe n
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: We will, okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Three.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} So the user interface is uh i it uses the aspect uh of a computer system, a programme which can be seen or heard or otherwise perceived by the human user
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: and the commands and mechanism the user uses to control its operation and input data. So you s this gives you the ways to input data and we have uh {disfmarker} we are more {disfmarker} we emphasise more on the graphical user interface here. The idea is to represent buttons as figures, diagrams, symbols and on so you you can easily when you look at the symbols you understand what it is doing.
Project Manager: What's the function of this button.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah. So.
Project Manager: I think it makes the the interface really {disfmarker}
User Interface: Ea easy to use. So next one.
Project Manager: Graphical user interface {gap}.
User Interface: {gap} function five. So I can use the button, the mouse maybe.
Project Manager: A graphical user interface emphasise the use of pictures.
User Interface: Yeah. So next line. So the {disfmarker} here are some examples. So they cluster the buttons together. They group them into col they colour them and uh they have different forms as well. Mm but this interface are kind of confusing. Uh basically there are too many buttons. Right. Next one.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: So some people are propose voice recognition and so {disfmarker} ah by the way I receive an email from the from one our departments saying that the voice recognition has been used in the coffee machine {vocalsound} for this by a company
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: when you tell the {disfmarker} you say good morning coffee machine and the machine are reply to you. So I just got an email saying that.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm mm mm.
User Interface: And it seems like this voice recognition technology is ready to be used so we might consider that, supposedly.
Industrial Designer: Yeah fine.
User Interface: {vocalsound} The next one. Mm so somebody {disfmarker} some people use uh some people use a spinning wheel th with the L_C_ display so instead of using the mm buttons you have a L_C_D_ screen and then there you can u you can use that as buttons, you can use that as real {disfmarker} so so that could be an option as well. Touch screen, I mean.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Next one. And some people propose a scroll button. Integrated with push buttons or you may have scroll button instead of p just the push button. Like the one we have here. Uh, next one. So mm
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: so there are a few aspects that I collected here. So s basically this deals with special users, children, handicapped people, old people, and uh mm and prog basically they are programmable, specially for children. And uh mm {disfmarker} yeah yeah. And then they also secure uh covers, to protect uh secure and hidden programming and battery covers that will protect your settings. So {disfmarker} But we don't have to integrate all these complicated features. I'm just saying that the {disfmarker} currently in the market there are there are control there are remote controllers f {gap} customisable for different people. Yeah, so that's the point. The next one. And uh you see this is the one where you have the protection cover. Mm maybe useful for children, they migh you you they only see the buttons outside. And for adults wh where you have more control you can see the one inside. So the adults might wanna have a key to lock that to pr so children will not touch the button inside.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: S a good idea.
User Interface: The next one.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: So this guy {disfmarker} this is another company that provides big buttons. At {disfmarker} I see that that is useful for old people and then you don't get it lost. But for our product we don't need a big one because you have voice recognition e eventually with use.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: And you can call your remote controller if you don't know where it is.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} T_V_ remote controller where are you?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: And then, he will beeps and to say that I am here, {vocalsound} for example.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {gap} We should include speech synthesis in this case, no?
User Interface: Is it possible?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Uh? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah but uh as Norman say if uh there is uh already a commercial product available who t who do this we we can check uh to integrate it i into our uh new remote control.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And uh, this is another one where you can uh {disfmarker} the the the part that's a V_ standing for the volume. So there's a up arrow and a down arrow. But you the see that in the V_, the V_ appears to be the down arrow on the top {disfmarker} on the top up arrow {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: up arrow there's a V_ like as as if it's turning down so it's confusing interface, so I wanna avoid this kind of thing in the design.
Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah.
User Interface: And here are {disfmarker} is uh here is a s short summary that I summary that I compiled after the findings I found. Big buttons are convenient, voice recognition helps, push buttons, scroll buttons, spinning wheels can be used as navigation tools. And uh user customisable is important and finally simplicity simplicity is the key. Yeah. So {vocalsound} we have many concepts there
Industrial Designer: Hmm. {vocalsound}
User Interface: but we have to choose later on which ones are important to be used.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: And basically uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well I {vocalsound} I think you it's it's it's fine you have uh reviewed all all the possibilities
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: but uh uh well uh i if we consider that uh the user interface is displayed on the T_V_ screen I don't think we nee uh we need much buttons in the remote
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: since we we just have to navigate and to have a okay or enter key or things like that,
User Interface: Yeah. Mm.
Industrial Designer: because uh adding wheels or scrolls uh makes the thing more complicated and more expensive also, so.
User Interface: Mm. Okay.
Project Manager: Or maybe we can include the user manual in the in the remote control {gap} and we should have just a button like help and you say uh and you ik you press the button help and maybe you see the the user m might in the in the T_V_.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. That's a good idea.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: To have a help button.
User Interface: A help button.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: So you are display on the screen.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: On T_V_ T_V_ screen.
User Interface: So {disfmarker} on the T_V_ screen.
Industrial Designer: On the T_V_ screen. On the T_V_ screen the uh how to use your remote.
Project Manager: So just you push the button
User Interface: Okay. Okay. Okay.
Project Manager: and we will {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh.
User Interface: So that eliminates all the complicated documentation {gap},
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: okay. So wi
Marketing: But people are often enough looking at the help,
Project Manager: If the if {disfmarker}
Marketing: once they see the help button they say oh this is a complicated stuff.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} No {vocalsound} In the case where they need help, in the case where they need help.
Industrial Designer: Uh yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} It's a psychology.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} In a marketing point of view.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: And let us see what the market demands.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: We could just go to my presentation.
Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} uh wel well I think {disfmarker}
Project Manager: It's just for user customizable, for kids or old people.
Marketing: Yeah that's right.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: So {disfmarker}
Marketing: I mean it just showed us the remote with an cap which could be used for kids and if you remove the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So it's the same {disfmarker}
Marketing: Same remote with some {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Can be used by both kids and old people.
Marketing: Both yeah.
User Interface: Mm. {vocalsound} Well uh what I s propose is that uh you know a remote controller, i {vocalsound} it could be a cube,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: is uh a small device that uh looks like a cube and maybe you can just change the {vocalsound} um the buttons, if you ch turn one side you get one one buttons, you turn the other side you get the other buttons, so for maybe new generation people who get used to the computer they want lots of controls. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Maybe for kids, kids they like uh t no l they like to {disfmarker}
User Interface: Small {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Uh well.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So le le let's see what uh what {vocalsound} people want.
User Interface: Let's see the market demand.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: And then we can decide what what we can {disfmarker} yeah.
User Interface: What what {gap} market {disfmarker} yes yes.
Project Manager: {gap}
Marketing: So we just made an marketing survey of what people need from our remotes and how it could be special from the other remotes. And we got the best on the responses from the questionnaires. Uh we also have some prizes for the most creative solutions. And we found the following solutions which we could {disfmarker} which would be helpful for our design. So seventy percent of the users, they find their remote controls very ugly, they don't find it pleasant to use in the size or usage or anything. And eighty percent of the people they are always l I mean they are willing to spend more money if the remote control would look fancy. And the current remote controls do not match well the operating behaviour of the user. And seventy five percent of the users said they zap a lot.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: And fifty percent say they use only ten percent of the buttons,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: so the rest of the ninety percent of the buttons they're not used most of the times.
User Interface: Yeah. Yes.
Marketing: So this were the findings which we found. And also they cited frustrations with the present remote controls. Most of {disfmarker} fifty percent of the time the remote controls are lost somewhere in the room and people are always searching for them {vocalsound} rather than watching the T_V_.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: And by the time they found the remote control the program is finished.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: So {vocalsound} they're frustrated a lot {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: And um if the remote control is too complicated it takes much time to learn the functionality of it.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Mm, the functionalities yeah.
Marketing: So you can just see the percentage, fifty percent people they responded that they always lose their remotes and thirty four percent they say that it's quite difficult to learn if it's too complex.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: So keeping in view all these findings and the frustrations I think this should be the solution for them. We should have an L_C_D_ on the rem remote control.
User Interface: Oh.
Industrial Designer: Well mm w well I I I don't really see the advantage of having uh L_C_D_ on the on the remote control if we have a a a big screen and uh display on the screen.
User Interface: Big screen.
Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm-hmm?
Industrial Designer: yeah of course it's fancy trendy and so on but it's it's expensive to produce {vocalsound} and it's not really {disfmarker}
Marketing: I mean as our survey says that people are willing to pay more if their remotes are fancy.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: So if we have a L_C_D_ on the remote, rather than looking onto the T_V_ you just look into a remote and navigate it. It's the same menu as we have saw that iPod remote control.
User Interface: Mm yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah.
User Interface: Mm. The thing {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Marketing: We just {vocalsound} play around
Industrial Designer: Yeah but when you play with the iPod you don't have {vocalsound} a big screen in front of you, s
Project Manager: You can use this screen instead of the big se screen,
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: instead of use the {disfmarker} yeah.
User Interface: If you re-use the existing screen, we element {disfmarker} eliminate the L_C_D_, after all the L_C_D_ just to display
Project Manager: Hmm.
User Interface: and if you have the colourful screen you can make the display colourful, fancy, as fancy as the one on the L_C_D_,
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: maybe even better.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: So {disfmarker}
Marketing: I mean this were the points which we got from the market demands.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: So
Industrial Designer: So I th I I {vocalsound} well I think we we can focus on the uh on the fancy look on the uh
User Interface: Yeah. More on a fancy design.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah that's fine.
Industrial Designer: on the speech recognition if the technology is available
Marketing: Yeah. I mean that's {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: but well I think L_C_D_ will uh will uh make us spend a lot of money for not so big results.
User Interface: Mm. Remember we have a s budget for the cost of producing the remote controller.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: But {disfmarker} Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. So i is {disfmarker}
Marketing: Uh yeah we have uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: so the thing is you can find out how much an L_C_D_ will cost and then we'll decide again. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I mean that should be found out by the Industrial Designers. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh maybe you can find out the price and tell us next time {gap}. Is i if i
Industrial Designer: So price of uh L_C_D_ display.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker}
Marketing: And it's always good to have an voice recognition for the remote controls.
User Interface: Yeah. And also the cost for the speech recognition.
Project Manager: Mm. It's for {disfmarker}
User Interface: Ask our R_ and D_ department.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: it's just for small vocabulary. We {disfmarker} it's not {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah it's o only for a limited vocabulary,
Project Manager: yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. And ho
Marketing: say eighty commands or so.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah okay.
User Interface: And also the scroller button, how much will it cost. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} Well uh compared to the to s the simpl simpler simplest button.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Push push {gap}.
Marketing: Mm, the scroll button, {gap} from the survey we never see that people would like to have some scrolling button.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah I think that {disfmarker}
Marketing: Because they they just they're just frightened to use the scrollings or {vocalsound} help button.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah I I I think that uh well uh as we have seen in the in the presentation uh well uh about uh uh fifty percent of the of the percent n choose the button
User Interface: Don't use the buttons.
Industrial Designer: so uh I think to have uh five uh simple button is sufficient for our functionality.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: It doesn't mean that the other buttons are not necessary or important.
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Important.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. But {disfmarker}
Project Manager: But they are just less used compar
Marketing: They're not used much.
Project Manager: yeah.
Industrial Designer: But the uh the thing is is i is that we can add a functionality on the on the T_V_ screen
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: like uh a a list of function
User Interface: Yeah. Mm.
Industrial Designer: and then you choose with the with the button to {disfmarker} well you navigate
User Interface: Yeah, yeah. So so the at most {disfmarker} more power uh.
Industrial Designer: and you {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Or maybe we can u uh or maybe we can uh make this the ten percent of button more bigger than the others.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: So.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: But if i i if we if we could have a a a display uh g a user interface that is very complete on the T_V_ screen {vocalsound} I think that just five buttons are sufficient,
User Interface: Yep.
Industrial Designer: one to go up left right down and uh enter
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and you you you just select the functionality you want to access or things like that.
User Interface: Mm. Mm. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: You don't have to to switch to a channel to another uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Or it could be like this, as the people say, if they have a L_C_D_ on the remote not on the television. Because when you have the L_C_D_ onto the television screen you miss the picture in the background, we are most focused on the commands.
Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker}
Marketing: So if you have then L_C_D_ in the remote, you just have a menu, and increasing and lower these signs here to change the programs and this menu when you press the menu, in the L_C_D_ displays as you go on pressing the menu it faster displays volume, then the program, then the brightness, contrast and all the stuff.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} Yeah but if you look at the L_C_D_ you you don't look at the T_V_ screen
Marketing: And accordingly you can just increase or decrease.
Project Manager: It's {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm. Mm.
Industrial Designer: so {vocalsound} i i it's not really worth to get {disfmarker} to have the image if you don't look at, so.
User Interface: I if {disfmarker} Mm. Mm.
Project Manager: And I think it's increases the cost of the the remote control if you use L_C_D_. I {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah that has to be checked out.
User Interface: I think that there's no contradiction here, because if there are few buttons, you don't have to look at your your controller any more because you know where the buttons are, so if you wanna control the screen d sh sharpness you just say sharpness
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: and then you t turn {disfmarker} you just press lef increase or decrease button
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: and the same for the volume and the channel, {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: if you had the speech recognition there you just shout your channel, just tell your channel and then you don't even have to look at the butto at the controller so finally that wil eliminates the the need for L_C_D_,
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: with the help of speech recogniser you can {disfmarker}
Marketing: I mean, {gap} better if we could just check all the cost with L_C_D_
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: and also with the speech recognition.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: And then we could find which would would be a more suitable in this case.
User Interface: Mm. Mm. {vocalsound} Yeah. A and {disfmarker}
Marketing: And the third problem was to find the remote control. Always, so fifty percent of the people say they lose the remotes.
Industrial Designer: Well so we we can think about a well a a vocal command like uh find
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: and {vocalsound} when the remote control uh hears fine well yeah just uh to make him beep or t
Project Manager: You will listen to a peep, {vocalsound} special peep.
User Interface: Where {gap}, yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah that's right, that's exactly what I mean by voice commander.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Or it could be also something like this,
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: uh it's always boring to change the batteries of the remotes control,
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: so we have some one charger there and whenever we don't use the remote control we put it in the charger.
User Interface: Put it back at the charge.
Industrial Designer: Put {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: And when we're using that t remote and if we misplace somewhere, in the charger we have a small button, and just by pressing the button in the charger the uh remote control beeps, wherever it is.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. And that's a good idea, that's simple, like in phones.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: I mean it doe it also doesn't require a voice command,
Project Manager: But you don't you don't have to move the the charger.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: because there are problems with a voice command.
User Interface: Hmm. Mm. {vocalsound} Th yeah. Mm yeah. Yeah. Mm.
Marketing: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: You have to keep it {gap}.
Marketing: I mean charger would be fixed
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: because it's always with electricity plugged.
Industrial Designer: Yeah if there if there uh there is nuff not enough battery. Also and uh uh the remote is lost.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Mm. There's {disfmarker} mm. Mm.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah that's right.
User Interface: That {disfmarker} we can {disfmarker} what we can do is we can program a function whereby when you press the switch off T_V_ button, the off button, the remote there be s uh instruction on the screen, please charge charge me. You never get it lost
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: because uh every time you're off the computer {vocalsound} {disfmarker} the T_V_ you are asked the the command the T_V_ com remote controller would tell you to put it back to where {disfmarker} to the charger.
Marketing: It's an good reminder,
User Interface: Yeah. So you will never get lost {gap} {disfmarker} yeah.
Marketing: yeah that's right.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Maybe for some people {gap} {vocalsound} lazy people.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah because everything is programmed inside.
Project Manager: Yeah yeah.
User Interface: So it's it's uh it's all about strategy, y
Marketing: And of course the final point is a fancy look.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: As we have seen earlier the remotes which were displayed by Norman they weren't fancy,
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: They were ugly.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah, yeah.
Marketing: I mean mm very big or something with lot of buttons.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} They {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: I think we should have something {disfmarker} it {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well the last one with the um {vocalsound} yeah with the two parts was uh {gap} original, so {disfmarker}
User Interface: With uh two two two parts controller.
Marketing: I mean {gap} uh I mean uh I mean uh you see if it's like that even a kid who wants to have a control he could just plug it and {vocalsound} use it, you can't avoid him.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: But you can have an button for child lock.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: So just by pressing the button with some code, you t you put a lock onto the remote, so that he can't use even {gap} {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm.
Industrial Designer: Well we can think about uh having uh on the on the on the user interface when you switch on the T_V_ you can uh well write a code or choose a category, if it is kids, uh things like that.
Marketing: Mm uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Or {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm. Yeah. Mm.
Marketing: That's right.
Project Manager: Or maybe you have to to show some specific programmes for kids and then just just {disfmarker} yeah just push uh kids button so it's automatically
User Interface: Mm. {gap} these are probl yeah. Mm. Mm. Mm.
Project Manager: {gap}. So if he {gap}.
Marketing: I think these other four points they're the market demands and so it's for the user interface design and industrial design to just think {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: So for mm {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: yeah. So for my part I will check the prices the um the prices difference uh of what to use, where to use, and s uh and so on.
Marketing: Yeah I think it should be clearer for us in the next meeting that th uh these {gap} could be included.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Mm. {vocalsound} I think we need to define also a s the set of vocabularies for the speech recogniser
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: because uh if you want {gap} uh say we can sort by channels or sort by T_V_ programs, you have to decide a category of vocabularies for them. If numbers, they're easy,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: but if {gap} name the channel by by name {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well I think we can we can have just numbers for channels and you can say to your remote control like uh sports and then on the T_V_ you have a list with with uh uh well with sports program playing now
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: and and uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: No, we have a problem there. You see uh if you have a voice commands and you are s you are watching a score on uh {disfmarker} basketball score or something, and if the score comes twenty four thirty five, you've just say twenty five
Project Manager: Yeah it's {disfmarker} yeah.
Marketing: and suddenly {vocalsound} the screen the channel goes to twenty five.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: That's right, yeah, yeah.
Marketing: So I think there should be a prefix to some numbers {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well but well e every possible word uh has a probability to come about of the T_V_ so. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I mean the the {disfmarker} you just check all the probability that saying T_V_ twenty five and just ordinary twenty five.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah.
Marketing: Ordinary twenty five you almost there's a probability of being said around sixty seventy percent
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah but well {disfmarker} okay.
Marketing: and T_V_ twenty five I dunno it will be round about one or two percent.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: So it's better to have some prefix {gap} before the number.
User Interface: But I I I think that the user would like wou would like to associate the channel or call the channel rather than than the numbers.
Marketing: Yeah something, some code.
User Interface: You say numbe channel number five of the T_V_ correspond to something else in the channel.
Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah.
User Interface: So some people may want to say, I want to see this channel.
Industrial Designer: Mm mm. Well I {disfmarker}
Marketing: That will be too big.
Project Manager: Or just {disfmarker}
Marketing: And it will be difficult for the vocabulary also.
User Interface: Yeah. Check with the v R_ and D_ department the capability of recogniser.
Project Manager: It's difficult to to just say the the name of the channel. It will be difficult to say just the name of the channel.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh?
Project Manager: Because you have to s t uh a ch
User Interface: Well, it's convenient for the user.
Project Manager: yeah but you have to to have all the name of the channel in your vocabulary.
Marketing: Als might be you just forgot the channel name, you kno only know the number.
Project Manager: Or maybe {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Then {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Or maybe the user can create his own vocabulary,
User Interface: The {disfmarker} uh uh mm. {vocalsound} Mm.
Project Manager: just pronouncing the the name of channels and include in the vocabulary.
User Interface: I I think that I have {disfmarker} mm mm {vocalsound} I think there's another way you can do is that uh you can uh {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} when the user ch press a button to choose the channel for example, then what you can do is that the {disfmarker} you can make the T_V_ screen to split them into small little little squares of images where you you you have a snapshot of every channel, so let's say it's a four by four matrix of the images, so now what you do is f looking at the all the sixteen channels available at one time, you just use the control button uh, you just you you just choose the the option you want
Marketing: Yeah, the {gap}.
User Interface: and then you just hit the button and then you go to that channel. So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Or lets the user create his own vocabulary of channel.
User Interface: Mm. So you you don't use the speech recogniser in that way.
Project Manager: No. Just you have uh in the beginning you have uh t you have to train {disfmarker} you have to create the vocabulary by yourself.
User Interface: Oh, okay. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Well I uh I also {disfmarker}
Project Manager: By associating each channel with the name or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I I also think about uh another problem, if if there is uh more than one person who is watching T_V_ {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And for each one has his own. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: the s well the the speech uh r recogniser should be able to distinguish between the two.
Marketing: Yeah yeah, {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Because uh I remember when I was a {vocalsound} young child with my sister we {disfmarker} yeah we always want to w to watch different emission at the at the same time
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Or you have to s {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah, I wanna watch this, I wanna watch that.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: so it's a pr it could be a problem if uh if well if someone passes by when you are watching T_V_ and say oh T_V_ thirty {vocalsound} and just run, s
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: A and in the same lines we would have a {disfmarker} one more problem. If we are using the television in the different environments, say in the factories or in the shops where there is a lot of noise and this voice commands if they fail to work, that would bring a bad name {disfmarker} bad uh reputation for our company.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: So I think we should specify some pre-requirements if we want to use a voice commands, say that it should be used in an silent homely environment or s something.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Or we can switch on or switch off the the special {gap}, yeah.
Marketing: Yeah that's right that should be an option.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah that's {disfmarker} well I think that's a good uh a good option because it's simple and uh simple to implement also, so.
User Interface: Hmm.
Marketing: I think these are the practical problems. So we need to take care of them in the design.
Project Manager: Maybe we'll discuss them in next meeting.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: It's time to close this meeting.
User Interface: Well, you you stay a five minutes. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah {gap}. {vocalsound} Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh it came there on three minutes back so we are {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I think we can just press the okay. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Thanks for your collaborations.
Industrial Designer: So I see ya.
Marketing: Okay. See you another thirty minutes. | The team talked about using a battery on the remote control and discussed different types of energy, they would find out if the kinetic metal was sufficient to provide enough energy. As to the shape of the remote control, there should be a curve which would fit into users'hands when they grab the remote control. They discussed material used to design the case of remote control, such as plastic or titanium, but they were still discussing which one should be used. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
Project Manager: So we come to the third meetings. I have {gap} good.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um so in the last meeting we have discussed the functional design and now we will talk about the conceptual design. So we will talk about some specific details.
Industrial Designer: Okay so I think I will do my presentation on the components concept so can you please uh open uh {disfmarker} I'm participant two.
Project Manager: This {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Components design.
Project Manager: {gap}
Industrial Designer: Okay so uh the first thing uh I have done is to to made a review together with the uh manufactural uh department and have which components was uh available to build a remote control. So for energy sources we have we have to choose between the solar energy, hand dynamo and uh kinetic um well uh kinetic uh technique {vocalsound} to to store the energy.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: We also um {vocalsound} we also can put a regular battery in the in the remote control. Now {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Uh this is what we have decided in the last meeting. But if we use battery {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah b uh f well uh I meant uh by by battery I meant uh I will not have a uh a wire between the remote control and the energy source but uh I didn't fou we didn't decide yet which kind of battery we will put inside the the remote. So uh it's a point to discuss. Then uh the case material we have uh uh also several choices, like wood, rubber, titanium or latex. {vocalsound} But uh well it's not a a re uh well a real issue for the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} from the technical uh point of view. Concerning the interface uh we can we can put mm just simple buttons or scrolls or buttons uh much more complicated, but it also requires that the chip to process the button is more complicated so.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And uh this is the last point, the choice of chips. So what I have f found is that I think basic battery or kinetic uh energy uh collection is the is the better way to provide energy because I think solar energy wi won't work {vocalsound} in a cluttered uh {vocalsound} uh environment.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: So um so I think we can start with these two main things. For the case uh well uh I think that uh titanium is um is a good choice because it's trendy and it's uh it's uh well it's modern and uh user are are are {disfmarker} mm will be uh very happy to have a {vocalsound} a a nice remote. For the interface uh I think that we can ach achieve uh all the desired functionalities by s just uh using uh rubber buttons, simple buttons and th thus this allow to use a regular chip {vocalsound} that are uh well cheaper. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: And s so uh we can move to the next slide.
User Interface: Sorry.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: What is this single curved {disfmarker} what does it mean?
Industrial Designer: Well uh uh i i it's uh it's the the shape of the um of the remote.
User Interface: So it's it's not {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: You you will have the {disfmarker} well um the the curve will fit into your hand when you grab the {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yo l yeah. When you hold on it, it is comfortable to hold.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. It's more confog f comfortable that if these uh it's completely flat.
User Interface: Okay. Yeah. And the battery, is it kind of a rechargeable or it doesn't matter?
Industrial Designer: Yeah the um that's the point. The kinetic one is uh y you can recharge uh by the um {disfmarker}
User Interface: That that's what it means by kinetic.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah and by {disfmarker} well by just by moving the ar uh your arm the mm well the remote will uh accumulate energy.
User Interface: Okay. Mm-hmm. Okay.
Industrial Designer: But I d I don't know it's {disfmarker} if it is feasible because I don't know if yet if if the user will move enough to provide the remote um all the necessary energy.
User Interface: Mm. {vocalsound} Mm. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. We we might check with our R_ and D_ department to see if they have this product {vocalsound} ready for market. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound} And {disfmarker} yeah and so can you go to the next slide please. So and uh that's uh that summarize well what I have said.
User Interface: Mm mm. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Wha
Industrial Designer: So uh you're right we can uh see in our uh R_ and D_ uh {vocalsound} if the kinetic metal is sufficient to provide enough energy.
User Interface: Ah the department. Mm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's it.
User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} So I um keep in touch with the R_ and D_ department.
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I take care, it's all right.
User Interface: {vocalsound} So the titanium case is the normal case that {disfmarker} I'll show you some pictures that I have and you tell me whether they are titanium case or not.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} All right. Yeah.
User Interface:'Cause I am not very sure, plastic, titanium or whatever. There's another point I want to make, is that the uh {disfmarker} well you've seen them I le na my presentation that um I point out some {disfmarker} why buttons are not the mm not the only ways you can {vocalsound} use {disfmarker} Yeah. Yeah, maybe n
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: We will, okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Three.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} So the user interface is uh i it uses the aspect uh of a computer system, a programme which can be seen or heard or otherwise perceived by the human user
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: and the commands and mechanism the user uses to control its operation and input data. So you s this gives you the ways to input data and we have uh {disfmarker} we are more {disfmarker} we emphasise more on the graphical user interface here. The idea is to represent buttons as figures, diagrams, symbols and on so you you can easily when you look at the symbols you understand what it is doing.
Project Manager: What's the function of this button.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah. So.
Project Manager: I think it makes the the interface really {disfmarker}
User Interface: Ea easy to use. So next one.
Project Manager: Graphical user interface {gap}.
User Interface: {gap} function five. So I can use the button, the mouse maybe.
Project Manager: A graphical user interface emphasise the use of pictures.
User Interface: Yeah. So next line. So the {disfmarker} here are some examples. So they cluster the buttons together. They group them into col they colour them and uh they have different forms as well. Mm but this interface are kind of confusing. Uh basically there are too many buttons. Right. Next one.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: So some people are propose voice recognition and so {disfmarker} ah by the way I receive an email from the from one our departments saying that the voice recognition has been used in the coffee machine {vocalsound} for this by a company
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: when you tell the {disfmarker} you say good morning coffee machine and the machine are reply to you. So I just got an email saying that.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm mm mm.
User Interface: And it seems like this voice recognition technology is ready to be used so we might consider that, supposedly.
Industrial Designer: Yeah fine.
User Interface: {vocalsound} The next one. Mm so somebody {disfmarker} some people use uh some people use a spinning wheel th with the L_C_ display so instead of using the mm buttons you have a L_C_D_ screen and then there you can u you can use that as buttons, you can use that as real {disfmarker} so so that could be an option as well. Touch screen, I mean.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Next one. And some people propose a scroll button. Integrated with push buttons or you may have scroll button instead of p just the push button. Like the one we have here. Uh, next one. So mm
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: so there are a few aspects that I collected here. So s basically this deals with special users, children, handicapped people, old people, and uh mm and prog basically they are programmable, specially for children. And uh mm {disfmarker} yeah yeah. And then they also secure uh covers, to protect uh secure and hidden programming and battery covers that will protect your settings. So {disfmarker} But we don't have to integrate all these complicated features. I'm just saying that the {disfmarker} currently in the market there are there are control there are remote controllers f {gap} customisable for different people. Yeah, so that's the point. The next one. And uh you see this is the one where you have the protection cover. Mm maybe useful for children, they migh you you they only see the buttons outside. And for adults wh where you have more control you can see the one inside. So the adults might wanna have a key to lock that to pr so children will not touch the button inside.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: S a good idea.
User Interface: The next one.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: So this guy {disfmarker} this is another company that provides big buttons. At {disfmarker} I see that that is useful for old people and then you don't get it lost. But for our product we don't need a big one because you have voice recognition e eventually with use.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: And you can call your remote controller if you don't know where it is.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} T_V_ remote controller where are you?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: And then, he will beeps and to say that I am here, {vocalsound} for example.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {gap} We should include speech synthesis in this case, no?
User Interface: Is it possible?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Uh? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah but uh as Norman say if uh there is uh already a commercial product available who t who do this we we can check uh to integrate it i into our uh new remote control.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And uh, this is another one where you can uh {disfmarker} the the the part that's a V_ standing for the volume. So there's a up arrow and a down arrow. But you the see that in the V_, the V_ appears to be the down arrow on the top {disfmarker} on the top up arrow {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if you {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: up arrow there's a V_ like as as if it's turning down so it's confusing interface, so I wanna avoid this kind of thing in the design.
Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah.
User Interface: And here are {disfmarker} is uh here is a s short summary that I summary that I compiled after the findings I found. Big buttons are convenient, voice recognition helps, push buttons, scroll buttons, spinning wheels can be used as navigation tools. And uh user customisable is important and finally simplicity simplicity is the key. Yeah. So {vocalsound} we have many concepts there
Industrial Designer: Hmm. {vocalsound}
User Interface: but we have to choose later on which ones are important to be used.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: And basically uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well I {vocalsound} I think you it's it's it's fine you have uh reviewed all all the possibilities
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: but uh uh well uh i if we consider that uh the user interface is displayed on the T_V_ screen I don't think we nee uh we need much buttons in the remote
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: since we we just have to navigate and to have a okay or enter key or things like that,
User Interface: Yeah. Mm.
Industrial Designer: because uh adding wheels or scrolls uh makes the thing more complicated and more expensive also, so.
User Interface: Mm. Okay.
Project Manager: Or maybe we can include the user manual in the in the remote control {gap} and we should have just a button like help and you say uh and you ik you press the button help and maybe you see the the user m might in the in the T_V_.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. That's a good idea.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: To have a help button.
User Interface: A help button.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: So you are display on the screen.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: On T_V_ T_V_ screen.
User Interface: So {disfmarker} on the T_V_ screen.
Industrial Designer: On the T_V_ screen. On the T_V_ screen the uh how to use your remote.
Project Manager: So just you push the button
User Interface: Okay. Okay. Okay.
Project Manager: and we will {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh.
User Interface: So that eliminates all the complicated documentation {gap},
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: okay. So wi
Marketing: But people are often enough looking at the help,
Project Manager: If the if {disfmarker}
Marketing: once they see the help button they say oh this is a complicated stuff.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} No {vocalsound} In the case where they need help, in the case where they need help.
Industrial Designer: Uh yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} It's a psychology.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} In a marketing point of view.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: And let us see what the market demands.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: We could just go to my presentation.
Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} uh wel well I think {disfmarker}
Project Manager: It's just for user customizable, for kids or old people.
Marketing: Yeah that's right.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: So {disfmarker}
Marketing: I mean it just showed us the remote with an cap which could be used for kids and if you remove the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So it's the same {disfmarker}
Marketing: Same remote with some {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Can be used by both kids and old people.
Marketing: Both yeah.
User Interface: Mm. {vocalsound} Well uh what I s propose is that uh you know a remote controller, i {vocalsound} it could be a cube,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: is uh a small device that uh looks like a cube and maybe you can just change the {vocalsound} um the buttons, if you ch turn one side you get one one buttons, you turn the other side you get the other buttons, so for maybe new generation people who get used to the computer they want lots of controls. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Maybe for kids, kids they like uh t no l they like to {disfmarker}
User Interface: Small {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Uh well.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So le le let's see what uh what {vocalsound} people want.
User Interface: Let's see the market demand.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: And then we can decide what what we can {disfmarker} yeah.
User Interface: What what {gap} market {disfmarker} yes yes.
Project Manager: {gap}
Marketing: So we just made an marketing survey of what people need from our remotes and how it could be special from the other remotes. And we got the best on the responses from the questionnaires. Uh we also have some prizes for the most creative solutions. And we found the following solutions which we could {disfmarker} which would be helpful for our design. So seventy percent of the users, they find their remote controls very ugly, they don't find it pleasant to use in the size or usage or anything. And eighty percent of the people they are always l I mean they are willing to spend more money if the remote control would look fancy. And the current remote controls do not match well the operating behaviour of the user. And seventy five percent of the users said they zap a lot.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: And fifty percent say they use only ten percent of the buttons,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: so the rest of the ninety percent of the buttons they're not used most of the times.
User Interface: Yeah. Yes.
Marketing: So this were the findings which we found. And also they cited frustrations with the present remote controls. Most of {disfmarker} fifty percent of the time the remote controls are lost somewhere in the room and people are always searching for them {vocalsound} rather than watching the T_V_.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: And by the time they found the remote control the program is finished.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: So {vocalsound} they're frustrated a lot {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: And um if the remote control is too complicated it takes much time to learn the functionality of it.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Mm, the functionalities yeah.
Marketing: So you can just see the percentage, fifty percent people they responded that they always lose their remotes and thirty four percent they say that it's quite difficult to learn if it's too complex.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: So keeping in view all these findings and the frustrations I think this should be the solution for them. We should have an L_C_D_ on the rem remote control.
User Interface: Oh.
Industrial Designer: Well mm w well I I I don't really see the advantage of having uh L_C_D_ on the on the remote control if we have a a a big screen and uh display on the screen.
User Interface: Big screen.
Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm-hmm?
Industrial Designer: yeah of course it's fancy trendy and so on but it's it's expensive to produce {vocalsound} and it's not really {disfmarker}
Marketing: I mean as our survey says that people are willing to pay more if their remotes are fancy.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: So if we have a L_C_D_ on the remote, rather than looking onto the T_V_ you just look into a remote and navigate it. It's the same menu as we have saw that iPod remote control.
User Interface: Mm yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah.
User Interface: Mm. The thing {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Marketing: We just {vocalsound} play around
Industrial Designer: Yeah but when you play with the iPod you don't have {vocalsound} a big screen in front of you, s
Project Manager: You can use this screen instead of the big se screen,
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: instead of use the {disfmarker} yeah.
User Interface: If you re-use the existing screen, we element {disfmarker} eliminate the L_C_D_, after all the L_C_D_ just to display
Project Manager: Hmm.
User Interface: and if you have the colourful screen you can make the display colourful, fancy, as fancy as the one on the L_C_D_,
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: maybe even better.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: So {disfmarker}
Marketing: I mean this were the points which we got from the market demands.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: So
Industrial Designer: So I th I I {vocalsound} well I think we we can focus on the uh on the fancy look on the uh
User Interface: Yeah. More on a fancy design.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah that's fine.
Industrial Designer: on the speech recognition if the technology is available
Marketing: Yeah. I mean that's {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: but well I think L_C_D_ will uh will uh make us spend a lot of money for not so big results.
User Interface: Mm. Remember we have a s budget for the cost of producing the remote controller.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: But {disfmarker} Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. So i is {disfmarker}
Marketing: Uh yeah we have uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: so the thing is you can find out how much an L_C_D_ will cost and then we'll decide again. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I mean that should be found out by the Industrial Designers. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh maybe you can find out the price and tell us next time {gap}. Is i if i
Industrial Designer: So price of uh L_C_D_ display.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker}
Marketing: And it's always good to have an voice recognition for the remote controls.
User Interface: Yeah. And also the cost for the speech recognition.
Project Manager: Mm. It's for {disfmarker}
User Interface: Ask our R_ and D_ department.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: it's just for small vocabulary. We {disfmarker} it's not {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah it's o only for a limited vocabulary,
Project Manager: yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. And ho
Marketing: say eighty commands or so.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah okay.
User Interface: And also the scroller button, how much will it cost. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} Well uh compared to the to s the simpl simpler simplest button.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Push push {gap}.
Marketing: Mm, the scroll button, {gap} from the survey we never see that people would like to have some scrolling button.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah I think that {disfmarker}
Marketing: Because they they just they're just frightened to use the scrollings or {vocalsound} help button.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah I I I think that uh well uh as we have seen in the in the presentation uh well uh about uh uh fifty percent of the of the percent n choose the button
User Interface: Don't use the buttons.
Industrial Designer: so uh I think to have uh five uh simple button is sufficient for our functionality.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: It doesn't mean that the other buttons are not necessary or important.
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Important.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. But {disfmarker}
Project Manager: But they are just less used compar
Marketing: They're not used much.
Project Manager: yeah.
Industrial Designer: But the uh the thing is is i is that we can add a functionality on the on the T_V_ screen
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: like uh a a list of function
User Interface: Yeah. Mm.
Industrial Designer: and then you choose with the with the button to {disfmarker} well you navigate
User Interface: Yeah, yeah. So so the at most {disfmarker} more power uh.
Industrial Designer: and you {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Or maybe we can u uh or maybe we can uh make this the ten percent of button more bigger than the others.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: So.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: But if i i if we if we could have a a a display uh g a user interface that is very complete on the T_V_ screen {vocalsound} I think that just five buttons are sufficient,
User Interface: Yep.
Industrial Designer: one to go up left right down and uh enter
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and you you you just select the functionality you want to access or things like that.
User Interface: Mm. Mm. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: You don't have to to switch to a channel to another uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Or it could be like this, as the people say, if they have a L_C_D_ on the remote not on the television. Because when you have the L_C_D_ onto the television screen you miss the picture in the background, we are most focused on the commands.
Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker}
Marketing: So if you have then L_C_D_ in the remote, you just have a menu, and increasing and lower these signs here to change the programs and this menu when you press the menu, in the L_C_D_ displays as you go on pressing the menu it faster displays volume, then the program, then the brightness, contrast and all the stuff.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} Yeah but if you look at the L_C_D_ you you don't look at the T_V_ screen
Marketing: And accordingly you can just increase or decrease.
Project Manager: It's {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm. Mm.
Industrial Designer: so {vocalsound} i i it's not really worth to get {disfmarker} to have the image if you don't look at, so.
User Interface: I if {disfmarker} Mm. Mm.
Project Manager: And I think it's increases the cost of the the remote control if you use L_C_D_. I {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah that has to be checked out.
User Interface: I think that there's no contradiction here, because if there are few buttons, you don't have to look at your your controller any more because you know where the buttons are, so if you wanna control the screen d sh sharpness you just say sharpness
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: and then you t turn {disfmarker} you just press lef increase or decrease button
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: and the same for the volume and the channel, {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: if you had the speech recognition there you just shout your channel, just tell your channel and then you don't even have to look at the butto at the controller so finally that wil eliminates the the need for L_C_D_,
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: with the help of speech recogniser you can {disfmarker}
Marketing: I mean, {gap} better if we could just check all the cost with L_C_D_
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: and also with the speech recognition.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: And then we could find which would would be a more suitable in this case.
User Interface: Mm. Mm. {vocalsound} Yeah. A and {disfmarker}
Marketing: And the third problem was to find the remote control. Always, so fifty percent of the people say they lose the remotes.
Industrial Designer: Well so we we can think about a well a a vocal command like uh find
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: and {vocalsound} when the remote control uh hears fine well yeah just uh to make him beep or t
Project Manager: You will listen to a peep, {vocalsound} special peep.
User Interface: Where {gap}, yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah that's right, that's exactly what I mean by voice commander.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Or it could be also something like this,
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: uh it's always boring to change the batteries of the remotes control,
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: so we have some one charger there and whenever we don't use the remote control we put it in the charger.
User Interface: Put it back at the charge.
Industrial Designer: Put {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: And when we're using that t remote and if we misplace somewhere, in the charger we have a small button, and just by pressing the button in the charger the uh remote control beeps, wherever it is.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. And that's a good idea, that's simple, like in phones.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: I mean it doe it also doesn't require a voice command,
Project Manager: But you don't you don't have to move the the charger.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: because there are problems with a voice command.
User Interface: Hmm. Mm. {vocalsound} Th yeah. Mm yeah. Yeah. Mm.
Marketing: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: You have to keep it {gap}.
Marketing: I mean charger would be fixed
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: because it's always with electricity plugged.
Industrial Designer: Yeah if there if there uh there is nuff not enough battery. Also and uh uh the remote is lost.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Mm. There's {disfmarker} mm. Mm.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah that's right.
User Interface: That {disfmarker} we can {disfmarker} what we can do is we can program a function whereby when you press the switch off T_V_ button, the off button, the remote there be s uh instruction on the screen, please charge charge me. You never get it lost
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: because uh every time you're off the computer {vocalsound} {disfmarker} the T_V_ you are asked the the command the T_V_ com remote controller would tell you to put it back to where {disfmarker} to the charger.
Marketing: It's an good reminder,
User Interface: Yeah. So you will never get lost {gap} {disfmarker} yeah.
Marketing: yeah that's right.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Maybe for some people {gap} {vocalsound} lazy people.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah because everything is programmed inside.
Project Manager: Yeah yeah.
User Interface: So it's it's uh it's all about strategy, y
Marketing: And of course the final point is a fancy look.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: As we have seen earlier the remotes which were displayed by Norman they weren't fancy,
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: They were ugly.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah, yeah.
Marketing: I mean mm very big or something with lot of buttons.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} They {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: I think we should have something {disfmarker} it {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well the last one with the um {vocalsound} yeah with the two parts was uh {gap} original, so {disfmarker}
User Interface: With uh two two two parts controller.
Marketing: I mean {gap} uh I mean uh I mean uh you see if it's like that even a kid who wants to have a control he could just plug it and {vocalsound} use it, you can't avoid him.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: But you can have an button for child lock.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: So just by pressing the button with some code, you t you put a lock onto the remote, so that he can't use even {gap} {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm.
Industrial Designer: Well we can think about uh having uh on the on the on the user interface when you switch on the T_V_ you can uh well write a code or choose a category, if it is kids, uh things like that.
Marketing: Mm uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Or {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm. Yeah. Mm.
Marketing: That's right.
Project Manager: Or maybe you have to to show some specific programmes for kids and then just just {disfmarker} yeah just push uh kids button so it's automatically
User Interface: Mm. {gap} these are probl yeah. Mm. Mm. Mm.
Project Manager: {gap}. So if he {gap}.
Marketing: I think these other four points they're the market demands and so it's for the user interface design and industrial design to just think {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: So for mm {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: yeah. So for my part I will check the prices the um the prices difference uh of what to use, where to use, and s uh and so on.
Marketing: Yeah I think it should be clearer for us in the next meeting that th uh these {gap} could be included.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Mm. {vocalsound} I think we need to define also a s the set of vocabularies for the speech recogniser
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: because uh if you want {gap} uh say we can sort by channels or sort by T_V_ programs, you have to decide a category of vocabularies for them. If numbers, they're easy,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: but if {gap} name the channel by by name {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well I think we can we can have just numbers for channels and you can say to your remote control like uh sports and then on the T_V_ you have a list with with uh uh well with sports program playing now
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: and and uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: No, we have a problem there. You see uh if you have a voice commands and you are s you are watching a score on uh {disfmarker} basketball score or something, and if the score comes twenty four thirty five, you've just say twenty five
Project Manager: Yeah it's {disfmarker} yeah.
Marketing: and suddenly {vocalsound} the screen the channel goes to twenty five.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: That's right, yeah, yeah.
Marketing: So I think there should be a prefix to some numbers {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well but well e every possible word uh has a probability to come about of the T_V_ so. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I mean the the {disfmarker} you just check all the probability that saying T_V_ twenty five and just ordinary twenty five.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah.
Marketing: Ordinary twenty five you almost there's a probability of being said around sixty seventy percent
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah but well {disfmarker} okay.
Marketing: and T_V_ twenty five I dunno it will be round about one or two percent.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: So it's better to have some prefix {gap} before the number.
User Interface: But I I I think that the user would like wou would like to associate the channel or call the channel rather than than the numbers.
Marketing: Yeah something, some code.
User Interface: You say numbe channel number five of the T_V_ correspond to something else in the channel.
Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah.
User Interface: So some people may want to say, I want to see this channel.
Industrial Designer: Mm mm. Well I {disfmarker}
Marketing: That will be too big.
Project Manager: Or just {disfmarker}
Marketing: And it will be difficult for the vocabulary also.
User Interface: Yeah. Check with the v R_ and D_ department the capability of recogniser.
Project Manager: It's difficult to to just say the the name of the channel. It will be difficult to say just the name of the channel.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh?
Project Manager: Because you have to s t uh a ch
User Interface: Well, it's convenient for the user.
Project Manager: yeah but you have to to have all the name of the channel in your vocabulary.
Marketing: Als might be you just forgot the channel name, you kno only know the number.
Project Manager: Or maybe {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Then {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Or maybe the user can create his own vocabulary,
User Interface: The {disfmarker} uh uh mm. {vocalsound} Mm.
Project Manager: just pronouncing the the name of channels and include in the vocabulary.
User Interface: I I think that I have {disfmarker} mm mm {vocalsound} I think there's another way you can do is that uh you can uh {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} when the user ch press a button to choose the channel for example, then what you can do is that the {disfmarker} you can make the T_V_ screen to split them into small little little squares of images where you you you have a snapshot of every channel, so let's say it's a four by four matrix of the images, so now what you do is f looking at the all the sixteen channels available at one time, you just use the control button uh, you just you you just choose the the option you want
Marketing: Yeah, the {gap}.
User Interface: and then you just hit the button and then you go to that channel. So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Or lets the user create his own vocabulary of channel.
User Interface: Mm. So you you don't use the speech recogniser in that way.
Project Manager: No. Just you have uh in the beginning you have uh t you have to train {disfmarker} you have to create the vocabulary by yourself.
User Interface: Oh, okay. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Well I uh I also {disfmarker}
Project Manager: By associating each channel with the name or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I I also think about uh another problem, if if there is uh more than one person who is watching T_V_ {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And for each one has his own. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: the s well the the speech uh r recogniser should be able to distinguish between the two.
Marketing: Yeah yeah, {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Because uh I remember when I was a {vocalsound} young child with my sister we {disfmarker} yeah we always want to w to watch different emission at the at the same time
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Or you have to s {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah, I wanna watch this, I wanna watch that.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: so it's a pr it could be a problem if uh if well if someone passes by when you are watching T_V_ and say oh T_V_ thirty {vocalsound} and just run, s
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: A and in the same lines we would have a {disfmarker} one more problem. If we are using the television in the different environments, say in the factories or in the shops where there is a lot of noise and this voice commands if they fail to work, that would bring a bad name {disfmarker} bad uh reputation for our company.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: So I think we should specify some pre-requirements if we want to use a voice commands, say that it should be used in an silent homely environment or s something.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Or we can switch on or switch off the the special {gap}, yeah.
Marketing: Yeah that's right that should be an option.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah that's {disfmarker} well I think that's a good uh a good option because it's simple and uh simple to implement also, so.
User Interface: Hmm.
Marketing: I think these are the practical problems. So we need to take care of them in the design.
Project Manager: Maybe we'll discuss them in next meeting.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: It's time to close this meeting.
User Interface: Well, you you stay a five minutes. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah {gap}. {vocalsound} Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh it came there on three minutes back so we are {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I think we can just press the okay. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Thanks for your collaborations.
Industrial Designer: So I see ya.
Marketing: Okay. See you another thirty minutes. | The team discussed the conceptual design and some specific details in this meeting. Industrial Designer talked about the components concept of industrial design, such as the different choice of energy and the different material of the remote control. The team would find out which one to use in the future. User Interface designer gave the presentation about system design, mainly about programme design for different users and to help them use the device. Then the team decided to discuss the marketing part at first, then discuss what to design. Marketing talked about specific details found in the market survey. The team agreed to use fancier design, less buttons and focus on voice recognition. They would find out whether using LCD on remote controls was too expensive or not. Team members agreed to use a voice commander and fixed charger, which would prevent the remote control getting lost. Then the team talked about the set of vocabularies for the speech recogniser. | qmsum |
Summarize the discussion on the technical functions on the remote control.
User Interface: Here we go again.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} My mouse is not working anymore.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} He's uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: when I put it in, is is going to beep beep beep.
Marketing: Oh, I got a nice little screen here over here.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I got like this big black border uh on every side.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Mm, okay.
Project Manager: Everybody ready?
Marketing: {vocalsound} I'll I'll fix it.
User Interface: Yeah, it's okay.
Project Manager: Welcome at the functional design meeting, again presented by Maarten.
Marketing: Yeah, whatever.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh this is the agenda, the opening. Uh, we've got three presentations. And I'm gonna show you some of the new projects requirements that were sent to me. And we're gonna make a decision on the remote control functions. We have uh forty minutes.
Marketing: Yes.
Project Manager: Oh, well this is the {vocalsound} the closing already.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So uh {disfmarker} well we start off with the th the first presentation then. Uh, I think um in uh {disfmarker} we have to do it in uh in right order.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Maybe the {disfmarker}
Marketing: I don't know what the right order is. So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well, it {disfmarker}
User Interface: No.
Industrial Designer: Huh.
Project Manager: Oh that. It won't {disfmarker} doesn't {disfmarker} Maybe we should start with the the technical functions.
Industrial Designer: Okay,
Project Manager: Yeah?
Industrial Designer: how can I get this on the whiteboard?
Project Manager: Well it's you dumped the file in the uh in the sh in the project document folder.
User Interface: In project.
Industrial Designer: Okay, I've done that.
Project Manager: You've already done that?
User Interface: No can that open.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Project Manager: Well let's close this one. We'll just uh open a new one.
User Interface: Open it there.
Project Manager: Uh, well. Yes. Uh-oh. New thing. Oh yeah, uh I have to say something. Uh, due to some uh technical problems I haven't uh digitized the last uh the meeting minutes. But I'll uh make sure that uh happens next time.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Okay. {vocalsound} About the get {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And I'll get this one uh in digital uh form too.
Industrial Designer:'Kay, we're going to um uh talk about working design. Um, the method of the remote control is uh electrical energy, it activates a chip uh in the remote. It's an electrical circuit which compose uh messages in the form of uh uh infrared signals to control the television. Mm, it's a nowadays very uh known, a known uh uh technology. Um, the known technology can make a cost very low. Uh, it's a wild uh {disfmarker} a wide sale uh of uh remote controls in the world. And and the components are very uh very cheap. Um, Uh, diodes, uh bat batteries and uh uh LED lights, they're needed and they're uh everywhere available. Uh, again, it's a fair price. It's a common uh technology uh, like I told um {disfmarker} Uh, the circuit board, it's the most um important uh um part of the remote control. Uh, we can use for that uh fibreglass with copper wires, it's {disfmarker} it is uh {disfmarker} can be made as fast as printing paper. It's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's all very uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, they're making it uh all the time. Uh,
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: and it's not uh very specialised uh technology. {vocalsound} I haven't come to here, but um I've got uh some uh images of uh remote controls. They were not uh very uh trendy or just uh just a remote control like everyone knows. So I don't know uh why I should put it here. Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. But it's the technical side of the remote control.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yes, but uh I uh haven't made it because uh of the time.
Project Manager: Oh. Okay. Well, we'll we'll have to skip that part then.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} What?
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: But you don't think it's a problem um to design uh the technical part of the remote control? It's gonna be easy?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No. Yes.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: But nothing restricted for user interface?
Project Manager: Yeah. M
User Interface: With technical {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Um, no, it's uh it's just a part of uh a known technology, yeah.
User Interface: I don't know.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface:'Kay.
Industrial Designer: Remote control is nothing special nowadays.
Project Manager: R regardless of what type of functions we want to implement. Doesn't really matter.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: But I kind of uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I don't think so,
Project Manager: Okay. Yeah, {gap} okay.
Industrial Designer: because of the {disfmarker} all the televisions uh {disfmarker} there are a few {disfmarker} maybe a couple of televisions with the new functions,
User Interface: Yes. Uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: but is it useful to put them on a on a standard uh remote?
Project Manager: Well, we'll see. We'll see later on.
User Interface: Well, the technical functions. Um, well I don't know if you got the same uh pictures as I got,
Project Manager: No.
User Interface: but uh I got these two,
Industrial Designer: No.
User Interface: and I think they're {disfmarker} we have to focus uh on uh the uh one hand the expert view or the novice user. {vocalsound} th I think it's it's very much uh depending on the user requirements, I don't s uh know who's doing t
Project Manager: Well, uh will there be some uh user requirements later on? {vocalsound} The ones I {disfmarker} I've uh received from the account manager.
User Interface: Yeah, but it {disfmarker} I think that's very important to watch uh what kind of functions there we want to uh put in a remote control.
Project Manager: Yeah. Well, we'll keep this in mind, and then discuss it later on.
User Interface: Yeah, well y we can put functions in it when uh {disfmarker} yeah, when we uh get the user requirements uh and we can update it.
Project Manager: Uh-huh. Okay, but this real this uh big d uh distinction between this type of remote. {gap} we should we should choose one uh {disfmarker} we should not compromise but uh really choose for uh expert viewer or novice v
Marketing: Yes, I agree. Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah? Well, what {disfmarker} that's what you want {disfmarker} trying to say.
User Interface: Well, yeah w if you want try a a a huge market, if you want to reach a huge market, uh like elderly people and {disfmarker} we have to choose for novice user.
Project Manager: Okay. Okay.
User Interface: But I don't know. It's it's really um depending on how how how far the the the remote controls are already in n um in use.
Project Manager: Yeah, well {vocalsound} some of these {disfmarker} Uh, yeah. Well, some of that will {disfmarker} Yeah, but i but it will be more clear when we come to the uh u uh some of the new requirements.
User Interface: Yeah, probably, yeah.
Marketing: Yes.
Project Manager: So {disfmarker}
User Interface: Uh well, there are l at least uh basic functions, uh like just th the channels uh one till nine, uh on and off switch, which must be clear with a red button or something like that. Um, most standard uh have volume, of course, and a mute function, and, of course, the next and previous channel. I think that's just basic what we need.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And from that on we can {gap} user requirements what we need more. Uh {disfmarker} Yeah, I just um um I thought Joost was looking at the trendy {disfmarker} the trends in the markets, and I don't know if there uh are any um {disfmarker} uh if you put more functions, more buttons, maybe it's com becoming less trendy or something like that.
Marketing: Yes.
User Interface: M you can just {vocalsound} you can k {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I haven't really found a conclusion like that.
User Interface: you can keep it in mind that.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: I don't know. Uh, I th I thought the the {disfmarker} with less buttons you can make a more trendier uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Design.
User Interface: yeah, more trendier design, I think. I think.
Marketing: Sounds interesting.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh, well, that's all I have to say, I think.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah, that was it.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright.
Project Manager: Well, then the Marketing expert can uh tell us something about the current market.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes.
User Interface: {gap}.
Marketing: Yeah. It's alright. Um {disfmarker} Alright, I've done some research for functional requirements. Um {disfmarker} yes. The working method um {vocalsound} there were hundred uh uh w h one hundred people, uh how do you say uh, f watched using remote controls in the usability lab and they also uh filled out a questionnaire uh with a few questions. Uh, I've lined them up here. Uh, ask whether um common remote control looks good or not, about willingness to spend money on remote control, about zapping behaviour, and uh and stuff like that. I uh have found some interesting things. We do we do got a market. Um, {vocalsound} three out of four people claim m uh to find remote controls ugly. So if we make a trendy design, we sure have seventy fi seventy five percent of the market, which you can reach. Um, three out of four users uh zaps a lot, as I uh quoted here from the uh results. {vocalsound} Zap buttons are used one hundred and sixty eight times per hour. That's quite a lot. Um, {vocalsound} relevant options are, of course, power buttons. Although, only used once per hour. Uh, channel selection, volume and buttons for text, and the more um, yeah, other functions, like audio settings, video settings, sound settings are not said to be very important and uh very much used. Furthermore, fifty percent says uh they only use ten percent of the buttons on a remote control. That doesn't say we got {disfmarker} we can leave ninety percent off. But it sure um says we shouldn't make it too uh complicated. Fifty percent also claims uh to have lost a remote control very often in the room. And um {vocalsound} an important thing here, the most important customers uh, which is over seventy percent of our market, is in the age range of thirty six to sixty five years old. And uh elderly people, our market, are less interested in uh nice features, but more willingly to spend more money on remote controls. So, {vocalsound} what I was thinking {disfmarker} oh, wrong side. We shouldn't implement too much features on uh on our remote control, because elderly people will get th lost. Group features for a higher usability, uh what I was claiming in the previous meeting. Um, all the settings, about audio settings, video settings and channel settings, which are not very often used, we could group them uh on one button and make them accessible uh in one menu button or whatever, because they are used very rarely and well, it uh {disfmarker} there are a lot of options there, so we can really make uh {disfmarker} yeah, how do you say, we can spare at buttons over there.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} And um, if you want to implement V_C_R_ and D_V_D_ options, group them in the button, not too uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah. Small buttons, so they won't be very um, how do you say {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Visually presents.
Marketing: Yes, won't be very present, thank you. And a trendy look, well uh, although seventy percent of the market is uh {disfmarker} consists of elderly people uh who don't really care for trendy looks or whatever, I guess it can do no harm to make it trendy for the other thirty percent. That was kind of what I found.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: Well, then we {disfmarker} I'm gonna show you some of the new project requirements and then we gonna discuss on uh what features we find important.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes.
Project Manager: Uh, well some of the uh new requirements {vocalsound} make some of your findings quite uh irrelevant, I think.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Because um uh s decided to put {disfmarker} They have decide to put two additional requirements forward. Well, now I see four.
Marketing: Two? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: That's kinda strange. Well, they say tele teletext becomes outdated since the popularity of the internet. Well, I think that may be so, but well, we can't just leave the teletext button off.
User Interface: Well {disfmarker}
Project Manager: It's impossible, I think.
User Interface: No way.
Marketing: {vocalsound} No uh, I agree, I agree.
Project Manager: So the compromise we could make is just to make one teletext button, you know, like on and off, and don't make a lot of special {disfmarker} put a lot of special features on it to make it transparent or {disfmarker}
Marketing: Not too much, no.
Project Manager: You know, it's just you want you want to be able to make use of teletext, but not to play with it that much.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So we have to think of that. The remote control should only be used for television. Otherwise, the project becomes more complex, which endangers the time t t ma uh the time to market. So maybe we should leave all D_V_D_ and V_C_R_ related features off completely.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: I don't know. I think that uh that's what they're trying to say.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh, our current customers are within the age group of forty plus. New products should reach a new market with customers that are younger than forty. So you uh talked about the elderly who were willing to spend more on a remote control and who were interested.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: But, well, they're not relevant because we are aiming at a younger {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't really agree actually, to be honest. It's a very small market which we will approach then if we uh want to reach customers younger than forty. It's only like thirty percent of the total market.
Project Manager: Yeah, but it is {disfmarker} it's is a dif it's a fact that the th th that bigger market you're talking about, we already cover that.
Marketing: Mayb yeah?
Project Manager: Our company already sells remote control to the older people, but we we also want, {vocalsound} you know, a new customer group. That's the one we haven't covered yet. So I think that's what the problem is. We haven't got remote controls for uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: Well I think, yeah.
Marketing: Maybe maybe we can compromise a little bit.
Project Manager: Yeah, I think so. Maybe if it's {disfmarker}
Marketing: Not too much then, bu alright.
Project Manager: no no, but I think we have to just keep in mind what the older age group wants. So maybe we can make a remote control that's primarily interesting for the younger group, but isn't that bad for an older person either.
Marketing: Yes.
Project Manager: Uh, our corporate image sh should stay recognisable in our products. Our product's corporate colour and slogan must be implemented in the new design. Okay, {vocalsound} something else nice to know.
User Interface: But what's our slogan?
Project Manager: Sorry? Yeah, {vocalsound} you will have to look that up. {vocalsound}
User Interface: The slogan uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, I'll have a look.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think it's something about the {disfmarker}
User Interface: Puts fashion in electronics. {vocalsound}
Marketing: We put the fashion in electronics.
Project Manager: Oh, okay. {vocalsound} I thought it w might be, let's make things better or something, but {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Sense simplicity. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Sense and simplicity. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay well, {vocalsound} let's go back to the the agenda. So we've now had to {disfmarker} the three presentations. We know about the new project requirements. That means we can uh well d yeah, discuss on the remote control functions. Well, if I can uh make a start, I think it's becoming more clear what kind of remote control it's gonna be, and I already talked about the {disfmarker} maybe you have a f familiar with the rem remote control that has the the can opener underneath it. I think we're we're looking for some {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, we we're looking for a really simple remote control with only basic T_V_ functions. Y well, that {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Well, to be honest, if um our uh aim group is uh till forty, not older than forty, maybe that's not very uh {disfmarker} yeah, we don't really need to have a simple remote control.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah.
Marketing: I think we can implement more functions then, because um {vocalsound} basically uh the younger people are more able to adapt to new technology
User Interface: Yeah, but wha
Project Manager: Yeah, yeah.
Marketing: and therefore will be a more {disfmarker}
Project Manager: M yeah, that's why um well a lot of um the use the requirements the the account manager sent me, I think they are are c are contradicting each other,
User Interface: But {disfmarker}
Project Manager: because they want a simpler design, and no uh other uh s functions than just T_V_, but they s do aim at a younger {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yes. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well, ma
User Interface: Yeah, but you sai you said that that a lot of functions aren't used.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: So why should j we put this function in?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Well, I think {disfmarker}
User Interface: I think more {disfmarker} I think uh people {disfmarker} younger people are more looking for just a trendy look than uh more functions.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But I think uh you {disfmarker} we can make some discuss uh distinctions in uh what kin in the, know, th th in functions you have {disfmarker} Y Well you have different kind of uh equipment in your room, like a t T_V_ and a D_V_D_ player.
Marketing: Yes.
Project Manager: You can uh, know, you {gap} you can {vocalsound} make very d you can put very detailed functions regarding the T_V_ set on your remote control uh with the with uh the, you know, audio settings and uh v uh screen settings. We don't want that. I think that was {disfmarker} that became clear. We don't want. But w maybe we should put some func uh, I know that the younger people will most likely have a D_V_D_ player they want to, you know, they want to uh
Marketing: Yeah, control.
User Interface: Yeah, but uh you said {disfmarker}
Project Manager: control, remotely.
User Interface: Yeah, d yeah, but th the functions are not in the remote control we're making.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No, yeah, th th the user requirements of the the {disfmarker} The new project requirements told us not to {disfmarker}
User Interface: It's n Yeah.
Project Manager: But maybe w Yeah. I think we maybe should {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, well we should uh put some functions for other {disfmarker} maybe for other equipment on it. But just the basic functions. Maybe like rewind and wind,
Marketing: {gap}
Project Manager: or n what d what do you guys think?
Industrial Designer: But you can put them under the same button.
Marketing: Not much more than that.
Project Manager: Yeah, if {disfmarker} as far as possible.
Marketing: Yep. Or we can u u we could put'em behind the flip-flap or whatever.
Project Manager: But what do you think?
Marketing: So t
Project Manager: Do th should we implement features that uh uh or functions that {disfmarker} to control other devices?
User Interface: No.
Project Manager: No, you don't think so?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: No, new requirements say no.
Project Manager: Yeah, the new requirements say so.
User Interface: So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: But you can put a play and stop and and rewind.
Project Manager: Well, maybe it's {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: maybe there there there is something th m most of the time these functions don't support the particular device as well as their their own remote control.
User Interface: Yeah, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: You know, a lot of D_V_D_ players have some tricky settings with {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yes, but we {disfmarker}
User Interface: I i if it's too simple uh th they won't use the remote control, they use their own th th {vocalsound} with lot more functions.
Marketing: Y yes.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yep, exactly. That's that's wha
Marketing: But but for for example, V_C_R_, that's better example in this case. I think on a remote control for television you don't need to be able to programme uh the V_C_R_ to start recording at three P_M_ or whatever,
Project Manager: No no, you don't {vocalsound} {disfmarker} No no, you don't need it. No, no.
User Interface: No, no. Exactly.
Industrial Designer: Huh.
Marketing: just play, stop, rewind and uh fast forward.
Project Manager: Okay, but we have to think uh {disfmarker} w we have to think D_V_D_ I th uh, I guess,
Marketing: Yeah, I know, but uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: so um but uh from my experience it's kinda {vocalsound} a lot of D_V_D_ players, you know, like forwarding, goes differently. Uh, you get two speed or eight speed or sixteen speed. It's c sometimes a bit difficult.
User Interface: Mm, yeah.
Project Manager: Maybe if we just leave the D_V_D_ functional m uh {disfmarker} Well, I was thinking about putting it in, but concerning the project requirements and what you just said, I think we m should focus on the T_V_ then.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes.
User Interface: Yeah, but just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} keep it simple and look more at th
Project Manager: And uh and it's just an uh a complimentary remote and not a universal one. If you want to keep it simple, you can make a universal remote.
User Interface: No. It's only for television. So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay. It's just a s it it should be something that is like a gadget on your coffee table,
Industrial Designer: Yes, but there are there are {disfmarker}
Project Manager: and it's just for when you you you jump on the couch, you pick up the the the nice remote, the simple one, just to put on the television, nothing more.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah, nothing more. Exactly.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Alright.
Project Manager: Um, but what televis
Industrial Designer: But how wi how will you be able to handle a whole market? There are uh a dozen of uh {disfmarker} dozens of of remote controls that have {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, we we'll make w this one trendy.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} And simple.
User Interface: {vocalsound} The user interface is easy.
Project Manager: Well, we we will come to that, but ju first on the on the functions. So we should put uh zap buttons on it. Um, also numbers, to uh to go to the specific channels.
User Interface: And the basic {disfmarker} yeah, basic functions, yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes, definitely, yeah.
Project Manager: Uh,
User Interface: It's too much integrated in the other.
Project Manager: Okay, a t a teletext button should be there. But just one big teletext button, on and off.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Probably.
Marketing: Yeah, and maybe two or three other options, but not {disfmarker} nothing more than that. I think stop function is very useful. If you have a uh a page which consists of more pages, and you are not a very quick reader,
Project Manager: Oh, okay.
Marketing: then I think it's very irritating if the next page shows up, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, but uh I think that becomes too difficult, it's not a very common function and people will have to read up on their remote then.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Well, I use it very regularly, the action. I re I use it {vocalsound} quite often.
Project Manager: Yeah, yeah, but maybe you s yeah yeah, maybe y you do, but I've never heard of it in the first place. And
User Interface: Will you look {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: we have to {disfmarker} well t yeah, and t and teletext is becoming outdated.
User Interface: Look at the market.
Project Manager: We just want to see what programmes are on and what time it is probably. Yeah. I don't know. I think that that's kin getting too complex for our remote.
User Interface: Well {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I don't know what you th guys think.
Marketing: Might be. Might be.
User Interface: Yeah, I {disfmarker} uh, it's {gap} {disfmarker} {gap} Sunday I always use it for the uh yeah, for the soccer uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, but do you like to have a {disfmarker} such a s stop button? Or do you think it uh {disfmarker} I think it's a kind of uh uh very rare and special function.
User Interface: Well, uh when you uh uh {disfmarker} when you look uh {disfmarker} for example um, a couple of weeks ago I looked at the {disfmarker} for the flights, and there are a lot of flights in one page, so if if th
Project Manager: Yeah. Okay, it goes {disfmarker} Yeah, but that's kind of stuff we should do on the internet right now. That's why {vocalsound} it was uh said in the in the use in the r new requirements.
Industrial Designer: Yes, but you could put
User Interface: Yeah, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: on the z on the zap buttons you can put it to uh to uh access all the same pages.
Project Manager: Well yeah uh,
Industrial Designer: If you have seven pages, you can go up and down.
Project Manager: lots of new televisions can store pages, you know, and then you can just skip manually through them using {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Project Manager: I think we should just put one teletext button on it.
User Interface: True.
Project Manager: Then we meet uh the new requirements. we also meet the other thin y you sh you just re we have to choose for the the simple design, I guess.
User Interface: A simple {disfmarker} yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. Um, well, what functions do we have to decide on? Or do we {disfmarker} uh I dunno if we have t stif specifically name all the functions we n we want. We have the zap and uh the volume. Should we do m make them very big? The the the zap button. D d
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Marketing: I think the plus and the minus button should be uh quite present,
Project Manager: Th that's that's that's considered to be trendy also.
User Interface: But trendy, yeah.
Marketing: yep.
Project Manager: Or maybe you should place them on a {disfmarker} uh, in a special way?
User Interface: I don't know.
Industrial Designer: Maybe we can make uh a kind of a joystick.
Project Manager: Yeah, something or uh {vocalsound} somethin special way to to zap through the {disfmarker} it has to {vocalsound} s it has to be {vocalsound} {disfmarker} yeah, and quick. You have to use it very quickly.
User Interface: Original. It was uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yep.
User Interface: True.
Marketing: {vocalsound} If you grab the remote, your hands should be on top of the plus.
Project Manager: Yeah, and it {disfmarker} the buttons should make it um possible to to zap through your channels in a rapid {disfmarker} at a rapid pace.
Marketing: Yes.
Project Manager: Oh, what should we decide on then? I think in a in a case of this simple remote control, the technical aspects which uh weren't worked out already, but it w shouldn't be a problem then.
Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: No, it's o just signals uh {disfmarker} and the television d uh does the rest.
Project Manager: Yep.
User Interface: Maybe uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: No, okay, but we don't have to {disfmarker} uh, when we don't want to uh control other devices, I think it makes it even more simple.
Industrial Designer: No.
User Interface: Uh maybe we {disfmarker} uh uh the batteries maybe. If you use large batteries or small batter batteries.
Project Manager: I think
Industrial Designer: The most standard batteries.
Project Manager: I think that we should use uh d
User Interface: Yeah? {vocalsound}
Marketing: I think double A_.
Project Manager: yeah, not not uh the b the watch kind
Marketing: Yep.
Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} th the most uh {disfmarker} Well, it has to be simple, and I wi
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: The most ordinary uh batteries.
Project Manager: Which are most likely to be found somewhere in the house, you know.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Yep.
Project Manager: Oh. How much time do we ha we have left uh? M m m more than thirty minutes?
Marketing: {vocalsound} I think about twenty minutes.
Project Manager: Uh ten twenty minutes. {vocalsound} Well, uh these these shouldn't {disfmarker}
User Interface: Early break.
Industrial Designer: But i in a way we have to be uh uh special.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah, okay. But that's that's {disfmarker} Do you uh have you have you think about tha thought about that? How we can {disfmarker} what the extra touch can be. Do you suggest design or the shape or some gadget f f kind of feature or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Maybe th m
Project Manager: Well, it was something about how we lose them. Maybe it should be a remote control when you you clap you hands it makes some noise or some gadget kind of thing.
Marketing: {vocalsound} I think that's n that's more for a for an age range or uh {vocalsound} ten to twelve or whatever. {vocalsound}
User Interface: To find him. That's maybe {disfmarker} yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} I don't know. I don't know.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Nah, um a lot of people like to have such kind kind of kind of gay kind of things. It w it w should be like a birthday present or something that you give someone, and it is i {gap} has something nice.
Marketing: Yeah, yeah, that's good one, yep.
Project Manager: Or maybe it w should have a big uh light that can flash or something on it,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: or maybe it should {vocalsound} {disfmarker} or an {disfmarker} or the like the the can opener. Maybe it contains some feature that you don't normally link to a remote control. I think it's very impor because we're gonna make such a basic remote control, we have to do something to make it special.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: It's gonna cost twenty five Euros.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Ye I think the can opener i is a brilliant idea actually, because television and beer is not a rare combination. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, but the {disfmarker} well, it's already been done.
User Interface: Yeah, but that's {disfmarker} yeah.
Project Manager: Nah. {vocalsound} Yeah, that's true. But {disfmarker} and I think it's gonna be uh very uh {disfmarker} it has to be sturdy or something, so maybe with with bouncing pads so that you can just throw it on the floor or something.
Marketing: Yes.
Project Manager: {gap} it has to be used something special,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: and you really {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it has to,
Marketing: Yep.
Project Manager: you know y not s people, when they buy it, they have to think, well this one lasts for a long time. We're really gonna use them. Not some thing you you throw away next week, you know.
Marketing: No, that's true.
Project Manager: So maybe uh that's i I think that's {vocalsound} when uh when we decide on these type of functions, know, basic functions, uh it's very important to find something like this. So there's a very important task for you. And maybe we can all think about it.
User Interface: Be original, yeah.
Project Manager: Uh, also for you maybe, when t you {disfmarker} it's very nice when you can be entra when you can be trendy, and and uh and al as in a friend {disfmarker} use friendly as well, you know.
User Interface: Mm-hmm. And use friendly, yeah.
Project Manager: So big buttons, flashy design, and maybe some kind of gadget kind of thing.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh-huh.
User Interface: Must brain-storm.
Marketing: Yeah, a swapable front or whatever.
Project Manager: Yeah, or just different colours would be uh {disfmarker} I don't know if people also wanna spend more money on fronts for their uh remote control.
User Interface: Well {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: For the remote control. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: It could be be {disfmarker} Yeah, you never know, but {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Why not?
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: More money for us.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But it {disfmarker} and I think we have to make it quite big.
User Interface: Yeah. Quite big. Yeah, you think?
Project Manager: Yeah,
Marketing: Yes, definitely, definitely.
Project Manager: {gap} people {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: That's to be uh a formed for your hand.
Project Manager: So, and and also because uh it is expensive. If you want it to be something, you know, it's ha doesn't have much functions {gap}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: want to be {disfmarker} you don't want to get it l make it {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yes, it {disfmarker} it it should be f {vocalsound} be visible nearly anywhere in the room. As I uh as I said during my presentation, fifty percent uh o
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. And shou and should ni look nice when you put it on a table. I I think you m might wanna put it uh {vocalsound}
User Interface: A standard or something.
Project Manager: {disfmarker} yeah, that it it it it stands up. Yeah, you have to put it on its {disfmarker} So it's like a vase or uh something you put on a table.
Marketing: Yeah. A face?
Project Manager: {gap} no no, {gap} put stuff inside it. But, it's like like a statue or something {gap} {disfmarker}
Marketing: Or uh yeah, yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: More like a joystick then.
Marketing: Yeah, yeah, I see what you mean, yep.
User Interface: It's like you have uh four phones. Something like that.
Project Manager: Yeah yeah, but {disfmarker} yeah, but you also can put it somewhere near the window in {disfmarker}
Marketing: If you do that, but I don't know if that's possible within the production cost of twelve and a half Euros.
Project Manager: That it's it's fashionable.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {gap} I {gap} I don't {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I in in the base we could like make uh a button, and if you push it, the remote control itself s makes noise.
Project Manager: Oh, yeah.
Marketing: That's probably stupid, but uh as I found here uh, fifty percent, was it fifty?
Industrial Designer: But that's that's fun for the first time, and then the second {disfmarker}
Marketing: Uh fifty percent fifty percent often loses remote control.
Project Manager: Yeah, but but when you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} when it gets lost, how can you press the button to make it {disfmarker}
Marketing: No uh, of the base the the the the the the the thing you put it in.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh, okay.
User Interface: On the television.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh, that's kind of nice.
User Interface: Oh, like this.
Marketing: If an {disfmarker} a button in in that uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And then also you don't even need batteries, because you can make it uh chargeable. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Or you can {disfmarker}
User Interface: A char {vocalsound} chargeable. Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, you can ma make rechargeable one, yeah. Why not.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, that w yeah, but {disfmarker} yeah, the pro No, well I think that it might be t p Well, nee but we don't {disfmarker} Yeah.
User Interface: Why not.
Project Manager: Maybe you, but {vocalsound} we don't know much about production cost, but when you {disfmarker} you can imagine that when you spend twenty five Euros on a remote control and it's a basic remote control, then the then the money {disfmarker} there must be money to spend on that kind of st you know, {gap} rechargeable units.
Industrial Designer: With recharger.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: It should only cost twelve and a half Euros, of course. Aye?
Project Manager: Yeah, but we would d ma we'd do it in Taiwan and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So, it's not gonna be that expen
User Interface: Production. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, okay. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh I I think it's a great idea.
User Interface: It should be possible. I think it's a good idea.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: S some kind of be I've never seen that before, and you make it uh um be uh, you see it with uh the mo the mouses nowadays.
User Interface: To make a base or something?
Marketing: Yes. Yes, definitely. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yes, but is that handy?
Project Manager: Well, I {disfmarker} well it's really ch you can recharge it, so you ha never have the battery problem. That's one {gap}.
User Interface: It's it's it's it's
Project Manager: And uh you can always find your remote control up {disfmarker}
User Interface: it's not the purpose to be handy, it's
Industrial Designer: But but remote controls remote controls nowadays can can last uh two years, three years, with with t two batteries.
Project Manager: Uh, okay. Well, maybe yeah, you could {disfmarker} when that's {disfmarker} when it's too costly, you could probably skip the recharger,
Industrial Designer: And then you {disfmarker}
Project Manager: but you will {disfmarker} you do need uh also an {disfmarker} uh, also you would need a battery in the the base unit as well, you know. Does it makes it kinda {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yes. Or {disfmarker}
Marketing: Well y you you could connect that to two hundred to twenty volts, of course.
User Interface: Mm. Yeah, but that's not {disfmarker} it's ugly, I think.
Project Manager: Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Marketing: I don't know.
Project Manager: Yeah, but then it's very easy to make it also a rechargeab I don't think that is gonna cost much to make it also a recharge function in it.
User Interface: No.
Marketing: On the other hand, if you don't do it, we can also make a nice bay. I mean, it looks trendy and still {vocalsound} still put a bleep function in it,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: but um I think the bay is definitely uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I think it's a good idea. And make it, you know, we we um {disfmarker} Well, we uh {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it isn't a t a most uh costly uh remote control. We can save on the on the functions. We just {vocalsound} put some simple button in, make it big and sturdy, nothing more, and just make s sure there's some noise that it can make, or probably some kind of cheap light thing around it or that it uh that it lights up,
Marketing: Sure, why not. Yep.
Project Manager: it's also nice. And if you put it away, I think it's uh w we have to {disfmarker} we uh {disfmarker} that's uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: it's not a easy market.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: We have to something special. And for twenty five Euros people want something remote c special from your mote control,
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: True.
Project Manager: and we can't deliver that in r with uh regards to the functions,
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Definitely.
Project Manager: because we aren't gonna put {disfmarker}
Marketing: With eye candy, ear candy, whatever. Yeah, definitely.
Project Manager: Yeah. And then uh when make it, you know, nice looking shape and this {gap} {disfmarker} and then you also you got the stand-up thing. Yeah. I think I think it's a good idea. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah, it must be must be a gadget to have.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Definitely, yeah.
Project Manager: Oh, if it {disfmarker} let's {disfmarker} well, we will see what's possible concerning the the costs, and if it's possible we'll do that. And we even try to save up on other stuff to make sure we can do such a thing.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: And the first thing we {disfmarker} the most likeable thing to to n to skip is then probably the recharge function or something. If that's too expensive, we won't do that.
User Interface: Yeah, we c
Project Manager: But it would be nice.
Marketing: {vocalsound} It would be nice, yes.
Project Manager: It's the idea. I know that batteries last long nowadays. And and what people just think about, well, I'll never have to buy any r batteries again, so y b because it's very annoying when your battery is empty. And you know then when you haven't batteries around, and probably for two weeks, your remo {gap} {disfmarker} I've experienced that that {disfmarker}
Marketing: Most televisions break down before the battery pack is empty, so {vocalsound} yes.
Project Manager: Yeah, okay. So, easy functions. Well, we will we will {disfmarker} I think we'll work that out, zapping, numbers on it, bi
User Interface: Or just give a beep when the battery's out or uh down.
Project Manager: Yeah. But it's also annoying.
Marketing: Yeah, why not.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {gap}'cause as long as it stays {disfmarker} as it ke keeps working, you're not very motivated to do something about it.
Marketing: Hmm.
User Interface: Yeah. {gap} true.
Project Manager: Then it beeps all the time and {gap}.
Marketing: No, that's true.
Project Manager: You don't want to have {disfmarker} ever have those problems, and you won't have if if you have the rechargeable {gap}. And you don't have to use the unit, you can also put it on the side if people don't like it. Uh, i i in the in the ma
Marketing: Why not.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But you pay for it.
Project Manager: Yeah, but it w I mean, if if they pay for it because they think, oh, that's a great idea, I'm gonna use it. And when it, you know, when time goes by and they think, well, I'll never put him in the recharger, I think last long enough, then they put it on side and they can use it now and then. Then when they look {disfmarker} get m I I I know for sure that everybody who buys this remote control, within a couple of months of {disfmarker} they will be in the situation that they they're seeking for the remote control, they wanna see something quick and uh just push the button and th uh,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: I think it's brilliant.
Marketing: Bleep bleep bleep, oh there it is, yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, I've never {disfmarker} it's so simple, but I've never seen it.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: M maybe we should really {vocalsound} do this.
User Interface: And you can leave it just there.
Marketing: No. Nearly.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} Okay now, well, how much time have we got left? These clocks aren't uh synched.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh, now I've put uh {disfmarker} well, {gap} it is twenty p
User Interface: Yeah, I'll {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay, so we have ten minutes or something?
Marketing: Something like that, yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, but we're uh we're done. I think.
User Interface: Uh fifteen minutes.
Project Manager: We've decided on the functions. Well, there is some {disfmarker} oh. There is a closing sheet. We have lunch break, and then we have thirty minutes of individual work.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh.
Project Manager: Oh {vocalsound} okay, I'll make sure {disfmarker} I'll {disfmarker} I had some problems with uh the digitising the the first minutes, the the s the next minutes won't be a problem, but I'll try to make sure the first one will be in the folder too, but maybe it won't work, but you'll see. I think these are more important than the first ones, so {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} We'll see.
User Interface: Can you make an uh uh a part of f folder for the minutes maybe?
Project Manager: {gap}.
User Interface: That not not everything in one one uh folder.
Marketing: Maarten, five minutes.
Project Manager: Oh, five minutes. Yeah, because uh I I d I did uh {disfmarker} the first minutes I did were were were a bit scratchy, you know. Then I did a s second one with a nicer layout, which I could uh, know, use for the other ones {gap} well, but uh I d think uh I forgot to do {disfmarker} put done under the first one, and when you go write a second uh it's get {disfmarker} it's not working {vocalsound} when you try to write second uh paper or something.
User Interface: Yeah. Maybe.
Marketing: No, that's true uh, yeah.
Project Manager: And then you {disfmarker} {gap} {disfmarker} you had to overwrite it or someth I don't know. Becau I d uh, it was not my uh pen.
Marketing: Should we by the way draw um
Project Manager: {gap} this kind of looks you like.
Marketing: on our nice whiteboard, um a little uh idea of {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Of the shape.
Marketing: yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, probably, it would be nice.
User Interface: Or the sh
Marketing: I dunno. Has anyone got um {vocalsound} a little bit detailed ideas about the shape?
User Interface: {vocalsound} Do you get an idea of the shape?
Marketing: I don't, for one.
Industrial Designer: Maybe like this pen.
Marketing: A bit bigger I guess, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No, bigger.
User Interface: A little bit bigger, yeah but {disfmarker}
Marketing: The shape is nice, it's um something different, and we want we want that.
Industrial Designer: It has to feel nice in your hand.
Project Manager: Well, I I {vocalsound} I have to say, I have this uh can opening remote control in my head most of all,
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: or I think some {disfmarker} maybe we should {disfmarker} no, that will be too costly.
User Interface: Oh, uh look {disfmarker} uh look at the pictures.
Project Manager: We shou we could also, that was a {disfmarker} would also be an idea, but I don't think it {disfmarker} I don't know if it exists already, you should like make Alessi or something design it.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay, yeah.
Project Manager: That would also be nice. But that's gonna {disfmarker} then you c then you don't
Marketing: Yeah, but {vocalsound} twelve and a half Euros? Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, but then you don't have t yeah it {disfmarker} that's not something i that's in the production cost {disfmarker} {gap} a one {disfmarker} it's a one time, you know {disfmarker} s was {disfmarker} it's a single cost.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, m but but then you can {disfmarker} nah, I don't thin I think that it would be more expensive, because I've bought the Alessi stuff more often and even small pencil holders or something are more expensive.
Marketing: Yeah, that's true.
Project Manager: Would be a nice idea though. I don't know. I think it uh has to be a r {gap} it has to have round forms or something. Like something like that or so or so
Marketing: Something like that is very ergonomic.
Project Manager: And on th and then uh s a base unit underneath it. It's also round.
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Put it in there uh {gap} wire on it.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Maybe uh, I don't know, some some lights, a big but well. {gap}
User Interface: Yeah, flash lights at the side. At the side, or something like that.
Project Manager: Volume and programme, yeah.
Marketing: Yes, volume and programme should be there I guess, because you hands wi uh y your hands will be in the smaller part.
Project Manager: And some of the extra funct Some of the extra functions over here. Numbers.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, and the numbers on top, I guess.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: And and lights? How we're g well, maybe uh s a ring of {disfmarker} no, no, you have to {gap} {disfmarker} Maybe on the side of it.
Marketing: Maybe ro roun rounds
User Interface: Yeah, side of it.
Marketing: uh uh l sorry.
Project Manager: Along the side uh strip of {disfmarker} yeah.
User Interface: Just two LEDs or something on the side. Yeah.
Marketing: Maybe lights also around the volume and the p the plus minus programme buttons. {gap} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, but I also meant the the blinking li w you know, the ones that also blink when you try to uh uh locate your remote.
Marketing: Oh. Okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Well, theys have to be {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well, uh probably at the side. You know look at the front, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. When you you see it from the side, then it would look just {gap} like that. And then you have a strip of uh lights or something
User Interface: Yeah, exactly, and then there is {disfmarker} yeah. Yeah, something like that, yeah.
Marketing: Okay, yeah.
Project Manager: Well, uh I think it's nice, for one thing. {gap} maybe put something on top of it {vocalsound} or, you know, like that's {disfmarker} looks funny.
User Interface: {vocalsound} No. {vocalsound} No.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I don't know. Or some bump.
Marketing: I think I think that'll be too big tha too big then.
Project Manager: Maybe some {disfmarker} Yeah?
User Interface: Bumper or something.
Project Manager: We'll have to think about it. I think we're we're done.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes, we are.
Project Manager: We can save this one.
User Interface: Lunch break.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright. Yes, I guess it's lunch time.
User Interface: Okay then.
Project Manager: Mm mm. {gap}
User Interface: {gap}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't know.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Marketing: Half and hour?
User Interface: Okay, five {gap} uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: I thought our next uh next individual round was half an hour.
Project Manager: Yeah, that was what uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: I don't know about the lunch break.
Project Manager: Mm, we'll hear about it.
Marketing: Well {disfmarker}
User Interface: Oh {gap}. {gap}. {vocalsound} | Industrial Designer believed that the working design did not involve specialised technologies and therefore would not cost much or be difficult. User Interface questioned this statement by arguing that the technical functions depended on the user requirements. The team discussed this point and then agreed that the remote control should be for novice users. Later on, Project Manager suggested going through market research results delivered by Marketing and the new requirements shown by themself. These clarified the directions of design and then the team agreed to include simple functions, certain large buttons, etc. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
User Interface: Here we go again.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} My mouse is not working anymore.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} He's uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: when I put it in, is is going to beep beep beep.
Marketing: Oh, I got a nice little screen here over here.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I got like this big black border uh on every side.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Mm, okay.
Project Manager: Everybody ready?
Marketing: {vocalsound} I'll I'll fix it.
User Interface: Yeah, it's okay.
Project Manager: Welcome at the functional design meeting, again presented by Maarten.
Marketing: Yeah, whatever.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh this is the agenda, the opening. Uh, we've got three presentations. And I'm gonna show you some of the new projects requirements that were sent to me. And we're gonna make a decision on the remote control functions. We have uh forty minutes.
Marketing: Yes.
Project Manager: Oh, well this is the {vocalsound} the closing already.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So uh {disfmarker} well we start off with the th the first presentation then. Uh, I think um in uh {disfmarker} we have to do it in uh in right order.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Maybe the {disfmarker}
Marketing: I don't know what the right order is. So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well, it {disfmarker}
User Interface: No.
Industrial Designer: Huh.
Project Manager: Oh that. It won't {disfmarker} doesn't {disfmarker} Maybe we should start with the the technical functions.
Industrial Designer: Okay,
Project Manager: Yeah?
Industrial Designer: how can I get this on the whiteboard?
Project Manager: Well it's you dumped the file in the uh in the sh in the project document folder.
User Interface: In project.
Industrial Designer: Okay, I've done that.
Project Manager: You've already done that?
User Interface: No can that open.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Project Manager: Well let's close this one. We'll just uh open a new one.
User Interface: Open it there.
Project Manager: Uh, well. Yes. Uh-oh. New thing. Oh yeah, uh I have to say something. Uh, due to some uh technical problems I haven't uh digitized the last uh the meeting minutes. But I'll uh make sure that uh happens next time.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Okay. {vocalsound} About the get {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And I'll get this one uh in digital uh form too.
Industrial Designer:'Kay, we're going to um uh talk about working design. Um, the method of the remote control is uh electrical energy, it activates a chip uh in the remote. It's an electrical circuit which compose uh messages in the form of uh uh infrared signals to control the television. Mm, it's a nowadays very uh known, a known uh uh technology. Um, the known technology can make a cost very low. Uh, it's a wild uh {disfmarker} a wide sale uh of uh remote controls in the world. And and the components are very uh very cheap. Um, Uh, diodes, uh bat batteries and uh uh LED lights, they're needed and they're uh everywhere available. Uh, again, it's a fair price. It's a common uh technology uh, like I told um {disfmarker} Uh, the circuit board, it's the most um important uh um part of the remote control. Uh, we can use for that uh fibreglass with copper wires, it's {disfmarker} it is uh {disfmarker} can be made as fast as printing paper. It's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's all very uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, they're making it uh all the time. Uh,
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: and it's not uh very specialised uh technology. {vocalsound} I haven't come to here, but um I've got uh some uh images of uh remote controls. They were not uh very uh trendy or just uh just a remote control like everyone knows. So I don't know uh why I should put it here. Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. But it's the technical side of the remote control.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yes, but uh I uh haven't made it because uh of the time.
Project Manager: Oh. Okay. Well, we'll we'll have to skip that part then.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} What?
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: But you don't think it's a problem um to design uh the technical part of the remote control? It's gonna be easy?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No. Yes.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: But nothing restricted for user interface?
Project Manager: Yeah. M
User Interface: With technical {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Um, no, it's uh it's just a part of uh a known technology, yeah.
User Interface: I don't know.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface:'Kay.
Industrial Designer: Remote control is nothing special nowadays.
Project Manager: R regardless of what type of functions we want to implement. Doesn't really matter.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: But I kind of uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I don't think so,
Project Manager: Okay. Yeah, {gap} okay.
Industrial Designer: because of the {disfmarker} all the televisions uh {disfmarker} there are a few {disfmarker} maybe a couple of televisions with the new functions,
User Interface: Yes. Uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: but is it useful to put them on a on a standard uh remote?
Project Manager: Well, we'll see. We'll see later on.
User Interface: Well, the technical functions. Um, well I don't know if you got the same uh pictures as I got,
Project Manager: No.
User Interface: but uh I got these two,
Industrial Designer: No.
User Interface: and I think they're {disfmarker} we have to focus uh on uh the uh one hand the expert view or the novice user. {vocalsound} th I think it's it's very much uh depending on the user requirements, I don't s uh know who's doing t
Project Manager: Well, uh will there be some uh user requirements later on? {vocalsound} The ones I {disfmarker} I've uh received from the account manager.
User Interface: Yeah, but it {disfmarker} I think that's very important to watch uh what kind of functions there we want to uh put in a remote control.
Project Manager: Yeah. Well, we'll keep this in mind, and then discuss it later on.
User Interface: Yeah, well y we can put functions in it when uh {disfmarker} yeah, when we uh get the user requirements uh and we can update it.
Project Manager: Uh-huh. Okay, but this real this uh big d uh distinction between this type of remote. {gap} we should we should choose one uh {disfmarker} we should not compromise but uh really choose for uh expert viewer or novice v
Marketing: Yes, I agree. Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah? Well, what {disfmarker} that's what you want {disfmarker} trying to say.
User Interface: Well, yeah w if you want try a a a huge market, if you want to reach a huge market, uh like elderly people and {disfmarker} we have to choose for novice user.
Project Manager: Okay. Okay.
User Interface: But I don't know. It's it's really um depending on how how how far the the the remote controls are already in n um in use.
Project Manager: Yeah, well {vocalsound} some of these {disfmarker} Uh, yeah. Well, some of that will {disfmarker} Yeah, but i but it will be more clear when we come to the uh u uh some of the new requirements.
User Interface: Yeah, probably, yeah.
Marketing: Yes.
Project Manager: So {disfmarker}
User Interface: Uh well, there are l at least uh basic functions, uh like just th the channels uh one till nine, uh on and off switch, which must be clear with a red button or something like that. Um, most standard uh have volume, of course, and a mute function, and, of course, the next and previous channel. I think that's just basic what we need.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And from that on we can {gap} user requirements what we need more. Uh {disfmarker} Yeah, I just um um I thought Joost was looking at the trendy {disfmarker} the trends in the markets, and I don't know if there uh are any um {disfmarker} uh if you put more functions, more buttons, maybe it's com becoming less trendy or something like that.
Marketing: Yes.
User Interface: M you can just {vocalsound} you can k {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I haven't really found a conclusion like that.
User Interface: you can keep it in mind that.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: I don't know. Uh, I th I thought the the {disfmarker} with less buttons you can make a more trendier uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Design.
User Interface: yeah, more trendier design, I think. I think.
Marketing: Sounds interesting.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh, well, that's all I have to say, I think.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah, that was it.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright.
Project Manager: Well, then the Marketing expert can uh tell us something about the current market.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes.
User Interface: {gap}.
Marketing: Yeah. It's alright. Um {disfmarker} Alright, I've done some research for functional requirements. Um {disfmarker} yes. The working method um {vocalsound} there were hundred uh uh w h one hundred people, uh how do you say uh, f watched using remote controls in the usability lab and they also uh filled out a questionnaire uh with a few questions. Uh, I've lined them up here. Uh, ask whether um common remote control looks good or not, about willingness to spend money on remote control, about zapping behaviour, and uh and stuff like that. I uh have found some interesting things. We do we do got a market. Um, {vocalsound} three out of four people claim m uh to find remote controls ugly. So if we make a trendy design, we sure have seventy fi seventy five percent of the market, which you can reach. Um, three out of four users uh zaps a lot, as I uh quoted here from the uh results. {vocalsound} Zap buttons are used one hundred and sixty eight times per hour. That's quite a lot. Um, {vocalsound} relevant options are, of course, power buttons. Although, only used once per hour. Uh, channel selection, volume and buttons for text, and the more um, yeah, other functions, like audio settings, video settings, sound settings are not said to be very important and uh very much used. Furthermore, fifty percent says uh they only use ten percent of the buttons on a remote control. That doesn't say we got {disfmarker} we can leave ninety percent off. But it sure um says we shouldn't make it too uh complicated. Fifty percent also claims uh to have lost a remote control very often in the room. And um {vocalsound} an important thing here, the most important customers uh, which is over seventy percent of our market, is in the age range of thirty six to sixty five years old. And uh elderly people, our market, are less interested in uh nice features, but more willingly to spend more money on remote controls. So, {vocalsound} what I was thinking {disfmarker} oh, wrong side. We shouldn't implement too much features on uh on our remote control, because elderly people will get th lost. Group features for a higher usability, uh what I was claiming in the previous meeting. Um, all the settings, about audio settings, video settings and channel settings, which are not very often used, we could group them uh on one button and make them accessible uh in one menu button or whatever, because they are used very rarely and well, it uh {disfmarker} there are a lot of options there, so we can really make uh {disfmarker} yeah, how do you say, we can spare at buttons over there.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} And um, if you want to implement V_C_R_ and D_V_D_ options, group them in the button, not too uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah. Small buttons, so they won't be very um, how do you say {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Visually presents.
Marketing: Yes, won't be very present, thank you. And a trendy look, well uh, although seventy percent of the market is uh {disfmarker} consists of elderly people uh who don't really care for trendy looks or whatever, I guess it can do no harm to make it trendy for the other thirty percent. That was kind of what I found.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: Well, then we {disfmarker} I'm gonna show you some of the new project requirements and then we gonna discuss on uh what features we find important.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes.
Project Manager: Uh, well some of the uh new requirements {vocalsound} make some of your findings quite uh irrelevant, I think.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Because um uh s decided to put {disfmarker} They have decide to put two additional requirements forward. Well, now I see four.
Marketing: Two? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: That's kinda strange. Well, they say tele teletext becomes outdated since the popularity of the internet. Well, I think that may be so, but well, we can't just leave the teletext button off.
User Interface: Well {disfmarker}
Project Manager: It's impossible, I think.
User Interface: No way.
Marketing: {vocalsound} No uh, I agree, I agree.
Project Manager: So the compromise we could make is just to make one teletext button, you know, like on and off, and don't make a lot of special {disfmarker} put a lot of special features on it to make it transparent or {disfmarker}
Marketing: Not too much, no.
Project Manager: You know, it's just you want you want to be able to make use of teletext, but not to play with it that much.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So we have to think of that. The remote control should only be used for television. Otherwise, the project becomes more complex, which endangers the time t t ma uh the time to market. So maybe we should leave all D_V_D_ and V_C_R_ related features off completely.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: I don't know. I think that uh that's what they're trying to say.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh, our current customers are within the age group of forty plus. New products should reach a new market with customers that are younger than forty. So you uh talked about the elderly who were willing to spend more on a remote control and who were interested.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: But, well, they're not relevant because we are aiming at a younger {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't really agree actually, to be honest. It's a very small market which we will approach then if we uh want to reach customers younger than forty. It's only like thirty percent of the total market.
Project Manager: Yeah, but it is {disfmarker} it's is a dif it's a fact that the th th that bigger market you're talking about, we already cover that.
Marketing: Mayb yeah?
Project Manager: Our company already sells remote control to the older people, but we we also want, {vocalsound} you know, a new customer group. That's the one we haven't covered yet. So I think that's what the problem is. We haven't got remote controls for uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: Well I think, yeah.
Marketing: Maybe maybe we can compromise a little bit.
Project Manager: Yeah, I think so. Maybe if it's {disfmarker}
Marketing: Not too much then, bu alright.
Project Manager: no no, but I think we have to just keep in mind what the older age group wants. So maybe we can make a remote control that's primarily interesting for the younger group, but isn't that bad for an older person either.
Marketing: Yes.
Project Manager: Uh, our corporate image sh should stay recognisable in our products. Our product's corporate colour and slogan must be implemented in the new design. Okay, {vocalsound} something else nice to know.
User Interface: But what's our slogan?
Project Manager: Sorry? Yeah, {vocalsound} you will have to look that up. {vocalsound}
User Interface: The slogan uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, I'll have a look.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think it's something about the {disfmarker}
User Interface: Puts fashion in electronics. {vocalsound}
Marketing: We put the fashion in electronics.
Project Manager: Oh, okay. {vocalsound} I thought it w might be, let's make things better or something, but {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Sense simplicity. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Sense and simplicity. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay well, {vocalsound} let's go back to the the agenda. So we've now had to {disfmarker} the three presentations. We know about the new project requirements. That means we can uh well d yeah, discuss on the remote control functions. Well, if I can uh make a start, I think it's becoming more clear what kind of remote control it's gonna be, and I already talked about the {disfmarker} maybe you have a f familiar with the rem remote control that has the the can opener underneath it. I think we're we're looking for some {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, we we're looking for a really simple remote control with only basic T_V_ functions. Y well, that {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Well, to be honest, if um our uh aim group is uh till forty, not older than forty, maybe that's not very uh {disfmarker} yeah, we don't really need to have a simple remote control.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah.
Marketing: I think we can implement more functions then, because um {vocalsound} basically uh the younger people are more able to adapt to new technology
User Interface: Yeah, but wha
Project Manager: Yeah, yeah.
Marketing: and therefore will be a more {disfmarker}
Project Manager: M yeah, that's why um well a lot of um the use the requirements the the account manager sent me, I think they are are c are contradicting each other,
User Interface: But {disfmarker}
Project Manager: because they want a simpler design, and no uh other uh s functions than just T_V_, but they s do aim at a younger {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yes. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well, ma
User Interface: Yeah, but you sai you said that that a lot of functions aren't used.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: So why should j we put this function in?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Well, I think {disfmarker}
User Interface: I think more {disfmarker} I think uh people {disfmarker} younger people are more looking for just a trendy look than uh more functions.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But I think uh you {disfmarker} we can make some discuss uh distinctions in uh what kin in the, know, th th in functions you have {disfmarker} Y Well you have different kind of uh equipment in your room, like a t T_V_ and a D_V_D_ player.
Marketing: Yes.
Project Manager: You can uh, know, you {gap} you can {vocalsound} make very d you can put very detailed functions regarding the T_V_ set on your remote control uh with the with uh the, you know, audio settings and uh v uh screen settings. We don't want that. I think that was {disfmarker} that became clear. We don't want. But w maybe we should put some func uh, I know that the younger people will most likely have a D_V_D_ player they want to, you know, they want to uh
Marketing: Yeah, control.
User Interface: Yeah, but uh you said {disfmarker}
Project Manager: control, remotely.
User Interface: Yeah, d yeah, but th the functions are not in the remote control we're making.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No, yeah, th th the user requirements of the the {disfmarker} The new project requirements told us not to {disfmarker}
User Interface: It's n Yeah.
Project Manager: But maybe w Yeah. I think we maybe should {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, well we should uh put some functions for other {disfmarker} maybe for other equipment on it. But just the basic functions. Maybe like rewind and wind,
Marketing: {gap}
Project Manager: or n what d what do you guys think?
Industrial Designer: But you can put them under the same button.
Marketing: Not much more than that.
Project Manager: Yeah, if {disfmarker} as far as possible.
Marketing: Yep. Or we can u u we could put'em behind the flip-flap or whatever.
Project Manager: But what do you think?
Marketing: So t
Project Manager: Do th should we implement features that uh uh or functions that {disfmarker} to control other devices?
User Interface: No.
Project Manager: No, you don't think so?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: No, new requirements say no.
Project Manager: Yeah, the new requirements say so.
User Interface: So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: But you can put a play and stop and and rewind.
Project Manager: Well, maybe it's {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: maybe there there there is something th m most of the time these functions don't support the particular device as well as their their own remote control.
User Interface: Yeah, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: You know, a lot of D_V_D_ players have some tricky settings with {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yes, but we {disfmarker}
User Interface: I i if it's too simple uh th they won't use the remote control, they use their own th th {vocalsound} with lot more functions.
Marketing: Y yes.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yep, exactly. That's that's wha
Marketing: But but for for example, V_C_R_, that's better example in this case. I think on a remote control for television you don't need to be able to programme uh the V_C_R_ to start recording at three P_M_ or whatever,
Project Manager: No no, you don't {vocalsound} {disfmarker} No no, you don't need it. No, no.
User Interface: No, no. Exactly.
Industrial Designer: Huh.
Marketing: just play, stop, rewind and uh fast forward.
Project Manager: Okay, but we have to think uh {disfmarker} w we have to think D_V_D_ I th uh, I guess,
Marketing: Yeah, I know, but uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: so um but uh from my experience it's kinda {vocalsound} a lot of D_V_D_ players, you know, like forwarding, goes differently. Uh, you get two speed or eight speed or sixteen speed. It's c sometimes a bit difficult.
User Interface: Mm, yeah.
Project Manager: Maybe if we just leave the D_V_D_ functional m uh {disfmarker} Well, I was thinking about putting it in, but concerning the project requirements and what you just said, I think we m should focus on the T_V_ then.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes.
User Interface: Yeah, but just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} keep it simple and look more at th
Project Manager: And uh and it's just an uh a complimentary remote and not a universal one. If you want to keep it simple, you can make a universal remote.
User Interface: No. It's only for television. So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay. It's just a s it it should be something that is like a gadget on your coffee table,
Industrial Designer: Yes, but there are there are {disfmarker}
Project Manager: and it's just for when you you you jump on the couch, you pick up the the the nice remote, the simple one, just to put on the television, nothing more.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah, nothing more. Exactly.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Alright.
Project Manager: Um, but what televis
Industrial Designer: But how wi how will you be able to handle a whole market? There are uh a dozen of uh {disfmarker} dozens of of remote controls that have {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, we we'll make w this one trendy.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} And simple.
User Interface: {vocalsound} The user interface is easy.
Project Manager: Well, we we will come to that, but ju first on the on the functions. So we should put uh zap buttons on it. Um, also numbers, to uh to go to the specific channels.
User Interface: And the basic {disfmarker} yeah, basic functions, yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes, definitely, yeah.
Project Manager: Uh,
User Interface: It's too much integrated in the other.
Project Manager: Okay, a t a teletext button should be there. But just one big teletext button, on and off.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Probably.
Marketing: Yeah, and maybe two or three other options, but not {disfmarker} nothing more than that. I think stop function is very useful. If you have a uh a page which consists of more pages, and you are not a very quick reader,
Project Manager: Oh, okay.
Marketing: then I think it's very irritating if the next page shows up, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, but uh I think that becomes too difficult, it's not a very common function and people will have to read up on their remote then.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Well, I use it very regularly, the action. I re I use it {vocalsound} quite often.
Project Manager: Yeah, yeah, but maybe you s yeah yeah, maybe y you do, but I've never heard of it in the first place. And
User Interface: Will you look {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: we have to {disfmarker} well t yeah, and t and teletext is becoming outdated.
User Interface: Look at the market.
Project Manager: We just want to see what programmes are on and what time it is probably. Yeah. I don't know. I think that that's kin getting too complex for our remote.
User Interface: Well {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I don't know what you th guys think.
Marketing: Might be. Might be.
User Interface: Yeah, I {disfmarker} uh, it's {gap} {disfmarker} {gap} Sunday I always use it for the uh yeah, for the soccer uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, but do you like to have a {disfmarker} such a s stop button? Or do you think it uh {disfmarker} I think it's a kind of uh uh very rare and special function.
User Interface: Well, uh when you uh uh {disfmarker} when you look uh {disfmarker} for example um, a couple of weeks ago I looked at the {disfmarker} for the flights, and there are a lot of flights in one page, so if if th
Project Manager: Yeah. Okay, it goes {disfmarker} Yeah, but that's kind of stuff we should do on the internet right now. That's why {vocalsound} it was uh said in the in the use in the r new requirements.
Industrial Designer: Yes, but you could put
User Interface: Yeah, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: on the z on the zap buttons you can put it to uh to uh access all the same pages.
Project Manager: Well yeah uh,
Industrial Designer: If you have seven pages, you can go up and down.
Project Manager: lots of new televisions can store pages, you know, and then you can just skip manually through them using {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Project Manager: I think we should just put one teletext button on it.
User Interface: True.
Project Manager: Then we meet uh the new requirements. we also meet the other thin y you sh you just re we have to choose for the the simple design, I guess.
User Interface: A simple {disfmarker} yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. Um, well, what functions do we have to decide on? Or do we {disfmarker} uh I dunno if we have t stif specifically name all the functions we n we want. We have the zap and uh the volume. Should we do m make them very big? The the the zap button. D d
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Marketing: I think the plus and the minus button should be uh quite present,
Project Manager: Th that's that's that's considered to be trendy also.
User Interface: But trendy, yeah.
Marketing: yep.
Project Manager: Or maybe you should place them on a {disfmarker} uh, in a special way?
User Interface: I don't know.
Industrial Designer: Maybe we can make uh a kind of a joystick.
Project Manager: Yeah, something or uh {vocalsound} somethin special way to to zap through the {disfmarker} it has to {vocalsound} s it has to be {vocalsound} {disfmarker} yeah, and quick. You have to use it very quickly.
User Interface: Original. It was uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yep.
User Interface: True.
Marketing: {vocalsound} If you grab the remote, your hands should be on top of the plus.
Project Manager: Yeah, and it {disfmarker} the buttons should make it um possible to to zap through your channels in a rapid {disfmarker} at a rapid pace.
Marketing: Yes.
Project Manager: Oh, what should we decide on then? I think in a in a case of this simple remote control, the technical aspects which uh weren't worked out already, but it w shouldn't be a problem then.
Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: No, it's o just signals uh {disfmarker} and the television d uh does the rest.
Project Manager: Yep.
User Interface: Maybe uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: No, okay, but we don't have to {disfmarker} uh, when we don't want to uh control other devices, I think it makes it even more simple.
Industrial Designer: No.
User Interface: Uh maybe we {disfmarker} uh uh the batteries maybe. If you use large batteries or small batter batteries.
Project Manager: I think
Industrial Designer: The most standard batteries.
Project Manager: I think that we should use uh d
User Interface: Yeah? {vocalsound}
Marketing: I think double A_.
Project Manager: yeah, not not uh the b the watch kind
Marketing: Yep.
Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} th the most uh {disfmarker} Well, it has to be simple, and I wi
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: The most ordinary uh batteries.
Project Manager: Which are most likely to be found somewhere in the house, you know.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Yep.
Project Manager: Oh. How much time do we ha we have left uh? M m m more than thirty minutes?
Marketing: {vocalsound} I think about twenty minutes.
Project Manager: Uh ten twenty minutes. {vocalsound} Well, uh these these shouldn't {disfmarker}
User Interface: Early break.
Industrial Designer: But i in a way we have to be uh uh special.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah, okay. But that's that's {disfmarker} Do you uh have you have you think about tha thought about that? How we can {disfmarker} what the extra touch can be. Do you suggest design or the shape or some gadget f f kind of feature or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Maybe th m
Project Manager: Well, it was something about how we lose them. Maybe it should be a remote control when you you clap you hands it makes some noise or some gadget kind of thing.
Marketing: {vocalsound} I think that's n that's more for a for an age range or uh {vocalsound} ten to twelve or whatever. {vocalsound}
User Interface: To find him. That's maybe {disfmarker} yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} I don't know. I don't know.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Nah, um a lot of people like to have such kind kind of kind of gay kind of things. It w it w should be like a birthday present or something that you give someone, and it is i {gap} has something nice.
Marketing: Yeah, yeah, that's good one, yep.
Project Manager: Or maybe it w should have a big uh light that can flash or something on it,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: or maybe it should {vocalsound} {disfmarker} or an {disfmarker} or the like the the can opener. Maybe it contains some feature that you don't normally link to a remote control. I think it's very impor because we're gonna make such a basic remote control, we have to do something to make it special.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: It's gonna cost twenty five Euros.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Ye I think the can opener i is a brilliant idea actually, because television and beer is not a rare combination. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, but the {disfmarker} well, it's already been done.
User Interface: Yeah, but that's {disfmarker} yeah.
Project Manager: Nah. {vocalsound} Yeah, that's true. But {disfmarker} and I think it's gonna be uh very uh {disfmarker} it has to be sturdy or something, so maybe with with bouncing pads so that you can just throw it on the floor or something.
Marketing: Yes.
Project Manager: {gap} it has to be used something special,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: and you really {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it has to,
Marketing: Yep.
Project Manager: you know y not s people, when they buy it, they have to think, well this one lasts for a long time. We're really gonna use them. Not some thing you you throw away next week, you know.
Marketing: No, that's true.
Project Manager: So maybe uh that's i I think that's {vocalsound} when uh when we decide on these type of functions, know, basic functions, uh it's very important to find something like this. So there's a very important task for you. And maybe we can all think about it.
User Interface: Be original, yeah.
Project Manager: Uh, also for you maybe, when t you {disfmarker} it's very nice when you can be entra when you can be trendy, and and uh and al as in a friend {disfmarker} use friendly as well, you know.
User Interface: Mm-hmm. And use friendly, yeah.
Project Manager: So big buttons, flashy design, and maybe some kind of gadget kind of thing.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh-huh.
User Interface: Must brain-storm.
Marketing: Yeah, a swapable front or whatever.
Project Manager: Yeah, or just different colours would be uh {disfmarker} I don't know if people also wanna spend more money on fronts for their uh remote control.
User Interface: Well {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: For the remote control. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: It could be be {disfmarker} Yeah, you never know, but {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Why not?
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: More money for us.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But it {disfmarker} and I think we have to make it quite big.
User Interface: Yeah. Quite big. Yeah, you think?
Project Manager: Yeah,
Marketing: Yes, definitely, definitely.
Project Manager: {gap} people {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: That's to be uh a formed for your hand.
Project Manager: So, and and also because uh it is expensive. If you want it to be something, you know, it's ha doesn't have much functions {gap}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: want to be {disfmarker} you don't want to get it l make it {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yes, it {disfmarker} it it should be f {vocalsound} be visible nearly anywhere in the room. As I uh as I said during my presentation, fifty percent uh o
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. And shou and should ni look nice when you put it on a table. I I think you m might wanna put it uh {vocalsound}
User Interface: A standard or something.
Project Manager: {disfmarker} yeah, that it it it it stands up. Yeah, you have to put it on its {disfmarker} So it's like a vase or uh something you put on a table.
Marketing: Yeah. A face?
Project Manager: {gap} no no, {gap} put stuff inside it. But, it's like like a statue or something {gap} {disfmarker}
Marketing: Or uh yeah, yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: More like a joystick then.
Marketing: Yeah, yeah, I see what you mean, yep.
User Interface: It's like you have uh four phones. Something like that.
Project Manager: Yeah yeah, but {disfmarker} yeah, but you also can put it somewhere near the window in {disfmarker}
Marketing: If you do that, but I don't know if that's possible within the production cost of twelve and a half Euros.
Project Manager: That it's it's fashionable.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {gap} I {gap} I don't {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I in in the base we could like make uh a button, and if you push it, the remote control itself s makes noise.
Project Manager: Oh, yeah.
Marketing: That's probably stupid, but uh as I found here uh, fifty percent, was it fifty?
Industrial Designer: But that's that's fun for the first time, and then the second {disfmarker}
Marketing: Uh fifty percent fifty percent often loses remote control.
Project Manager: Yeah, but but when you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} when it gets lost, how can you press the button to make it {disfmarker}
Marketing: No uh, of the base the the the the the the the thing you put it in.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh, okay.
User Interface: On the television.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh, that's kind of nice.
User Interface: Oh, like this.
Marketing: If an {disfmarker} a button in in that uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And then also you don't even need batteries, because you can make it uh chargeable. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Or you can {disfmarker}
User Interface: A char {vocalsound} chargeable. Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, you can ma make rechargeable one, yeah. Why not.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, that w yeah, but {disfmarker} yeah, the pro No, well I think that it might be t p Well, nee but we don't {disfmarker} Yeah.
User Interface: Why not.
Project Manager: Maybe you, but {vocalsound} we don't know much about production cost, but when you {disfmarker} you can imagine that when you spend twenty five Euros on a remote control and it's a basic remote control, then the then the money {disfmarker} there must be money to spend on that kind of st you know, {gap} rechargeable units.
Industrial Designer: With recharger.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: It should only cost twelve and a half Euros, of course. Aye?
Project Manager: Yeah, but we would d ma we'd do it in Taiwan and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So, it's not gonna be that expen
User Interface: Production. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, okay. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh I I think it's a great idea.
User Interface: It should be possible. I think it's a good idea.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: S some kind of be I've never seen that before, and you make it uh um be uh, you see it with uh the mo the mouses nowadays.
User Interface: To make a base or something?
Marketing: Yes. Yes, definitely. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yes, but is that handy?
Project Manager: Well, I {disfmarker} well it's really ch you can recharge it, so you ha never have the battery problem. That's one {gap}.
User Interface: It's it's it's it's
Project Manager: And uh you can always find your remote control up {disfmarker}
User Interface: it's not the purpose to be handy, it's
Industrial Designer: But but remote controls remote controls nowadays can can last uh two years, three years, with with t two batteries.
Project Manager: Uh, okay. Well, maybe yeah, you could {disfmarker} when that's {disfmarker} when it's too costly, you could probably skip the recharger,
Industrial Designer: And then you {disfmarker}
Project Manager: but you will {disfmarker} you do need uh also an {disfmarker} uh, also you would need a battery in the the base unit as well, you know. Does it makes it kinda {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yes. Or {disfmarker}
Marketing: Well y you you could connect that to two hundred to twenty volts, of course.
User Interface: Mm. Yeah, but that's not {disfmarker} it's ugly, I think.
Project Manager: Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Marketing: I don't know.
Project Manager: Yeah, but then it's very easy to make it also a rechargeab I don't think that is gonna cost much to make it also a recharge function in it.
User Interface: No.
Marketing: On the other hand, if you don't do it, we can also make a nice bay. I mean, it looks trendy and still {vocalsound} still put a bleep function in it,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: but um I think the bay is definitely uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I think it's a good idea. And make it, you know, we we um {disfmarker} Well, we uh {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it isn't a t a most uh costly uh remote control. We can save on the on the functions. We just {vocalsound} put some simple button in, make it big and sturdy, nothing more, and just make s sure there's some noise that it can make, or probably some kind of cheap light thing around it or that it uh that it lights up,
Marketing: Sure, why not. Yep.
Project Manager: it's also nice. And if you put it away, I think it's uh w we have to {disfmarker} we uh {disfmarker} that's uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: it's not a easy market.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: We have to something special. And for twenty five Euros people want something remote c special from your mote control,
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: True.
Project Manager: and we can't deliver that in r with uh regards to the functions,
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Definitely.
Project Manager: because we aren't gonna put {disfmarker}
Marketing: With eye candy, ear candy, whatever. Yeah, definitely.
Project Manager: Yeah. And then uh when make it, you know, nice looking shape and this {gap} {disfmarker} and then you also you got the stand-up thing. Yeah. I think I think it's a good idea. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah, it must be must be a gadget to have.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Definitely, yeah.
Project Manager: Oh, if it {disfmarker} let's {disfmarker} well, we will see what's possible concerning the the costs, and if it's possible we'll do that. And we even try to save up on other stuff to make sure we can do such a thing.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: And the first thing we {disfmarker} the most likeable thing to to n to skip is then probably the recharge function or something. If that's too expensive, we won't do that.
User Interface: Yeah, we c
Project Manager: But it would be nice.
Marketing: {vocalsound} It would be nice, yes.
Project Manager: It's the idea. I know that batteries last long nowadays. And and what people just think about, well, I'll never have to buy any r batteries again, so y b because it's very annoying when your battery is empty. And you know then when you haven't batteries around, and probably for two weeks, your remo {gap} {disfmarker} I've experienced that that {disfmarker}
Marketing: Most televisions break down before the battery pack is empty, so {vocalsound} yes.
Project Manager: Yeah, okay. So, easy functions. Well, we will we will {disfmarker} I think we'll work that out, zapping, numbers on it, bi
User Interface: Or just give a beep when the battery's out or uh down.
Project Manager: Yeah. But it's also annoying.
Marketing: Yeah, why not.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {gap}'cause as long as it stays {disfmarker} as it ke keeps working, you're not very motivated to do something about it.
Marketing: Hmm.
User Interface: Yeah. {gap} true.
Project Manager: Then it beeps all the time and {gap}.
Marketing: No, that's true.
Project Manager: You don't want to have {disfmarker} ever have those problems, and you won't have if if you have the rechargeable {gap}. And you don't have to use the unit, you can also put it on the side if people don't like it. Uh, i i in the in the ma
Marketing: Why not.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But you pay for it.
Project Manager: Yeah, but it w I mean, if if they pay for it because they think, oh, that's a great idea, I'm gonna use it. And when it, you know, when time goes by and they think, well, I'll never put him in the recharger, I think last long enough, then they put it on side and they can use it now and then. Then when they look {disfmarker} get m I I I know for sure that everybody who buys this remote control, within a couple of months of {disfmarker} they will be in the situation that they they're seeking for the remote control, they wanna see something quick and uh just push the button and th uh,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: I think it's brilliant.
Marketing: Bleep bleep bleep, oh there it is, yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, I've never {disfmarker} it's so simple, but I've never seen it.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: M maybe we should really {vocalsound} do this.
User Interface: And you can leave it just there.
Marketing: No. Nearly.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} Okay now, well, how much time have we got left? These clocks aren't uh synched.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh, now I've put uh {disfmarker} well, {gap} it is twenty p
User Interface: Yeah, I'll {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay, so we have ten minutes or something?
Marketing: Something like that, yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, but we're uh we're done. I think.
User Interface: Uh fifteen minutes.
Project Manager: We've decided on the functions. Well, there is some {disfmarker} oh. There is a closing sheet. We have lunch break, and then we have thirty minutes of individual work.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh.
Project Manager: Oh {vocalsound} okay, I'll make sure {disfmarker} I'll {disfmarker} I had some problems with uh the digitising the the first minutes, the the s the next minutes won't be a problem, but I'll try to make sure the first one will be in the folder too, but maybe it won't work, but you'll see. I think these are more important than the first ones, so {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} We'll see.
User Interface: Can you make an uh uh a part of f folder for the minutes maybe?
Project Manager: {gap}.
User Interface: That not not everything in one one uh folder.
Marketing: Maarten, five minutes.
Project Manager: Oh, five minutes. Yeah, because uh I I d I did uh {disfmarker} the first minutes I did were were were a bit scratchy, you know. Then I did a s second one with a nicer layout, which I could uh, know, use for the other ones {gap} well, but uh I d think uh I forgot to do {disfmarker} put done under the first one, and when you go write a second uh it's get {disfmarker} it's not working {vocalsound} when you try to write second uh paper or something.
User Interface: Yeah. Maybe.
Marketing: No, that's true uh, yeah.
Project Manager: And then you {disfmarker} {gap} {disfmarker} you had to overwrite it or someth I don't know. Becau I d uh, it was not my uh pen.
Marketing: Should we by the way draw um
Project Manager: {gap} this kind of looks you like.
Marketing: on our nice whiteboard, um a little uh idea of {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Of the shape.
Marketing: yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, probably, it would be nice.
User Interface: Or the sh
Marketing: I dunno. Has anyone got um {vocalsound} a little bit detailed ideas about the shape?
User Interface: {vocalsound} Do you get an idea of the shape?
Marketing: I don't, for one.
Industrial Designer: Maybe like this pen.
Marketing: A bit bigger I guess, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No, bigger.
User Interface: A little bit bigger, yeah but {disfmarker}
Marketing: The shape is nice, it's um something different, and we want we want that.
Industrial Designer: It has to feel nice in your hand.
Project Manager: Well, I I {vocalsound} I have to say, I have this uh can opening remote control in my head most of all,
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: or I think some {disfmarker} maybe we should {disfmarker} no, that will be too costly.
User Interface: Oh, uh look {disfmarker} uh look at the pictures.
Project Manager: We shou we could also, that was a {disfmarker} would also be an idea, but I don't think it {disfmarker} I don't know if it exists already, you should like make Alessi or something design it.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay, yeah.
Project Manager: That would also be nice. But that's gonna {disfmarker} then you c then you don't
Marketing: Yeah, but {vocalsound} twelve and a half Euros? Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, but then you don't have t yeah it {disfmarker} that's not something i that's in the production cost {disfmarker} {gap} a one {disfmarker} it's a one time, you know {disfmarker} s was {disfmarker} it's a single cost.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, m but but then you can {disfmarker} nah, I don't thin I think that it would be more expensive, because I've bought the Alessi stuff more often and even small pencil holders or something are more expensive.
Marketing: Yeah, that's true.
Project Manager: Would be a nice idea though. I don't know. I think it uh has to be a r {gap} it has to have round forms or something. Like something like that or so or so
Marketing: Something like that is very ergonomic.
Project Manager: And on th and then uh s a base unit underneath it. It's also round.
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Put it in there uh {gap} wire on it.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Maybe uh, I don't know, some some lights, a big but well. {gap}
User Interface: Yeah, flash lights at the side. At the side, or something like that.
Project Manager: Volume and programme, yeah.
Marketing: Yes, volume and programme should be there I guess, because you hands wi uh y your hands will be in the smaller part.
Project Manager: And some of the extra funct Some of the extra functions over here. Numbers.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, and the numbers on top, I guess.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: And and lights? How we're g well, maybe uh s a ring of {disfmarker} no, no, you have to {gap} {disfmarker} Maybe on the side of it.
Marketing: Maybe ro roun rounds
User Interface: Yeah, side of it.
Marketing: uh uh l sorry.
Project Manager: Along the side uh strip of {disfmarker} yeah.
User Interface: Just two LEDs or something on the side. Yeah.
Marketing: Maybe lights also around the volume and the p the plus minus programme buttons. {gap} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, but I also meant the the blinking li w you know, the ones that also blink when you try to uh uh locate your remote.
Marketing: Oh. Okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Well, theys have to be {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well, uh probably at the side. You know look at the front, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. When you you see it from the side, then it would look just {gap} like that. And then you have a strip of uh lights or something
User Interface: Yeah, exactly, and then there is {disfmarker} yeah. Yeah, something like that, yeah.
Marketing: Okay, yeah.
Project Manager: Well, uh I think it's nice, for one thing. {gap} maybe put something on top of it {vocalsound} or, you know, like that's {disfmarker} looks funny.
User Interface: {vocalsound} No. {vocalsound} No.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I don't know. Or some bump.
Marketing: I think I think that'll be too big tha too big then.
Project Manager: Maybe some {disfmarker} Yeah?
User Interface: Bumper or something.
Project Manager: We'll have to think about it. I think we're we're done.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes, we are.
Project Manager: We can save this one.
User Interface: Lunch break.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright. Yes, I guess it's lunch time.
User Interface: Okay then.
Project Manager: Mm mm. {gap}
User Interface: {gap}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't know.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Marketing: Half and hour?
User Interface: Okay, five {gap} uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: I thought our next uh next individual round was half an hour.
Project Manager: Yeah, that was what uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: I don't know about the lunch break.
Project Manager: Mm, we'll hear about it.
Marketing: Well {disfmarker}
User Interface: Oh {gap}. {gap}. {vocalsound} | In this meeting, the team brainstormed about the look, functions and gadgets to adopt in the remote control and finally reached a decision on the overall design. The meeting started with discussion on the technical functions based on some new requirements delivered by Project Manager and on market research results presented by Marketing. In the end, the team agreed on including mainly basic functions on the remote control, adding a joystick-like gadget that was able to charge and track the device, enlarging certain buttons and making it flashy. | qmsum |
What questions did team members raise concerning Industrial Designer's presentation?
Project Manager: Think we can first {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: Right it was function F_ eight or something.
Industrial Designer: Tha
User Interface: This one right there.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Who is gonna do a PowerPoint presentation?
User Interface: Think we all {gap} {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: You will as well?
User Interface: Huh. Oh I thought we all were.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah, I have one too, okay.
Project Manager: {gap}.
User Interface: S
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Marketing: {gap}.
User Interface: Whoops I forgot to put the thing on {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Right. I just wanna {disfmarker}'cause basically I can't re I've {disfmarker} really crap at remembering everyone's name so I just wanna {disfmarker} rather than going uh Miss Marketing and Miss this and Miss that {vocalsound} wanted to know your names again.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Okay I'm {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {gap} just gonna leave this up here'cause I'll {vocalsound} you know. So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah. Sure, that's a good idea.
Industrial Designer: I'm Catherine with a C_. C_A_T_H_ E_R_ I_N_E_.
Project Manager: Okay, and
User Interface: Uh Gabriel.
Project Manager: Gabriel. E_L_ is it?
User Interface: E_L_.
Project Manager:'Kay. And you're s r R_E_I_S_S_ {vocalsound} {gap}
Marketing: I am Reissa. R_E_I_S_S_A_. Double S_ A_, yeah {vocalsound} yeah. Sorry.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager:'S just a bit nicer calling people by their names I think.
Industrial Designer: Right.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: True.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh, right.
Marketing: Mm'kay.
Project Manager: Okay, right, welcome to meeting B_. Um this is gonna go a lot better than the last meeting, basically,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: uh'cause I know what I'm supposed to be doing now.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I am your Project Manager, and, uh yeah, I'm just here to
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {gap} sort of liaise between the three of you and get things going, get people talking and and I'm gonna be making notes and sending them off to the powers that be and stuff basically. Um right, this {disfmarker} for the purposes of this meeting {disfmarker} what this meeting is all about is um I'm gonna have some presentations from all three of you, what you've been working on for the last wee while, when you haven't been getting hit with spam on your computers and and, you know, filling out silly questionnaires and things.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But hopefully you've been {disfmarker} actually been doing something productive. So we're gonna {disfmarker} each of you gonna give us a litt a little presentation. {vocalsound} Um.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Then we're gonna {vocalsound} work, you know, from each of your presentations. We'll we'll uh talk about what we actually need as a final coming together of it all. Um and then we'll, yeah, we'll {gap} sort of conclude {gap} anything else comes up at the end of it.
Industrial Designer: How long is the meeting?
Project Manager: This meeting it's not very long. It's uh probably down to about thirty five minutes now. So I want each of your presentations to not be too long, five five minutes, something like that.
Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} No problem. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um if you haven't done a PowerPoint thingy, it doesn't matter, it it just it just says that you {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} that's just one particular medium. If you haven't had time to prepare one, you can draw stuff on the noteboard, you can talk to us, you can {disfmarker} you know however you want to do your little presentation, basically, you can. Don't feel pressurised into using this thing.'Cause I don't.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh okay. So um. You okay over there? Reissa,
Marketing: I'm fine. Yeah.
Project Manager: are you uh b are you joining in with this meeting here
Marketing: I uh yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: or are y or are y or are you are you just are you just uh doing some Internet shopping there? {vocalsound}
User Interface: Think she's finishing up her presentation.
Marketing: D I mean, I I'm finishing off my presentation.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: No no. {vocalsound} Uh I'm done. Okay.
Project Manager: Okay, jolly good. Alright, let's have um {disfmarker} well, we all know that it's it's a remote control that we're gonna be dealing with.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: I think the first thing we should look at is um {vocalsound} probably the um what it is that it is actually supposed to be. So that's gonna be you Catherine,
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: if we wanna hear from you first.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Um just connecting this.
Project Manager: You don't have to worry about screwing it in just {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Are we getting i Really?
Project Manager: there you go.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Cool. Okay. So I've got a very quick uh {disfmarker} Uh. Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So the working design, I've got a very quick presentation on this, so um I've {disfmarker} oh no, you can't see a thing. {vocalsound} Oh well, I'm gonna draw it on the board then. It's in blue uh, and I couldn't change it.
User Interface: Oh. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Ah.
Industrial Designer: We it's fine on my screen, but never mind. So um {vocalsound} the idea is that we've got the energy source um, which in our case will pr, oh well {disfmarker} okay, never mind. So um I think maybe uh two batteries, I dunno what they're called {gap} six, or something like that.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh and then {vocalsound} um then on the uh remote control itself will have um the sender for the signal, which could be uh an infra-red signal, um which will be sent by an electronic chip. And uh the chip will be controlled by the user interface. So we'll hear about that later from Gabriel.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And uh the sender will send to the telly itself an infra-red signal to tell it to switch on or switch channels. Um and that's it really for the working design.
Project Manager: Great. Okay.
Industrial Designer: Sorry the presentation wasn't very uh clear but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I prefer the pe I prefer the human touch personally.
Industrial Designer: Really? Cool.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um, should I erase this or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Do you wanna just give us a moment, I just wanna copy this down.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Um I dunno if you guys have got any questions for Catherine on any of this?
Industrial Designer: Fine. {vocalsound} Or suggestions?
Marketing: Is a battery like the only way of {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well, it's just, you don't want it plugged in really, s
User Interface: Yeah, alternate energy source, like win wind power or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, you blow on it and i {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: In indoors. {vocalsound}
Marketing: No, no {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Bicycle power.
Marketing: No I meant like {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: No'cause like cha'cause {disfmarker} always changing um um batteries can get like annoying.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: The battery's down and {disfmarker} maybe {vocalsound}, I dunno, solar charged? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I dunno, swi I th I th I think changing your batteries once every six months is not really a pain, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, it's worked for the last fifty years you know.
Marketing: Mm. Yeah.
User Interface: One question I have, and I don't know how much control we have over this is um, as far as the infra-red signal, do we have control over, you know, how far away you can be from the receiving unit, the the T_V_, and still have it be operational? I mean, maybe we want one with a strong signal stream.
Project Manager: How far away is your television?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: It's never gonna be more than it's never gonna be, you kno unless you've got a T_V_ the size of a football pitch, it's not {disfmarker} doesn't have to go that far,
User Interface: Uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well, the thing is uh you you don't {disfmarker}
Project Manager: does it? Doesn't have to go through a wall, because you're not gonna be looking through a wall.
User Interface: That's true.
Marketing: Yeah, but if like you're on the phone in the other room and you need turn television off or something and you don't really want to go into the {disfmarker} put the telephone down, and go into the other room. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Well, we can make the the signal strong enough to go through walls if if you fancy it. I didn't think about that but {disfmarker}
Marketing: How about Bluetooth? {gap} Instead of using infra-red, use Bluetooth.
Industrial Designer: Why not? I just think that it's it's gonna cost more
Marketing: Isn't that a better signal?
Project Manager: Yeah, yeah I d it sounds like you {gap} you w don't wanna overcomplicate things.
Industrial Designer: and I'm I'm not sure it's {disfmarker} you're gonna use it.
Marketing: Mm {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: You know we don't need it.
Industrial Designer: It's a fancy idea uh it's quite nice, but then I don't th I dunno, either you {disfmarker} if you wanna watch the telly you're in the room,
Project Manager: Yeah, exactly.
Industrial Designer: you are gonna {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Basically, we're we're desi we're designing and marketing a television remote control unit.
Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker}
Project Manager: We're not w w w w designing something that you can plug in a headset to and and you know connect to your laptop computer and stuff. It's uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Oh, we can we can keep the idea if you i We can see at a later stage, maybe, I don't {disfmarker}
Marketing:'S just an idea.
Project Manager: Okay. Right, well done, Catherine. Um Gab Gabriel let's uh let's hear from you on on on such things.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Do you need the border?
User Interface: Uh I'm just gonna use the PowerPoint uh.
Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} Sorry.
User Interface: Technical {gap}. Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay, so, while this is warming up,
Marketing: Adjusting.
User Interface: there it is uh.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: So I'm doing the user interface design.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah, and basically uh, as far as methods, I was I was looking looking at looking at uh already existing remotes, trying to find some inspiration from designs that are already out there. Thinking of what we can retain, what we can do away with, uh what we what we can perfect a little bit as far as design um. {gap} we don't want to do something that's too radical of a change, I guess, I mean people want a remote that's familiar, that has their favourite functionalities um and and does the basics, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm yeah.
User Interface: Um so we can improve what's out there and maintain that, the basic functionality that people want. Um so things that {vocalsound} seem like absolute must-haves uh would be a volume control, um so up-down keys for that, uh channel keys up-down, but then also a numerical key pad so that they can just key directly to the channel that they want, rather than doing up-down, and uh a mute button. Uh one thing that I didn't include here, that I forgot that we talked about last time, was doing um some sort of lock uh function.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Uh, I don't I dunno, uh that's one possibility. And so in the research that I was doing there's basically two types of remotes, ones that are engineering centred and ones that are more user centred, which I don't know if I can access the web page from here, but I can show you {disfmarker} uh. Yeah. So this is a engineer centred one, so you see it's rather busy, but it also lets you play your movie, stop your movie, fast-forward, all this, um {vocalsound} freeze frame.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Uh and this is a user centred one. Uh it's it's easier to g just glance at this and see {vocalsound} what's possible to do,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: you're not gonna be staring at it for five minutes.
Project Manager: Great.
User Interface: And I {disfmarker} judging from what what we all talked about during our last meeting I kind of gathered that that's what we were going after, uh or the direction we were going in at least. Um. So, the engineering centred ones uh provide a lot of functionality, but it can be a little bit overwhelming, so the user centred ones just focus on ease of use. Uh and this sort of overlaps with what the marketing person uh, Reissa,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: because uh we we need to find out what what people want before we make firm decisions on this.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: {gap}. {vocalsound}
User Interface: So uh, yeah, that's me.
Project Manager: Great. Okay. Now that's I just have a q a q question for you. This w um research that you've been doing looki looking at other, you know, existing units {gap} stuff. Um have you found that anyone else has do has looked into the locking function or {disfmarker}
User Interface: No that that that seemed like a novel idea as f as far as I know. I mean obviously another {disfmarker} {gap} exists {gap} like you like you said in in mobile phones.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: That was sort of the inspiration for it. Um I've never seen that with {disfmarker} in in all my years in in the remote business.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: I've, haven't I've never seen a locking functionality. I dunno, what uh do you guys have a a yea or nay on that {gap} a feeling about whether that's really necessary?
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} I would say it's {disfmarker} If it's simple to do, which I think it probably should be,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: even if it's a physical, you know, a f a like a f a physical switch or a physical cover for the remote, even something like that, um then yes,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.'Kay.
Project Manager: it's {gap} like, you know, like s you said earlier on ab ab ab a flip thing, something like that,
User Interface: Right.
Project Manager: but you know being physical. Look into. Um I've had word down from head office that something that we should be centred {vocalsound} well, something we should take into account is um we've gotta keep the corporate image within this remote control unit. It's gotta d look like it's in the R_ and R_.
User Interface: Mm {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: You know, the the company it's it's, from what I can see from our other products, are yellow with blue writing on them. Um.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Mm.
User Interface: Right. And our motto is is we put the fashion in electronics.
Project Manager: We put the fashion in electronics. There you go.
User Interface: I think I think we have to carry that mental.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: So it's kinda gotta look it's gotta look new and s you know something fashionable. If if remote control {disfmarker} well, if telephones can be fashionable, then maybe remote control units can be.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Well yeah these, I think, we can {disfmarker} so we talked about the layout in my presentation and what I didn't mention yet really is is the sort of like the ergonomic design.
Project Manager: Yeah. Because we need {disfmarker}
User Interface: I t I think we can make big improvements over these two that you see here, I mean.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Great.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh, everything is going t ergonomic, you know, there's you know mice for your computers that are very ergonomic and keyboards and that could be one of our niches p sort of uh uh in the market, I guess. Um.
Project Manager: Okay, fantastic.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Right, well done, Gabriel.
Marketing: {gap}.
Project Manager: Um Reissa. Let's plug you in, baby.
Marketing: Where does it go into?
User Interface: {gap}.
Marketing: Here?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: The blue thing.
User Interface: Uh, yeah, this is getting all {gap}.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap}.
User Interface: Yeah, then you just have to do function F_ eight and it should come up.
Marketing: Well, function F_ eight. No {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, w it it just takes a wee while.
User Interface: Yeah, it just takes a second uh.
Marketing: oh. {vocalsound} Come on. Right. Okay. {gap}. Okay. Well, for our marketing report uh we observed remote control users in a usability lab, and also gave {disfmarker} so this is research {disfmarker} and we also gave participants um questionnaires to fill out. Um total number of people tested were a hundred just so you know, so that hundred people were tested and these were the findings. So seventy five per cent of users find the remote control ugly. Okay, so they don't like the look of the remote control. Um eighty f eighty per cent of them would spend more money if the rem remote control looked really cool and fancy. So I think we all agree with that. Um {vocalsound} current remote controls do not match well with the operating behaviour of the user. So, they don't like {disfmarker} like the way they operate it doesn't like match how people behave. Um {gap} per cent of the users say that they only use ten per cent of the buttons on a remote, so probably if you have like one, two, three, four, five, the whole up to z ten, they probably don't use those, they only use the up and down channel.
Project Manager:'Cause we've only got five channels. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} exactly.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} That's another thing. {vocalsound} Um seventy five per cent of users say they zap. Not quite sure what they mean, zap, goes like {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: I think that's k flicking quickly between channels.
User Interface: Yeah, you wanna navigate the channels quickly I guess.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm. Um takes too much time to learn how to use a new remote. I think especially for uh the older generation. I know my grandmother doesn't like mobile phones, takes ages to work how to use. Anyway um and they also {disfmarker} remotes often get lost in the room, so nobody can find them.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: {vocalsound} So maybe tracking devices is a good idea.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wow.
Marketing: Um personal preferences. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: You are a child of technology, aren't you? {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um so yeah um {vocalsound} I was thinking something easy to use, especially for older people. Um {vocalsound} has to look really cool, flashy groovy for people to buy it. And it's easy to find {vocalsound}, so I don't know whether maybe {disfmarker} and also we asked them whether they wanted {vocalsound} {disfmarker} whether they'd be interested in um {vocalsound} voice activating.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So voice activation. So and this was what we came up with. Then if you look fifteen to twenty five {disfmarker} this is age, sorry, {gap} age groups. So fifteen to twenty five said like ninety two {disfmarker} ninety one per cent of them said yes.
Project Manager: So there you go, yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} so basically the majority except for the forty five to fifty five year olds for some reason didn't want a voice activated one. And neither did the older generation, but the younger generation who we are catering for, like who have most of the money nowadays, do want a voice act speech recognition in a remote.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh but do the younger generation have the money? They they don't.
User Interface: No I would I would say the older the older people, yeah.
Project Manager: It's older generation, they're the ones that have gone out and {disfmarker}
Marketing: Well the twenty five to thirty five year old, and thirty five, and the thirty five to forty five, forty five point seven per cent {gap} say no, so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: People people from the age of thirty f there's a big drop off there.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: For people up to the age of thirty five, you're kinda saying, yeah, they want it. Um but no they're not {gap} sort of {disfmarker} most people that have the money are people from the age of thirty five to fifty five,
User Interface: Yeah, that would be my guess as well.
Project Manager: uh'cause they're the ones that have been working for twenty years.
Marketing: So they don't {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} d and tha
Marketing: Well {disfmarker}
Project Manager: and that's a {vocalsound} that's quite a minority there, so yeah, it's not even like fifty fifty that's th thirty five per cent.
Marketing: These guys are growing up. {vocalsound}
User Interface: What about just from the the prospective of our manufacturing cost? I mean if if it's twelve fifty per unit.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: I mean, okay, there's {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Voice activation might not be the best.
Project Manager: I would say scra I'd say scrap that straight off.
User Interface: Uh.
Marketing: Um also with um with buttons, {vocalsound} a thing called R_S_I_, so wrist sense {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: Repetitive strain uh rep repetitive strain injury
Marketing: Huh?
User Interface: or like from doing {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, repetitive strains injury, so they don't {disfmarker} I think people who watch T_V_ maybe too often, keep changing channel hurts their wrist.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well {vocalsound} maybe they shouldn't watch so much T_V_ then. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't think so. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So y so it's so it's so you got {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: so that's something we should have a look into then i when desi when designing the ergonomics of {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: maybe not so hard.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: see {vocalsound} have a look if um there's any w any medical background we can find out about this.
Industrial Designer: Maybe it could be, instead of pressing button it could be just touching a {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Let's jus {gap}
Marketing: Maybe {disfmarker}
Project Manager: we just want {disfmarker} need to cover our arses so that people aren't gonna sue us in ten years'time, say your remote control gave me repetitive strain injury.
User Interface: Yeah, we should probably consult with our legal department uh.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} They're having a lunch break at the moment, but {disfmarker} yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: I'll see if I can get {disfmarker} see if I can get hold of them for the next meeting.
User Interface: Yeah. I think we can do some really {disfmarker} in in that department, the the ergonomic department, we can make some some really good improvements.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm. Maybe th the buttons not so high up so you don't have to press so much,
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: or we just like flat buttons, something. Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: So that is me.
Project Manager: That's great, thank you very much for that, Reissa. {vocalsound} Um okay, so we've basically we've decide we've d we've decided that it's gonna be, you know uh, we're going for a basic television remote. It's gotta be safe to use, it's gotta look cool.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: It's gotta be cheap. S um.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Now going back to the uh industrial design of it, you know, we were looking at whether to use maybe infra-red or Bluetooth. I think, we should just go with the simplest option on everything, uh and that would be infra-red, energy source, that would be batteries. Uh mean we we can look into using the s, you know, the little tiny weeny batteries, all like special long-lasting batteries. Um. {vocalsound} But a in {disfmarker} there's no I don't think there's any point in making a remote control unit that's gonna last for fifty years, because technology will have changed and, you know, we won't have televisions in ten years'time. {vocalsound} So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Project Manager: I think we're all um pretty sussed on that. Um anyone have any questions? Everybody happy in their work?
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Yeah, it seems like we're all on the {disfmarker} pretty much on the same page.
Project Manager: Now {gap} this is good, we've got a good structure going on. We all know where we're going to. {vocalsound} Have you been ge has {disfmarker} have any of you lot been getting loads of crap spam on your computers?
User Interface: Oh it's probably just you,'cause you're the project manager. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {gap}.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Well, just questionnaires.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Sell {disfmarker} trying to sell your things {gap}. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, {gap} stuff.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um okay. Do {disfmarker} oh {gap} have you guys found out if we can if we can e-mail stuff to each other?
Marketing: Yeah, you can.
Project Manager: Right. Do all you all know my e-mail address?
User Interface: Okay. No I don't. I {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well, in the project announcement, you've got the addresses, I think.
Marketing: I think he's participant one, aren't you?
Industrial Designer: So Project Manager, it's participant one at A_M_I_. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} Oh, it's just participant one oh okay. Yeah.
Project Manager: Can you all d e-mail me your e-mail addresses?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap}.
Industrial Designer: You have them i you have them,
User Interface: Well it's just w it's just it's just par participant one, participant two. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: but we'll send you an e-mail.
Project Manager: Send me, yeah
Industrial Designer: You want to have friends, don't you?
Project Manager: {disfmarker} yeah, okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} So are we headed towards like a b a big yellow and black remote as far as {gap} maybe that's our next meeting that we discuss that.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is it yellow and black or is it yellow and blue? I I kind of thought it was blue writing on a yellow background, but I might be just going a bit {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well, it's like white on i white and blue on a black background with white {disfmarker} with yellow borders.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Maybe that's {vocalsound} like getting ahead of ourselves.
Project Manager: Well, maybe you can come up with a few {disfmarker} with a couple of different ideas?
Industrial Designer: It wouldn't be {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: Can't we have different colours in the remotes, so somebody can choose different col
Project Manager: Well, see the thing is is we've gotta keep the company image.
Marketing: like does it have to be of a certain?
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: It's gotta say {disfmarker} people have gotta look at this remote control and instantly recognise that it's a Real Reaction i product.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: But if it's a R_R_, it would be Real Reaction,
Project Manager: There's loads of companies that called R_R_.
Marketing: like if it had a symbol on it.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: This is slog {gap} but this is the slogan, this is the the the the type.
Marketing: Whoa.
User Interface: And this is something that came on down from from the higher ups,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: so, I mean, we are sort of beholden to them.
Marketing: So we have to have it one colour.
Project Manager: Well, not necessarily. But we have to incorporate it.
User Interface: Not one colour, but the pattern needs to be recognisable.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Not necessarily even if i it just has to {disfmarker} ye but you have to look at the product and instantly know that it's one of our products
Industrial Designer: Well you could {disfmarker}
Project Manager: as opposed to a Sony product or a, you know, a Panasonic product.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: It's got to {disfmarker} so maybe, so you can have a look at our our other products and see if they all follow a s similar vein, perhaps.
Industrial Designer: It could come {disfmarker} But it could come in different colours and have the R_R_ colours just somewhere
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} like just around the lock button could be the R_R_ logo or colours and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: If {gap}.
Project Manager: Quite poss yeah. Well this is all your department. Mm okay. Well, well done everybody.
User Interface: {gap}.
Project Manager: And um, I think we uh stop for lunch now.
User Interface: Yeah, pretty soon I think, I guess that's now.
Marketing: Are we are we finished ahead of schedule?
Project Manager: We might possibly have done.
Industrial Designer: Cool.
User Interface: Alright, see you all soon.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} If we've if we've finished at five minutes before the meeting's supposed to finish, then that means we get an extra five minutes for lunch.
Marketing: {vocalsound}'Kay uh.
Project Manager: Yeah, there you go. Right. I just have to {disfmarker} there's a few little bits and pieces I have to write down, but {disfmarker} Take your headsets off, kick back, smoke'em if you got'em. {vocalsound} | Industrial Designer considered batteries as the energy source. Marketing thinks that changing batteries all the time could possibly be annoying, so she suggests other energy options like solar charging. But Industrial Designer refutes this problem because people change batteries simply every six months. User Interface raised the question on the operational distance of the infra-red signal and hoped that the remote control could be equipped with a strong signal stream. But Project Manager rendered it unnecessary because TV is always put in a short distance. Later the team discussed the necessity of through-wall signal and Bluetooth, and decided that this idea remained an idea for some budget reasons and the lack of necessity. | qmsum |
What did the group discuss about User Interface's presentation?
Project Manager: Think we can first {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: Right it was function F_ eight or something.
Industrial Designer: Tha
User Interface: This one right there.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Who is gonna do a PowerPoint presentation?
User Interface: Think we all {gap} {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: You will as well?
User Interface: Huh. Oh I thought we all were.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah, I have one too, okay.
Project Manager: {gap}.
User Interface: S
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Marketing: {gap}.
User Interface: Whoops I forgot to put the thing on {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Right. I just wanna {disfmarker}'cause basically I can't re I've {disfmarker} really crap at remembering everyone's name so I just wanna {disfmarker} rather than going uh Miss Marketing and Miss this and Miss that {vocalsound} wanted to know your names again.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Okay I'm {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {gap} just gonna leave this up here'cause I'll {vocalsound} you know. So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah. Sure, that's a good idea.
Industrial Designer: I'm Catherine with a C_. C_A_T_H_ E_R_ I_N_E_.
Project Manager: Okay, and
User Interface: Uh Gabriel.
Project Manager: Gabriel. E_L_ is it?
User Interface: E_L_.
Project Manager:'Kay. And you're s r R_E_I_S_S_ {vocalsound} {gap}
Marketing: I am Reissa. R_E_I_S_S_A_. Double S_ A_, yeah {vocalsound} yeah. Sorry.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager:'S just a bit nicer calling people by their names I think.
Industrial Designer: Right.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: True.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh, right.
Marketing: Mm'kay.
Project Manager: Okay, right, welcome to meeting B_. Um this is gonna go a lot better than the last meeting, basically,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: uh'cause I know what I'm supposed to be doing now.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I am your Project Manager, and, uh yeah, I'm just here to
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {gap} sort of liaise between the three of you and get things going, get people talking and and I'm gonna be making notes and sending them off to the powers that be and stuff basically. Um right, this {disfmarker} for the purposes of this meeting {disfmarker} what this meeting is all about is um I'm gonna have some presentations from all three of you, what you've been working on for the last wee while, when you haven't been getting hit with spam on your computers and and, you know, filling out silly questionnaires and things.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But hopefully you've been {disfmarker} actually been doing something productive. So we're gonna {disfmarker} each of you gonna give us a litt a little presentation. {vocalsound} Um.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Then we're gonna {vocalsound} work, you know, from each of your presentations. We'll we'll uh talk about what we actually need as a final coming together of it all. Um and then we'll, yeah, we'll {gap} sort of conclude {gap} anything else comes up at the end of it.
Industrial Designer: How long is the meeting?
Project Manager: This meeting it's not very long. It's uh probably down to about thirty five minutes now. So I want each of your presentations to not be too long, five five minutes, something like that.
Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} No problem. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um if you haven't done a PowerPoint thingy, it doesn't matter, it it just it just says that you {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} that's just one particular medium. If you haven't had time to prepare one, you can draw stuff on the noteboard, you can talk to us, you can {disfmarker} you know however you want to do your little presentation, basically, you can. Don't feel pressurised into using this thing.'Cause I don't.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh okay. So um. You okay over there? Reissa,
Marketing: I'm fine. Yeah.
Project Manager: are you uh b are you joining in with this meeting here
Marketing: I uh yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: or are y or are y or are you are you just are you just uh doing some Internet shopping there? {vocalsound}
User Interface: Think she's finishing up her presentation.
Marketing: D I mean, I I'm finishing off my presentation.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: No no. {vocalsound} Uh I'm done. Okay.
Project Manager: Okay, jolly good. Alright, let's have um {disfmarker} well, we all know that it's it's a remote control that we're gonna be dealing with.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: I think the first thing we should look at is um {vocalsound} probably the um what it is that it is actually supposed to be. So that's gonna be you Catherine,
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: if we wanna hear from you first.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Um just connecting this.
Project Manager: You don't have to worry about screwing it in just {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Are we getting i Really?
Project Manager: there you go.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Cool. Okay. So I've got a very quick uh {disfmarker} Uh. Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So the working design, I've got a very quick presentation on this, so um I've {disfmarker} oh no, you can't see a thing. {vocalsound} Oh well, I'm gonna draw it on the board then. It's in blue uh, and I couldn't change it.
User Interface: Oh. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Ah.
Industrial Designer: We it's fine on my screen, but never mind. So um {vocalsound} the idea is that we've got the energy source um, which in our case will pr, oh well {disfmarker} okay, never mind. So um I think maybe uh two batteries, I dunno what they're called {gap} six, or something like that.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh and then {vocalsound} um then on the uh remote control itself will have um the sender for the signal, which could be uh an infra-red signal, um which will be sent by an electronic chip. And uh the chip will be controlled by the user interface. So we'll hear about that later from Gabriel.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And uh the sender will send to the telly itself an infra-red signal to tell it to switch on or switch channels. Um and that's it really for the working design.
Project Manager: Great. Okay.
Industrial Designer: Sorry the presentation wasn't very uh clear but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I prefer the pe I prefer the human touch personally.
Industrial Designer: Really? Cool.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um, should I erase this or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Do you wanna just give us a moment, I just wanna copy this down.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Um I dunno if you guys have got any questions for Catherine on any of this?
Industrial Designer: Fine. {vocalsound} Or suggestions?
Marketing: Is a battery like the only way of {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well, it's just, you don't want it plugged in really, s
User Interface: Yeah, alternate energy source, like win wind power or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, you blow on it and i {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: In indoors. {vocalsound}
Marketing: No, no {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Bicycle power.
Marketing: No I meant like {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: No'cause like cha'cause {disfmarker} always changing um um batteries can get like annoying.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: The battery's down and {disfmarker} maybe {vocalsound}, I dunno, solar charged? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I dunno, swi I th I th I think changing your batteries once every six months is not really a pain, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, it's worked for the last fifty years you know.
Marketing: Mm. Yeah.
User Interface: One question I have, and I don't know how much control we have over this is um, as far as the infra-red signal, do we have control over, you know, how far away you can be from the receiving unit, the the T_V_, and still have it be operational? I mean, maybe we want one with a strong signal stream.
Project Manager: How far away is your television?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: It's never gonna be more than it's never gonna be, you kno unless you've got a T_V_ the size of a football pitch, it's not {disfmarker} doesn't have to go that far,
User Interface: Uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well, the thing is uh you you don't {disfmarker}
Project Manager: does it? Doesn't have to go through a wall, because you're not gonna be looking through a wall.
User Interface: That's true.
Marketing: Yeah, but if like you're on the phone in the other room and you need turn television off or something and you don't really want to go into the {disfmarker} put the telephone down, and go into the other room. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Well, we can make the the signal strong enough to go through walls if if you fancy it. I didn't think about that but {disfmarker}
Marketing: How about Bluetooth? {gap} Instead of using infra-red, use Bluetooth.
Industrial Designer: Why not? I just think that it's it's gonna cost more
Marketing: Isn't that a better signal?
Project Manager: Yeah, yeah I d it sounds like you {gap} you w don't wanna overcomplicate things.
Industrial Designer: and I'm I'm not sure it's {disfmarker} you're gonna use it.
Marketing: Mm {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: You know we don't need it.
Industrial Designer: It's a fancy idea uh it's quite nice, but then I don't th I dunno, either you {disfmarker} if you wanna watch the telly you're in the room,
Project Manager: Yeah, exactly.
Industrial Designer: you are gonna {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Basically, we're we're desi we're designing and marketing a television remote control unit.
Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker}
Project Manager: We're not w w w w designing something that you can plug in a headset to and and you know connect to your laptop computer and stuff. It's uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Oh, we can we can keep the idea if you i We can see at a later stage, maybe, I don't {disfmarker}
Marketing:'S just an idea.
Project Manager: Okay. Right, well done, Catherine. Um Gab Gabriel let's uh let's hear from you on on on such things.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Do you need the border?
User Interface: Uh I'm just gonna use the PowerPoint uh.
Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} Sorry.
User Interface: Technical {gap}. Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay, so, while this is warming up,
Marketing: Adjusting.
User Interface: there it is uh.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: So I'm doing the user interface design.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah, and basically uh, as far as methods, I was I was looking looking at looking at uh already existing remotes, trying to find some inspiration from designs that are already out there. Thinking of what we can retain, what we can do away with, uh what we what we can perfect a little bit as far as design um. {gap} we don't want to do something that's too radical of a change, I guess, I mean people want a remote that's familiar, that has their favourite functionalities um and and does the basics, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm yeah.
User Interface: Um so we can improve what's out there and maintain that, the basic functionality that people want. Um so things that {vocalsound} seem like absolute must-haves uh would be a volume control, um so up-down keys for that, uh channel keys up-down, but then also a numerical key pad so that they can just key directly to the channel that they want, rather than doing up-down, and uh a mute button. Uh one thing that I didn't include here, that I forgot that we talked about last time, was doing um some sort of lock uh function.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Uh, I don't I dunno, uh that's one possibility. And so in the research that I was doing there's basically two types of remotes, ones that are engineering centred and ones that are more user centred, which I don't know if I can access the web page from here, but I can show you {disfmarker} uh. Yeah. So this is a engineer centred one, so you see it's rather busy, but it also lets you play your movie, stop your movie, fast-forward, all this, um {vocalsound} freeze frame.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Uh and this is a user centred one. Uh it's it's easier to g just glance at this and see {vocalsound} what's possible to do,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: you're not gonna be staring at it for five minutes.
Project Manager: Great.
User Interface: And I {disfmarker} judging from what what we all talked about during our last meeting I kind of gathered that that's what we were going after, uh or the direction we were going in at least. Um. So, the engineering centred ones uh provide a lot of functionality, but it can be a little bit overwhelming, so the user centred ones just focus on ease of use. Uh and this sort of overlaps with what the marketing person uh, Reissa,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: because uh we we need to find out what what people want before we make firm decisions on this.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: {gap}. {vocalsound}
User Interface: So uh, yeah, that's me.
Project Manager: Great. Okay. Now that's I just have a q a q question for you. This w um research that you've been doing looki looking at other, you know, existing units {gap} stuff. Um have you found that anyone else has do has looked into the locking function or {disfmarker}
User Interface: No that that that seemed like a novel idea as f as far as I know. I mean obviously another {disfmarker} {gap} exists {gap} like you like you said in in mobile phones.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: That was sort of the inspiration for it. Um I've never seen that with {disfmarker} in in all my years in in the remote business.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: I've, haven't I've never seen a locking functionality. I dunno, what uh do you guys have a a yea or nay on that {gap} a feeling about whether that's really necessary?
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} I would say it's {disfmarker} If it's simple to do, which I think it probably should be,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: even if it's a physical, you know, a f a like a f a physical switch or a physical cover for the remote, even something like that, um then yes,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.'Kay.
Project Manager: it's {gap} like, you know, like s you said earlier on ab ab ab a flip thing, something like that,
User Interface: Right.
Project Manager: but you know being physical. Look into. Um I've had word down from head office that something that we should be centred {vocalsound} well, something we should take into account is um we've gotta keep the corporate image within this remote control unit. It's gotta d look like it's in the R_ and R_.
User Interface: Mm {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: You know, the the company it's it's, from what I can see from our other products, are yellow with blue writing on them. Um.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Mm.
User Interface: Right. And our motto is is we put the fashion in electronics.
Project Manager: We put the fashion in electronics. There you go.
User Interface: I think I think we have to carry that mental.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: So it's kinda gotta look it's gotta look new and s you know something fashionable. If if remote control {disfmarker} well, if telephones can be fashionable, then maybe remote control units can be.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Well yeah these, I think, we can {disfmarker} so we talked about the layout in my presentation and what I didn't mention yet really is is the sort of like the ergonomic design.
Project Manager: Yeah. Because we need {disfmarker}
User Interface: I t I think we can make big improvements over these two that you see here, I mean.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Great.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh, everything is going t ergonomic, you know, there's you know mice for your computers that are very ergonomic and keyboards and that could be one of our niches p sort of uh uh in the market, I guess. Um.
Project Manager: Okay, fantastic.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Right, well done, Gabriel.
Marketing: {gap}.
Project Manager: Um Reissa. Let's plug you in, baby.
Marketing: Where does it go into?
User Interface: {gap}.
Marketing: Here?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: The blue thing.
User Interface: Uh, yeah, this is getting all {gap}.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap}.
User Interface: Yeah, then you just have to do function F_ eight and it should come up.
Marketing: Well, function F_ eight. No {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, w it it just takes a wee while.
User Interface: Yeah, it just takes a second uh.
Marketing: oh. {vocalsound} Come on. Right. Okay. {gap}. Okay. Well, for our marketing report uh we observed remote control users in a usability lab, and also gave {disfmarker} so this is research {disfmarker} and we also gave participants um questionnaires to fill out. Um total number of people tested were a hundred just so you know, so that hundred people were tested and these were the findings. So seventy five per cent of users find the remote control ugly. Okay, so they don't like the look of the remote control. Um eighty f eighty per cent of them would spend more money if the rem remote control looked really cool and fancy. So I think we all agree with that. Um {vocalsound} current remote controls do not match well with the operating behaviour of the user. So, they don't like {disfmarker} like the way they operate it doesn't like match how people behave. Um {gap} per cent of the users say that they only use ten per cent of the buttons on a remote, so probably if you have like one, two, three, four, five, the whole up to z ten, they probably don't use those, they only use the up and down channel.
Project Manager:'Cause we've only got five channels. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} exactly.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} That's another thing. {vocalsound} Um seventy five per cent of users say they zap. Not quite sure what they mean, zap, goes like {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: I think that's k flicking quickly between channels.
User Interface: Yeah, you wanna navigate the channels quickly I guess.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm. Um takes too much time to learn how to use a new remote. I think especially for uh the older generation. I know my grandmother doesn't like mobile phones, takes ages to work how to use. Anyway um and they also {disfmarker} remotes often get lost in the room, so nobody can find them.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: {vocalsound} So maybe tracking devices is a good idea.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wow.
Marketing: Um personal preferences. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: You are a child of technology, aren't you? {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um so yeah um {vocalsound} I was thinking something easy to use, especially for older people. Um {vocalsound} has to look really cool, flashy groovy for people to buy it. And it's easy to find {vocalsound}, so I don't know whether maybe {disfmarker} and also we asked them whether they wanted {vocalsound} {disfmarker} whether they'd be interested in um {vocalsound} voice activating.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So voice activation. So and this was what we came up with. Then if you look fifteen to twenty five {disfmarker} this is age, sorry, {gap} age groups. So fifteen to twenty five said like ninety two {disfmarker} ninety one per cent of them said yes.
Project Manager: So there you go, yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} so basically the majority except for the forty five to fifty five year olds for some reason didn't want a voice activated one. And neither did the older generation, but the younger generation who we are catering for, like who have most of the money nowadays, do want a voice act speech recognition in a remote.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh but do the younger generation have the money? They they don't.
User Interface: No I would I would say the older the older people, yeah.
Project Manager: It's older generation, they're the ones that have gone out and {disfmarker}
Marketing: Well the twenty five to thirty five year old, and thirty five, and the thirty five to forty five, forty five point seven per cent {gap} say no, so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: People people from the age of thirty f there's a big drop off there.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: For people up to the age of thirty five, you're kinda saying, yeah, they want it. Um but no they're not {gap} sort of {disfmarker} most people that have the money are people from the age of thirty five to fifty five,
User Interface: Yeah, that would be my guess as well.
Project Manager: uh'cause they're the ones that have been working for twenty years.
Marketing: So they don't {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} d and tha
Marketing: Well {disfmarker}
Project Manager: and that's a {vocalsound} that's quite a minority there, so yeah, it's not even like fifty fifty that's th thirty five per cent.
Marketing: These guys are growing up. {vocalsound}
User Interface: What about just from the the prospective of our manufacturing cost? I mean if if it's twelve fifty per unit.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: I mean, okay, there's {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Voice activation might not be the best.
Project Manager: I would say scra I'd say scrap that straight off.
User Interface: Uh.
Marketing: Um also with um with buttons, {vocalsound} a thing called R_S_I_, so wrist sense {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: Repetitive strain uh rep repetitive strain injury
Marketing: Huh?
User Interface: or like from doing {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, repetitive strains injury, so they don't {disfmarker} I think people who watch T_V_ maybe too often, keep changing channel hurts their wrist.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well {vocalsound} maybe they shouldn't watch so much T_V_ then. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't think so. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So y so it's so it's so you got {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: so that's something we should have a look into then i when desi when designing the ergonomics of {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: maybe not so hard.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: see {vocalsound} have a look if um there's any w any medical background we can find out about this.
Industrial Designer: Maybe it could be, instead of pressing button it could be just touching a {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Let's jus {gap}
Marketing: Maybe {disfmarker}
Project Manager: we just want {disfmarker} need to cover our arses so that people aren't gonna sue us in ten years'time, say your remote control gave me repetitive strain injury.
User Interface: Yeah, we should probably consult with our legal department uh.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} They're having a lunch break at the moment, but {disfmarker} yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: I'll see if I can get {disfmarker} see if I can get hold of them for the next meeting.
User Interface: Yeah. I think we can do some really {disfmarker} in in that department, the the ergonomic department, we can make some some really good improvements.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm. Maybe th the buttons not so high up so you don't have to press so much,
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: or we just like flat buttons, something. Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: So that is me.
Project Manager: That's great, thank you very much for that, Reissa. {vocalsound} Um okay, so we've basically we've decide we've d we've decided that it's gonna be, you know uh, we're going for a basic television remote. It's gotta be safe to use, it's gotta look cool.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: It's gotta be cheap. S um.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Now going back to the uh industrial design of it, you know, we were looking at whether to use maybe infra-red or Bluetooth. I think, we should just go with the simplest option on everything, uh and that would be infra-red, energy source, that would be batteries. Uh mean we we can look into using the s, you know, the little tiny weeny batteries, all like special long-lasting batteries. Um. {vocalsound} But a in {disfmarker} there's no I don't think there's any point in making a remote control unit that's gonna last for fifty years, because technology will have changed and, you know, we won't have televisions in ten years'time. {vocalsound} So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Project Manager: I think we're all um pretty sussed on that. Um anyone have any questions? Everybody happy in their work?
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Yeah, it seems like we're all on the {disfmarker} pretty much on the same page.
Project Manager: Now {gap} this is good, we've got a good structure going on. We all know where we're going to. {vocalsound} Have you been ge has {disfmarker} have any of you lot been getting loads of crap spam on your computers?
User Interface: Oh it's probably just you,'cause you're the project manager. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {gap}.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Well, just questionnaires.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Sell {disfmarker} trying to sell your things {gap}. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, {gap} stuff.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um okay. Do {disfmarker} oh {gap} have you guys found out if we can if we can e-mail stuff to each other?
Marketing: Yeah, you can.
Project Manager: Right. Do all you all know my e-mail address?
User Interface: Okay. No I don't. I {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well, in the project announcement, you've got the addresses, I think.
Marketing: I think he's participant one, aren't you?
Industrial Designer: So Project Manager, it's participant one at A_M_I_. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} Oh, it's just participant one oh okay. Yeah.
Project Manager: Can you all d e-mail me your e-mail addresses?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap}.
Industrial Designer: You have them i you have them,
User Interface: Well it's just w it's just it's just par participant one, participant two. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: but we'll send you an e-mail.
Project Manager: Send me, yeah
Industrial Designer: You want to have friends, don't you?
Project Manager: {disfmarker} yeah, okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} So are we headed towards like a b a big yellow and black remote as far as {gap} maybe that's our next meeting that we discuss that.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is it yellow and black or is it yellow and blue? I I kind of thought it was blue writing on a yellow background, but I might be just going a bit {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well, it's like white on i white and blue on a black background with white {disfmarker} with yellow borders.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Maybe that's {vocalsound} like getting ahead of ourselves.
Project Manager: Well, maybe you can come up with a few {disfmarker} with a couple of different ideas?
Industrial Designer: It wouldn't be {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: Can't we have different colours in the remotes, so somebody can choose different col
Project Manager: Well, see the thing is is we've gotta keep the company image.
Marketing: like does it have to be of a certain?
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: It's gotta say {disfmarker} people have gotta look at this remote control and instantly recognise that it's a Real Reaction i product.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: But if it's a R_R_, it would be Real Reaction,
Project Manager: There's loads of companies that called R_R_.
Marketing: like if it had a symbol on it.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: This is slog {gap} but this is the slogan, this is the the the the type.
Marketing: Whoa.
User Interface: And this is something that came on down from from the higher ups,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: so, I mean, we are sort of beholden to them.
Marketing: So we have to have it one colour.
Project Manager: Well, not necessarily. But we have to incorporate it.
User Interface: Not one colour, but the pattern needs to be recognisable.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Not necessarily even if i it just has to {disfmarker} ye but you have to look at the product and instantly know that it's one of our products
Industrial Designer: Well you could {disfmarker}
Project Manager: as opposed to a Sony product or a, you know, a Panasonic product.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: It's got to {disfmarker} so maybe, so you can have a look at our our other products and see if they all follow a s similar vein, perhaps.
Industrial Designer: It could come {disfmarker} But it could come in different colours and have the R_R_ colours just somewhere
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} like just around the lock button could be the R_R_ logo or colours and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: If {gap}.
Project Manager: Quite poss yeah. Well this is all your department. Mm okay. Well, well done everybody.
User Interface: {gap}.
Project Manager: And um, I think we uh stop for lunch now.
User Interface: Yeah, pretty soon I think, I guess that's now.
Marketing: Are we are we finished ahead of schedule?
Project Manager: We might possibly have done.
Industrial Designer: Cool.
User Interface: Alright, see you all soon.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} If we've if we've finished at five minutes before the meeting's supposed to finish, then that means we get an extra five minutes for lunch.
Marketing: {vocalsound}'Kay uh.
Project Manager: Yeah, there you go. Right. I just have to {disfmarker} there's a few little bits and pieces I have to write down, but {disfmarker} Take your headsets off, kick back, smoke'em if you got'em. {vocalsound} | In the presentation from User Interface, he first made sure of the position of the team's remote control ---- a remote control with basic functionalities and with some improvements. The must-haves would include volume control, channel keys up-down, a numerical keypad, a mute button and would exclude the lock button which was discussed in the precedent meeting. He made an introduction of two types of remotes: engineering centred ones which provide a lot of functionality and user centred which focus on the easiness of use. Later, the team discussed the locking function which Project Manager expected greatly, and also on the integration of the corporate image into the design of the remote control. At last, regarding the layout of the remote control, User Interface would like to make some improvements over two buttons concerning the ergonomic design. | qmsum |
What did the group discuss about Marketing's presentation?
Project Manager: Think we can first {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: Right it was function F_ eight or something.
Industrial Designer: Tha
User Interface: This one right there.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Who is gonna do a PowerPoint presentation?
User Interface: Think we all {gap} {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: You will as well?
User Interface: Huh. Oh I thought we all were.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah, I have one too, okay.
Project Manager: {gap}.
User Interface: S
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Marketing: {gap}.
User Interface: Whoops I forgot to put the thing on {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Right. I just wanna {disfmarker}'cause basically I can't re I've {disfmarker} really crap at remembering everyone's name so I just wanna {disfmarker} rather than going uh Miss Marketing and Miss this and Miss that {vocalsound} wanted to know your names again.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Okay I'm {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {gap} just gonna leave this up here'cause I'll {vocalsound} you know. So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah. Sure, that's a good idea.
Industrial Designer: I'm Catherine with a C_. C_A_T_H_ E_R_ I_N_E_.
Project Manager: Okay, and
User Interface: Uh Gabriel.
Project Manager: Gabriel. E_L_ is it?
User Interface: E_L_.
Project Manager:'Kay. And you're s r R_E_I_S_S_ {vocalsound} {gap}
Marketing: I am Reissa. R_E_I_S_S_A_. Double S_ A_, yeah {vocalsound} yeah. Sorry.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager:'S just a bit nicer calling people by their names I think.
Industrial Designer: Right.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: True.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh, right.
Marketing: Mm'kay.
Project Manager: Okay, right, welcome to meeting B_. Um this is gonna go a lot better than the last meeting, basically,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: uh'cause I know what I'm supposed to be doing now.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I am your Project Manager, and, uh yeah, I'm just here to
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {gap} sort of liaise between the three of you and get things going, get people talking and and I'm gonna be making notes and sending them off to the powers that be and stuff basically. Um right, this {disfmarker} for the purposes of this meeting {disfmarker} what this meeting is all about is um I'm gonna have some presentations from all three of you, what you've been working on for the last wee while, when you haven't been getting hit with spam on your computers and and, you know, filling out silly questionnaires and things.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But hopefully you've been {disfmarker} actually been doing something productive. So we're gonna {disfmarker} each of you gonna give us a litt a little presentation. {vocalsound} Um.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Then we're gonna {vocalsound} work, you know, from each of your presentations. We'll we'll uh talk about what we actually need as a final coming together of it all. Um and then we'll, yeah, we'll {gap} sort of conclude {gap} anything else comes up at the end of it.
Industrial Designer: How long is the meeting?
Project Manager: This meeting it's not very long. It's uh probably down to about thirty five minutes now. So I want each of your presentations to not be too long, five five minutes, something like that.
Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} No problem. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um if you haven't done a PowerPoint thingy, it doesn't matter, it it just it just says that you {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} that's just one particular medium. If you haven't had time to prepare one, you can draw stuff on the noteboard, you can talk to us, you can {disfmarker} you know however you want to do your little presentation, basically, you can. Don't feel pressurised into using this thing.'Cause I don't.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh okay. So um. You okay over there? Reissa,
Marketing: I'm fine. Yeah.
Project Manager: are you uh b are you joining in with this meeting here
Marketing: I uh yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: or are y or are y or are you are you just are you just uh doing some Internet shopping there? {vocalsound}
User Interface: Think she's finishing up her presentation.
Marketing: D I mean, I I'm finishing off my presentation.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: No no. {vocalsound} Uh I'm done. Okay.
Project Manager: Okay, jolly good. Alright, let's have um {disfmarker} well, we all know that it's it's a remote control that we're gonna be dealing with.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: I think the first thing we should look at is um {vocalsound} probably the um what it is that it is actually supposed to be. So that's gonna be you Catherine,
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: if we wanna hear from you first.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Um just connecting this.
Project Manager: You don't have to worry about screwing it in just {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Are we getting i Really?
Project Manager: there you go.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Cool. Okay. So I've got a very quick uh {disfmarker} Uh. Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So the working design, I've got a very quick presentation on this, so um I've {disfmarker} oh no, you can't see a thing. {vocalsound} Oh well, I'm gonna draw it on the board then. It's in blue uh, and I couldn't change it.
User Interface: Oh. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Ah.
Industrial Designer: We it's fine on my screen, but never mind. So um {vocalsound} the idea is that we've got the energy source um, which in our case will pr, oh well {disfmarker} okay, never mind. So um I think maybe uh two batteries, I dunno what they're called {gap} six, or something like that.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh and then {vocalsound} um then on the uh remote control itself will have um the sender for the signal, which could be uh an infra-red signal, um which will be sent by an electronic chip. And uh the chip will be controlled by the user interface. So we'll hear about that later from Gabriel.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And uh the sender will send to the telly itself an infra-red signal to tell it to switch on or switch channels. Um and that's it really for the working design.
Project Manager: Great. Okay.
Industrial Designer: Sorry the presentation wasn't very uh clear but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I prefer the pe I prefer the human touch personally.
Industrial Designer: Really? Cool.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um, should I erase this or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Do you wanna just give us a moment, I just wanna copy this down.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Um I dunno if you guys have got any questions for Catherine on any of this?
Industrial Designer: Fine. {vocalsound} Or suggestions?
Marketing: Is a battery like the only way of {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well, it's just, you don't want it plugged in really, s
User Interface: Yeah, alternate energy source, like win wind power or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, you blow on it and i {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: In indoors. {vocalsound}
Marketing: No, no {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Bicycle power.
Marketing: No I meant like {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: No'cause like cha'cause {disfmarker} always changing um um batteries can get like annoying.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: The battery's down and {disfmarker} maybe {vocalsound}, I dunno, solar charged? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I dunno, swi I th I th I think changing your batteries once every six months is not really a pain, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, it's worked for the last fifty years you know.
Marketing: Mm. Yeah.
User Interface: One question I have, and I don't know how much control we have over this is um, as far as the infra-red signal, do we have control over, you know, how far away you can be from the receiving unit, the the T_V_, and still have it be operational? I mean, maybe we want one with a strong signal stream.
Project Manager: How far away is your television?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: It's never gonna be more than it's never gonna be, you kno unless you've got a T_V_ the size of a football pitch, it's not {disfmarker} doesn't have to go that far,
User Interface: Uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well, the thing is uh you you don't {disfmarker}
Project Manager: does it? Doesn't have to go through a wall, because you're not gonna be looking through a wall.
User Interface: That's true.
Marketing: Yeah, but if like you're on the phone in the other room and you need turn television off or something and you don't really want to go into the {disfmarker} put the telephone down, and go into the other room. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Well, we can make the the signal strong enough to go through walls if if you fancy it. I didn't think about that but {disfmarker}
Marketing: How about Bluetooth? {gap} Instead of using infra-red, use Bluetooth.
Industrial Designer: Why not? I just think that it's it's gonna cost more
Marketing: Isn't that a better signal?
Project Manager: Yeah, yeah I d it sounds like you {gap} you w don't wanna overcomplicate things.
Industrial Designer: and I'm I'm not sure it's {disfmarker} you're gonna use it.
Marketing: Mm {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: You know we don't need it.
Industrial Designer: It's a fancy idea uh it's quite nice, but then I don't th I dunno, either you {disfmarker} if you wanna watch the telly you're in the room,
Project Manager: Yeah, exactly.
Industrial Designer: you are gonna {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Basically, we're we're desi we're designing and marketing a television remote control unit.
Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker}
Project Manager: We're not w w w w designing something that you can plug in a headset to and and you know connect to your laptop computer and stuff. It's uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Oh, we can we can keep the idea if you i We can see at a later stage, maybe, I don't {disfmarker}
Marketing:'S just an idea.
Project Manager: Okay. Right, well done, Catherine. Um Gab Gabriel let's uh let's hear from you on on on such things.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Do you need the border?
User Interface: Uh I'm just gonna use the PowerPoint uh.
Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} Sorry.
User Interface: Technical {gap}. Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay, so, while this is warming up,
Marketing: Adjusting.
User Interface: there it is uh.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: So I'm doing the user interface design.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah, and basically uh, as far as methods, I was I was looking looking at looking at uh already existing remotes, trying to find some inspiration from designs that are already out there. Thinking of what we can retain, what we can do away with, uh what we what we can perfect a little bit as far as design um. {gap} we don't want to do something that's too radical of a change, I guess, I mean people want a remote that's familiar, that has their favourite functionalities um and and does the basics, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm yeah.
User Interface: Um so we can improve what's out there and maintain that, the basic functionality that people want. Um so things that {vocalsound} seem like absolute must-haves uh would be a volume control, um so up-down keys for that, uh channel keys up-down, but then also a numerical key pad so that they can just key directly to the channel that they want, rather than doing up-down, and uh a mute button. Uh one thing that I didn't include here, that I forgot that we talked about last time, was doing um some sort of lock uh function.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Uh, I don't I dunno, uh that's one possibility. And so in the research that I was doing there's basically two types of remotes, ones that are engineering centred and ones that are more user centred, which I don't know if I can access the web page from here, but I can show you {disfmarker} uh. Yeah. So this is a engineer centred one, so you see it's rather busy, but it also lets you play your movie, stop your movie, fast-forward, all this, um {vocalsound} freeze frame.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Uh and this is a user centred one. Uh it's it's easier to g just glance at this and see {vocalsound} what's possible to do,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: you're not gonna be staring at it for five minutes.
Project Manager: Great.
User Interface: And I {disfmarker} judging from what what we all talked about during our last meeting I kind of gathered that that's what we were going after, uh or the direction we were going in at least. Um. So, the engineering centred ones uh provide a lot of functionality, but it can be a little bit overwhelming, so the user centred ones just focus on ease of use. Uh and this sort of overlaps with what the marketing person uh, Reissa,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: because uh we we need to find out what what people want before we make firm decisions on this.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: {gap}. {vocalsound}
User Interface: So uh, yeah, that's me.
Project Manager: Great. Okay. Now that's I just have a q a q question for you. This w um research that you've been doing looki looking at other, you know, existing units {gap} stuff. Um have you found that anyone else has do has looked into the locking function or {disfmarker}
User Interface: No that that that seemed like a novel idea as f as far as I know. I mean obviously another {disfmarker} {gap} exists {gap} like you like you said in in mobile phones.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: That was sort of the inspiration for it. Um I've never seen that with {disfmarker} in in all my years in in the remote business.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: I've, haven't I've never seen a locking functionality. I dunno, what uh do you guys have a a yea or nay on that {gap} a feeling about whether that's really necessary?
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} I would say it's {disfmarker} If it's simple to do, which I think it probably should be,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: even if it's a physical, you know, a f a like a f a physical switch or a physical cover for the remote, even something like that, um then yes,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.'Kay.
Project Manager: it's {gap} like, you know, like s you said earlier on ab ab ab a flip thing, something like that,
User Interface: Right.
Project Manager: but you know being physical. Look into. Um I've had word down from head office that something that we should be centred {vocalsound} well, something we should take into account is um we've gotta keep the corporate image within this remote control unit. It's gotta d look like it's in the R_ and R_.
User Interface: Mm {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: You know, the the company it's it's, from what I can see from our other products, are yellow with blue writing on them. Um.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Mm.
User Interface: Right. And our motto is is we put the fashion in electronics.
Project Manager: We put the fashion in electronics. There you go.
User Interface: I think I think we have to carry that mental.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: So it's kinda gotta look it's gotta look new and s you know something fashionable. If if remote control {disfmarker} well, if telephones can be fashionable, then maybe remote control units can be.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Well yeah these, I think, we can {disfmarker} so we talked about the layout in my presentation and what I didn't mention yet really is is the sort of like the ergonomic design.
Project Manager: Yeah. Because we need {disfmarker}
User Interface: I t I think we can make big improvements over these two that you see here, I mean.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Great.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh, everything is going t ergonomic, you know, there's you know mice for your computers that are very ergonomic and keyboards and that could be one of our niches p sort of uh uh in the market, I guess. Um.
Project Manager: Okay, fantastic.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Right, well done, Gabriel.
Marketing: {gap}.
Project Manager: Um Reissa. Let's plug you in, baby.
Marketing: Where does it go into?
User Interface: {gap}.
Marketing: Here?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: The blue thing.
User Interface: Uh, yeah, this is getting all {gap}.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap}.
User Interface: Yeah, then you just have to do function F_ eight and it should come up.
Marketing: Well, function F_ eight. No {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, w it it just takes a wee while.
User Interface: Yeah, it just takes a second uh.
Marketing: oh. {vocalsound} Come on. Right. Okay. {gap}. Okay. Well, for our marketing report uh we observed remote control users in a usability lab, and also gave {disfmarker} so this is research {disfmarker} and we also gave participants um questionnaires to fill out. Um total number of people tested were a hundred just so you know, so that hundred people were tested and these were the findings. So seventy five per cent of users find the remote control ugly. Okay, so they don't like the look of the remote control. Um eighty f eighty per cent of them would spend more money if the rem remote control looked really cool and fancy. So I think we all agree with that. Um {vocalsound} current remote controls do not match well with the operating behaviour of the user. So, they don't like {disfmarker} like the way they operate it doesn't like match how people behave. Um {gap} per cent of the users say that they only use ten per cent of the buttons on a remote, so probably if you have like one, two, three, four, five, the whole up to z ten, they probably don't use those, they only use the up and down channel.
Project Manager:'Cause we've only got five channels. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound} exactly.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} That's another thing. {vocalsound} Um seventy five per cent of users say they zap. Not quite sure what they mean, zap, goes like {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: I think that's k flicking quickly between channels.
User Interface: Yeah, you wanna navigate the channels quickly I guess.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm. Um takes too much time to learn how to use a new remote. I think especially for uh the older generation. I know my grandmother doesn't like mobile phones, takes ages to work how to use. Anyway um and they also {disfmarker} remotes often get lost in the room, so nobody can find them.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: {vocalsound} So maybe tracking devices is a good idea.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Wow.
Marketing: Um personal preferences. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: You are a child of technology, aren't you? {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um so yeah um {vocalsound} I was thinking something easy to use, especially for older people. Um {vocalsound} has to look really cool, flashy groovy for people to buy it. And it's easy to find {vocalsound}, so I don't know whether maybe {disfmarker} and also we asked them whether they wanted {vocalsound} {disfmarker} whether they'd be interested in um {vocalsound} voice activating.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So voice activation. So and this was what we came up with. Then if you look fifteen to twenty five {disfmarker} this is age, sorry, {gap} age groups. So fifteen to twenty five said like ninety two {disfmarker} ninety one per cent of them said yes.
Project Manager: So there you go, yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} so basically the majority except for the forty five to fifty five year olds for some reason didn't want a voice activated one. And neither did the older generation, but the younger generation who we are catering for, like who have most of the money nowadays, do want a voice act speech recognition in a remote.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh but do the younger generation have the money? They they don't.
User Interface: No I would I would say the older the older people, yeah.
Project Manager: It's older generation, they're the ones that have gone out and {disfmarker}
Marketing: Well the twenty five to thirty five year old, and thirty five, and the thirty five to forty five, forty five point seven per cent {gap} say no, so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: People people from the age of thirty f there's a big drop off there.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: For people up to the age of thirty five, you're kinda saying, yeah, they want it. Um but no they're not {gap} sort of {disfmarker} most people that have the money are people from the age of thirty five to fifty five,
User Interface: Yeah, that would be my guess as well.
Project Manager: uh'cause they're the ones that have been working for twenty years.
Marketing: So they don't {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} d and tha
Marketing: Well {disfmarker}
Project Manager: and that's a {vocalsound} that's quite a minority there, so yeah, it's not even like fifty fifty that's th thirty five per cent.
Marketing: These guys are growing up. {vocalsound}
User Interface: What about just from the the prospective of our manufacturing cost? I mean if if it's twelve fifty per unit.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: I mean, okay, there's {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Voice activation might not be the best.
Project Manager: I would say scra I'd say scrap that straight off.
User Interface: Uh.
Marketing: Um also with um with buttons, {vocalsound} a thing called R_S_I_, so wrist sense {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: Repetitive strain uh rep repetitive strain injury
Marketing: Huh?
User Interface: or like from doing {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, repetitive strains injury, so they don't {disfmarker} I think people who watch T_V_ maybe too often, keep changing channel hurts their wrist.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well {vocalsound} maybe they shouldn't watch so much T_V_ then. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't think so. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So y so it's so it's so you got {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: so that's something we should have a look into then i when desi when designing the ergonomics of {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: maybe not so hard.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: see {vocalsound} have a look if um there's any w any medical background we can find out about this.
Industrial Designer: Maybe it could be, instead of pressing button it could be just touching a {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Let's jus {gap}
Marketing: Maybe {disfmarker}
Project Manager: we just want {disfmarker} need to cover our arses so that people aren't gonna sue us in ten years'time, say your remote control gave me repetitive strain injury.
User Interface: Yeah, we should probably consult with our legal department uh.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} They're having a lunch break at the moment, but {disfmarker} yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: I'll see if I can get {disfmarker} see if I can get hold of them for the next meeting.
User Interface: Yeah. I think we can do some really {disfmarker} in in that department, the the ergonomic department, we can make some some really good improvements.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm. Maybe th the buttons not so high up so you don't have to press so much,
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: or we just like flat buttons, something. Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: So that is me.
Project Manager: That's great, thank you very much for that, Reissa. {vocalsound} Um okay, so we've basically we've decide we've d we've decided that it's gonna be, you know uh, we're going for a basic television remote. It's gotta be safe to use, it's gotta look cool.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: It's gotta be cheap. S um.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Now going back to the uh industrial design of it, you know, we were looking at whether to use maybe infra-red or Bluetooth. I think, we should just go with the simplest option on everything, uh and that would be infra-red, energy source, that would be batteries. Uh mean we we can look into using the s, you know, the little tiny weeny batteries, all like special long-lasting batteries. Um. {vocalsound} But a in {disfmarker} there's no I don't think there's any point in making a remote control unit that's gonna last for fifty years, because technology will have changed and, you know, we won't have televisions in ten years'time. {vocalsound} So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Project Manager: I think we're all um pretty sussed on that. Um anyone have any questions? Everybody happy in their work?
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Yeah, it seems like we're all on the {disfmarker} pretty much on the same page.
Project Manager: Now {gap} this is good, we've got a good structure going on. We all know where we're going to. {vocalsound} Have you been ge has {disfmarker} have any of you lot been getting loads of crap spam on your computers?
User Interface: Oh it's probably just you,'cause you're the project manager. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {gap}.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Well, just questionnaires.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Sell {disfmarker} trying to sell your things {gap}. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, {gap} stuff.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um okay. Do {disfmarker} oh {gap} have you guys found out if we can if we can e-mail stuff to each other?
Marketing: Yeah, you can.
Project Manager: Right. Do all you all know my e-mail address?
User Interface: Okay. No I don't. I {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well, in the project announcement, you've got the addresses, I think.
Marketing: I think he's participant one, aren't you?
Industrial Designer: So Project Manager, it's participant one at A_M_I_. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} Oh, it's just participant one oh okay. Yeah.
Project Manager: Can you all d e-mail me your e-mail addresses?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap}.
Industrial Designer: You have them i you have them,
User Interface: Well it's just w it's just it's just par participant one, participant two. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: but we'll send you an e-mail.
Project Manager: Send me, yeah
Industrial Designer: You want to have friends, don't you?
Project Manager: {disfmarker} yeah, okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} So are we headed towards like a b a big yellow and black remote as far as {gap} maybe that's our next meeting that we discuss that.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Is it yellow and black or is it yellow and blue? I I kind of thought it was blue writing on a yellow background, but I might be just going a bit {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well, it's like white on i white and blue on a black background with white {disfmarker} with yellow borders.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Maybe that's {vocalsound} like getting ahead of ourselves.
Project Manager: Well, maybe you can come up with a few {disfmarker} with a couple of different ideas?
Industrial Designer: It wouldn't be {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: Can't we have different colours in the remotes, so somebody can choose different col
Project Manager: Well, see the thing is is we've gotta keep the company image.
Marketing: like does it have to be of a certain?
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: It's gotta say {disfmarker} people have gotta look at this remote control and instantly recognise that it's a Real Reaction i product.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: But if it's a R_R_, it would be Real Reaction,
Project Manager: There's loads of companies that called R_R_.
Marketing: like if it had a symbol on it.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: This is slog {gap} but this is the slogan, this is the the the the type.
Marketing: Whoa.
User Interface: And this is something that came on down from from the higher ups,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: so, I mean, we are sort of beholden to them.
Marketing: So we have to have it one colour.
Project Manager: Well, not necessarily. But we have to incorporate it.
User Interface: Not one colour, but the pattern needs to be recognisable.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Not necessarily even if i it just has to {disfmarker} ye but you have to look at the product and instantly know that it's one of our products
Industrial Designer: Well you could {disfmarker}
Project Manager: as opposed to a Sony product or a, you know, a Panasonic product.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: It's got to {disfmarker} so maybe, so you can have a look at our our other products and see if they all follow a s similar vein, perhaps.
Industrial Designer: It could come {disfmarker} But it could come in different colours and have the R_R_ colours just somewhere
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} like just around the lock button could be the R_R_ logo or colours and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: If {gap}.
Project Manager: Quite poss yeah. Well this is all your department. Mm okay. Well, well done everybody.
User Interface: {gap}.
Project Manager: And um, I think we uh stop for lunch now.
User Interface: Yeah, pretty soon I think, I guess that's now.
Marketing: Are we are we finished ahead of schedule?
Project Manager: We might possibly have done.
Industrial Designer: Cool.
User Interface: Alright, see you all soon.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} If we've if we've finished at five minutes before the meeting's supposed to finish, then that means we get an extra five minutes for lunch.
Marketing: {vocalsound}'Kay uh.
Project Manager: Yeah, there you go. Right. I just have to {disfmarker} there's a few little bits and pieces I have to write down, but {disfmarker} Take your headsets off, kick back, smoke'em if you got'em. {vocalsound} | The team discussed the topic of potential user-friendly features for the old and the young. Marketing mentioned the probable insertion of tracking devices which recognize personal preferences, like voice activator, because people may easily forget the position of the remote controls in the room. However, later the team decided to put aside this idea for budget reasons. Then, Marketing mentioned RSI, or repetitive strain injury, which should be taken into consideration in the process of ergonomic design. Industrial Designer mentioned that this could probably be avoided by touching a button instead of pressing a button. | qmsum |
What did Huw Morris think of the" no deal" scenario when talking about the political background and the aim of the group?
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Janet Finch-Saunders. I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome Suzy Davies to the committee, and to thank Mark Reckless and Darren Millar, who have left us, for their service and hard work as members of the committee. Can I ask whether there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. We will move on then to our evidence session on our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams, Cabinet Secretary for Education, and Eluned Morgan AM, Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning. Can I just ask you to introduce your officials for the record, please?
Kirsty Williams AM: Bore da, Lynne, and thank you for the invitation to join you. Eluned and I are joined this morning by Huw Morris, who's the group director at SHELL--skills, higher education and lifelong learning--and Marie Knox, who is deputy director, overseeing European transition.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much, and thank you for coming. We'll go straight into questions, then, and the first questions are from Suzy Davies.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I'd like to ask you both, if that's okay, a little bit about preparedness. But if I could start with higher education, I understand that--I don't know, it must be about 18 months ago now--Ken Skates told another committee in this place that there had been nine sector analyses done. Presumably, one of those was HE, because of the--well, Welsh Government had a presence, and still does, in Brussels, related to higher education. Apparently, those have now been superseded by work that's been done by Cardiff University. I don't know if you've got any comments on that research, or whether it's been brought to your attention yet.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, Suzy, following the vote, I was very keen that we work very closely with colleagues in higher education and further education, to get an understanding from on the ground about the potential impact. So, in terms of preparedness, we started that group in the September, and that work from that group, which includes both HE and FE, has been instrumental in helping the Government form its views, which were articulated in the Government's White Paper,'Securing Wales'Future'. There has been ongoing work being done--as the debate in London and Europe becomes a little bit more clear, then it becomes a little less clear, and then a little bit more clear, but, bearing in mind the difficulties of working in an ever-changing field, we have been refining those approaches. Each institution has been looking at their own institution, because, as you can imagine, although we have an overview of the sector, the challenges are very different for individual institutions--so their exposure, for instance, to the number of European Union students that they have at their college, or the work that they might be doing with Horizon 2020, or their success--and there has been considerable success in the HE field in securing structural funds for various projects--the exposure and the potential impact of leaving the EU, in a'no deal'or in a'deal'scenario, is very, very different. But I don't know if, Huw, you want to talk any further.
Suzy Davies AM: Maybe just to use the'no deal'scenario is probably the easiest, isn't it?
Kirsty Williams AM: The'no deal'?
Suzy Davies AM: Well, yes, because that's the worst-case scenario, so let's look at that one.
Huw Morris: As the Cabinet Secretary mentioned, the higher education Brexit working group's been meeting since September 2016 and has been looking at that in general. More recently, when the prospect of no deal became talked about, officials have been visiting individual institutions to talk to them about their preparedness for that. As you'll be aware, the funding for much of the activity is secured, we believe, even under a'no deal'scenario, until December 2020; that's a letter we had from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. I think the research you're referring to may be research that Cardiff University has been doing with the Bevan Foundation and others. I know there's a report due to be launched later today. We have been doing our own research and looking at the impact on HE, FE and apprenticeship providers.
Suzy Davies AM: Well, that's really helpful because my understanding was that this Cardiff University research had superseded all those nine sector analyses.
Huw Morris: That may be true for the economy brief. Certainly, there are published papers by Max Munday and a team at Cardiff University on the impact of Brexit on the Welsh economy, but for HE and FE and apprenticeship provision, it's as the Cabinet Secretary outlined.
Suzy Davies AM: So, are there any formal risk assessments that are available for us to scrutinise, for example? For HE and FE for that matter.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales have been doing some specific work; I can't comment on how wide they would want that to be shared. We have been doing some broad analysis, as I said, for the sector, looking at what we can do to mitigate the risk, bearing in mind that each institution is an autonomous institution, a principle that they guard really jealously, and rightly so. So, we have been, as Huw said, because the prospect of a'no deal'has become, perhaps, more to the forefront, officers have been visiting each institution to try and make sure and to satisfy us, as people who fund part of their activity, that they have their own plans in place to deal with these scenarios. We continue to work alongside them to push the issues that we can help them with. So, for instance, we continue to work with officials in Westminster around Erasmus+ provision in a'no deal'scenario, what a UK stand-alone project would look like, the impacts of a'no deal'on Horizon 2020. So, we look at the broader picture and we are encouraging continually individual institutions to make sure that they themselves are looking at their specific needs within that.
Suzy Davies AM: Well, if there is something that's shareable, I'm sure we'd be very pleased to see it--
Kirsty Williams AM: Anything that we've got--
Suzy Davies AM: --particularly with FE, actually, because, of course, we haven't got a HEFCW for FE; you're doing that regulation yourself. I'd expect to see that type of work evidenced somewhere from within Welsh Government, and we would be able to see that then.
Eluned Morgan AM: So, if I could just make some points on FE. We've been actively engaging with the FE sector. We've spoken to every one of the colleges about how they see things developing. I think it's quite a different response than what is going to be happening in HE.
Suzy Davies AM: Yes, because the student thing isn't such an issue, is it?
Eluned Morgan AM: You've got to remember that the FE colleges are much more anchored within their communities, they're much more localised, and so, for example, the number of EU students in these colleges is significantly lower. The number of staff in these colleges--I think they've analysed that there are only about 71 people. So, we're keeping in touch with them and we're letting them know what we are being told in terms of the Home Office settled status and what we can do to protect those 71. But that's a much bigger issue, I think, for higher education.
Suzy Davies AM: What are they telling you about European social fund funding, though, because, as you say, they're locally anchored--the impact on FE of ESF funding is probably more significant than the issues we're talking about with higher education. How are you finding this out? Is this through one-to-one conversations?
Eluned Morgan AM: We are engaging with them all, and, obviously, we're engaging with ColegauCymru, who've done their own analysis, and what we found, in particular, is that the real problems are probably in relation to ESF funding and apprenticeships. But what you've got to remember is that that link between apprenticeships and the local work community is absolutely crucial. So, if--
Suzy Davies AM: Yes, that's why I asked.
Eluned Morgan AM: --the economy nosedives, or if there's an issue that we see--just the dislocation of companies in those areas as a result of Brexit--then that will inevitably have an impact on the number of apprenticeships that will be on offer. So, it's those kinds of things, but at the moment I think it's worth pointing out that about PS15 million a year goes into the FE sector just in relation to apprenticeships.
Suzy Davies AM: Can I just come back finally on that, before handing over? In both your areas of responsibility, there's going to be an impact on Welsh Government in how it responds to that, as well. Can you tell me a little bit about the European transition team, which I think is about building resilience within the Welsh Government to deal with the impacts of Brexit? Is that a formal arrangement you have with officials? I don't really know much about this team, but it seems to meet fortnightly to get Welsh Government ready for Brexit, so could you just give us some clues on this?
Marie Knox: Yes, in terms of the European transition team, that's the central co-ordinating group that pulls together all the leads in each department who are pulling together the work on European transition. So, I attend that group in relation to higher education and further education, and, obviously, other representatives in terms of agriculture, transport, the economy, et cetera.
Suzy Davies AM: It's great that you're on that group, but what does it actually do? That's the bit I wasn't sure about.
Marie Knox: I guess it provides the governance structure for the Welsh Government as a whole in relation to European transition. So, individual departments do their own work, and the European transition team provides the governance structure, and, also, they lead on the discussions with the Department for Exiting the European Union, No. 10, the Joint Ministerial Committee--those kinds of ministerial arrangements.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I've had enough time, I think.
Lynne Neagle AM: Llyr.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: I'll ask my questions in Welsh, if I may. This discussion between HEFCW and higher education, these challenges in terms of how ready they are for the changes to come, and the work that the Government is doing with FE, I suspect, is happening at an organisational level. So, I just want to hear a little about where the student voice comes into that discussion and where the engagement happens in terms of the students.
Kirsty Williams AM: So, we have a close working relationship with the National Union of Students. I meet with them regularly, and officials are in constant touch with the student voice. They have been very clear, and I think there is a huge amount of consensus between the Welsh Government, what the universities are asking for and what the students are asking for. You'll have seen, only earlier this week, the very powerful campaign by NUS Wales about the importance of Erasmus+ arrangements. There is a huge amount to be gained for Welsh students and young people participating in the Erasmus programme. Many of us, I know, have had the opportunity to study abroad as part of our own studies, and there's a lot to be gained from it. We've been very clear from the outset, as have the sector and the student voice, about the importance of participation in that scheme. NUS are also very concerned that there should be no negative impact on the quality of faculty. Our HE institutions, to a greater extent than FE, have faculty staff from the EU--it runs at about 11 per cent. That adds great diversity and strength to the quality of teaching within our institutions. Clearly, that is a concern for students. They want to have the best teachers, they want access to the best learning opportunities, and we've been very clear about the importance of providing security and stability for those staff, making sure we send very clear messages that they're very welcome and we value their contribution. NUS, again, also value the diversity in the student population. Again, as far as we've been able to, we've been able to give messages about the security of funding for European students for the next academic year. I wish I could go further, but that's out of my hands. We're working to the limits of what I feel comfortable in being able to guarantee without further guarantees from Westminster. So, we've been working closely with the student voice, and I think, Llyr, what's very clear is there is a consensus about what is important across the Government, the institutions and student voice. So, that is making sure we send very clear messages about Wales's institutions being open for business and that we welcome both EU and international students, that we value the contribution of faculty, and that we want to be able to continue in Horizon 2020. That's especially important if we're looking at attracting postgraduate work and postgraduate students into our system, as well as Erasmus+. The issue of post-study work visas, again, is very important. As I said, there's a consensus, I think, between the Government, the institutions and the students about what we need the UK Government to achieve for us.
Lynne Neagle AM: Before we move on to student recruitment, it's increasingly the view of many experts that we're heading for a'no deal'Brexit. Can I ask both of you what specific plans you've put in place in the event of such a'no deal'Brexit happening and us crashing out next spring?
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, I think it's really difficult for us to prepare for a'no deal'Brexit, but obviously we need to think through very carefully what that might look like, and I think that scenario planning is starting to happen. I think it's very different, again, for FE compared to HE. So, in relation to FE, what we do have is funding--ESF funding--which the UK Government has said that they will underwrite until 2020. So, in March next year, if there is no deal, the immediate impact on FE is unlikely to hit in the way that we may have feared. The problem then becomes: what exactly is the deal with the EU in future, because we will have some kind of relationship, and what that impact will be on the broader economy and our ability to work with companies locally, and industries, to provide that link between training needs? So, the colleges, basically, are providing the training for lots of the apprenticeships, and so if the number of companies reduces, then that is likely to have an impact. So, there are specific sectors that we are more concerned about than others. Farming is obviously one that we are concerned about, because that could have a difference in terms of day one of no deal. If your markets are not there, that could be quite an immediate impact. Health and social care--obviously, we are concerned that there are a number of people who work in that sector who are EU citizens. What is the impact? Are they going to feel unwelcome? Are they likely, then, to return home? Where will that skills gap, therefore, be? So, that's a problem for us. Construction is already an issue for us in terms of skills shortages. So, one of the things we're doing is we've developed these regional skills partnerships where we ask local employers,'What is it that you need in terms of skills development?'and we are now asking further education colleges to respond to that need. So, rather than them just getting people through the college system, who are easy to get in because they're doing courses that they're excited about, let's try and encourage them to do courses where we know there are skills shortages. So, that is a new structure that we've developed that is already having an impact; there's a PS10 million project there. So, we're already putting things in place for those situations. In manufacturing, obviously, if there's no deal, the rules of origin, that could have an immediate impact. Just-in-time--we could have real problems in terms of dislocation there; and hospitality and tourism. So, those are the sectors we have most concerns about, and all of them have very strong links to the FE sector.
Kirsty Williams AM: From the HE perspective, from a point of principle, we just have to keep working towards some kind of deal. Although the prospect of no deal, maybe, has risen up the agenda, we have got to be consistent in our messages to the Westminster Government: we need a deal. Wales cannot afford to crash out of the EU without a deal. If that worst-case scenario was to happen, because of the underwrite guarantee, actually, for European regional development fund and European social fund programmes in the HE sector, it would be business as usual. And because of the current underwrite guarantee, the forthcoming bids for Erasmus and Horizon 2020 would be covered, but they would be the last applications that could be made. You'll be aware that there are some proposals for an extension to that guarantee, but from my understanding and our understanding of it, that would only give us third-country status for Horizon 2020 and Erasmus. What that does mean is that we would have limited access to the Horizon 2020 programme, and if you look at the activity that is currently being undertaken by the Welsh HE sector under that programme, that would mean that we'd probably lose about 50 per cent of that work, because that's the split between the bits we would still be able to access and what we are currently accessing. As I've already said, we have made a guarantee for EU student support for the next academic year, but, without clarity from the Treasury, I don't think it would be prudent of me to commit Welsh Government to anything further than that. So, we continue to push the message that a'no deal'would be catastrophic. What can we do? You'll be aware that we have been working with Universities Wales to access resources under the European transition fund, under the Global Wales programme, to look to boost international marketing of the HE sector and to talk about the strengths that we have in the sector. And we continue to look at other opportunities within the EU transition pot of money to assist the universities and the FE sector in that regard. We also continue to look to respond to the Reid review proposals, about how we can beef up our own research and continue to engage with UK Research and Innovation to make sure that, with any research money that comes out of that negotiation, Wales is in a competitive position to be able to bid successfully for that.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We're going to move on, then, to talk about student recruitment. I'm going to, because we've got a lot of questions, appeal for brief questions and answers that are as concise as possible, please. Hefin.
Hefin David AM: How does the Welsh Government account for the fact that EU student applications in Wales this year--that Wales is the only country in the UK to have seen a significant drop?
Kirsty Williams AM: Okay, well, I think the first thing to remember is that we will not get a full picture of student recruitment until, first of all, November and then the true picture, because some institutions, as you would know, have two admissions dates--we won't get the full picture until the spring. I think it was inevitable, given the change in Government policy with regard to student support, which had previously allowed European students to benefit from a tuition fee grant, and given the fact that that option is no longer available to them, that that has had an impact on EU recruitment, and there's no point trying to hide from that.
Hefin David AM: So, together with leaving the EU, that's a double-whammy effect that's hitting Wales harder than the rest of the UK.
Kirsty Williams AM: It just puts us in the same position as EU students applying to England, but it was inevitable. This was looked at by Diamond. It was anticipated that this could be a consequence of the change in policy, and I think we see that reflected in the initial figure, although, as I said, we won't get the true picture until the first census in November, and then, ultimately, the final picture in the spring.
Hefin David AM: How concerned are you by that?
Kirsty Williams AM: Clearly, we want our universities to be able to attract students from both the EU and from around the world. The fact that the tuition fee grant arrangements may have had an impact on European Union students at this stage does not preclude the fact that Wales, up until now, has been successful in recruiting international students. So, the change in the fee regime should not be a barrier to the recruitment of international students, because, actually, international students outside of the EU make up a bigger proportion of students not from the UK who come to our institutions.
Hefin David AM: That's a fair point, but it's unfortunate timing, though, isn't it?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think, from a public policy point of view and moving towards a sustainable way of funding our HE sector, then both my priority and, I would say, the priority of the institutions was to see the implementation of Diamond, which is what we have done.
Hefin David AM: Okay, that's fine. What about the fact that we've got a relatively imbalanced higher education profile compared to other countries of the UK with regard to high, medium and low-tariff universities? We've got one high-tariff university, and they're the ones that tend to show the growth in recruitment of EU students. Are you concerned about that balance of profile in the HE sector?
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said in answer to your question earlier, there is a difference reflected in the exposure of institutions to EU and international students. I would argue that it's not necessarily the case that institutions that are not high-tariff are not able to do very well in this sector. If you look, for instance, at Swansea University--if you look at the work Swansea University has done, that shows you what is possible.
Hefin David AM: What is Swansea's success, then? What can we learn from Swansea?
Kirsty Williams AM: What I think is important--and this is not about any one institution--what I think is really important is that we look to--. And I can't force institutions to do this. It's a combination, I believe, for all universities, of getting their offer right--so, having a curriculum at their institution that is attractive and offers courses that people want to study. It's about that curriculum being delivered in an excellent fashion, so high quality ratings for teaching, as well as having an infrastructure that is attractive to students. So, it's all about getting the offer right and providing what students, both domestically and internationally, want.
Hefin David AM: But the evidence would therefore suggest that that model of success that you've just outlined is happening in Swansea but it isn't happening in other institutions, and they're seeing a drop.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, I think what we can see from Cardiff, Swansea and others is that it is possible to do very well in the sector.
Hefin David AM: So, Cardiff, Swansea and Bangor--but the others, not.
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, what we can see is that, if you get the offer right, I think we have something very special that the HE sector can market itself on.
Lynne Neagle AM: Llyr, you've got a supplementary.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Just coming back to the drop in EU students, you mentioned that one of the reasons probably is the change in the funding that's available to students coming here. So, does that suggest that, under the current regime, Wales was punching above its weight in terms of attracting students and we've lost that advantage? I know we're gaining in other ways in introducing the new system, but really we're not much different to England in terms of fees now, so why would they come to Wales as opposed to going anywhere else?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think you're right; there was an added incentive, potentially, to come to a Welsh institution because of the availability of the tuition fee grant. That advantage is no longer there, which is why we need to work alongside the sector, as we're doing with the Global Wales programme, to increase their ability to market HE in the round across the world. I think we've got a strong offer that we can speak to people about. I'm very proud of what our institutions can deliver for people. It's a fantastic, warm environment to come and study in, at great institutions. There's something for everybody, whether you want to be in a city like Cardiff or whether you want a coastal experience in a small town like Aber. So, we've got a lot to offer and that's why it's really important that, although we have seen a change in the tuition fees, which may have an impact, we are investing with universities, for instance, in the Global Wales programme.
Lynne Neagle AM: In terms of the drop that we've seen in Wales, which is differential amongst institutions, will you be taking any specific action to try and prevent Brexit exacerbating that?
Kirsty Williams AM: We are working with HEFCW and individual institutions, as I said, to test their preparedness. We can't tell them what to do in that sense, but we can, because of our governance arrangements and HEFCW's monitoring arrangements, continue to test with them. I meet regularly with vice-chancellors and separately with the chairs of the institutions and separately again with HEFCW representatives, and the sustainability of the sector and recruitment issues is always something that is on the agenda.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Julie.
Julie Morgan AM: The additional PS6. 4 million that went to HEFCW in the 2017-18 year, which I think you say is partly because of Brexit and partly because of demographic and recruitment challenges, what do you expect to see as a result of that spending?
Kirsty Williams AM: That funding was allocated, as I said, to enable HEFCW to deal with any short-term implications arising out of demographic changes, because we've seen a drop in the number of 18-year-olds, and the initial implications of EU transition. It was allocated as part of HEFCW's overall grant in aid, and therefore the council was given discretion as to how it was to be apportioned to the sector. The money was brought forward a year, because, in conversations with HEFCW and the institutions, they felt that that money would be more useful earlier on. So, it was money that was brought forward into the allocation for 2017-18, as opposed to 2018-19, because they wanted to have that resource earlier rather than later. With regard to additional resources, you'll be aware that we have made an additional resource of PS5 million available to mitigate the freeze in tuition fees, and PS5 million has been made available to HEFCW to kick-start the work on postgraduate support until we're in a position to fully implement Diamond at the postgraduate level.
Julie Morgan AM: You say that the money is used at the discretion of the universities. So, you don't have an analysis of how that was spent.
Kirsty Williams AM: The financial allocation, as I said, was agreed with the funding council and it was there to help universities with any cash flow issues, but if you'd like further details I can provide those as much as I'm able.
Julie Morgan AM: I think it would be interesting if we know what the money was spent on and, of course, that money is now not available for the next financial year, so there's no way of carrying on what they were doing with it, presumably.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, it was part of the overall allocation to HEFCW. With specific regard to dealing with the impact of Brexit, you'll be aware that we have reached an agreement in principle on the funding of PS3. 5 million to the Global Wales initiative. This was an application that came in from Universities Wales looking at specifically targeting and beefing up international work and international recruitment work to support them at this time, and we're currently working with Universities Wales on the exact details and outcomes they would expect from that investment.
Julie Morgan AM: And do you have any estimate of how many students you hope to attract by that?
Kirsty Williams AM: That is subject to continuing negotiations with Universities Wales before we let any contracts with them. What's important is that that work is based on research that has been done by Universities Wales to look at the optimum markets that we should be targeting, specifically the United States of America and Vietnam.
Julie Morgan AM: And will this money be used equally between all the universities?
Kirsty Williams AM: We expect that all institutions--should they have a desire to participate--will be able to be assisted, as well as the overall global branding from Universities Wales and the new Study in Wales initiative.
Julie Morgan AM: Thank you. I think we've covered the EU student fees, haven't we?
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Do you want to ask question 12?
Julie Morgan AM: Has the Welsh Government explored the possibility of looking at different immigration rules for international and EU students who may wish to study here?
Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, with regard to immigration, clearly, this is something, at the moment, that is out of our hands, and I have to say, it hasn't got off to a great start when initially the post-study work visas were issued just for a number of institutions in the south-east of England, with no consultation with us and I don't believe with the Scottish Government either. So, we have campaigned, pushed, cajoled, lobbied, and I was very glad that in December last year, the Home Office did then make that scheme available to Cardiff and to Trinity Saint David. We continue to press the point that we do not believe that, first of all, international students should be included in any immigration targets. I think all the evidence suggests that the British public don't regard international students as immigrants, and therefore we do need to make sure that they are taken out of the targets and we can continue to press that message with the UK Government. At the moment, you'll be aware that Welsh Government has looked at a specific piece of work on whether there was any scope for specific immigration policy for Wales, although I must say that was mostly in the field of actually the workforce rather than students. You'll be aware that this week the Government's migration advisory committee--there are so many committees these days--have said that they don't believe that there is a case for a separate provision for EU students, as opposed to international students. But we want an immigration system that makes it as easy as possible for those students who want to benefit from education in Wales, and indeed the UK, to be able to do so.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Llyr.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, what are we doing from now on in then? Are we just waiting to see or are we continuing to push?
Kirsty Williams AM: No--gosh--Llyr, we continue to push the case at the official level, and at the moment, I'm trying to convene a quadrilateral, if it can be quadrilateral in the sense that Northern Ireland aren't up and running--but certainly with officials from Northern Ireland. We're trying to arrange another quadrilateral between myself, the HE Minister for England and the new HE Minister for Scotland. If I can speak candidly, I don't believe that there's any difference between our view, with regard to the status of international students, and the views of English Ministers within the department in England. It is convincing the Home Office of that case. So, I don't think we need to persuade Sam Gyimah about the importance of this. Jo Johnson got, I think the current Minister gets it--it's a question of whether we can persuade the Home Office of that particular case.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. The next questions are from John Griffiths.
John Griffiths AM: I have some questions on the sustainability of higher and further education. Firstly, with regard to higher education, we heard that, even without Brexit, higher education is in managed deficit, whilst the funding announcements from Diamond and Reid are awaited. So, is that a concern to Welsh Government, and could Welsh Government take away that uncertainty by outlining a clear funding commitment to the Diamond and Reid reviews?
Kirsty Williams AM: Welsh Government is fully committed, John, to implementing the Diamond review proposals. It's a commitment that was an element of the agreement between myself and the First Minister that brought me into the administration, and we have been very clear with HEFCW about our expectations and what the implementation of Diamond will mean for grant going to HEFCW. And we've shared those figures with them. With regard to Reid, we continue within Government to discuss how we can implement the recommendations of Reid, but one of the whole principles behind Diamond was to move us to a more sustainable funding settlement for the HE sector in the round, that is fair to students, encourages those with the ability to partake in higher education to do so, especially from those from a poorer background, as well as being able to provide our institutions with the resources that they need.
John Griffiths AM: So, you don't accept, then, that there hasn't been a clear funding commitment from Welsh Government to those reviews--the Diamond and Reid reviews?
Kirsty Williams AM: With regard to Diamond, I would absolutely refute that. We have been very clear and we have shown HEFCW our analysis of the figures going forward in relation to what is sometimes called within the sector the'Diamond dividend', although the Diamond dividend is never as big as people imagine the Diamond dividend to be. But we've been absolutely clear with HEFCW and the sector on what that will mean. Now, with regard to Reid, those are ongoing discussions that form part of the normal budgetary process within the Government, but I think we have been as clear as we can be with regard to Diamond.
John Griffiths AM: Okay. The second question, really, is about HE and FE and it's about European funding, which, of course, has been and is on a multi-year basis, which gives, I think, a lot of security and comfort to the sectors, knowing what the budgets will be over a period of time. So, moving from that to a yearly budgeting situation would be worrying. So, would you commit to introducing multi-year funding settlements for HE, and indeed for FE, moving forward beyond Brexit?
Eluned Morgan AM: Shall I take this and give you a little bit of a break? She's not very well. I think the multi-annual nature of the European funding programmes has been very, very useful. People can plan, you can get staffing in place, you can have really strategic aims and I think that's really useful for the institutions involved. Of course, what we don't have is multi-annual budgeting from the UK Government. So, whilst I think we would, in an ideal world, like to see a better view of what's coming our way, it's extremely difficult for us to be able to offer that without having that multi-annual funding commitment from the UK Government. So, I think that will be a major, major loss for the institutions concerned. Of course, it's not just about ESF and apprenticeships--it's also about ERDF funding. So, you mustn't forget that, actually, there's been a lot of ERDF funding that's gone into these institutions. Swansea University, you'll be aware, has been practically rebuilt with ERDF. Also, FE colleges--we've got Coleg y Cymoedd, the college in Blaenau Gwent. These have been built, largely, with European funding. It's because of the multi-annual nature of the fact that we've been able to prepare for them that they have been able to progress. So, that will be a huge loss, but I think it's really important that we don't forget the ERDF aspect in addition to the ESF impact that there will be on these institutions.
John Griffiths AM: Okay. As far as further education is concerned, in your paper you state that it's a priority to support the FE sector to maintain all the learning opportunities that currently take place under European Union funding. So, would you be able to give the committee an idea of the level of resource you would estimate that the sector requires to achieve that priority, and--? I'll stop there for the moment.
Eluned Morgan AM: I think it is important. What we've said is that we want to maintain that range of learning opportunities that is provided by EU funding. I think we've got to be clear that we are not working to this scenario. I think we've got to--. The UK Government have made us some promises and they've made some commitments, and we need to hold them to that, and so let's keep the pressure on. The moment we start saying,'No, it's all going to be okay, we'll sort ourselves out'--I think that would be a huge mistake. We have been promised that we will not lose a penny as a result of Brexit, and we need to make sure that we keep them to that commitment. I think it was quite interesting to hear what Philip Hammond said yesterday when he was in Wales, saying that the money that we will receive will depend on the future shape of the economy, which implies that he has no idea what's going to happen there, and that that shared prosperity fund will be designed around the deal. Well, that's really not what we're interested in. We were made some promises, and we need them to commit to those promises. I think we have some real concerns about the shared prosperity fund not really following through on the commitments that were made during the Brexit referendum. But, in terms of the replacements, we'd be looking at about PS15 million a year, and that would be a huge impact for us, but we're not looking at that--I don't think we should be--because they made some promises.
John Griffiths AM: So, could you say that, if they keep their promises, then at least that level of funding would be maintained?
Eluned Morgan AM: I think that would be a minimum, but that's just one aspect of it. That's not including the whole workplace learning money on top of that.
John Griffiths AM: Okay.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy, you had a supplementary.
Suzy Davies AM: Yes, just very quickly on the multi-annual point, obviously I recognise that we're talking about six or seven-year cycles with Europe, and I completely take the point that you don't really know from year to year what your budget's going to be, but Welsh Government does make multi-annual commitments. I think you did it yesterday, actually--the capital commitment is over more than one year. How are you able to do that and yet not quite feel confident that you can do that with--well, both your sectors, really?
Eluned Morgan AM: I think it's probably easier to do with capital than it is with revenue, so that's what would make the difference. But it's--. These institutions are interested in revenue, because that's what supports the staff. The one thing we all know is that employment opportunities today--the transitional nature of employment and the fact that people are not getting the kind of contracts that we'd like them to get--that makes their lives very precarious and they're less likely, then, to be committed to those institutions. I think it's a really, really concerning thing, because what makes these institutions work well is their staff, so that makes life very, very difficult without that multi-annual commitment.
Suzy Davies AM: They also have to raise some of their own money as well--we mustn't forget that.
Eluned Morgan AM: No, I think that's right, and I think that there's more that these institutions can do in terms of their own funding and being more responsive to employers and the need for skills in their areas.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: So, given the precarious state of planning for the finances, are you considering letting universities charge EU students international fees?
Kirsty Williams AM: We don't regulate the ability for universities to set fees for international students. They would be in a position to--[Inaudible. ] They are in a position to set international fees at a rate that, I guess, they feel is appropriate for the provision that they give to those students.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, right. We'll move on, then, to questions from Llyr.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you. I just wanted to pick up on the funding of apprenticeships and the long-term funding, because the ESF--the commitments take us to 2023, which takes us beyond any transition period. So, I just want to hear from you that there are assurances that the apprenticeship programme can be delivered as a whole, come what may.
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we're fine until 2020, because we've had that guarantee from the Government. The issue for us is the n+2 that we would have if we do have some kind of transition deal or an agreement with the EU. So, there is a risk and there is concern, beyond 2020, that that would create problems if they don't agree to fund that, which is the expectation that we have.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: But it is a prospect that this wouldn't be achieved as you foresee.
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we do hope, because we've had the pledges and commitments from the Government, that they will respect what we expected and what was expected by these institutions that have had the commitment of the funding.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, to what extent does that undermine the current work? Because institutions want to enter into agreements with providers and so on. Businesses want to know, if they're starting on some sort of journey, that they are going to get to the end of it some years down the line. That must be undermining a lot of the work that's going on now.
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, as I said, because the guarantee is there until 2020, I think that, for now, people are willing to go into those agreements, and I hope that we'll have a better outlook by November of the direction we're moving in. But I don't think it's had an impact. You have to remember that the number of apprenticeships in Wales is rising, while they've collapsed entirely in England. So, it is important that we do continue, and it's important that we don't create an atmosphere here that's going to undermine the confidence of our employers in committing to training in the workplace.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Are you confident that the Government will achieve its targets in this context?
Eluned Morgan AM: Yes. We're on target to reach 100,000 apprenticeships. I think we're slightly ahead of that target, I'm pleased to say. So, of course, our hope is to do that. But let's be clear: if there is a'no deal'scenario, that will have an impact on the economy, and who knows what will happen then to some of these companies that are reliant on the EU.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Talking about the impact on the wider economy, on the point you made earlier that it's not just the direct effect on these institutions, but also on the businesses that they engage with, that is a concern in this context, that means, of course, that there is a lot of pressure in this context on the work that other departments in the Government are doing, because perhaps they are the ones dealing with some of this. So, could you tell us a little bit about how you're working with Ministers and Cabinet Secretaries and other departments within the Government to safeguard these interests?
Eluned Morgan AM: So, as part of the employability programme, I have started going round every member of the Cabinet to ask what the impact will be on them--for example, in health, and, certainly, the economy, but here are many other areas. What's important for us is that we do collaborate and we do get this analysis, but we hope to do that on the ground through the regional skills partnerships. That's our way of ensuring that we can have an understanding, on the ground, of what's needed by employers. And so ensuring that people feed into that and that we respond to those requirements--that's where we're focusing our work. So, we're asking, for example, health boards to ensure that they feed into the regional skills partnerships.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is there a danger that we're a little bit behind in this process? Because Brexit could be upon us in no time at all, and, of course, this work is still ongoing.
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, I have been pushing and ensuring that in the direct areas facing the greatest risk, and agriculture's one of those, of course--. We have been pushing to see what we can do further, so, for example, I'm in the process of developing a policy on rural skills at present because I do think it's important that we do focus on those sectors that are likely to suffer the worst impact if the worst does happen. So, those preparations are in place as far as they can be, but, of course, it's very difficult without knowing to what extent it's going to impact on us.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: And each sector's running on its own timescale, I would presume. But, as you've mentioned rural skills, when do you foresee that that work will appear, and when will plans or schemes or whatever you're intending to put in place see the light of day?
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we hope during this term that that will be published or announced. So, certainly, it is something that we have been discussing with people in rural areas directly, with the colleges, to see what the provision is there and to what extent we need to expand that, and to what extent we will need to change and move really quickly if there is no deal. That's something that I think we have to learn and we need to convince the FE sector about in terms of moving more quickly and to be more responsive to the demand that there is in the workplace.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, because there is the dilemma you touched on earlier about providing the skills that are required for the economy and providing the courses that are easy to fill. That is a live discussion across FE and HE, but you're confident that that discussion is taking place in a constructive and positive way and moving in the right direction.
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, it's helped that we've put PS10 million on the table, because they do understand now that we are serious about our aim of ensuring that they do respond to what employers are asking for. So that has helped a lot in terms of focus and, of course, we're in the middle of a review now as well in terms of how we fund FE, and that will certainly be a part of that.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay, thanks.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Can I just go back--?
Kirsty Williams AM: Sorry, Chair, could I just clarify something? The last question you asked me about--
Lynne Neagle AM: I was just going to go back to that, yes.
Kirsty Williams AM: --fees--. Sorry. Of course, that is in the context of a'no deal'scenario. There could be a scenario where there are reciprocal arrangements, so, if a deal was reached with the European Union that established the principle of reciprocal arrangements, then, obviously, the ability of the HE institutions to charge international fees would be curtailed. I just want to make that clear.
Lynne Neagle AM: If there's not that agreement--
Kirsty Williams AM: If there's no deal--
Lynne Neagle AM: --then it will be open to universities to charge market-driven, international rates.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, that's right. Sorry, I just wanted to clarify. I should have made it very clear that the answer I gave was in the context of no deal, which is what we seem to be talking about mostly this morning, but if there was a deal to have reciprocal arrangements, then that ability, obviously, would be curtailed.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay, well, can I thank the Cabinet Secretary, the Minister and the officials for attending and for answering all our questions? We very much appreciate your time. As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy after the meeting. Thank you very much. Okay. Item 5, then, is papers to note. Members will see that there are 18 papers to note, so I'd like to suggest that we note them as a block, please, and just to flag that I would like to return to paper to note 18 when we go into private. Is that okay with everyone? Everyone happy to note those? Thank you. Item 6, then, can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting and the whole of the meeting next week? Are Members content? Okay, thank you. | When discussing the dilemma that the Wales universities were faced with at the moment, Kirsty Williams pointed out that many factors would affect the fiscal situation of the universities, including whether it would be a" no deal" scenario or a" deal" one. Even though most worries were towards the" no deal" scenario, Huw Morris was confident that the higher education Brexit working group had been meeting since September 2016 and recently officials had been visiting individual institutions to ensure that they were fully prepared for the potential fund problems. | qmsum |
What did the group talk about the admission problems of Wales universities and corresponding solutions?
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Janet Finch-Saunders. I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome Suzy Davies to the committee, and to thank Mark Reckless and Darren Millar, who have left us, for their service and hard work as members of the committee. Can I ask whether there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. We will move on then to our evidence session on our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams, Cabinet Secretary for Education, and Eluned Morgan AM, Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning. Can I just ask you to introduce your officials for the record, please?
Kirsty Williams AM: Bore da, Lynne, and thank you for the invitation to join you. Eluned and I are joined this morning by Huw Morris, who's the group director at SHELL--skills, higher education and lifelong learning--and Marie Knox, who is deputy director, overseeing European transition.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much, and thank you for coming. We'll go straight into questions, then, and the first questions are from Suzy Davies.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I'd like to ask you both, if that's okay, a little bit about preparedness. But if I could start with higher education, I understand that--I don't know, it must be about 18 months ago now--Ken Skates told another committee in this place that there had been nine sector analyses done. Presumably, one of those was HE, because of the--well, Welsh Government had a presence, and still does, in Brussels, related to higher education. Apparently, those have now been superseded by work that's been done by Cardiff University. I don't know if you've got any comments on that research, or whether it's been brought to your attention yet.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, Suzy, following the vote, I was very keen that we work very closely with colleagues in higher education and further education, to get an understanding from on the ground about the potential impact. So, in terms of preparedness, we started that group in the September, and that work from that group, which includes both HE and FE, has been instrumental in helping the Government form its views, which were articulated in the Government's White Paper,'Securing Wales'Future'. There has been ongoing work being done--as the debate in London and Europe becomes a little bit more clear, then it becomes a little less clear, and then a little bit more clear, but, bearing in mind the difficulties of working in an ever-changing field, we have been refining those approaches. Each institution has been looking at their own institution, because, as you can imagine, although we have an overview of the sector, the challenges are very different for individual institutions--so their exposure, for instance, to the number of European Union students that they have at their college, or the work that they might be doing with Horizon 2020, or their success--and there has been considerable success in the HE field in securing structural funds for various projects--the exposure and the potential impact of leaving the EU, in a'no deal'or in a'deal'scenario, is very, very different. But I don't know if, Huw, you want to talk any further.
Suzy Davies AM: Maybe just to use the'no deal'scenario is probably the easiest, isn't it?
Kirsty Williams AM: The'no deal'?
Suzy Davies AM: Well, yes, because that's the worst-case scenario, so let's look at that one.
Huw Morris: As the Cabinet Secretary mentioned, the higher education Brexit working group's been meeting since September 2016 and has been looking at that in general. More recently, when the prospect of no deal became talked about, officials have been visiting individual institutions to talk to them about their preparedness for that. As you'll be aware, the funding for much of the activity is secured, we believe, even under a'no deal'scenario, until December 2020; that's a letter we had from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. I think the research you're referring to may be research that Cardiff University has been doing with the Bevan Foundation and others. I know there's a report due to be launched later today. We have been doing our own research and looking at the impact on HE, FE and apprenticeship providers.
Suzy Davies AM: Well, that's really helpful because my understanding was that this Cardiff University research had superseded all those nine sector analyses.
Huw Morris: That may be true for the economy brief. Certainly, there are published papers by Max Munday and a team at Cardiff University on the impact of Brexit on the Welsh economy, but for HE and FE and apprenticeship provision, it's as the Cabinet Secretary outlined.
Suzy Davies AM: So, are there any formal risk assessments that are available for us to scrutinise, for example? For HE and FE for that matter.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales have been doing some specific work; I can't comment on how wide they would want that to be shared. We have been doing some broad analysis, as I said, for the sector, looking at what we can do to mitigate the risk, bearing in mind that each institution is an autonomous institution, a principle that they guard really jealously, and rightly so. So, we have been, as Huw said, because the prospect of a'no deal'has become, perhaps, more to the forefront, officers have been visiting each institution to try and make sure and to satisfy us, as people who fund part of their activity, that they have their own plans in place to deal with these scenarios. We continue to work alongside them to push the issues that we can help them with. So, for instance, we continue to work with officials in Westminster around Erasmus+ provision in a'no deal'scenario, what a UK stand-alone project would look like, the impacts of a'no deal'on Horizon 2020. So, we look at the broader picture and we are encouraging continually individual institutions to make sure that they themselves are looking at their specific needs within that.
Suzy Davies AM: Well, if there is something that's shareable, I'm sure we'd be very pleased to see it--
Kirsty Williams AM: Anything that we've got--
Suzy Davies AM: --particularly with FE, actually, because, of course, we haven't got a HEFCW for FE; you're doing that regulation yourself. I'd expect to see that type of work evidenced somewhere from within Welsh Government, and we would be able to see that then.
Eluned Morgan AM: So, if I could just make some points on FE. We've been actively engaging with the FE sector. We've spoken to every one of the colleges about how they see things developing. I think it's quite a different response than what is going to be happening in HE.
Suzy Davies AM: Yes, because the student thing isn't such an issue, is it?
Eluned Morgan AM: You've got to remember that the FE colleges are much more anchored within their communities, they're much more localised, and so, for example, the number of EU students in these colleges is significantly lower. The number of staff in these colleges--I think they've analysed that there are only about 71 people. So, we're keeping in touch with them and we're letting them know what we are being told in terms of the Home Office settled status and what we can do to protect those 71. But that's a much bigger issue, I think, for higher education.
Suzy Davies AM: What are they telling you about European social fund funding, though, because, as you say, they're locally anchored--the impact on FE of ESF funding is probably more significant than the issues we're talking about with higher education. How are you finding this out? Is this through one-to-one conversations?
Eluned Morgan AM: We are engaging with them all, and, obviously, we're engaging with ColegauCymru, who've done their own analysis, and what we found, in particular, is that the real problems are probably in relation to ESF funding and apprenticeships. But what you've got to remember is that that link between apprenticeships and the local work community is absolutely crucial. So, if--
Suzy Davies AM: Yes, that's why I asked.
Eluned Morgan AM: --the economy nosedives, or if there's an issue that we see--just the dislocation of companies in those areas as a result of Brexit--then that will inevitably have an impact on the number of apprenticeships that will be on offer. So, it's those kinds of things, but at the moment I think it's worth pointing out that about PS15 million a year goes into the FE sector just in relation to apprenticeships.
Suzy Davies AM: Can I just come back finally on that, before handing over? In both your areas of responsibility, there's going to be an impact on Welsh Government in how it responds to that, as well. Can you tell me a little bit about the European transition team, which I think is about building resilience within the Welsh Government to deal with the impacts of Brexit? Is that a formal arrangement you have with officials? I don't really know much about this team, but it seems to meet fortnightly to get Welsh Government ready for Brexit, so could you just give us some clues on this?
Marie Knox: Yes, in terms of the European transition team, that's the central co-ordinating group that pulls together all the leads in each department who are pulling together the work on European transition. So, I attend that group in relation to higher education and further education, and, obviously, other representatives in terms of agriculture, transport, the economy, et cetera.
Suzy Davies AM: It's great that you're on that group, but what does it actually do? That's the bit I wasn't sure about.
Marie Knox: I guess it provides the governance structure for the Welsh Government as a whole in relation to European transition. So, individual departments do their own work, and the European transition team provides the governance structure, and, also, they lead on the discussions with the Department for Exiting the European Union, No. 10, the Joint Ministerial Committee--those kinds of ministerial arrangements.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I've had enough time, I think.
Lynne Neagle AM: Llyr.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: I'll ask my questions in Welsh, if I may. This discussion between HEFCW and higher education, these challenges in terms of how ready they are for the changes to come, and the work that the Government is doing with FE, I suspect, is happening at an organisational level. So, I just want to hear a little about where the student voice comes into that discussion and where the engagement happens in terms of the students.
Kirsty Williams AM: So, we have a close working relationship with the National Union of Students. I meet with them regularly, and officials are in constant touch with the student voice. They have been very clear, and I think there is a huge amount of consensus between the Welsh Government, what the universities are asking for and what the students are asking for. You'll have seen, only earlier this week, the very powerful campaign by NUS Wales about the importance of Erasmus+ arrangements. There is a huge amount to be gained for Welsh students and young people participating in the Erasmus programme. Many of us, I know, have had the opportunity to study abroad as part of our own studies, and there's a lot to be gained from it. We've been very clear from the outset, as have the sector and the student voice, about the importance of participation in that scheme. NUS are also very concerned that there should be no negative impact on the quality of faculty. Our HE institutions, to a greater extent than FE, have faculty staff from the EU--it runs at about 11 per cent. That adds great diversity and strength to the quality of teaching within our institutions. Clearly, that is a concern for students. They want to have the best teachers, they want access to the best learning opportunities, and we've been very clear about the importance of providing security and stability for those staff, making sure we send very clear messages that they're very welcome and we value their contribution. NUS, again, also value the diversity in the student population. Again, as far as we've been able to, we've been able to give messages about the security of funding for European students for the next academic year. I wish I could go further, but that's out of my hands. We're working to the limits of what I feel comfortable in being able to guarantee without further guarantees from Westminster. So, we've been working closely with the student voice, and I think, Llyr, what's very clear is there is a consensus about what is important across the Government, the institutions and student voice. So, that is making sure we send very clear messages about Wales's institutions being open for business and that we welcome both EU and international students, that we value the contribution of faculty, and that we want to be able to continue in Horizon 2020. That's especially important if we're looking at attracting postgraduate work and postgraduate students into our system, as well as Erasmus+. The issue of post-study work visas, again, is very important. As I said, there's a consensus, I think, between the Government, the institutions and the students about what we need the UK Government to achieve for us.
Lynne Neagle AM: Before we move on to student recruitment, it's increasingly the view of many experts that we're heading for a'no deal'Brexit. Can I ask both of you what specific plans you've put in place in the event of such a'no deal'Brexit happening and us crashing out next spring?
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, I think it's really difficult for us to prepare for a'no deal'Brexit, but obviously we need to think through very carefully what that might look like, and I think that scenario planning is starting to happen. I think it's very different, again, for FE compared to HE. So, in relation to FE, what we do have is funding--ESF funding--which the UK Government has said that they will underwrite until 2020. So, in March next year, if there is no deal, the immediate impact on FE is unlikely to hit in the way that we may have feared. The problem then becomes: what exactly is the deal with the EU in future, because we will have some kind of relationship, and what that impact will be on the broader economy and our ability to work with companies locally, and industries, to provide that link between training needs? So, the colleges, basically, are providing the training for lots of the apprenticeships, and so if the number of companies reduces, then that is likely to have an impact. So, there are specific sectors that we are more concerned about than others. Farming is obviously one that we are concerned about, because that could have a difference in terms of day one of no deal. If your markets are not there, that could be quite an immediate impact. Health and social care--obviously, we are concerned that there are a number of people who work in that sector who are EU citizens. What is the impact? Are they going to feel unwelcome? Are they likely, then, to return home? Where will that skills gap, therefore, be? So, that's a problem for us. Construction is already an issue for us in terms of skills shortages. So, one of the things we're doing is we've developed these regional skills partnerships where we ask local employers,'What is it that you need in terms of skills development?'and we are now asking further education colleges to respond to that need. So, rather than them just getting people through the college system, who are easy to get in because they're doing courses that they're excited about, let's try and encourage them to do courses where we know there are skills shortages. So, that is a new structure that we've developed that is already having an impact; there's a PS10 million project there. So, we're already putting things in place for those situations. In manufacturing, obviously, if there's no deal, the rules of origin, that could have an immediate impact. Just-in-time--we could have real problems in terms of dislocation there; and hospitality and tourism. So, those are the sectors we have most concerns about, and all of them have very strong links to the FE sector.
Kirsty Williams AM: From the HE perspective, from a point of principle, we just have to keep working towards some kind of deal. Although the prospect of no deal, maybe, has risen up the agenda, we have got to be consistent in our messages to the Westminster Government: we need a deal. Wales cannot afford to crash out of the EU without a deal. If that worst-case scenario was to happen, because of the underwrite guarantee, actually, for European regional development fund and European social fund programmes in the HE sector, it would be business as usual. And because of the current underwrite guarantee, the forthcoming bids for Erasmus and Horizon 2020 would be covered, but they would be the last applications that could be made. You'll be aware that there are some proposals for an extension to that guarantee, but from my understanding and our understanding of it, that would only give us third-country status for Horizon 2020 and Erasmus. What that does mean is that we would have limited access to the Horizon 2020 programme, and if you look at the activity that is currently being undertaken by the Welsh HE sector under that programme, that would mean that we'd probably lose about 50 per cent of that work, because that's the split between the bits we would still be able to access and what we are currently accessing. As I've already said, we have made a guarantee for EU student support for the next academic year, but, without clarity from the Treasury, I don't think it would be prudent of me to commit Welsh Government to anything further than that. So, we continue to push the message that a'no deal'would be catastrophic. What can we do? You'll be aware that we have been working with Universities Wales to access resources under the European transition fund, under the Global Wales programme, to look to boost international marketing of the HE sector and to talk about the strengths that we have in the sector. And we continue to look at other opportunities within the EU transition pot of money to assist the universities and the FE sector in that regard. We also continue to look to respond to the Reid review proposals, about how we can beef up our own research and continue to engage with UK Research and Innovation to make sure that, with any research money that comes out of that negotiation, Wales is in a competitive position to be able to bid successfully for that.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We're going to move on, then, to talk about student recruitment. I'm going to, because we've got a lot of questions, appeal for brief questions and answers that are as concise as possible, please. Hefin.
Hefin David AM: How does the Welsh Government account for the fact that EU student applications in Wales this year--that Wales is the only country in the UK to have seen a significant drop?
Kirsty Williams AM: Okay, well, I think the first thing to remember is that we will not get a full picture of student recruitment until, first of all, November and then the true picture, because some institutions, as you would know, have two admissions dates--we won't get the full picture until the spring. I think it was inevitable, given the change in Government policy with regard to student support, which had previously allowed European students to benefit from a tuition fee grant, and given the fact that that option is no longer available to them, that that has had an impact on EU recruitment, and there's no point trying to hide from that.
Hefin David AM: So, together with leaving the EU, that's a double-whammy effect that's hitting Wales harder than the rest of the UK.
Kirsty Williams AM: It just puts us in the same position as EU students applying to England, but it was inevitable. This was looked at by Diamond. It was anticipated that this could be a consequence of the change in policy, and I think we see that reflected in the initial figure, although, as I said, we won't get the true picture until the first census in November, and then, ultimately, the final picture in the spring.
Hefin David AM: How concerned are you by that?
Kirsty Williams AM: Clearly, we want our universities to be able to attract students from both the EU and from around the world. The fact that the tuition fee grant arrangements may have had an impact on European Union students at this stage does not preclude the fact that Wales, up until now, has been successful in recruiting international students. So, the change in the fee regime should not be a barrier to the recruitment of international students, because, actually, international students outside of the EU make up a bigger proportion of students not from the UK who come to our institutions.
Hefin David AM: That's a fair point, but it's unfortunate timing, though, isn't it?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think, from a public policy point of view and moving towards a sustainable way of funding our HE sector, then both my priority and, I would say, the priority of the institutions was to see the implementation of Diamond, which is what we have done.
Hefin David AM: Okay, that's fine. What about the fact that we've got a relatively imbalanced higher education profile compared to other countries of the UK with regard to high, medium and low-tariff universities? We've got one high-tariff university, and they're the ones that tend to show the growth in recruitment of EU students. Are you concerned about that balance of profile in the HE sector?
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said in answer to your question earlier, there is a difference reflected in the exposure of institutions to EU and international students. I would argue that it's not necessarily the case that institutions that are not high-tariff are not able to do very well in this sector. If you look, for instance, at Swansea University--if you look at the work Swansea University has done, that shows you what is possible.
Hefin David AM: What is Swansea's success, then? What can we learn from Swansea?
Kirsty Williams AM: What I think is important--and this is not about any one institution--what I think is really important is that we look to--. And I can't force institutions to do this. It's a combination, I believe, for all universities, of getting their offer right--so, having a curriculum at their institution that is attractive and offers courses that people want to study. It's about that curriculum being delivered in an excellent fashion, so high quality ratings for teaching, as well as having an infrastructure that is attractive to students. So, it's all about getting the offer right and providing what students, both domestically and internationally, want.
Hefin David AM: But the evidence would therefore suggest that that model of success that you've just outlined is happening in Swansea but it isn't happening in other institutions, and they're seeing a drop.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, I think what we can see from Cardiff, Swansea and others is that it is possible to do very well in the sector.
Hefin David AM: So, Cardiff, Swansea and Bangor--but the others, not.
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, what we can see is that, if you get the offer right, I think we have something very special that the HE sector can market itself on.
Lynne Neagle AM: Llyr, you've got a supplementary.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Just coming back to the drop in EU students, you mentioned that one of the reasons probably is the change in the funding that's available to students coming here. So, does that suggest that, under the current regime, Wales was punching above its weight in terms of attracting students and we've lost that advantage? I know we're gaining in other ways in introducing the new system, but really we're not much different to England in terms of fees now, so why would they come to Wales as opposed to going anywhere else?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think you're right; there was an added incentive, potentially, to come to a Welsh institution because of the availability of the tuition fee grant. That advantage is no longer there, which is why we need to work alongside the sector, as we're doing with the Global Wales programme, to increase their ability to market HE in the round across the world. I think we've got a strong offer that we can speak to people about. I'm very proud of what our institutions can deliver for people. It's a fantastic, warm environment to come and study in, at great institutions. There's something for everybody, whether you want to be in a city like Cardiff or whether you want a coastal experience in a small town like Aber. So, we've got a lot to offer and that's why it's really important that, although we have seen a change in the tuition fees, which may have an impact, we are investing with universities, for instance, in the Global Wales programme.
Lynne Neagle AM: In terms of the drop that we've seen in Wales, which is differential amongst institutions, will you be taking any specific action to try and prevent Brexit exacerbating that?
Kirsty Williams AM: We are working with HEFCW and individual institutions, as I said, to test their preparedness. We can't tell them what to do in that sense, but we can, because of our governance arrangements and HEFCW's monitoring arrangements, continue to test with them. I meet regularly with vice-chancellors and separately with the chairs of the institutions and separately again with HEFCW representatives, and the sustainability of the sector and recruitment issues is always something that is on the agenda.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Julie.
Julie Morgan AM: The additional PS6. 4 million that went to HEFCW in the 2017-18 year, which I think you say is partly because of Brexit and partly because of demographic and recruitment challenges, what do you expect to see as a result of that spending?
Kirsty Williams AM: That funding was allocated, as I said, to enable HEFCW to deal with any short-term implications arising out of demographic changes, because we've seen a drop in the number of 18-year-olds, and the initial implications of EU transition. It was allocated as part of HEFCW's overall grant in aid, and therefore the council was given discretion as to how it was to be apportioned to the sector. The money was brought forward a year, because, in conversations with HEFCW and the institutions, they felt that that money would be more useful earlier on. So, it was money that was brought forward into the allocation for 2017-18, as opposed to 2018-19, because they wanted to have that resource earlier rather than later. With regard to additional resources, you'll be aware that we have made an additional resource of PS5 million available to mitigate the freeze in tuition fees, and PS5 million has been made available to HEFCW to kick-start the work on postgraduate support until we're in a position to fully implement Diamond at the postgraduate level.
Julie Morgan AM: You say that the money is used at the discretion of the universities. So, you don't have an analysis of how that was spent.
Kirsty Williams AM: The financial allocation, as I said, was agreed with the funding council and it was there to help universities with any cash flow issues, but if you'd like further details I can provide those as much as I'm able.
Julie Morgan AM: I think it would be interesting if we know what the money was spent on and, of course, that money is now not available for the next financial year, so there's no way of carrying on what they were doing with it, presumably.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, it was part of the overall allocation to HEFCW. With specific regard to dealing with the impact of Brexit, you'll be aware that we have reached an agreement in principle on the funding of PS3. 5 million to the Global Wales initiative. This was an application that came in from Universities Wales looking at specifically targeting and beefing up international work and international recruitment work to support them at this time, and we're currently working with Universities Wales on the exact details and outcomes they would expect from that investment.
Julie Morgan AM: And do you have any estimate of how many students you hope to attract by that?
Kirsty Williams AM: That is subject to continuing negotiations with Universities Wales before we let any contracts with them. What's important is that that work is based on research that has been done by Universities Wales to look at the optimum markets that we should be targeting, specifically the United States of America and Vietnam.
Julie Morgan AM: And will this money be used equally between all the universities?
Kirsty Williams AM: We expect that all institutions--should they have a desire to participate--will be able to be assisted, as well as the overall global branding from Universities Wales and the new Study in Wales initiative.
Julie Morgan AM: Thank you. I think we've covered the EU student fees, haven't we?
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Do you want to ask question 12?
Julie Morgan AM: Has the Welsh Government explored the possibility of looking at different immigration rules for international and EU students who may wish to study here?
Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, with regard to immigration, clearly, this is something, at the moment, that is out of our hands, and I have to say, it hasn't got off to a great start when initially the post-study work visas were issued just for a number of institutions in the south-east of England, with no consultation with us and I don't believe with the Scottish Government either. So, we have campaigned, pushed, cajoled, lobbied, and I was very glad that in December last year, the Home Office did then make that scheme available to Cardiff and to Trinity Saint David. We continue to press the point that we do not believe that, first of all, international students should be included in any immigration targets. I think all the evidence suggests that the British public don't regard international students as immigrants, and therefore we do need to make sure that they are taken out of the targets and we can continue to press that message with the UK Government. At the moment, you'll be aware that Welsh Government has looked at a specific piece of work on whether there was any scope for specific immigration policy for Wales, although I must say that was mostly in the field of actually the workforce rather than students. You'll be aware that this week the Government's migration advisory committee--there are so many committees these days--have said that they don't believe that there is a case for a separate provision for EU students, as opposed to international students. But we want an immigration system that makes it as easy as possible for those students who want to benefit from education in Wales, and indeed the UK, to be able to do so.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Llyr.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, what are we doing from now on in then? Are we just waiting to see or are we continuing to push?
Kirsty Williams AM: No--gosh--Llyr, we continue to push the case at the official level, and at the moment, I'm trying to convene a quadrilateral, if it can be quadrilateral in the sense that Northern Ireland aren't up and running--but certainly with officials from Northern Ireland. We're trying to arrange another quadrilateral between myself, the HE Minister for England and the new HE Minister for Scotland. If I can speak candidly, I don't believe that there's any difference between our view, with regard to the status of international students, and the views of English Ministers within the department in England. It is convincing the Home Office of that case. So, I don't think we need to persuade Sam Gyimah about the importance of this. Jo Johnson got, I think the current Minister gets it--it's a question of whether we can persuade the Home Office of that particular case.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. The next questions are from John Griffiths.
John Griffiths AM: I have some questions on the sustainability of higher and further education. Firstly, with regard to higher education, we heard that, even without Brexit, higher education is in managed deficit, whilst the funding announcements from Diamond and Reid are awaited. So, is that a concern to Welsh Government, and could Welsh Government take away that uncertainty by outlining a clear funding commitment to the Diamond and Reid reviews?
Kirsty Williams AM: Welsh Government is fully committed, John, to implementing the Diamond review proposals. It's a commitment that was an element of the agreement between myself and the First Minister that brought me into the administration, and we have been very clear with HEFCW about our expectations and what the implementation of Diamond will mean for grant going to HEFCW. And we've shared those figures with them. With regard to Reid, we continue within Government to discuss how we can implement the recommendations of Reid, but one of the whole principles behind Diamond was to move us to a more sustainable funding settlement for the HE sector in the round, that is fair to students, encourages those with the ability to partake in higher education to do so, especially from those from a poorer background, as well as being able to provide our institutions with the resources that they need.
John Griffiths AM: So, you don't accept, then, that there hasn't been a clear funding commitment from Welsh Government to those reviews--the Diamond and Reid reviews?
Kirsty Williams AM: With regard to Diamond, I would absolutely refute that. We have been very clear and we have shown HEFCW our analysis of the figures going forward in relation to what is sometimes called within the sector the'Diamond dividend', although the Diamond dividend is never as big as people imagine the Diamond dividend to be. But we've been absolutely clear with HEFCW and the sector on what that will mean. Now, with regard to Reid, those are ongoing discussions that form part of the normal budgetary process within the Government, but I think we have been as clear as we can be with regard to Diamond.
John Griffiths AM: Okay. The second question, really, is about HE and FE and it's about European funding, which, of course, has been and is on a multi-year basis, which gives, I think, a lot of security and comfort to the sectors, knowing what the budgets will be over a period of time. So, moving from that to a yearly budgeting situation would be worrying. So, would you commit to introducing multi-year funding settlements for HE, and indeed for FE, moving forward beyond Brexit?
Eluned Morgan AM: Shall I take this and give you a little bit of a break? She's not very well. I think the multi-annual nature of the European funding programmes has been very, very useful. People can plan, you can get staffing in place, you can have really strategic aims and I think that's really useful for the institutions involved. Of course, what we don't have is multi-annual budgeting from the UK Government. So, whilst I think we would, in an ideal world, like to see a better view of what's coming our way, it's extremely difficult for us to be able to offer that without having that multi-annual funding commitment from the UK Government. So, I think that will be a major, major loss for the institutions concerned. Of course, it's not just about ESF and apprenticeships--it's also about ERDF funding. So, you mustn't forget that, actually, there's been a lot of ERDF funding that's gone into these institutions. Swansea University, you'll be aware, has been practically rebuilt with ERDF. Also, FE colleges--we've got Coleg y Cymoedd, the college in Blaenau Gwent. These have been built, largely, with European funding. It's because of the multi-annual nature of the fact that we've been able to prepare for them that they have been able to progress. So, that will be a huge loss, but I think it's really important that we don't forget the ERDF aspect in addition to the ESF impact that there will be on these institutions.
John Griffiths AM: Okay. As far as further education is concerned, in your paper you state that it's a priority to support the FE sector to maintain all the learning opportunities that currently take place under European Union funding. So, would you be able to give the committee an idea of the level of resource you would estimate that the sector requires to achieve that priority, and--? I'll stop there for the moment.
Eluned Morgan AM: I think it is important. What we've said is that we want to maintain that range of learning opportunities that is provided by EU funding. I think we've got to be clear that we are not working to this scenario. I think we've got to--. The UK Government have made us some promises and they've made some commitments, and we need to hold them to that, and so let's keep the pressure on. The moment we start saying,'No, it's all going to be okay, we'll sort ourselves out'--I think that would be a huge mistake. We have been promised that we will not lose a penny as a result of Brexit, and we need to make sure that we keep them to that commitment. I think it was quite interesting to hear what Philip Hammond said yesterday when he was in Wales, saying that the money that we will receive will depend on the future shape of the economy, which implies that he has no idea what's going to happen there, and that that shared prosperity fund will be designed around the deal. Well, that's really not what we're interested in. We were made some promises, and we need them to commit to those promises. I think we have some real concerns about the shared prosperity fund not really following through on the commitments that were made during the Brexit referendum. But, in terms of the replacements, we'd be looking at about PS15 million a year, and that would be a huge impact for us, but we're not looking at that--I don't think we should be--because they made some promises.
John Griffiths AM: So, could you say that, if they keep their promises, then at least that level of funding would be maintained?
Eluned Morgan AM: I think that would be a minimum, but that's just one aspect of it. That's not including the whole workplace learning money on top of that.
John Griffiths AM: Okay.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy, you had a supplementary.
Suzy Davies AM: Yes, just very quickly on the multi-annual point, obviously I recognise that we're talking about six or seven-year cycles with Europe, and I completely take the point that you don't really know from year to year what your budget's going to be, but Welsh Government does make multi-annual commitments. I think you did it yesterday, actually--the capital commitment is over more than one year. How are you able to do that and yet not quite feel confident that you can do that with--well, both your sectors, really?
Eluned Morgan AM: I think it's probably easier to do with capital than it is with revenue, so that's what would make the difference. But it's--. These institutions are interested in revenue, because that's what supports the staff. The one thing we all know is that employment opportunities today--the transitional nature of employment and the fact that people are not getting the kind of contracts that we'd like them to get--that makes their lives very precarious and they're less likely, then, to be committed to those institutions. I think it's a really, really concerning thing, because what makes these institutions work well is their staff, so that makes life very, very difficult without that multi-annual commitment.
Suzy Davies AM: They also have to raise some of their own money as well--we mustn't forget that.
Eluned Morgan AM: No, I think that's right, and I think that there's more that these institutions can do in terms of their own funding and being more responsive to employers and the need for skills in their areas.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: So, given the precarious state of planning for the finances, are you considering letting universities charge EU students international fees?
Kirsty Williams AM: We don't regulate the ability for universities to set fees for international students. They would be in a position to--[Inaudible. ] They are in a position to set international fees at a rate that, I guess, they feel is appropriate for the provision that they give to those students.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, right. We'll move on, then, to questions from Llyr.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you. I just wanted to pick up on the funding of apprenticeships and the long-term funding, because the ESF--the commitments take us to 2023, which takes us beyond any transition period. So, I just want to hear from you that there are assurances that the apprenticeship programme can be delivered as a whole, come what may.
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we're fine until 2020, because we've had that guarantee from the Government. The issue for us is the n+2 that we would have if we do have some kind of transition deal or an agreement with the EU. So, there is a risk and there is concern, beyond 2020, that that would create problems if they don't agree to fund that, which is the expectation that we have.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: But it is a prospect that this wouldn't be achieved as you foresee.
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we do hope, because we've had the pledges and commitments from the Government, that they will respect what we expected and what was expected by these institutions that have had the commitment of the funding.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, to what extent does that undermine the current work? Because institutions want to enter into agreements with providers and so on. Businesses want to know, if they're starting on some sort of journey, that they are going to get to the end of it some years down the line. That must be undermining a lot of the work that's going on now.
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, as I said, because the guarantee is there until 2020, I think that, for now, people are willing to go into those agreements, and I hope that we'll have a better outlook by November of the direction we're moving in. But I don't think it's had an impact. You have to remember that the number of apprenticeships in Wales is rising, while they've collapsed entirely in England. So, it is important that we do continue, and it's important that we don't create an atmosphere here that's going to undermine the confidence of our employers in committing to training in the workplace.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Are you confident that the Government will achieve its targets in this context?
Eluned Morgan AM: Yes. We're on target to reach 100,000 apprenticeships. I think we're slightly ahead of that target, I'm pleased to say. So, of course, our hope is to do that. But let's be clear: if there is a'no deal'scenario, that will have an impact on the economy, and who knows what will happen then to some of these companies that are reliant on the EU.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Talking about the impact on the wider economy, on the point you made earlier that it's not just the direct effect on these institutions, but also on the businesses that they engage with, that is a concern in this context, that means, of course, that there is a lot of pressure in this context on the work that other departments in the Government are doing, because perhaps they are the ones dealing with some of this. So, could you tell us a little bit about how you're working with Ministers and Cabinet Secretaries and other departments within the Government to safeguard these interests?
Eluned Morgan AM: So, as part of the employability programme, I have started going round every member of the Cabinet to ask what the impact will be on them--for example, in health, and, certainly, the economy, but here are many other areas. What's important for us is that we do collaborate and we do get this analysis, but we hope to do that on the ground through the regional skills partnerships. That's our way of ensuring that we can have an understanding, on the ground, of what's needed by employers. And so ensuring that people feed into that and that we respond to those requirements--that's where we're focusing our work. So, we're asking, for example, health boards to ensure that they feed into the regional skills partnerships.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is there a danger that we're a little bit behind in this process? Because Brexit could be upon us in no time at all, and, of course, this work is still ongoing.
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, I have been pushing and ensuring that in the direct areas facing the greatest risk, and agriculture's one of those, of course--. We have been pushing to see what we can do further, so, for example, I'm in the process of developing a policy on rural skills at present because I do think it's important that we do focus on those sectors that are likely to suffer the worst impact if the worst does happen. So, those preparations are in place as far as they can be, but, of course, it's very difficult without knowing to what extent it's going to impact on us.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: And each sector's running on its own timescale, I would presume. But, as you've mentioned rural skills, when do you foresee that that work will appear, and when will plans or schemes or whatever you're intending to put in place see the light of day?
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we hope during this term that that will be published or announced. So, certainly, it is something that we have been discussing with people in rural areas directly, with the colleges, to see what the provision is there and to what extent we need to expand that, and to what extent we will need to change and move really quickly if there is no deal. That's something that I think we have to learn and we need to convince the FE sector about in terms of moving more quickly and to be more responsive to the demand that there is in the workplace.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, because there is the dilemma you touched on earlier about providing the skills that are required for the economy and providing the courses that are easy to fill. That is a live discussion across FE and HE, but you're confident that that discussion is taking place in a constructive and positive way and moving in the right direction.
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, it's helped that we've put PS10 million on the table, because they do understand now that we are serious about our aim of ensuring that they do respond to what employers are asking for. So that has helped a lot in terms of focus and, of course, we're in the middle of a review now as well in terms of how we fund FE, and that will certainly be a part of that.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay, thanks.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Can I just go back--?
Kirsty Williams AM: Sorry, Chair, could I just clarify something? The last question you asked me about--
Lynne Neagle AM: I was just going to go back to that, yes.
Kirsty Williams AM: --fees--. Sorry. Of course, that is in the context of a'no deal'scenario. There could be a scenario where there are reciprocal arrangements, so, if a deal was reached with the European Union that established the principle of reciprocal arrangements, then, obviously, the ability of the HE institutions to charge international fees would be curtailed. I just want to make that clear.
Lynne Neagle AM: If there's not that agreement--
Kirsty Williams AM: If there's no deal--
Lynne Neagle AM: --then it will be open to universities to charge market-driven, international rates.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, that's right. Sorry, I just wanted to clarify. I should have made it very clear that the answer I gave was in the context of no deal, which is what we seem to be talking about mostly this morning, but if there was a deal to have reciprocal arrangements, then that ability, obviously, would be curtailed.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay, well, can I thank the Cabinet Secretary, the Minister and the officials for attending and for answering all our questions? We very much appreciate your time. As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy after the meeting. Thank you very much. Okay. Item 5, then, is papers to note. Members will see that there are 18 papers to note, so I'd like to suggest that we note them as a block, please, and just to flag that I would like to return to paper to note 18 when we go into private. Is that okay with everyone? Everyone happy to note those? Thank you. Item 6, then, can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting and the whole of the meeting next week? Are Members content? Okay, thank you. | Hefin David pointed out that Wales was the only country in the UK that witnessed a significant drop in applications from EU students. The group should have noticed that the available funding for those EU students had changed, and that was one of the reasons why fewer of them applied for Wales universities this year. But fortunately, according to Kirsty Williams, close cooperation with HEFCW and other institutions were always on the agenda to make sure that Wales universities were fully prepared. | qmsum |
What did Kirsty Williams elaborate on the immigration policy when discussing the possible official solution to the problem?
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Janet Finch-Saunders. I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome Suzy Davies to the committee, and to thank Mark Reckless and Darren Millar, who have left us, for their service and hard work as members of the committee. Can I ask whether there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. We will move on then to our evidence session on our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams, Cabinet Secretary for Education, and Eluned Morgan AM, Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning. Can I just ask you to introduce your officials for the record, please?
Kirsty Williams AM: Bore da, Lynne, and thank you for the invitation to join you. Eluned and I are joined this morning by Huw Morris, who's the group director at SHELL--skills, higher education and lifelong learning--and Marie Knox, who is deputy director, overseeing European transition.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much, and thank you for coming. We'll go straight into questions, then, and the first questions are from Suzy Davies.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I'd like to ask you both, if that's okay, a little bit about preparedness. But if I could start with higher education, I understand that--I don't know, it must be about 18 months ago now--Ken Skates told another committee in this place that there had been nine sector analyses done. Presumably, one of those was HE, because of the--well, Welsh Government had a presence, and still does, in Brussels, related to higher education. Apparently, those have now been superseded by work that's been done by Cardiff University. I don't know if you've got any comments on that research, or whether it's been brought to your attention yet.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, Suzy, following the vote, I was very keen that we work very closely with colleagues in higher education and further education, to get an understanding from on the ground about the potential impact. So, in terms of preparedness, we started that group in the September, and that work from that group, which includes both HE and FE, has been instrumental in helping the Government form its views, which were articulated in the Government's White Paper,'Securing Wales'Future'. There has been ongoing work being done--as the debate in London and Europe becomes a little bit more clear, then it becomes a little less clear, and then a little bit more clear, but, bearing in mind the difficulties of working in an ever-changing field, we have been refining those approaches. Each institution has been looking at their own institution, because, as you can imagine, although we have an overview of the sector, the challenges are very different for individual institutions--so their exposure, for instance, to the number of European Union students that they have at their college, or the work that they might be doing with Horizon 2020, or their success--and there has been considerable success in the HE field in securing structural funds for various projects--the exposure and the potential impact of leaving the EU, in a'no deal'or in a'deal'scenario, is very, very different. But I don't know if, Huw, you want to talk any further.
Suzy Davies AM: Maybe just to use the'no deal'scenario is probably the easiest, isn't it?
Kirsty Williams AM: The'no deal'?
Suzy Davies AM: Well, yes, because that's the worst-case scenario, so let's look at that one.
Huw Morris: As the Cabinet Secretary mentioned, the higher education Brexit working group's been meeting since September 2016 and has been looking at that in general. More recently, when the prospect of no deal became talked about, officials have been visiting individual institutions to talk to them about their preparedness for that. As you'll be aware, the funding for much of the activity is secured, we believe, even under a'no deal'scenario, until December 2020; that's a letter we had from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. I think the research you're referring to may be research that Cardiff University has been doing with the Bevan Foundation and others. I know there's a report due to be launched later today. We have been doing our own research and looking at the impact on HE, FE and apprenticeship providers.
Suzy Davies AM: Well, that's really helpful because my understanding was that this Cardiff University research had superseded all those nine sector analyses.
Huw Morris: That may be true for the economy brief. Certainly, there are published papers by Max Munday and a team at Cardiff University on the impact of Brexit on the Welsh economy, but for HE and FE and apprenticeship provision, it's as the Cabinet Secretary outlined.
Suzy Davies AM: So, are there any formal risk assessments that are available for us to scrutinise, for example? For HE and FE for that matter.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales have been doing some specific work; I can't comment on how wide they would want that to be shared. We have been doing some broad analysis, as I said, for the sector, looking at what we can do to mitigate the risk, bearing in mind that each institution is an autonomous institution, a principle that they guard really jealously, and rightly so. So, we have been, as Huw said, because the prospect of a'no deal'has become, perhaps, more to the forefront, officers have been visiting each institution to try and make sure and to satisfy us, as people who fund part of their activity, that they have their own plans in place to deal with these scenarios. We continue to work alongside them to push the issues that we can help them with. So, for instance, we continue to work with officials in Westminster around Erasmus+ provision in a'no deal'scenario, what a UK stand-alone project would look like, the impacts of a'no deal'on Horizon 2020. So, we look at the broader picture and we are encouraging continually individual institutions to make sure that they themselves are looking at their specific needs within that.
Suzy Davies AM: Well, if there is something that's shareable, I'm sure we'd be very pleased to see it--
Kirsty Williams AM: Anything that we've got--
Suzy Davies AM: --particularly with FE, actually, because, of course, we haven't got a HEFCW for FE; you're doing that regulation yourself. I'd expect to see that type of work evidenced somewhere from within Welsh Government, and we would be able to see that then.
Eluned Morgan AM: So, if I could just make some points on FE. We've been actively engaging with the FE sector. We've spoken to every one of the colleges about how they see things developing. I think it's quite a different response than what is going to be happening in HE.
Suzy Davies AM: Yes, because the student thing isn't such an issue, is it?
Eluned Morgan AM: You've got to remember that the FE colleges are much more anchored within their communities, they're much more localised, and so, for example, the number of EU students in these colleges is significantly lower. The number of staff in these colleges--I think they've analysed that there are only about 71 people. So, we're keeping in touch with them and we're letting them know what we are being told in terms of the Home Office settled status and what we can do to protect those 71. But that's a much bigger issue, I think, for higher education.
Suzy Davies AM: What are they telling you about European social fund funding, though, because, as you say, they're locally anchored--the impact on FE of ESF funding is probably more significant than the issues we're talking about with higher education. How are you finding this out? Is this through one-to-one conversations?
Eluned Morgan AM: We are engaging with them all, and, obviously, we're engaging with ColegauCymru, who've done their own analysis, and what we found, in particular, is that the real problems are probably in relation to ESF funding and apprenticeships. But what you've got to remember is that that link between apprenticeships and the local work community is absolutely crucial. So, if--
Suzy Davies AM: Yes, that's why I asked.
Eluned Morgan AM: --the economy nosedives, or if there's an issue that we see--just the dislocation of companies in those areas as a result of Brexit--then that will inevitably have an impact on the number of apprenticeships that will be on offer. So, it's those kinds of things, but at the moment I think it's worth pointing out that about PS15 million a year goes into the FE sector just in relation to apprenticeships.
Suzy Davies AM: Can I just come back finally on that, before handing over? In both your areas of responsibility, there's going to be an impact on Welsh Government in how it responds to that, as well. Can you tell me a little bit about the European transition team, which I think is about building resilience within the Welsh Government to deal with the impacts of Brexit? Is that a formal arrangement you have with officials? I don't really know much about this team, but it seems to meet fortnightly to get Welsh Government ready for Brexit, so could you just give us some clues on this?
Marie Knox: Yes, in terms of the European transition team, that's the central co-ordinating group that pulls together all the leads in each department who are pulling together the work on European transition. So, I attend that group in relation to higher education and further education, and, obviously, other representatives in terms of agriculture, transport, the economy, et cetera.
Suzy Davies AM: It's great that you're on that group, but what does it actually do? That's the bit I wasn't sure about.
Marie Knox: I guess it provides the governance structure for the Welsh Government as a whole in relation to European transition. So, individual departments do their own work, and the European transition team provides the governance structure, and, also, they lead on the discussions with the Department for Exiting the European Union, No. 10, the Joint Ministerial Committee--those kinds of ministerial arrangements.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I've had enough time, I think.
Lynne Neagle AM: Llyr.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: I'll ask my questions in Welsh, if I may. This discussion between HEFCW and higher education, these challenges in terms of how ready they are for the changes to come, and the work that the Government is doing with FE, I suspect, is happening at an organisational level. So, I just want to hear a little about where the student voice comes into that discussion and where the engagement happens in terms of the students.
Kirsty Williams AM: So, we have a close working relationship with the National Union of Students. I meet with them regularly, and officials are in constant touch with the student voice. They have been very clear, and I think there is a huge amount of consensus between the Welsh Government, what the universities are asking for and what the students are asking for. You'll have seen, only earlier this week, the very powerful campaign by NUS Wales about the importance of Erasmus+ arrangements. There is a huge amount to be gained for Welsh students and young people participating in the Erasmus programme. Many of us, I know, have had the opportunity to study abroad as part of our own studies, and there's a lot to be gained from it. We've been very clear from the outset, as have the sector and the student voice, about the importance of participation in that scheme. NUS are also very concerned that there should be no negative impact on the quality of faculty. Our HE institutions, to a greater extent than FE, have faculty staff from the EU--it runs at about 11 per cent. That adds great diversity and strength to the quality of teaching within our institutions. Clearly, that is a concern for students. They want to have the best teachers, they want access to the best learning opportunities, and we've been very clear about the importance of providing security and stability for those staff, making sure we send very clear messages that they're very welcome and we value their contribution. NUS, again, also value the diversity in the student population. Again, as far as we've been able to, we've been able to give messages about the security of funding for European students for the next academic year. I wish I could go further, but that's out of my hands. We're working to the limits of what I feel comfortable in being able to guarantee without further guarantees from Westminster. So, we've been working closely with the student voice, and I think, Llyr, what's very clear is there is a consensus about what is important across the Government, the institutions and student voice. So, that is making sure we send very clear messages about Wales's institutions being open for business and that we welcome both EU and international students, that we value the contribution of faculty, and that we want to be able to continue in Horizon 2020. That's especially important if we're looking at attracting postgraduate work and postgraduate students into our system, as well as Erasmus+. The issue of post-study work visas, again, is very important. As I said, there's a consensus, I think, between the Government, the institutions and the students about what we need the UK Government to achieve for us.
Lynne Neagle AM: Before we move on to student recruitment, it's increasingly the view of many experts that we're heading for a'no deal'Brexit. Can I ask both of you what specific plans you've put in place in the event of such a'no deal'Brexit happening and us crashing out next spring?
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, I think it's really difficult for us to prepare for a'no deal'Brexit, but obviously we need to think through very carefully what that might look like, and I think that scenario planning is starting to happen. I think it's very different, again, for FE compared to HE. So, in relation to FE, what we do have is funding--ESF funding--which the UK Government has said that they will underwrite until 2020. So, in March next year, if there is no deal, the immediate impact on FE is unlikely to hit in the way that we may have feared. The problem then becomes: what exactly is the deal with the EU in future, because we will have some kind of relationship, and what that impact will be on the broader economy and our ability to work with companies locally, and industries, to provide that link between training needs? So, the colleges, basically, are providing the training for lots of the apprenticeships, and so if the number of companies reduces, then that is likely to have an impact. So, there are specific sectors that we are more concerned about than others. Farming is obviously one that we are concerned about, because that could have a difference in terms of day one of no deal. If your markets are not there, that could be quite an immediate impact. Health and social care--obviously, we are concerned that there are a number of people who work in that sector who are EU citizens. What is the impact? Are they going to feel unwelcome? Are they likely, then, to return home? Where will that skills gap, therefore, be? So, that's a problem for us. Construction is already an issue for us in terms of skills shortages. So, one of the things we're doing is we've developed these regional skills partnerships where we ask local employers,'What is it that you need in terms of skills development?'and we are now asking further education colleges to respond to that need. So, rather than them just getting people through the college system, who are easy to get in because they're doing courses that they're excited about, let's try and encourage them to do courses where we know there are skills shortages. So, that is a new structure that we've developed that is already having an impact; there's a PS10 million project there. So, we're already putting things in place for those situations. In manufacturing, obviously, if there's no deal, the rules of origin, that could have an immediate impact. Just-in-time--we could have real problems in terms of dislocation there; and hospitality and tourism. So, those are the sectors we have most concerns about, and all of them have very strong links to the FE sector.
Kirsty Williams AM: From the HE perspective, from a point of principle, we just have to keep working towards some kind of deal. Although the prospect of no deal, maybe, has risen up the agenda, we have got to be consistent in our messages to the Westminster Government: we need a deal. Wales cannot afford to crash out of the EU without a deal. If that worst-case scenario was to happen, because of the underwrite guarantee, actually, for European regional development fund and European social fund programmes in the HE sector, it would be business as usual. And because of the current underwrite guarantee, the forthcoming bids for Erasmus and Horizon 2020 would be covered, but they would be the last applications that could be made. You'll be aware that there are some proposals for an extension to that guarantee, but from my understanding and our understanding of it, that would only give us third-country status for Horizon 2020 and Erasmus. What that does mean is that we would have limited access to the Horizon 2020 programme, and if you look at the activity that is currently being undertaken by the Welsh HE sector under that programme, that would mean that we'd probably lose about 50 per cent of that work, because that's the split between the bits we would still be able to access and what we are currently accessing. As I've already said, we have made a guarantee for EU student support for the next academic year, but, without clarity from the Treasury, I don't think it would be prudent of me to commit Welsh Government to anything further than that. So, we continue to push the message that a'no deal'would be catastrophic. What can we do? You'll be aware that we have been working with Universities Wales to access resources under the European transition fund, under the Global Wales programme, to look to boost international marketing of the HE sector and to talk about the strengths that we have in the sector. And we continue to look at other opportunities within the EU transition pot of money to assist the universities and the FE sector in that regard. We also continue to look to respond to the Reid review proposals, about how we can beef up our own research and continue to engage with UK Research and Innovation to make sure that, with any research money that comes out of that negotiation, Wales is in a competitive position to be able to bid successfully for that.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We're going to move on, then, to talk about student recruitment. I'm going to, because we've got a lot of questions, appeal for brief questions and answers that are as concise as possible, please. Hefin.
Hefin David AM: How does the Welsh Government account for the fact that EU student applications in Wales this year--that Wales is the only country in the UK to have seen a significant drop?
Kirsty Williams AM: Okay, well, I think the first thing to remember is that we will not get a full picture of student recruitment until, first of all, November and then the true picture, because some institutions, as you would know, have two admissions dates--we won't get the full picture until the spring. I think it was inevitable, given the change in Government policy with regard to student support, which had previously allowed European students to benefit from a tuition fee grant, and given the fact that that option is no longer available to them, that that has had an impact on EU recruitment, and there's no point trying to hide from that.
Hefin David AM: So, together with leaving the EU, that's a double-whammy effect that's hitting Wales harder than the rest of the UK.
Kirsty Williams AM: It just puts us in the same position as EU students applying to England, but it was inevitable. This was looked at by Diamond. It was anticipated that this could be a consequence of the change in policy, and I think we see that reflected in the initial figure, although, as I said, we won't get the true picture until the first census in November, and then, ultimately, the final picture in the spring.
Hefin David AM: How concerned are you by that?
Kirsty Williams AM: Clearly, we want our universities to be able to attract students from both the EU and from around the world. The fact that the tuition fee grant arrangements may have had an impact on European Union students at this stage does not preclude the fact that Wales, up until now, has been successful in recruiting international students. So, the change in the fee regime should not be a barrier to the recruitment of international students, because, actually, international students outside of the EU make up a bigger proportion of students not from the UK who come to our institutions.
Hefin David AM: That's a fair point, but it's unfortunate timing, though, isn't it?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think, from a public policy point of view and moving towards a sustainable way of funding our HE sector, then both my priority and, I would say, the priority of the institutions was to see the implementation of Diamond, which is what we have done.
Hefin David AM: Okay, that's fine. What about the fact that we've got a relatively imbalanced higher education profile compared to other countries of the UK with regard to high, medium and low-tariff universities? We've got one high-tariff university, and they're the ones that tend to show the growth in recruitment of EU students. Are you concerned about that balance of profile in the HE sector?
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said in answer to your question earlier, there is a difference reflected in the exposure of institutions to EU and international students. I would argue that it's not necessarily the case that institutions that are not high-tariff are not able to do very well in this sector. If you look, for instance, at Swansea University--if you look at the work Swansea University has done, that shows you what is possible.
Hefin David AM: What is Swansea's success, then? What can we learn from Swansea?
Kirsty Williams AM: What I think is important--and this is not about any one institution--what I think is really important is that we look to--. And I can't force institutions to do this. It's a combination, I believe, for all universities, of getting their offer right--so, having a curriculum at their institution that is attractive and offers courses that people want to study. It's about that curriculum being delivered in an excellent fashion, so high quality ratings for teaching, as well as having an infrastructure that is attractive to students. So, it's all about getting the offer right and providing what students, both domestically and internationally, want.
Hefin David AM: But the evidence would therefore suggest that that model of success that you've just outlined is happening in Swansea but it isn't happening in other institutions, and they're seeing a drop.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, I think what we can see from Cardiff, Swansea and others is that it is possible to do very well in the sector.
Hefin David AM: So, Cardiff, Swansea and Bangor--but the others, not.
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, what we can see is that, if you get the offer right, I think we have something very special that the HE sector can market itself on.
Lynne Neagle AM: Llyr, you've got a supplementary.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Just coming back to the drop in EU students, you mentioned that one of the reasons probably is the change in the funding that's available to students coming here. So, does that suggest that, under the current regime, Wales was punching above its weight in terms of attracting students and we've lost that advantage? I know we're gaining in other ways in introducing the new system, but really we're not much different to England in terms of fees now, so why would they come to Wales as opposed to going anywhere else?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think you're right; there was an added incentive, potentially, to come to a Welsh institution because of the availability of the tuition fee grant. That advantage is no longer there, which is why we need to work alongside the sector, as we're doing with the Global Wales programme, to increase their ability to market HE in the round across the world. I think we've got a strong offer that we can speak to people about. I'm very proud of what our institutions can deliver for people. It's a fantastic, warm environment to come and study in, at great institutions. There's something for everybody, whether you want to be in a city like Cardiff or whether you want a coastal experience in a small town like Aber. So, we've got a lot to offer and that's why it's really important that, although we have seen a change in the tuition fees, which may have an impact, we are investing with universities, for instance, in the Global Wales programme.
Lynne Neagle AM: In terms of the drop that we've seen in Wales, which is differential amongst institutions, will you be taking any specific action to try and prevent Brexit exacerbating that?
Kirsty Williams AM: We are working with HEFCW and individual institutions, as I said, to test their preparedness. We can't tell them what to do in that sense, but we can, because of our governance arrangements and HEFCW's monitoring arrangements, continue to test with them. I meet regularly with vice-chancellors and separately with the chairs of the institutions and separately again with HEFCW representatives, and the sustainability of the sector and recruitment issues is always something that is on the agenda.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Julie.
Julie Morgan AM: The additional PS6. 4 million that went to HEFCW in the 2017-18 year, which I think you say is partly because of Brexit and partly because of demographic and recruitment challenges, what do you expect to see as a result of that spending?
Kirsty Williams AM: That funding was allocated, as I said, to enable HEFCW to deal with any short-term implications arising out of demographic changes, because we've seen a drop in the number of 18-year-olds, and the initial implications of EU transition. It was allocated as part of HEFCW's overall grant in aid, and therefore the council was given discretion as to how it was to be apportioned to the sector. The money was brought forward a year, because, in conversations with HEFCW and the institutions, they felt that that money would be more useful earlier on. So, it was money that was brought forward into the allocation for 2017-18, as opposed to 2018-19, because they wanted to have that resource earlier rather than later. With regard to additional resources, you'll be aware that we have made an additional resource of PS5 million available to mitigate the freeze in tuition fees, and PS5 million has been made available to HEFCW to kick-start the work on postgraduate support until we're in a position to fully implement Diamond at the postgraduate level.
Julie Morgan AM: You say that the money is used at the discretion of the universities. So, you don't have an analysis of how that was spent.
Kirsty Williams AM: The financial allocation, as I said, was agreed with the funding council and it was there to help universities with any cash flow issues, but if you'd like further details I can provide those as much as I'm able.
Julie Morgan AM: I think it would be interesting if we know what the money was spent on and, of course, that money is now not available for the next financial year, so there's no way of carrying on what they were doing with it, presumably.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, it was part of the overall allocation to HEFCW. With specific regard to dealing with the impact of Brexit, you'll be aware that we have reached an agreement in principle on the funding of PS3. 5 million to the Global Wales initiative. This was an application that came in from Universities Wales looking at specifically targeting and beefing up international work and international recruitment work to support them at this time, and we're currently working with Universities Wales on the exact details and outcomes they would expect from that investment.
Julie Morgan AM: And do you have any estimate of how many students you hope to attract by that?
Kirsty Williams AM: That is subject to continuing negotiations with Universities Wales before we let any contracts with them. What's important is that that work is based on research that has been done by Universities Wales to look at the optimum markets that we should be targeting, specifically the United States of America and Vietnam.
Julie Morgan AM: And will this money be used equally between all the universities?
Kirsty Williams AM: We expect that all institutions--should they have a desire to participate--will be able to be assisted, as well as the overall global branding from Universities Wales and the new Study in Wales initiative.
Julie Morgan AM: Thank you. I think we've covered the EU student fees, haven't we?
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Do you want to ask question 12?
Julie Morgan AM: Has the Welsh Government explored the possibility of looking at different immigration rules for international and EU students who may wish to study here?
Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, with regard to immigration, clearly, this is something, at the moment, that is out of our hands, and I have to say, it hasn't got off to a great start when initially the post-study work visas were issued just for a number of institutions in the south-east of England, with no consultation with us and I don't believe with the Scottish Government either. So, we have campaigned, pushed, cajoled, lobbied, and I was very glad that in December last year, the Home Office did then make that scheme available to Cardiff and to Trinity Saint David. We continue to press the point that we do not believe that, first of all, international students should be included in any immigration targets. I think all the evidence suggests that the British public don't regard international students as immigrants, and therefore we do need to make sure that they are taken out of the targets and we can continue to press that message with the UK Government. At the moment, you'll be aware that Welsh Government has looked at a specific piece of work on whether there was any scope for specific immigration policy for Wales, although I must say that was mostly in the field of actually the workforce rather than students. You'll be aware that this week the Government's migration advisory committee--there are so many committees these days--have said that they don't believe that there is a case for a separate provision for EU students, as opposed to international students. But we want an immigration system that makes it as easy as possible for those students who want to benefit from education in Wales, and indeed the UK, to be able to do so.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Llyr.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, what are we doing from now on in then? Are we just waiting to see or are we continuing to push?
Kirsty Williams AM: No--gosh--Llyr, we continue to push the case at the official level, and at the moment, I'm trying to convene a quadrilateral, if it can be quadrilateral in the sense that Northern Ireland aren't up and running--but certainly with officials from Northern Ireland. We're trying to arrange another quadrilateral between myself, the HE Minister for England and the new HE Minister for Scotland. If I can speak candidly, I don't believe that there's any difference between our view, with regard to the status of international students, and the views of English Ministers within the department in England. It is convincing the Home Office of that case. So, I don't think we need to persuade Sam Gyimah about the importance of this. Jo Johnson got, I think the current Minister gets it--it's a question of whether we can persuade the Home Office of that particular case.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. The next questions are from John Griffiths.
John Griffiths AM: I have some questions on the sustainability of higher and further education. Firstly, with regard to higher education, we heard that, even without Brexit, higher education is in managed deficit, whilst the funding announcements from Diamond and Reid are awaited. So, is that a concern to Welsh Government, and could Welsh Government take away that uncertainty by outlining a clear funding commitment to the Diamond and Reid reviews?
Kirsty Williams AM: Welsh Government is fully committed, John, to implementing the Diamond review proposals. It's a commitment that was an element of the agreement between myself and the First Minister that brought me into the administration, and we have been very clear with HEFCW about our expectations and what the implementation of Diamond will mean for grant going to HEFCW. And we've shared those figures with them. With regard to Reid, we continue within Government to discuss how we can implement the recommendations of Reid, but one of the whole principles behind Diamond was to move us to a more sustainable funding settlement for the HE sector in the round, that is fair to students, encourages those with the ability to partake in higher education to do so, especially from those from a poorer background, as well as being able to provide our institutions with the resources that they need.
John Griffiths AM: So, you don't accept, then, that there hasn't been a clear funding commitment from Welsh Government to those reviews--the Diamond and Reid reviews?
Kirsty Williams AM: With regard to Diamond, I would absolutely refute that. We have been very clear and we have shown HEFCW our analysis of the figures going forward in relation to what is sometimes called within the sector the'Diamond dividend', although the Diamond dividend is never as big as people imagine the Diamond dividend to be. But we've been absolutely clear with HEFCW and the sector on what that will mean. Now, with regard to Reid, those are ongoing discussions that form part of the normal budgetary process within the Government, but I think we have been as clear as we can be with regard to Diamond.
John Griffiths AM: Okay. The second question, really, is about HE and FE and it's about European funding, which, of course, has been and is on a multi-year basis, which gives, I think, a lot of security and comfort to the sectors, knowing what the budgets will be over a period of time. So, moving from that to a yearly budgeting situation would be worrying. So, would you commit to introducing multi-year funding settlements for HE, and indeed for FE, moving forward beyond Brexit?
Eluned Morgan AM: Shall I take this and give you a little bit of a break? She's not very well. I think the multi-annual nature of the European funding programmes has been very, very useful. People can plan, you can get staffing in place, you can have really strategic aims and I think that's really useful for the institutions involved. Of course, what we don't have is multi-annual budgeting from the UK Government. So, whilst I think we would, in an ideal world, like to see a better view of what's coming our way, it's extremely difficult for us to be able to offer that without having that multi-annual funding commitment from the UK Government. So, I think that will be a major, major loss for the institutions concerned. Of course, it's not just about ESF and apprenticeships--it's also about ERDF funding. So, you mustn't forget that, actually, there's been a lot of ERDF funding that's gone into these institutions. Swansea University, you'll be aware, has been practically rebuilt with ERDF. Also, FE colleges--we've got Coleg y Cymoedd, the college in Blaenau Gwent. These have been built, largely, with European funding. It's because of the multi-annual nature of the fact that we've been able to prepare for them that they have been able to progress. So, that will be a huge loss, but I think it's really important that we don't forget the ERDF aspect in addition to the ESF impact that there will be on these institutions.
John Griffiths AM: Okay. As far as further education is concerned, in your paper you state that it's a priority to support the FE sector to maintain all the learning opportunities that currently take place under European Union funding. So, would you be able to give the committee an idea of the level of resource you would estimate that the sector requires to achieve that priority, and--? I'll stop there for the moment.
Eluned Morgan AM: I think it is important. What we've said is that we want to maintain that range of learning opportunities that is provided by EU funding. I think we've got to be clear that we are not working to this scenario. I think we've got to--. The UK Government have made us some promises and they've made some commitments, and we need to hold them to that, and so let's keep the pressure on. The moment we start saying,'No, it's all going to be okay, we'll sort ourselves out'--I think that would be a huge mistake. We have been promised that we will not lose a penny as a result of Brexit, and we need to make sure that we keep them to that commitment. I think it was quite interesting to hear what Philip Hammond said yesterday when he was in Wales, saying that the money that we will receive will depend on the future shape of the economy, which implies that he has no idea what's going to happen there, and that that shared prosperity fund will be designed around the deal. Well, that's really not what we're interested in. We were made some promises, and we need them to commit to those promises. I think we have some real concerns about the shared prosperity fund not really following through on the commitments that were made during the Brexit referendum. But, in terms of the replacements, we'd be looking at about PS15 million a year, and that would be a huge impact for us, but we're not looking at that--I don't think we should be--because they made some promises.
John Griffiths AM: So, could you say that, if they keep their promises, then at least that level of funding would be maintained?
Eluned Morgan AM: I think that would be a minimum, but that's just one aspect of it. That's not including the whole workplace learning money on top of that.
John Griffiths AM: Okay.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy, you had a supplementary.
Suzy Davies AM: Yes, just very quickly on the multi-annual point, obviously I recognise that we're talking about six or seven-year cycles with Europe, and I completely take the point that you don't really know from year to year what your budget's going to be, but Welsh Government does make multi-annual commitments. I think you did it yesterday, actually--the capital commitment is over more than one year. How are you able to do that and yet not quite feel confident that you can do that with--well, both your sectors, really?
Eluned Morgan AM: I think it's probably easier to do with capital than it is with revenue, so that's what would make the difference. But it's--. These institutions are interested in revenue, because that's what supports the staff. The one thing we all know is that employment opportunities today--the transitional nature of employment and the fact that people are not getting the kind of contracts that we'd like them to get--that makes their lives very precarious and they're less likely, then, to be committed to those institutions. I think it's a really, really concerning thing, because what makes these institutions work well is their staff, so that makes life very, very difficult without that multi-annual commitment.
Suzy Davies AM: They also have to raise some of their own money as well--we mustn't forget that.
Eluned Morgan AM: No, I think that's right, and I think that there's more that these institutions can do in terms of their own funding and being more responsive to employers and the need for skills in their areas.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: So, given the precarious state of planning for the finances, are you considering letting universities charge EU students international fees?
Kirsty Williams AM: We don't regulate the ability for universities to set fees for international students. They would be in a position to--[Inaudible. ] They are in a position to set international fees at a rate that, I guess, they feel is appropriate for the provision that they give to those students.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, right. We'll move on, then, to questions from Llyr.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you. I just wanted to pick up on the funding of apprenticeships and the long-term funding, because the ESF--the commitments take us to 2023, which takes us beyond any transition period. So, I just want to hear from you that there are assurances that the apprenticeship programme can be delivered as a whole, come what may.
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we're fine until 2020, because we've had that guarantee from the Government. The issue for us is the n+2 that we would have if we do have some kind of transition deal or an agreement with the EU. So, there is a risk and there is concern, beyond 2020, that that would create problems if they don't agree to fund that, which is the expectation that we have.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: But it is a prospect that this wouldn't be achieved as you foresee.
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we do hope, because we've had the pledges and commitments from the Government, that they will respect what we expected and what was expected by these institutions that have had the commitment of the funding.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, to what extent does that undermine the current work? Because institutions want to enter into agreements with providers and so on. Businesses want to know, if they're starting on some sort of journey, that they are going to get to the end of it some years down the line. That must be undermining a lot of the work that's going on now.
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, as I said, because the guarantee is there until 2020, I think that, for now, people are willing to go into those agreements, and I hope that we'll have a better outlook by November of the direction we're moving in. But I don't think it's had an impact. You have to remember that the number of apprenticeships in Wales is rising, while they've collapsed entirely in England. So, it is important that we do continue, and it's important that we don't create an atmosphere here that's going to undermine the confidence of our employers in committing to training in the workplace.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Are you confident that the Government will achieve its targets in this context?
Eluned Morgan AM: Yes. We're on target to reach 100,000 apprenticeships. I think we're slightly ahead of that target, I'm pleased to say. So, of course, our hope is to do that. But let's be clear: if there is a'no deal'scenario, that will have an impact on the economy, and who knows what will happen then to some of these companies that are reliant on the EU.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Talking about the impact on the wider economy, on the point you made earlier that it's not just the direct effect on these institutions, but also on the businesses that they engage with, that is a concern in this context, that means, of course, that there is a lot of pressure in this context on the work that other departments in the Government are doing, because perhaps they are the ones dealing with some of this. So, could you tell us a little bit about how you're working with Ministers and Cabinet Secretaries and other departments within the Government to safeguard these interests?
Eluned Morgan AM: So, as part of the employability programme, I have started going round every member of the Cabinet to ask what the impact will be on them--for example, in health, and, certainly, the economy, but here are many other areas. What's important for us is that we do collaborate and we do get this analysis, but we hope to do that on the ground through the regional skills partnerships. That's our way of ensuring that we can have an understanding, on the ground, of what's needed by employers. And so ensuring that people feed into that and that we respond to those requirements--that's where we're focusing our work. So, we're asking, for example, health boards to ensure that they feed into the regional skills partnerships.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is there a danger that we're a little bit behind in this process? Because Brexit could be upon us in no time at all, and, of course, this work is still ongoing.
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, I have been pushing and ensuring that in the direct areas facing the greatest risk, and agriculture's one of those, of course--. We have been pushing to see what we can do further, so, for example, I'm in the process of developing a policy on rural skills at present because I do think it's important that we do focus on those sectors that are likely to suffer the worst impact if the worst does happen. So, those preparations are in place as far as they can be, but, of course, it's very difficult without knowing to what extent it's going to impact on us.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: And each sector's running on its own timescale, I would presume. But, as you've mentioned rural skills, when do you foresee that that work will appear, and when will plans or schemes or whatever you're intending to put in place see the light of day?
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we hope during this term that that will be published or announced. So, certainly, it is something that we have been discussing with people in rural areas directly, with the colleges, to see what the provision is there and to what extent we need to expand that, and to what extent we will need to change and move really quickly if there is no deal. That's something that I think we have to learn and we need to convince the FE sector about in terms of moving more quickly and to be more responsive to the demand that there is in the workplace.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, because there is the dilemma you touched on earlier about providing the skills that are required for the economy and providing the courses that are easy to fill. That is a live discussion across FE and HE, but you're confident that that discussion is taking place in a constructive and positive way and moving in the right direction.
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, it's helped that we've put PS10 million on the table, because they do understand now that we are serious about our aim of ensuring that they do respond to what employers are asking for. So that has helped a lot in terms of focus and, of course, we're in the middle of a review now as well in terms of how we fund FE, and that will certainly be a part of that.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay, thanks.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Can I just go back--?
Kirsty Williams AM: Sorry, Chair, could I just clarify something? The last question you asked me about--
Lynne Neagle AM: I was just going to go back to that, yes.
Kirsty Williams AM: --fees--. Sorry. Of course, that is in the context of a'no deal'scenario. There could be a scenario where there are reciprocal arrangements, so, if a deal was reached with the European Union that established the principle of reciprocal arrangements, then, obviously, the ability of the HE institutions to charge international fees would be curtailed. I just want to make that clear.
Lynne Neagle AM: If there's not that agreement--
Kirsty Williams AM: If there's no deal--
Lynne Neagle AM: --then it will be open to universities to charge market-driven, international rates.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, that's right. Sorry, I just wanted to clarify. I should have made it very clear that the answer I gave was in the context of no deal, which is what we seem to be talking about mostly this morning, but if there was a deal to have reciprocal arrangements, then that ability, obviously, would be curtailed.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay, well, can I thank the Cabinet Secretary, the Minister and the officials for attending and for answering all our questions? We very much appreciate your time. As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy after the meeting. Thank you very much. Okay. Item 5, then, is papers to note. Members will see that there are 18 papers to note, so I'd like to suggest that we note them as a block, please, and just to flag that I would like to return to paper to note 18 when we go into private. Is that okay with everyone? Everyone happy to note those? Thank you. Item 6, then, can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting and the whole of the meeting next week? Are Members content? Okay, thank you. | According to Kirsty Williams, he was not quite in favor of a new immigration policy at first, for when post-study work visas were first issued in the south-east of England, the outcome was not so satisfying. However, his attitude had changed. As the locals usually did not take foreign students as immigrants, the government should treat the foreign students and those who came from EU as the same, which is to say, a new immigration system should be set to ensure that EU students and all the other foreign ones would receive the same treatment when seeking a job in Wales. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Janet Finch-Saunders. I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome Suzy Davies to the committee, and to thank Mark Reckless and Darren Millar, who have left us, for their service and hard work as members of the committee. Can I ask whether there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. We will move on then to our evidence session on our inquiry into the impact of Brexit on higher and further education. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams, Cabinet Secretary for Education, and Eluned Morgan AM, Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning. Can I just ask you to introduce your officials for the record, please?
Kirsty Williams AM: Bore da, Lynne, and thank you for the invitation to join you. Eluned and I are joined this morning by Huw Morris, who's the group director at SHELL--skills, higher education and lifelong learning--and Marie Knox, who is deputy director, overseeing European transition.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much, and thank you for coming. We'll go straight into questions, then, and the first questions are from Suzy Davies.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I'd like to ask you both, if that's okay, a little bit about preparedness. But if I could start with higher education, I understand that--I don't know, it must be about 18 months ago now--Ken Skates told another committee in this place that there had been nine sector analyses done. Presumably, one of those was HE, because of the--well, Welsh Government had a presence, and still does, in Brussels, related to higher education. Apparently, those have now been superseded by work that's been done by Cardiff University. I don't know if you've got any comments on that research, or whether it's been brought to your attention yet.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, Suzy, following the vote, I was very keen that we work very closely with colleagues in higher education and further education, to get an understanding from on the ground about the potential impact. So, in terms of preparedness, we started that group in the September, and that work from that group, which includes both HE and FE, has been instrumental in helping the Government form its views, which were articulated in the Government's White Paper,'Securing Wales'Future'. There has been ongoing work being done--as the debate in London and Europe becomes a little bit more clear, then it becomes a little less clear, and then a little bit more clear, but, bearing in mind the difficulties of working in an ever-changing field, we have been refining those approaches. Each institution has been looking at their own institution, because, as you can imagine, although we have an overview of the sector, the challenges are very different for individual institutions--so their exposure, for instance, to the number of European Union students that they have at their college, or the work that they might be doing with Horizon 2020, or their success--and there has been considerable success in the HE field in securing structural funds for various projects--the exposure and the potential impact of leaving the EU, in a'no deal'or in a'deal'scenario, is very, very different. But I don't know if, Huw, you want to talk any further.
Suzy Davies AM: Maybe just to use the'no deal'scenario is probably the easiest, isn't it?
Kirsty Williams AM: The'no deal'?
Suzy Davies AM: Well, yes, because that's the worst-case scenario, so let's look at that one.
Huw Morris: As the Cabinet Secretary mentioned, the higher education Brexit working group's been meeting since September 2016 and has been looking at that in general. More recently, when the prospect of no deal became talked about, officials have been visiting individual institutions to talk to them about their preparedness for that. As you'll be aware, the funding for much of the activity is secured, we believe, even under a'no deal'scenario, until December 2020; that's a letter we had from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. I think the research you're referring to may be research that Cardiff University has been doing with the Bevan Foundation and others. I know there's a report due to be launched later today. We have been doing our own research and looking at the impact on HE, FE and apprenticeship providers.
Suzy Davies AM: Well, that's really helpful because my understanding was that this Cardiff University research had superseded all those nine sector analyses.
Huw Morris: That may be true for the economy brief. Certainly, there are published papers by Max Munday and a team at Cardiff University on the impact of Brexit on the Welsh economy, but for HE and FE and apprenticeship provision, it's as the Cabinet Secretary outlined.
Suzy Davies AM: So, are there any formal risk assessments that are available for us to scrutinise, for example? For HE and FE for that matter.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales have been doing some specific work; I can't comment on how wide they would want that to be shared. We have been doing some broad analysis, as I said, for the sector, looking at what we can do to mitigate the risk, bearing in mind that each institution is an autonomous institution, a principle that they guard really jealously, and rightly so. So, we have been, as Huw said, because the prospect of a'no deal'has become, perhaps, more to the forefront, officers have been visiting each institution to try and make sure and to satisfy us, as people who fund part of their activity, that they have their own plans in place to deal with these scenarios. We continue to work alongside them to push the issues that we can help them with. So, for instance, we continue to work with officials in Westminster around Erasmus+ provision in a'no deal'scenario, what a UK stand-alone project would look like, the impacts of a'no deal'on Horizon 2020. So, we look at the broader picture and we are encouraging continually individual institutions to make sure that they themselves are looking at their specific needs within that.
Suzy Davies AM: Well, if there is something that's shareable, I'm sure we'd be very pleased to see it--
Kirsty Williams AM: Anything that we've got--
Suzy Davies AM: --particularly with FE, actually, because, of course, we haven't got a HEFCW for FE; you're doing that regulation yourself. I'd expect to see that type of work evidenced somewhere from within Welsh Government, and we would be able to see that then.
Eluned Morgan AM: So, if I could just make some points on FE. We've been actively engaging with the FE sector. We've spoken to every one of the colleges about how they see things developing. I think it's quite a different response than what is going to be happening in HE.
Suzy Davies AM: Yes, because the student thing isn't such an issue, is it?
Eluned Morgan AM: You've got to remember that the FE colleges are much more anchored within their communities, they're much more localised, and so, for example, the number of EU students in these colleges is significantly lower. The number of staff in these colleges--I think they've analysed that there are only about 71 people. So, we're keeping in touch with them and we're letting them know what we are being told in terms of the Home Office settled status and what we can do to protect those 71. But that's a much bigger issue, I think, for higher education.
Suzy Davies AM: What are they telling you about European social fund funding, though, because, as you say, they're locally anchored--the impact on FE of ESF funding is probably more significant than the issues we're talking about with higher education. How are you finding this out? Is this through one-to-one conversations?
Eluned Morgan AM: We are engaging with them all, and, obviously, we're engaging with ColegauCymru, who've done their own analysis, and what we found, in particular, is that the real problems are probably in relation to ESF funding and apprenticeships. But what you've got to remember is that that link between apprenticeships and the local work community is absolutely crucial. So, if--
Suzy Davies AM: Yes, that's why I asked.
Eluned Morgan AM: --the economy nosedives, or if there's an issue that we see--just the dislocation of companies in those areas as a result of Brexit--then that will inevitably have an impact on the number of apprenticeships that will be on offer. So, it's those kinds of things, but at the moment I think it's worth pointing out that about PS15 million a year goes into the FE sector just in relation to apprenticeships.
Suzy Davies AM: Can I just come back finally on that, before handing over? In both your areas of responsibility, there's going to be an impact on Welsh Government in how it responds to that, as well. Can you tell me a little bit about the European transition team, which I think is about building resilience within the Welsh Government to deal with the impacts of Brexit? Is that a formal arrangement you have with officials? I don't really know much about this team, but it seems to meet fortnightly to get Welsh Government ready for Brexit, so could you just give us some clues on this?
Marie Knox: Yes, in terms of the European transition team, that's the central co-ordinating group that pulls together all the leads in each department who are pulling together the work on European transition. So, I attend that group in relation to higher education and further education, and, obviously, other representatives in terms of agriculture, transport, the economy, et cetera.
Suzy Davies AM: It's great that you're on that group, but what does it actually do? That's the bit I wasn't sure about.
Marie Knox: I guess it provides the governance structure for the Welsh Government as a whole in relation to European transition. So, individual departments do their own work, and the European transition team provides the governance structure, and, also, they lead on the discussions with the Department for Exiting the European Union, No. 10, the Joint Ministerial Committee--those kinds of ministerial arrangements.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you. I've had enough time, I think.
Lynne Neagle AM: Llyr.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: I'll ask my questions in Welsh, if I may. This discussion between HEFCW and higher education, these challenges in terms of how ready they are for the changes to come, and the work that the Government is doing with FE, I suspect, is happening at an organisational level. So, I just want to hear a little about where the student voice comes into that discussion and where the engagement happens in terms of the students.
Kirsty Williams AM: So, we have a close working relationship with the National Union of Students. I meet with them regularly, and officials are in constant touch with the student voice. They have been very clear, and I think there is a huge amount of consensus between the Welsh Government, what the universities are asking for and what the students are asking for. You'll have seen, only earlier this week, the very powerful campaign by NUS Wales about the importance of Erasmus+ arrangements. There is a huge amount to be gained for Welsh students and young people participating in the Erasmus programme. Many of us, I know, have had the opportunity to study abroad as part of our own studies, and there's a lot to be gained from it. We've been very clear from the outset, as have the sector and the student voice, about the importance of participation in that scheme. NUS are also very concerned that there should be no negative impact on the quality of faculty. Our HE institutions, to a greater extent than FE, have faculty staff from the EU--it runs at about 11 per cent. That adds great diversity and strength to the quality of teaching within our institutions. Clearly, that is a concern for students. They want to have the best teachers, they want access to the best learning opportunities, and we've been very clear about the importance of providing security and stability for those staff, making sure we send very clear messages that they're very welcome and we value their contribution. NUS, again, also value the diversity in the student population. Again, as far as we've been able to, we've been able to give messages about the security of funding for European students for the next academic year. I wish I could go further, but that's out of my hands. We're working to the limits of what I feel comfortable in being able to guarantee without further guarantees from Westminster. So, we've been working closely with the student voice, and I think, Llyr, what's very clear is there is a consensus about what is important across the Government, the institutions and student voice. So, that is making sure we send very clear messages about Wales's institutions being open for business and that we welcome both EU and international students, that we value the contribution of faculty, and that we want to be able to continue in Horizon 2020. That's especially important if we're looking at attracting postgraduate work and postgraduate students into our system, as well as Erasmus+. The issue of post-study work visas, again, is very important. As I said, there's a consensus, I think, between the Government, the institutions and the students about what we need the UK Government to achieve for us.
Lynne Neagle AM: Before we move on to student recruitment, it's increasingly the view of many experts that we're heading for a'no deal'Brexit. Can I ask both of you what specific plans you've put in place in the event of such a'no deal'Brexit happening and us crashing out next spring?
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, I think it's really difficult for us to prepare for a'no deal'Brexit, but obviously we need to think through very carefully what that might look like, and I think that scenario planning is starting to happen. I think it's very different, again, for FE compared to HE. So, in relation to FE, what we do have is funding--ESF funding--which the UK Government has said that they will underwrite until 2020. So, in March next year, if there is no deal, the immediate impact on FE is unlikely to hit in the way that we may have feared. The problem then becomes: what exactly is the deal with the EU in future, because we will have some kind of relationship, and what that impact will be on the broader economy and our ability to work with companies locally, and industries, to provide that link between training needs? So, the colleges, basically, are providing the training for lots of the apprenticeships, and so if the number of companies reduces, then that is likely to have an impact. So, there are specific sectors that we are more concerned about than others. Farming is obviously one that we are concerned about, because that could have a difference in terms of day one of no deal. If your markets are not there, that could be quite an immediate impact. Health and social care--obviously, we are concerned that there are a number of people who work in that sector who are EU citizens. What is the impact? Are they going to feel unwelcome? Are they likely, then, to return home? Where will that skills gap, therefore, be? So, that's a problem for us. Construction is already an issue for us in terms of skills shortages. So, one of the things we're doing is we've developed these regional skills partnerships where we ask local employers,'What is it that you need in terms of skills development?'and we are now asking further education colleges to respond to that need. So, rather than them just getting people through the college system, who are easy to get in because they're doing courses that they're excited about, let's try and encourage them to do courses where we know there are skills shortages. So, that is a new structure that we've developed that is already having an impact; there's a PS10 million project there. So, we're already putting things in place for those situations. In manufacturing, obviously, if there's no deal, the rules of origin, that could have an immediate impact. Just-in-time--we could have real problems in terms of dislocation there; and hospitality and tourism. So, those are the sectors we have most concerns about, and all of them have very strong links to the FE sector.
Kirsty Williams AM: From the HE perspective, from a point of principle, we just have to keep working towards some kind of deal. Although the prospect of no deal, maybe, has risen up the agenda, we have got to be consistent in our messages to the Westminster Government: we need a deal. Wales cannot afford to crash out of the EU without a deal. If that worst-case scenario was to happen, because of the underwrite guarantee, actually, for European regional development fund and European social fund programmes in the HE sector, it would be business as usual. And because of the current underwrite guarantee, the forthcoming bids for Erasmus and Horizon 2020 would be covered, but they would be the last applications that could be made. You'll be aware that there are some proposals for an extension to that guarantee, but from my understanding and our understanding of it, that would only give us third-country status for Horizon 2020 and Erasmus. What that does mean is that we would have limited access to the Horizon 2020 programme, and if you look at the activity that is currently being undertaken by the Welsh HE sector under that programme, that would mean that we'd probably lose about 50 per cent of that work, because that's the split between the bits we would still be able to access and what we are currently accessing. As I've already said, we have made a guarantee for EU student support for the next academic year, but, without clarity from the Treasury, I don't think it would be prudent of me to commit Welsh Government to anything further than that. So, we continue to push the message that a'no deal'would be catastrophic. What can we do? You'll be aware that we have been working with Universities Wales to access resources under the European transition fund, under the Global Wales programme, to look to boost international marketing of the HE sector and to talk about the strengths that we have in the sector. And we continue to look at other opportunities within the EU transition pot of money to assist the universities and the FE sector in that regard. We also continue to look to respond to the Reid review proposals, about how we can beef up our own research and continue to engage with UK Research and Innovation to make sure that, with any research money that comes out of that negotiation, Wales is in a competitive position to be able to bid successfully for that.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We're going to move on, then, to talk about student recruitment. I'm going to, because we've got a lot of questions, appeal for brief questions and answers that are as concise as possible, please. Hefin.
Hefin David AM: How does the Welsh Government account for the fact that EU student applications in Wales this year--that Wales is the only country in the UK to have seen a significant drop?
Kirsty Williams AM: Okay, well, I think the first thing to remember is that we will not get a full picture of student recruitment until, first of all, November and then the true picture, because some institutions, as you would know, have two admissions dates--we won't get the full picture until the spring. I think it was inevitable, given the change in Government policy with regard to student support, which had previously allowed European students to benefit from a tuition fee grant, and given the fact that that option is no longer available to them, that that has had an impact on EU recruitment, and there's no point trying to hide from that.
Hefin David AM: So, together with leaving the EU, that's a double-whammy effect that's hitting Wales harder than the rest of the UK.
Kirsty Williams AM: It just puts us in the same position as EU students applying to England, but it was inevitable. This was looked at by Diamond. It was anticipated that this could be a consequence of the change in policy, and I think we see that reflected in the initial figure, although, as I said, we won't get the true picture until the first census in November, and then, ultimately, the final picture in the spring.
Hefin David AM: How concerned are you by that?
Kirsty Williams AM: Clearly, we want our universities to be able to attract students from both the EU and from around the world. The fact that the tuition fee grant arrangements may have had an impact on European Union students at this stage does not preclude the fact that Wales, up until now, has been successful in recruiting international students. So, the change in the fee regime should not be a barrier to the recruitment of international students, because, actually, international students outside of the EU make up a bigger proportion of students not from the UK who come to our institutions.
Hefin David AM: That's a fair point, but it's unfortunate timing, though, isn't it?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think, from a public policy point of view and moving towards a sustainable way of funding our HE sector, then both my priority and, I would say, the priority of the institutions was to see the implementation of Diamond, which is what we have done.
Hefin David AM: Okay, that's fine. What about the fact that we've got a relatively imbalanced higher education profile compared to other countries of the UK with regard to high, medium and low-tariff universities? We've got one high-tariff university, and they're the ones that tend to show the growth in recruitment of EU students. Are you concerned about that balance of profile in the HE sector?
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said in answer to your question earlier, there is a difference reflected in the exposure of institutions to EU and international students. I would argue that it's not necessarily the case that institutions that are not high-tariff are not able to do very well in this sector. If you look, for instance, at Swansea University--if you look at the work Swansea University has done, that shows you what is possible.
Hefin David AM: What is Swansea's success, then? What can we learn from Swansea?
Kirsty Williams AM: What I think is important--and this is not about any one institution--what I think is really important is that we look to--. And I can't force institutions to do this. It's a combination, I believe, for all universities, of getting their offer right--so, having a curriculum at their institution that is attractive and offers courses that people want to study. It's about that curriculum being delivered in an excellent fashion, so high quality ratings for teaching, as well as having an infrastructure that is attractive to students. So, it's all about getting the offer right and providing what students, both domestically and internationally, want.
Hefin David AM: But the evidence would therefore suggest that that model of success that you've just outlined is happening in Swansea but it isn't happening in other institutions, and they're seeing a drop.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, I think what we can see from Cardiff, Swansea and others is that it is possible to do very well in the sector.
Hefin David AM: So, Cardiff, Swansea and Bangor--but the others, not.
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, what we can see is that, if you get the offer right, I think we have something very special that the HE sector can market itself on.
Lynne Neagle AM: Llyr, you've got a supplementary.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Just coming back to the drop in EU students, you mentioned that one of the reasons probably is the change in the funding that's available to students coming here. So, does that suggest that, under the current regime, Wales was punching above its weight in terms of attracting students and we've lost that advantage? I know we're gaining in other ways in introducing the new system, but really we're not much different to England in terms of fees now, so why would they come to Wales as opposed to going anywhere else?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think you're right; there was an added incentive, potentially, to come to a Welsh institution because of the availability of the tuition fee grant. That advantage is no longer there, which is why we need to work alongside the sector, as we're doing with the Global Wales programme, to increase their ability to market HE in the round across the world. I think we've got a strong offer that we can speak to people about. I'm very proud of what our institutions can deliver for people. It's a fantastic, warm environment to come and study in, at great institutions. There's something for everybody, whether you want to be in a city like Cardiff or whether you want a coastal experience in a small town like Aber. So, we've got a lot to offer and that's why it's really important that, although we have seen a change in the tuition fees, which may have an impact, we are investing with universities, for instance, in the Global Wales programme.
Lynne Neagle AM: In terms of the drop that we've seen in Wales, which is differential amongst institutions, will you be taking any specific action to try and prevent Brexit exacerbating that?
Kirsty Williams AM: We are working with HEFCW and individual institutions, as I said, to test their preparedness. We can't tell them what to do in that sense, but we can, because of our governance arrangements and HEFCW's monitoring arrangements, continue to test with them. I meet regularly with vice-chancellors and separately with the chairs of the institutions and separately again with HEFCW representatives, and the sustainability of the sector and recruitment issues is always something that is on the agenda.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Julie.
Julie Morgan AM: The additional PS6. 4 million that went to HEFCW in the 2017-18 year, which I think you say is partly because of Brexit and partly because of demographic and recruitment challenges, what do you expect to see as a result of that spending?
Kirsty Williams AM: That funding was allocated, as I said, to enable HEFCW to deal with any short-term implications arising out of demographic changes, because we've seen a drop in the number of 18-year-olds, and the initial implications of EU transition. It was allocated as part of HEFCW's overall grant in aid, and therefore the council was given discretion as to how it was to be apportioned to the sector. The money was brought forward a year, because, in conversations with HEFCW and the institutions, they felt that that money would be more useful earlier on. So, it was money that was brought forward into the allocation for 2017-18, as opposed to 2018-19, because they wanted to have that resource earlier rather than later. With regard to additional resources, you'll be aware that we have made an additional resource of PS5 million available to mitigate the freeze in tuition fees, and PS5 million has been made available to HEFCW to kick-start the work on postgraduate support until we're in a position to fully implement Diamond at the postgraduate level.
Julie Morgan AM: You say that the money is used at the discretion of the universities. So, you don't have an analysis of how that was spent.
Kirsty Williams AM: The financial allocation, as I said, was agreed with the funding council and it was there to help universities with any cash flow issues, but if you'd like further details I can provide those as much as I'm able.
Julie Morgan AM: I think it would be interesting if we know what the money was spent on and, of course, that money is now not available for the next financial year, so there's no way of carrying on what they were doing with it, presumably.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, it was part of the overall allocation to HEFCW. With specific regard to dealing with the impact of Brexit, you'll be aware that we have reached an agreement in principle on the funding of PS3. 5 million to the Global Wales initiative. This was an application that came in from Universities Wales looking at specifically targeting and beefing up international work and international recruitment work to support them at this time, and we're currently working with Universities Wales on the exact details and outcomes they would expect from that investment.
Julie Morgan AM: And do you have any estimate of how many students you hope to attract by that?
Kirsty Williams AM: That is subject to continuing negotiations with Universities Wales before we let any contracts with them. What's important is that that work is based on research that has been done by Universities Wales to look at the optimum markets that we should be targeting, specifically the United States of America and Vietnam.
Julie Morgan AM: And will this money be used equally between all the universities?
Kirsty Williams AM: We expect that all institutions--should they have a desire to participate--will be able to be assisted, as well as the overall global branding from Universities Wales and the new Study in Wales initiative.
Julie Morgan AM: Thank you. I think we've covered the EU student fees, haven't we?
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Do you want to ask question 12?
Julie Morgan AM: Has the Welsh Government explored the possibility of looking at different immigration rules for international and EU students who may wish to study here?
Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, with regard to immigration, clearly, this is something, at the moment, that is out of our hands, and I have to say, it hasn't got off to a great start when initially the post-study work visas were issued just for a number of institutions in the south-east of England, with no consultation with us and I don't believe with the Scottish Government either. So, we have campaigned, pushed, cajoled, lobbied, and I was very glad that in December last year, the Home Office did then make that scheme available to Cardiff and to Trinity Saint David. We continue to press the point that we do not believe that, first of all, international students should be included in any immigration targets. I think all the evidence suggests that the British public don't regard international students as immigrants, and therefore we do need to make sure that they are taken out of the targets and we can continue to press that message with the UK Government. At the moment, you'll be aware that Welsh Government has looked at a specific piece of work on whether there was any scope for specific immigration policy for Wales, although I must say that was mostly in the field of actually the workforce rather than students. You'll be aware that this week the Government's migration advisory committee--there are so many committees these days--have said that they don't believe that there is a case for a separate provision for EU students, as opposed to international students. But we want an immigration system that makes it as easy as possible for those students who want to benefit from education in Wales, and indeed the UK, to be able to do so.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Llyr.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, what are we doing from now on in then? Are we just waiting to see or are we continuing to push?
Kirsty Williams AM: No--gosh--Llyr, we continue to push the case at the official level, and at the moment, I'm trying to convene a quadrilateral, if it can be quadrilateral in the sense that Northern Ireland aren't up and running--but certainly with officials from Northern Ireland. We're trying to arrange another quadrilateral between myself, the HE Minister for England and the new HE Minister for Scotland. If I can speak candidly, I don't believe that there's any difference between our view, with regard to the status of international students, and the views of English Ministers within the department in England. It is convincing the Home Office of that case. So, I don't think we need to persuade Sam Gyimah about the importance of this. Jo Johnson got, I think the current Minister gets it--it's a question of whether we can persuade the Home Office of that particular case.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. The next questions are from John Griffiths.
John Griffiths AM: I have some questions on the sustainability of higher and further education. Firstly, with regard to higher education, we heard that, even without Brexit, higher education is in managed deficit, whilst the funding announcements from Diamond and Reid are awaited. So, is that a concern to Welsh Government, and could Welsh Government take away that uncertainty by outlining a clear funding commitment to the Diamond and Reid reviews?
Kirsty Williams AM: Welsh Government is fully committed, John, to implementing the Diamond review proposals. It's a commitment that was an element of the agreement between myself and the First Minister that brought me into the administration, and we have been very clear with HEFCW about our expectations and what the implementation of Diamond will mean for grant going to HEFCW. And we've shared those figures with them. With regard to Reid, we continue within Government to discuss how we can implement the recommendations of Reid, but one of the whole principles behind Diamond was to move us to a more sustainable funding settlement for the HE sector in the round, that is fair to students, encourages those with the ability to partake in higher education to do so, especially from those from a poorer background, as well as being able to provide our institutions with the resources that they need.
John Griffiths AM: So, you don't accept, then, that there hasn't been a clear funding commitment from Welsh Government to those reviews--the Diamond and Reid reviews?
Kirsty Williams AM: With regard to Diamond, I would absolutely refute that. We have been very clear and we have shown HEFCW our analysis of the figures going forward in relation to what is sometimes called within the sector the'Diamond dividend', although the Diamond dividend is never as big as people imagine the Diamond dividend to be. But we've been absolutely clear with HEFCW and the sector on what that will mean. Now, with regard to Reid, those are ongoing discussions that form part of the normal budgetary process within the Government, but I think we have been as clear as we can be with regard to Diamond.
John Griffiths AM: Okay. The second question, really, is about HE and FE and it's about European funding, which, of course, has been and is on a multi-year basis, which gives, I think, a lot of security and comfort to the sectors, knowing what the budgets will be over a period of time. So, moving from that to a yearly budgeting situation would be worrying. So, would you commit to introducing multi-year funding settlements for HE, and indeed for FE, moving forward beyond Brexit?
Eluned Morgan AM: Shall I take this and give you a little bit of a break? She's not very well. I think the multi-annual nature of the European funding programmes has been very, very useful. People can plan, you can get staffing in place, you can have really strategic aims and I think that's really useful for the institutions involved. Of course, what we don't have is multi-annual budgeting from the UK Government. So, whilst I think we would, in an ideal world, like to see a better view of what's coming our way, it's extremely difficult for us to be able to offer that without having that multi-annual funding commitment from the UK Government. So, I think that will be a major, major loss for the institutions concerned. Of course, it's not just about ESF and apprenticeships--it's also about ERDF funding. So, you mustn't forget that, actually, there's been a lot of ERDF funding that's gone into these institutions. Swansea University, you'll be aware, has been practically rebuilt with ERDF. Also, FE colleges--we've got Coleg y Cymoedd, the college in Blaenau Gwent. These have been built, largely, with European funding. It's because of the multi-annual nature of the fact that we've been able to prepare for them that they have been able to progress. So, that will be a huge loss, but I think it's really important that we don't forget the ERDF aspect in addition to the ESF impact that there will be on these institutions.
John Griffiths AM: Okay. As far as further education is concerned, in your paper you state that it's a priority to support the FE sector to maintain all the learning opportunities that currently take place under European Union funding. So, would you be able to give the committee an idea of the level of resource you would estimate that the sector requires to achieve that priority, and--? I'll stop there for the moment.
Eluned Morgan AM: I think it is important. What we've said is that we want to maintain that range of learning opportunities that is provided by EU funding. I think we've got to be clear that we are not working to this scenario. I think we've got to--. The UK Government have made us some promises and they've made some commitments, and we need to hold them to that, and so let's keep the pressure on. The moment we start saying,'No, it's all going to be okay, we'll sort ourselves out'--I think that would be a huge mistake. We have been promised that we will not lose a penny as a result of Brexit, and we need to make sure that we keep them to that commitment. I think it was quite interesting to hear what Philip Hammond said yesterday when he was in Wales, saying that the money that we will receive will depend on the future shape of the economy, which implies that he has no idea what's going to happen there, and that that shared prosperity fund will be designed around the deal. Well, that's really not what we're interested in. We were made some promises, and we need them to commit to those promises. I think we have some real concerns about the shared prosperity fund not really following through on the commitments that were made during the Brexit referendum. But, in terms of the replacements, we'd be looking at about PS15 million a year, and that would be a huge impact for us, but we're not looking at that--I don't think we should be--because they made some promises.
John Griffiths AM: So, could you say that, if they keep their promises, then at least that level of funding would be maintained?
Eluned Morgan AM: I think that would be a minimum, but that's just one aspect of it. That's not including the whole workplace learning money on top of that.
John Griffiths AM: Okay.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Suzy, you had a supplementary.
Suzy Davies AM: Yes, just very quickly on the multi-annual point, obviously I recognise that we're talking about six or seven-year cycles with Europe, and I completely take the point that you don't really know from year to year what your budget's going to be, but Welsh Government does make multi-annual commitments. I think you did it yesterday, actually--the capital commitment is over more than one year. How are you able to do that and yet not quite feel confident that you can do that with--well, both your sectors, really?
Eluned Morgan AM: I think it's probably easier to do with capital than it is with revenue, so that's what would make the difference. But it's--. These institutions are interested in revenue, because that's what supports the staff. The one thing we all know is that employment opportunities today--the transitional nature of employment and the fact that people are not getting the kind of contracts that we'd like them to get--that makes their lives very precarious and they're less likely, then, to be committed to those institutions. I think it's a really, really concerning thing, because what makes these institutions work well is their staff, so that makes life very, very difficult without that multi-annual commitment.
Suzy Davies AM: They also have to raise some of their own money as well--we mustn't forget that.
Eluned Morgan AM: No, I think that's right, and I think that there's more that these institutions can do in terms of their own funding and being more responsive to employers and the need for skills in their areas.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chair.
Lynne Neagle AM: So, given the precarious state of planning for the finances, are you considering letting universities charge EU students international fees?
Kirsty Williams AM: We don't regulate the ability for universities to set fees for international students. They would be in a position to--[Inaudible. ] They are in a position to set international fees at a rate that, I guess, they feel is appropriate for the provision that they give to those students.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, right. We'll move on, then, to questions from Llyr.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you. I just wanted to pick up on the funding of apprenticeships and the long-term funding, because the ESF--the commitments take us to 2023, which takes us beyond any transition period. So, I just want to hear from you that there are assurances that the apprenticeship programme can be delivered as a whole, come what may.
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we're fine until 2020, because we've had that guarantee from the Government. The issue for us is the n+2 that we would have if we do have some kind of transition deal or an agreement with the EU. So, there is a risk and there is concern, beyond 2020, that that would create problems if they don't agree to fund that, which is the expectation that we have.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: But it is a prospect that this wouldn't be achieved as you foresee.
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we do hope, because we've had the pledges and commitments from the Government, that they will respect what we expected and what was expected by these institutions that have had the commitment of the funding.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, to what extent does that undermine the current work? Because institutions want to enter into agreements with providers and so on. Businesses want to know, if they're starting on some sort of journey, that they are going to get to the end of it some years down the line. That must be undermining a lot of the work that's going on now.
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, as I said, because the guarantee is there until 2020, I think that, for now, people are willing to go into those agreements, and I hope that we'll have a better outlook by November of the direction we're moving in. But I don't think it's had an impact. You have to remember that the number of apprenticeships in Wales is rising, while they've collapsed entirely in England. So, it is important that we do continue, and it's important that we don't create an atmosphere here that's going to undermine the confidence of our employers in committing to training in the workplace.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Are you confident that the Government will achieve its targets in this context?
Eluned Morgan AM: Yes. We're on target to reach 100,000 apprenticeships. I think we're slightly ahead of that target, I'm pleased to say. So, of course, our hope is to do that. But let's be clear: if there is a'no deal'scenario, that will have an impact on the economy, and who knows what will happen then to some of these companies that are reliant on the EU.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Talking about the impact on the wider economy, on the point you made earlier that it's not just the direct effect on these institutions, but also on the businesses that they engage with, that is a concern in this context, that means, of course, that there is a lot of pressure in this context on the work that other departments in the Government are doing, because perhaps they are the ones dealing with some of this. So, could you tell us a little bit about how you're working with Ministers and Cabinet Secretaries and other departments within the Government to safeguard these interests?
Eluned Morgan AM: So, as part of the employability programme, I have started going round every member of the Cabinet to ask what the impact will be on them--for example, in health, and, certainly, the economy, but here are many other areas. What's important for us is that we do collaborate and we do get this analysis, but we hope to do that on the ground through the regional skills partnerships. That's our way of ensuring that we can have an understanding, on the ground, of what's needed by employers. And so ensuring that people feed into that and that we respond to those requirements--that's where we're focusing our work. So, we're asking, for example, health boards to ensure that they feed into the regional skills partnerships.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Is there a danger that we're a little bit behind in this process? Because Brexit could be upon us in no time at all, and, of course, this work is still ongoing.
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, I have been pushing and ensuring that in the direct areas facing the greatest risk, and agriculture's one of those, of course--. We have been pushing to see what we can do further, so, for example, I'm in the process of developing a policy on rural skills at present because I do think it's important that we do focus on those sectors that are likely to suffer the worst impact if the worst does happen. So, those preparations are in place as far as they can be, but, of course, it's very difficult without knowing to what extent it's going to impact on us.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: And each sector's running on its own timescale, I would presume. But, as you've mentioned rural skills, when do you foresee that that work will appear, and when will plans or schemes or whatever you're intending to put in place see the light of day?
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, we hope during this term that that will be published or announced. So, certainly, it is something that we have been discussing with people in rural areas directly, with the colleges, to see what the provision is there and to what extent we need to expand that, and to what extent we will need to change and move really quickly if there is no deal. That's something that I think we have to learn and we need to convince the FE sector about in terms of moving more quickly and to be more responsive to the demand that there is in the workplace.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, because there is the dilemma you touched on earlier about providing the skills that are required for the economy and providing the courses that are easy to fill. That is a live discussion across FE and HE, but you're confident that that discussion is taking place in a constructive and positive way and moving in the right direction.
Eluned Morgan AM: Well, it's helped that we've put PS10 million on the table, because they do understand now that we are serious about our aim of ensuring that they do respond to what employers are asking for. So that has helped a lot in terms of focus and, of course, we're in the middle of a review now as well in terms of how we fund FE, and that will certainly be a part of that.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay, thanks.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Can I just go back--?
Kirsty Williams AM: Sorry, Chair, could I just clarify something? The last question you asked me about--
Lynne Neagle AM: I was just going to go back to that, yes.
Kirsty Williams AM: --fees--. Sorry. Of course, that is in the context of a'no deal'scenario. There could be a scenario where there are reciprocal arrangements, so, if a deal was reached with the European Union that established the principle of reciprocal arrangements, then, obviously, the ability of the HE institutions to charge international fees would be curtailed. I just want to make that clear.
Lynne Neagle AM: If there's not that agreement--
Kirsty Williams AM: If there's no deal--
Lynne Neagle AM: --then it will be open to universities to charge market-driven, international rates.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, that's right. Sorry, I just wanted to clarify. I should have made it very clear that the answer I gave was in the context of no deal, which is what we seem to be talking about mostly this morning, but if there was a deal to have reciprocal arrangements, then that ability, obviously, would be curtailed.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay, well, can I thank the Cabinet Secretary, the Minister and the officials for attending and for answering all our questions? We very much appreciate your time. As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy after the meeting. Thank you very much. Okay. Item 5, then, is papers to note. Members will see that there are 18 papers to note, so I'd like to suggest that we note them as a block, please, and just to flag that I would like to return to paper to note 18 when we go into private. Is that okay with everyone? Everyone happy to note those? Thank you. Item 6, then, can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting and the whole of the meeting next week? Are Members content? Okay, thank you. | The meeting was about the fiscal and social influence of Brexit, especially focusing on the Wales education system. The group was worrying that Brexit would cut down the support from the EU to the UK, thus putting the Wales Universities in great dilemma. Besides, the fact was that the less fiscal support from the EU, the less foreign students would apply for the Wales universities. The members talked about several possible solutions, for instance, adjusting the syllabus to better meet both the students'and the lecturers'needs and providing them with better career prospects. What also mattered was the immigration policy which would be alluring to the foreign students if being reconsidered carefully. | qmsum |
Summarize the team's evaluation of the process of the project.
Project Manager: So is {disfmarker} Why not save that.
Marketing: No, you'll ha have to open it up from elsewhere.
Project Manager: {gap} {disfmarker} Do you want to replace existing file, no. {vocalsound} I actually tried to transfer it to My Documents, but {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, you have to you have to close that window.'Cause that's the save one isn't it, so {disfmarker} And then find it.
Project Manager: {gap} spreadsheet.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, but I've ta uh
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: right, I'll just re-do it. That's the easiest way. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Right.
User Interface: Well we've made our prototype anyway. We can have a good look at that. {vocalsound}
Marketing: You pass it round to have a look.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm. Y no, it's a slightly curved around the sides. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm very nice.
User Interface: Um, it's almost curved like up to the main display as well. And the little line at the bottom indicates the bit {disfmarker} the panel that you pull down.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And the extra function buttons are below that panel on the little line.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And we've got the stick on the button with the company logo on.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: We also have a apple slash cherry design at the top.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} So it is, yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Cherry would be alright actually.
User Interface: Yeah,
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: it's a bit more fun, isn't it? And it's kinda not really at a kind of {disfmarker} you think apple, you think computers, like Apple Mac.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah, we might get a {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Copyright, yeah. What's this this one?
User Interface: Yeah, and cherries are fun, summery.
Marketing: What's that one there?
User Interface: Ah, that's the mute.
Industrial Designer: For the M_. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh, okay. Right.
User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound} It {disfmarker} it'd probably have to be labelled mute.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: They're thinking {disfmarker}
User Interface: But um, we didn't have anything small enough to write.
Marketing: Uh-huh.
Industrial Designer: For the first time, well it was hard to get the h um the actual labelling on the individual buttons.
Marketing: Okay. Mm-hmm. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. Uh, we just chose simple shapes for all them.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Um, the important ones are the volume ones. So we made them a bit bigger. The mute could possibly be a bit smaller.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Hum, you separate off in colour the volume related buttons from the channel related buttons, so you've got the volume in orange on design there,
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and the the channel is in blue.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: R right. Um,
User Interface: Yeah, and we chose a V_ plus and V_ minus.
Project Manager: all these things have cost implications. And so when I done my thing on cost {vocalsound} a {disfmarker} I had assumed that the only uh button that would be a different colour would be the uh the red apple button. So {disfmarker} However, I've now {gap}. {vocalsound} But um, {vocalsound} yeah so uh but there would be a cost implication on that,
Marketing: I'll see if I can find them.
Project Manager: and uh {disfmarker} as I suppose that {vocalsound} so whether {vocalsound} wanted to put in all these colours, would be uh open to debate, I suppose.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, sis
User Interface: Well the colours wouldn't {disfmarker} like that's {disfmarker} they wouldn't be too important,
Marketing: Have {disfmarker}
User Interface: but we didn't have any white Play-Doh. {vocalsound} So that's where the colour buttons came from. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} An important consideration.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Right, okay so um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And the second one underneath would be the idea for the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yes, we'll have the slide-away.
Project Manager: Right, okay. So we've got um detail design meeting.
Industrial Designer: Bottom.
Project Manager: Right. So {disfmarker} So, we've got {vocalsound} prototype presentation, which we've just done, evaluation criteria, um and finance, so I guess w we have to evaluate if that meets the various uh aspects that we're looking for uh from um our previous meeting.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So other than the fact that it doesn't have the second layer, but um obviously obviously it would.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} But other than that, we got the red apple. We got the buttons and the only thing that has really changed is the is the colouration of the buttons,
Industrial Designer: Yes, yes.
Project Manager: and {vocalsound} the bit after the evaluation criteria is uh is the finance. {vocalsound} And the {vocalsound} and the cost implication.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: Right.
Project Manager: The only snag about this is that uh {vocalsound} the cost is probably kind of important. So um, and then the production evaluation, as to how easy that would be to uh to manufacture.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um, and whether it would uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So if you had to do a presentation or {disfmarker} will you just work it on the prototype?
Industrial Designer: This this is a {disfmarker}
User Interface: Uh, that's it. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: yes, this is our presentation of the prototype.
Marketing: That's the pr
Project Manager: Right, so uh as far as the the finance of it would be concern would be to make sure that the cost {disfmarker} aye the production cost'cause you may remember that was one of the first uh considerations was to be in d under um uh twelve fifty or two and a half {disfmarker} uh twelve and a half Euros.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So, there's no redesign. So that should uh {disfmarker} Right, so, seems to me that the thing that I have to do is is quickly find that uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Could we get this on the board just so we can see {disfmarker} or do you mean do you have the figures there?
Marketing: {gap} we should {gap} plug it in.
Project Manager: Right.
Marketing: Do you wanna plu do you wanna plug it in into the the back of that one.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer:'Kay, Alice. So, sh
Marketing: We could do it as we d go along, the production costs, looking at the prototype.
Project Manager: Right. {gap}.
Industrial Designer:'Kay this should be then.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay, so, by the fact that we've got uh the simple chip and the uh kinetic energy source, we've got a single curved case. We've got a rubber uh case materials supplements. So, we had decided that we're having rubber buttons and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound} Have a push button interface.
Project Manager: Okay. W the button supplements.
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well, originally, I thought there would just be uh one in there because it was the one red apple. But {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So the so the real w the real question then would come in. Do you make all the buttons {disfmarker}
Marketing: Well do we'll do it on the prototype,
Project Manager: O
Marketing: so do two, see how much it is.
Project Manager: Well, so we've got one special button form, which was the apple. Everything else is gonna be a standard.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: We've got special material, rubber, wood, titanium, et cetera and that,
Industrial Designer: And then we'd have {disfmarker}
Project Manager: so, I was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} originally, I was thinking {gap} rubber wasn't special,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: but according to this, maybe it is.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} And the r I mean effectively we've got sixteen buttons that we're gonna have on there.
Marketing: Yeah. I think you just do one, don't you, for the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: W {vocalsound} I don't know {vocalsound} is {vocalsound} is {vocalsound} is the sort of answer, is that meant to be all sixteen buttons, and therefore {disfmarker} I mean, what's the op The option was maybe not to have rubber buttons, but just to have the one that was soft and spongy, and therefore {disfmarker}
Marketing: I think I think it's just it's just a one. Else {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Whereas it would be {disfmarker} the special colour would be for the {disfmarker} So you would only have the one special button that was rubber, whereas the rest would be hard plastic. {vocalsound}
Marketing: I thi I think I think the button supplement i is just a supplement for all the buttons {gap} made in a different material, rather than per button.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: I don't know though.
Project Manager: I would {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Every design change is uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} sound] I dunno,
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay, um, if we just had all the buttons as standard, except for the one red apple, then that would take care of that, I guess. We'd have one special colour and one special button form.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: And when I plugged that in last time {disfmarker} {gap} remember it has to be under twelve and a half. As far as I know, that um {vocalsound} that took care of the uh of the various supplements.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: And if {disfmarker} What happened?
Marketing: You've just gone off the window into another one. It's on the bottom row.
User Interface: Maybe if you just minimise that one in the top right-hand corner of the little box.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Now, right. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, so, but the point would be that if we uh if we just did special {disfmarker} Sorry, you were saying that it would be that one, that you would put in one there.
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: So that's nine point one there so we've got some {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So it {disfmarker} Well, is it s is {disfmarker} no, it's nine point seven I've got.
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Just give us a bit of {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So, that would {vocalsound} that would work out fine if uh uh as assuming your correction are are {vocalsound} {disfmarker} assuming that that one change covers all the buttons, then that would be fine.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: And there's nothing else as far as I can see that we we had uh planned to put on {gap}.
User Interface: S
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I {gap} switching around those th um on the electronics we got the sample sensor. At the moment we've just got the simple chip, which costs one.
Project Manager: Uh-huh.
Industrial Designer: Um, I guess the sample sens sample speaker would be the voice recognition thing, which puts up to four?
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: We should be slightly over our budget but if we gather something else down to slightly lower standard, and maybe go with the one the special form buttons, then we could have the speech {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Well, hold on. Um, if we Okay, that gives us twelve point seven
Industrial Designer: So uh maybe if we got rid of like the maybe one of the special colours, kept them all the same colour, then we could have the voice recognition
Project Manager: But remember that the idea was to keep it the colour of the {gap} {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: without {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh, I see, so just take out the special colour for the apple and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah.
User Interface: Um, {gap}. D wouldn't you have to keep the simple chip there as well? You know how you turn that one to a zero, wouldn't the chip and the sample speaker be separate things,
Marketing: Yeah, we have to have it {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Oh possibly, yeah, yeah maybe.
User Interface: so you need both of them?
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Maybe um we'd be giving up on the kinetic. Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And go for battery instead.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: That would give you one less.
Industrial Designer: We should {disfmarker} Yeah, that would save us one, though we'd still be slightly ov
Project Manager: But you reckon that i I mean the thing is that you wanted to a appeal to people and not have to replace batteries.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah. Well, since it's the {disfmarker} through the whole technology type thing, um, you were saying in the market research that people like kind of interesting gadgets in them. Um, whether they would figure the {vocalsound} the s uh sample senor and the sample speaker, voice recognition be sort of a worthwhile thing to have.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And then still have the batteries,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: or whatever they would prefer not uh {disfmarker} You know what I mean? The the problem was the battery's running out and losing the um losing the remote.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So you gotta decide which of those is more important to them.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} But which do you think {disfmarker} or which do we think is the more important of the options? In a sense, at the moment, we've got a total which we need to reduce down by one point two.
User Interface: I think the voice recognition.
Project Manager: At least. Remember that was a minimum requirement. The other option if we're planning on just going for something cheap and cheerful, would be to um make it {gap} originally, we're gonna make it a simple product.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Shall we shall we evaluate the prototype as we've got it now first, and then sort of make decisions about what needs to be changed after?
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Makes sense.
Industrial Designer: Okay
Marketing: Okay. Right um, I have a little thing. So, we've all got a note of {disfmarker} it's thirteen point seven, isn't it, with everything we want on.
Project Manager: {gap}. Sorry, do you want that back up?
Marketing: Yeah, I just had a presentation to do. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Right.
User Interface: But I do think uh the v uh voice recognition thing would be more impressive than the fact that it's got no battery.
Project Manager: Okay, but remember the main {disfmarker} the only reason we were planning on having the voice recognition was so that they could find the remote if it got lost.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm. {vocalsound} Right okay um, This is about the evaluation criteria that we use for the the prototype we've got here.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: And so the method is that the design team makes a prototype, and we evaluate the prototype against some criteria that we've formulated. And those ones are gonna be in response to sort of market research, and also finance, I guess. {vocalsound} And do that on a scale from say true being one and false being seven, so if it's neither true nor false, then that's four. So, I got a set of criteria just based on the marketing that we need to add in a financial one as well, at the end. Um so, We have to say whether it's true or false that the product looks and feels fancy. Um {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} whether the product demonstrates technical innovation. Whether it's easy to use. Whether it's incorporating sort of the fashion element to attract the buyer. And whether it's a sort of recognisable Real Reaction product. And I have to go up onto the whiteboard and do this apparently,
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: so {vocalsound} I'll go over here. {vocalsound} Right. So the first one is um, does the product look and feel fancy. So if we do a sort of a one {disfmarker} So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay, well we have a single curve, which was {gap} maybe like the feel of the product's quite good.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Um, then we have the rubber kinda spongy feel, which was in at the time.
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um, {vocalsound} sorry that'd be considered fancy.
User Interface: Yeah, I'd maybe give it a a two.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Of {disfmarker} but I think {disfmarker} What {disfmarker} Is one false, or is t one true?
User Interface: One's true.
Marketing: I forgot. One's true, and okay. Seven's fal
User Interface: And a four is neutral.
Marketing: Four is neutral, okay. So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: So maybe {gap} maybe a two.
User Interface: Yeah,'cause we haven't got the double curve, so we can't like say it's completely true.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Go for one. {vocalsound} Yep.
Marketing: Right.
User Interface: {vocalsound} But it's pretty close. We've got almost everything we can.
Marketing: Okay. Right.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: I gonna put underneath so I've got some more space. So, false is seven, true is one, and {disfmarker} So uh say about a two for fancy,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: you think?
Project Manager: Yeah, why not not,
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: m m maybe nearer three.
Marketing: Okay, well d you do an average at the end, I don't know. Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Two three. Well, it's just that uh saying something {disfmarker} {vocalsound} remember that when you look down, we've got solar power, we've got uh various other things you could have, and we're not going for these options.
Marketing: Uh-huh. This this is just this is just for like the look. Does it sort of look fancy rather than functional. So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah, I suppose that might be in the technical innovation bit.
Marketing: Yeah, so that {disfmarker} so sh should we go for a a two on that?
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing:'Kay. And I mean, how much does the product demonstrate technical innovation do you reckon?
Industrial Designer: Um, {gap} deciding between the kinetic power or um the speech recognition, and if we had either of those for our budget, they both show a reasonable amount of speech recognition.
Marketing: D yeah. Okay. So, what about the pr The prototype as it is,
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: we've got we've got the speech recognition on it, haven't we.
Industrial Designer: But not the kinetic.
Marketing: But not the kinetic.
Industrial Designer: Like the power.
Project Manager: No.'Cause you can't afford that {disfmarker} w we took that out too.
Industrial Designer: No, we c ca yeah, we can't afford both.
Marketing: Alright, so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Didn't you? Or {disfmarker}
Marketing: So it doesn't {disfmarker} It's pretty {disfmarker} The prototype as it is isn't sort of um fulfilling the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: No may is {disfmarker} maybe about neutral
User Interface: Maybe a three.
Industrial Designer: plus it it it's got something, but it hasn't got {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay. Yeah.
Project Manager: Well, wait a minute. In thirteen point seven we do have kinetic.
User Interface: I would give it more than a four.
Project Manager: The problem is we have to reduce down from there to get it down to twelve point five.
Industrial Designer: Right.
Project Manager: And one way of doing that would be to take out the kinetic.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: So, it's very much dependant on what you do with your options. And if you're definitely going for the sample sensor and sample speaker, then {disfmarker} because that {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
Marketing: Right, okay.
Project Manager: the other functions we've got in are are more at the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} The special material, the rubber, wood, titanium, et cetera, if you go for that, th that's at the high end'cause that's point six, whereas down at uh just special colours uh is point two. Now you're trying to lose one point two, so it seems to me that if you're going for the sample sensors {disfmarker} speaker, you're basically then having to go for the cheaper options on everything else.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: And and the simple way to do it would be to have a battery, to have your uh sample sensor speaker,
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: and then you're looking to uh take out uh point two,
Marketing: S I'm just gonna check my email. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: which would be {disfmarker} come from the button supplements category.
Marketing: I'm just gonna check exactly what it said in the email for um the product.
User Interface: How much of a difference would it make if we made the case in plastic? Because we did say that we don't wanna follow the fashion too much. If the buttons are rubber that might be spongy enough.
Project Manager: Um, interface type um,
User Interface: And then it stand the test of time better.
Project Manager: well plastic rather than rubber. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay. But I {disfmarker}
Project Manager: That that that would make the significant difference. You could either {vocalsound} you could have it {disfmarker} If you have a in plastic rather than rubber, then that would uh enable you to get {disfmarker} you could keep kinetic then, you could keep your sample sensor, and you'd be looking to take out point two. So you could uh fiddle that down your special form at the bottom, or your special colour at the bottom.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: And that would enable you to to do it.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: So it says if we make a slightly more fancy, then we lose points innovation, and if we make it more innovative innovative, then we lose points on it being fancy, so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Ye
Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap}, I just read the email again and it sort of says it's evaluate the design sort of as it is, I think, so I think we need to think about finance after we've sort of evaluated that design. I don't know whether we're doing it in the wrong order or something or.
Project Manager: Well, okay, but {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well, I suppose it's rubber as it is, isn't it.
Project Manager: It's rubber as it is, yes.
Marketing: So, I mean does this need to go up a bit or something,'cause we've got both the both the um the speech {disfmarker}
Project Manager: We got {disfmarker} we've we've got thirteen point seven
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: and we've got it in at the moment and if {disfmarker} and basically, we're going to reduce down from that.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: But the current one, you'd say would be fancy, would be too {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. Um, for for innovation, so we've got the speech the speech thing, and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm. I would've said about a two as well.
Marketing: Do you reckon a two?
User Interface: Yeah, two or three. I'd be happy with a two.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay. Two.
Project Manager: Oh.
Marketing: And the next one is {disfmarker} I'll have to get it back up now. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: The next on Well, I can just sing about. Easy to use. I would've said yes. I would go for a one on that at this point in time.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah,
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: I would say so as well.
Project Manager: Um, incorporates elements of fashion to attract buyer. Well, yeah it certainly has some.
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap}.
User Interface: Yeah, it's got the cherry and the sponginess.
Industrial Designer: It does, yeah.
Marketing: Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yep.
Marketing: Say about a three maybe?
Project Manager: I don't know.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah, m um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Maybe two?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, it was just doing it quite well.
Project Manager: Yep.
Industrial Designer: Um, I think we're gonna have to lose some of these, but the moment, as it stands, it's um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, I woulda said two would seem reasonable.
Marketing: It's a two.
Project Manager: The product is a recognisable real {disfmarker} r uh {disfmarker} reaction product?
Marketing: Yeah, this is {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Uh {gap} the sensor using all of its all of its products, all of its buttons,
Marketing: This {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: and it's got a fairly big label on the bottom saying where it comes from.
User Interface: Yeah, that's a bit rough at the minute. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} So this is about sort of the corporate image of like new sort of sleek technology and all that sort of thing, as well as having the logo on and all that.
Project Manager: Oh.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: So {gap} sort of {disfmarker} Is it sort of a recognisable product.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Does it fit in with our other other products, which uh are sort of coffee makers and spacecraft. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} S
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh, well it's got the same um speech feature as the coffee machine.
Marketing: What do y
Industrial Designer: Also it's kind of {gap} spongy rubberiness is maybe bit more kinda comfortable than {disfmarker} kinda sleek and new age.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um, it depends which way you look at it.
Marketing: Uh-huh.
Project Manager: Okay. So we're going for a two,
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Maybe a kind of three? Uh d
Project Manager: {gap} three?
User Interface: Yeah, two or three.
Marketing: Two or three?
User Interface: Well, the logo would be more um recognisable on the actual thing. It's just that the pen wouldn't really write on that paper.
Project Manager: Sure.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: But um, I think the logo would definitely be recognisable.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: And it does have attributes that other products do. Two? Aye. Go for it.
Project Manager: Right, okay.
Marketing: Two or three. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Two.
Marketing: {vocalsound} How {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Right, come on. That's that decided.
Marketing: Two. Okay.
Project Manager: Right. So {disfmarker}
Marketing: Right.
Project Manager: So we're now on to changing it to get it to fit in with the budget requirements, and then {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: What does {disfmarker} what do all them numbers mean then? Do we add them up and rate {gap} or anything?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah we s yeah, I think we sort of add them up so sort of at an average is gonna be {disfmarker} I'm just gonna do this in my head.
Project Manager: About a two.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Two.
Marketing: One point eight isn't it or something. {vocalsound} I think, anyway. So yeah, pretty close to a two.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, so it's {disfmarker}
Marketing: So {disfmarker} So it's {disfmarker} I mean it's pretty good at the moment, but it's gonna get worse, isn't it.
Project Manager: Yep.
Marketing: But we've gotta try and make sure it doesn't get too bad.
Project Manager: Two b two b two {gap}, yeah.
Industrial Designer: So should we get {disfmarker} So are {gap} definite {disfmarker} Was it {disfmarker} thirteen point seven was the definite price rule if {gap} has.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Okay, so we need to {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Well, you can lose one point two and still meet the requirements.
Marketing: Do you wanna plug it into yours so we can get up the the finances {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, well I put it back on.
Industrial Designer: So I guess this {disfmarker} Is this the last stage once we sort out the finances part of it?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I'm not sure.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {gap} we'll probably have to re-rate it.
Project Manager: Yes, I would've thought so.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah we'll make the adjustments
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and then see how are rates are going.
Project Manager: Okay, so what was it, control uh F_ eight, wasn't it?
User Interface: Ah it's on.
Marketing: {gap} it's come on already.
Project Manager: Oh. Oh. How kind. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Right, okay. So, you can see there that the {disfmarker} If you want to keep kinetic, right, you've got a choice there of going down to battery, which would save you one. You've got the sample sensor and and sample speaker, which is your big item.
Industrial Designer: Oh actually we just have a plastic case, then we lose two points,
Project Manager: That's right.
Industrial Designer: which gets us um {disfmarker} In {disfmarker} right within the budget range.
Project Manager: Which gets you {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Yes.
User Interface: Yeah, I think that'd be fine. Because that was just a trend, and we do have rubber buttons anyway.
Industrial Designer: So that's eleven point seven,
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and then we could make sure we definitely had all the button supplements.
Project Manager: Alright.
Marketing: Different different colours, yeah. Yeah, I was I was thinking that because maybe maybe the sort of rubber case is a bit less in sort of the corporate identity than the sort of you know sleeker plastic case.
Industrial Designer: Possibly, yeah. Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: And that would allow us to have all the technical innovations. So we'd lose a little bit on the {disfmarker} maybe kind of {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So we're going for plastic, yes?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Lose a little bit on the fashion, yeah, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yep.
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah, and that would now be {disfmarker}
Marketing: And then {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's that's within the budget. Um {disfmarker} Do we actually have {disfmarker} Do we just have one special {disfmarker} uh {gap} special forms down here?
Project Manager: Well, uh w uh there was debate as to how you would count them. You got special colour.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well originally I was assuming we had the red apple, and therefore, that was the special colour.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And we we've we've got {disfmarker} we've got enough for another
User Interface: Yeah, I think we should just imagine white buttons.
Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} we've got nought point eight left,
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: so we've got enough for another {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well, we've got special form. Now that would be one button, and the question was was that all buttons or is that just one button.'Cause our plan really was to have one button only with a special {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So so no matter how you look at that, that would be the same.
Industrial Designer: But the {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but but the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: The other thing would then be special material, rubber, wood, titanium.
Industrial Designer: I think maybe the special colour, we've got three now just because {gap} the volume buttons are different,
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I guess we'd have the ones which are blue at the moment would would just be the standard colour.
Project Manager: Alright. So, special colour, you want three in there.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, which I think we should {disfmarker} Yeah, they'll still be fine for the for the price.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Well I thin I think you you you just need two for the special colour'cause it's just two supplements, you know. One original colour and then sort of two supplements, I think maybe.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} That makes sense.
Industrial Designer: Okay, uh that's probably it.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay. So we only ne we only need two for that.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing:'Cause I mean these these are moulded. The one colour's gonna be moulded out of a piece of plas uh of rubber, isn't it.
Project Manager: Okay. Yeah, I would agree with that, I think. And we've got special form {vocalsound} is the one apple.
Marketing: Right.
Project Manager: The rest are all standard, although you could argue that should maybe be {disfmarker} You were making these buttons down the bottom, I was presuming, bigger than the other ones, or were you? Was that the idea?
Industrial Designer: Ne uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, the volume ones should stand out a bit.
Industrial Designer: Maybe that'll be a second supplement. Then there's a spe a second special form.
Marketing: Yeah, that {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Uh-huh. I would have thought that's probably about r {vocalsound} well. {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} Well you got you got twelve.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay, so tha
Industrial Designer: So I think that should still be okay. Yeah, that's twelve point three,
Project Manager: Right.
Industrial Designer: so we're still within budget on that. Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yep, that makes sense.
Industrial Designer: So {gap} decide we've lost a little bit on the fashion and lost a bit on the fancy kinda side of it,
Project Manager: Yep.
Industrial Designer: but generally speaking, we've kept the other attributes to the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I woulda said so. Yeah. So you'd maybe put fash fan uh fashion at three rather than two.
Industrial Designer: That's without {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Yeah.
Marketing: So shall we do a {disfmarker} Well, um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And specially it definitely could fits the the real product {disfmarker} What was the {disfmarker} what's the company name?
Project Manager: Real Reaction produ
User Interface: Real Reactions?
Industrial Designer: R yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: I'm not quite sure, what does that mean? {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I mean it still seems definitely fit that p so that's like if that's the new age kind of um inno innovative c type company, then um having the kinetic feature and the voice recognition is p quite high up on {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, so {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yep {vocalsound} I would s
Marketing: So it's w if we've if we've put in for another special form on a button, then maybe they could be {vocalsound} a different shape. Like we got a cherry one. Maybe other ones could be something else shaped. {vocalsound} I don't know. That would be poss seeing as seeing as it's cheaper to make them a different {disfmarker} {vocalsound} seeing as we've got, you know, we've made it a a special form, so
Project Manager: You mean of {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: {disfmarker} And that would sort of maybe keep us close on the sort of the fashion type one. And it would sort of, you know, keep it quite fancy as well,
Project Manager: Well you could argue you might do it once a year, you would change,
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: I don't know.
Project Manager: because at the moment you're making a red apple. So next year you could make {disfmarker} next year's model the same, but have it as a a yeah whate whatever, a lemon.
Industrial Designer: Yeah so it's a {gap} {disfmarker}
Marketing: Well you could {disfmarker} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Whatever fruit was in fashion next year. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, l a lemon lemon or something.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, I mean the volume buttons could be lemons or something, maybe. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And that
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: amount {disfmarker}
Marketing: Okay. So, we've {disfmarker} what have we what have we rid of. We got rid of the plastic.
Project Manager: Yeah, we've {disfmarker} the main thing we've changed really is the casing isn't it?
Marketing: Is it {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: That {disfmarker} yeah, that was uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: The rubber.
Industrial Designer: that was just about all.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I think we've saved quite a bit because we've just got the push-button interface, which is by far the cheapest.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} So maybe in a sense not having that, maybe we've lost some {disfmarker} maybe lost something on the innovation side?
Marketing: But uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I dunno. And {gap} that is like the most standard type of button.
Marketing: So I mean, we've got {disfmarker} we got rid of the rubber case, but we've now s we now sort of got an extra form, and an extra colour for the buttons. So maybe in terms of sort of fanciness and fashionability, we're pretty much the same, maybe.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: So, I mean we could maybe put two again on them.
Industrial Designer: And everything else has stayed pretty much the same, so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well, ease has certainly stayed.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, plus if anything that is special forms makes it slightly easier to to use.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. And what about the sort of innovation?
Industrial Designer: Um, well we've still got the kinetic energy. Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: Do you think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: And the speech feature.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, the speech feature.
Marketing: {vocalsound} And then, the corporate identity.
Industrial Designer: I think we've cut just about the same. We've maybe lost {disfmarker} Hasn't it {disfmarker} It's hard to tell how the rubber the rubber casing would really affect {disfmarker}
Project Manager: How it would play out, yeah. Oh.
Marketing: Yeah. Whether whether that's considered to be sort of part of the corporate identity, I don't know. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: I mean, it's maybe not. I mean {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: But I think more the the features of the actual control will be more important than maybe than the the actual aesthetics, but {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: But either way, I think we've made it fairly close to what {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah. Okay, well I mean {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, I don't see how we could make it any more. Um, apart from maybe doing the whole thing in the kinda light shade of blue, like the casing.
Marketing: We cou Mm-hmm.
User Interface: {vocalsound} But then what colour would you make the R_s?
Industrial Designer: {gap} just the the company logo. So maybe there's like a set design which we get printed off.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Well, but you've got the company logo on there, which would effectively be a stick-on badge. So you're {disfmarker} in a sense, you're comparing the product without the company logo.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: And then y but you've got the space for it to stick it on.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah.
Marketing: Hey, what what what's the company colour? Did you get told what the company colour is or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I'm still not quite sure we've established that.
User Interface: No,
Project Manager: Don't think so.
User Interface: I just {disfmarker}
Project Manager: But but i but in the sense that, as you saw with um the Windows logo badge, it doesn't really matter.
User Interface: We got the logo off the web browser.
Marketing: Oh right.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: There's virtually n The way that you frame, you know, the Windows badge on there, it really doesn't matter what colour it is,
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: {gap} so long as our company's logo is framed w in the same way as that with a like a black outline.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Fact, they've got black and white or black and silver. So basically, even if you had a silver {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the same colour of silver on your display, because you've got effectively a double edging on the uh on the logo, it means that it splits off what your logo is from the from the product.
Marketing: Mm. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And that's actually quite a sneaky way of doing it.
Marketing: Okay. Uh-huh.'Cause you've got sort of {disfmarker} we've got point two to play with if you really wanted to.
Project Manager: You could put in another {disfmarker}
Marketing: Another colour.
Project Manager: Well, in this one, you've actually got three colours of buttons.
Marketing: Or would that be t
Project Manager: Well, we decided that the blue ones were the um the standard colour.
Marketing: Yeah. Okay.
Project Manager: So you were talking about uh um {disfmarker} We're assuming that all the buttons on the second panel, the hidden away panel, would all be standard.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Which m may or may not be the case.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: Shall we save the point two for profitability then? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well, yeah. Bu but but uh was the was there not a button that you were thinking of on the um on the other opt you know, on the second page, as it were, that uh you were thinking of maybe having as a different colour?
User Interface: {vocalsound} Um, I don't think they would really need to be. I think if they were just all small round blue buttons, it'd be fine.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, maybe we've m {vocalsound}
User Interface: Needs to be an enter button, but could just be the same as well.
Industrial Designer: Maybe for the the one they're gonna see all the time, we make it look good, and um, fit the kind of idea of what they want.
Marketing: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: And then for the more functional buttons, we don't worry too much about that and just have that as like a {disfmarker} plus it's hidden away anyway, you're not gonna see it at the start.
Marketing: Yeah. I mean it's the sort of thing that, I mean, you wanna pick up the controller and just hit a button quickly to change the channel or volume.
Project Manager: Yeah, well {disfmarker}
Marketing: So, if it's dead obvious, then that's fine. But if you're opening the panel and you're looking and you're tuning, then you're paying a bit more attention. So it may be sort of different colour buttons isn't so important.
Project Manager: Alright. Okay.
Marketing:'Cause you {disfmarker} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So we just add that to profitability in effect. {gap} {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, I mean so we've dropped the cost, but {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Right, so we're meant to finish up in five minutes.
Marketing: Same sort of function? The criteria? It's alright.
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Just made a load of money. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Shouldn't we maybe lose a point on fashion, go to a three?'Cause we've lost the overall spongy feel.'Cause it doesn't seem right that it just hasn't changed at all. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Well, but I think we said that w Because you got rid of the rubber, we put an extra an extra sort of fruit um shape on one of the buttons.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Alright.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} le lemon sh
User Interface: Did we decide what that was, which button it was? On the volume ones?
Marketing: I think {disfmarker} well, we could have lemon shaped ones with the volume ones or something. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Right. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh, {gap}. That's good.
Marketing: Or something like that. Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Definitely lemon shaped.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Did {disfmarker} did you have to have a rubber case, though, for rubber buttons? Or was it the other way around?
Industrial Designer: You had to have rubber buttons if you had the rubber case.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So I think we can {disfmarker} we're okay.
Marketing: Right, okay.
Project Manager: So we're okay this way around.
Marketing: Yeah. So that {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Until the design team comes in and says, get off.
Marketing: so we've saved {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But you are the design team. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Then we say it's fine, so it's all good.
Marketing: Saved two Euros on that.
Project Manager: So what bit are we on to?
User Interface: Um, can I just check if that's a cherry or an apple? Did we decide against the apple because of Apple Mac? And did we make it a cherry officially?
Project Manager: Yeah. I th I th {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Oh. Right, okay.
Industrial Designer: Just in case we need that point two for lawsuits and such like. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh drats, I've botched that, haven't I.
User Interface: So were we aiming for a certain target on that scale?
Marketing: Well, we're aiming for um one for all of them.
User Interface: Right.
Marketing: M but it really has to fit into the budget, so {disfmarker} I guess we just have to adjust things to get it i in the {disfmarker} Which is fair enough. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: And we seem to have {gap} least something in each criteria. We haven't completely left anything out, so {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah, I think
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} As an overall product which has to be quite cheap, we've just about achieved everything.
Marketing: most {disfmarker} Yeah. Yep.
User Interface: So do we have anything else to discuss?
Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't know. What's on the agenda?
Project Manager: Right, okay um {disfmarker} What's happened here? Right, okay um {disfmarker} Mm {vocalsound}. Right, okay um, {gap} {disfmarker} Right. So we got {disfmarker} So we've done the the finance bit and the Excel project and the {disfmarker} We've done the redesign.
Industrial Designer: We've got the closing.
Project Manager: So we're now on to project process. Now satisfaction with, for example, room for creativity, leadership, teamwork, means, et cetera, whiteboard, digital pens, et cetera. So, we're actually now uh, in a sense, on to the evaluation of the course rather than the evaluation of the project is m my understanding of it.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Uh-huh.
Project Manager: So what did you {disfmarker} and remembering that nobody's just over the curtain. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So, um {disfmarker}
Marketing: Finish your meeting now. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: We should just go through this quickly and then {disfmarker}
User Interface: Huh.
Project Manager: So {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: I suppose the easiest way of doing it is to put some notes down, which I will do.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: So, uh I think I have to finish that page. Right, okay, so {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Project evaluation. So, um {disfmarker} Creativity. Did you feel you got a chance to express yourselves {vocalsound} well enough?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Um, yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: Well um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I thought some of the divisions though between sort of the individual meetings were a bit arbitrary.
Project Manager: Individual meetings. How do you mean?
Marketing: Yeah. Well, we were finding out various things in {vocalsound} in be in-between the meetings,
Project Manager: In you on your own.
Marketing: and they didn't {disfmarker} the one meeting didn't always follow on for the other one, you know, sort of {disfmarker} we had things thrown in at the second meeting where, you know, you'd looked at the remote controls and seen the curviness, but in the first one you'd also looked at some remote controls and looked at the buttons,
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: and I don't understand why it would be in separate meetings that you'd do that. You know, you'd sort of {disfmarker} you'd probably present it at one or something like that.
Project Manager: Mm, {gap} {disfmarker} The only thing you find is in a manufacturing process, you would {disfmarker} normally, you go to a meeting, you decide, right, you do this, you do that, you do that.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Then you go away. You find out information. You then come back. You then discuss it. You then go and change things around,
Marketing: Uh-huh.
Project Manager: and then go back. So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, I suppose and then {gap} be going out and finding more information each time
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Whereas, this time, you're really getting it from a database source,
Industrial Designer: and then diff things will be relevant.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: so it's not uh well uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Anyway, so, what do you want to put down?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I've put, seemed okay. Creativity, seemed okay. Um um flow of information on on any given subject {disfmarker} given subject um sometimes disjointed. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: I think it maybe could have been a slightly more creative project. I mean a remote control isn't the most um kind of fancy thing that you could imagine designing.
Marketing: Yeah, the thing itself.
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: I can't think of a better example at the minute.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Have {disfmarker} could have used a different example {disfmarker} pel to increase {disfmarker} create {disfmarker} Creativity.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Is this go {disfmarker} It kinda kis fits the purpose that it was something everyone knows about and then something we can at least look at and think how we can improve on.
Project Manager: You have to do it within a set time frame is the other thing, so {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yeah. But {gap} think like it was a bit restrictive just to say that you have to design a television remote control, in a way. I mean it depends what sort of business you're in, I guess. I mean this one seems {gap}. From the website it looks {gap} it's quite innovative, but we're coming up with some bucket shop product aren't we
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: that's, you know, fifteen quid. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {gap} one of those things. Like uh, companies can have like a range of products and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I th I uh d
Industrial Designer: {gap} I don't know how it works but I guess that something got sent out and {gap} have like a brief to kind of {disfmarker}
Project Manager: But the other thing is that uh they're {disfmarker} I'm guessing that they're trying to use this um software to to demonstrate how you could uh do a project. I mean, m my wife at the moment, for instance, is uh acting as a computer
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: um {vocalsound} for um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you {disfmarker} normally, you got a problem, so you go to your tutor and find out information to see how to get it fixed.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So what she's doing is she's {vocalsound} having to spend a day at the computer terminal at one end so that any student that comes along can uh ask whatever question. And then you {disfmarker} or the idea is that the {disfmarker} whichever uh person's at the other end can point them in the right direction, show them where to {disfmarker} either give them directly {disfmarker} give them help, or secondly, point them in the right direction, either at the library, or uh or or come back, or go and see Joe Bloggs, or whatever. So uh, and that was a project I suspect similar to this, because they they were actually trying to debug the uh computer software to enable um {disfmarker} to enable it to work. And of course, you had the machine crashing
Marketing: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: and various things going wrong. So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well, sh {gap} we look at the last slide,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: see if it's got anything else.
Project Manager: Alright,
Industrial Designer: {gap} I think there's one one more to go.
Project Manager: so we've got uh
Marketing: Yeah. {gap} I mean if you look at their products on their website here, Real Reaction, I mean it's all pretty high-tech and cutting edge.
Project Manager: New ideas found,
Marketing: And {disfmarker}
Project Manager: did we find any, no.
Industrial Designer: It was quite good with this um {disfmarker} the white board, having that and the digital pens.
Project Manager: Alright.
Industrial Designer: Like, that's something that made it a little easier.
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: Leadership, teamwork.
Marketing: {gap} we did find a new idea, I mean sort of a kinetic remote control. I've never seen one of them before. {gap} batteries, I think. So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Does {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {gap} voice recognition, especially not {gap} could {disfmarker}
Project Manager: You've got voice recognition computers,
Marketing: Mm yeah.
Project Manager: that's not remote controls.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Well it's a different application of it.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Okay,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, so it's just like the same products, but just put together in a different way.
Project Manager: so how do you reckon teamwork went?
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: That went okay, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, I guess we all had separate ideas and then discussed them.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm, yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: To uh go uh reasonably well. Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't think sort of the budget um allowed us to do anything {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Bit {disfmarker} bit arbitrary. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Well, I mean I don't think it {disfmarker} I just don't think it fitted in with the rest of their products. I mean, they've got all these sort of, you know, high definition D_V_D_ and portable seven inch d um lightweight computer screens,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: and uh I'm thinking, do you know, one cheap remote control doesn't really fit in.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} So, we're m we're meant to comment on leadership and the means, E_ G_ whiteboard, digital pens, et cetera.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Surely they they should produ
Project Manager: And and new i new ideas found was the the other thing.
User Interface: Well leadership's a bit of a funny one, isn't it.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} But we can't really all fairly comment on leadership because you are the Project Manager.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: You were the leader. {vocalsound} So our experience of leadership wasn't really as much as yours. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: Now, I'd much rather be in marketing {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I certainly didn't get this uh computer to work as well as I would have liked.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: However, um {disfmarker} Alright uh means, so whiteboard um {disfmarker} so really, it's uh equipment. Oh.
Marketing: Yeah. It worked.
User Interface: Yeah, very nice. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Comput computers could be a bit difficult at times but {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: But I mean, I d I don't {disfmarker} I'm not sure I see the value in these. I mean, they record what you're writing, and then what do you do with it? Where do you get the recording? Do you plug {gap} the computer or something?
Marketing: I think there's a little there's a little um chi
Industrial Designer: So it's not just for us, it's for the experiment as a whole, so {disfmarker}
Marketing: There's a little there's a little chip, I think you must plug it into something
Industrial Designer: Should we quickly look at the last slide?
Marketing: and it produces a {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Sh {gap} {disfmarker}
User Interface: Right. I think you watch a video of it kind of.
Marketing: I don't know. Whether it just produces a big image of sort of everything you've written or something, and {disfmarker} Page after page.
Project Manager: Right. New ideas found, so one or two.
Marketing: Yeah. Kinetic powered remote control. Um, what was the other one?
User Interface: Voice um recognition thing.
Marketing: Vo yeah.
Project Manager: {gap} um and uh voice
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: uh, was it voice activated um {disfmarker}
Marketing: Voice recognition, yeah. S
Project Manager: recognition.
Marketing: Almost.
User Interface: Pretty much. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} To fill in these fill in these questionnaires
Project Manager: Right, so, uh are the costs within budget,
Marketing: Oh no.
Project Manager: yes. Is the project evaluated, yes. Uh, don't forget to complete final questionnaire and meeting summary. Then celebration. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {gap}. Is that everything?
Marketing: Hmm? I think that we've got two questionnaires and a report on the last meeting.
Project Manager: Yeah. Uh, so we don't re So really {disfmarker} I tried to save this the last time at twelve point three, and it didn't seem to have saved anywhere. Mind you, the the figure last was was different, but it should be poss | The team thought the creativity of the team was okay, as they felt that they got chances to express themselves well enough, but there were still some problems in their process of discussion. Then, Industrial Designer gave an example on how to improve the creativeness of the team. The team believed that their team work went well. As for the methods of discussion, Project manager thought that he was still not familiar with the operation of computers. | qmsum |
How did the group hold their views towards multi-functional and single-functional product?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} Yeah. That's okay. That's okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Am I starting now? Anytime? Oh sorry.'Kay, um. Alright, welcome back fro to the second meeting. And um I hope you had a productive last thirty minutes.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um, and um, I'll be taking minutes on this one, and um {disfmarker} Being hooked up to the PowerPoint for this meeting isn't very necessary for uh myself, because it'll be more about uh, what you guys are bringing to the meeting today. Um, so, the first presentation we'll be looking at is Poppy's presentation. And, um {disfmarker} So, sorry? So, um, take it away Poppy.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Um, do I need to {disfmarker} {gap}
Project Manager: It's, it's plugged in. So, um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: plugged in.
User Interface: F_ eight, w. Function F_ eight.
Industrial Designer: F_ okay. Function F_ eight. Sorry about this guys.
Project Manager: No problem.
User Interface: {gap}
Industrial Designer:'Kay. {gap} is on. Right. {gap} Okay. I will take this time just to apologise.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I, I only, uh, received my emails later on.'Cause I was too busy carried away doing my own thing,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: which is not obviously not a very good part of a team-working thing.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: But there we go.
Project Manager: I'm sure it's fine.
Industrial Designer: Um, so I was looking at how we're going to go about the working design, and what we actually need to do, and what the remote control needs to do. And it needs to um allow a person to have a portable desi device, so they can control the television from wherever they are. They don't need to actually manually touch the television set. So, it gives them much more flexibility, and allows them to be where they want to be. Um, from {disfmarker} Uh, on a functional side of things, we found out that wh from our previous meeting, we decided that there're certain points that will make our product unique. Um, one is the visibility in the dark, which was um Genevieve's idea. So we need to think about how we could bring this in um technically. And we could use illuminated buttons, which we are all familiar with when we're using a mobile phone, or um something fam familiar. A automatically, um lights up at first touch. Or we could use fluorescent materials which would just um take in the light during the day, and then as soon as they go off they would glow in the dark. Um, also we could use um an alarm. So if we lost the um remote control, perhaps there could be a button on the television set itself, which you could press, and then an alarm from the handset would sound where it was, hopefully in the room. Maybe behind a cushion or somewhere.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Um, so that would work. Um, oop. Go back there. Um, another thing I think we d missed out on on the last meeting was the fact that we should consider the environmental impact of our design. Um, from previous researches I've carried out on other projects, um we've learnt about smart materials where um um specific alloys of metals have a shape memory.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So they can be heated and um and cooled, and they change the shape of um the metal. So, for example, a screw that's holding something together could expand and it would force all the components apart. So um, the benefits of this for our product would be that when it came to the end of its product life, if it was heated, um everything would spring apart. So, all the um individual components could be easily separated, and then some could be reused, some could be recycled, and I think that would be very important for products now. Especially'cause there's much uh responsibility for all the um companies who are coming up with like new designs.'Cause all, we all know that our resources are being limited, and we have to be very environmentally conscious.
Project Manager: Right, um, one question. This, um, self-destructible uh metal, it allows for recycling materials?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: So that, um, someone could have this product for as long as they felt that they wanted it, and then once they contribute it, then that company can break down the part, the parts better?
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} And then {disfmarker} Yeah. Yeah they would, um you would make the, the product as you normally would, apart from the, the bits that hold it all together would be made out of this shape-memory alloy. And that's the part that would um allow all the other parts to be separated at the end. I mean, the user would return the p product to the company,'cause it's the product's responsibility to get rid of what they've made. Um, and then the company could then just use, make use of this shape-memory alloys to split up the components,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and then either reuse some bits, and other bits which are obviously gonna wear out with time, or not usable, they might be like be able to put into scrap metal. Something like the case, if it's scratched or something, you would want to reuse it, but you might be able to melt it down and reuse it again somewhere else.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Would we be the company that would break down these, or uh metals? Or would we contribute to another group?
Industrial Designer: You could {disfmarker} we could probably empl em employ a, a side company or something to do that for us. But it would be our responsibility to get that done and to dispose of the products that we made. For a certain percentage at least.
Project Manager: Alright.
Industrial Designer: Not every, not a hundred percent of everything we produce,
Project Manager: Okay. This sounds like a really great idea.
Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: One thing we have to consider is our uh one hundred percent um turnover goal that we have for our financial sector.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: Um, so we'll have to investigate how much that will cost us, cost the company,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: um'cause it sounds very labour-intensive. You would have to hire a number of people, and it might be more expensive.
Industrial Designer: Well I {disfmarker} the fact of the shape-memory alloys is that they, they don't need to be manually de um deconstructed. Like, you don't have to individually um unscrew all the screws. Because of this, their properties are smart material.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: All you need is just the heat, so they self-destruct themselves.
Project Manager: Alright. We'll still have to investigate the financial implications.
Industrial Designer: So I suppose it does need like high contact, yeah, you know high uh quality machinery, and very specific machinery, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Alright. I like the environmental approach. Um, we'll have to see if that can meet our financial goals as well.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Okay. Um also there is um components. This'll be how it uh will actually work. But I haven't put this plan together yet.
Project Manager: I'm sorry, could you {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: There we go
Project Manager: Those were um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: . Sorry, should I go back. This would actually show the circuit diagram. Although I haven't come up with the final circuit yet.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: So I just {gap} put all those components in.
Project Manager: So those are what, um, we'll c construct the remote. Those are all the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. I it just shows what sort of energy source. It could be a battery, like rechargeable probably. Um, an'yeah, well how the infrared will actually be sent through the chip to be received by the chip on the television set itself.
Project Manager: Alright. Great.
Industrial Designer: Okay? So, now is it F_ eight again to escape? Or escape? There we go. Okay.
Project Manager: Alright. Thank you very much. And, um, the next presenter will be Tara.
Industrial Designer: Thank you.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: There you go Tara.
User Interface: Thanks. Can you see?
Marketing: Oh, {vocalsound}
User Interface: Do you think {disfmarker} Is it uh, function eight yeah?
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Function F_ eight.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Function F_ eight.
Project Manager: Function F_ eight. Sorry.
Industrial Designer: The one at the top.
User Interface: Oh right. Okay.
Marketing: That looks right.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Okay. I'm the User {vocalsound} um User Interface Designer. Uh, the technical functions design of the apparatus is the effect the apparatus should have. Um, in this case it's the function of the remote control, which is to send messages to the television, television set. By taking inspiration from other similar designs, we'll try and come up with an original trendy remote control, which is sellable international. There're two functional design options. A multifunctional remote control, which can be used for several entertainment devices. And a single function remote control, used specifically for the television. {vocalsound}
Marketing: I'm sorry, what was that last one. Multifunctional and {disfmarker}
User Interface: Sorry. Um, a single function just for the television itself.
Marketing: Ch Oh, I see.
User Interface: Yeah. Um, multifunctional controls can be difficult to use, as the multitude of buttons can be confusing. A single function remote control is simpler to use, but it means you have to have other remote controls for your other entertainment devices.
Marketing:'Kay.
User Interface: Um, I think that a single function remote control would be preferable, because it's easier to use. It'd be more compatible with a range of television sets, making it more internationally sellable. Um, it will make an original design more obtainable, as we have less functional necessities to include in the design. And it would be more profitable as it would be more simplistic. And less functions would have to be included. So it would be cheaper to make. And probably more sellable just because it's more compatible with a r a wider range of devices. Does anyone have any questions? {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} So as far as we know, um, a single function television remote control is us usable internationally?
User Interface: Well, it's just that, when we're creating it, we're, we have to make it um compatible with different brands of devices.
Marketing: {gap} Right.
User Interface: And it would be easier to make it compatible with just different brands of television devices rather than other ent,
Marketing: D_V_D_s and V_C_R_?
User Interface: yeah,
Project Manager: Right.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: other entertainment devices.
Project Manager: Does everyone agree with this? Does anyone object and, and find the multifunctional might be a better way to go?
Industrial Designer: Um, {vocalsound} I was just wondering about the, what, what Genevieve said before, about having like some hidden controls like having the outer casing. And that would probably, um, I d, well well what you said before about it being a more profitable simplistic design. I suppose having that would complicate it a lot more.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And limit the design {gap}. Do you think?
Marketing: Yeah, I think I agree with the single design thing for now, because we're trying to do so much, that if we're trying to make a unique, user-friendly, dadada, and it's also multi also multifunctional, um, we're gonna go over budget for one thing.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah. And with this we'll have more room in the budget probably to make a more original design.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: We'll have more money to go into the design side of it.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Yeah.
Project Manager: Alright. Sounds great.
Marketing: Mm,'kay.
Project Manager: Alright, well, um,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: are you ready for your presentation Genevieve?
Marketing: Yes I am.
Project Manager: Fabulous. Except you're not hooked up to the {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I'm not hooked up, but other than that, completely ready. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Great.
Marketing: Okay. Okay. Oh. I just lost my microphone.
Project Manager: {gap} No problem,
Marketing: Just a moment.
Project Manager: we can {disfmarker}
Marketing: Okay. So I'll be discussing the functional requirements of this remote control. Um, and I'll give you a little briefing on what that means exactly. Um, if you all remember from the email we got before our very first uh kick-off meeting, with the coffee machine? The functional requirements of that was to produce hot coffee quickly. Um, so what I'll be talking about now is the equivalent for a remote control. Um, so basically what needs and desires are to be fulfilled. Um, I've done some marketing research, a lot of interviews with remote control users, um, and some internet research. And I'll show you my findings. Oh, and firstly I wanted to remind you about our company motto and purpose. So we believe in providing international market with fashionable products. Um, hence our motto, we put the fashion in electronics. So I think that should be our priority here. Um, and we should also be looking to trends in clothing and interior design. Not just in electronic fashion. So that it's something that fits in the household.
Project Manager: I'm sorry, what was that last thing that you just said?
Marketing: Um, we should be looking towards trends in both clothing and interior design.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Any trends that are going on in, in the public, even media,
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: you know who's famous, what T_V_ shows are being watched,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: um, to influence our remote control. Okay, so the findings. Um, seventy five percent of users of remote controls find them ugly. Which is a, quite a significant number.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Um, the other twenty five percent didn't specify if they love them or found them, you know, neutral. Eighty percent of users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy. Current remote controls do not match well the operating behaviour of the user.
Project Manager: I'm sorry, that eighty percent of users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy. You mean that they would spend more money on a fancy-looking remote control?
Marketing: Yeah, they're willing, they're willing to spend money on a remote control with personality.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: As opposed to your basic, you know, oval black, all same size button remote control.
Industrial Designer: Mm. Yeah.
Marketing: Um, so it is something that people care about. It's not, it's not ignored in the household. Um, seventy five percent of remote control users said that they zap a lot. Zapping meaning they go through channels a lot.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: They're you know thumb-masters. Um, and fifty percent of users say they only use ten percent of the buttons. That A very small amount. Thought that was interesting.
Project Manager: Alright, so it might be very appealing if, um, we have very concise buttons.
Industrial Designer: Mm. {gap} the single function.
Project Manager: And another thing with um lots of surfing, we'd probably have to work on something that could be um a lot more durable,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: because I find with um channel-changers that, um, a lot of the numbers get rubbed down if they're printed on the button.
Marketing: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah that's a good point.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah.
Marketing: And actually to go with that, I'm gonna give you some statistics on the uh relevancy of the buttons, how much they're used. And uh how important the uh users find them. So the power button, obviously, in an hour is only used once. Hopefully the person's not turning on and off the T_V_. Um, but the relevance of that button is nine out of ten. So people wanna be able to turn on the T_V_ with the remote control. Um, as opposed to standing up and turning on the television set. Channel selection is used a hundred and sixty eight times on average per hour.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: That's a huge amount. This is the most important button. Um, so obviously when commercials come on they're changing it, so as you said we want a durable button that's not gonna run down. Relevance of that button, our users found was uh ten, ten out of ten. Uh, ditto for volume selection, so ten out of ten. And it's used on average four times an hour. Not as much as channel selection, but still significant. Um, audio settings is used on average zero point eight times an hour. Relevance is two. Screen settings, which means brightness, colour etcetera, zero point five times an hour. Um, and relevance of one point five. We're getting to specific statistics here. Teletext, um, now I'm not too clear on what that is. I don't know if you can help me. Flipping pages.
User Interface: It's um {disfmarker}
Marketing: Is that {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It's like the news. Or like information.
User Interface: It has {disfmarker} T_V_ has like information, it has information on holidays, the news, entertainment.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: The {disfmarker}
Project Manager: It's um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: and what's on.
Marketing: So like a running banner, underneath {disfmarker}
Project Manager: No it's a button that you press, and then you, uh, like a menu pops up.
User Interface: No, li Yeah.
Project Manager: I haven't used it before
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: but {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh.
Industrial Designer: It's like {disfmarker}
User Interface: And you have page numbers like for the menu, and you press the page numbers with your remote, and it, it'll come up.
Industrial Designer: It's like very basic internet. Sort of,
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Very basic internet, yeah.
Industrial Designer: um {disfmarker}
User Interface: But you have {disfmarker}
Marketing: Okay. Like tells you the weather, and {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. But you have no interaction back with it, you know.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Like the internet you can send emails and {disfmarker} You've no interaction.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, it's just information that um, like television timetables, what's on, what's on now, what's on next, on every channel, and {disfmarker}
Marketing: Right.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Alright. Well I guess I'm not with it, because I wasn't {disfmarker} But it's, it's being used fourteen times an hour. Um, and has a r a high relevance of six point five. So it looks like something that we're gonna want to do some research on and include on our remote control.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Um, channel settings. Zero point zero one times an hour. Relevance of three. Channel settings.
User Interface: Uh, probably just tuning in the channels, would it be?
Marketing: P Sorry. Changing the channels?
User Interface: Tuning them in at the very start. You know if you get a new T_V_ set, you tune in all the channels,
Industrial Designer: To get the right reception and picture, I suppose.
User Interface: do you th do you think?
Marketing: Oh, okay.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. Okay.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: Um, so it's not used very often, but people still find it relevant. Okay. Um, biggest frustrations of uh the people that we interviewed. Remote controls are often lost somewhere. So that was already discussed by Poppy. How we could have a, an alarm system so that people can find it. Um, takes too much time to learn how to use a new remote control.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Marketing: So it should be very user-friendly, you know. People know what to do very quickly. Um, remote controls are bad for R_S_I_. {vocalsound} {gap}
Industrial Designer: Repetitive strain injury.
User Interface: Repeti Uh.
Marketing: Ah.
Industrial Designer: I think.
Marketing: Is that what it is? People with arthritis and such?
Project Manager: That's rather sad. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Um, maybe our
Industrial Designer: Oh, I'm guessing that's what it is. I'm not {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah, yeah. I think it is.
Marketing: designers can look into that. Um, buttons that don't require, you know, very firm pushing, if they respond.
Industrial Designer: Mm. Yeah.
Marketing: But we'll have to also avoid, you know, buttons responding to the slightest touch as well. That's a problem.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. It is.
Marketing: Okay. Did you guys uh get that one down?
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Yep.
Marketing: Um {vocalsound} okay, here's some ideas for you. A large percentage of the public would pay for voice recognition on the remote controls. So I'll show you some numbers here. Um, so the youngest age group, fifteen to twenty five. Ninety one point two percent said that they would pay extra money to have voice recogni voice recognition included on their remote control. Um, and you can see that number decreases a bit with ol s Interestingly enough, twenty five to thirty five is the lowest amount. Um, that would, are willing to pay extra. So I guess we're gonna have to figure out what age group we're, we're targeting, and if and if voice recognition is something we wanna look into. And if we have the budget for it. Um, if we are targeting young adults, it looks like something that would pay off. Seeing as ninety percent, over ninety percent would pay for it.
Project Manager: I agree with um {disfmarker} if we're targeting young adults then it would be something we should look into. Um, financially and and functionally.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um, and especially if we are um trying to be trendy, go with fashions, things like that.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Um, ages like from thirty five to sixty five which show lower numbers probably won't be as concerned.
Marketing: So that, that's a whole other field of research. I don't know if it'd be, if we'd still have a remote, or if you're talking to your television and saying change channel.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Um and depending on how many members you have in households.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: So it m it may be too complicated for us, but it's something to keep in mind anyway.
Project Manager: Yeah. And something that might further complicate it is that the T_V_ makes noise itself.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Right.
Project Manager: Wonder if it would have {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And if there was conversation in the room at the same time,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: although in theory it doesn't tend to be when you're watching television,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: but {vocalsound} {gap} could be very difficult to get the specific uh design.
Project Manager: {gap} Yeah. If we're looking for a simplistic design, if {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: We need to decide if that is our um intention is, is a simplistic design.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Mm.
Project Manager: Um, because if, if it is then I think voice, um voice-activated {disfmarker}
Marketing: It looks like {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, and that would sort of negate the whole remote control thing,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: because if people can activate the television with their voice then they won't be using a, they won't be talking into a remote, I'm sure.
Marketing: It'd be like the ultimate remote. {gap} Um {vocalsound} okay. And th the last thing here was a, an L_C_D_ screen. So, I mean voice recognition might be a little too extreme for us. Not practical. Um an L_C_D_ screen though might be something that, you know, you can shift through pages kind of li the way this PowerPoint is working.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: So that you don't have so many buttons to deal with.
Project Manager: Um, I don't know what an L_C_D_ screen is.
Marketing: Oh sorry, just, just a screen, like a computer screen. S Or like um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mobile phone.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. Or {disfmarker} Like an alarm clock. You'd have an L_C_D_ versus just a, a normal clock.
Industrial Designer: What, what would appear on the screen?
Project Manager: I have no idea still. {vocalsound} I'm sorry. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh just like an electronic screen. As opposed to just buttons. There would be like a little, like on {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh, on the remote. Okay.
Marketing: Yeah. Like on the top of a cellphone, the the little L_C_D_ screen.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Um, now that's, I, I dunno exactly what exactly we'd put on there. I guess the channel that you're on, the v the volume setting.
User Interface: Yeah. Could it it {disfmarker} It would be good if it had the actual programme that was on, and what was next. But that would probably be {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Like linked in with the teletext,
User Interface: Yeah. That would be good, yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: or sort of like an teletext at your fingers, without having to access that through the television.
User Interface: Yeah. Might be quite expensive to do that though.
Industrial Designer: Mm, Yeah. Could be. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Well I guess that's something we can all take back to our respective research.
Project Manager: Right.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Um, and finally, whoops, my personal preferences and thoughts. Um, I think our priority really should be unique design. Um, we want something that people want in their home. Every remote control looks the same, so uh in my opinion it should be, um, user-friendly and unique. So the other stuff might be a little too, a little too gadgety for some people.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Um, I th myself, voice recognition kind of scares me off.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So if we're, if we're aiming to make this an international university, universally accepted product {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Um, and for all, the other thing is like age market. I mean if we wanted to concentrate on fifteen to twenty five years olds, we could go for the fancy stuff. But if we wanna make fifty million, and and have everyone want this remote control, we should maybe stick to the basics.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And we should keep in mind that fifteen to twenty five year olds might not have twenty five Euros to spend on a remote control. Like their priorities might not be a fancy remote control, when they're just starting out
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: and, yeah.
Marketing: Right. And we have to keep in mind the, the reliability of our research. I mean, you know, a sixteen year old boy would say, yeah I'd pay extra for voice recognition, until they realise that's three months allowance.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Um, so I I think, I think the older generations we should be catering to a bit more.
User Interface: Early twenties, that's the kind of age group.
Project Manager: Yeah. And if one of the largest, uh, or most complained about thing is that it takes so long to get to know how to use a remote control,
User Interface: Twenties.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: I'm sure that something like an L_C_D_ screen or remote control would be just furthering that problem.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Complicated jus complicating things even fo Mm.
Marketing: Yep.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Alright.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: Okay. That's it for the market research.
Project Manager: Okay. Before we go into uh more discussion on {gap} we want this design to look like, I've received some information from the management that will affect some of our decisions. Um, for one thing, because {disfmarker} Having controls with D_V_D_, V_C_R_, that sort of thing, would really complicate the design of the remote control. Um, we've decided not to include them and make it a specific, just a specific television um function. Which is good as, as we've sort of decided that we would like to go with that anyway. Um, for many reasons. So um we have that decision sort of made for us. Another thing that might um affect other decisions is that um the management feels that teletext is outdated, because more people are using the internet now. And so uh we won't concern ourselves with um navigating the teletext option.
Industrial Designer: Can I just interrupt?
Project Manager: Yep.
Industrial Designer: Would you like to plug in your {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah. Maybe we can do the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay, sure.
Industrial Designer: Have you got a PowerPoint or not?
Project Manager: Yeah I do. I'm looking at {disfmarker} looking at it right now.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Thanks.
Marketing: There you go.
Project Manager: {gap} thank you.
Marketing: Oh, come back screen.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Hmm. {gap}
Industrial Designer: Were they, was the management suggesting use of the internet rather than teletext, or just avoiding both altogether?
Project Manager: Um, well, I mean we don't have the resources or or possibility of using the internet with the remote control,
Industrial Designer: {gap} Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: but um they were just pretty much saying that the teletext would not be used.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Yeah. Okay.
Project Manager: Alright, and another thing. This is for the design, the design of the product is that um we wanna create, um more of a sense that people know that this is from our company. So, um, all the remote controls must have our um {disfmarker} We'll incorporate our logo and colour in in some way.
Industrial Designer: Right. Yeah.
Project Manager: So, um, perhaps um our logo on the bottom, or wherever you feel like it would look good.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Okay.
Project Manager: Um, it doesn't have to be the colour of our um of our company
Industrial Designer: Just {disfmarker}
Project Manager: but, another thing is that, um
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: we need to, we probably would have to have that colour and, and logo decided upon. Um, I'm assuming that we already have one, but for the purposes of this meeting I, I wasn't offered a, like a type of logo or colour, so if that could be um somewhere on the design so that we can be recognisable.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Work on that.
Marketing: It's probably R_ R_R_ in yellow. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: The little R_ R_ yellow thing? Okay.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, I think.
Project Manager: Real Reaction? Okay. Um, yes, those are the changes. Um, so, now we need to discuss, um and come to a decision on our remote control functions, of, of how this is going to be. I'm just going to look at my notes for a second. Um, we have to decide on a target group and the functions of the remote control. So, um, we already know that it'll just be for the television.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: It'll {disfmarker} It won't have teletext. But um, you know, we could discuss um those other options that you brought up, Genevieve.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Marketing: Okay, so I {disfmarker} Are we going to write off the L_C_D_ option?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Is that how most people feel about that?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Okay. So no L_C_D_, no teletext, and no voice recognition.
User Interface: I think it would be annoying though if {disfmarker} I don't use teletext that much, but if it was on your T_V_, you'd want to be able to use it, if {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, but another thing is that if we're reaching an international crowd, um, I know for one that in North America there is no such thing as teletext, so it'd be really superfluous.
User Interface: You'd {disfmarker} Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: So is it just {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Never heard of it.
User Interface: Okay. Alright.
Project Manager: Yeah. I don't know about other countries besides the U_K_.
User Interface: Right.
Project Manager: Do you know if anywhere else has it?
Industrial Designer: I don't know.
User Interface: I don't know.
Industrial Designer: More research required, I think.
User Interface: I don't know. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Alright.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But if {disfmarker} Was it a management decision that we're having {disfmarker}
Project Manager: It was a management decision,
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: so it's, it's pretty much out of our hands at this point.
Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Okay then.
Project Manager:'Kay. So, I guess we're looking at something rather simple.
Marketing: Um, well I guess, just from my findings it looks like we wanna minimise buttons.
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
Marketing: Um.
Industrial Designer: Minimal {disfmarker}
Marketing: And the {disfmarker} What was the word they used? F findability is important.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. I think we should definitely go ahead with the alarm system idea that you had.
Industrial Designer: Yeah okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm.
Project Manager:'Cause I'm sure that could be inex inexpensive because we could use the same kind of infrared
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. The same signalling.
Project Manager: the same signal through that and it could just like make a little beeping noise.
Industrial Designer: I mean {disfmarker}
Project Manager: It's not that expensive to do.
Industrial Designer: Or vibrate just the same as a mobile phone. Like you just a, a buzz or something.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I like that idea.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Would you be able to, um, put the little device anywhere? {vocalsound}'Cause uh isn't our remote control for all T_V_s, so
Industrial Designer: If {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: you'd ha
Industrial Designer: Do you mean the the link between the {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, with the button that you pressed.
Project Manager: Yeah. The button {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well, if the button was actually on {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Oh, yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Minor detail there.
User Interface: C'cause then it would only be a applicable to one T_V_ set, so it would need to be something that you could stick somewhere, or something.
Industrial Designer: Maybe {disfmarker} Yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, it would have t
Industrial Designer: Maybe something adhesive that you could like stick onto the back of any set that would be um yeah not very obtrusive.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Obviously something small that's {disfmarker} Yeah, that's a good point.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. Then it wouldn't, it probably wouldn't be able to use {disfmarker} It would be able to use the same reception on the remote c control I guess, but the actual device would have to have its own infrared signaller.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, okay.
User Interface: Would it need a battery then?
Project Manager: Maybe, um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Pr probably.
Project Manager: Probably, I mean.
Industrial Designer: Unless it could be {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: That's your department you'll have to sort that out.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Um, unless some way, it could have some universal connection to like the socket, the same socket that the T_V_'s supplied from. I mean the power for the T_V_.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, you'll have to {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: So, mm, more research into that one.
Project Manager: Yeah, you'll have to investi Do some research on that,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: alright? Great. Um, alright, and I'm sure that, um um, the glow-in-the-dark, fluorescent, whatever, system, um is a go ahead. Is everyone interested in that?
Industrial Designer: Y
Marketing: On the buttons?
User Interface: I I like the light up suggestion. I think that would be better.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface:'Cause you know the way fluorescent lights lose their brightness after certain time, so
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: {gap} it doesn't {disfmarker}
User Interface: I would go for {disfmarker}
Marketing: It could it could be a tactile thing as well. Um right, if w if we're minimising buttons, we might be able to make them actually larger. And there's something on it. S you know like up arrow down arrow for, for volume.
Industrial Designer: Like a raised {disfmarker}
Marketing: Um, and I don't know what we could do for, for channels. S
User Interface: Well just the numbers could be embossed, couldn't it? Like raised.
Marketing: The numbers themselves.
User Interface: Yeah. Could be raised.
Marketing: But then the like up button and down button for the channel, channel changing.
User Interface: Just little arrows, that you could feel, maybe?
Industrial Designer: Yeah {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Hmm.
Marketing: I just thought that {gap} it, it might be sucking more battery power, if there, if it is a light up. I'm not sure.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: That's true.
Project Manager: But I mean {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: And also y, uh Heather you mentioned before, um like how it should be accessible to everybody.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um, so like big b um buttons, {gap} for people you are visually impaired. The glow-in-the-dark or light up won't make any difference anyway.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So like you say tactile might be better, because it'd be more available to everybody.
User Interface: That, I think that's good, yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. Could we somehow {disfmarker} We could, may, possibly, sorry, incorporate them both so that the buttons could maybe be in the shape of the numbers themselves and be made out of some glow-in-the-dark material.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager:'Cause I d I don't think that glow-in-the-dark material, um, like the actual soft plastic, um, costs that much more than other colours.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: No, it's not these days.
User Interface: No, I wouldn't say so.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I mean, it's quite easily accessible.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: I guess the other option, referring to the battery thing is, you know how cellphones will t light up for fifteen seconds or something, when you're s and then it goes,
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: That's good {disfmarker} Yeah that a good idea.
Marketing: so if, if you're like changing the volume during a movie. I know, I'm thinking of mostly when you're watching a movie you turn all the lights off right.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: And you don't want to turn on the lights, {vocalsound} to turn it down, because there's suddenly an explosion, and it's gonna wake up the baby.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: Um, so if you touch the button, it kind of reactivates it.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: It lights up for {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: That, yeah, that's a good idea.
Marketing: On self timer.
Industrial Designer: So self-timed lighting.
Project Manager: Alright we have five minutes left
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um, I {disfmarker}
Project Manager: um, for the meeting, but I think we should discuss this light subject a little bit more before we close. Um, what was {disfmarker} I missed the last moment, reading that. What were you talking about with the lighting up buttons?
Marketing: Oh, just if it was kinda the same way that a cell You know how a cellphone will light up for about ten, fifteen seconds when you touch a button, after having not touched it for a while.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah.
Marketing: Um, if instead of a constant light up on the, on the remote control, if it lights up for ten seconds when it's touched again.
Project Manager: Mm. So it could be any button that would be pressed.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, and you, you touch it and it just kind of lights up a bit, and it gives a faint glow.
Industrial Designer: So, self-timed {disfmarker}
Marketing: So if you have all the lights off in your living room, you'll, you'll temporarily see it.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Because usually you're not fooling around for it for more than what ten seconds.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, so {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: That's probably feasible.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: So, do you think that we should do the lighting up thing, and the glow-in-the-dark thing, and the shape of the numbers? Do we have to kind of decide what we're gonna do with this.
Industrial Designer: I think the shape of the numbers is a really good idea.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Yeah, okay.
Industrial Designer: And I think that's un unique as well.
User Interface: Yeah. For visually impaired, yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I mean, I haven't seen that. And as you're saying like numbers can wear off if they're just sort of like painted on, you know printed.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Yeah, yeah. And it could {gap}, if it's that softer rubber material it'll be, maybe, um, uh, better for people with um els no
Industrial Designer: {gap} durable.
Project Manager: what's it called, R_S_I_, what was it that we were talking about?
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Oh right, the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah instead of like hard buttons.
Industrial Designer: Repetitive strain injury.
Project Manager: Okay. Um, did we want to go for the glow-in-the-dark look?
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Or did we want to go for the lighting up instantly?
User Interface: If {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Like should we do both? Or we can have one or the other? Because it might, for, for our design purposes, I mean, the lighting up thing might be better because glow-in-the-dark material has a funny kinda colour.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: And it might not go with different like face plates that we might come up with.
Marketing: I was gonna say, {gap}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Exactly. It the {disfmarker} it might be perceived as tacky, glow-in-the-dark.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: It's kind of like Eighties neon-style.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, and we could {disfmarker}
Marketing: Um, whereas we're trying to be trendy and fashionable.
Industrial Designer: Yeah there are now like loads, or a huge range of different colours that it could light up in as well,
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: which could like link in with the company colours. Like it could be blue or green or yellow,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Right.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: or like we've just limited t with the, just ordinary phosphorescent so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Right. Alright. So we've decided on lighting up things.
User Interface: I was thinking though, if it was glow-in-the-dark, you could put the um Real Reaction symbol as glow-in-the-dark, and then it would be constantly advertised.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Every time the, that it lit up, you c that could light up as well.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Or, or the, whate
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: {gap} Yeah.
Project Manager: But with the same thing, I mean. If you touch the button and then it could be, it could be lit up as well.
Marketing: That's true.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. Okay.
Project Manager: Is {disfmarker} Are you okay with that? Okay. Cool.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Alright. So I think that um that completes most of our um our more uh practical decisions.
Industrial Designer: Is {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And now it's up to designing. And um making sure that this can be feasible. And do you have anything {disfmarker}
Marketing: What um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Do you have anything to say? {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh sorry. Yeah well, I was just gonna throw out there the thought about um personalising the remote control. Um, it, you,'cause you mentioned face plates. So I I dunno if there's something that diff, you know like five different face plates. I dunno if this will start making it more complicated, but it could increase the popularity of the, of the remote. Um
Industrial Designer: Okay. Like you can have changeable um mobile covers or something.
User Interface: Oh yeah. Interchangeable thing?
Marketing: Yeah, {gap} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Like an iPod or something?
User Interface: That would be good.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, or {disfmarker}
Marketing: Exactly, like an iPod.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Exactly.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: Or, or like mobile ph.
Project Manager: Like a cellphone? Yeah.
Marketing: And I dunno if we'd want to go with like T_V_ show themes or something. Like a Bart Simpson faceplate.
User Interface: Yeah, and then that would be uh more profitable like as a sideline to the remote as well.
Marketing: {vocalsound} But {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {gap} Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Y Could buy extra {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Accessories.
Marketing: Exactly. You could start out with three, and if, if we hit it big then we can add some on.
Industrial Designer: Person {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Well, that's great.
User Interface: That's a good idea. Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. I think that we should incorporate that.
Industrial Designer: Interchangeable.
Project Manager:'Cause that wouldn't be very expensive at all.
Industrial Designer: Um, als
Project Manager: You'd just get one mould,
User Interface: No.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: throw some plastic in it, you know. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Interchan And also possible {disfmarker} I mean, uh, we could gain out of that by advertising certain T_V_ shows, or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. Well, that might be com problematic with um copyright issues.
User Interface: Oh yeah.
Marketing: Right.
Project Manager: So, if it takes off then we'll, we'll, we'll try that out.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. But if we, there is {disfmarker}
User Interface: If w
Industrial Designer: Yeah. We could {disfmarker} Um, the environmental factor, we didn't bring that up again.
Project Manager: Right.
Marketing: Right.
Project Manager: We'll have to do more research. Like as of yet, that has nothing to do with, um, the way it'll look. Um, does it need to be reached a de
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Do we need to reach a decision on that right now?
Industrial Designer: Um, I've {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Because we need to investigate the financial implications.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay. Is it {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Let's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Does it need to be uh decided on now? Or should we {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I think we could probably leave that'til later on, then.
Project Manager: Okay. Good. Alright then. Anyone else have anything more to say before we close?
User Interface: No.
Industrial Designer: No.
Project Manager: Alright, well. Let's have lunch and we'll discuss this later.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Alright?
Industrial Designer: Okay. Thank you. | The user interface designer suggested two options of making the remote control functional. One way was to make it multi-functional, so as to be used for several entertainment devices. Another way was to make it single-functional, which could be used specifically for the television. The entire group preferred the product to be single-functional. It is because making an original design was more obtainable, and it would be more profitable as it would be more simplistic. They had to make it compatible with different brands of devices to sell internationally. | qmsum |
What did the group decide to do about the display when discussing components design of the remote control?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh welcome back after lunch, I hope uh you had a good lunch together. For uh this meeting the main agenda okay uh to discuss about the conceptual design meeting. Okay and the agenda will be the opening and uh {disfmarker} that's uh {disfmarker} the product manager or secretary that's me and uh the presentations from the Christine and uh Agnes and from Mister Ed. And finally in this meeting we have to decide
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and we are to take a decision on the remote control concept and uh the functional design So we have forty minutes, I think it's uh little bit uh low, but I I hope we can finish it up {vocalsound} so I'll handle to the the functional team, to the Christine, okay, to discuss about uh the components concept.
Industrial Designer: Okay. So uh, if you could open the PowerPoint presentation.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I'm number two.
Project Manager: You're number two.'Kay
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Components design, there we go.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So uh can we put it in slide show mode? Yeah.
Project Manager: The next one.
Industrial Designer: Right here, is that little {disfmarker} that one, yes please.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Thank you.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I'll take the mouse. {vocalsound} So uh
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: we were looking he specifically at the components uh {disfmarker} the following components, uh the case, the power supply, uh the means of communications with the television set. In instance we had talked about using some sort of speech recognition,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: you have to have microphone {disfmarker} well no you don't actually I haven't {disfmarker} have to have microphone in the device, but um maybe you do have it a a way {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: it has to it has to hear the speaker
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and um, so it could be in the television set, could be in the device, but somewhere you have to put the microphone, um and a w a way of making beeps or sounds so you can find it when it's gets lost. Um so the other w thing that we {disfmarker} So. Our method for going about this is we've looked at uh the histo hi historical record, what's worked, what hasn't and then we also um {disfmarker} we wanted to evaluate some new materials
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: and we contacted manufacturing for their input because, course, we m might {vocalsound} come up and choose the material that then manufacturing didn't have the technologies or capabilities to offer us, so uh this is the approach that we took during our um {disfmarker} our research.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So um for the case, um we told we were making a specifica specific assumption that it would be curved in design.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Course, you know, I wanted it to be expandable and shrinkable, but um that uh doesn't seem to b be one of the choic non-option we can uh {disfmarker} we can really seriously explore,
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} so then we were thinking about um rubber, but um unfortunately that's been eliminated because of the heat uh factor
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: and th um there might be some {vocalsound} problems with the m uh how it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh goes with the board. {vocalsound} Uh and uh then th plastic also has this problem of melting and it's brittle {disfmarker} it gets brittle after a while,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: so um we still had titanium and and wood available, but um unfortunately uh uh titanium's also been eliminated uh,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: the m people in manufacturing said that you couldn't make d curved cases out of titanium, although how {vocalsound} Apple did it with th PowerBook I'm not su quite sure but uh nevertheless um they've eliminated all of our options except wood.
User Interface: {vocalsound} At least it's environmentally friendly. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So, {vocalsound} this is our finding.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: And a as she said, it's an environmentally friendly uh material, so we're {disfmarker} we're {vocalsound} currently uh proposing,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: uh we'll get to all my personal preferences in just a second.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So then there's this other matter of the chips and um well we could use a simple design on the board,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} uh these simple chips, but that's only works for the bu you don't get very much um intelligence with this simple one. And um then there was the regular which {vocalsound} I regret that I've forgotten exactly why I'm eliminating that one. Uh the other option was this advanced chip on print, {vocalsound} and uh we liked th we we found that it it includes this infrared sender,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: which w'member the beam was {disfmarker} that was an important component of finding the right chip.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: And uh manufacturing has told us that they've um uh recently developed a uh a sensor and a speaker that would uh be integrated into this advanced chip on print, so uh we we uh now jumping right to our personal preferences um I I'd really think we should, you know, use some of uh some really exotic woods, like um,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: you know uh, well you guys come from tropical countries so you can kinda think of some trees and some nice woods. I think that people will might really want to design their own cases, you see, they could do sort of a {disfmarker} this um three-dimensional design on the internet, and then they could submit their orders, kinda like you submit a custom car order, you know, and you can choose the colour and the size of the wheels and the colours of the leather and things like that, and then I uh think we should go with the solar cells as well as the um microphone and speaker on the advanced chip. So this is the findings of our research
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: and my recommendations um for the new remote control w um would be to have um have it be made out of wood. Do you have any problems with that?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can you go back uh one slide?
Industrial Designer: I'm not sure, how do I {disfmarker} Oh, I know, let's see.
User Interface: Thank you. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Let's go back up here.
Project Manager: Yes, uh {gap} question, uh, what's mean exactly, advanced chip on print? What's the meaning of that?
Industrial Designer: I think it's um um a multiple uh chip design um {vocalsound} and it's uh maybe printed on to the circuit board.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh I could find out more about that uh before the next fi next meeting.
Project Manager: Yeah, is it means it's on the {disfmarker} yeah is it on a micro-proc micro-processor based or uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I don't know, but I'll find out more at our next meeting.
Project Manager: Okay, tha that would be great, so if you find out from the technology background, okay, so that would be good.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Sounds good.
User Interface: Why was the plastic eliminated as a possible material?
Industrial Designer: Because um it gets brittle, cracks {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Um We want {disfmarker} we expect these um {vocalsound} uh these remote controls to be around for several hundred years. So. {vocalsound} Good ex {vocalsound} {gap} Good expression. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Whic
Marketing: Wow,
User Interface: {vocalsound} Which {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} good expression. Well after us. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I don't know, speak for yourself, I'm planning to be around for a while. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Although I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I think with wood though you'd run into the same types of problems, wouldn't you, I mean it chips, it if you drop it,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: uh it's {disfmarker} I'm not su {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So {gap} so you're not convinced about the the wood, yes.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} you're what?
Marketing: Actually, I'm ready to sell it.
User Interface: I think {vocalsound} if you re if you use really good quality wood, then it might work,
Marketing: I'm ready to sell it.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You think? {vocalsound} And you could {disfmarker} you could sell oils with it, to take care of it.
User Interface: but you can't just use {disfmarker}
Marketing: No y {vocalsound} no no no, the o the only w the only wood you can use are the ones that are hard, extremely hard wood,
User Interface: Yeah, exactly, yeah.
Marketing: but there are some very pretty woods out there {vocalsound}.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I'm glad you {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: That's actually very innovative idea.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay, good.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorr having a hard time keeping wi control over my face. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Well, it's actually a very innovative n different idea that uh you know you can choose your colour of wood, your type of wood.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: The stain.
Marketing: {vocalsound} I mean it's {disfmarker} each person is gonna have their own personalised, individualised speech recognition remote control in wood, that's not on the market.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, so it it's looks good the the design the functional design uh, what about yo you?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Um, in terms of comments on this or in terms of my own {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yes, in t yes, in term in terms of comments first {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} In turns of wow. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: She works in the cubicle next to me so she's uh she was already a little bit prepared for this {vocalsound}.
User Interface: Y yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Luckily Ed was not. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Wood? {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we can get the quality materials then {vocalsound} it shouldn't influence the design principles too much, which you'll see with my presentation.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: One thing we'd have to check though is what the users {disfmarker} whether {disfmarker} how quickly the novelty wears off of having uh {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm. Yeah, you wouldn't wanna have to have splinters in your hand while you're using your {disfmarker}
User Interface: {disfmarker} Yeah, for example. {vocalsound} So, have to see how kid-friendly it is and and all that,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's really good if your dog gets ahold of it, they can use it {vocalsound} {gap} for teething.
User Interface: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: They do that anyway with the rubber and plastic,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, they do it with other materials as well, yeah.
Marketing: so {vocalsound}, and chew'em up. And chew'em up.
Project Manager: Okay then, uh, let's move to Agnes.
User Interface: Sure.
Industrial Designer: Oh, I'm sorry.
Project Manager: S you're {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: You are in participant three.
User Interface: One point three, yeah
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh, yeah.
Project Manager: This one?
User Interface: I think so, yeah. Yeah, that's the one. So, it's a very short presentation,'cause I'm actually gonna draw you the layout on the board so if you want to just go straight to the second slide, um, which basically shows, sort of {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I took the ideas that we were talking about last time um and tried to put that into the remote control so the things that y you can actually see on it are the on off switch, volume and channel control, the menu access button, ergonomic shape, which I completely agree with Christine's idea to have it sort of molded, so it's slightly more ergonomic and comfortable to hold than the r standard very straight remote controls. And actually the other thing with the wood if we take your customising idea, is that people can actually do sort of quasi-measurements on their hand size, so if someone has larger hands, you have a wider remote control.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right, my hand is uh different size than yours for example.
User Interface: {vocalsound} So, that's actually a really good idea for customi customisability. Um, one thing I thought might be kind of interesting is to put a flip screen on it, just like you have on flip phones,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: so that you don't have this case where someone sits on the remote control or accidentally puts their hand on it, especially if you have little kids around, they're not pressing the buttons while you're trying to watch a T_V_ show and accidentally change the channel or turn it off.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And also {vocalsound} um you had issues with the batteries running out,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: so I thought maybe we could put a little battery life-light on it that kind of goes dimmer and dimmer and dimmer as your battery is {disfmarker} starts to die. And in terms of invisible features, audio and um tactile feedback on button presses and, like you said, speech recognition.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So, in terms of what this thing would actually look like {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Despite working in interface design, I'm not the greatest artist in the world, so you'll have to forgive me. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} You'd have something like this with an on-off switch fairly big, sort of in the corner and by itself, so you don't accidentally turn your T_V_ off while you're trying to manoeuvre other buttons. And then you have sort of one of those toggle displays for, oops, channels and volume, sort of for surfing channels and then volume, so the volume would be the up and down,'cause volume goes up and down and then channels left to right. And then here you'd have your sort of standard, telephonish number pad. {vocalsound} And then on one side you would have an access to the menu on your T_V_
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: and on the other side a way to turn off the voice control. So that if the user doesn't want to use their voice, they can just turn it off and you don't have the remote control accidentally changing things on you.
Industrial Designer: Mm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Um, so again you can have a little L_C_D_ light somewhere, the flip {vocalsound} thing and {disfmarker} Have I forgotten anything? I don't think so. So, as you can see, it's a very very simple design,
Marketing: No. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: which is one of the things I really wanted to keep, is keep it simple, not have too many buttons, not have too many functionalities thrown into it. Think the design can pretty much carry over to everything, although with the wood the flip screen might have to do something slightly different.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: A hinge. Be like a copper hinge or you know.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. But you also have to d start watching out for the weight,'cause depending on how much the the flip screen will add to the weight of the remote control, you don't want it to start getting too heavy.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Mm.
User Interface: But that's the general layout with the general functionalities, if we come up with something else. As you can see, there's still lots of space on the actual remote control and if you do it customisably, {vocalsound} you can make this thing fairly small or fairly o large, depending on personal preferences.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Hmm.
User Interface: So, that's pretty much {vocalsound} all I had to say, I mean, everything else in terms of design issues. Um the centering of the key pad and {vocalsound} the channel is just depending on where your thumb is and you tend to use the the volume control and uh the browsing more than the actual number pad, so that would be sort of in direct line of where your thumb goes when you are holding the remote control,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm.
User Interface: the number pad a little bit lower'cause it's used less frequently.
Industrial Designer: Mm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So once we decide exactly what we want, then we can figure out the exact positioning, but more or less I think it should go along those lines.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} So what's your, uh, the comments or uh s
Marketing: Simple design. It's what consumers want.
Project Manager: Okay
Marketing: It's almost like, Houston, we have a product here. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Problem is obviously gonna be cost.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Okay, I also have a f {vocalsound} very simple presentation,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: because for the marketing point you have to see what the consumers want.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} I also have uh copied a different type of remote. If you can find me, where I'm at. {vocalsound} There should only be one in here. {gap} trend watch.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sure.
Marketing: It's being modified.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} They're stealing our product. {vocalsound} We've been giving simple {vocalsound} questionnaires in different areas because th {gap} obviously we have to see what the com consumers are looking for today,'cause uh trends change very very quickly. In six months maybe this idea is already gone out the window, so it's gonna be a question how fast we can act. Uh they already erased the rest of mine, huh.
Industrial Designer: No,
User Interface: No, no.
Industrial Designer: f go to findings.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: No no, no no. {vocalsound}'Cause I had another comment there. Uh the market trend. This is what we know from the last uh {disfmarker} from the {vocalsound} questionnaires from the the {disfmarker} all the p surveys we've done, fancy and feel-good, that's what we've been looking for, something that feels good in the hand, that's easy to use. Looking for next generation of innovation, because all the remotes out there now, they're all very similar, they all do the same thing,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: we have to have something completely different. Okay? Easy to use, has always has become {disfmarker} has become another major interest that uh, with the whiteboard we can see that it's a remote that's easy to use. And I think this is another thing that's interesting is the consumers actually willing to pay the price for exciting tel technology. So even if we have a product that may be more expensive, if it comes out right, if they {gap} look {disfmarker} it looks and feels good and has technology. The second two, you can see the last one is a very easy simple design. {vocalsound} The second one, there is about uh forty-five thousand different buttons on it, which makes it fairly hard to read, uh very hard to use.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: The first one, I see {vocalsound} that they put in a display. Now there's something else uh with the little flip-up, now we're adding all kinds of things in,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: but with the little flip-up, if you have a little display on the flip-up that when you close it everything is locked.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Maybe the display also makes it easier to use, because sometimes when you're looking for buttons, maybe if you see a display {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Context-sensitive instructions, depending on what the tel what mode the T_V_ or the D_V_D_ or something else is in.
User Interface: Right.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay Because I've seen {disfmarker} mostly the standard ones,
User Interface: Especially you might need something like that for training the speech recognition and
Marketing: yeah. Now you have it {disfmarker} now you have one with the very simple also. The idea is simple, but with a display, so you can see what you're doing.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So maybe if we can incorporate the easiness of use, trendy, fancy, feels good, {vocalsound} uh with a display, wood, designer wood, designer colours
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: You know, maybe what you could do is when somebody orders the device id you could send them like um {vocalsound} a uh {vocalsound} uh b some sort of a foam rubber um ball,
Marketing: , we might've {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yeah.
Industrial Designer: and then they would squeeze it, and it would take the shape of their hand.
User Interface: Yeah, so it's really molded to to your specific {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} To t {vocalsound} an and then you would know like {vocalsound} um what the geometry of their hands would be and uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: How hard they squeeze?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes {vocalsound} you'd know what kind of wood to get.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Resistance resistance, right. {vocalsound}
User Interface: But th for that you'd also have to do sort of an average across families and things like that if {disfmarker} unless everyone has their own personal remote.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's right, that's right, you wouldn't wanna go too far down that. Oh that {disfmarker} that actually would uh increase the um {disfmarker} the revenues we could expect, yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: The sales, yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: The {disfmarker} Yeah. I hope so.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: No, but incorporating the three uh obviously it'd be something totally new on the market, totally different
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: and from {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well, already the customisability is a really good sort of new gimmick.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Although, what it {disfmarker} was it uh {disfmarker} it was uh Nokia that came out with this changeable colours.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Right, you take it apart, and put on another face, take it off and put on another face
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right, mm.
User Interface: And that took off, yeah, yeah.
Marketing: and then they sold millions, millions. So. So say with the f with the findings, with the research, easy to use something totally new.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: We have to come up with something totally new that is not on the market.
Industrial Designer: We'd also have to wor um consider that uh who we were gonna get to make these custom cases in terms of manufacturing processes, we might wanna um learn about um {vocalsound} labour laws.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: You know in different countries and stuff wher so we can do it cheap, but you don't wanna exploit uh labour in um third world countries.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So actually you could turn it y turn around and say that you're uh par the reason the cost is high for the device is because um you're paying a a working wage to the person who made the device.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Yeah, but we can get a production in, uh {vocalsound}, countries like, uh, India
Industrial Designer: Cost of living is low.
Project Manager: {disfmarker} yes, yes, countries like India or China or Malaysia, so you can go a better features and better price and you can sell more. So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Good, well th that'd be something that manufacturing would have to um explore more
Project Manager: Yeah, {vocalsound} yeah, so Yes.
User Interface: Mm yeah.
Industrial Designer: and to where {disfmarker}
Marketing: Where w Where it would be manufactured is is another step.
Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Yeah, so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah
Marketing: We're here to design, come up with a nice product. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes uh, but uh that that we can that we can talk about the production later, okay, depends on the the quantity, okay.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So we don't need to have our own uh fabric factory or something,
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: so we can have a tie-up with who the do the fabric, okay, for the different uh electronics items, then we can have a business tie-up and to get {disfmarker} to cut the cost, okay, to sell more. So, but uh le let's decide first about the components concept and uh interface concept, okay, if is acceptable for both of you, what uh Ed was talking. And your design {vocalsound} whether you want with the display or without display or just a simple, so
User Interface: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound} I think it depends, I mean I think it's a good idea, but we need to really think about how useful it's gonna be because theoretically with the T_V_ you already have a big display {vocalsound} right in front of you.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
User Interface: So, if we're trying to keep costs down, then maybe sacrificing the display is a way to go.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
User Interface: I mean it depends on how much putting a display costs and what it would be used for {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
User Interface: very specifically what it would be used for,
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface:'cause if it's only used for one little thing, then putting in a big display case or a big display that's probably expensive just to do the training on the chip for the speech recognition or whatever, may not be the most cost-efficient way to go,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: but that's just sort of speculation, I mean.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} What do you think Ed? Do you {disfmarker} he liked the display in one of the concepts that you showed, um, do you know how much it costs, um, to to add a little display like this uh?
Marketing: {vocalsound} No. No
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Do you wanna take an action item to go find out?
Marketing: {gap} no p spec {vocalsound} It's'cause we have to find out cost on it.
Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} Sorry about that.
Marketing: Um, no that's no problem. I'm here for the {vocalsound} pushing it after it's made. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yes.
Marketing: I will market it. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Once we get a price on it then we can market it.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So the {vocalsound} the advanced chip on print is what um what we've {vocalsound} we've deci we've determined
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: and the uh engineering industrial design is the recommendation, and um I think we've kinda come to some agreement regarding um this concept of a wooden case.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: A customisable and {disfmarker}
Marketing: Nice beautiful mahogany red wooden case. {vocalsound}
User Interface: What about the buttons, would {disfmarker} Would the buttons be wood too, or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I don't think so, no,
Project Manager: I don't think so.
Industrial Designer: I think they could be rubber like they are now,
Project Manager: Yes. Yes.
Industrial Designer: so you have that tactile experience of {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Don't looks nice uh. Yeah, so uh what we'll do is, uh, we will stick with the the simple design for time being until uh th Ed find outs about the how much it's cost to the extra, in case we go for the display. Okay. So
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: maybe what you can do is uh, both of you, you can come up with the the prototype, okay, the model.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Okay?
User Interface: Sure.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So um are we done with this meeting?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, I hope, if {disfmarker} is it okay if uh they will come up with the prototype design, okay. Then they can show you how it looks like, and then we can uh submit to the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I will submit to the management. Okay? Then meantime you can come up with the price, how much it's cost as extra for uh the display.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: An and the marketing strategy, that's very important, okay.
Industrial Designer: And a marketing strategy.
Marketing: And marketing strategy, thank you.
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yes. How much you can {disfmarker}
Marketing: Fired. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: how mu how much how much you can sell extra.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Of course you'll make money too,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: so it it's not only pay-out, you make money too, your commission.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, so, any questions?
User Interface: No.
Project Manager: So, by next meeting, so, please come up with the the prototype, okay, then uh, then we can proceed from there.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: It's okay?
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So thanks for all your uh efforts and coming for the meeting again, and see you soon then. Okay?
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Thank you. | User Interface proposed to reconsider the necessity of adopting a display in consideration of two factors. One was that the television screen already made a big display, the other was that the cost-efficiency of a display was doubtful. In view of the cost constraint, sacrificing the display feature could be a reasonable option. Project Manager then asked Marketing to conduct research on this subject before making the final decision about the adoption of the display. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh welcome back after lunch, I hope uh you had a good lunch together. For uh this meeting the main agenda okay uh to discuss about the conceptual design meeting. Okay and the agenda will be the opening and uh {disfmarker} that's uh {disfmarker} the product manager or secretary that's me and uh the presentations from the Christine and uh Agnes and from Mister Ed. And finally in this meeting we have to decide
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and we are to take a decision on the remote control concept and uh the functional design So we have forty minutes, I think it's uh little bit uh low, but I I hope we can finish it up {vocalsound} so I'll handle to the the functional team, to the Christine, okay, to discuss about uh the components concept.
Industrial Designer: Okay. So uh, if you could open the PowerPoint presentation.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I'm number two.
Project Manager: You're number two.'Kay
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Components design, there we go.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So uh can we put it in slide show mode? Yeah.
Project Manager: The next one.
Industrial Designer: Right here, is that little {disfmarker} that one, yes please.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Thank you.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I'll take the mouse. {vocalsound} So uh
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: we were looking he specifically at the components uh {disfmarker} the following components, uh the case, the power supply, uh the means of communications with the television set. In instance we had talked about using some sort of speech recognition,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: you have to have microphone {disfmarker} well no you don't actually I haven't {disfmarker} have to have microphone in the device, but um maybe you do have it a a way {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: it has to it has to hear the speaker
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and um, so it could be in the television set, could be in the device, but somewhere you have to put the microphone, um and a w a way of making beeps or sounds so you can find it when it's gets lost. Um so the other w thing that we {disfmarker} So. Our method for going about this is we've looked at uh the histo hi historical record, what's worked, what hasn't and then we also um {disfmarker} we wanted to evaluate some new materials
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: and we contacted manufacturing for their input because, course, we m might {vocalsound} come up and choose the material that then manufacturing didn't have the technologies or capabilities to offer us, so uh this is the approach that we took during our um {disfmarker} our research.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So um for the case, um we told we were making a specifica specific assumption that it would be curved in design.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Course, you know, I wanted it to be expandable and shrinkable, but um that uh doesn't seem to b be one of the choic non-option we can uh {disfmarker} we can really seriously explore,
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} so then we were thinking about um rubber, but um unfortunately that's been eliminated because of the heat uh factor
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: and th um there might be some {vocalsound} problems with the m uh how it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh goes with the board. {vocalsound} Uh and uh then th plastic also has this problem of melting and it's brittle {disfmarker} it gets brittle after a while,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: so um we still had titanium and and wood available, but um unfortunately uh uh titanium's also been eliminated uh,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: the m people in manufacturing said that you couldn't make d curved cases out of titanium, although how {vocalsound} Apple did it with th PowerBook I'm not su quite sure but uh nevertheless um they've eliminated all of our options except wood.
User Interface: {vocalsound} At least it's environmentally friendly. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So, {vocalsound} this is our finding.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: And a as she said, it's an environmentally friendly uh material, so we're {disfmarker} we're {vocalsound} currently uh proposing,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: uh we'll get to all my personal preferences in just a second.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So then there's this other matter of the chips and um well we could use a simple design on the board,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} uh these simple chips, but that's only works for the bu you don't get very much um intelligence with this simple one. And um then there was the regular which {vocalsound} I regret that I've forgotten exactly why I'm eliminating that one. Uh the other option was this advanced chip on print, {vocalsound} and uh we liked th we we found that it it includes this infrared sender,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: which w'member the beam was {disfmarker} that was an important component of finding the right chip.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: And uh manufacturing has told us that they've um uh recently developed a uh a sensor and a speaker that would uh be integrated into this advanced chip on print, so uh we we uh now jumping right to our personal preferences um I I'd really think we should, you know, use some of uh some really exotic woods, like um,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: you know uh, well you guys come from tropical countries so you can kinda think of some trees and some nice woods. I think that people will might really want to design their own cases, you see, they could do sort of a {disfmarker} this um three-dimensional design on the internet, and then they could submit their orders, kinda like you submit a custom car order, you know, and you can choose the colour and the size of the wheels and the colours of the leather and things like that, and then I uh think we should go with the solar cells as well as the um microphone and speaker on the advanced chip. So this is the findings of our research
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: and my recommendations um for the new remote control w um would be to have um have it be made out of wood. Do you have any problems with that?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can you go back uh one slide?
Industrial Designer: I'm not sure, how do I {disfmarker} Oh, I know, let's see.
User Interface: Thank you. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Let's go back up here.
Project Manager: Yes, uh {gap} question, uh, what's mean exactly, advanced chip on print? What's the meaning of that?
Industrial Designer: I think it's um um a multiple uh chip design um {vocalsound} and it's uh maybe printed on to the circuit board.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh I could find out more about that uh before the next fi next meeting.
Project Manager: Yeah, is it means it's on the {disfmarker} yeah is it on a micro-proc micro-processor based or uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I don't know, but I'll find out more at our next meeting.
Project Manager: Okay, tha that would be great, so if you find out from the technology background, okay, so that would be good.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Sounds good.
User Interface: Why was the plastic eliminated as a possible material?
Industrial Designer: Because um it gets brittle, cracks {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Um We want {disfmarker} we expect these um {vocalsound} uh these remote controls to be around for several hundred years. So. {vocalsound} Good ex {vocalsound} {gap} Good expression. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Whic
Marketing: Wow,
User Interface: {vocalsound} Which {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} good expression. Well after us. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I don't know, speak for yourself, I'm planning to be around for a while. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Although I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I think with wood though you'd run into the same types of problems, wouldn't you, I mean it chips, it if you drop it,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: uh it's {disfmarker} I'm not su {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So {gap} so you're not convinced about the the wood, yes.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} you're what?
Marketing: Actually, I'm ready to sell it.
User Interface: I think {vocalsound} if you re if you use really good quality wood, then it might work,
Marketing: I'm ready to sell it.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You think? {vocalsound} And you could {disfmarker} you could sell oils with it, to take care of it.
User Interface: but you can't just use {disfmarker}
Marketing: No y {vocalsound} no no no, the o the only w the only wood you can use are the ones that are hard, extremely hard wood,
User Interface: Yeah, exactly, yeah.
Marketing: but there are some very pretty woods out there {vocalsound}.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I'm glad you {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: That's actually very innovative idea.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay, good.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorr having a hard time keeping wi control over my face. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Well, it's actually a very innovative n different idea that uh you know you can choose your colour of wood, your type of wood.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: The stain.
Marketing: {vocalsound} I mean it's {disfmarker} each person is gonna have their own personalised, individualised speech recognition remote control in wood, that's not on the market.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, so it it's looks good the the design the functional design uh, what about yo you?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Um, in terms of comments on this or in terms of my own {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yes, in t yes, in term in terms of comments first {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} In turns of wow. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: She works in the cubicle next to me so she's uh she was already a little bit prepared for this {vocalsound}.
User Interface: Y yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Luckily Ed was not. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Wood? {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we can get the quality materials then {vocalsound} it shouldn't influence the design principles too much, which you'll see with my presentation.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: One thing we'd have to check though is what the users {disfmarker} whether {disfmarker} how quickly the novelty wears off of having uh {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm. Yeah, you wouldn't wanna have to have splinters in your hand while you're using your {disfmarker}
User Interface: {disfmarker} Yeah, for example. {vocalsound} So, have to see how kid-friendly it is and and all that,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's really good if your dog gets ahold of it, they can use it {vocalsound} {gap} for teething.
User Interface: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: They do that anyway with the rubber and plastic,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, they do it with other materials as well, yeah.
Marketing: so {vocalsound}, and chew'em up. And chew'em up.
Project Manager: Okay then, uh, let's move to Agnes.
User Interface: Sure.
Industrial Designer: Oh, I'm sorry.
Project Manager: S you're {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: You are in participant three.
User Interface: One point three, yeah
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh, yeah.
Project Manager: This one?
User Interface: I think so, yeah. Yeah, that's the one. So, it's a very short presentation,'cause I'm actually gonna draw you the layout on the board so if you want to just go straight to the second slide, um, which basically shows, sort of {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I took the ideas that we were talking about last time um and tried to put that into the remote control so the things that y you can actually see on it are the on off switch, volume and channel control, the menu access button, ergonomic shape, which I completely agree with Christine's idea to have it sort of molded, so it's slightly more ergonomic and comfortable to hold than the r standard very straight remote controls. And actually the other thing with the wood if we take your customising idea, is that people can actually do sort of quasi-measurements on their hand size, so if someone has larger hands, you have a wider remote control.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right, my hand is uh different size than yours for example.
User Interface: {vocalsound} So, that's actually a really good idea for customi customisability. Um, one thing I thought might be kind of interesting is to put a flip screen on it, just like you have on flip phones,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: so that you don't have this case where someone sits on the remote control or accidentally puts their hand on it, especially if you have little kids around, they're not pressing the buttons while you're trying to watch a T_V_ show and accidentally change the channel or turn it off.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And also {vocalsound} um you had issues with the batteries running out,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: so I thought maybe we could put a little battery life-light on it that kind of goes dimmer and dimmer and dimmer as your battery is {disfmarker} starts to die. And in terms of invisible features, audio and um tactile feedback on button presses and, like you said, speech recognition.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So, in terms of what this thing would actually look like {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Despite working in interface design, I'm not the greatest artist in the world, so you'll have to forgive me. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} You'd have something like this with an on-off switch fairly big, sort of in the corner and by itself, so you don't accidentally turn your T_V_ off while you're trying to manoeuvre other buttons. And then you have sort of one of those toggle displays for, oops, channels and volume, sort of for surfing channels and then volume, so the volume would be the up and down,'cause volume goes up and down and then channels left to right. And then here you'd have your sort of standard, telephonish number pad. {vocalsound} And then on one side you would have an access to the menu on your T_V_
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: and on the other side a way to turn off the voice control. So that if the user doesn't want to use their voice, they can just turn it off and you don't have the remote control accidentally changing things on you.
Industrial Designer: Mm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Um, so again you can have a little L_C_D_ light somewhere, the flip {vocalsound} thing and {disfmarker} Have I forgotten anything? I don't think so. So, as you can see, it's a very very simple design,
Marketing: No. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: which is one of the things I really wanted to keep, is keep it simple, not have too many buttons, not have too many functionalities thrown into it. Think the design can pretty much carry over to everything, although with the wood the flip screen might have to do something slightly different.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: A hinge. Be like a copper hinge or you know.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. But you also have to d start watching out for the weight,'cause depending on how much the the flip screen will add to the weight of the remote control, you don't want it to start getting too heavy.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Mm.
User Interface: But that's the general layout with the general functionalities, if we come up with something else. As you can see, there's still lots of space on the actual remote control and if you do it customisably, {vocalsound} you can make this thing fairly small or fairly o large, depending on personal preferences.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Hmm.
User Interface: So, that's pretty much {vocalsound} all I had to say, I mean, everything else in terms of design issues. Um the centering of the key pad and {vocalsound} the channel is just depending on where your thumb is and you tend to use the the volume control and uh the browsing more than the actual number pad, so that would be sort of in direct line of where your thumb goes when you are holding the remote control,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm.
User Interface: the number pad a little bit lower'cause it's used less frequently.
Industrial Designer: Mm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So once we decide exactly what we want, then we can figure out the exact positioning, but more or less I think it should go along those lines.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} So what's your, uh, the comments or uh s
Marketing: Simple design. It's what consumers want.
Project Manager: Okay
Marketing: It's almost like, Houston, we have a product here. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Problem is obviously gonna be cost.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Okay, I also have a f {vocalsound} very simple presentation,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: because for the marketing point you have to see what the consumers want.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} I also have uh copied a different type of remote. If you can find me, where I'm at. {vocalsound} There should only be one in here. {gap} trend watch.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sure.
Marketing: It's being modified.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} They're stealing our product. {vocalsound} We've been giving simple {vocalsound} questionnaires in different areas because th {gap} obviously we have to see what the com consumers are looking for today,'cause uh trends change very very quickly. In six months maybe this idea is already gone out the window, so it's gonna be a question how fast we can act. Uh they already erased the rest of mine, huh.
Industrial Designer: No,
User Interface: No, no.
Industrial Designer: f go to findings.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: No no, no no. {vocalsound}'Cause I had another comment there. Uh the market trend. This is what we know from the last uh {disfmarker} from the {vocalsound} questionnaires from the the {disfmarker} all the p surveys we've done, fancy and feel-good, that's what we've been looking for, something that feels good in the hand, that's easy to use. Looking for next generation of innovation, because all the remotes out there now, they're all very similar, they all do the same thing,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: we have to have something completely different. Okay? Easy to use, has always has become {disfmarker} has become another major interest that uh, with the whiteboard we can see that it's a remote that's easy to use. And I think this is another thing that's interesting is the consumers actually willing to pay the price for exciting tel technology. So even if we have a product that may be more expensive, if it comes out right, if they {gap} look {disfmarker} it looks and feels good and has technology. The second two, you can see the last one is a very easy simple design. {vocalsound} The second one, there is about uh forty-five thousand different buttons on it, which makes it fairly hard to read, uh very hard to use.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: The first one, I see {vocalsound} that they put in a display. Now there's something else uh with the little flip-up, now we're adding all kinds of things in,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: but with the little flip-up, if you have a little display on the flip-up that when you close it everything is locked.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Maybe the display also makes it easier to use, because sometimes when you're looking for buttons, maybe if you see a display {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Context-sensitive instructions, depending on what the tel what mode the T_V_ or the D_V_D_ or something else is in.
User Interface: Right.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay Because I've seen {disfmarker} mostly the standard ones,
User Interface: Especially you might need something like that for training the speech recognition and
Marketing: yeah. Now you have it {disfmarker} now you have one with the very simple also. The idea is simple, but with a display, so you can see what you're doing.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So maybe if we can incorporate the easiness of use, trendy, fancy, feels good, {vocalsound} uh with a display, wood, designer wood, designer colours
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: You know, maybe what you could do is when somebody orders the device id you could send them like um {vocalsound} a uh {vocalsound} uh b some sort of a foam rubber um ball,
Marketing: , we might've {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yeah.
Industrial Designer: and then they would squeeze it, and it would take the shape of their hand.
User Interface: Yeah, so it's really molded to to your specific {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} To t {vocalsound} an and then you would know like {vocalsound} um what the geometry of their hands would be and uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: How hard they squeeze?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes {vocalsound} you'd know what kind of wood to get.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Resistance resistance, right. {vocalsound}
User Interface: But th for that you'd also have to do sort of an average across families and things like that if {disfmarker} unless everyone has their own personal remote.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's right, that's right, you wouldn't wanna go too far down that. Oh that {disfmarker} that actually would uh increase the um {disfmarker} the revenues we could expect, yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: The sales, yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: The {disfmarker} Yeah. I hope so.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: No, but incorporating the three uh obviously it'd be something totally new on the market, totally different
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: and from {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well, already the customisability is a really good sort of new gimmick.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Although, what it {disfmarker} was it uh {disfmarker} it was uh Nokia that came out with this changeable colours.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Right, you take it apart, and put on another face, take it off and put on another face
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right, mm.
User Interface: And that took off, yeah, yeah.
Marketing: and then they sold millions, millions. So. So say with the f with the findings, with the research, easy to use something totally new.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: We have to come up with something totally new that is not on the market.
Industrial Designer: We'd also have to wor um consider that uh who we were gonna get to make these custom cases in terms of manufacturing processes, we might wanna um learn about um {vocalsound} labour laws.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: You know in different countries and stuff wher so we can do it cheap, but you don't wanna exploit uh labour in um third world countries.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So actually you could turn it y turn around and say that you're uh par the reason the cost is high for the device is because um you're paying a a working wage to the person who made the device.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Yeah, but we can get a production in, uh {vocalsound}, countries like, uh, India
Industrial Designer: Cost of living is low.
Project Manager: {disfmarker} yes, yes, countries like India or China or Malaysia, so you can go a better features and better price and you can sell more. So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Good, well th that'd be something that manufacturing would have to um explore more
Project Manager: Yeah, {vocalsound} yeah, so Yes.
User Interface: Mm yeah.
Industrial Designer: and to where {disfmarker}
Marketing: Where w Where it would be manufactured is is another step.
Project Manager: So {disfmarker} Yeah, so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah
Marketing: We're here to design, come up with a nice product. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes uh, but uh that that we can that we can talk about the production later, okay, depends on the the quantity, okay.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So we don't need to have our own uh fabric factory or something,
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: so we can have a tie-up with who the do the fabric, okay, for the different uh electronics items, then we can have a business tie-up and to get {disfmarker} to cut the cost, okay, to sell more. So, but uh le let's decide first about the components concept and uh interface concept, okay, if is acceptable for both of you, what uh Ed was talking. And your design {vocalsound} whether you want with the display or without display or just a simple, so
User Interface: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound} I think it depends, I mean I think it's a good idea, but we need to really think about how useful it's gonna be because theoretically with the T_V_ you already have a big display {vocalsound} right in front of you.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
User Interface: So, if we're trying to keep costs down, then maybe sacrificing the display is a way to go.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
User Interface: I mean it depends on how much putting a display costs and what it would be used for {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
User Interface: very specifically what it would be used for,
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface:'cause if it's only used for one little thing, then putting in a big display case or a big display that's probably expensive just to do the training on the chip for the speech recognition or whatever, may not be the most cost-efficient way to go,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: but that's just sort of speculation, I mean.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} What do you think Ed? Do you {disfmarker} he liked the display in one of the concepts that you showed, um, do you know how much it costs, um, to to add a little display like this uh?
Marketing: {vocalsound} No. No
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Do you wanna take an action item to go find out?
Marketing: {gap} no p spec {vocalsound} It's'cause we have to find out cost on it.
Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} Sorry about that.
Marketing: Um, no that's no problem. I'm here for the {vocalsound} pushing it after it's made. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yes.
Marketing: I will market it. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Once we get a price on it then we can market it.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} So the {vocalsound} the advanced chip on print is what um what we've {vocalsound} we've deci we've determined
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: and the uh engineering industrial design is the recommendation, and um I think we've kinda come to some agreement regarding um this concept of a wooden case.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: A customisable and {disfmarker}
Marketing: Nice beautiful mahogany red wooden case. {vocalsound}
User Interface: What about the buttons, would {disfmarker} Would the buttons be wood too, or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh I don't think so, no,
Project Manager: I don't think so.
Industrial Designer: I think they could be rubber like they are now,
Project Manager: Yes. Yes.
Industrial Designer: so you have that tactile experience of {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Don't looks nice uh. Yeah, so uh what we'll do is, uh, we will stick with the the simple design for time being until uh th Ed find outs about the how much it's cost to the extra, in case we go for the display. Okay. So
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: maybe what you can do is uh, both of you, you can come up with the the prototype, okay, the model.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Okay?
User Interface: Sure.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So um are we done with this meeting?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, I hope, if {disfmarker} is it okay if uh they will come up with the prototype design, okay. Then they can show you how it looks like, and then we can uh submit to the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I will submit to the management. Okay? Then meantime you can come up with the price, how much it's cost as extra for uh the display.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: An and the marketing strategy, that's very important, okay.
Industrial Designer: And a marketing strategy.
Marketing: And marketing strategy, thank you.
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yes. How much you can {disfmarker}
Marketing: Fired. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: how mu how much how much you can sell extra.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Of course you'll make money too,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: so it it's not only pay-out, you make money too, your commission.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, so, any questions?
User Interface: No.
Project Manager: So, by next meeting, so, please come up with the the prototype, okay, then uh, then we can proceed from there.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: It's okay?
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So thanks for all your uh efforts and coming for the meeting again, and see you soon then. Okay?
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Thank you. | This meeting focused on the conception of the functional design of the new remote control. Industrial Designer evaluated several components in the technical design of the product and gave his personal preferences, especially on the chip and the material to use in the construction. Then User Interface presented a general layout of the functionality, the design of which should follow two principles: simpleness and customizability. Marketing, in his turn, explained the current market trend based on the results of his questionnaires on user requirements. The group also discussed where the remote control would be manufactured by taking into account the price of the local labour force. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So we are here for the concept design meeting. So, we will first start by summarizing the mm {vocalsound} the previous meeting and the decision we've taken. Uh I will take notes during this meeting so uh that you can uh look at my uh folder to see the summary of this meeting afterwards. So each of you will uh show us the various investigation they've done during uh previous uh hours. We'll then t take decision in concert and then uh uh we will uh define the nest {disfmarker} next task, to have {disfmarker} to be done before the next meeting. So, last time we decided to have a simple interface. We also decided to have a wheel to change channel {disfmarker} previous channel button. Channel digit uh buttons should be uh protected by plastic cover or something for the remote control to look very simple. We have also button for volume, and to switch on off the T_V_. We have also uh the lightening feature for the remote control to be easy to find, and for fast development and low cost we have decided to have no L_C_D_ no voice features. So now uh we will have three presentations. So the conceptual specification by Industrial Designer, the specification of the U_I_ by {disfmarker} or U_I_ {vocalsound}
User Interface: Abdul al-Hasred is my name.
Project Manager: okay. {vocalsound} And uh the last point is uh trend watching by Market Expert. So maybe we can start with uh industrial design. So this is the presentation.
Industrial Designer: Uh, I_D_ you want?
Project Manager: Maybe I can switch slide uh on your request.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. I only v have three slides, so. I just look at the mm {disfmarker} um just this. On some web pages to find some documentation
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and I think a remote control is, as I s mentioned previously, you just have a a very simple chip and the mm the user interface is just done usually by push button and in our case we are using a um a wheel control. So uh uh I was looking basically for that chip, which is uh very very standard, and uh I just looked for the wheel sensor and the standard push button. And um {vocalsound} yeah we can change directly.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: In fact I have the number of that element which is very standard for remote control. The push button are usually extremely cheap, but I just have one problem and this is related with the wheel sensor, which seems to be quite expensive.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And I think we if we could just talk about that if we really need a wheel sensor or if we can not {disfmarker} if if we could combine something with the push button.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Uh a wheel sensor is fifty time the price of a a a push button.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: But is it a significant price on the whole remote control?
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Because we can afford up to twelve Euros for the price of the remote control.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah
Project Manager: So will will will this with uh including all possible things, so buttons, wheel and the chip, be uh lower than twelve Euros to produce?
Industrial Designer: I I th {vocalsound} But I don't think that uh we should {disfmarker} We should talk about uh the design of the box also which needs some money.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay
User Interface: Also have to say {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker}
User Interface: Did you receive the email about the voice recognition?
Industrial Designer: Um that's all {vocalsound}
User Interface: No?
Project Manager: You received something {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: yeah. I haven't chec
User Interface: Yeah. You we uh an email from the manufacturing division that they have basically a voice recognition chip already developed.
Project Manager: Hmm.
User Interface: Says {disfmarker} Yeah. It says that ri right now they just use it to uh to record uh answers to particular questions. But I guess it could be {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And could it be adapted?
User Interface: I guess it's possible. I mean instead of recording the answers you can just uh record uh something simpler like a command.
Project Manager: Okay and there can uh recognize some commands and stuff?
User Interface: Yeah you reco recognize commands and you can record new commands and stuff, so if they already have it as uh as a chip
Project Manager: Okay. Yeah.
User Interface: then we we could use it.
Project Manager: Okay maybe we can just uh listen to this presentation and then take decision later on {disfmarker} according to those news.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah but I think it's yeah {disfmarker} Sorry, I haven't written my personal references. Um {vocalsound} the I I just want to mention the the problem of the the r wheels sensor which is much more expensive than any push button,
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: and if we could reduce that. We we have already some good things uh with um um with the backlight of the push button.
User Interface: Mm-hmm. I have a question about that actually {vocalsound}. Um, what is the purpose of the light?
Industrial Designer: Just to to make something which is uh slightly more design that uh a squarey box with a rubber {disfmarker}
User Interface: Is {disfmarker}
Project Manager: You can easily find the button in the dark or so?
User Interface: But {disfmarker} But in th in the dark uh {disfmarker} Yeah but is going to be always turned on, the light?
Project Manager: It will be turned on when the when the user move the remote control I think, no?
User Interface: But if you move it then you have it, you don't need to find it.
Project Manager: Hmm.
User Interface: You can see the buttons better, of course.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. True.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Actually.
User Interface: But if you move it then you have to have some sensor to {disfmarker} when you move it to detect your movement.
Industrial Designer: As soon as you thought to move the the remote control you have the light.
User Interface: Yeah, but you need another sensor for that, right?
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Again.
User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} no it's too expensive. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I don't think that this is really expensive, but at the end this is plenty of unexpen eh very cheap devices but uh the bill starts to be {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay. Mm. Extra. Yeah, okay. Mm. Yeah, but I expected also the wheel would be cheap but you tell me that it is very expensive so,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} First of all I was thinking to have a a continuous light
User Interface: yeah.
Industrial Designer: and you w when t you you you you press the on button you have the light on your remote control, when you want to turn off your device {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: But it can be uh battery consuming, no? To have the light always on?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, a little bit. A little bit.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Well we will discuss that after maybe
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Okay
Project Manager: the other presentations.
User Interface: . So uh my one, it uh should be in the shared folder.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: So. It was last time I saw it.
Project Manager: And it is.
User Interface: Okay. So,
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} just move to the next slide. {vocalsound} So basically {vocalsound} want very simple, right? That's the major idea, as simple as possible.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: So I just look at some current designs uh on the web, of usually more complicated remote controls. And let's look at two of them because uh th even though they have many buttons they look quite simple. And in our case we just uh reject the buttons what we don't need and it become even simpler.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Um. {vocalsound} So.
Project Manager: And also does it uh fit well in hand? Because it was uh th your wrist problem with the usage.
User Interface: Yeah. Well this these uh these remotes are quite big, so go to the next page, so. We have all these buttons as you can see, but most of them, we just need the ones in the middle.
Project Manager: Yeah {vocalsound}. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: So, from the bottom or whatever is there, uh the uh the numbers and then the top, uh until the ten also, this middle part,
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: and on the left one is exactly the same. So it's basically more or less how we would like it, with a big volume control, big channel control, and mute and power, yeah?
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: These are the basic thing.
Project Manager: So it's only the central part.
User Interface: So basically, w software we will build will look more or less the same as these two.
Project Manager: Yeah. With a maybe a more ergonomic design on on the bottom part.
User Interface: Yeah, if you have, for example {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I think that the volume and the buttons that are there on the top are not very easy to reach with your thumb.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: It could be on the right side, for example.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah. Because we don't have these input buttons and this other stuff that they have. And I think that the plastic cover is not very good uh idea because
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: you open it, it can break, you ca you can do various things.
Project Manager: Okay. S
User Interface: Uh you just need to put the channel numbers somewhere a bit out of the way.
Project Manager: Okay. Will be down or {disfmarker}
User Interface: So that they're separate a bit,
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: yeah. Uh and it's easy to press the other {disfmarker} the big buttons, but uh, it's not that difficult to press the the channel buttons either. Mm. Yeah, I think that if you put the cover it will be even more difficult for the user.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Alright, you won't {disfmarker} yeah. Usually what {disfmarker} I have noticed that people put the plastic cover on things that you normally don't mess with, like buttons for t uh tuning the channels and stuff like that.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah. That you want to protect a bit. And I think it's uh it's reasonable.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: So, I don't think {disfmarker} Yeah, this is just the the wheel.
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: We could use the {disfmarker} some wheels can be pushed down, could use the push down of the wheel for the record if we want.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Uh so we could just basically use one just wheel and uh user could use just the wheel to do everything with the channels in that case.
Project Manager: Yeah. Maybe the wheel will be a {vocalsound} good advantage over our competitors.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Because otherwise it's pretty standard apart the fact that it's very simple. So maybe it's worse to uh to have more expense on that's that aspect.
Industrial Designer: To s Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah, I guess the market researcher will tell us all about that.
Project Manager: Okay. So we can move to the {disfmarker} Is there any question? For designer of user interface? {vocalsound} or we can move to the next part, maybe, and discuss afterwards? Okay.
Marketing: Okay, I can go?
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Can I? {vocalsound} So now the recent investigation we we have done fo of the remote control um. So, the most important aspect for remote controls is to be fancy look and feel and not current functional look and feel. And um the second aspect is uh that the remote control should be uh technological innovative.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} And the third most important aspect is to to {disfmarker} is that the co remote control should be easy to use. So, are things we are we have uh speak about before.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. And um {disfmarker} so you you can go {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: after. And there is a fashion watchers in Paris and Milan that have detected the following trends, uh fruits and vegetables will be the most important theme for clothes, shoes, and furnitures. {vocalsound} So, maybe if our {vocalsound} remote control have to be a fruit form or vegetable form {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: something like that, or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I support an apple.
Marketing: {vocalsound} And the mm the material is expected to be spongy.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Uh I don't know which material {vocalsound} can be spongy,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: and if you {disfmarker}
Project Manager: This is good also for {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well, wou wou I think we can certainly just put the electronics in a spongy thing,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: it it would work, right?
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: I think it is good also f to have a spongy material, yeah.
User Interface: You can throw it to the television.
Project Manager: Yeah, because it's robust.
Marketing: Okay {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Me too.
Marketing: It's robust, yeah.
User Interface: Hey that's a cool one. We could say that if you throw it, you have a sensor, and you throw it and hits the television and turns it off.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: When it d uh takes a shock.
Project Manager: Yeah
Marketing: {vocalsound} Not good.
Project Manager: uh sorry?
Industrial Designer: Ah it's okay. I know that they do that for alarm clock also.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: An and and uh this uh you can yeah you can say that. You ca uh you can go uh before
Project Manager: No. Yeah. Before?
Marketing: , before, yes. And you know here the more iz important aspect is the fancy look and feel, after is uh technological innovative, and after the easy to use.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's innovative to use the mm the wheel because I think no one else has.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah that's why {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Has it?
Marketing: Yeah that's why I think we have to keep that if it's possible.
Project Manager: Yeah. I think it's {disfmarker} it makes it both easy and both innos innovative.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Innovative. Mm.
Project Manager: So I think it's a good aspect and it should be kept.
User Interface: How do we make it look cool is the question.
Project Manager: Cool, fancy?
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: We have to make it l look like a fruit or vegetable. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Maybe uh um {vocalsound} a colour that remember some fruit uh, things like that.
Industrial Designer: What about um {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm. Oh, colour, yeah.
User Interface: Well the obvious thing is a banana, I guess.
Marketing: Oh {disfmarker} i i {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Maybe yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I thought about a a pear, for example. You know the pear, is like that and it's it's easy to to have in in hand
Project Manager: Yeah, and it's ergonomic as well.
Marketing: and uh {disfmarker} Yeah.
Project Manager: A pear.
User Interface: The banana is also ergonomic.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. Maybe pear yeah or something like that.
Marketing: Or a fruit like that. I dunno.
Project Manager: Yeah. We can discuss that uh. D D Is is there anything you want to add?
User Interface: Is there any fruit that is spongy?
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't think so. I think we we can have like yeah a pear is good, fit well, or banana as you told.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Something like that.
Industrial Designer: And for maybe look and feel, what about a a piece of ice, with blue L_E_D_ inside?
Project Manager: But that's not in the trend. {vocalsound}.
User Interface: You can make it um {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: The trend is spongy, and vegetable fruits.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: It's not hard, the metal.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think p spongy is good because it it will be robust as well.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Plastic. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Project Manager: So, I think we can keep the wheel because it's uh easy, it's innovative, even if the cost is a bit higher,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: and we also have to find a, so, a fruit like pear or banana wit uh any others idea you have. What kind of fr fruit would you like to to control your T_V_ with? {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Odi
Industrial Designer: Banana I think, it's a nice idea.
Project Manager: Banana is also yellow so you you can't lost your remote control then.
Industrial Designer: Because {disfmarker} But {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: You y you don't use the banana when the banana is curving like that,
User Interface: Two of the button, yeah.
Industrial Designer: but when the banana is curving like that, with the wheel on the top and to control,
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and here you have a a push button to {disfmarker}
Marketing: But you don't have {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I think it's a good idea, yeah.
User Interface: Yeah so you can just have uh just have this curve, yeah, and you move uh your hand here to press the buttons and then you move uh on the other side.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: So you can have it on on two sides and it'll be cool,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: no?
Project Manager: I think it's a good design and it's innovative as well then. Maybe we can keep the banana. And it will be very easy to find.
Industrial Designer: And everybody knows what is a banana.
User Interface: You can put also vibrator inside.
Industrial Designer: Basically.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: If you if you start with uh fancy fruits and fra s and tha
User Interface: Ah-ha. You can also take into account the fact that the banana fits with the colour scheme of our company.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Oh, yeah {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah it's really uh really a good point.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} I hope the students of management die,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: but anyway. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Now who are recording this meeting?
Project Manager: I think it {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} One second. So we have to take some decision on this aspect. So, uh so for {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: sorry, for uh component, so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: we have to think about those aspects, sorry.
Industrial Designer: So we will just use a a standard battery?
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And uh the chip we {disfmarker} chip imprint we know exactly which one we are going to use. Uh what do you mean by case?
Project Manager: I think it's the box that should be spongy, banana's shape.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Uh I mean for me if we use a a spongy banana case, doesn't matter.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I just want to have so something to prin to to fix my my components onto that box, and that's it.
User Interface: The only th Yeah. Y Yeah that can be in inside th in the structure.
Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: But uh the thing is that the buttons and the wheel have to be {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Spongy also.
User Interface: I mean if it's spongy then the buttons and the wheel have to {disfmarker} I mean if it's spongy then it's going to move, right? So, it's going to be bend a lot.
Project Manager: But {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Oh no I think it's possible.
User Interface: So if we try to push the buttons, it {disfmarker}
Project Manager: No the button would be {disfmarker}
User Interface: You think it's possible?
Project Manager: In fact it it should be something odd shaped, with a spongy cover.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: . This is uh like the {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay odd shape with spongy {disfmarker} cover. And standard battery okay, a chip imprint, there's no specific problem. So we agree to put the wheel {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound} Wheel on the top. Button, where do we want some buttons?
User Interface: Well, usually hold {disfmarker} {vocalsound}'Kay, we want it to be good also for the left-hand users, right?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: So it have to {disfmarker} it has to be symmetrical.
User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah but okay. Sa let's say that th o {vocalsound} It has to be {disfmarker} basically you can only take two sides, one on ths this side where is the thumb and the other side where there is uh yeah also the thumb.
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yep.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Basically. Or you could use use this one, but I don't know if it's very comfortable, to use this one for the wheel.
Project Manager: Yeah maybe the thumb is more comfortable.
User Interface: This for the wheel and then this for the buttons?
Project Manager: Yeah I think it's okay for both right and left. Mm.
User Interface: Should have the two sides.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So if {gap} the left, we have {disfmarker} the op
Project Manager: I think you can turn it this way also. You can do both with both hands.
User Interface: Wheel {disfmarker} Wheel buttons.
Project Manager: I think it's okay.
User Interface: Yeah, the problem is if you have buttons and wheel then when you turn it around, the buttons are on the other side. So you cannot see them.
Project Manager: Well, you you will get used to it.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: And moreover, th the button ar are lighted so you you immediately identify the right side, because you have light on buttons.
User Interface: So the buttons have to be here and the wheel has to be {disfmarker} Y Yeah I know, but uh if you hold with your left hand, and the wheel is here, and the buttons are here, then when you turn it around the buttons will be on the other side.
Project Manager: Yeah. No you you {disfmarker} I think you will use it only on the right or left hand, whether you are righty or lefty. I think for lefty it's okay. I can do this movement, and for righty as well. I think this doesn't change that much.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Yeah?
User Interface: Okay. Maybe. Yeah.
Project Manager: So, for interface we said also that we have uh this banana shape with button on the s on the side. And {disfmarker} and uh a wheel on the top.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: So the colour is yellow. I think it's uh {disfmarker} we defined everything according to what we should {disfmarker} what the decision we should take, yeah. So maybe we can um we can uh work on those aspects uh until next meeting. So have the final uh look and feel design according to the decision. And have the the user interface design and uh then evaluate the prodyuc {disfmarker} the product. That is to say, uh check if it fit the the requirement uh given by the users, but according to uh your presentation it seems to be okay. It seems to be fancy, innovative, and easy to use.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} to prepare the prototype I would suggest that the Industrial Designer and the User Interface Designer uh work together. That would uh
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: be better, I think.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker} And so uh you will receive further instruction by emails, as usual.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yes master.
Project Manager: do you need to add anything?
User Interface: No.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} You feel okay?
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: You feel uh free to express what you want to say? You don't feel too constrained?
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} You don't feel free to answer this?
User Interface: No.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Maybe you can make {gap} uh {vocalsound} uh mm
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay, so {disfmarker}
User Interface: okay.
Industrial Designer: Thank you.
Project Manager: See you. | The meeting focused on the cost and design implication of including the wheel, the best way to include the light, ensuring that buttons are well-placed, and choosing a fashionable fruit as the remote's design. Project Manager reiterated that several decisions, like not having an LCD, having a wheel, and including a lighting feature, have been made in the previous meeting. Then, Industrial Designer highlighted that the wheel was expensive, though, likely still within the budget. User Interface led some discussion about placing the buttons in a way that minimizes strain for the user. Finally, Marketing informed the group that fruits and vegetables were the upcoming fashion trend. The group decided that a banana would be a good option for the design and discussed how existing priorities could be adapted to a curved design. | qmsum |
What is the routine for data collection?
Grad C: Now can you give me the uh {pause} remote T?
Professor D: OK, so Eva, co uh {disfmarker} could you read your numbers?
Grad A: Go ahead and read. OK.
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad C: Alright.
Professor D: Yeah, let's get started. Um {disfmarker} Hopefully Nancy will come, if not, she won't.
Grad B: Uh, Robert, do you uh have any way to turn off your uh screensaver on there so that it's not going off every {disfmarker} uh, it seems to have about at two minute {disfmarker}
Grad C: Yeah, I've {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} it's not that I didn't try.
Grad B: OK.
Grad C: and um I {disfmarker} I told it to stay on forever and ever, but if it's not plugged in it just doesn't obey my commands.
Grad B: OK.
Grad C: It has a mind.
Grad B: Got it.
Grad C: But I I just {disfmarker} You know, sort of keep on wiggling.
Undergrad E: Wants to conserve.
Grad B: Yeah, OK.
Grad C: But uh {disfmarker} we'll just be m m working on it at intensity so it doesn't happen. We'll see. Should we plunge right into it?
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad C: So, would you like to {disfmarker}
Professor D: I think so.
Grad C: So what I've tried to do here is list all the decision nodes that we have identified on this {pause} side. Commented and {disfmarker} what they're about and sort of {disfmarker} the properties we may um give them. And here are the uh {disfmarker} tasks to be implemented via our data collection. So all of these tasks {disfmarker} The reading is out of these tasks more or less imply that the user wants to go there, sometime or the other. And analogously for example, here we have our EVA um {disfmarker} intention. And these are the data tasks where w we can assume the person would like to enter, view or just approach the thing. Analogously the same on the object information we can see that, you know, we have sort of created these tasks before we came up with our decision nodes so there's a lot of things where we have no analogous tasks, and {pause} that may or may not be a problem. We can change the tasks slightly if we feel that we should have data for e sort of for every decision node so {disfmarker} trying to im um {disfmarker} implant the intention of going to a place now, going to a place later on the same tour, or trying to plant the intention of going sometime on the next tour, or the next day or whenever.
Professor D: Right, right.
Grad C: But I think that might be overdoing it a little.
Professor D: So {disfmarker} Yeah. So let me pop up a level. And uh s s make sure that we're all oriented the same. So What we're gonna do today is two related things. Uh one of them is to work on the semantics of the belief - net which is going to be the main inference engine for thi the system uh making decisions. And decisions are going to turn out to be parameter choices for calls on other modules. so f the natural language understanding thing is uh, we think gonna only have to choose parameters, but You know, a fairly large set of parameters. So to do that, we need to do two things. One of which is figure out what all the choices are, which we've done a fair amount. Then we need to figure out what influences its choices and finally we have to do some technical work on the actual belief relations and presumably estimates of the probabilities and stuff. But we aren't gonna do the probability stuff today. Technical stuff we'll do {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} another day. Probably next week. But we are gonna worry about all the decisions and the things that pert that contribute to them. And we're also, sort of uh in the same process, going to work with Fey on what there should be in the dialogues. So One of the s steps that's coming up real soon is to actually get subjects uh {disfmarker} in here, and have them actually record like this. Uh record dialogues more or less. And {disfmarker} depending on what Fey sort of provokes them to say, we'll get information on different things.
Grad C: Well how people phrase different intentions more or less,
Professor D: So {disfmarker} Fo - v yeah people with the {disfmarker} phrase them
Grad C: huh?
Professor D: and so {disfmarker} Uh for, you know, Keith and people worrying about what constructions people use, uh {disfmarker} we have some i we have some ways to affect that by the way the dialogues go. So what Robert kindly did, is to lay out a table of the kinds of uh {pause} things that {disfmarker} that might come up, and, the kinds of decisions. So the uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} on the left are decision nodes, and discreet values. So if {disfmarker} if we're right, you can get by with um just this middle column worth of decisions, and it's not all that many, and it's perfectly feasible technically to build belief - nets that will do that. And he has a handout.
Grad C: Yeah. Maybe it was too fast plunging in there, because j we have two updates.
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad C: Um you can look at this if you want, these are what our subject's going to have to fill out. Any comments I can {disfmarker} can still be made and the changes will be put in correspondingly.
Undergrad E: m {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yes.
Grad C: Let me summarize in two sentences, mainly for Eva's benefit, who probably has not heard about the data collection, at all.
Grad A: OK.
Grad C: Or have you heard about it?
Grad A: Not that much you didn't.
Grad C: No. OK. We were gonna put this in front of people. They give us some information on themselves.
Grad A: OK.
Grad C: Then {disfmarker} then they will read uh {disfmarker} a task where lots of German words are sort of thrown in between. And um {disfmarker} and they have to read isolated proper names And these change {disfmarker}
Professor D: S I don't see a release
Grad C: No, this is not the release form. This is the speaker information form.
Professor D: Got it. OK, fine. OK.
Grad C: The release form is over there in that box.
Professor D: Alright, fair enough.
Grad C: And um {disfmarker} And then they gonna have to f um um choose from one of these tasks, which are listed here. They {disfmarker} they pick a couple, say three {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh six as a matter of fact. Six different things they sort of think they would do if they were in Heidelberg or traveling someplace {disfmarker} and um {disfmarker} and they have a map.
Grad B: Hmm.
Grad C: Like this. Very sketchy, simplified map. And they can take notes on that map. And then they call this computer system that works perfectly, and understands everything.
Grad A: OK.
Grad C: And um {disfmarker}
Grad B: This is a fictional system obviously,
Grad C: The comp Yeah, the computer system sits right in front of you,
Grad B: huh.
Grad C: that's Fey.
Undergrad E: I've {disfmarker} I understand everything.
Professor D: And she does know everything.
Undergrad E: Yes I do.
Grad C: And she has a way of making this machine talk. So she can copy sentences into a window, or type really fast and this machine will use speech synthesis to produce that. So if you ask" How do I get to the castle" then a m s several seconds later it'll come out of here" In order to get to the castle you do {disfmarker}" Grad B: Yeah.
Grad C: OK? And um {disfmarker} And then after three tasks the system breaks down. And Fey comes on the phone as a human operator. And says" Sorry the system broke down but let's continue." And we sort of get the idea what people do when they s think they speak to a machine and what people say when they think they speak to a human, or know, or assume they speak to a human.
Grad A: OK. Huh.
Grad B: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
Grad C: That's the data collection. And um {disfmarker} And Fey has some thirty subjects lined up? Something?
Undergrad E: Yeah.
Grad C: And um {disfmarker} And they're {disfmarker} r ready uh {disfmarker} to roll.
Undergrad E: And more and more every day.
Grad C: And we're gonna start tomorrow at three? four? one?
Undergrad E: Tomorrow, well we don't know for sure. Because we don't know whether that person is coming or not,
Grad C: OK. Around four - ish.
Undergrad E: but {disfmarker}
Grad C: And um we're still l looking for a room on the sixth floor because they stole away that conference room. Um {disfmarker} behind our backs. But {disfmarker}
Professor D: Well, there are these {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} oh, I see, we have to {disfmarker} Yeah, it's tricky. We'll {disfmarker} let's {disfmarker} let {disfmarker} we'll do that off - line, OK.
Grad C: Yeah, but I {disfmarker} i i it's happening. David and {disfmarker} and Jane and {disfmarker} and Lila are working on that as we speak.
Professor D: OK.
Grad C: OK. That was the uh {disfmarker} the data collection in a nutshell. And um {disfmarker} I can report a {disfmarker} so I did this but I also tried to do this {disfmarker} so if I click on here, Isn't this wonderful? we get to the uh {disfmarker} uh belief - net just focusing on {disfmarker} on the g Go - there node. uh {disfmarker} Analogously this would be sort of the reason node and the timing node and so forth.
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: And what w what happened is that um design - wise I'd sort of n noticed that we can {disfmarker} we still get a lot of errors from a lot of points to one of these sub Go - there User Go - there Situation nodes. So I came up with a couple of additional nodes here where um whether the user is thrifty or not, and what his budget is currently like, is going to result in some financial state of the user. How much will he {disfmarker} is he willing to spend? Or can spend. Being the same at this {disfmarker} just the money available, which may influence us, whether he wants to go there if it is {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} charging tons of dollars for admission or its gonna g cost a lot of t e whatever. Twenty - two million to fly to International Space Station, you know. just {disfmarker} Not all people can do that.
Professor D: Right.
Grad C: So, and this actually turned out to be pretty key, because having specified sort of these {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} intermediate level Um and sort of noticing that everything that happens here {disfmarker} let's go to our favorite endpoint one is again more or less {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} then the situation nodes contributing to the {disfmarker} the endpoint situation node, which contributes to the endpoint and so forth. um {disfmarker} I can now sort of draw straight lines from these to here, meaning it g of course goes where the sub - S {disfmarker} everything that comes from situation, everything that comes from user goes with the sub - U, and whatever we specify for the so - called" Keith node" , or the discourse, what comes from the {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} parser, construction parser, um will contribute to the D and the ontology to the sub - O node. And um one just s sort of has to watch which {disfmarker} also final decision node so it doesn't make sense {disfmarker} t to figure out whether he wants to enter, view or approach an object if he never wants to go there in the first place. But this makes the design thing fairly simple. And um now all w that's left to do then is the CPG's, the conditional probabilities, for the likelihood of a person having enough money, actually wanting to go a place if it costs, you know this or that. And um {disfmarker} OK. and once um Bhaskara has finished his classwork that's where we're gonna end up doing. You get involved in that process too. And um {disfmarker} And for now uh the {disfmarker} the question is" How much of these decisions do we want to build in explicitly into our data collection?" So {disfmarker} Um, one could {disfmarker} sort of {disfmarker} think of {disfmarker} you know we could call the z see or {disfmarker} you know, people who visit the zoo we could s call it" Visit the zoo tomorrow" , so we have an intention of seeing something, but not now {disfmarker} but later.
Professor D: Right. Yeah. Yeah, so {disfmarker} let's s uh s see I th I think that from one point of view, Uh, um, all these places are the same, so that d d That, um {disfmarker} in terms of the linguistics and stuff, there may be a few different kinds of places, so I th i it seems to me that We ought to decide you know, what things are k are actually going to matter to us. And um, so the zoo, and the university and the castle, et cetera. Um are all big - ish things that um {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} have different parts to them, and one of them might be fine.
Grad C: Hmm. Hmm, hmm. Yeah {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the reason why we did it that way, as a {disfmarker} as a reminder, is uh {disfmarker} no person is gonna do all of them.
Professor D: And {disfmarker}
Grad C: They're just gonna select u um, according to their preferences.
Professor D: Yeah, yeah.
Grad C:" Ah, yeah, I usually visit zoos, or I usually visit castles, or I usually {disfmarker}" And then you pick that one.
Professor D: Right, no no, but {disfmarker} but s th point is to {disfmarker} to y to {disfmarker} build a system that's got everything in it that might happen you do one thing.
Undergrad E: They're redundant.
Professor D: T to build a system that um {disfmarker} had the most data on a relatively confined set of things, you do something else. And the speech people, for example, are gonna do better if they {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} things come up uh {disfmarker} repeatedly. Now, of course, if everybody says exactly the same thing then it's not interesting. So, all I'm saying is i th there's {disfmarker} there's a kind of question of what we're trying t to accomplish. and {disfmarker} I think my temptation for the data gathering would be to uh, you know {disfmarker} And each person is only gonna do it once, so you don't have to worry about them being bored, so if {disfmarker} if it's one service, one luxury item, you know, one big - ish place, and so forth and so on, um {disfmarker} then my guess is that {disfmarker} that the data is going to be easier to handle. Now of course you have this I guess possible danger that somehow there're certain constructions that people use uh when talking about a museum that they wouldn't talk about with a university and stuff, um {disfmarker} but I guess I'm {disfmarker} I uh m my temptation is to go for simpler. You know, less variation. But I don't know what other people think about this in terms of {disfmarker}
Grad B: So I don't exactly understand {disfmarker}
Professor D: uh {disfmarker}
Grad B: like I I {disfmarker} I guess we're trying to {disfmarker} limit the detail of our ontology or types of places that someone could go, right? But who is it that has to care about this, or what component of the system?
Professor D: Oh, well, uh {disfmarker} th I think there are two places where it comes up. One is uh {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} th these people who are gonna take this and {disfmarker} and try to do speech with it.
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Professor D: uh {disfmarker} Lots of pronunciations of th of the same thing are going to give you better data than l you know, a few pronunciations of lots more things.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: That's one.
Grad B: So we would rather just ask {disfmarker} uh have a bunch of people talk about the zoo, uh and assume that that will {disfmarker} that the constructions that they use there will give us everything we need to know about these sort of zoo, castle, whatever type things, these bigger places.
Professor D: Bigger {disfmarker} Y yeah thi well this is a question for {disfmarker}
Grad B: And that way you get the speech data of people saying" zoo" over and over again or whatever too.
Professor D: Yeah. Yeah.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: Yeah. So this is a question for you,
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Professor D: and, you know, if we {disfmarker} if we do, and we probably will, actually try to uh build a prototype, uh probably we could get by with the prototype only handling a few of them anyway. So, Um {disfmarker}
Grad C: Yeah, the this was sort of {disfmarker} these are all different sort of activities. Um But I think y I {disfmarker} I got the point and I think I like it. We can do {disfmarker} put them in a more hierarchical fashion. So," Go to place" and then give them a choice, you know either they're the symphony type or opera type or the tourist site guide type or the nightclub disco type person and they say" yeah this is {disfmarker} on that" go to big - ish place" ,
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: this is what I would do." And then we have the" Fix" thing, and then maybe" Do something the other day" thing, so. My question is {disfmarker} I guess, to some extent, we should {disfmarker} y we just have to try it out and see if it works. It would be challenging, in {disfmarker} in a sense, to try to make it so {disfmarker} so complex that they even really should schedule, or to plan it, uh, a more complex thing in terms of OK, you know, they should get the feeling that there are these s six things they have to do and they sh can be done maybe in two days.
Professor D: Well {disfmarker} yeah.
Grad C: So they make these decisions,
Professor D: Well I think th th
Grad C:" Can I go there tomorrow?" Professor D: yeah.
Grad C: or {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} influences
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Professor D: Yeah. Well, I think it's easy enough to set that up if that's your expectation. So, the uh system could say," Well, uh we'd like to {disfmarker} to set up your program for two days in Heidelberg, you know, let's first think about all the things you might like to do. So there {disfmarker} th i i in {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} I th I {disfmarker} I'm sure that if that's what you did then they would start telling you about that, and then you could get into um various things about ordering, if you wanted.
Grad C: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Yeah, but I think this is part of the instructor's job. And that can be done, sort of to say," OK now we've picked these six tasks." " Now you have you can call the system and you have two days." Professor D: I'm sorry.
Grad C: And th w
Professor D: No, we have to help {disfmarker} we have to decide. Fey will p carry out whatever we decide. But we have to decide you know, what is the appropriate scenario. That's what we're gonna talk about t yeah.
Grad C: Yep, yep.
PhD F: But these are two different scenarios entirely. I mean, one is a planner {disfmarker} The other, it kind of give you instructions on the spot
Grad C: Yeah, but th the {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I'm not really interested in sort of" Phase planning" capabilities. But it's more the {disfmarker} how do people phrase these planning requests? So are we gonna masquerade the system as this {disfmarker} as you said simple response system," I have one question I get one response" , or should we allow for a certain level of complexity. And a I w think the data would be nicer if we get temporal references.
Professor D: Well, so Keith, what do you think?
Grad B: Well, um it seems that {disfmarker} Yeah, I mean, off the top of my head it kinda seems like you would probably just want, you know, richer data, more complex stuff going on, people trying to do more complex sets of things. I mean {pause} you know, if our goal is to really sort of be able to handle a whole bunch of different stuff, then throwing harder situations at people will get them to do more linguistic {disfmarker} more interesting linguistic stuff. But I mean {disfmarker} I'm {disfmarker} I'm not really sure Uh, because I don't fully understand like what our choices are of ways to do this here yet.
Grad C: I mean w we have tested this and a y have you heard {disfmarker} listen to the f first two or th as a matter of fact the second person is uh {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} was faced with exactly this kind of setup.
Grad B: I started to listen to one and it was just like, um, uh, sort of depressing.
Grad C: And {disfmarker}
Grad B: I thought I'd just sort of listen to the beginning part and the person was just sort of reading off her script or something. And.
Grad C: Oh, OK. That was the first subject.
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: First one wasn't very good.
Grad B: Yeah.
Grad C: Yeah.
Grad B: So um, I {disfmarker}
Grad C: Um, it is {disfmarker} already with this it got pretty {disfmarker} with this setup and that particular subject it got pretty complex.
Undergrad E: Although {disfmarker}
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: Maybe {disfmarker} I suggest we make some fine tuning of these, get {disfmarker} sort of {disfmarker} run through ten or so subjects
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: and then take a breather, and see whether we wanna make it more complex or not, depending on what {disfmarker} what sort of results we're getting.
Grad B: Right. Yeah. It {disfmarker} In fact, um, I am just you know {disfmarker} today, next couple days gonna start really diving into this data. I've basically looked at one of the files {disfmarker} you know one of these {disfmarker} l y y y you gave me those dozens of files and I looked at one of them which was about ten sentences, found fifteen, twenty different construction types that we would have to look for and so on and like," alright, well, let's start here." Um. So I haven't really gone into the, you know {disfmarker} looked at all of the stuff that's going on. So I don't really {disfmarker} Right, I mean, once I start doing that I'll have more to say about this kind of thing.
Professor D: OK.
Grad C: And y and always {disfmarker}
Professor D: But well th but you did say something important, which is that um you can probably keep yourself fairly well occupied uh {disfmarker} with the simple cases for quite a while.
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: Although, obviously th so {disfmarker} so that sa s does suggest that {disfmarker} Uh, now, I have looked at all the data, and it's pre it's actually at least to an amateur, quite redundant.
Grad B: Yeah, Yeah.
Professor D: That {disfmarker} that it was {disfmarker} it was very stylized, and quite a lot of people said more or less the same thing.
Grad B: I um {disfmarker} I did sort of scan it at first and noticed that, and then looked in detail at one of them.
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad B: But yeah, yeah I noticed that, too.
Professor D: So, we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we wanna do more than that.
Grad C: And with this we're getting more. No question.
Professor D: OK. Right. So {disfmarker}
Grad C: uh w do we wanna get going beyond more, which is sort of the {disfmarker}
Professor D: Well, OK, so let's {disfmarker} let's take {disfmarker} let's I {disfmarker} I think your suggestion is good, which is we'll do a b uh {disfmarker} a batch. OK. And, uh, Fey, How long is it gonna be till you have ten subjects? Couple days? Or thr f a A week? Or {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't have a feel for th
Undergrad E: Um {disfmarker} I can {disfmarker} Yeah, I mean I s I think can probably schedule ten people, uh, whenever.
Professor D: Well, it's {disfmarker} it's up to you, I mean I j I {disfmarker} uh e We don't have any huge time pressure. It's just {disfmarker} when you have t
Undergrad E: How long will it be?
Professor D: Yeah.
Undergrad E: Um {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would say maybe two weeks.
Professor D: Oh, OK. So let's do this. Let's plan next Monday, OK, to have a review of what we have so far.
Grad C: This means audio, but {disfmarker}
Professor D: and {disfmarker} Huh?
Grad C: no transcriptions of course, yeah.
Professor D: No, we won't have the transcriptions, but what we should be able to do and I don't know if, Fey, if you will have time to do this, but it would be great if you could, um, not transcribe it all, but pick out uh, some stuff. I mean we could lis uh {disfmarker} just sit here and listen to it all. Are you gonna have the audio on the web site? OK.
Grad C: Until we reach the gigabyte thing and David Johnson s ki kills me. And we're gonna put it on the web site. Yeah.
Professor D: Oh, we could get {disfmarker} I mean, you can buy another disk for two hundred dollars, right? I mean it's {disfmarker} it's not like {disfmarker} OK. So, we'll take care of David Johnson.
Grad C: No, he {disfmarker} uh, he {disfmarker} he has been solving all our problems or {disfmarker} is wonderful,
Professor D: OK.
Undergrad E: Take {disfmarker} care of him.
Professor D: OK.
Grad C: so s
Professor D: Alright. So we'll buy a disk. But anyway, so, um, If you {disfmarker} if you can think of a way {disfmarker} to uh, point us to th to interesting things, sort of as you're doing this or {disfmarker} or something uh, make your {disfmarker} make notes or something that {disfmarker} that this is, you know, something worth looking at. And other than that, yeah I guess we'll just have to uh, listen {disfmarker} although I guess it's only ten minutes each, right? Roughly.
Undergrad E: Well, I guess. I'm not sure how long it's actually going to take.
Grad C: The reading task is a lot shorter. That was cut by fifty percent. And the reading, nobody's interested in that except for the speech people.
Professor D: Right. No, we don't care about that at all.
Grad C: So. It's actually like five minutes dialogue.
Professor D: I b My guess is it's gonna be ten.
Grad C: Ten minutes is long.
Professor D: People {disfmarker} I understand, but people {disfmarker} people {disfmarker} you know uh {disfmarker}
Undergrad E: It feels like a long time
Grad C: Yeah.
Undergrad E: but.
Grad C: It feels like forever when you're doing it,
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad C: but then it turns out to be three minutes and forty five seconds.
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: Could be. OK. I was thinking people would, you know, hesitate and {disfmarker} Whatever. Whatever it is we'll {disfmarker} we'll deal with it.
Grad C: Yeah, it's not {disfmarker} And it's fun.
Professor D: OK, so that'll be {disfmarker} that'll be {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on the web page.
Grad C: OK.
Professor D: That's great. Um But anyway {disfmarker} yeah, so I think {disfmarker} it's a good idea to start with the sort of relatively straight forward res just response system. And then if we want to uh {disfmarker} get them to start doing {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} multiple step planning with a whole bunch of things and then organize them an um tell them which things are near each other and {disfmarker} you know, any of that stuff. uh {disfmarker} You know," Which things would you like to do Tuesday morning?" Grad C: Yeah.
Professor D: So yeah I {disfmarker} th that seems {disfmarker} pretty straight forward.
Undergrad E: But were you saying that {disfmarker}
Grad C: I need those back by the way.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: OK.
Undergrad E: Yeah.
Grad C: That's for {disfmarker}
Professor D: I'm sorry, Fey, what?
Undergrad E: That w maybe one thing we should do is go through this list and sort of select things that are categories and then o offer only one member of that category?
Professor D: That's what I was suggesting for the first round, yeah.
Undergrad E: OK.
Grad B: So rather than having zoo and castle.
Undergrad E: And then, I mean, they could be alternate versions of the same {disfmarker} If you wanted data on different constructions.
Professor D: They could, but i but i uh tha eh they c yeah, but {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} but {disfmarker}
Undergrad E: Like one person gets the version with the zoo as a choice, and the other person gets the {disfmarker}
Professor D: You could, but i but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think in the short run, {disfmarker}
Grad C: And no, th the per the person don't get it. I mean, this is why we did it, because when we gave them just three tasks for w part - A and three tasks for part - B a
Professor D: Right. Yeah.
Undergrad E: Well no, they could still choose. They just wouldn't be able to choose both zoo and say, touring the castle.
Grad C: Exactly. This is limiting the choices, but yeah. Right. OK, sorry. But um I {disfmarker} I think this approach will very well work, but the person was able to look at it and say" OK, This is what I would actually do." Undergrad E: Yeah.
Grad C: Yeah.
Professor D: OK.
Grad C: OK.
Undergrad E: He was vicious.
Grad C: OK, we gotta {disfmarker} we gotta disallow uh {disfmarker} traveling to zoos and uh castles at the same time, sort of {disfmarker}
Undergrad E: I mean there {disfmarker} they are significantly different, but.
Grad C: But no, they're {disfmarker} I mean they're sort of {disfmarker} this is where tour becomes {disfmarker} you know tourists maybe a bit different
Undergrad E: Yeah, I guess so.
Grad C: and, um, these are just places where you {disfmarker} you enter um, much like here.
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad C: But we can uh {disfmarker}
Professor D: Yeah, in fact if y if y if you use the right verb for each in common, like at you know," attend a theater, symphony or opera" is {disfmarker} is a group, and" tour the university, castle or zoo" ,
Grad C: mm - hmm Yeah.
Professor D: all of these d do have this kind of" tour" um {disfmarker} aspect about the way you would go to them. And uh, the movie theater is probably also uh {disfmarker} e is a" attend" et cetera.
Grad C: Attend, yeah.
Professor D: So it may turn out to be not so many different kinds of things,
Grad C: Hmm, mm - hmm.
Professor D: and then, what one would expect is that {disfmarker} that the sentence types would {disfmarker} uh their responses would tend to be grouped according to the kind of activity, you would expect.
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
PhD F: But I mean i it seem that um {disfmarker} there is a difference between going {disfmarker} to see something, and things like" exchange money" or" dine out" Professor D: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
PhD F: uh {disfmarker} @ @ function, yeah.
Grad C: Yeah, this is where {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} th the function stuff is definitely different and the getting information or g stuff {disfmarker} yeah. OK. But this is open. So since people gonna still pick something, we we're not gonna get any significant amount of redundancy. And for reasons, we don't want it, really, in that sense. And um we would be ultimately more interested in getting all the possible ways of people asking, oh, for different things with {disfmarker} or with a computer. And so if you can think of any other sort of high level tasks a tourist may do just always {disfmarker} just m mail them to us and we'll sneak them into the collection. We're not gonna do much statistical stuff with it.
Professor D: We don't have enough.
Grad C: No. But it seems like since we {disfmarker} since we are getting towards uh subject {disfmarker} uh fifty subjects and if we can keep it up um to a {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} sort of five four - ish per week rate, we may even reach the one hundred before Fey t takes off to Chicago.
Undergrad E: That means that one hundred people have to be interested.
Grad B: Good luck.
Undergrad E: Yeah.
Professor D: Well, um, these are all f people off campus s from campus so far,
Undergrad E: Yeah.
Professor D: right?
Undergrad E: Yeah.
Professor D: So we {disfmarker} yeah we don't know how many we can get next door at the {disfmarker} uh shelter for example.
Grad B: Hmm.
Professor D: Uh for ten bucks, probably quite a few.
Grad B: Yeah. That's right.
Professor D: Yeah. So, alright, so let's go {disfmarker} let's go back then, to the {disfmarker} the chart with all the decisions and stuff, and see how we're doing.
Grad C: Yep.
Professor D: Do {disfmarker} do people think that, you know this is {disfmarker} is gonna {disfmarker} um cover what we need, or should we be thinking about more?
Grad C: Okay, in terms of decision nodes? I mean, Go - there is {disfmarker} is a yes or no.
Professor D: Yep.
Grad C: Right?
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Professor D: Yep.
Grad C: I'm also interested in th in this" property" uh line here, so if you look at {disfmarker} sorry, look at that um, timing was um {disfmarker} I have these three. Do we need a final differentiation there? Now, later on the same tour, sometimes on the next tour.
Grad B: What's this idea of" next tour" ? I mean {disfmarker}
Grad C: It's sort of next day, so you're doing something now and you have planned to do these three four things,
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: and you can do something immediately,
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: you could sort of tag it on to that tour
Grad B: Or {disfmarker} OK.
Grad C: or you can say this is something I would do s I wanna do sometime l in my life, basically.
Grad B: OK. OK. So {disfmarker} so this tour is sort of just like th the idea of current s round of {disfmarker} of touristness or whatever,
Professor D: Right.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: Yeah. Yeah, probably between stops back at the hotel.
Grad B: OK. Got it.
Professor D: I mean if you {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you wanted precise about it, uh you know,
Grad B: Got it.
Professor D: uh {disfmarker} and I think that's the way tourists do organize their lives.
Grad B: Sure, sure, sure.
Professor D: You know," OK, we'll go back to the hotel and then we'll go off
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: and {disfmarker}" PhD F: So all tours {disfmarker} b a tour happens only within one day?
Professor D: Yes.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: It {disfmarker}
PhD F: So the next tour will be tomorrow?
Professor D: Right. For this.
Grad B: OK. Just to be totally clear. OK.
Grad C: Well, my visit to Prague there were some nights where I never went back to the hotel, so whether that counts as a two - day tour or not we'll have to {vocalsound} think.
Grad B: You just spend the whole time at U Fleku or something,
PhD F: Yeah.
Professor D: I {disfmarker} w we will {disfmarker} we will not ask you more.
Grad B: ri
Undergrad E: Right.
PhD F: Right.
Undergrad E: That's enough.
Grad C: I don't know. What is the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the English co uh um cognate if you want, for" Sankt Nimmerlandstag" ?
Grad B: Keine Ahnung
Grad C: Sort of" We'll do it on {disfmarker} when you say on that d day it means it'll never happen.
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: Right.
Grad C: Do you have an expression? Probably you sh
Grad B: Not that I know of actually.
Grad C: Yeah, when hell {disfmarker} Yep, we'll do it when hell freezes over.
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad C: So maybe that should be another {vocalsound} property in there.
PhD F: Right.
Professor D: Yeah. Yeah.
Undergrad E: Never.
Professor D: No.
Grad C: OK. Um, the reason why {disfmarker} why do we go there in the first place IE uh {disfmarker} it's either uh {disfmarker} for sightseeing, for meeting people, for running errands, or doing business. Entertainment is a good one in there, I think. I agree.
Grad B: So, business is supposed to uh, be sort of {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} like professional type stuff, right, or something like that?
Grad C: Yep.
Grad B: OK. Um.
Grad C: I mean {disfmarker} this w this is uh an old uh Johno thing. He sort of had it in there." Who is the {disfmarker} the tour is the person?" So it might be a tourist,
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: it might be a business man who's using the system, who wants to sort of go to some {disfmarker}
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: Yeah, or {disfmarker} or both.
Grad B: Yeah. Yeah, I mean like for example my {disfmarker} my father is about to travel to Prague.
Grad C: Yep.
Grad B: He'll be there for two weeks. He is going to uh {disfmarker} He's there to teach a course at the business school but he also is touring around and so he may have some mixture of these things.
Grad C: Yep.
Professor D: Mmm.
Grad C: Yep.
Professor D: Sure. Right.
Grad C: He would {disfmarker}
PhD F: What ab What do you have in mind in terms of um {disfmarker} socializing? What kind of activities?
Grad C: Eh, just meeting people, basically." I want to meet someone somewhere" , which be puts a very heavy constraint on the" EVA" PhD F: Oh {disfmarker}
Grad B: Yeah.
Grad C: you know, because then if you're meeting somebody at the town hall, you're not entering it usually, you're just {disfmarker} want to approach it.
Grad B: So {disfmarker} I mean, does this capture, like, where do you put {disfmarker}" Exchange money" is an errand, right? But what about uh {disfmarker}
Grad C: Yep.
Professor D: Mm - hmm
Grad B: So, like" Go to a movie" is now entertainment," Dine out" is {disfmarker}
PhD F: Socializing, I guess.
Professor D: No, I I well, I dunno. Let {disfmarker} Let {disfmarker} well, we'll put it somewhere,
Grad B: So I mean {disfmarker} Right.
Professor D: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} I would say that if" Dine out" is a special c uh {disfmarker} if you're doing it for that purpose then it's entertainment.
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: And {disfmarker} we'll also as y as you'll s further along we'll get into business about" Well, you're {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} this is going over a meal time, do you wanna stop for a meal or pick up food or something?" Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Professor D: And that's different. That's {disfmarker} that's sort of part of th that's not a destination reason, that's sort of" en passant," right.
Grad B: Right.
Grad C: That goes with the" energy depletion" function, blech.
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: Right, yeah.
Grad C: OK," endpoint" .
Grad B:" Tourist needs food, badly" Professor D: Right.
Grad C:" Endpoint" is pretty clear. Um," mode" , uh, I have found three," drive there" ," walk there" uh {disfmarker} or" be driven" , which means bus, taxi, BART.
Professor D: OK.
Grad C: Yeah. Yep.
Professor D: Obviously taxis are very different than buses, but on the other hand the system doesn't have any public transport {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} the planner system doesn't have any public transport in it yet.
Grad C: So this granularity would suffice, I think w if we say the person probably, based on the utterance we on the situation we can conclude wants to drive there, walk there, or use some other form of transportation.
Grad B: H How much of Heidelberg can you get around by public transport? I mean in terms of the interesting bits. There's lots of bits where you don't really I've only ev was there ten years ago, for a day, so I don't remember, but. I mean, like the {disfmarker} sort of the tourist - y bits {disfmarker}
Professor D: Mm - Well,
Grad C: Everywhere.
Grad B: is it like {disfmarker}
Professor D: you can't get to the Philosophers'Way very well,
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: but, I mean there are hikes that you can't get to, but {disfmarker}
Grad B: OK.
Grad C: Yeah.
Professor D: but I think other things you can, if I remember right.
Grad A: So is like" biking there" {disfmarker} part of like" driving there" ,
Grad C: Yeah, um we actually {disfmarker} biking should be {disfmarker} should be a separate point because we have a very strong bicycle planning component.
Grad A: or {disfmarker}?
Grad C: So.
Professor D: Oh!
Undergrad E: Mmm g that's good.
Grad C: Um.
Professor D: Put it in.
Grad C: Bicycles c should be in there, but, will we have bic I mean is this realistic? I mean {disfmarker}
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: OK, we can leave it out, I guess.
Grad B: Yeah.
Grad C: We can {disfmarker} we can sort of uh, drive {disfmarker}
Grad B: I would {disfmarker} I would lump it with" walk" because hills matter.
Grad C: Yeah.
Grad B: Right? You know. Things like that.
Grad C: Yeah.
Professor D: OK. Skateboards right, anyway.
PhD F: Right.
Professor D: Scooters,
Grad C: Yep.
Professor D: right?
Grad C: OK," Length" is um, you wanna get this over with as fast as possible,
Professor D: Alright.
Grad C: you wanna use some part of what {disfmarker} of the time you have. Um, they can. But we should just make a decision whether we feel that they want to use some substantial or some fraction of their time.
Professor D: Ye
Grad B: Hmm.
Grad C: You know, they wanna do it so badly that they are willing to spend uh {disfmarker} you know the necessary and plus time. And um {disfmarker} And y you know, if we feel that they wanna do nothing but that thing then, you know, we should point out that {disfmarker} to the planner, that they probably want to use all the time they have. So, stretch out that visit for that.
Professor D: Mm - hmm.
Grad B: Wow {disfmarker} It seems like this would be really hard to guess. I mean, on the part of the system. It seems like it {disfmarker} I mean you're {disfmarker} you're talking about rather than having the user decide this you're supposed t we're supposed to figure it out?
Professor D: w well
Grad C: Th - the user can always s say it, but it's just sort of we {disfmarker} we hand over these parameters if we make {disfmarker} if we have a feeling that they are important.
Grad B: Overrider
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: And that we can actually infer them to a significant de degree, or we ask.
Professor D: And {disfmarker}
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: And par yeah, and part of the system design is that if it looks to be important and you can't figure it out, then you ask.
Grad C: Yeah.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: But hopefully you don't ask you know, a all these things all the time.
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: Or {disfmarker} eh so, y but there's th but definitely a back - off position to asking.
Grad B: Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Grad C: And if no {disfmarker} no part of the system ever comes up with the idea that this could be important, no planner is ever gonna ask for it.
Grad B: Yeah.
Grad C: y so {disfmarker} And I like the idea that, you know, sort of {disfmarker} Jerry pushed this idea from the very beginning, that it's part of the understanding business to sort of make a good question of what's s sort of important in this general picture, what you need t
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: If you wanna simulate it, for example, what parameters would you need for the simulation? And, Timing, uh, uh, Length would definitely be part of it," Costs" ," Little money, some money, lots of money" ?
Professor D: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: Actually, maybe uh F {comment} uh so, F Yeah, OK. Hmm?
Grad B: You could say" some" in there.
PhD F: I must say that thi this one looks a bit strange to me. Um {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} It seems like appropriate if I go to Las Vegas. Well {disfmarker} but I decide k kind of how much money uh I'm willing to lose. But a I as a tourist, I'll just paying what's {disfmarker} what's more or less is required.
Professor D: Well, no. I think there are {disfmarker} there're different things where you have a ch choice,
Undergrad E: Mmm.
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: for example, uh this t interacts with" do am I do oh are you willing to take a taxi?" Grad B: Dinner.
Professor D: Or uh, you know, if {disfmarker} if you're going to the opera are you gonna l look for the best seats or the peanut gallery
PhD F: The best seat or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} Right.
Professor D: or, you know,
Grad B: OK. So {disfmarker}
Professor D: whatever? S so I think there are a variety of things in which um {disfmarker} Tour - tourists really do have different styles eating. Another one,
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: you know.
Undergrad E: Right.
PhD F: Right, that's true.
Grad C: The {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what my sort of sentiment is they're {disfmarker} Well, I {disfmarker} I once had to write a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a charter, a carter for a {disfmarker} a student organization. And they had {disfmarker} wanted me to define what the quorum is going to be. And I looked at the other ones and they always said ten percent of the student body has to be present at their general meeting otherwise it's not a {disfmarker} And I wrote in there" En - Enough" people have to be there. And it was hotly debated, but people agreed with me that everybody probably has a good feeling whether it was a farce, a joke, or whether there were enough people.
Grad B: Yeah.
Grad C: And if you go to Turkey, you will find when people go shopping, they will say" How much cheese do you want?" and they say" Ah, enough." And the {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} this used all over the place. Because the person selling the cheese knows, you know, that person has two kids and you know, a husband that dislikes cheese, so this is enough.
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: And um so the middle part is always sort of the {disfmarker} the golden way, right? So you can s you can be really {disfmarker} make it as cheap as possible, or you can say" I want, er, you know, I don't care" Grad B: Money is no object. Mm - hmm.
Grad C: Money is no object,
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad C: or you say" I just want to spend enough" .
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: Or the sufficient, or the the appropriate amount.
Grad B: Yeah.
Grad C: But, Then again, this may turn out to be insufficient for our purposes. But well, this is my first guess,
Grad B: I mean y Yeah.
Grad C: in much the same way as how {disfmarker} how d you know {disfmarker} should the route be? Should it be the easiest route, even if it's a b little bit longer?
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: No steep inclinations? Go the normal way? Whatever that again means, er {disfmarker} or do you {disfmarker} does the person wanna rough it?
Grad B: Mm - hmm. I mean {disfmarker} th so there's a couple of different ways you can interpret these things right? You know {disfmarker}" I want to go there and I don't care if it's really hard." Or if you're an extreme sport person, you know." I wanna go there and I insist on it being the hard way." Professor D: Right.
Grad B: Right? you know, so I assume we're going for the first interpretation,
Undergrad E: Right.
Grad B: right? Something like {disfmarker} I'll go th I mean {disfmarker} I'd li I dunno. It's different from thing to {disfmarker}
Professor D: No, I think he was going for the second one ar actually.
Grad B: Yeah? I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker}
Professor D: Anyway, we'll sort th yeah, we'll sort that out.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: Right.
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: Absolutely.
Grad C: Well, this is all sort of um, top of my head.
Grad B: Yeah.
Grad C: No {disfmarker} no research behind that. Um {disfmarker}" Object information" ," Do I {disfmarker} do I wanna know anything about that object?" is either true or false. And. if I care about it being open, accessible or not, I don't think there's any middle ground there. Um, either I wanna know where it is or not, I wanna know about it's history or not, or, um I wanna know about what it's good for or not. Maybe one could put scales in there, too. So I wanna know a l lot about it.
Professor D: Yeah, now ob OK, I'm sorry, go ahead, what were you gonna say?
Grad C: One could put scales in there. So I wanna know a lot about the history, just a bit.
Professor D: Yeah, right well y i w if we {disfmarker} w right. So" object" becomes" entity" , right?
Grad C: Yep, that's true.
Professor D: Yeah, but we don't have to do it now.
Grad C: Yep. That was the wrong shortcut anyhow.
Professor D: And we think that's it, interestingly enough, that um, you know, th or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or something very close to it is going to be uh {disfmarker} going to be enough. And {disfmarker}
Undergrad E: Still wrong.
Grad C: Yeah.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: Alright, so um {disfmarker} So I think the order of things is that um, Robert will clean this up a little bit, although it looks pretty good. And {disfmarker}
Grad C: What, well this is the part that {disfmarker}
Professor D: Huh?
Grad C: this is the part that needs the work.
Professor D: Right.
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: Yeah, so {disfmarker} right, so {disfmarker} So, um In parallel, uh {disfmarker} three things are going to happen. Uh Robert and Eva and Bhaskara are gonna actually {disfmarker} build a belief - net that {disfmarker} that, um, has CPT's and, you know, tries to infer this from various kinds of information. And Fey is going to start collecting data, and we're gonna start thinking a about {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} what constructions we want to elicit. And then w go it may iterate on uh, further data collection to elicit {disfmarker}
Grad B: D Do you mean {disfmarker} Do you mean eliciting particular constructions? Or do you mean like what kinds of things we want to get people talking about? Semantically speaking, eh?
Professor D: Well, yes.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: Both. Uh, and {disfmarker} Though for us, constructions are primarily semantic, right?
Grad B: Right. Sure.
Professor D: And {disfmarker} And so {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker}
Grad B: I mean from my point of view I'm {disfmarker} I'm trying to care about the syntax, so you know {disfmarker}
Professor D: Well that too,
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: but um {disfmarker} You know if th if we in {disfmarker} if we you know, make sure that we get them talking about temporal order.
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: OK, that would be great and if th if they use prepositional phrases or subordinate clauses or whatever,
Grad B: Mm - hmm. Right. OK.
Professor D: um {disfmarker} W You know, whatever form they use is fine.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: But I {disfmarker} I think that probably we're gonna try to look at it as you know, s what semantic constructions d do we {disfmarker} do we want them to uh do direc
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: you know, um," Caused motion" , I don't know, something like that.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: Uh But, Eh - uh this is actually a conversation you and I have to have about your thesis fantasies, and how all this fits into that.
Grad B: Got it. Yeah. Uh Yeah. OK.
Professor D: But uh {disfmarker}
Grad C: Well, I will tell you the German tourist data.
Grad B: OK.
Grad C: Because I have not been able to dig out all the stuff out of the m ta thirty D V
Grad B: OK.
Grad C: Um {disfmarker} If you {disfmarker}
Grad B: Is that roughly the equivalent of {disfmarker} of what I've seen in English or is it {disfmarker}
Grad C: No, not at all.
Grad B: OK.
Grad C: Dialogues. SmartKom {disfmarker}
Grad B: OK.
Grad C: SmartKom {disfmarker} Human. Wizard of Oz.
Grad B: OK. Same {disfmarker} OK, that. Got it. Like what {disfmarker} What have I got now? I mean I have uh what {disfmarker} what I'm loo what I {disfmarker} Those files that you sent me are the user side of some interaction with Fey?
Grad C: A little bit of data, I {disfmarker}
Grad B: Is that what it is? Or {disfmarker}?
Grad C: With nothing.
Grad B: Just talking into a box and not hearing anything back.
Professor D: No, no.
Grad C: Yep.
Grad B: OK.
Grad C: Yep. Some data I collected in a couple weeks for training recognizers and email way back when.
Grad B: OK. OK.
Grad C: Nothing to write home about.
Grad B: OK.
Grad C: And um {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} see this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} ontology node is probably something that I will try to expand. Once we have the full ontology API, what can we expect to get from the ontology? And hopefully you can sort of also try to find out, you know, sooner or later in the course of the summer what we can expect to get from the discourse that might, you know {disfmarker} or the {disfmarker}
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: not the discourse, the utterance as it were, uh,
Professor D: mm - hmm.
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Professor D: Right.
Grad C: in terms of uh {disfmarker}
Professor D: Right, but we're not expecting Keith to actually build a parser.
Grad B: Right, Right.
Grad C: No, no, no, no, no.
Professor D: OK. We are expecting Johno to build a parser,
Grad C: Uh, this is {disfmarker} Yes.
Grad B: By the end of the summer, too.
Professor D: but that's a {disfmarker} No.
Grad C: No.
Professor D: No. Uh {disfmarker} He's g he's hoping to do this for his masters'thesis s by a year from now.
Grad C: But it's sort of {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker}
Grad B: Right. Hmm. Still, pretty formidable actually.
Professor D: Eh - absolutely. Uh {disfmarker} limited. I mean, you know, the idea is {disfmarker} is,
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: Well, the hope is that the parser itself is, uh, pretty robust. But it's not popular {disfmarker} it's only p only {disfmarker}
Grad B: Right, Right. Existence proof, you know. Set up the infrastructure,
Professor D: Right. It's only popula
Grad B: yeah.
Professor D: Right.
Grad B: Um sometime, I have to talk to some subset of the people in this group, at least about um what sort of constructions I'm looking for. I mean, you know obviously like just again, looking at this one uh thing, you know, I saw y things from {disfmarker} sort of as general as argument structure constructions. Oh, you know, I have to do Verb Phrase. I have to do uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} unbounded dependencies, you know, which have a variety of constructions in {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} instantiate that. On the other hand I have to have, you know, there's particular uh, fixed expressions, or semi - fixed expressions like" Get" plus path expression for, you know," how d ho how do I get there?" ,
Professor D: Mm - hmm.
Grad B:" How do I get in?" ," How do I get away?" Professor D: Right.
Grad B: and all that kind of stuff. Um, so there's a variety of sort of different sorts of constructions
Professor D: Absolutely.
Grad B: and it {disfmarker} you know it's {disfmarker} it's sort of like anything goes. Like {disfmarker}
Professor D: OK, so this is {disfmarker} I think we're gonna mainly work on with George.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: OK, and hi let me f th {disfmarker} say what I think is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} so the idea is {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} first of all I misspoke when I said we thought you should do the constructions. Cause apparently for a linguist that means to do completely and perfectly. So what I {disfmarker} yeah, OK, {disfmarker} So what {disfmarker} what I meant was" Do a first cut at" .
Grad B: er {disfmarker} that's what Yeah, yeah.
Professor D: OK, Because uh {disfmarker} we do wanna get them r u perfectly {disfmarker} but I think we're gonna have to do a first cut at a lot of them to see how they interact.
Grad B: Of course. Right, exactly. Now it {disfmarker} w we talked about this before, right. And I {disfmarker} I me it would it would be completely out of the question to really do more than, say, like, oh I don't know, ten, over the summer,
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad B: but uh, but you know obviously we need to get sort of a general view of what things look like, so yeah.
Professor D: Right. So the idea is going to be to do {disfmarker} sort of like Nancy did in some of the er these papers where you do enough of them so you can go from top to bottom {disfmarker} so you can do f you know, f f uh {disfmarker} have a complete story ov of s of some piece of dialogue.
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Professor D: And that's gonna be much more useful than having all of the clausal constructions and nothing else, or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or something like that.
Grad B: Yeah. Sure. Yeah.
Professor D: So that the {disfmarker} the trick is going to be t to take this and pick a {disfmarker} some sort of lattice of constructions,
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Professor D: so some lexical and some phrasal, and {disfmarker} and, you know,
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Professor D: whatever you need in order to uh, be able to then, uh, by hand, you know, explain, some fraction of the utterances.
Grad B: Mm - hmm. Yeah.
Professor D: And so, exactly which ones will partly depend on your research interests and a bunch of other things.
Grad B: Mm - hmm. Sure. OK. But I mean in terms of the s th sort of level of uh {disfmarker} of analysis, you know, these don't necessarily have to be more complex than like the" Out of" construction in the BCP paper where it's just like, you know, half a page on each one or something.
Professor D: Correct. Oh yeah {disfmarker} yeah. V a half a page is {disfmarker} is what we'd like.
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: And if {disfmarker} if there's something that really requires a lot more than that then it does and we have to do it,
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: but {disfmarker}
Grad B: For the first cut, that should be fine, yeah.
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad C: We could sit down and think of sort of the {disfmarker} the ideal speaker utterances,
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: and I mean two or three that follow each other, so, where we can also sort of, once we have everything up and running, show the tremendous, insane inferencing capabilities of our system.
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: So, you know, as {disfmarker} as the SmartKom people have. This is sort of their standard demo dialogue, which is, you know, what the system survives and nothing but that.
Grad B: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
Grad C: Um, we could also sor sort of have the analogen of o our sample sentences, the ideal sentences where we have complete construction coverage and, sort of, they match nicely.
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: So the {disfmarker} the" How do I get to X?" ,
Grad B: Yeah.
Grad C: you know, that's definitely gonna be uh, a major one.
Grad B: Yeah. That's about six times in this little one here, so uh, {vocalsound} yeah.
Grad C: Yep.
Professor D: Right.
Grad C:" Where is X?" might be another one which is not too complicated.
Grad B: Yeah. Mm - hmm.
Grad C: And um" Tell me something about X." Grad B: Yeah.
Grad C: And hey, that's {disfmarker} that's already covering eighty percent of the system's functionality.
Professor D: Ye - Right, but it's not covering eighty percent of the intellectual interest.
Grad B: Yeah.
Grad C: No, we can w throw in an" Out of Film" construction if you want to, but {disfmarker}
Professor D: No, no, no. Well the {disfmarker} th the thing is there's a lot that needs to be done to get this right.
Grad C: OK.
Professor D: OK, I th We done?
Grad C: I have one bit of news.
Professor D: Good.
Grad C: Um, the action planner guy has wrote {disfmarker} has written a {disfmarker} a p lengthy {disfmarker} proposal on how he wants to do the action planning.
Professor D: Good.
Grad C: And I responded to him, also rather lengthy, how he should do the action planning. And {disfmarker}
Professor D:" Action planning" meaning" Discourse Modeling" ?
Grad C: Yes. And I tacked on a little paragraph about the fact that the whole world calls that module a dis disc dialogue manager,
Professor D: Right.
Grad C: and wouldn't it make sense to do this here too?
Professor D: Right.
Grad C: And also Rainer M Malaka is going to be visiting us shortly, most likely in the beginning of June.
Professor D: Uh - huh, I'll be gone.
Grad C: Yeah. He - he's just in a conference somewhere and he is just swinging through town.
Professor D: Sure, OK.
Grad C: And um {disfmarker} m making me incapable of going to NAACL, for which I had funding. But. No, no Pittsburg this year.
Grad B: Hmm.
Grad C: When is the uh Santa Barbara?
Professor D: S
Grad C: Who is going to? uh should a lot of people. That's something I will {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} sort of enjoy.
Professor D: Probably should go. That was {disfmarker} that's one you should probably go to.
Grad C: Yep.
Grad B: How much does it cost?
Grad C: There's
Grad B: I haven't planned to go.
Professor D: Uh, probably we can uh {disfmarker} pay for it.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: Um a student rate shouldn't be very high. So, if we all decide it's a good idea for you to go then you'll {disfmarker} we'll pay for it.
Grad B: Right. Sure.
Undergrad E: Then you can go.
Professor D: I mean I {disfmarker} I don't have a feeling one way or the other at the moment,
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: but it probably is. OK, great.
Grad B: Thanks. | The data collection that will provide relevant dialogues is moving along, with thirty subjects already lined up. They will be given a reading task, which will include some german proper names, and a series of tasks from the tourist domain to choose from. In order to get directions, they will then communicate with a computer system and a human operator, using a sketchy map as an aid. A different set of data are already available from the SmartKom system and similar sources. | qmsum |
What was the focus of the meeting? .
Grad C: Now can you give me the uh {pause} remote T?
Professor D: OK, so Eva, co uh {disfmarker} could you read your numbers?
Grad A: Go ahead and read. OK.
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad C: Alright.
Professor D: Yeah, let's get started. Um {disfmarker} Hopefully Nancy will come, if not, she won't.
Grad B: Uh, Robert, do you uh have any way to turn off your uh screensaver on there so that it's not going off every {disfmarker} uh, it seems to have about at two minute {disfmarker}
Grad C: Yeah, I've {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} it's not that I didn't try.
Grad B: OK.
Grad C: and um I {disfmarker} I told it to stay on forever and ever, but if it's not plugged in it just doesn't obey my commands.
Grad B: OK.
Grad C: It has a mind.
Grad B: Got it.
Grad C: But I I just {disfmarker} You know, sort of keep on wiggling.
Undergrad E: Wants to conserve.
Grad B: Yeah, OK.
Grad C: But uh {disfmarker} we'll just be m m working on it at intensity so it doesn't happen. We'll see. Should we plunge right into it?
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad C: So, would you like to {disfmarker}
Professor D: I think so.
Grad C: So what I've tried to do here is list all the decision nodes that we have identified on this {pause} side. Commented and {disfmarker} what they're about and sort of {disfmarker} the properties we may um give them. And here are the uh {disfmarker} tasks to be implemented via our data collection. So all of these tasks {disfmarker} The reading is out of these tasks more or less imply that the user wants to go there, sometime or the other. And analogously for example, here we have our EVA um {disfmarker} intention. And these are the data tasks where w we can assume the person would like to enter, view or just approach the thing. Analogously the same on the object information we can see that, you know, we have sort of created these tasks before we came up with our decision nodes so there's a lot of things where we have no analogous tasks, and {pause} that may or may not be a problem. We can change the tasks slightly if we feel that we should have data for e sort of for every decision node so {disfmarker} trying to im um {disfmarker} implant the intention of going to a place now, going to a place later on the same tour, or trying to plant the intention of going sometime on the next tour, or the next day or whenever.
Professor D: Right, right.
Grad C: But I think that might be overdoing it a little.
Professor D: So {disfmarker} Yeah. So let me pop up a level. And uh s s make sure that we're all oriented the same. So What we're gonna do today is two related things. Uh one of them is to work on the semantics of the belief - net which is going to be the main inference engine for thi the system uh making decisions. And decisions are going to turn out to be parameter choices for calls on other modules. so f the natural language understanding thing is uh, we think gonna only have to choose parameters, but You know, a fairly large set of parameters. So to do that, we need to do two things. One of which is figure out what all the choices are, which we've done a fair amount. Then we need to figure out what influences its choices and finally we have to do some technical work on the actual belief relations and presumably estimates of the probabilities and stuff. But we aren't gonna do the probability stuff today. Technical stuff we'll do {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} another day. Probably next week. But we are gonna worry about all the decisions and the things that pert that contribute to them. And we're also, sort of uh in the same process, going to work with Fey on what there should be in the dialogues. So One of the s steps that's coming up real soon is to actually get subjects uh {disfmarker} in here, and have them actually record like this. Uh record dialogues more or less. And {disfmarker} depending on what Fey sort of provokes them to say, we'll get information on different things.
Grad C: Well how people phrase different intentions more or less,
Professor D: So {disfmarker} Fo - v yeah people with the {disfmarker} phrase them
Grad C: huh?
Professor D: and so {disfmarker} Uh for, you know, Keith and people worrying about what constructions people use, uh {disfmarker} we have some i we have some ways to affect that by the way the dialogues go. So what Robert kindly did, is to lay out a table of the kinds of uh {pause} things that {disfmarker} that might come up, and, the kinds of decisions. So the uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} on the left are decision nodes, and discreet values. So if {disfmarker} if we're right, you can get by with um just this middle column worth of decisions, and it's not all that many, and it's perfectly feasible technically to build belief - nets that will do that. And he has a handout.
Grad C: Yeah. Maybe it was too fast plunging in there, because j we have two updates.
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad C: Um you can look at this if you want, these are what our subject's going to have to fill out. Any comments I can {disfmarker} can still be made and the changes will be put in correspondingly.
Undergrad E: m {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yes.
Grad C: Let me summarize in two sentences, mainly for Eva's benefit, who probably has not heard about the data collection, at all.
Grad A: OK.
Grad C: Or have you heard about it?
Grad A: Not that much you didn't.
Grad C: No. OK. We were gonna put this in front of people. They give us some information on themselves.
Grad A: OK.
Grad C: Then {disfmarker} then they will read uh {disfmarker} a task where lots of German words are sort of thrown in between. And um {disfmarker} and they have to read isolated proper names And these change {disfmarker}
Professor D: S I don't see a release
Grad C: No, this is not the release form. This is the speaker information form.
Professor D: Got it. OK, fine. OK.
Grad C: The release form is over there in that box.
Professor D: Alright, fair enough.
Grad C: And um {disfmarker} And then they gonna have to f um um choose from one of these tasks, which are listed here. They {disfmarker} they pick a couple, say three {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh six as a matter of fact. Six different things they sort of think they would do if they were in Heidelberg or traveling someplace {disfmarker} and um {disfmarker} and they have a map.
Grad B: Hmm.
Grad C: Like this. Very sketchy, simplified map. And they can take notes on that map. And then they call this computer system that works perfectly, and understands everything.
Grad A: OK.
Grad C: And um {disfmarker}
Grad B: This is a fictional system obviously,
Grad C: The comp Yeah, the computer system sits right in front of you,
Grad B: huh.
Grad C: that's Fey.
Undergrad E: I've {disfmarker} I understand everything.
Professor D: And she does know everything.
Undergrad E: Yes I do.
Grad C: And she has a way of making this machine talk. So she can copy sentences into a window, or type really fast and this machine will use speech synthesis to produce that. So if you ask" How do I get to the castle" then a m s several seconds later it'll come out of here" In order to get to the castle you do {disfmarker}" Grad B: Yeah.
Grad C: OK? And um {disfmarker} And then after three tasks the system breaks down. And Fey comes on the phone as a human operator. And says" Sorry the system broke down but let's continue." And we sort of get the idea what people do when they s think they speak to a machine and what people say when they think they speak to a human, or know, or assume they speak to a human.
Grad A: OK. Huh.
Grad B: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
Grad C: That's the data collection. And um {disfmarker} And Fey has some thirty subjects lined up? Something?
Undergrad E: Yeah.
Grad C: And um {disfmarker} And they're {disfmarker} r ready uh {disfmarker} to roll.
Undergrad E: And more and more every day.
Grad C: And we're gonna start tomorrow at three? four? one?
Undergrad E: Tomorrow, well we don't know for sure. Because we don't know whether that person is coming or not,
Grad C: OK. Around four - ish.
Undergrad E: but {disfmarker}
Grad C: And um we're still l looking for a room on the sixth floor because they stole away that conference room. Um {disfmarker} behind our backs. But {disfmarker}
Professor D: Well, there are these {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} oh, I see, we have to {disfmarker} Yeah, it's tricky. We'll {disfmarker} let's {disfmarker} let {disfmarker} we'll do that off - line, OK.
Grad C: Yeah, but I {disfmarker} i i it's happening. David and {disfmarker} and Jane and {disfmarker} and Lila are working on that as we speak.
Professor D: OK.
Grad C: OK. That was the uh {disfmarker} the data collection in a nutshell. And um {disfmarker} I can report a {disfmarker} so I did this but I also tried to do this {disfmarker} so if I click on here, Isn't this wonderful? we get to the uh {disfmarker} uh belief - net just focusing on {disfmarker} on the g Go - there node. uh {disfmarker} Analogously this would be sort of the reason node and the timing node and so forth.
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: And what w what happened is that um design - wise I'd sort of n noticed that we can {disfmarker} we still get a lot of errors from a lot of points to one of these sub Go - there User Go - there Situation nodes. So I came up with a couple of additional nodes here where um whether the user is thrifty or not, and what his budget is currently like, is going to result in some financial state of the user. How much will he {disfmarker} is he willing to spend? Or can spend. Being the same at this {disfmarker} just the money available, which may influence us, whether he wants to go there if it is {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} charging tons of dollars for admission or its gonna g cost a lot of t e whatever. Twenty - two million to fly to International Space Station, you know. just {disfmarker} Not all people can do that.
Professor D: Right.
Grad C: So, and this actually turned out to be pretty key, because having specified sort of these {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} intermediate level Um and sort of noticing that everything that happens here {disfmarker} let's go to our favorite endpoint one is again more or less {disfmarker} we have {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} then the situation nodes contributing to the {disfmarker} the endpoint situation node, which contributes to the endpoint and so forth. um {disfmarker} I can now sort of draw straight lines from these to here, meaning it g of course goes where the sub - S {disfmarker} everything that comes from situation, everything that comes from user goes with the sub - U, and whatever we specify for the so - called" Keith node" , or the discourse, what comes from the {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} parser, construction parser, um will contribute to the D and the ontology to the sub - O node. And um one just s sort of has to watch which {disfmarker} also final decision node so it doesn't make sense {disfmarker} t to figure out whether he wants to enter, view or approach an object if he never wants to go there in the first place. But this makes the design thing fairly simple. And um now all w that's left to do then is the CPG's, the conditional probabilities, for the likelihood of a person having enough money, actually wanting to go a place if it costs, you know this or that. And um {disfmarker} OK. and once um Bhaskara has finished his classwork that's where we're gonna end up doing. You get involved in that process too. And um {disfmarker} And for now uh the {disfmarker} the question is" How much of these decisions do we want to build in explicitly into our data collection?" So {disfmarker} Um, one could {disfmarker} sort of {disfmarker} think of {disfmarker} you know we could call the z see or {disfmarker} you know, people who visit the zoo we could s call it" Visit the zoo tomorrow" , so we have an intention of seeing something, but not now {disfmarker} but later.
Professor D: Right. Yeah. Yeah, so {disfmarker} let's s uh s see I th I think that from one point of view, Uh, um, all these places are the same, so that d d That, um {disfmarker} in terms of the linguistics and stuff, there may be a few different kinds of places, so I th i it seems to me that We ought to decide you know, what things are k are actually going to matter to us. And um, so the zoo, and the university and the castle, et cetera. Um are all big - ish things that um {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} have different parts to them, and one of them might be fine.
Grad C: Hmm. Hmm, hmm. Yeah {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} the reason why we did it that way, as a {disfmarker} as a reminder, is uh {disfmarker} no person is gonna do all of them.
Professor D: And {disfmarker}
Grad C: They're just gonna select u um, according to their preferences.
Professor D: Yeah, yeah.
Grad C:" Ah, yeah, I usually visit zoos, or I usually visit castles, or I usually {disfmarker}" And then you pick that one.
Professor D: Right, no no, but {disfmarker} but s th point is to {disfmarker} to y to {disfmarker} build a system that's got everything in it that might happen you do one thing.
Undergrad E: They're redundant.
Professor D: T to build a system that um {disfmarker} had the most data on a relatively confined set of things, you do something else. And the speech people, for example, are gonna do better if they {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} things come up uh {disfmarker} repeatedly. Now, of course, if everybody says exactly the same thing then it's not interesting. So, all I'm saying is i th there's {disfmarker} there's a kind of question of what we're trying t to accomplish. and {disfmarker} I think my temptation for the data gathering would be to uh, you know {disfmarker} And each person is only gonna do it once, so you don't have to worry about them being bored, so if {disfmarker} if it's one service, one luxury item, you know, one big - ish place, and so forth and so on, um {disfmarker} then my guess is that {disfmarker} that the data is going to be easier to handle. Now of course you have this I guess possible danger that somehow there're certain constructions that people use uh when talking about a museum that they wouldn't talk about with a university and stuff, um {disfmarker} but I guess I'm {disfmarker} I uh m my temptation is to go for simpler. You know, less variation. But I don't know what other people think about this in terms of {disfmarker}
Grad B: So I don't exactly understand {disfmarker}
Professor D: uh {disfmarker}
Grad B: like I I {disfmarker} I guess we're trying to {disfmarker} limit the detail of our ontology or types of places that someone could go, right? But who is it that has to care about this, or what component of the system?
Professor D: Oh, well, uh {disfmarker} th I think there are two places where it comes up. One is uh {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} th these people who are gonna take this and {disfmarker} and try to do speech with it.
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Professor D: uh {disfmarker} Lots of pronunciations of th of the same thing are going to give you better data than l you know, a few pronunciations of lots more things.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: That's one.
Grad B: So we would rather just ask {disfmarker} uh have a bunch of people talk about the zoo, uh and assume that that will {disfmarker} that the constructions that they use there will give us everything we need to know about these sort of zoo, castle, whatever type things, these bigger places.
Professor D: Bigger {disfmarker} Y yeah thi well this is a question for {disfmarker}
Grad B: And that way you get the speech data of people saying" zoo" over and over again or whatever too.
Professor D: Yeah. Yeah.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: Yeah. So this is a question for you,
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Professor D: and, you know, if we {disfmarker} if we do, and we probably will, actually try to uh build a prototype, uh probably we could get by with the prototype only handling a few of them anyway. So, Um {disfmarker}
Grad C: Yeah, the this was sort of {disfmarker} these are all different sort of activities. Um But I think y I {disfmarker} I got the point and I think I like it. We can do {disfmarker} put them in a more hierarchical fashion. So," Go to place" and then give them a choice, you know either they're the symphony type or opera type or the tourist site guide type or the nightclub disco type person and they say" yeah this is {disfmarker} on that" go to big - ish place" ,
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: this is what I would do." And then we have the" Fix" thing, and then maybe" Do something the other day" thing, so. My question is {disfmarker} I guess, to some extent, we should {disfmarker} y we just have to try it out and see if it works. It would be challenging, in {disfmarker} in a sense, to try to make it so {disfmarker} so complex that they even really should schedule, or to plan it, uh, a more complex thing in terms of OK, you know, they should get the feeling that there are these s six things they have to do and they sh can be done maybe in two days.
Professor D: Well {disfmarker} yeah.
Grad C: So they make these decisions,
Professor D: Well I think th th
Grad C:" Can I go there tomorrow?" Professor D: yeah.
Grad C: or {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} influences
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Professor D: Yeah. Well, I think it's easy enough to set that up if that's your expectation. So, the uh system could say," Well, uh we'd like to {disfmarker} to set up your program for two days in Heidelberg, you know, let's first think about all the things you might like to do. So there {disfmarker} th i i in {disfmarker} I mean {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} I th I {disfmarker} I'm sure that if that's what you did then they would start telling you about that, and then you could get into um various things about ordering, if you wanted.
Grad C: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Yeah, but I think this is part of the instructor's job. And that can be done, sort of to say," OK now we've picked these six tasks." " Now you have you can call the system and you have two days." Professor D: I'm sorry.
Grad C: And th w
Professor D: No, we have to help {disfmarker} we have to decide. Fey will p carry out whatever we decide. But we have to decide you know, what is the appropriate scenario. That's what we're gonna talk about t yeah.
Grad C: Yep, yep.
PhD F: But these are two different scenarios entirely. I mean, one is a planner {disfmarker} The other, it kind of give you instructions on the spot
Grad C: Yeah, but th the {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I'm not really interested in sort of" Phase planning" capabilities. But it's more the {disfmarker} how do people phrase these planning requests? So are we gonna masquerade the system as this {disfmarker} as you said simple response system," I have one question I get one response" , or should we allow for a certain level of complexity. And a I w think the data would be nicer if we get temporal references.
Professor D: Well, so Keith, what do you think?
Grad B: Well, um it seems that {disfmarker} Yeah, I mean, off the top of my head it kinda seems like you would probably just want, you know, richer data, more complex stuff going on, people trying to do more complex sets of things. I mean {pause} you know, if our goal is to really sort of be able to handle a whole bunch of different stuff, then throwing harder situations at people will get them to do more linguistic {disfmarker} more interesting linguistic stuff. But I mean {disfmarker} I'm {disfmarker} I'm not really sure Uh, because I don't fully understand like what our choices are of ways to do this here yet.
Grad C: I mean w we have tested this and a y have you heard {disfmarker} listen to the f first two or th as a matter of fact the second person is uh {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} was faced with exactly this kind of setup.
Grad B: I started to listen to one and it was just like, um, uh, sort of depressing.
Grad C: And {disfmarker}
Grad B: I thought I'd just sort of listen to the beginning part and the person was just sort of reading off her script or something. And.
Grad C: Oh, OK. That was the first subject.
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: First one wasn't very good.
Grad B: Yeah.
Grad C: Yeah.
Grad B: So um, I {disfmarker}
Grad C: Um, it is {disfmarker} already with this it got pretty {disfmarker} with this setup and that particular subject it got pretty complex.
Undergrad E: Although {disfmarker}
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: Maybe {disfmarker} I suggest we make some fine tuning of these, get {disfmarker} sort of {disfmarker} run through ten or so subjects
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: and then take a breather, and see whether we wanna make it more complex or not, depending on what {disfmarker} what sort of results we're getting.
Grad B: Right. Yeah. It {disfmarker} In fact, um, I am just you know {disfmarker} today, next couple days gonna start really diving into this data. I've basically looked at one of the files {disfmarker} you know one of these {disfmarker} l y y y you gave me those dozens of files and I looked at one of them which was about ten sentences, found fifteen, twenty different construction types that we would have to look for and so on and like," alright, well, let's start here." Um. So I haven't really gone into the, you know {disfmarker} looked at all of the stuff that's going on. So I don't really {disfmarker} Right, I mean, once I start doing that I'll have more to say about this kind of thing.
Professor D: OK.
Grad C: And y and always {disfmarker}
Professor D: But well th but you did say something important, which is that um you can probably keep yourself fairly well occupied uh {disfmarker} with the simple cases for quite a while.
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: Although, obviously th so {disfmarker} so that sa s does suggest that {disfmarker} Uh, now, I have looked at all the data, and it's pre it's actually at least to an amateur, quite redundant.
Grad B: Yeah, Yeah.
Professor D: That {disfmarker} that it was {disfmarker} it was very stylized, and quite a lot of people said more or less the same thing.
Grad B: I um {disfmarker} I did sort of scan it at first and noticed that, and then looked in detail at one of them.
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad B: But yeah, yeah I noticed that, too.
Professor D: So, we {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we wanna do more than that.
Grad C: And with this we're getting more. No question.
Professor D: OK. Right. So {disfmarker}
Grad C: uh w do we wanna get going beyond more, which is sort of the {disfmarker}
Professor D: Well, OK, so let's {disfmarker} let's take {disfmarker} let's I {disfmarker} I think your suggestion is good, which is we'll do a b uh {disfmarker} a batch. OK. And, uh, Fey, How long is it gonna be till you have ten subjects? Couple days? Or thr f a A week? Or {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't have a feel for th
Undergrad E: Um {disfmarker} I can {disfmarker} Yeah, I mean I s I think can probably schedule ten people, uh, whenever.
Professor D: Well, it's {disfmarker} it's up to you, I mean I j I {disfmarker} uh e We don't have any huge time pressure. It's just {disfmarker} when you have t
Undergrad E: How long will it be?
Professor D: Yeah.
Undergrad E: Um {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I would say maybe two weeks.
Professor D: Oh, OK. So let's do this. Let's plan next Monday, OK, to have a review of what we have so far.
Grad C: This means audio, but {disfmarker}
Professor D: and {disfmarker} Huh?
Grad C: no transcriptions of course, yeah.
Professor D: No, we won't have the transcriptions, but what we should be able to do and I don't know if, Fey, if you will have time to do this, but it would be great if you could, um, not transcribe it all, but pick out uh, some stuff. I mean we could lis uh {disfmarker} just sit here and listen to it all. Are you gonna have the audio on the web site? OK.
Grad C: Until we reach the gigabyte thing and David Johnson s ki kills me. And we're gonna put it on the web site. Yeah.
Professor D: Oh, we could get {disfmarker} I mean, you can buy another disk for two hundred dollars, right? I mean it's {disfmarker} it's not like {disfmarker} OK. So, we'll take care of David Johnson.
Grad C: No, he {disfmarker} uh, he {disfmarker} he has been solving all our problems or {disfmarker} is wonderful,
Professor D: OK.
Undergrad E: Take {disfmarker} care of him.
Professor D: OK.
Grad C: so s
Professor D: Alright. So we'll buy a disk. But anyway, so, um, If you {disfmarker} if you can think of a way {disfmarker} to uh, point us to th to interesting things, sort of as you're doing this or {disfmarker} or something uh, make your {disfmarker} make notes or something that {disfmarker} that this is, you know, something worth looking at. And other than that, yeah I guess we'll just have to uh, listen {disfmarker} although I guess it's only ten minutes each, right? Roughly.
Undergrad E: Well, I guess. I'm not sure how long it's actually going to take.
Grad C: The reading task is a lot shorter. That was cut by fifty percent. And the reading, nobody's interested in that except for the speech people.
Professor D: Right. No, we don't care about that at all.
Grad C: So. It's actually like five minutes dialogue.
Professor D: I b My guess is it's gonna be ten.
Grad C: Ten minutes is long.
Professor D: People {disfmarker} I understand, but people {disfmarker} people {disfmarker} you know uh {disfmarker}
Undergrad E: It feels like a long time
Grad C: Yeah.
Undergrad E: but.
Grad C: It feels like forever when you're doing it,
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad C: but then it turns out to be three minutes and forty five seconds.
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: Could be. OK. I was thinking people would, you know, hesitate and {disfmarker} Whatever. Whatever it is we'll {disfmarker} we'll deal with it.
Grad C: Yeah, it's not {disfmarker} And it's fun.
Professor D: OK, so that'll be {disfmarker} that'll be {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on the web page.
Grad C: OK.
Professor D: That's great. Um But anyway {disfmarker} yeah, so I think {disfmarker} it's a good idea to start with the sort of relatively straight forward res just response system. And then if we want to uh {disfmarker} get them to start doing {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} multiple step planning with a whole bunch of things and then organize them an um tell them which things are near each other and {disfmarker} you know, any of that stuff. uh {disfmarker} You know," Which things would you like to do Tuesday morning?" Grad C: Yeah.
Professor D: So yeah I {disfmarker} th that seems {disfmarker} pretty straight forward.
Undergrad E: But were you saying that {disfmarker}
Grad C: I need those back by the way.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: OK.
Undergrad E: Yeah.
Grad C: That's for {disfmarker}
Professor D: I'm sorry, Fey, what?
Undergrad E: That w maybe one thing we should do is go through this list and sort of select things that are categories and then o offer only one member of that category?
Professor D: That's what I was suggesting for the first round, yeah.
Undergrad E: OK.
Grad B: So rather than having zoo and castle.
Undergrad E: And then, I mean, they could be alternate versions of the same {disfmarker} If you wanted data on different constructions.
Professor D: They could, but i but i uh tha eh they c yeah, but {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} but {disfmarker}
Undergrad E: Like one person gets the version with the zoo as a choice, and the other person gets the {disfmarker}
Professor D: You could, but i but I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I think in the short run, {disfmarker}
Grad C: And no, th the per the person don't get it. I mean, this is why we did it, because when we gave them just three tasks for w part - A and three tasks for part - B a
Professor D: Right. Yeah.
Undergrad E: Well no, they could still choose. They just wouldn't be able to choose both zoo and say, touring the castle.
Grad C: Exactly. This is limiting the choices, but yeah. Right. OK, sorry. But um I {disfmarker} I think this approach will very well work, but the person was able to look at it and say" OK, This is what I would actually do." Undergrad E: Yeah.
Grad C: Yeah.
Professor D: OK.
Grad C: OK.
Undergrad E: He was vicious.
Grad C: OK, we gotta {disfmarker} we gotta disallow uh {disfmarker} traveling to zoos and uh castles at the same time, sort of {disfmarker}
Undergrad E: I mean there {disfmarker} they are significantly different, but.
Grad C: But no, they're {disfmarker} I mean they're sort of {disfmarker} this is where tour becomes {disfmarker} you know tourists maybe a bit different
Undergrad E: Yeah, I guess so.
Grad C: and, um, these are just places where you {disfmarker} you enter um, much like here.
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad C: But we can uh {disfmarker}
Professor D: Yeah, in fact if y if y if you use the right verb for each in common, like at you know," attend a theater, symphony or opera" is {disfmarker} is a group, and" tour the university, castle or zoo" ,
Grad C: mm - hmm Yeah.
Professor D: all of these d do have this kind of" tour" um {disfmarker} aspect about the way you would go to them. And uh, the movie theater is probably also uh {disfmarker} e is a" attend" et cetera.
Grad C: Attend, yeah.
Professor D: So it may turn out to be not so many different kinds of things,
Grad C: Hmm, mm - hmm.
Professor D: and then, what one would expect is that {disfmarker} that the sentence types would {disfmarker} uh their responses would tend to be grouped according to the kind of activity, you would expect.
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
PhD F: But I mean i it seem that um {disfmarker} there is a difference between going {disfmarker} to see something, and things like" exchange money" or" dine out" Professor D: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
PhD F: uh {disfmarker} @ @ function, yeah.
Grad C: Yeah, this is where {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} th the function stuff is definitely different and the getting information or g stuff {disfmarker} yeah. OK. But this is open. So since people gonna still pick something, we we're not gonna get any significant amount of redundancy. And for reasons, we don't want it, really, in that sense. And um we would be ultimately more interested in getting all the possible ways of people asking, oh, for different things with {disfmarker} or with a computer. And so if you can think of any other sort of high level tasks a tourist may do just always {disfmarker} just m mail them to us and we'll sneak them into the collection. We're not gonna do much statistical stuff with it.
Professor D: We don't have enough.
Grad C: No. But it seems like since we {disfmarker} since we are getting towards uh subject {disfmarker} uh fifty subjects and if we can keep it up um to a {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} sort of five four - ish per week rate, we may even reach the one hundred before Fey t takes off to Chicago.
Undergrad E: That means that one hundred people have to be interested.
Grad B: Good luck.
Undergrad E: Yeah.
Professor D: Well, um, these are all f people off campus s from campus so far,
Undergrad E: Yeah.
Professor D: right?
Undergrad E: Yeah.
Professor D: So we {disfmarker} yeah we don't know how many we can get next door at the {disfmarker} uh shelter for example.
Grad B: Hmm.
Professor D: Uh for ten bucks, probably quite a few.
Grad B: Yeah. That's right.
Professor D: Yeah. So, alright, so let's go {disfmarker} let's go back then, to the {disfmarker} the chart with all the decisions and stuff, and see how we're doing.
Grad C: Yep.
Professor D: Do {disfmarker} do people think that, you know this is {disfmarker} is gonna {disfmarker} um cover what we need, or should we be thinking about more?
Grad C: Okay, in terms of decision nodes? I mean, Go - there is {disfmarker} is a yes or no.
Professor D: Yep.
Grad C: Right?
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Professor D: Yep.
Grad C: I'm also interested in th in this" property" uh line here, so if you look at {disfmarker} sorry, look at that um, timing was um {disfmarker} I have these three. Do we need a final differentiation there? Now, later on the same tour, sometimes on the next tour.
Grad B: What's this idea of" next tour" ? I mean {disfmarker}
Grad C: It's sort of next day, so you're doing something now and you have planned to do these three four things,
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: and you can do something immediately,
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: you could sort of tag it on to that tour
Grad B: Or {disfmarker} OK.
Grad C: or you can say this is something I would do s I wanna do sometime l in my life, basically.
Grad B: OK. OK. So {disfmarker} so this tour is sort of just like th the idea of current s round of {disfmarker} of touristness or whatever,
Professor D: Right.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: Yeah. Yeah, probably between stops back at the hotel.
Grad B: OK. Got it.
Professor D: I mean if you {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you wanted precise about it, uh you know,
Grad B: Got it.
Professor D: uh {disfmarker} and I think that's the way tourists do organize their lives.
Grad B: Sure, sure, sure.
Professor D: You know," OK, we'll go back to the hotel and then we'll go off
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: and {disfmarker}" PhD F: So all tours {disfmarker} b a tour happens only within one day?
Professor D: Yes.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: It {disfmarker}
PhD F: So the next tour will be tomorrow?
Professor D: Right. For this.
Grad B: OK. Just to be totally clear. OK.
Grad C: Well, my visit to Prague there were some nights where I never went back to the hotel, so whether that counts as a two - day tour or not we'll have to {vocalsound} think.
Grad B: You just spend the whole time at U Fleku or something,
PhD F: Yeah.
Professor D: I {disfmarker} w we will {disfmarker} we will not ask you more.
Grad B: ri
Undergrad E: Right.
PhD F: Right.
Undergrad E: That's enough.
Grad C: I don't know. What is the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the English co uh um cognate if you want, for" Sankt Nimmerlandstag" ?
Grad B: Keine Ahnung
Grad C: Sort of" We'll do it on {disfmarker} when you say on that d day it means it'll never happen.
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: Right.
Grad C: Do you have an expression? Probably you sh
Grad B: Not that I know of actually.
Grad C: Yeah, when hell {disfmarker} Yep, we'll do it when hell freezes over.
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad C: So maybe that should be another {vocalsound} property in there.
PhD F: Right.
Professor D: Yeah. Yeah.
Undergrad E: Never.
Professor D: No.
Grad C: OK. Um, the reason why {disfmarker} why do we go there in the first place IE uh {disfmarker} it's either uh {disfmarker} for sightseeing, for meeting people, for running errands, or doing business. Entertainment is a good one in there, I think. I agree.
Grad B: So, business is supposed to uh, be sort of {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} like professional type stuff, right, or something like that?
Grad C: Yep.
Grad B: OK. Um.
Grad C: I mean {disfmarker} this w this is uh an old uh Johno thing. He sort of had it in there." Who is the {disfmarker} the tour is the person?" So it might be a tourist,
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: it might be a business man who's using the system, who wants to sort of go to some {disfmarker}
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: Yeah, or {disfmarker} or both.
Grad B: Yeah. Yeah, I mean like for example my {disfmarker} my father is about to travel to Prague.
Grad C: Yep.
Grad B: He'll be there for two weeks. He is going to uh {disfmarker} He's there to teach a course at the business school but he also is touring around and so he may have some mixture of these things.
Grad C: Yep.
Professor D: Mmm.
Grad C: Yep.
Professor D: Sure. Right.
Grad C: He would {disfmarker}
PhD F: What ab What do you have in mind in terms of um {disfmarker} socializing? What kind of activities?
Grad C: Eh, just meeting people, basically." I want to meet someone somewhere" , which be puts a very heavy constraint on the" EVA" PhD F: Oh {disfmarker}
Grad B: Yeah.
Grad C: you know, because then if you're meeting somebody at the town hall, you're not entering it usually, you're just {disfmarker} want to approach it.
Grad B: So {disfmarker} I mean, does this capture, like, where do you put {disfmarker}" Exchange money" is an errand, right? But what about uh {disfmarker}
Grad C: Yep.
Professor D: Mm - hmm
Grad B: So, like" Go to a movie" is now entertainment," Dine out" is {disfmarker}
PhD F: Socializing, I guess.
Professor D: No, I I well, I dunno. Let {disfmarker} Let {disfmarker} well, we'll put it somewhere,
Grad B: So I mean {disfmarker} Right.
Professor D: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} um {disfmarker} I would say that if" Dine out" is a special c uh {disfmarker} if you're doing it for that purpose then it's entertainment.
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: And {disfmarker} we'll also as y as you'll s further along we'll get into business about" Well, you're {disfmarker} you know {disfmarker} this is going over a meal time, do you wanna stop for a meal or pick up food or something?" Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Professor D: And that's different. That's {disfmarker} that's sort of part of th that's not a destination reason, that's sort of" en passant," right.
Grad B: Right.
Grad C: That goes with the" energy depletion" function, blech.
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: Right, yeah.
Grad C: OK," endpoint" .
Grad B:" Tourist needs food, badly" Professor D: Right.
Grad C:" Endpoint" is pretty clear. Um," mode" , uh, I have found three," drive there" ," walk there" uh {disfmarker} or" be driven" , which means bus, taxi, BART.
Professor D: OK.
Grad C: Yeah. Yep.
Professor D: Obviously taxis are very different than buses, but on the other hand the system doesn't have any public transport {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} the planner system doesn't have any public transport in it yet.
Grad C: So this granularity would suffice, I think w if we say the person probably, based on the utterance we on the situation we can conclude wants to drive there, walk there, or use some other form of transportation.
Grad B: H How much of Heidelberg can you get around by public transport? I mean in terms of the interesting bits. There's lots of bits where you don't really I've only ev was there ten years ago, for a day, so I don't remember, but. I mean, like the {disfmarker} sort of the tourist - y bits {disfmarker}
Professor D: Mm - Well,
Grad C: Everywhere.
Grad B: is it like {disfmarker}
Professor D: you can't get to the Philosophers'Way very well,
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: but, I mean there are hikes that you can't get to, but {disfmarker}
Grad B: OK.
Grad C: Yeah.
Professor D: but I think other things you can, if I remember right.
Grad A: So is like" biking there" {disfmarker} part of like" driving there" ,
Grad C: Yeah, um we actually {disfmarker} biking should be {disfmarker} should be a separate point because we have a very strong bicycle planning component.
Grad A: or {disfmarker}?
Grad C: So.
Professor D: Oh!
Undergrad E: Mmm g that's good.
Grad C: Um.
Professor D: Put it in.
Grad C: Bicycles c should be in there, but, will we have bic I mean is this realistic? I mean {disfmarker}
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: OK, we can leave it out, I guess.
Grad B: Yeah.
Grad C: We can {disfmarker} we can sort of uh, drive {disfmarker}
Grad B: I would {disfmarker} I would lump it with" walk" because hills matter.
Grad C: Yeah.
Grad B: Right? You know. Things like that.
Grad C: Yeah.
Professor D: OK. Skateboards right, anyway.
PhD F: Right.
Professor D: Scooters,
Grad C: Yep.
Professor D: right?
Grad C: OK," Length" is um, you wanna get this over with as fast as possible,
Professor D: Alright.
Grad C: you wanna use some part of what {disfmarker} of the time you have. Um, they can. But we should just make a decision whether we feel that they want to use some substantial or some fraction of their time.
Professor D: Ye
Grad B: Hmm.
Grad C: You know, they wanna do it so badly that they are willing to spend uh {disfmarker} you know the necessary and plus time. And um {disfmarker} And y you know, if we feel that they wanna do nothing but that thing then, you know, we should point out that {disfmarker} to the planner, that they probably want to use all the time they have. So, stretch out that visit for that.
Professor D: Mm - hmm.
Grad B: Wow {disfmarker} It seems like this would be really hard to guess. I mean, on the part of the system. It seems like it {disfmarker} I mean you're {disfmarker} you're talking about rather than having the user decide this you're supposed t we're supposed to figure it out?
Professor D: w well
Grad C: Th - the user can always s say it, but it's just sort of we {disfmarker} we hand over these parameters if we make {disfmarker} if we have a feeling that they are important.
Grad B: Overrider
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: And that we can actually infer them to a significant de degree, or we ask.
Professor D: And {disfmarker}
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: And par yeah, and part of the system design is that if it looks to be important and you can't figure it out, then you ask.
Grad C: Yeah.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: But hopefully you don't ask you know, a all these things all the time.
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: Or {disfmarker} eh so, y but there's th but definitely a back - off position to asking.
Grad B: Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Grad C: And if no {disfmarker} no part of the system ever comes up with the idea that this could be important, no planner is ever gonna ask for it.
Grad B: Yeah.
Grad C: y so {disfmarker} And I like the idea that, you know, sort of {disfmarker} Jerry pushed this idea from the very beginning, that it's part of the understanding business to sort of make a good question of what's s sort of important in this general picture, what you need t
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: If you wanna simulate it, for example, what parameters would you need for the simulation? And, Timing, uh, uh, Length would definitely be part of it," Costs" ," Little money, some money, lots of money" ?
Professor D: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: Actually, maybe uh F {comment} uh so, F Yeah, OK. Hmm?
Grad B: You could say" some" in there.
PhD F: I must say that thi this one looks a bit strange to me. Um {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} It seems like appropriate if I go to Las Vegas. Well {disfmarker} but I decide k kind of how much money uh I'm willing to lose. But a I as a tourist, I'll just paying what's {disfmarker} what's more or less is required.
Professor D: Well, no. I think there are {disfmarker} there're different things where you have a ch choice,
Undergrad E: Mmm.
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: for example, uh this t interacts with" do am I do oh are you willing to take a taxi?" Grad B: Dinner.
Professor D: Or uh, you know, if {disfmarker} if you're going to the opera are you gonna l look for the best seats or the peanut gallery
PhD F: The best seat or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} Right.
Professor D: or, you know,
Grad B: OK. So {disfmarker}
Professor D: whatever? S so I think there are a variety of things in which um {disfmarker} Tour - tourists really do have different styles eating. Another one,
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: you know.
Undergrad E: Right.
PhD F: Right, that's true.
Grad C: The {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what my sort of sentiment is they're {disfmarker} Well, I {disfmarker} I once had to write a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a charter, a carter for a {disfmarker} a student organization. And they had {disfmarker} wanted me to define what the quorum is going to be. And I looked at the other ones and they always said ten percent of the student body has to be present at their general meeting otherwise it's not a {disfmarker} And I wrote in there" En - Enough" people have to be there. And it was hotly debated, but people agreed with me that everybody probably has a good feeling whether it was a farce, a joke, or whether there were enough people.
Grad B: Yeah.
Grad C: And if you go to Turkey, you will find when people go shopping, they will say" How much cheese do you want?" and they say" Ah, enough." And the {disfmarker} and the {disfmarker} this used all over the place. Because the person selling the cheese knows, you know, that person has two kids and you know, a husband that dislikes cheese, so this is enough.
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: And um so the middle part is always sort of the {disfmarker} the golden way, right? So you can s you can be really {disfmarker} make it as cheap as possible, or you can say" I want, er, you know, I don't care" Grad B: Money is no object. Mm - hmm.
Grad C: Money is no object,
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad C: or you say" I just want to spend enough" .
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: Or the sufficient, or the the appropriate amount.
Grad B: Yeah.
Grad C: But, Then again, this may turn out to be insufficient for our purposes. But well, this is my first guess,
Grad B: I mean y Yeah.
Grad C: in much the same way as how {disfmarker} how d you know {disfmarker} should the route be? Should it be the easiest route, even if it's a b little bit longer?
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: No steep inclinations? Go the normal way? Whatever that again means, er {disfmarker} or do you {disfmarker} does the person wanna rough it?
Grad B: Mm - hmm. I mean {disfmarker} th so there's a couple of different ways you can interpret these things right? You know {disfmarker}" I want to go there and I don't care if it's really hard." Or if you're an extreme sport person, you know." I wanna go there and I insist on it being the hard way." Professor D: Right.
Grad B: Right? you know, so I assume we're going for the first interpretation,
Undergrad E: Right.
Grad B: right? Something like {disfmarker} I'll go th I mean {disfmarker} I'd li I dunno. It's different from thing to {disfmarker}
Professor D: No, I think he was going for the second one ar actually.
Grad B: Yeah? I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker}
Professor D: Anyway, we'll sort th yeah, we'll sort that out.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: Right.
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: Absolutely.
Grad C: Well, this is all sort of um, top of my head.
Grad B: Yeah.
Grad C: No {disfmarker} no research behind that. Um {disfmarker}" Object information" ," Do I {disfmarker} do I wanna know anything about that object?" is either true or false. And. if I care about it being open, accessible or not, I don't think there's any middle ground there. Um, either I wanna know where it is or not, I wanna know about it's history or not, or, um I wanna know about what it's good for or not. Maybe one could put scales in there, too. So I wanna know a l lot about it.
Professor D: Yeah, now ob OK, I'm sorry, go ahead, what were you gonna say?
Grad C: One could put scales in there. So I wanna know a lot about the history, just a bit.
Professor D: Yeah, right well y i w if we {disfmarker} w right. So" object" becomes" entity" , right?
Grad C: Yep, that's true.
Professor D: Yeah, but we don't have to do it now.
Grad C: Yep. That was the wrong shortcut anyhow.
Professor D: And we think that's it, interestingly enough, that um, you know, th or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or something very close to it is going to be uh {disfmarker} going to be enough. And {disfmarker}
Undergrad E: Still wrong.
Grad C: Yeah.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: Alright, so um {disfmarker} So I think the order of things is that um, Robert will clean this up a little bit, although it looks pretty good. And {disfmarker}
Grad C: What, well this is the part that {disfmarker}
Professor D: Huh?
Grad C: this is the part that needs the work.
Professor D: Right.
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: Yeah, so {disfmarker} right, so {disfmarker} So, um In parallel, uh {disfmarker} three things are going to happen. Uh Robert and Eva and Bhaskara are gonna actually {disfmarker} build a belief - net that {disfmarker} that, um, has CPT's and, you know, tries to infer this from various kinds of information. And Fey is going to start collecting data, and we're gonna start thinking a about {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} what constructions we want to elicit. And then w go it may iterate on uh, further data collection to elicit {disfmarker}
Grad B: D Do you mean {disfmarker} Do you mean eliciting particular constructions? Or do you mean like what kinds of things we want to get people talking about? Semantically speaking, eh?
Professor D: Well, yes.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: Both. Uh, and {disfmarker} Though for us, constructions are primarily semantic, right?
Grad B: Right. Sure.
Professor D: And {disfmarker} And so {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker}
Grad B: I mean from my point of view I'm {disfmarker} I'm trying to care about the syntax, so you know {disfmarker}
Professor D: Well that too,
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: but um {disfmarker} You know if th if we in {disfmarker} if we you know, make sure that we get them talking about temporal order.
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: OK, that would be great and if th if they use prepositional phrases or subordinate clauses or whatever,
Grad B: Mm - hmm. Right. OK.
Professor D: um {disfmarker} W You know, whatever form they use is fine.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: But I {disfmarker} I think that probably we're gonna try to look at it as you know, s what semantic constructions d do we {disfmarker} do we want them to uh do direc
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: you know, um," Caused motion" , I don't know, something like that.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: Uh But, Eh - uh this is actually a conversation you and I have to have about your thesis fantasies, and how all this fits into that.
Grad B: Got it. Yeah. Uh Yeah. OK.
Professor D: But uh {disfmarker}
Grad C: Well, I will tell you the German tourist data.
Grad B: OK.
Grad C: Because I have not been able to dig out all the stuff out of the m ta thirty D V
Grad B: OK.
Grad C: Um {disfmarker} If you {disfmarker}
Grad B: Is that roughly the equivalent of {disfmarker} of what I've seen in English or is it {disfmarker}
Grad C: No, not at all.
Grad B: OK.
Grad C: Dialogues. SmartKom {disfmarker}
Grad B: OK.
Grad C: SmartKom {disfmarker} Human. Wizard of Oz.
Grad B: OK. Same {disfmarker} OK, that. Got it. Like what {disfmarker} What have I got now? I mean I have uh what {disfmarker} what I'm loo what I {disfmarker} Those files that you sent me are the user side of some interaction with Fey?
Grad C: A little bit of data, I {disfmarker}
Grad B: Is that what it is? Or {disfmarker}?
Grad C: With nothing.
Grad B: Just talking into a box and not hearing anything back.
Professor D: No, no.
Grad C: Yep.
Grad B: OK.
Grad C: Yep. Some data I collected in a couple weeks for training recognizers and email way back when.
Grad B: OK. OK.
Grad C: Nothing to write home about.
Grad B: OK.
Grad C: And um {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} see this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} ontology node is probably something that I will try to expand. Once we have the full ontology API, what can we expect to get from the ontology? And hopefully you can sort of also try to find out, you know, sooner or later in the course of the summer what we can expect to get from the discourse that might, you know {disfmarker} or the {disfmarker}
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: not the discourse, the utterance as it were, uh,
Professor D: mm - hmm.
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Professor D: Right.
Grad C: in terms of uh {disfmarker}
Professor D: Right, but we're not expecting Keith to actually build a parser.
Grad B: Right, Right.
Grad C: No, no, no, no, no.
Professor D: OK. We are expecting Johno to build a parser,
Grad C: Uh, this is {disfmarker} Yes.
Grad B: By the end of the summer, too.
Professor D: but that's a {disfmarker} No.
Grad C: No.
Professor D: No. Uh {disfmarker} He's g he's hoping to do this for his masters'thesis s by a year from now.
Grad C: But it's sort of {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker}
Grad B: Right. Hmm. Still, pretty formidable actually.
Professor D: Eh - absolutely. Uh {disfmarker} limited. I mean, you know, the idea is {disfmarker} is,
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: Well, the hope is that the parser itself is, uh, pretty robust. But it's not popular {disfmarker} it's only p only {disfmarker}
Grad B: Right, Right. Existence proof, you know. Set up the infrastructure,
Professor D: Right. It's only popula
Grad B: yeah.
Professor D: Right.
Grad B: Um sometime, I have to talk to some subset of the people in this group, at least about um what sort of constructions I'm looking for. I mean, you know obviously like just again, looking at this one uh thing, you know, I saw y things from {disfmarker} sort of as general as argument structure constructions. Oh, you know, I have to do Verb Phrase. I have to do uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} unbounded dependencies, you know, which have a variety of constructions in {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} instantiate that. On the other hand I have to have, you know, there's particular uh, fixed expressions, or semi - fixed expressions like" Get" plus path expression for, you know," how d ho how do I get there?" ,
Professor D: Mm - hmm.
Grad B:" How do I get in?" ," How do I get away?" Professor D: Right.
Grad B: and all that kind of stuff. Um, so there's a variety of sort of different sorts of constructions
Professor D: Absolutely.
Grad B: and it {disfmarker} you know it's {disfmarker} it's sort of like anything goes. Like {disfmarker}
Professor D: OK, so this is {disfmarker} I think we're gonna mainly work on with George.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: OK, and hi let me f th {disfmarker} say what I think is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} so the idea is {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} first of all I misspoke when I said we thought you should do the constructions. Cause apparently for a linguist that means to do completely and perfectly. So what I {disfmarker} yeah, OK, {disfmarker} So what {disfmarker} what I meant was" Do a first cut at" .
Grad B: er {disfmarker} that's what Yeah, yeah.
Professor D: OK, Because uh {disfmarker} we do wanna get them r u perfectly {disfmarker} but I think we're gonna have to do a first cut at a lot of them to see how they interact.
Grad B: Of course. Right, exactly. Now it {disfmarker} w we talked about this before, right. And I {disfmarker} I me it would it would be completely out of the question to really do more than, say, like, oh I don't know, ten, over the summer,
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad B: but uh, but you know obviously we need to get sort of a general view of what things look like, so yeah.
Professor D: Right. So the idea is going to be to do {disfmarker} sort of like Nancy did in some of the er these papers where you do enough of them so you can go from top to bottom {disfmarker} so you can do f you know, f f uh {disfmarker} have a complete story ov of s of some piece of dialogue.
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Professor D: And that's gonna be much more useful than having all of the clausal constructions and nothing else, or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or something like that.
Grad B: Yeah. Sure. Yeah.
Professor D: So that the {disfmarker} the trick is going to be t to take this and pick a {disfmarker} some sort of lattice of constructions,
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Professor D: so some lexical and some phrasal, and {disfmarker} and, you know,
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Professor D: whatever you need in order to uh, be able to then, uh, by hand, you know, explain, some fraction of the utterances.
Grad B: Mm - hmm. Yeah.
Professor D: And so, exactly which ones will partly depend on your research interests and a bunch of other things.
Grad B: Mm - hmm. Sure. OK. But I mean in terms of the s th sort of level of uh {disfmarker} of analysis, you know, these don't necessarily have to be more complex than like the" Out of" construction in the BCP paper where it's just like, you know, half a page on each one or something.
Professor D: Correct. Oh yeah {disfmarker} yeah. V a half a page is {disfmarker} is what we'd like.
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: And if {disfmarker} if there's something that really requires a lot more than that then it does and we have to do it,
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor D: but {disfmarker}
Grad B: For the first cut, that should be fine, yeah.
Professor D: Yeah.
Grad C: We could sit down and think of sort of the {disfmarker} the ideal speaker utterances,
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: and I mean two or three that follow each other, so, where we can also sort of, once we have everything up and running, show the tremendous, insane inferencing capabilities of our system.
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: So, you know, as {disfmarker} as the SmartKom people have. This is sort of their standard demo dialogue, which is, you know, what the system survives and nothing but that.
Grad B: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
Grad C: Um, we could also sor sort of have the analogen of o our sample sentences, the ideal sentences where we have complete construction coverage and, sort of, they match nicely.
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: So the {disfmarker} the" How do I get to X?" ,
Grad B: Yeah.
Grad C: you know, that's definitely gonna be uh, a major one.
Grad B: Yeah. That's about six times in this little one here, so uh, {vocalsound} yeah.
Grad C: Yep.
Professor D: Right.
Grad C:" Where is X?" might be another one which is not too complicated.
Grad B: Yeah. Mm - hmm.
Grad C: And um" Tell me something about X." Grad B: Yeah.
Grad C: And hey, that's {disfmarker} that's already covering eighty percent of the system's functionality.
Professor D: Ye - Right, but it's not covering eighty percent of the intellectual interest.
Grad B: Yeah.
Grad C: No, we can w throw in an" Out of Film" construction if you want to, but {disfmarker}
Professor D: No, no, no. Well the {disfmarker} th the thing is there's a lot that needs to be done to get this right.
Grad C: OK.
Professor D: OK, I th We done?
Grad C: I have one bit of news.
Professor D: Good.
Grad C: Um, the action planner guy has wrote {disfmarker} has written a {disfmarker} a p lengthy {disfmarker} proposal on how he wants to do the action planning.
Professor D: Good.
Grad C: And I responded to him, also rather lengthy, how he should do the action planning. And {disfmarker}
Professor D:" Action planning" meaning" Discourse Modeling" ?
Grad C: Yes. And I tacked on a little paragraph about the fact that the whole world calls that module a dis disc dialogue manager,
Professor D: Right.
Grad C: and wouldn't it make sense to do this here too?
Professor D: Right.
Grad C: And also Rainer M Malaka is going to be visiting us shortly, most likely in the beginning of June.
Professor D: Uh - huh, I'll be gone.
Grad C: Yeah. He - he's just in a conference somewhere and he is just swinging through town.
Professor D: Sure, OK.
Grad C: And um {disfmarker} m making me incapable of going to NAACL, for which I had funding. But. No, no Pittsburg this year.
Grad B: Hmm.
Grad C: When is the uh Santa Barbara?
Professor D: S
Grad C: Who is going to? uh should a lot of people. That's something I will {disfmarker} would {disfmarker} sort of enjoy.
Professor D: Probably should go. That was {disfmarker} that's one you should probably go to.
Grad C: Yep.
Grad B: How much does it cost?
Grad C: There's
Grad B: I haven't planned to go.
Professor D: Uh, probably we can uh {disfmarker} pay for it.
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: Um a student rate shouldn't be very high. So, if we all decide it's a good idea for you to go then you'll {disfmarker} we'll pay for it.
Grad B: Right. Sure.
Undergrad E: Then you can go.
Professor D: I mean I {disfmarker} I don't have a feeling one way or the other at the moment,
Grad B: OK.
Professor D: but it probably is. OK, great.
Grad B: Thanks. | The main focus of the meeting was firstly on the structure of the belief-net, its decision nodes and the parameters that influence them, and secondly, on the design of the data collection tasks. For the latter, there are already 30 subjects lined up and more are expected to be recruited off campus. Finally, as to the semantic and syntactic constructions, work will start with more general and brief descriptions, before moving to exhaustive analysis of at least a subset. Similarly, the construction parser that is to be built within a year is expected to be relatively basic, yet robust. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
Project Manager: Okay, good morning. This is our first team meeting.
User Interface: Good day.
Marketing: Morning.
Industrial Designer: Morning.
Project Manager: I'll be your Project Manager for today, for this project. My name is Mark {gap} will be giving this presentation for you to kick the project off. {vocalsound} That's my uh that's the agenda for today. Well, of course we're new to each other, so I'd like to get acquainted first. So let's do that first, I mean {disfmarker} Let's start with you, can you introduce yourself? You're our Marketing Expert.
Marketing: Yes. {vocalsound} Um my name is Dirk, Dirk Meinfeld. Um I will be uh {gap} Pr Project {disfmarker} the Marketing Expert. And I will see what the user wants and uh what we can do uh with the new produ project {disfmarker} product. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, excellent. And you are User Interface {disfmarker}
User Interface: Nick Broer,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: User Interface Designer. I'm going to uh look at the technical design from the uh user point of view.
Project Manager: Excellent. Okay.
Industrial Designer: My name is Xavier Juergens, I'm the Industrial Designer, and there are three main questions that I have to find an answer to today. First one is uh what happens inside the apparatus, second is what is uh the apparatus made of,
Marketing: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: and the third is what should it look like.
Project Manager: What should it look like? Okay.
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: Oh, let's kick it off. Oh, there we go. So, our new project is about {disfmarker} we need design a remote control for television set, so, which has to be original, trendy and user-friendly. I took this off our corporate website. {disfmarker} I think well it sums up what we need to do. It's We're inspired by latest fashion, not only electronics, but also the latest trends in clothes and interior design. That's why our product will always fit in your home. So apparently we need to {vocalsound} um be very at um very open to what's currently hot in the market. So that's what you need to do to bring us the latest info and what people want.
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: So {disfmarker} So we put the fashion in electronics. So that's what we need to go for. Anyway, we'll take this project in three steps, three pha uh three phase of design. First step will be the functional design.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: And that's basically what we're gonna do. Everybody has uh a piece of individual work and a meeting afterwards, so we can share information about {disfmarker} So I'm gonna keep this short, since we had a technical problem. So skip through this. Uh. Okay. Every meeting we {disfmarker} everybody can present their uh their views and everything, so to help with these, you have {disfmarker} we have the SMARTboards here. We can use a regular PowerPoint presentation. I'm supposed to give you an introduction on this doodling board, so it's {disfmarker} actually it's very easy. Like it says, very simple, you just take out the pen. Like you see here, I'll just take the {disfmarker} take {gap} here. That's it, you just put it on the board. You see a pen here. You go here, just like using a pen. You can just draw whatever you want. It's like the eraser, can erase whatever you want. And so it will be easy just to illustrate your views, if you wanna change the format, you just {vocalsound} either take out jus just like the pen, and whatever you want, your current colour, your line width, just to make the line bigger. So it should be really easy.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: This is to take the {disfmarker} just take a new slide and back again. We're just gonna keep using this board all the time, so I think it will be {disfmarker} it's very clear for everyone, I suppose. So I'll take this out. {vocalsound} Okay. We'll use that later. Anyway. Yeah, just just just stuff that you wanna share, just put it in the in the project folder, like I put my presentation now. I'll put the the minutes of every meeting, I'll put them there too, so everybody can read up if they have to leave early or whatever. So next, been here. {vocalsound} Well, {gap} gonna give the electronic white-board uh a shot. So basic idea is we have a blank sheet. Just try whatever you want, and like it says, draw your favourite animal. I think the creative genius should go first. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} The creative genius?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Thank you very much.
Project Manager: So, draw us your favourite animal.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Well, I'm more into the technical aspects of drawing,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: so I'm not really good at drawing animals,
Project Manager: Draw us a technical animal.
User Interface: but uh the animal which I {gap} {disfmarker} Oh.
Project Manager: Yeah, it's still erasing.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Pen.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh format. Else my animal will be like king-size. I pretty much like {vocalsound} a dolphin, because of its uh its freedom basically. Let's see. A head. {gap} actually worked with this. It's like uh it's a very {disfmarker} Uh high-tech.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Bit low-responsive though.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} So that's what we don't want.
User Interface: Prefer pen and paper.
Project Manager: We want a high-responsive product. So {disfmarker} It looks more like nuclear bomb.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Very nice dolphin.
User Interface: It {vocalsound} {vocalsound} doesn't look like a nuclear bomb.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: This thing isn't doing what I'm {disfmarker} What I want.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Let's go easy on it.
User Interface: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah, well it does look like a nuclear bomb.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I'll just finish up real soon, because I'm {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: So it doesn't really look like a dolphin,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Anyway,
User Interface: but then again, this is all new for me.
Project Manager: it should {disfmarker} It {disfmarker} It's supposed to be a dolphin, you like the freedom that it {disfmarker} that it represents.
Industrial Designer: Uh-huh.
User Interface: Like the ocean, like swimming. Do that in my spare time, so that's basically an {disfmarker}
Project Manager: What do you like? Okay. Well,
User Interface: Now we can forget this ever happened.
Project Manager: our Marketing Expert. Show us an animal.
Marketing: Um an animal.
Project Manager: {gap} Pick a {disfmarker} pick a {disfmarker}
Marketing: I like the elephant. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: pick a clean sheet. Oh. Take a clean sheet first.
Marketing: What? Yeah. Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Just press next. That's it.
Marketing: Oh yeah. Oh, a blank. Okay, next. Free, I like the elephant. It's big, it's strong, so uh uh {disfmarker} Oh, it's a little bit {disfmarker}
User Interface: It's not really that responsive, no. {vocalsound}
Marketing: You have to hold it, right?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap} It's a beautiful animal.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh, you have to p press it pretty hard. With a smile on it,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's a cute elephant.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: it's very important. Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: And uh not to forget its tail. Oh.
Project Manager: It's a nice beard.
Marketing: Yeah, it's okay. Yes. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: And you was making comments on my dolphin. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I will beat the dolphin. {vocalsound} No.
Project Manager: Okay, so it's just a bee.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So I suggest you make us the elephant in the market. The big and strong player in the market. This would be good.
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, excellent. On to the next one.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay.
Marketing: Uh yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay, you should press next.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Press next. Yeah, it's up there.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: That's it.
Industrial Designer: Okay, well the animal I'd like to draw is a tiger.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: You picked a hard one, didn't you? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: My drawing skills are really bad, so.
Marketing: Experience with the tiger.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: What? They are {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: They are really bad, my drawing skills.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay uh-huh.
Project Manager: Sure looks smooth.
Marketing: Oh.
Industrial Designer: I'm not sure how the legs should go, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh these are stripes.
User Interface: Got it. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I've picked this animal because it's very fast. It is uh it knows exactly what it wants. Uh it hardly ever wastes any resources.
Project Manager: What does it want?
Industrial Designer: Uh well, basically uh it hunts for prey, but it does it always in a very well-thought way. Uh it knows exactly what it wants. It never kills an animal uh just for the killing, so it's very efficient. And it tries to do everything as fast as possible.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: And it always goes for uh security, in seeking uh uh a hide spot and uh and doing everything,
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: security, speed and efficiency is important. And I think uh those things we can use.
Project Manager: I agree.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: , I'm supposed to draw the animal next. Yay I introduce to the world the amazing ant.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh hard worker.
Project Manager: Great team-workers.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Do everything to Uh really small, but together they're really strong. So I'm gonna give it a smiley face.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh.
Marketing: Yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: Not sure where the p {gap}. Just put'em here. Whatever. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Think it need shoes. So {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'm just too lazy to draw it all black, so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That's the coolest ant ever.
User Interface: You've done this before, haven't you? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I love to draw ants. It's my hobby.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Anyway {disfmarker} Nah. {vocalsound} Just {disfmarker} I think it's very representative what we drew, I guess. Like you take {disfmarker} just take your freedom and use a a trendy interface that you design for us.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Just {disfmarker} Yeah. You're supposed to make i make it different from uh from what other people have, and just make it a little distinct. Anyway. {gap} another beep to stop the meeting. See. Warning. Finish meeting now. Uh put this down. Examples. Well I guess we have a little little time extra, but {disfmarker} Just a little quick discussion to to open open our work. So what do you guys think about {disfmarker} The first idea is just very short. I'll start with you. What are y What are your first ideas for the new product? What {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well, I basically had a question. Do {vocalsound} uh {disfmarker} Are we going to introduce a multi remote control? Is it just the T_V_ or do we want to in
Project Manager: The project I got was just for a T_V_ remote control.
Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: Just for T_V_ remote control.
Project Manager: Yeah, I guess so.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Okay. Well, I was thinking about design remote control, with our uh motto and all.
Marketing: But {disfmarker}
User Interface: Uh thing to keep in mind is that we need to stick to what people are familiar with.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: No rational changes or whatever,'cause it {disfmarker} revolutionary changes,
Project Manager: Okay, so very intuitive design, I guess.
User Interface: yes. {vocalsound} Uh we might have to consider other design aspects of our product. So that was something I wanted to add,
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: and perhaps some usability aspect. T_V_ is becoming central in most homes. Do we want people who are disabled in any way to uh, yeah, to be able to use it as well?
Project Manager: Yeah, we want {disfmarker} I suppose we want almost everyone to be using it. So {vocalsound} I think {disfmarker} I mean, really disabled people, yeah, {vocalsound} might be a problem, but I think it's a little {gap} take it into consideration. Um yeah. I think we really need to cut the meeting short. You have anything you wanna share quickly?
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Marketing: Uh.
Industrial Designer: Only one thing uh that has to be added according to me is uh the the material it is made of, it should be something light.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker} it speaks for itself,
Project Manager: It should be light, okay.
Industrial Designer: but some uh {disfmarker} Yeah.
Project Manager: Um, let's see,
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: where did I {disfmarker} Let's skip that. Oh, this is it. Sorry, I skipped this sheet.
Marketing: Selling price.
Project Manager: What do we {disfmarker} This {disfmarker} Quick {gap} {disfmarker} What we're going to {disfmarker} Selling price, twenty five Euros. That's for you. The production price, twelve and a half Euros, approximately.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: Just go go for that. We'll reach the uh reach that profit.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Okay, well that's not that much to work with. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap} international.
Project Manager: No, it's not much to work on. I'm sorry, I skipped it. {vocalsound} Anyways, that's {disfmarker} Yeah, this is it. Do you have anything you you came up with yet? About uh marketing transfer, whatever?
Marketing: Um about what? Marketing?
Project Manager: Marketing {gap} I'm not sure what you what you came up with yet. You have anything to share? Or else we'll cut the meeting just cut the meeting short
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um no, not really yet,
Project Manager: since we're supposed to stop.
Marketing: but I've some ideas
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: and I will uh say it uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Anyways, the the personal coach will give you the your p your personal assignments and everything. So we'll just meet back in here thirty minutes.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: I'm sure we have that.
Industrial Designer: Good luck everyone.
Project Manager: Yeah, thanks for attending.
User Interface: Mm, good luck.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I'll see you back here in thirty minutes.
Marketing: Okay. Yes.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} | Project Manager asked the team members give personal introductions respectively to get acquainted with each other, and then introduced a new remote control project. Before discussing the product-related issues, the manager asked the members to get acquainted with the SMARTboards for further presentation and information sharing work by drawing in turns. After the drawing session, the manager reemphasized the program target and required the remote control to possess with a user-familiarized feature. Other group members voiced out additional design aspects, including usability and lightness. Finally, the team agreed on both the selling and the production price. | qmsum |
What did Marketing think of the incorporation of voice recognition when discussing user requirements of the new remote control?
Marketing: Just put it on the deskt {gap} desktop.
Project Manager: No on the desktop you'll find you should find that there's a project documents link. A well actually just there.
Marketing: Project documents,
Project Manager: Yeah. That's it.
Marketing: yeah.
Project Manager: If you dump it in there.
Marketing: What's your username?
Project Manager: Your username.
Marketing: What's your username and password? Mm-hmm. Sorry.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Okay. There we go.
Project Manager: Excellent. Right. Hopefully that's us ready to uh to go. So. Functional design meeting. We'll have to flesh out some of the uh stuff. Um we'll start with the minutes of the last meeting. Not a lot thankfully to say. We introduced ourselves, discussed the possibility of a macro facility, interac interacting the T_V_ a bit more, um mentioning of bar-code, joystick for user manipulation, um and ergonomics of the remote control as well. Um it's come to my attention the following. Teletext has become outdated due to the populat popularity of the internet. Remote control should only be used for the T_V_. Um due for uh time to market and possibly also cost issues. Um also key is the corporate image should stay recognisable, um f uh your colour and slogan of course is down at the bottom there. Um. Now. Just to say quickly uh I would have thought that only being used for a television the macro facility may now not be required.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Um or at l its functionality would have been of limited use. So to the point in my opinion anyway that it might not be worth pursuing. Um if anybody disagrees we can uh definitely say so. Um and hopefully we'll just crack on and we'll get everything going. Um I'd like to if possible hear from our Marketing Expert first, to help us gain an idea of where we're going to go.
Marketing:'Kay.
Project Manager: So um I'll just load up your presentation from here if you want.
Marketing: Sure. Um, sh would you like to {vocalsound} I'll just do it from here.
Project Manager: Yep. Sorry. Uh. Is yours the {disfmarker}
Marketing: Um, try second one maybe. Try it, yeah maybe.
Project Manager: Oh sorry. Okay, right.
Marketing: Yeah. Okay. Oh, I thought I put in my last name, I guess not, but {gap}.
Project Manager: Uh if you {disfmarker} that's all right. If you {disfmarker} do you want me to just cycle through it for you or?
Marketing: Okay. {vocalsound} Oh yeah, that'd be fine, that'd be great.
Project Manager: Yeah?
Marketing: Okay. Functional requirement by me Ebenezer. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Okay, so um we did some research, we asked one hundred people their opinions on remote controls. We asked some uh open ended questions, just, what are your opinions on the remote control, got a lot of re responses, and we asked some very specific questions, and we got a lot of good feedback. Please bear in mind this is only a hundred people, so even when the groups are divided into fifteen to twenty five, twenty five to thirty five, there's only maybe ten people {vocalsound} fifteen people in each group.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Okay. {vocalsound} So we got {disfmarker} some the bad stuff we got, remotes are often lost. I often lose my remote control, the back of the couch, some place, and even if it's not lost permanently, it takes me a few minutes to find it. {vocalsound} Most buttons are not used any more, like you said, teletext is outdated now. I remember trying to load a D_V_D_ player recently, and there were so many buttons, it took me I don't know maybe ten minutes to to go through each button,'cause you have to press the shift button to access the yellow buttons, you know there's just a lot of stuff that no one really uses. And if they do, not very often. Takes too long to master the remote control. I've seen some remote controls that are big, they have a lot of buttons, you have to hold down more than one key at one time to do something, they're just not great to use. We just got a lot of bad complaints about remote controls, people do not like remote controls. Some of the good stuff we got. Between the age of uh fifteen and twenty five, most people would be willing to pay extra for voice recognition software. Now don't get excited yet, I've got more to say on that. Most people'd be willing to pay for that um most people want remote controls to be pretty, they want it to be fancy, th they they want it to be different, everybody has a white remote control with black buttons, and a red button and a green button, not everybody wants that. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Finally, my opinion.
Project Manager: Yep.
Marketing: The voice recognition thing is cool. And uh voice recognition, the software, open source software exist already. It's a bit sketchy at some times, uh, you're not gonna get good always accurate results, but for a very fixed number of words, you know you have, how many different words can you have for a remote control, up, down, left, right, channel five, channel seven, you know, how many, you can't have that many words. For a fixed vocabulary it works quite well. I'm pretty sure people would buy it. But after a while people may wanna return it, because {vocalsound} if you have to to say som I mean most people use a remote control for switching to channels, and they say they do that about ninety eight percent of the time. Using the remote control, ninety eight percent of the time for changing channels, and that's for flickering through channels. So if you have to say up, up, up, up, if you have to do that all the time, then people might get a bit fed up with that and they may return it. {vocalsound} However, {vocalsound} oh, because the voice recognition software exists already, there's no need to spend money on research and development, but this does mean the need for microphones in the in the remote control, which is an unusual feature in my opinion. But if we do have the voice recognition thing, there's a lot of stuff that you can uh get rid of. See, you could {disfmarker} there're two options. Either you have voice recognition by itself, which I think is a bit impractical for like night time if you wanna be watching television and you wanna be quiet, or I don't know you have a visitor coming round and the remote's only trained for you, it's a bit impractical to have just voice recognition by itself. So you can have voice recognition and a regular remote. But imagine you got rid of the regular remote part, then you can design the remote to look any way you want it to look, because there are no restrictions on physical size, or shape, it it could be as fancy as you want it to be, you know, it could be like a lollipop or something like that, something weird like that. As long as the voice recognition stuff works, that's that's fine.
Project Manager: Okay, yep.
Marketing: So we have the three birds, we have the design, that {vocalsound} we have the the fancy bit, right, the voice recognition's fancy, it's cool, it's different, it's radical, so, and then we have an extra bit I don't remember {vocalsound} so I'm pretty sure people will buy the remote, but is it practical to have a voice recognition system in a remote control, I think is a big question. Um, will people will people be willing to wait for the the period that it'll take to train the remote,'cause I think it will the remote will uh get better over time with the same user user, but for the first week or for the first two weeks are you willing to wait, are you willing to have a bad remote control. {vocalsound} And uh what if you have visitors come round, they stay the night, they wanna use the T_V_, they can't use the remote because they speak differently to you. Um, how do you account for regional accents and stuff like that. Uh, will people return the remote control, {vocalsound} I think a lot of young people will buy the remote control, if they have the money, you know, so,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. If you could uh
Marketing: do our audience have the money, but would they return it after a while because it's not as fast as pressing a button, it's not a practical. So. These are things I think we should consider.
Project Manager: sor
Marketing: I think it's cool,
Project Manager: if you could speed it up a bit, yeah. If you could uh speed it up a bit please, yeah.
Marketing: I'm sorry? Sure.
Project Manager: Sorry.
Marketing: I'm about to end, yeah.
Project Manager: Cool.
Marketing: I think it's cool but there are definitely some considerations.
Project Manager: Okay. Excellent.
Marketing: So, yeah.
Project Manager: Right. Um. Hear from the {vocalsound} User Interface Designer now I think might be an idea.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Um, you've got your presentation now,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How did {disfmarker} where did {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, it's in the it's in the folder
Project Manager: is it on the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: where did you get all your in information {gap}?
User Interface: yeah.
Project Manager: is it? Okay.
Marketing: There was uh a website, uh,
Industrial Designer: Oh.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Technical functions?
Marketing: right here.
Industrial Designer: Ah, okay.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: No. Yeah. Okay.
User Interface: Okay, this is a {vocalsound} brief run through of the um of the technical functions of the remote. As um is uh the the the presentation is uh already slightly obsolete because I {vocalsound} had in mind something that would uh be i be aimed at controlling multiple devices but uh there's still stuff of relevance, so
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: press on. I've looked at {vocalsound} looked at a num {vocalsound} uh couple of other uh remote control models just for an idea of basic design principles. Um and wasn't really satisfied by what I saw I have to say so this is more sort of springboard for uh how these could be improved on. {vocalsound} Um um basically the job of the device is to send commands to an appliance, in this case the television set. Um to save you getting off your backside. Um and there's two main trends in th in the sort of design practice. On the one hand {disfmarker} and this uh this particularly relates to its sort of earliest models where with you know i so so many buttons on it so about the size of the television set. Um giving you every possible function that the that the device has, the remote control controls. And most of these functions are not going to be used, it creates a rather user unfriendly interface. And on the other hand there's a user focused approach that pares things down to just what {vocalsound} what is most likely to get used. Um {vocalsound} With uh {disfmarker} a and a and of course there is a certain amount of sort of loss of function here obviously, but mostly that's relatively peripheral functions. And so you go for something that's fairly intuitive to use, and um well f the for the most part for T_V_ remote it's uh tha that would be channel control and volume. Um and if you {vocalsound} if you if you are wanting to incorporate uh control of a D_V_ {vocalsound} D_V_D_ or uh {vocalsound} V_C_R_ presumably into that then there's a play, pause, stop, rewind, fast-forward, record, so forth. Um. My own view is that we should definitely be going for a user focused design. Um but uh the pro {vocalsound} I think the problem with a lot of the sort of user focused designs that are about is that they sort of make assumptions in advance about what uh what a given user's going to uh want mo want to do from {vocalsound} want it to do most. So, something that's uh {vocalsound} something that is more programmable, that uh perh perhaps has the full range of functions available to it but you can then specify yourself what you're most likely to want. Um so that those are then immediately {vocalsound} accessible through fairly minimal number of controls, um I liked Ebenezer's idea of including a joystick in that and uh possibly a sort of fairly minimal number of sort of function buttons, and have a disp {vocalsound} you then have some sort of basic display on it so that if you're um sort of cha changing from different modes for the device it'll tell you just exactly what uh you know each direction of the uh of the um joystick's {vocalsound} going to do or wha or what each function button's going to do. Um, this is actually {gap} a again slightly taking inspiration off of uh games controllers, you know the Playstation control where you have four basic function buttons
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: that are just marked with um distinctive uh geometrical shapes but the {vocalsound} and then dependent on what you're doing with it what game and so on um those uh those functions are then sort of further specified. And so it's taking taking the lead from that. Um.
Project Manager: Okay. Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} That's it.
Project Manager: Right. Um, if we could hear from our Industrial engineer, or Designer.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Uh, I was still working on stuff, I hadn't got it finished. Um, {vocalsound} alright. Click to save in {disfmarker} where do I have to save it?
Project Manager: If you look on the desktop you'll find that there's a link to the project folder, or project documents. If you save it in there we can open it up from here.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um, what I've done with it, I'm sorry. Shit. Um {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Are you finding it okay or?
Industrial Designer: I'm just {gap} closing it now. {gap} where I've saved it.
Marketing: Well like if you go to one, uh whichever one you were working {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {gap} that's it there,
Marketing: yeah,
Industrial Designer: yeah.
Marketing: and you just click file save as.
Industrial Designer: Oh right. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Uh, right I'm responsible for working design, uh, this is basically the inside going on of the the uh remote control. So we have the energy source, we have the user interface, this this is what I've seen. Uh the sender will push the button, the chip will respond, uh and then the dig digital signal is sent to the T_V_. So uh uh, if you go to next slide, you'll see you'll see uh what do we need on the user interface. Do we need uh many buttons, or do we need l many light bulbs that could be easier to uh to realise which appliances are on or not. Um, {vocalsound}, or would that take too much power, would we need more um components in there to supply the power? Um, the joystick is another thing, if we were gonna add that, um, there'd be more components to deal with that.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Um {vocalsound}, so uh we need to {disfmarker} I dunno exactly what {disfmarker} That's the design of the the the layout of the uh electronic design, um obviously there'll be more details once we've decided what we're putting on the user interface.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: So, that'll be decided, I guess. {vocalsound} Uh, and the next slide. Oh, yeah {disfmarker} Um, if you go to the next slide then.
Project Manager: Oh. Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I just used the {vocalsound} it was a mess, uh I was just putting adding it together at the end there. Uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Ah, don't worry about it at all mate. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh so you have the energy source obviously connected to the chip, and the user interface obviously contains everything. You have the switch turn it on, infrared bulb, uh will contact the T_V_ and will have whatever device or D_V_D_ player, the bulb will turn on to say it's on. Uh, so do we need on the control uh different buttons to decide, or different light bulbs, would it be easier? Um, I dunno what we should decide on that.
Project Manager: Okay. Well. Oh sorry, I'm I'm interrupting you. Are you {disfmarker} is it {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: No, it's finished, yeah.
Project Manager: yeah? Okay. Right. Um, {vocalsound} right we can probably skip that for now. So, we've had some stuff put forward, um along with the new user requirements, um we've had a lot of kind of input I'd say so far. Um I hear what the Marketing Expert's saying about {vocalsound} um voice activated control. However I've got a couple of worries about that. {vocalsound} The power required, um and the ability to the cost, it seems like for uh an embedded system, this could cause us issues.
Industrial Designer: Cost. Mm.
Project Manager: Um for example you see that there's fairly robust services on uh computers via uh via voice, I_B_M_ do um drag and dictate, but these require a lot of memory
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and usually um state quite advanced processor requirements. Um voice activation could be an interesting idea but I think that our Ind Industrial Designer would probably upon some research say that it's maybe not feasible.
Marketing:'Kay.
Project Manager: Um that's just my view right now,
User Interface: Mm. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: however the idea of a joystick and then maybe an L_C_D_ which has been kind of put forward so far, it's almost like having a small T_ not T_V_ to say, but if you can control almost all of the functionality from the display, I don't know how much power an L_C_D_ would take, but it might be quite low?
Marketing: Mm. I uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: L_C_D_ on the remote just telling you what's on, or {vocalsound} uh, interactive L_C_D_ or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well literally um if you can imagine the display maybe slightly larger than um those on a {vocalsound} a mobile phone,
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: something where you can read an an um fair amount of information, traverse maybe quite a few menus, if we maybe used mobile phones as a good example, they usually incorporate they have the keypad, and then evr all the other functionality is usually associated inside by traversing around.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: That could be one possibility. Um and then we could have like say the common buttons as you say, volume control, changing channels {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm. {gap} I I was thinking that the remote {vocalsound} the um {vocalsound} sort of default functions for the joystick would be up and down for uh volume, left and right for channels.
Project Manager: We {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Do you think that people will get mixed up, like, they'll be looking at this screen and that screen and then, you know, trying to get everything working, would it be a bit confusing?
User Interface: Um I think probably for the first couple of hours of using it
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: um but you know muscle memory's a wonderful thing, um. And I think {vocalsound} and I think that size of uh display was about what I had in mind.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Um though I mean I w I would say that uh we could probably probably be required to um mo most of the mobile phone displays you see these days are colour but we should probably try to stick to black and white.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I would agree with you.
User Interface: Si si simply to keep m keep the unit cost down. Um I mean colour could be a sort of subsequent development but uh you know cost a bit of extra money f w w w w w once everyone's got the first, you know, oh colour's out, we'll have to replace it won't we.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound}
User Interface: It does nothing extra.
Project Manager: That would be my feeling as well, I think we could possibly create quite a useful user interface. Um now I mean I don't {disfmarker}
Marketing: Sure but the idea of a remote with a menu or {disfmarker} and a joystick I think like I h if I was in the habit of buying remote controls then I would want one,
Project Manager: sorry, go for it.
Marketing: but I think we don't have a specific audience, you know, like what is our target audience, what niche are {disfmarker} niche are we trying to market and corner. You know, you know what I'm saying, like, for whom is this intended? Everybody?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think it could probably be aimed at most people who've used a mobile. And that might be just another way of saying try to target most people.
Marketing: Most people, yeah.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Um, if we are if we were to follow that avenue, we might be s you know um we're kind of almost relying on their experience with a mobile phone I suppose. But that does cover a very large section of the people out there.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Sure. I think that's fair {vocalsound} yeah.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Um, I mean I imagine as well that the actual L_C_D_ and maybe to a certain extent the joystick as well would be for the additional functionality. Which maybe doesn't get used as often, maybe it makes it easy for them to figure out how to um change the channels as in the frequencies and such for reprogramming it.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um and you can still have the main buttons that allow the people to turn the machine on and off, d up and down, it depends, I mean maybe we have the fol um the joystick as a separate one for the other functions then, that there's just a a small number of as you were saying uh buttons that have already been defined.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So like we go for the nice standard um up and down for and volume control. So that literally anybody can come along, pick up the remote and still know what do do. And they can completely ignore most of the functionality which would be for say the o actual owner of the the T_V_
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and who would normally use the unit.
User Interface: Mm. {vocalsound} I th the thing I like about the uh the uh joystick
Project Manager: I dunno.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: is that uh you you you then basically you can then basically put it I mean for for T_ T_ for T_V_ remote alone, you could put um I mean there are {disfmarker} like I say the the the main things people do with a T_V_ remote control is the volume and the channel. You can pack all that onto was onto a single control. Um.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: But uh but the {vocalsound} but then o uh obviously if uh you know if you i if you wanted to access further functions i {vocalsound} you you then get to sort of menu navigation. I mean with things like ch with things like tuning and channels um you know adjusting brightn uh brightness and {vocalsound} fiddly things that no one really bothers with, most T_V_s these days actually have menus anyway so this would be a fairly rational way of integra {gap}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: integrating the uh the remote with the device it's controlling. Um {gap} concern about our market. Um, if we are I mean most of the uh of the replacement remote market is sort of {gap} remote control rationalisation. Um, you've got twenty different devices in your living room,
Marketing: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: you want one wo {vocalsound} y you want one that'll do the job of all of them. Um, if all you're replacing is one of the you know however many remotes you have in your living room, um you know you still need separate remotes for everything else.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: I just think that uh possibly {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well this is a requirement that we have to stick to I'm afraid,
User Interface: mm.
Project Manager: this isn't one that I've just arbitrarily decided on.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: So um this is this is one of the solid ones that has to be obeyed, for now.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: So I can understand your point, and I would agree with you, but this is our design spec for now.'Fraid to say. Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Does that um would that include um access to say {vocalsound} interactive functions on digital or cable?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: I would say so, yes, because then we have to be able to control the remote boxes, and that is a separate unit. Um I think that it {disfmarker} I would say that the design spec we've been {gap} with is for the television only for now.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: And until we hear otherwise we should go with just that.
Marketing: Hmm. Okay, specifically television.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Okay. Maybe we'll hear differently, but for now {disfmarker}
Marketing: So the joystick is just for differentness.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: It would be ease of manipulation of certain functions, yes. Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Just a thought. {vocalsound} Um maybe then our market should be T_V_ manufacturers, rather than the public. Try and sell it t sell it to them to supply with um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: There is that possibility, yes. B However I don't know exactly where we'll be going with that, but it might not even be the avenue of the Marketing Expert,
Marketing: Mm. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: that might be sales, who are not in this meeting.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. It's just, the way I figure it, twelve point five Euros per unit, we have to sell at least like three million or something like that,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: not to account for all the the money we waste on remotes that no one buys, you know, like if we made a perf if we made a ks for every remote we made someone bought it, then we have to sell a lot of remote controls.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: We just {disfmarker} Is this gonna be enough to to sell?
Project Manager: Well, something else that you brought up was uh the ability to lose a remote, which as you said you've done, in fact we've probably all done.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Um, I don't know if it's a gimmick or not, but have any of you ever seen those odd little key rings where if you whistle, it will beep and you {disfmarker} tell you where it is.
User Interface: Mm, yeah, I've seen them.
Marketing: I had one of those, and my brother, and my dad, could have beat me up
Project Manager: Um. Well
Marketing: because it it went off all the time accidentally.
Project Manager: the other option of course is that um the
Marketing: The clapping one. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: well {disfmarker} I was going to say clapping, um {disfmarker} Um digital telephones, uh for example, one unit has {disfmarker} of course you have to have that base unit, somewhere where there's a button, but maybe it's a button that you attach to the T_V_.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: To a television. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Something which you when you press that, it would beep to give its location away, on the remote unit.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah, I think that's a good idea.
Project Manager: And that could be something could um separate us a bit.
Marketing: Yeah, that's a good idea.
Project Manager: And that way, because we're attaching what would be a small button to the T_V_, again say what, it would be a small transmitter, um watch battery type scenario I would say, or something that if it was problems enough you could actually even just um I don't {disfmarker} power {gap} that might be something that we could look into.
Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yep. Yeah, it's uh putting a lot on your shoulders there, so I mean that could be something that separates us a bit from the market as well.
Marketing: {vocalsound} I think so, yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So. To go on from here. Um we have to decide exactly what we're going to do with the remote. Before we leave this meeting, it would be best to say this is what we're going {disfmarker} this is the design we're gonna try and get, this is how we're gonna make ourselves look unique.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Do we go for maybe a remote contro uh sorry, we're gonna go for a remote control obviously, do we go for a small joystick that would operate say changing channels, up and down, and then, what, another button that would say that it's now being used to manoeuvre round the L_C_D_.
User Interface: Mm yeah. Yeah, I think that's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: We're just saying volume. Should volume be important in the joystick, do you think?
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: We could use say the left and right for changing channels and the up and down for volume,
User Interface: For volume.
Project Manager: and {disfmarker}
Marketing: But we have a frequency of how what people use a remote control for most.
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Um, power is used like once per hour,
Industrial Designer: I
Marketing: channel selection is used a hundred and sixty eight per hour,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: that's by far the biggest one, and then teletext, is still here, that's like fourteen,
Project Manager: Vol Volume selection okay, yep,
Marketing: and volume selection.
Project Manager: the teletext we're gambling with, and we're gonna say it's dead, the way of the dodo {disfmarker}
Marketing: No, yeah, okay okay. Yeah, um {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So we {disfmarker} well, sorry, we could maybe even go as far as saying power button, small joystick, L_C_D_, and then what maybe is it one more button to say that you're using the menu system, and with the possibility of pushing down on the joystick to say okay? So we're having very very few buttons involved,
User Interface: Actually how {disfmarker}
Project Manager: but navigation around a menu for most things.
User Interface: Actually I would say maybe two two function buttons, the {disfmarker} y we're now using the menus button and um and an og and an okay button. I mean certainly something I've found with the joystick on mo the joysticks on mobile phones is that a lot of the time th the device mistakes you trying to move it in one direction or the other for pushing down for okay.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Or vice versa.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: And that's really irritating.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: {vocalsound} The o the o the other dis design constraint I think we should bear in mind is that people are you know very much used to using a remote control one handedly, um, so we need to make sure that e even with the joystick, you know something that can just sit comfortably in the palm of the hand and have the joystick just controlled by the thumb.
Project Manager: Okay. So um we're actually that sounds like a rough idea. Do we incorporate the idea of trying to f locate the remote control again via a beeping noise?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, think so.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Do you mind looking {gap}?
Marketing: Um, I think because it's so small it might be an uh I mean if we only have like two three buttons it might be essential to have to have that {disfmarker}
Project Manager: The ability to locate it again.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So that would require a um transmitter maybe attached to the T_V_, just so that it says find me, and {vocalsound} what, a basically a small microphone um on the actual unit, can maybe hide it in the base.
Industrial Designer: Light bulb as well,
User Interface: Oh. So {vocalsound} so
Industrial Designer: no?
Project Manager: Sorry?
User Interface: a small speaker you mean.
Project Manager: Some speaker,
Marketing: Speaker {vocalsound}
Project Manager: sorry, yeah.
Marketing: yeah.
Industrial Designer: And a light bulb? No. To flash. No.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Nah, you'd see it anyway, if you hear it.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} E us we might be better with the sound possibly {disfmarker} we could maybe incorporate
Marketing: W those little key-rings have both,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: th e the true fact, considering the cost of an L_E_D_, we could just incorporate it anyway.
Marketing: so {disfmarker} Yeah.
Project Manager: The L_E_D_s can be surprisingly bright now.
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Mm-hmm. Blue ones particularly.
Project Manager: Um. {vocalsound} So
User Interface: Plus that's a nice wee design touch.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: by the sounds of it, with what we're suggesting so far, your design um the user interface is still quite open, you could go for quite an interesting design.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Because we're only going to have a very few key and you've got you know a small L_C_D_, joystick, e I think it leaves you open to a a potential wide range of shapes, something that can make it stand out slightly.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um if you could look into what we've suggested so far, the feasibility of um small transmitter, um and such, maybe if an L_C_D_ screen requires too much power, or such. Ebenezer, um, Marketing Expert {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Well I can give you the frequency, what people what options people use most often, I guess that's gonna be important in the ts defining the the software side of the interface, right.
Project Manager: If,
Marketing: You want the stuff {gap}.
Project Manager: yeah if you could maybe as well see what people think about the idea of this minimalist approach that we've taken, where of a joystick to control the very basic functions, and then the idea of manipulating it like you would a mobile.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: I don't know how easy that will be within the time frame,
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: but could be something we could maybe look into.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Sure. Sure.
Project Manager: Okay. Um any last comments that anybody would like to put forward? Anything that they think has been missed out. Bit of a wide open question there of course.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Feel free to email me if you think that uh we've screwed something up and wanna get it rectified as soon as possible.
Marketing: Sure.'Kay. Yeah.
Project Manager: Right.
Industrial Designer: So I should just look at um the speaker, {gap} the speaker and an L_E_D_.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Speaker and L_E_D_ for locating, um,
Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker}
Marketing: Transmitter {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, and a transmitter.
Project Manager: transmitter {disfmarker}
User Interface: Actually one one wee thought about that. Um, if we do end up trying to market this to television manufacturers then the um then the transmitter could actually be built into the television.
Project Manager: {gap} getting the external power source, yep, that's quite true. Um, and something that we can can easily be adopted at the last minute as well I'd say.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: The electronics could be s either placed externally or internally, makes no difference to the final product of the actual remote control,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: so that's good.
User Interface: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound} You know I think
Project Manager:'Kay.
User Interface: I mean if it w if we get a major television manufacturer to say y oh yeah we'll have that, save us the bother, then that's you know vast amounts of sales. Quite quickly.
Industrial Designer: P
Project Manager: Oh, one thing that we've almost not talked about at all, my apologies for that, um, user interface, we also need to maybe get the slogan in here, um it's,
Industrial Designer: Fashion.
Project Manager: I'm pointing at my laptop, what in God {disfmarker} Real reaction, and such. So um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: The slogan is {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh, sorry.
Industrial Designer: yeah, the slogan's we put the fashion in electronics, isn't it?
Project Manager: My apologies. No it could well be, I've probably missed that. Um, I think that's l almost the last minute thing
Industrial Designer:'S also look cool.
Project Manager: we can just incorporate into the actual plastic on top.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: So I'm not too concerned a that we haven't gone into depth about that. But it might be something you could consider when you're thinking about shapes?
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: In fact we might like to put a slogan on, and um possibly the two R_s to signify the company. Rather than real reaction.
User Interface: Mm-hmm. Mm. Yeah. I thought the uh the d the double arc could perhaps uh be the uh the enter button.
Project Manager: Sounds good.
User Interface: {gap}.
Project Manager: And I'd say that that's us for now. Okay. | The market research indicated that between the age of 15 and 25, most people would be willing to pay extra fees for voice recognition. However, Marketing pointed out that such a result barely implied users'expectation for a fancy and unique remote control. There were several problems with the existing voice recognition software, such as the limitation on word number and inaccurate recognition results due to regional accents. In conclusion, Marketing considered the incorporation of voice recognition to be unfeasible. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
Project Manager: Okay. Uh good afternoon. This is our third meeting already.
Marketing: Good afternoon.
Project Manager: I hope you enjoyed your lunch. {vocalsound} I did anyway. {vocalsound} Um let's see. Presentation three. Okay this is um the second phase uh we're going to discuss today. It's the conceptual design meeting. And a few points of interest in this meeting um are the conceptual specification of components. Uh conceptual specification of design. And also trend-watching. Um these are hopefully the points you addressed in uh your pre uh presentations you're going to show me in a few minutes. Um but first I'll show you the agenda. Uh first the opening. Then we have three presentations. Uh after that we have to come to a decision on remote control concepts. How we're going to make it. And then we're closing. We have about forty minutes. Uh so I suggest let's get started. Uh did someone encounter any problems during the preparation? No?
User Interface: No.
Project Manager: Everything fine?
Marketing: {gap}
Project Manager: That's nice. Then a little uh thing about the last meeting. Uh these are the points um we agreed on. The requirements and the target market. Uh requirements are uh teletext, docking station, audio signal, small screen, with some extras that uh button information. And we are going to use default materials. Um does somebody have any comments on these requirements? Maybe? No? These are just the the things we thought of, so maybe if you figured something else or thought of something else, just let me know. And maybe we can uh work it out. And we're going to target uh sixty to to eighty year old customers. So now everybody knows what we're do we're doing, um I suggest let's get started with the presentations. So shall we keep the same uh line-up as uh last time?
Marketing: Sure.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: I'll start off then.
Project Manager: Good luck. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Doh.'Kay I'm uh gonna inform you about the trend-watching I've done over the past few days. Um we've done some market research. We distributed some more enquetes, questionnaires. And um besides that um I deployed some trend-watchers to Milan and Paris to well get all of the newest trends. And I've consulted some additional trend-watch trend-watchers, after the original trend-watchers return, about what the the best design would be. Um okay these are some overall findings. Um most important thing is the fancy design. Um the research indicated that that was by far the most important factor. Um innovativeness was about half as important as the fancy design. By innovativeness this means um functions which are not featured in other remote controls. Um about half of, half as important as the innovativeness was the was easy to use. Um for our um group, we're focusing on the people of sixty to eighty y years old, this is um, these factors are slightly more equal.'Kay these are some more group specific findings. Uh the older people prefer dark colours. Uh they like recognisable shapes, and familiar material. And our surveys have indicated that especially wood is pretty much the material for older people. Um this is, this image will give you a little bit of an impression about um the look-and-feel that um the remote should have. Um this leads us to some personal preferences. Uh the remote control and the docking station should uh blend in in the in the room. Um so this would mean no uh eye-catching designs. Just keep it simple and {disfmarker} Well the docking station and small screen would be our main points of interest, because this would be the {disfmarker} These would uh be the innovativeness in the remote control. So this would be very important that we {vocalsound} at least include these features. Um well the trend-watchers I consulted advised that it b should be, the remote control and the docking station should be telephone-shaped. So you could imagine that uh the remote control will be standing up straight in the docking station. This is not really {disfmarker} This is pretty much a new shape to uh older people. So they would prefer uh a design where the remote control just lies flat in the docking station. So it would be kinda more telephone-shaped. Um besides that we would advise um to bring two editions, one with a wood-like colour and maybe feel, and one with a grey-black colour. The wood-like for the more uh exclusive people. People with more money. Uh the grey-black colour for well people with less means. That would be all.
Project Manager: Okay. Thank you. Any questions about the the trends?
Marketing: Any questions?
Project Manager: Mayb
User Interface: Mm no.
Project Manager: No? Okay, we go on to the next one.
User Interface: {gap}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Um {vocalsound}'kay um yeah. {gap} uh some uh research uh a about um designing of an interface. Um the uh last meeting uh we had a about um uh using a f few buttons. So uh um uh that's w what I what I want to uh uh to do in uh our design. So um finding an attractive uh way to control uh the remote control. Um the uh {disfmarker} I found some uh something about uh speech uh recognition. So maybe uh we can uh use uh that. Um {disfmarker} Uh and uh using a little uh display. So um findings. Um yeah just um we have just to focus on the primary um functions. So uh only uh buttons uh for uh sound, um for uh on-off, um uh shifting u up uh sa uh ca channel or uh down shifting down. Um uh let's see. Um yeah and {disfmarker} Uh {gap} we uh need some uh new a attractive functions uh uh which attract uh uh people for using it. So uh it's uh like a speak uh speech uh recognition and um a special button for selecting uh subtitles. Just uh what we uh mentioned uh last uh meeting. Um and yeah overall um user-friendly. So uh using uh large large buttons. Um {disfmarker} It's uh possible to uh uh to make um quite cheap uh system for uh speech uh recognition. Um you can think about um uh when you lost your um remote control, you can uh call it and um it gives an um sig signal. So uh uh yeah. And and uh for uh shifting up a sen uh c ch channel or uh for um uh putting out uh sound or something, you can uh just give a sign uh say um sound off or {disfmarker} A and uh yeah. Television uh put the sound off uh put the sound off uh. Um {disfmarker} Let's see. Uh yeah. I was thinking about the special uh button for uh subtitles, um just one button to keep it uh simple. Uh one push on the button uh you get uh uh small uh subtitles. Um double push push um, if double click, um so uh you get uh big uh subtitles, for uh people uh um uh which c f uh who can't uh read small uh subtitles. So uh {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} Yeah and w we have to keep uh in general buttons uh so um we've got um the buttons we have to use. The on-off, sound on-off, sound higher or lower, um the numbers, uh zero to uh uh nine. Um the general buttons m more general b one button for shifting up and shifting down uh channel. Um also we want to uh use a little d display uh for um for displaying the uh the functions of the buttons. And um we can uh build in a function f which uh shows the channel or some uh which the t television is on. So um made a little uh picture of uh it. Um {disfmarker} See. Um yeah. Just um we can put uh the on-off button uh over in this uh corner, um almost uh e all uh remote controls uh are using a on-off button on that place. Um so uh people uh will uh recognise uh um the button.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: So um {disfmarker} D display uh of it, it's uh just a small display. Uh um you can put it uh on top. Um it's uh most uh uh place where people uh, most of {gap} looks at. So uh um and a special uh button for shifting up uh and uh shifting down uh channel, um it's uh on place where um the thumb of of the {disfmarker} So you you can uh easily uh shift up or shift down. Um it's uh quite uh handy place. So um and uh all the f functions for subtitle uh one button, uh for sound uh {disfmarker} Uh and uh for our design, um uh we have to discuss about it uh I think uh so uh the form of it so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: And that's it.
Project Manager: Uh thank you. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay. About the components design. Um for the energy source we can use a basic battery or, a as an optional thing, a kinetic energy, like in a watch, which you just shake and it produces energy. But if we choose for that option, the docking station would c become obsolete. So I don't think it's really an option. Uh for the casing, uh the uh manufacturing department can deliver uh a flat casing, single or double curved casing. It's really up the the design that we're gonna use. It's uh doesn't uh imply any technical restrictions. Uh as a case supplement, we could um, I thought of that l later, uh a rubber uh belt, like a anti-slip. Uh for the b buttons, we can use plastic or rubber. And the chip-set, um it says simple here, but it should be advanced, because we're using an L_C_D_ uh screen. And as uh the trend-watcher presentation showed, um people like wood, but it raises the price and it doesn't really fit the image, unless we would start two product lines. Form should follow function overall. Um well the kinetic energy source is rather fancy. But depends on what we want. I think we should disc discuss that. Um for the case, uh the supplement and the buttons, it really depends on the designer. And the chip-set uh really should be advanced because otherwise uh it would really be a simple uh remote control. And that's it.
Project Manager: Okay. Thank you. So that brings us to the discussion about our concepts. Mm.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager:'Kay. So these are the points we have to discuss. Um first I think we can talk about the energy source, since that's um has a pretty big influence on production price, uh and image.
User Interface: {gap}
Project Manager: Uh so uh f I think first of all we have to see uh it is possible to introduce kinetic energy in our budget, I think.
Industrial Designer: Yes w there there are four options. We could use the basic normal battery.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Uh a hand dynamo.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay {gap}. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: But I don't think that's {vocalsound} really an option.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: You don't wanna swing before you can watch television.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Uh solar cells. But not every room is very light
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: so it's not a very good option.
Project Manager: No.
Industrial Designer: Or the kinetic energy.
Project Manager: Yeah. Okay.
Marketing: And how exactly does the kinetic energy work?
Industrial Designer: Well y you basically shake your remote, and then it powers up.
Marketing: You just {disfmarker} You use it and it works.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Nah.
Marketing: Okay. Well personally I don't think that older people like to shake their remote control before they use it.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. That's true.
Marketing: And besides that you mentioned it would make the docking station obsolete.
Industrial Designer: Oh.
Marketing: And I think our docking station could be one of the marketing issues with which we can um get great popularity for our product.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: But
Marketing: Um wel
User Interface: what's the function? Yeah f for loading up uh the batteries {gap}.
Marketing: Yeah you could load up the batteries,
User Interface: B b
Marketing: you could um insert the find the lost remote control function in there.
User Interface: Okay but uh it won't use uh much e energy uh I I believe. Uh it's uh just a small display so I believe uh it will run on one battery for um six months or f or or more. So I believe one battery uh is just enough.
Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Uh so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Uh well I think uh elderly people just like to have everything in place.
Marketing: That's true. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And I don't think they they like uh remotes just laying everywhere in their rooms.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: So maybe a docking station will help them give the remote a place.
User Interface: Yeah. That's true. Yeah.
Project Manager: And also what you said. Um you can introduce voice recognition by uh finding back your remote.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: But I think it's um more efficient and cheaper to put it in the docking station.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: So you have a but button on your docking station which you can push, and then it starts beeping.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: And then we can we can still use the voice recognition, but maybe then for only the the channels.
User Interface: Yeah. Uh.
Project Manager: That's safe.
Marketing: I'm wondering um what will the voice recognition mean for the production price?
Project Manager: Yeah. That's a good point.
Industrial Designer: Mm I don't have any information on pricing. So I'll have to ask the manufacturing department.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing:'Cause in our earlier um market research, if you'd allow me to go to the flat board, SMARTboard.
Project Manager: Yeah, sure. Go ahead.
Marketing: Um so it was open here. Um we also um asked if w they would, if people would pay more for speech recognition in a remote control. Well you can see here, our target group would not do that.
Project Manager: No.
Marketing: So if that would increase the price for which we're selling our remote control
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: I would greatly advise not to do it.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: {gap}
Marketing: I think that would be better to uh insert in our other product, that is meant for the
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: younger people.
User Interface:'Kay.
Industrial Designer: But that would also go for the L_C_D_ screen then I guess. It's a bit higher percentage, but {disfmarker}
Marketing: Um well this is Yeah but this is here the question was, would you prefer it. So that doesn't really mean they wouldn't pay extra for it. And on top of that the L_C_D_ screen would um help in making the remote control easier to use.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: And I think a voice recognition function would not make the remote control much easier to use.
Project Manager: Easier to use? No, I think that's a good point.
User Interface: But uh is uh our uh research um about um bi large uh L_C_D_ sh uh display, or uh just a small one uh we want to uh use?
Marketing: Um well this was for like an L_C_D_ screen like you would have on a on the the most advanced mobile phones.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: So pretty large.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: I personally think the L_C_D_ screen we wanna use, with the extra information, I think nobody has anything against it. Because it's just uh some extra information,
User Interface: No.
Project Manager: and it's easy to ignore as well. So if you don't wanna use it you just don't use it.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: And um yeah I think the um {disfmarker} Maybe we have to uh discard the voice recognition. Because it will increase cost uh signifi uh significantly. And I don't think the {disfmarker} I don't think it will be a lot easier to use, as well.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: So that brings us back to the energy. If we don't have the voice recognition, it will it won't use a lot of energy to use. Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So in that case we could use kinetic uh energy, but I think just a simple battery which you can reload on a docking station is just as good. And much cheaper as well.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: And that's the best choice.
Project Manager: Okay let me just choose for the battery. That brings us to the chip.
Industrial Designer: Well there isn't any choice there because we're using the the the the display.
Project Manager: Just the advanced.
Industrial Designer: So it's gotta be advanced.
Project Manager: Okay
Marketing:'Kay.
Project Manager: {gap}, advanced chip. And then we get to the point of the case. Um which brings us a little bit back to marketing as well. Uh if we wanna choose for wood or the black and grey. Or both? Um as we saw there is not {disfmarker} Yeah wood is a lot more expensive to produce.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um but I think it will attract elderly people who wanna have something exclusive, which they can show off to their grandkids.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Look I've got a new remote control, and uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh I dunno.
Marketing: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} And I think most important factor there is the wooden colour. So it wouldn't actually have to be wood,
Project Manager: Yeah. That's right.
Marketing: if it's just
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: wood-coloured.
Project Manager: But with colour was a lot more expensive? Or?
Industrial Designer: Mm I dunno.
Project Manager: You don't know?
Industrial Designer: I'll have to uh research.
Project Manager: I think so because {disfmarker} Yeah.
Marketing: Probably.
Project Manager: It's a lot more difficult to to handle and to to get in the right shape.
User Interface: Mm. Uh is it possible uh to make um changeable uh case. So um uh you'cause uh {disfmarker} Yeah with uh mobile phones uh uh so uh like the Nokia mobile phones, uh when you can change the case of it.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: So
Project Manager: Change the cases. Yeah.
User Interface: maybe it's possible uh possibility. So um um you have just to make one um standard um remote control, and um yeah you can sell uh few uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: You can sell the cases.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. I think that's a very good option. Because um then you can advertise as well with the {disfmarker} Give your grandfather a new case for his remote control, or whatever. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Because that's a {disfmarker} it's something extra, it's something other remotes don't have,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: which we can get a great advantage point.
Marketing: Yeah that is true.
Project Manager: So and then you can make them with colour. Black and grey, other colours as well.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. We would have to look carefully into the design though.
Project Manager: Costs.
Marketing:'Cause we would have to make one w uh control which would fit in with a wooden cover and a plastic cover. The more original one, or the more standard one.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah. So
Marketing: So that would {disfmarker}
Project Manager: you suggest we should design two different telephones on which you can apply, yeah {vocalsound} remote controls, on which you can apply different case covers, for example.
Marketing: Well I wouldn't design a telephone
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Well no I think w we should just, we should then just design one um
Project Manager: Remote.
Marketing: one remote, but it would have to be fancy with either the wood cover or the plastic one.
Project Manager: Yeah. Okay.
Marketing: So, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Project Manager: So everybody's okay with the changing covers? I think that's a good uh good option.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Project Manager: Changing case covers.
Marketing: Um I heard our Industrial Designer talk about uh flat, single and double curved.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Marketing: Could you explain that a little more?
Industrial Designer: Well the the general like most older remotes are flat, just straight.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And uh our d manufacturing department can also deliver single curved or double curved ca curved cases.
Marketing: And what would single curved and double curved mean?
Industrial Designer: Um it would just only affect the form, for as far as I know. So it's j really just up to the design department what we're gonna use. It doesn't really matter for the price or the functionality.
Marketing: Okay. So we can pretty much just do whatever we want.
Industrial Designer: Pick one you like, yes.
Project Manager: Mm. Okay.
Marketing:'Kay. That's good.
Project Manager: Uh but the form has to be um {disfmarker} It has to {disfmarker} It's has to be possible to stand up? Or just only to lie down?
Marketing: No just to lie down.
User Interface: {gap} okay.
Project Manager: And the the cover of the the docking station is also
Marketing: We'll go for that.
Project Manager: on top of the television then? Or not?
Marketing: Well or besides it.
Project Manager: And you can just yeah then click it in. That's okay. Um so the interface. What type of interface do we want to use? Um maybe you can make a little drawing of it on the
Marketing: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: on the the board.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Does somebody have ideas for a form or
User Interface: Uh we can just use the regular form of it, but it's um not quite uh fancy. So um {disfmarker} Yeah.
Marketing: Um you uh said you wanted to put the um changing channels button on the right side,
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: so you could, so your thumb would be easily {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Well uh I think that was a very good point'cause I pointed out earlier that a lot of remotes cause R_S_I_.
User Interface: {gap}
Marketing: So that would be great for that. Um I thought maybe we could just make one of those buttons on both the left and the right side.
User Interface: For uh {disfmarker} Uh for {disfmarker}
Marketing: For left-handed users also.
User Interface: Yeah yeah.
Project Manager: Yep.
User Interface: Mm. Yeah we Is it possible to um program it s so uh you got on the left side uh or on the right side uh buttons for for shifting u up and shifting up? And on the uh other uh {vocalsound} uh o other side uh buttons for uh shifting, uh for for the sound? Or {disfmarker} Or isn't it?
Marketing: For the volume. Um well
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: that could {gap} Yeah we could do that but I'm not sure if that would be very good for the easy, ease of use.
Project Manager: Usabili Yeah ease of use will be a lot more difficult,
User Interface: Yeah okay.
Project Manager: and then it's {disfmarker}
User Interface: Uh.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: But if we would make um a changing channels and changing volume button on both sides, that would certainly yield great options for the design of the remote.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing:'Cause it could be made all symmetrical and stuff.
User Interface: Yeah
Project Manager: But you have extra buttons.
User Interface: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So people can get confused.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah.
Marketing: That is true.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Especially if they have the same writings on it.
User Interface: See um yeah. Or we have to make a left uh {disfmarker} For lefties
Project Manager: Can't we make uh {disfmarker} Can't we make a remote which you can flip over and use on the same
User Interface: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: functions as the normal one?
User Interface: {vocalsound} You mean um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Then you have to {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah if {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Let's see if I ca A blank one. And then you get {disfmarker} Here's a little L_C_D_ screen. Uh now I have to think. It's a plus and a min. No it's not very handy I think. Because the plus and the min will be opposite
User Interface: Mm no.
Project Manager: and all kinds of {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No that's not gonna work. I guess. Maybe we should {disfmarker}
User Interface: Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. But is it a problem that left-handed persons use a different hand? I think the functions are that basic that nobody should have any problems with uh choosing a channel
Marketing: Yeah. That is true.
Project Manager: or {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. It's just uh u using uh your thumb.
Project Manager: Y yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: So um it's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I think we could just uh leave it a normal shape.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Uh but maybe we have to make it a l a bit more fancy. In one or ano another way.
User Interface: Yeah. Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I think we should start by by choosing a case. Because that's the basis you're building on.
User Interface: Yeah yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Um yeah
Industrial Designer: So I could draw them out.
Project Manager: just {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Let's look at the flat case. Oh. It's from the side so it's rather normal.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: The the single curved so I'm not really sure what they're gonna look like, but I think it's something like this. So this type should be better for you or better {disfmarker} Should prevent repetitive strain injury a bit.
Project Manager: Easier?
Industrial Designer: And the double curved s looks something like this I guess.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: So th those are the three options we have.
Project Manager:'Kay.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: I suggest um the single curved, because maybe the curve is pretty good to put the the screen in.
User Interface: {gap}
Project Manager: Uh so that elderly people can uh use the remote control and at the same time look easily at the screen, because it's a bit, it has a bit of a angle.
User Interface: So um {disfmarker} Do you say this um {disfmarker} S uh {disfmarker} Uh you got like uh sort of a {disfmarker} I believe {disfmarker} {gap} There?
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So um you want to put a display over here? Or not?
Project Manager: Yeah. I think so. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. Um {disfmarker} Yeah. Uh
Project Manager: But now it's {disfmarker}
User Interface: we can make it um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Do you have it upside down or {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm?
Project Manager: Do you have it
User Interface: That's the top.
Project Manager: this that's top? Okay.
User Interface: So uh this top. This down. Um maybe it's possible to uh make this side like um {disfmarker} Let's see. Um {disfmarker} Colour uh okay. Uh to make this side um like mm the right colour.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Um bit like so uh um in the form of your hand. So um {disfmarker} Uh it's an {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: So so the remote control have to um lay in your hand. So uh it's possib um yeah for s so and
Project Manager: So get your mouse. Yeah.
User Interface: And to put uh the the buttons for um changing uh the channel uh over here uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. That's a good one. But I think it's better to put the screen uh on top.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh rem
Project Manager: So just flip it a hundred and eighty degrees around then you get {disfmarker} {gap} here.
User Interface: Yeah but this place um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: If you can have this one, you turn it like this. And then flip it upside down.
User Interface: Uh it's {disfmarker} Yeah I dunno um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Because uh maybe your hand is in the way, if you have the display here.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: {gap}
Industrial Designer: It's more logical to have it on top as well
Project Manager: I think i
Industrial Designer: because, like on your mobile phone, it's always above.
User Interface: Yeah so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: On top.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Oh maybe you should just s start on a blank page.
Project Manager: {gap}. So
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: then we get {disfmarker} Here's {disfmarker} That's the curve.
User Interface: Five minutes. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Here the display, and then buttons. Yeah and then we can have a little bit off here and here maybe. Just that's for left hand and right hand users.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: And then h the rest of the buttons over here.
User Interface: Yeah. But um the on-off button, um still on the top uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah still here
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: jus
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: That's {disfmarker}
Marketing: And I'd prefer the corners to be round.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.'Kay.
Project Manager: Should be more bit more friendly,
Marketing: Think that would be better.
Project Manager: yeah.
Marketing: Friendly on the eye.
Project Manager:'Kay. Supplements. That's okay. Where's my mouse? Then {disfmarker} We've got a general idea of the concepts and the materials we're going to use. So now for the next meeting uh we'll have to look at the look-and-feel design. It's important that the corporate design image uh is going to be in the remote. So check out the corporate website maybe. The user interface design, it's the same story. And product evaluation. So the Industrial Designer and User Interface Designer are going to work together on this one. But you're going to get your instructions I think sended by the coach. So just um I will put these um minutes on the in the folder.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: And then we're going to uh try to finish our project, and uh make a good design for all the grandfathers and grandmothers, I think.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Which are {disfmarker} Uh let's see. I'm not sure if you're going to start right away to work together or {disfmarker} I think you're going to fill in the questionnaires first.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: And then you'll get a message.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: So that's uh basically it. Maybe this one? Then we can save this one in the folders group. Uh yes, it's here.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} SMARTboard, there it it. So if you wanna have a look at it, it's over there in the projects folder.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: And then I guess we'll start in thirty minutes again. Thank you.
Marketing: Very good.
User Interface: Okay. | The whole meeting was focused on the conceptual design of the new remote control product. After Project Manager briefly reaffirmed the agreements reached in previous meetings, Marketing, User Interface, and Industrial Designer each gave a presentation about trend-watching, interface design, and components design respectively. Then, Project Manager started a group discussion about important points just covered, including energy source, voice recognition, LCD screen, as well as case design, on which more emphasis was paid in the last half of the meeting. Finally, the group roughly drew out a specific case design. | qmsum |
Summarize the discussion about production finance.
Project Manager: Good.
Industrial Designer: Beep. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Oh.
Project Manager: So well uh
User Interface: What?
Project Manager: welcome everyone.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Um as you may have noticed I uh
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: created separate folders because it was uh tending to get a little busy in our uh shared project documents uh folder.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: I don't know if everybody uh put their own uh documents in the right folder, which is for now the detailed design meeting.
Marketing: That's new one?
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: We didn't make any uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Uh, we should save that one. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Oh in {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Then I'll move this one.
User Interface: Didn't we just do that?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, save in the folder. Save as project.
User Interface: Oh.
Project Manager: Oh no, this is just one big document, so you can leave that wherever it is.
Industrial Designer: Oh, okay.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} And we have a evaluation left here.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Hmm hmm.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Agenda.
Project Manager: Well not main documents this time. Oh uh yes.
User Interface: Hmm?
Project Manager: I have it open myself I guess. Um well the detailed design meeting {disfmarker} Huh? We're finally getting somewhere hopefully.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um what are we going to do? I've opened it already. Um I'm still going to take some minutes, and if I'm right, you two are going to give a prototype presentation?
Industrial Designer: Oh, sorry.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Project Manager: Aren't you?
User Interface: We could. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yes, you are.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And uh m did you do something with evaluation criteria?
Marketing: Yep. Yep.
Project Manager: Good. And we have a correct agenda. And uh then we have to look at something which is less nice, the finance uh aspect, whether we can afford what we have designed,
User Interface: Oops. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and if we can we can uh commence the final part which is the production or project evaluation, how did we work together and what are the results, and how happy are we with those. Okay, well finance uh will be later. Now I'd like to give the word to you two.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Well uh
Industrial Designer: Get up stand up. {gap} just {disfmarker}
User Interface: we made a prototype.
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
User Interface: We first start with the overall uh {disfmarker} This is about the total remote control.
Industrial Designer: View.
User Interface: We made it green.
Industrial Designer: Just example colour,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: so uh there's one of the colours we would like to uh see in our prototype.
User Interface: It's a fresh colour. And uh the screen light blue. Oh uh this the scroll button and the microphone on the on the sides here under. And the R_ and R_ logo, it just says R_ and R_ now, but uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay?
User Interface: Any questions so far? {vocalsound}
Marketing: Big microphone.
Industrial Designer: {gap} yeah,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: just uh just an idea about how to m th that could also be possible.
Marketing: Oh okay. That's the place where it's going to be, not the size. {gap}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Uh well, it's an idea in a {disfmarker} so.
User Interface: Oh y you {disfmarker} perhaps you should make it a bit big, so people know it's there and uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Do not forget it.
User Interface: Uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: To function it it doesn't really have to be sm uh big of course.
User Interface: Hmm.
Marketing: Yeah, okay. Of course.
Industrial Designer: The microphone could be just a minor uh hole uh on the left uh button.
Marketing: Mm. Mm, th yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay um
Marketing: Small.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} we also made some uh ideas about how uh the options menu would work. Uh using the scroll button on sides uh y uh I uh um {gap} {disfmarker}
User Interface: You push the scroll button
Industrial Designer: Yeah, you push the scroll button
User Interface: and it's claps out if there's a {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: and a drop down menu or a pull out menu comes out and uh you get uh you get the options uh becoming available. For example uh T_V_ settings, uh remote settings, et cetera.
User Interface: Remote settings, et cetera. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So uh you can scroll down too with the scroll uh button, uh as you can see {disfmarker} oh, it's here, just push it in, uh the menu comes out like this and uh i it all becomes visible. Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. And you could also touch it so that it comes out,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's c
User Interface: and and use the the the scroll thing as a {disfmarker} with your fingers.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Indeed.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Okay, um it's also uh nice to see that um we made a small uh menu, uh the options menu uh becoming available when pressing the uh scroll uh button, and the opportunity to use the teletext, whi which is used uh {disfmarker} which should still be used and we think that it's uh very handy to put it uh not uh under the options menu, but in uh {disfmarker} Yes. In an apart uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: So a separate button for for text,
Industrial Designer: In a separate button, yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: okay.
User Interface: Perhaps we should use the teletext sign in p yeah.
Industrial Designer: A sign, yeah, just like {disfmarker} Okay, indeed.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay,
User Interface: Forgot. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: we can uh modify that later. Okay. Would you like to make any comments about next uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Uh well, this is the total interface uh that f of the L_C_D_ screen. Uh the numbers, which is pretty straight forward. We put ano an an extra button in. We can erase it, but {disfmarker} It's the button where you can switch channels. {gap} just when you are one and you go to two, you can {disfmarker} or if you go to five, you can go back to one with that button. Yeah, that one, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Previous page, yeah, indeed.
User Interface: It has a name. And uh uh we put that in,
Industrial Designer: Oh my God.
User Interface: I thought it would be handy there. Uh this the one number or two numbers button. Below that, the page and the sound. And uh in the middle the the mute. Uh battery indicator. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} It's quite large.
User Interface: It's {vocalsound} it's a bit big.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} And this is the uh the on off uh knop, the stand by uh knop. Or at least it should look like it. And the options uh of teletext.
Industrial Designer: Okay. You can see very clearly now that the uh teletext and options menu isn't uh taking uh much uh {disfmarker} uh it's taking much part of the screen, so it's very uh {disfmarker} when you uh {vocalsound} when you use it, doesn't uh become irritating to see.
User Interface: Huh.
Industrial Designer:'Cause if you put it on the top you always get see the the options menu.'Cause people regularly uh read from left top to right down,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. Well this about it, I think.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Huh.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Thank you. Looks good.
User Interface: I will put it back on the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} on the nice green.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And I just missed when I was typing {disfmarker} The R_R_ stands for?
Industrial Designer: {gap}
User Interface: That's the logo of the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Logo, okay. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. It's th th right now it's only R_ R_, but uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay well {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Full screen.
Project Manager: I would have recognised it if it were the right colours of course. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Shit.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Alright. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Sorry. {vocalsound}
Marketing:'Kay. {gap}
Project Manager: Okay, the evaluation criteria,
User Interface: Oh full screen, yeah {vocalsound} {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Huh.
Project Manager: huh?
Marketing: Evaluation.'Kay, my task was this time to put up a questionnaire by which we can evaluate the design of the remote control by the questions we {gap} {disfmarker} requirements from the {disfmarker} of the users. My name, my job, okay.
Industrial Designer: My name, my job. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: The methods. Questionnaire with seven point scale from one to seven, from true to false,
User Interface: Right.
Marketing: like question, is remote big enough, we can say it's true or it's false by steps. One means absolutely not true, seven {gap} {disfmarker} means true.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: The three important things of refa {vocalsound} {gap} are uh from th of this year is {disfmarker} are,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorry,
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: you used the PowerPoint {gap} {disfmarker}
Marketing: is the remote control fancy enough,
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: is it in innovative enough, and is it easy enough to use. And then evaluation itself. Uh.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: What? {vocalsound}
Marketing: So.
Industrial Designer: Bling.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: First question. Is the design fancy enough?
User Interface: Well {disfmarker}
Marketing: Project Manager, what do you think?
Project Manager: Well it's {disfmarker} looks fancy, especially with the green colour. And the the curves which we decided,
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: But does it {disfmarker}
Project Manager: huh?
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Only what happened to the single curve we spoke about last meeting?
User Interface: It uh {disfmarker} oh it's in the background. Oh.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Now uh the single curved idea was uh {disfmarker} Yeah, okay, you ge um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Y you should make uh a sideways uh view.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. The sideways view, uh that that that ma
User Interface: It will be, I guess. Oh, we can {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Ho not that pen. {vocalsound} Not that pen. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Oh
Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well
User Interface: g {vocalsound} I would {vocalsound} {disfmarker} smart board.
Project Manager: it might work one time, huh. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Suppose so.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh can I draw here or uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Think.
User Interface: Ooh.
Industrial Designer: Ah. Oh my God,
Marketing: Yeah, yeah, you can.
User Interface: So it would be uh something like this from the side, but with a bit of uh curve here,
Industrial Designer: it works.
User Interface: right?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's the single curve indeed.
User Interface: Yeah. So if you v flip it like this.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yep.
User Interface: Here's {gap} yeah.
Industrial Designer: That's not very {disfmarker} i it's also uh very handy if you make a side curve way to make the the remote control very thin at the bottom uh at a bottom at a bottom. Uh make it uh rather thick on the top, because uh on the top it has uh the screen, which takes uh in some uh space, and the batteries can be located over there,
User Interface: Yeah. So you just make the back of this part a bit bigger,
Industrial Designer: so uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: so that it lays a bit o
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Isn't going to be a little bit heavy at the top?
Industrial Designer: {gap}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah, that's a bit of problem maybe.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: No.
Marketing: With two batteries, the whole print plate and t and top, and if you're holding it quite a lot I think {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. I think yeah, the battery should be in here, because it's just nothing,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: so if you could {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay, indeed. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, but we have to rate uh these things now?
User Interface:'Cause otherwise I think i
Marketing: Yeah, we have to rate.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Is it fancy enough? True is one, false is seven. So fancy enough means, does it comes to the younger people and the elder people.
User Interface: I think it does.
Industrial Designer: I think so.
User Interface: I if you don't make it green, then the elder people won't won't like it.
Industrial Designer: It's pretty fancy.
Marketing: I think {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah, I have to agree, all the colour colours don don doesn't matter that m that much now,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {gap} you get th
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: it's only design.
User Interface: I think it does.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: And the design.
Project Manager: Well I think uh especially because of the microphone and the L_C_D_ screen also.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. I don't know whether older people will use it, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Very new thing. Well {disfmarker} Fancy {gap} the old people will.
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
User Interface: I would make it a two or something.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Marketing: A two?
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {gap} It's true, it's a one. {vocalsound} Very fancy.
User Interface: Huh? Alright, it's a one. {vocalsound} Oh it's a one. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No, it's a two. {vocalsound} Little bit strange we have to judge that ourselves, huh?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, I n used {disfmarker} I wouldn I should use that one, but it doesn't {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: But it's a one uh {disfmarker} Maybe uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Okay, no it's two? True is a one.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Very true, is it very true or isn't that true?
Project Manager: Well I'd say two on a scale {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well they think it's very true, but uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It's very true, because we designed it to be very fancy,
Marketing: Yeah, I think two.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah,
Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker}
User Interface: but {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It's very fancy, I think.
User Interface: We should perhaps {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Have you ever seen a remote control like this?
Project Manager: No, okay well, that's true. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: No, okay,
User Interface: That not.
Industrial Designer: so so it's fancy.
Marketing: That's fancy enough.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, one two.
Marketing: Then?
Project Manager: That doesn't matter that much, so make it a one. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay. Let's give it a two. Is it innovative?
User Interface: I think it is,
Marketing: Enough.
Project Manager: Yeah
User Interface: because it has an L_C_D_ screen, a mi microphone.
Project Manager: m
Industrial Designer: And uh uh the scroll is rubber,
User Interface: It's from rubber.
Marketing: We have for the search function.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: so s Eno enough to {gap} I think.
Marketing: The scroller a bit {disfmarker} I think it's it's a one yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a one I think.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Marketing: True. Also huh uh-huh {disfmarker} the buttons, are they easy to find? That was a big requirement of the old people.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah, because they're right on your screen. So you can use the b the the arrows. They're right on your screen,
Industrial Designer: Huh.
User Interface: so I don't know where you'd search.
Industrial Designer: With the ones {gap}
Marketing: Are all the buttons easy to find? Not only this buttons, all the buttons.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Well, I think they are. The options are it {disfmarker} uh little bit harder,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: but if you touch the options then it's uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Take a harder look, yeah, sure.
Marketing: I think th it's
Industrial Designer: It's easier than the regular uh remote control.
Marketing: easy t
Project Manager: Yeah, and you use these buttons the most,
Marketing: Yeah, I think this is easy now. I think th I think the options buttons are not the the easiest way to to
Project Manager: huh? So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: No they're not, but they're they're they are easy to find.
Marketing: to handle. True.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, they are a lot easier to find than uh th than on the regular remote controls
Marketing: I would rate it a {disfmarker}
User Interface: Oh.
Industrial Designer: where you have to uh find out what {disfmarker} which sign or icon means on uh every button.
Marketing: Yeah, okay, that's true, that's true.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: So
Industrial Designer: So you have t you have to use the the the manual to understand most {disfmarker}
Project Manager: which {disfmarker}
Marketing: But that's that's vantage of L_C_D_ screen, you can have text.
Project Manager: So which number are we going to fill in?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: I would say yeah.
Industrial Designer: I think it's uh it's a two, at least.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah,
Project Manager: A two, yeah?
User Interface: you can make it a two.
Project Manager: Two, three and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It's not perfect, but {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: what do you think?
Marketing: {vocalsound} I think it's a three.
Industrial Designer: A three?
Project Manager: Okay, so we have two, two, three.
Industrial Designer: And why is that?
Marketing: I personally think, because I d I don't think i maybe it's easy to use, it has to be easy to find right away. I I think if you have the button at the right, I don't think you can find the option button that easy.
User Interface: Yeah, but you don't have t have to use the button on the right. You can touch it.
Marketing: You can touch it.
User Interface: Yeah. You you can touch options.
Industrial Designer: It said bo both the options.
Marketing: Yeah, okay, but you have y then you have here s written option on here, the teletext button,
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: right?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay, then okay, good. Then I think also two, yeah.
User Interface: You can touch options
Project Manager: A two, okay,
User Interface: and it's comes out.
Project Manager: because we have to {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: A two, a two.
Marketing: Yep.
User Interface: {vocalsound} The uh the um {disfmarker} Below.
Project Manager: It's the box below it,
Industrial Designer: Uh the next question the next question.
Project Manager: huh?
Industrial Designer: Oh my God.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Otherwise we have two results in one question.
User Interface: {vocalsound} It's different.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, next question.
Marketing: It's easy to use, as well for younger as elderl elderly people.
User Interface: For young people I think it's easy to use.
Project Manager: {gap}
Marketing: Young means sixteen to forty years.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, I was {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: And elderly from forty eight to their death.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: I think it's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I think it's the most useful uh remote control ever to be manufactured. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} In the entire mankind.
Project Manager: Okay, you're very enthusiastic about your own design,
Marketing: Also if you're sixty years old {disfmarker}
Project Manager: huh?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, but because it has the regular uh controls, li uh as you can see in the screen now, and uh you don't have all the other options uh always uh on your screen.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So it's t I think it's really easy to use. You want these options to {disfmarker}
Marketing: Also
Project Manager: As well for the for the older people?
Industrial Designer: Uh sure.
Marketing: Yeah, as well as your {disfmarker} if you're fif sixty years old, you're holding one of those things in your hand {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, but uh {disfmarker} Yeah, but they they don't want the uh extra options, right?
Marketing: No, but we're going to th make this f for a all kind of people,
User Interface: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And would it be easy for them to use the speech recognition?
User Interface: Yeah, okay,
Marketing: so it it it has to be {disfmarker}
User Interface: but so they could {disfmarker} Uh I think it is. If they read a manual.
Project Manager: Because that might {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} If you read the manual,
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah, alright. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Perhaps that is one of the most uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: {gap} always.
Project Manager: M maybe that's the most user friendly and easy to use.
User Interface: Because it it's not it's not it's it's not uh difficult.
Industrial Designer: Uh because a lot of {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: You say you say uh record to to the to the speech recognition,
Industrial Designer: Channel one, channel four, yeah.
User Interface: then you say the question and the answer. And that's everything it does, the speech recognition.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, well maybe that would make it even more easy to use for them.
User Interface: Yeah. I think it would make it uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, I think it does.
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Because all the people who can't uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: I would make it two.
Marketing: Also two?
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Uh a two. Sure, two.
Marketing: Not a seven for this {gap}?
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Three?
Industrial Designer: Oh.
Project Manager: I'd say three.
Marketing: I would also say three.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, so we have three three two two
User Interface: Oh. You?
Project Manager: or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Two.
User Interface: Oh.
Project Manager: So what are we going to do? {vocalsound}
User Interface: Well {disfmarker} Two and a half. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, a three, I see. Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Three? No. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Give me more.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Another question.
Marketing: Remotes overwhelmed with buttons.
User Interface: No.
Industrial Designer: No.
Project Manager: No.
Marketing: No, that that's that's {disfmarker}
User Interface: But um I mean,
Marketing: yeah.
User Interface: that's definitely one.
Marketing: Tha that's a one, I think, that's definitely a one.
Industrial Designer: That's definitely our uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Oh nee, oh seven is it? It is.
Marketing: No?
User Interface: Yeah, uh
Marketing: Oh yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah,
User Interface: the remote score.
Industrial Designer: A false, yeah.
Project Manager: but I think you should make it one scale with with one being good and seven being bad,
Marketing: Yeah, I think isn't, this has to be something like isn't overwhelmed.
Project Manager: because otherwise we can't uh calculate anything from the results,
User Interface: It's not overwhelmed. Yeah.
Project Manager: so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, indeed.
Marketing: True.
Project Manager: Okay, a one,
User Interface: Yep.
Project Manager: because we designed for that, huh?
Marketing: Remote control has uh colours that different {disfmarker} that meet different target groups.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap}
User Interface:'Cause we make them in different colours,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: so that they uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah,
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: is optional.
Project Manager: Yeah, and I though w we had about single colours,
Marketing: That's true.
Project Manager: but you can also make uh a wood colour, not just one single colour but a wood-like thing,
User Interface: Yeah. That it that it looks like wood, like something, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Huh.
Project Manager: can't you?
Marketing: Also with rubber?
User Interface: Uh I think you can.
Project Manager: Whether it looks like wood, it isn't w it isn't wood
Marketing: Yeah, okay.
Project Manager: but {disfmarker}
User Interface: It it feels like rubber,
Project Manager: You can make a print on rubber,
User Interface: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: can't you? Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: So that's a one then,
User Interface: Well but then when you scratch it it does come off.
Marketing: Yeah?
Project Manager: huh? {vocalsound}
Marketing: That's a one?
User Interface: So that's a bit {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, it is it is harder to
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Do you have many questions?
Marketing: Uh I have {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: to like {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh, okay well {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Oh we have time. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Geez.
Project Manager: Yeah, but we have {disfmarker} We also {disfmarker} We have to get to the money. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: We're getting paid. We're getting paid. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} The material used is spongy,
User Interface: {vocalsound} What?
Marketing: that that's uh that's a one, that's m rubber.
Project Manager: What {gap} spongy.
User Interface: Yeah, yeah, it's very spongy.
Industrial Designer: Uh.
Marketing: Yeah,
User Interface: Oh
Marketing: I th think it's not the most spongy thing.
User Interface: but not {disfmarker} it's not very spongy, because it's hard rubber. I think it's a three.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, it's a three,
Project Manager: Uh-huh, yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: because you want to make it uh rather flexible but not too flexible,
User Interface: Hard but {disfmarker} Yeah. You can {vocalsound} break it.
Industrial Designer: because it has a L_C_D_ screen. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Hard to lose,
Marketing: Remote control is hard to lose.
Industrial Designer: yeah it sh and it's easy to find.
User Interface: Y yeah, you could you could call it.
Marketing: Y you can't you can't lose it if you're sixty years old. If first time see the thing you didn didn't adjust uh {disfmarker} set the microphone, and then you lose it, then you have lost it.
User Interface: Yeah, y you can lose it, but it isn't hard to lose.
Marketing: It isn't hard, no. I think I think this is a two, personally.
User Interface: Two. That it's hard to lose?
Marketing: No.
User Interface: Yeah, it it is {disfmarker} there's the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah,
Industrial Designer: Isn't hard to lose.
Project Manager: so isn't hard to lose you. {vocalsound}
User Interface: it's a six, you think? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Isn't hard to lose, yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Isn't hard to lose.
User Interface: So it's a two. Yeah, you can lose it, so I don't {gap} {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah. You can't lose it.
User Interface: you can make it a three I {gap} {disfmarker} It does have an {disfmarker} a built in function.
Marketing: Or if you're you're sixty years old, your demands {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, but a har A hard to lose is good. So it should {disfmarker} this question should be hard to lose. It's difficult to lose it.
User Interface: Nee. Hard to lose. Oh right.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, this this is hard to lose.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: It is hard to lose. Yeah, so then this is {disfmarker} it is almost true,
Industrial Designer: This {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: A two.
Marketing: I think {disfmarker} yeah, I think also.
User Interface: so a two.
Project Manager: A two.
Industrial Designer: Two, yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: And most all because of the option to {disfmarker} Whoa.
Marketing: Huh?
User Interface: Ooh. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, it's okay. That happens above also. But maybe when you scroll away and back it will be normal,
User Interface: Oh.
Industrial Designer: Uh.
Marketing: Yeah? Oh, okay.
Project Manager: but {disfmarker} Yep. Oh,
Marketing: No.
Project Manager: it isn't,
User Interface: Oh well,
Project Manager: well okay. {vocalsound}
User Interface: it doesn't.
Industrial Designer: {gap} put the cor cursor {gap} on the {gap}.
Project Manager: Remember.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay okay okay.
Industrial Designer: Click.
Marketing: Remote control mainly be sold to younger people.
User Interface: I think it will,
Industrial Designer: True.
User Interface: yeah.
Industrial Designer: True. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah? True? Very true?
User Interface: Uh well
Industrial Designer: Uh yeah. Uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: There.
User Interface: I {disfmarker} a
Marketing: No, I don't think very true because the colours.
User Interface: a two. {vocalsound}
Marketing: We have the colours. Um we have the buttons is {disfmarker} aren't that that much.
Industrial Designer: Materials, yeah.
Marketing: Nah, the material isn't that {disfmarker}
User Interface: It's it's much more younger.
Industrial Designer: Uh okay. So ma uh make it make it a two.
Marketing: So I don I think I think it's a three.
Project Manager: Well I think it's it's uh a lower number, so better because w we designed it for young people especially,
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah,
Project Manager: didn't we?
User Interface: I think it's a two
Marketing: but I uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: but {disfmarker}
Marketing: Okay, okay.
Project Manager: What do you think?
Marketing: I think because {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Questions?
Industrial Designer: A two? I think it's two. I think it's two too, two too too.
Project Manager: Two. Uh-huh. {vocalsound}
Marketing: yeah?
User Interface: Two two two. {vocalsound} Let's make everything a two.
Marketing: In the features?
Project Manager: Dissatisfy younger people. Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Younger people. It has {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well perhaps not.
User Interface: What did {disfmarker}
Marketing: Because younger peoples are cr critical and they wanted a lot of features on this thing.
User Interface: Yeah. Well that {disfmarker} it doesn't.
Industrial Designer: Well, n not exactly but uh uh if it had some games on it or something like that,
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah bu but {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: but it's for a remote control I think it i {vocalsound} it would satisfy those needs.
User Interface: I think they like the speech. You could call to your uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, the speech possibility,
User Interface: yeah, and the screen,
Industrial Designer: the colours.
Marketing: L_C_D_ screen and scroll.
User Interface: yeah.
Industrial Designer: Scroll options, yeah.
Marketing: I I think they'll be quite met with their expectations.
Project Manager: Yeah, but those are more fancy functions, not not really many features or something.
User Interface: Right, that that that {disfmarker}
Marketing: No.
Project Manager: It has relatively few features,
User Interface: those are features.
Marketing: It's three features, basically,
Project Manager: with {disfmarker}
Marketing: the L_C_D_ {gap} touch screen is feature.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: No,
Marketing: The microphone is a feature.
User Interface: aren't the features {disfmarker} the microphone's feature and that you can change the channel's feature, and that you can change the volume is feature,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: and that you can change the options of the remote, uh uh something like that. Yeah.
Project Manager: Ours had other features with {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, okay. I think {disfmarker} yeah, and then you have the audio settings, channel setting, video settings.
Industrial Designer: The easy volume up button.
User Interface: Those are features.
Industrial Designer: Remote {disfmarker} younger people usually use the remote control to put on the volume. {vocalsound} Turn uh turn up the volume.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Enough features?
Marketing: So I've chos I shou I think it's it's it's a one. Personally, yeah. I think once you've {disfmarker}'cause you have the channel features b uh you have the uh screen features, audio features, the {disfmarker} you have all buttons on it which you'd like, microphone extra, L_C_D_ screen extra, scroll thing extra.
Project Manager: Okay, you think one,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: what do you think?
User Interface: I think two or three.
Project Manager: You. {gap} three, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Two.
Project Manager: I'd say three, so two it is then
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah uh a two a two. {vocalsound} Just another two. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Make it make it a two.
Project Manager: or {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: One two three. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Or make it uh a fucking two.
User Interface: We like two. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Right.
Marketing: You can see the remote control is {gap} R_ and R_.
User Interface: Yeah, there's R_ and R_ in front.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Uh.
Project Manager: Yep.
Marketing: {gap} Has {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh it's not the colour, so maybe you should make two, but it has R_ and R_.
Marketing: oh yeah, do did have {disfmarker} nah y you have the black one.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: And we'll probably make also a yellow one.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah,
Project Manager: Yeah,
User Interface: but not R_ and R_ yellow I think.
Project Manager: maybe maybe two. Well m th but the logo is on on the front,
Industrial Designer: Okay, true, yeah.
Marketing: Maybe two.
Project Manager: so {disfmarker} a two, yeah,
User Interface: One d on i it's the colours and the {disfmarker}
Marketing: X_ marks spot. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: that's {disfmarker}
Marketing: And the menu is avail that is available is easy to use. {vocalsound}
User Interface: I think it is, but I don't know what you think.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think it's easier to use than a regular remote control, because when you push on the options menu, you get the the the various options uh entirely explained. Entirely explained.
Marketing: Yeah, tha that's so true. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Instead of uh just finding out what an icon means on a button.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yeah, uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: And you can navigate easier, because wi with the {disfmarker} you have to push the the the arrows and {disfmarker} with a normal T_V_ uh remote.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, you can navigate. Uh.
Marketing: I think that wou that would be quite hard to learn to use it.
Industrial Designer: You're not satisfied, okay. Let's start over again then. {vocalsound}
Marketing: No, I'm not not convinc. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Let's make a different remote. Well {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Let's go th for {vocalsound} inhalation of air]
User Interface: Menu.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I think it would be a t yeah, two.
User Interface: A two? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} A two.
Marketing: Now lower. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh, well that's that's pretty good,
User Interface: We only have twos. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: huh?
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah, I think so. Yeah.
User Interface: Uh just twos. One three and a few ones.
Industrial Designer: And three.
Marketing: So okay, we have one three, a one, that that have to got up. {gap}
User Interface: Two threes.
Marketing: Two two two two two.
User Interface: We m mostly have twos, so it's pretty good.
Marketing: So two, yeah. The average is a two.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: The average. {vocalsound}
Marketing: That is quite good
User Interface: Yeah. I think so too.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, I think so.
Marketing: in my opinion. That {gap}
User Interface: We can be happy.
Marketing: Ooh.
Industrial Designer: Save. {vocalsound} {gap}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: Ooh.
User Interface: What is it? It's like a bug or something.
Industrial Designer: It's a fly.
User Interface: A fly, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Oh m
User Interface: A f butterfly.
Marketing: Top.
User Interface: Yeah. That's it.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: That was your evaluation uh show,
Marketing: Yes.
Project Manager: okay, so we don't have to calculate anything because of um these results.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Sure.
Marketing: No, it's two. The average is two.
Project Manager: Okay, good.
User Interface: It's good. Yeah.
Project Manager: Um let's see {disfmarker} oh, it isn't asked to save but it did already {gap}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Exactly.
Marketing: Yeah, I uh uh I uh saved it.
Project Manager: And this {gap} Everything okay. Well, the next part uh might be a little bit difficult to do in a group, but I am willing to try it.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Because we are going to look at the finance and I have a nice Excel sheet to do that.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Redesign. No. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} And um I'm not sure if I put it in the project folder. {gap}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap}
Project Manager: look on that. Um and we're going to calculate the production costs, and if they are uh under or at twelve Euro fifty,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: we're good, and if they're not we're going to uh re-design,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: but we have to do that uh very very quick I think,
User Interface: So we're going to erase features or something.
Project Manager: yes. Um I don't know if I
User Interface: Do you have the cost
Project Manager: put the Excel sheet in the
User Interface: or uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Let's hope.
Project Manager: n not in the
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap} f fifty five Euros.
Project Manager: folder. I think it's
User Interface: {vocalsound} We're going to be here at eight o'clock. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I think it's still in my own documents folder.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: We're goin still going to be here at eight o'clock. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: No.
Project Manager: Oh shit.
User Interface: I doubt it. Perhaps we've got features that don't exist in the Excel sheet.
Marketing: Yeah mm yeah, maybe.
Project Manager: So {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} No,
Marketing: The microphone. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah.
User Interface: it was in my uh my information, so uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It i It wasn't too much.
Marketing: Yeah? {gap}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: maybe you're going scrap scrap it.
Industrial Designer: As well as the L_C_D_ screen. Whoa. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, well this is it.
User Interface: Well, if it doesn't work {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Um maybe I could ask one of you to uh fill it in, so that I can also uh take minutes,
User Interface: I want to fill it in, but uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: and uh maybe the other can uh use that thing to count uh numerous functions.
Marketing: No prob. Ah.
User Interface: But you should uh direct {disfmarker}
Marketing: Count it? Li like write it be
Project Manager: Well we have to count some things and we have to think about some things. But you have to fill in this column, huh?
Industrial Designer: Count it. You got Excel to count. {vocalsound}
User Interface: The number of {disfmarker}
Marketing: {gap}
Project Manager: No, uh count uh number of functions, because for every button you have to pay {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Oh okay.
Project Manager: and there are different screen shots, so {disfmarker} or different different screens,
Industrial Designer: Well I dra
Marketing: Ah, okay, cool.
Industrial Designer: uh Danny, Danny, I'll do that,
Marketing: Huh? Yeah? Oh, yea yeah, you design it. Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: because I draw the uh
Project Manager: so {disfmarker}
User Interface: We've got a battery, one or t two batteries, or not? nee one battery, with two small batteries.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, but it's it's more about the energy source, huh? Do you use a hand dynamo, a battery, kinetic or solar cells?
User Interface: Yeah. I would do a battery {disfmarker} we do. Right?
Marketing: Solar cell. No
Project Manager: We'll wait.
User Interface: A battery. One battery,
Industrial Designer: No, no solar cell, no no no no.
Marketing: it took a battery?
User Interface: right?
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: No hand dynamo.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Electronics, simple chip {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Hand {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: We have {disfmarker}
User Interface: advanced chip, right?
Marketing: No, we have sample speaker.
Industrial Designer: On advanced chip.
Marketing: But b al but we also have sample speaker, do
User Interface: Yeah,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah.
User Interface: so this one and this one. Uh we ha we have um single {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh, we already on nine.
User Interface: what? Are we? Oh yay.
Marketing: We have double curved.
User Interface: {vocalsound} The single.
Industrial Designer: Single nee single curved. Double curved was uh uh see uh ju three dimensional.
Marketing: Single.
Industrial Designer: But it isn't three dimensional,
User Interface: Oh the the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: it isn't curved in a l
Marketing: This one is {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: it's not going to work uh people. We have rubber.
Marketing: This one is curved like this,
Project Manager: I'll just fill it in.
Marketing: right. It's curved like this.
Industrial Designer: No no no,
Project Manager: Um rubber indeed?
Industrial Designer: single curved is like this. Uh that's the only curve you made,
Marketing: Yeah, bu what {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: not th uh curved like that. That's uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh, but we have curves like it and it.
User Interface: Thirteen?
Marketing: There are two curves, right? Oh, okay I understand, I understand.
User Interface: With a scroll wheel,
Industrial Designer: Huh?
User Interface: right? Is he integrated?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Rubber.
User Interface: No, eh? I don't know.
Industrial Designer: Yeah,
Marketing: Push button. No, we don't have push button.
Industrial Designer: we gotta integrate scroll wheel and push button, because when you push it and you w it won't just pu uh makes possible to s
User Interface: Oh yeah, right, we want it to {disfmarker} it's not it's not {disfmarker} no. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Not going to work?
Marketing: L_C_D_ display.
User Interface: Yep.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Okay um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Fifteen, oh, too bad. {vocalsound} Oh but with special colour we have. A special form, right?
Industrial Designer: But now button supplements. We don't got the button supplements.
User Interface: Oh, we don't have any buttons, so {disfmarker}
Marketing: Eighteen and a half,
User Interface: Yeah, we need to uh
Marketing: damn.
Industrial Designer: Damn.
Marketing: We have to lower it with six points.
User Interface: No, uh we have fifteen and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: Twelve and half.
User Interface: oh, right. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: We could lose the curve.
Industrial Designer: Nah.
Marketing: We could use {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, I would lose the curve.
Industrial Designer: We could lose the scroll wheel. You could make it just a regular scroll wheel.
User Interface: But you can't push it, so you have to tap.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, if you can't push it you have to tap the the options window uh button here and then uh scroll down with the d with uh {vocalsound} with uh the button.
User Interface: Yeah, alright.
Project Manager: Yeah, I think that will be our best bet.
User Interface: So normal scroll wheel?
Industrial Designer: Normal scroll wheel.
User Interface: And I think we should lose the curve.
Marketing: I think we should scrap the sample speaker.
Industrial Designer: Lose {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Marketing: It's four pri it four units.
User Interface: Yeah, but if you {disfmarker} would i it is a new feature, it it's something special.
Industrial Designer: Okay, so we don't exactly need the single {disfmarker} We don't need a curve.
Marketing: But w d wha
User Interface: No, the curve doesn't really {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer:'S possible to lose curve.
Marketing: Curved then it will be square.
User Interface: No, then it will {disfmarker} won't uh stand up from the table. Then it would just {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Was that {disfmarker} does that mean to it, single curve?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's meant with scr uh with s curve.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: The curve is uh in a dimension.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: If you make it a flat one, s n it's no curve, you got no curves.
User Interface: So {disfmarker} We would lose this one?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, okay.
Marketing: Yeah, but tha that that only is one.
User Interface: Yeah, we could s yeah, a bit.
Industrial Designer: No, two.
Marketing: No, one.
User Interface: Sixteen point three.
Industrial Designer: Oh, okay, indeed.
Marketing: So we don't {disfmarker}
User Interface: So we still {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, we also have to {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Is it possible to make {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Could could we do it on a regular chip on print or something?
Marketing: No, otherwise we don't have an L_C_D_ screen.
User Interface: No? Ma y you just can't do that, or uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: No.
Project Manager: And what did you change? You changed the uh scroll wheel
User Interface: We changed th
Project Manager: and {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, and the single curved to uncurved.
Marketing: Single curved.
Project Manager: Oh, but it's just one
Marketing: Flat. Yeah, so that does doesn't doesn't that mu I think {disfmarker}
Project Manager: point, so maybe you should should uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: No.
Marketing: Scrap sample speaker?
Project Manager: Yeah, you should you should drop the speech recognition.
Industrial Designer: The sample speaker is two d wait, f s four points.
Marketing: That that's uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, but it's t
Marketing: Yes, four points.
Project Manager: And then you can keep the curve.
User Interface: Yeah, but it is uh it it is a new feature,
Project Manager: Or can't you?
User Interface: it is something special.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, uh becau uh when you lose the {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, but what what else what else uh do you want to scrap?
User Interface: I don't know.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: F You have to {disfmarker} we have to scrap four points.
User Interface: Yeah, that's difficult. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Or make it on a hand dynamo, but {vocalsound} I don't think that will work.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Ma make it with wood instead of rubber?
Industrial Designer: No, that's {disfmarker} no.
User Interface: Uh.
Industrial Designer: Make it w uh when you made it uh uh uh a remote control of wood?
User Interface: {vocalsound} We could make it titanium instead of rubber.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You don't make a remote control of {disfmarker} Ah.
Marketing: Yeah,
Project Manager: Yeah,
Marketing: it it i
Project Manager: mm-hmm.
Marketing: Yeah, it also {disfmarker} uh it also takes one point less.
Project Manager: Yeah, but uh a wooden remote control only helps for uh old people we discussed,
User Interface: Oh. Oh can I ask something?
Project Manager: yes?
User Interface: What is special colour?
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Is that the wood uh wood uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: I think it is.
User Interface: this, we have to have that one too?
Industrial Designer: It isn't.
Project Manager: Yeah,
Industrial Designer: What?
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: but it's only a half. But I think the only option is to drop the uh sample speaker.
Marketing: Yeah. Sample speaker.
Industrial Designer: To knock the sample speaker, yeah. And sample sensor.
User Interface: Th then we still have too much
Marketing: Yeah, okay,
User Interface: if we use the uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: But m yeah, course,
Marketing: three. Point three.
Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah, we we scrap that one?
Industrial Designer: What we'll have. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Huh?
Industrial Designer: Let's make it thirteen or fourteen. {vocalsound}
User Interface: See, a po
Marketing: Point twelve {gap}.
User Interface: three. {vocalsound} We need point three. {vocalsound}
Marketing: That's a scroll wheel. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh it's a colour. Don't make it wood.
Industrial Designer: A colour.
Marketing: Yeah, but a wood {disfmarker}
User Interface: Make it uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: we can make it brown, dark brown, not wood.
User Interface: Yeah, but it's it's special colour, is it a all kind of colours?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, special colours, fruity colours.
User Interface: It's also green or uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Is it also {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: no that that's just normal colour {disfmarker} fruit colours.
User Interface: Yeah, but it's a special colour than just rubber colour.
Marketing: Normal colours, yellow {disfmarker}
User Interface: You have to add something to the rubber to make it green.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: You don't say here's green rubber.
Industrial Designer: They don't sell green rubber plants. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, but then I d I don't think we can ever make to a twelve and half.
Industrial Designer: Alright.
User Interface: Yeah, you can, you should {disfmarker} you have to lose {disfmarker}
Marketing: But then we have to scrap L_C_D_ display, we have to scrap uh
User Interface: No, it is the scroll wheel, I guess.
Industrial Designer: No no no.
Marketing: s advanced chip. No then we have to scrap everything we got because how many colours we gonna make?
Industrial Designer: If we lose the scroll wheel and make it totally uh depending uh dependent on uh the touch screen
Marketing: Five? Then we have two.
User Interface: A push,
Marketing: S
User Interface: yeah.
Marketing: touch.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} then it's possible to make. And then you can {vocalsound} and then you can add to the colours.
Marketing: Then we can make {disfmarker} add two colours on it. Yeah, two colours {gap} it.
Industrial Designer: Special c
User Interface: Switch colours.
Industrial Designer: Okay, if you lose uh {vocalsound} if you lose the {disfmarker}
User Interface: It was such a great idea. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: You lose this one, you got eleven point five
Marketing: They can add two colours.
Industrial Designer: and you make i and then you can make uh the spec single curve, for example.
Marketing: But the colours. Um how ma uh the colours like l she told, is that all the colours we add or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: How d uh uh how many colours?
User Interface: What do you mean?
Industrial Designer: Special colours, all the colours you want, because you want to make p
Marketing: Yeah, but we we we are {disfmarker} we have yellow, red, uh black, titanium.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, but uh when you use more than one colour, it's a special colour.
User Interface: Oh.
Marketing: Ah okay.
User Interface: But I think when you use the colour that's not originally the rubber then you use special colour,
Industrial Designer: I suppose.
User Interface:'cause you have to add it.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, but the rubbers alls original black.
User Interface: Yeah, so you always lose the special colour. You co you could make it always black, like normal remote.
Marketing: Yeah b Yeah, but we're gonna make it yellow {disfmarker} uh red, and then you add {disfmarker} you have two special colours on top of the one we have now.
Industrial Designer: Nee we we also want to make ano another colour.
User Interface: Oh right, yeah. Yeah, we should u
Marketing: Yeah, but m
User Interface: Yeah. We have to make this like four or five or something.
Marketing: Yeah,
User Interface: That's what it means.
Marketing: because we have more colours than only black.
Project Manager: Yeah, but isn't it per remote that you pay?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I {disfmarker} then I think I p I don I don't think they me mean they're special {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Half?
User Interface: Oh right, yeah. Is it per remote?
Project Manager: I think you pay half per remote.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah, that's right,
Project Manager: So each remote with a special colour.
User Interface: and you {disfmarker} one colour per remote.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, indeed, yeah.
User Interface: So then it is one.
Industrial Designer: You don't need four of those {vocalsound} uh four of those special colours in one in one remote.
Marketing: Yeah, okay okay, true. True, true.
User Interface: No.
Project Manager: I hope. {vocalsound}
Marketing: We have two points spare.
Project Manager: So the battery,
Marketing: Nee one point.
Project Manager: we have um advanced chip on print.
User Interface: One. So it would be curved, single curve.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Because of {disfmarker} thing {disfmarker}
User Interface: Or not?
Project Manager: Yeah, well you can at least make it curved again.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
User Interface: So y you just can't make a nice remote. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, single curve.
Project Manager: Because that was very important,
User Interface: It's too bad for the speaker.
Project Manager: huh? So it's curved, it's still that {disfmarker} so we we dropped the speech recognition together with the speaker.
User Interface: Should we change that tha that that's a one if not,
Marketing: Mm yep.
Project Manager: We dropped the scroll wheel.
User Interface: or not? Could you copy it?
Project Manager: And the rest is the same,
User Interface: And make it uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: huh? Am I right?
Marketing: Y yea the scroll wheel is dropped.
Project Manager: Yes.
User Interface: The entire uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Uh. Huh.
Marketing: Yep.
User Interface: Perhaps you can then copy page or so. Ooh. No. Oh you you made the entire {disfmarker} could you {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay. Undo, undo. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh
Industrial Designer: Undo.
User Interface: not {disfmarker} Well {gap}.
Industrial Designer: So,'kay.
User Interface: Would you?
Industrial Designer: Twenty minutes?
User Interface: By the {disfmarker} Perhaps you can save this one, and then copy or something. Add it copy page. Select all.
Project Manager: No, but you c yeah.
User Interface: Alright, something went wrong.
Marketing: Tap.
Project Manager: Okay, but this this new remote we can afford. {vocalsound}
User Interface: It doesn't work. Let's forget.
Marketing: It should've work.
Industrial Designer: Okay, so you had this list at start? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Hmm? No, I hadn't.
Industrial Designer: Alright. When did you receive this list?
Project Manager: I just received it.
Industrial Designer: Ah okay. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Oh
Project Manager: They don't work so hard at the finance department. {vocalsound}
User Interface: ignore that. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Well, so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Ah okay. I suppose this is a {disfmarker}
User Interface: Too bad.
Industrial Designer: Okay, so we lose the scroll wheel,
User Interface: Yeah. The microphone.
Industrial Designer: the s
Project Manager: Yeah, and that's it.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And the microphone.
User Interface: A and we changed something, I guess, or not? We {disfmarker} Oh no.
Marketing: Yep.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Twelve Euro fifty. Um and did you try to make a new design, or what were you trying to do?
User Interface: Yeah, I tried to copy that one, but it didn't work.
Project Manager: It didn't work.
User Interface: So we could fix it like tha that it's like this. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Hmm. Strange.
User Interface: You could select it all, but then you can't erase. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Strange.
Project Manager: Oh, you can arrange {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: You can only re erase?
User Interface: Erase.
Industrial Designer: Oh.
User Interface: When you saw th li uh {disfmarker} Earlier when we selected it, w I couldn't erase anything.
Industrial Designer: Uh, no.
Project Manager: Hmm, can't you then just say copy?
Industrial Designer: Bling.
Project Manager: New page. Paste. Yes.
Industrial Designer: Ah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Select none. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Just tap somewhere.
Industrial Designer: {gap} just up somewhere b uh besides it,
Marketing: {gap} just tap somewhere.
Industrial Designer: right.
Project Manager: Okay,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: and now you can erase.
User Interface: I don't think I can, but uh we can try.
Industrial Designer: Uh, we already try.
Project Manager: Well it should be possible.
User Interface: Oh, yeah,
Project Manager: Oh no.
User Interface: no, ha-ha.
Project Manager: Well you can draw over it with white uh pen. {vocalsound}
Marketing: No?
User Interface: Yeah, we tried it earlier.
Project Manager: Oh.
User Interface: It's very much work.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Sorry. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well but that's also useful for the evaluation, because I think uh we have a prototype now
Marketing: Evaluation drops.
Project Manager: which we can afford and uh we only need to draw a little bit to get a good uh design. Doodle. And I think we should then move on to the production evaluation because of the time.
Marketing: And erase the mic.
User Interface: Yeah, goodbye mic.
Industrial Designer: All I need is no mic. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Let's see, we can save this now.
User Interface: Oh, I already erased half of the line.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Bon chance {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And move back to here.
User Interface: Too bad, oh.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Like this?
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Still looks nice.
Project Manager: And then all green. Okay, well thank you.
User Interface: Oh, that's erase.
Marketing: Looks like a iPod.
Project Manager: Oh, no {gap}.
Industrial Designer: No,
Project Manager: Hey, but you can erase that.
Industrial Designer: add {gap} {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, that's a bit weird.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Uh-oh.
User Interface: Oh, now I'm {gap} line.
Industrial Designer: S Difference between lines and text and the pen.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Right. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh. All I need is {gap} mic. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And you can't erase this?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Hmm, strange.
User Interface: No,
Project Manager: Okay, well uh
User Interface: it's weird. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: just leave it at this and quickly save.
Marketing: Station page.
Project Manager: Um and then we are going to the project or product evaluation.
Industrial Designer: Huh, looks fucking boring now. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: We just did {gap} our project evaluation. Um well, I think I can sit for that since it's almost my final slide. Um what did you think about uh the process? How satisfied are we?
Industrial Designer: Deadlines were sometimes very short.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Bu but stressful. You think, no, my presentation isn't ready.
Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And stressful.
Marketing: I think we {disfmarker} it should be b it would be better if we worked a little bit together.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Now we worked through each other,
Project Manager: And you could ask things.
User Interface: Yeah, you had information I didn't have
Marketing: something he said {disfmarker}
User Interface: and then uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: yeah, and you had information I also had,
User Interface: Oh right. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: so some some things I had in my presentation, they already told,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: And for me it sometimes was a surprise who was going to present what, huh?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: So yeah, that {disfmarker} I don't think that is the best way to work at {disfmarker} for such project.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: No.
Project Manager: So you would say uh communicate during our individual uh work.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, no, or maybe session of five minutes together or something, and then work separate.
Industrial Designer: Yeah,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: but but why not work here together, for example?
User Interface: Yeah, you could {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Why should we be separated from each other in those difference {disfmarker} uh different rooms?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Well, probably to simulate the whole working uh process,
User Interface: I think so too. Yeah, but then you can work together too
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: huh, th {gap} you can't have a meeting uh for several weeks.
User Interface: when {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah m yeah, like she told. Then you can work together too by mail or by, I dunno, chat, something,
Project Manager: No.
User Interface: A chat would also be uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Huh, oh right.
Marketing: but now we're completely separated from each other. I don't think that was the best way, but {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: But the technology was uh fantastic. {gap}
User Interface: Well,
Marketing: Yeah, the technology's okay.
User Interface: I I don't really like the board, it doesn't really work great. Sometimes I think {vocalsound}.
Industrial Designer: Work now?
Marketing: Yeah okay, but I don I do I think becau that's because {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Perhaps it is e
User Interface: It does work, but sometimes it doesn't erase or it doesn't uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, perhaps it is easier to get one of those uh dig digital pens or so and to uh {disfmarker} and lay it next to that keyboard over there.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So you can draw uh {disfmarker} see it over th on the screen.
Marketing: Yeah, like the f like a plotters or something,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: yeah. Yep yep yep yep yep.
Project Manager: So you don't think the SMARTboard is is really useful
User Interface: But {disfmarker}
Project Manager: or {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's useful, but not m
User Interface: it is useful,
Marketing: Yeah, it is useful, but {disfmarker}
User Interface: but it doesn't really work all the time.
Marketing: No.
User Interface: Th the pen doesn't {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Because when you put this pen on the screen uh uh for exam and line is d being drawn at at two or three centimetres uh below.
User Interface: The line is a bit off.
Project Manager: Yeah, so it's maybe a bit unnatural also.
User Interface: Yeah,
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Marketing: Yep.
User Interface: you can point to where you want the line to be. But {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: The project uh {disfmarker} because of the deadlines you didn't had the time to uh {disfmarker} have, you didn't have time to uh {disfmarker} to make a very uh qualitati qualitative uh presentation.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So you used uh this uh the different PowerPoint presentations uh in which you put your uh material in the {disfmarker} Oh.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: That wasn't me. Uh {vocalsound} so um
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wasn't me.
Project Manager: the means, we discussed the smart board, and what about uh this digital pen?
User Interface: I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I I used it,
Marketing: I didn't use it at all. {vocalsound}
User Interface: it it was {disfmarker} you can use it, it's quite handy I think.
Project Manager: Yeah, well
Industrial Designer: But I didn't {disfmarker} I uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I use it as a a normal pen and and and only you use it to uh get it on the computer,
User Interface: Yeah, I used it to y to {disfmarker}
Project Manager: huh?
User Interface: Yeah, it did work pretty well.
Industrial Designer: I used it too, but {disfmarker} oh well.
User Interface: I don't think why you would want to use it actually,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: I didn't use.
Industrial Designer: Yeah,
User Interface: but it it does work. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: because it shou
Marketing: No {disfmarker} yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: To make some designs,
Marketing: It is it is {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: it is very easy.
Marketing: yeah, it is easy for {disfmarker} to design something and then load it in your computer.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah, and then you can show it to everybody.
Industrial Designer: But to write it th yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: It doesn't really write normally.
Marketing: Yeah. It's b bi little bit too big to write.
User Interface: It's a bit {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, it's too big, it's too fat.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Fat document, those.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, um and what about the teamwork?
User Interface: I think it was great,
Marketing: Team work was okay.
Project Manager: Yeah, well I think so too.
User Interface: yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: {gap} we {disfmarker}
Marketing: Only thing that we worked through, past each other.
Project Manager: Yeah,
Industrial Designer: Right.
Project Manager: but that was {disfmarker} it was our assignment,
Marketing: With some things that was only problem,
User Interface: Yeah, but it was because we didn't uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: huh?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah,
Project Manager: Okay,
Marketing: but furthermore better.
Project Manager: and maybe I should walk out of the room when you discuss uh this point, the leadership. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: That's {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} I thought it was good, but uh {disfmarker} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: yeah, no prob. Ah.
Project Manager: Yeah well, okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Not too much, not too too too too {gap}.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: And creativity? Well, when we look at this I'd say we have been creative,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: huh? But {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, or the room for {disfmarker}
Project Manager: There was room for {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: it was the idea to be creative, so {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: You got some standard ideas in your head {vocalsound} and this what came out.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And you get get stuff from the from the computer,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: but {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: The information uh was sometimes uh a little bit too late
Marketing: Little bit uh lo yeah. Too late {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker}
Marketing: it it it took a lot of time before you got your ema
User Interface: You just sit there for ten minutes. Yeah, {gap}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: yeah.
User Interface: where is that email?
Marketing: I played I think seven times Solitaire something.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: You did? Well,
User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I didn't have time for that.
User Interface: did you? Is it on there? {vocalsound} Is it on there?
Marketing: Wha
User Interface: I didn't find the {disfmarker} didn't look but uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap}
Project Manager: At some times I {disfmarker} Sometimes I received like like five emails at at one moment,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Was searching and searching.
Marketing: Oh right,
User Interface: I didn't look,
Marketing: it is there.
User Interface: but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: and then {disfmarker}
Marketing: No, I I never got that.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I always {disfmarker}
User Interface: I got like one email after ten minutes or something.
Project Manager: I even got spam. {vocalsound} Or something like that. {vocalsound}
Marketing: N yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: That's what we said. {vocalsound}
Marketing: So does this {disfmarker} I think lik oh and information was a bit low I think, sometimes,
User Interface: And it {disfmarker} not a lot uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: in in in in the beginning I didn't understand what what to do.
User Interface: No, the first one.
Industrial Designer: No, w I didn't know {disfmarker}
User Interface: I didn't know uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, like I {disfmarker} with with the remote {gap} and I never new we have t we had to uh {disfmarker} yeah made a made a rec a remote control.
Industrial Designer: Make a r
User Interface: nee.
Industrial Designer: yeah.
User Interface: And I didn't know what to do for the first ten minutes before we got here,
Marketing: Yeah, so {disfmarker}
User Interface: so I went, right. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. No stepping on the table and then looking at the internet page.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And I was working and working and work {vocalsound}
User Interface: Just looking at the screen and uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} No.
Project Manager: Okay, well um
Marketing: So, yeah.
Project Manager: {disfmarker} but after all we can say uh we are satisfied, but it it could've been uh better.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: When we get uh {disfmarker} when we have {disfmarker} we would have gotten uh more information.
User Interface: Yeah, an
Industrial Designer: Yeah,
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Faster.
Industrial Designer: more information about the costs.
User Interface: Yeah, that will be handy.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: First of all I didn't think uh that we were able to make an L_C_D_ screen uh {disfmarker} first point,
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: but uh it was possible uh {disfmarker} uh, yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, it only costs four units. Uh {vocalsound} yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yea uh so tha actually you could make an L_C_D_ screen but no mic, or it could make mic but no L_C_D_ screen, when you look at that.
Project Manager: Yeah, that was a bit mean to put it in the end.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And uh what were the other points to to improve this whole process?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh, I dunno.
Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Yeah.
User Interface: Think that's about it.
Marketing: Nothing.
User Interface: Hmm.
Marketing: I think we got it already.
User Interface: Heavier um {disfmarker} less heavy laptops.
Project Manager: Yeah, they're pretty heavy.
Industrial Designer: Uh. Faster laptop.
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Uh. They were they were just fine.
User Interface: But that's not really uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: And furthermore the the the network was okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Uh.
Marketing: Everything you loaded was also
User Interface: Yeah, everything worked.
Marketing: av available there.
Industrial Designer: Right.
Project Manager: And so more time uh w might have improved the the quality of work,
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: is what you say.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah, but that {disfmarker} It's now half past four {disfmarker} half past three, so {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, but it's just the the off hours between that you will work alone.
Marketing: Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay.
User Interface: Then it pops up {disfmarker} pop up screen came. Five minutes in the meeting.
Marketing: Mm-hm. Mm.
User Interface: No. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, so more time during the individual work phases. Um okay well uh
User Interface: Huh.
Project Manager: I just got my warning for the last five minutes, so I'll move on to I guess my last slide,
User Interface: You did? Well {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: yes, which is the closing. Well uh, we managed, but we did it very quickly. I don't know if that's the best way to {disfmarker} when it isn't {disfmarker} is it {disfmarker} when it is too expensive to quickly re-arrange it and say, okay, this is it,
User Interface: Oh, right.
Project Manager: but we had to do it,
User Interface: Well {disfmarker}
Project Manager: huh, because we have to have a design, and that is within the budget. And we evaluated. Maybe we should re-evaluate uh the product, but we did that before, and we also evaluated the project. And I think uh everybody's uh very happy. At least I am, with the results,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: so uh celebration, well, for the three of you,
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: because uh I have to write the final report now.
User Interface: Champagne. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But uh {vocalsound} well, thank you very much for your co-operation,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and I had a very nice day so far. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, sure.
Marketing: No prob.
Industrial Designer: Oh thank you.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Do we get another email? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Bling. {vocalsound} You're fired.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: I think you do.
User Interface: I I think we have to fill in a questionnaire again,
Project Manager: Yeah I have t
User Interface: but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I think we also have to go to our own rooms again, but um {disfmarker} well
User Interface: We do?
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: I at least. But maybe you can try uh to make a screen shot of this, so I can try to include it in the final report.
User Interface: Yeah. Uh th that that one?
Industrial Designer: You cannot {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, maybe.
User Interface: You can just {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: you can save it.
Project Manager: {gap} wants to, but at least this one.
User Interface: Yeah, but it's {disfmarker} it isn't a picture or, well, is it?
Project Manager: I know, we should remove this,
Industrial Designer: You s uh file save as the J_ PEG J_ PEG.
Project Manager: but it won't h Okay. And uh please put it in the project folder then, huh.
Marketing: Can you find it as a J_ PEG?
User Interface: No,
Industrial Designer: No. {vocalsound}
User Interface: isn't possible. But you can make a screen shot, I think.
Project Manager: Okay, well I uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: {gap}
Marketing: No.
User Interface: {gap}
Industrial Designer: No.
Project Manager: I hereby officially close the meeting and uh I hope to see you uh soon. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} In uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} In about five minutes.
User Interface: Uh oh,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well,
User Interface: export.
Project Manager: I think we'll be a bit a bit longer,
Industrial Designer: Ah.
Project Manager: but {disfmarker} okay. Well, happy celebration, huh?
User Interface: {gap}
Industrial Designer: Oh thank you.
User Interface: Images.
Industrial Designer: Whoo-hoo. Let's let's have party. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Celebra {vocalsound}
User Interface: How big do you want the images?
Marketing: Or shouldn't I?
Industrial Designer: Let's have some fun. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: How big? Uh
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Huh?
Project Manager: not too big. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {gap}
User Interface: This one?
Project Manager: Whatever you think is good.
Marketing: Six hundred. No,
Industrial Designer: No
Marketing: I {disfmarker} yeah.
Industrial Designer: that uh is one thousand twenty four. {vocalsound}
Marketing: I think eight hundred six hundred is better.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: This one?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: If it browse.
Marketing: Nah, name. {gap}
User Interface: Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Desktop.
Marketing: {gap}
User Interface: Well it isn't on the desktop.
Marketing: Hey.
Industrial Designer: Mm?
Marketing: {gap}
Industrial Designer: I do not know.
User Interface: You can only save it in my documents.
Marketing: {gap}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Oh?
Marketing: Oh my God.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Oh.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Oh, alright. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. Three.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Ten.
User Interface: Can we stay here? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Ten.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Uh.
User Interface: Yeah, alright.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Why can't we stay here? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Celebration time, come on. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Oh.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Oh. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Peace out nigger. Entree
User Interface: {gap}
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} | At first, the cost of remote control was eighteen and a half which highly surpassed the company's budget. Group had to change the design and lose functions so that the budget could fill the company's standard. Under this circumstance, the new design changed shape and lost functions such as scroll and microphone until the cost was twelve fifty. In addition, remote control changed to a single curve shape and battery without a solar cell made of rubber material. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Good to see you all again. Let's see if that comes up. This is our functional design meeting. Um. Just a sec while my PowerPoint comes up. Et voila. Okay. Mm um we put the fashion in electronics. Let's start. Okay, our agenda today um {disfmarker} just check the time, it's twelve thirteen. Um. I'm gonna do an opening, talk about um {disfmarker} did you all get the minutes? I e-mailed them to you. I'm also putting'em {disfmarker} them in the shared folder.
User Interface: Yep.
Project Manager: So um then I {disfmarker} we'll talk about our general objectives
Industrial Designer: Right.
Project Manager: and have your three presentations. Um I'll talk about the new project requirements I've just received, and then we have to make a decision on our remote control functions. Finally we'll just close. We're starting this meeting at approximately twelve thirteen and we have forty minutes. So {disfmarker} First of all the functional design objectives. Uh we need to keep in mind the user requirement specification, what needs and desires are to be fulfilled, the {gap} functions design, what effects the apparatus should have, and the working design, how the apparatus actually works to fulfil its function. Okay, three presentations, um you can go in any order you choose um.
Marketing: {gap} Mm shall we go in the order that you just did it?
Project Manager: Sure, please do.
Marketing: I dunno. How do I hook my screen up?
Industrial Designer: I think, you might have to disconnect Rose.
Project Manager: Yes I do. Yeah.
User Interface: Well there's a wee a wee plug just just that one there
Marketing: Where does it go? Mm-hmm. Hmm, I'm not supposed to move this,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: but {disfmarker}
User Interface: Ah that's it, yep.
Marketing: {gap}
User Interface: And then you have to press function F_ eight
Project Manager: Function, F_ eight, yeah.
User Interface: I think it is on your laptop.
Project Manager: The blue one, F_N_.
Marketing: Where's function? No signal.
Project Manager: Is it plugged in all the way and you screwed it in and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Ah, wait,'s screw in.
Industrial Designer: I I think you just have to push it in really hard.
Marketing: Push the screw.
User Interface: That's it.
Industrial Designer: Oh, got it.
Project Manager: Mm'kay.
Marketing: Mm alright
Project Manager: It's taking it a little bit {disfmarker}
Marketing: I've never attached to anything.
Industrial Designer: Mm, neither have I.
Project Manager:'Kay there you go.
Marketing: Alright, so,
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Marketing: I don't know if you guys are able to get access to um the report that was online or if I'm the only one who is. But, I don't even know how to play this. No.
Project Manager: Press the little presentation. It's the um {disfmarker} it looks like a Y_ kind of {disfmarker} over there above Draw. There, that one, there you go.
Marketing: Alright. So we're just gonna talk a little bit about the functional requirements that people specified when they were asked. Um I guess Real Reaction did some market research. They had a hundred subjects and their usability lab and they watched them watch T_V_ and recorded the frequency that they used particular buttons and the relevance that those buttons had. What they found was they analysed people's desires and needs. Focusing on their desires, um people specifically said that they thought remotes were ugly {vocalsound}, seventy five per cent of the a hundred subjects noted that and that they {disfmarker} more importantly though, eighty per cent said that they would be willing to pay more for a fancier looking remote. I don't know anything beyond what fancy means,
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Marketing: but that's particularly of use to us, I think. Um also they did some questions on voice recognition and found that the desire for voice recognition was inversely related to age, so younger people were more inclined to want something with voice recognition, whereas the older people in the like sixty and above segment or so did not really think that they would pay more money for voice recognitions.
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
Marketing: Um people also had certain frustrations, that I think that we could try to take into consideration with our design. That being people k um frustrated with losing their remotes. I think, over fifty percent of the people mentioned that that was their biggest frustration. People are also frustrated with the difficulty it is to learn how to use a remote and I think that ties back to what you were saying before
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Marketing: just that there's too many buttons, it just needs to be easy to use. It also mentioned something called R_S_I_ and I was hoping someone might be able to inform me as to what R_S_I_ is,
User Interface: Repetitive strain injury.
Marketing: because I don't know.
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: Repetitive strain injury.
Marketing: What? Ah. There we go.
User Interface: So if you {disfmarker}
Marketing: Wow. People do not like that. So I guess sort of the carpal tunnel type thing, people do not like that, um the repetitive use, I guess, caused a strain. Um looking at the needs people specified, the problem right now is that people's remotes are not matching their operating behaviour. People are only using ten per cent of the buttons that they have offered to them on their remote. And what people do most often is changing the channel and changing the volume. People also zap like to change the channel, about um sixty five per cent during an hour of use. So we really just need to focus in on those volumes and channel changers rather than things like the audio settings, the screen settings and the channel settings, because they're used much more infrequently and probably just complicate what's going on. So I think that some things that we might wanna think about, the idea of an L_C_D_ screen was brought up although they didn't have any details on what people's preferences on that were, so I dunno know if that's coming to me later, or something like that. But something for us to consider also just the phenomenon that less is more when it comes to the buttons on the remote or what we wanna make easiest to use, make sure that, you know, something like an audio setting isn't given as much importance and visibility on the remote as something like channel changing that's used a lot more often. And basically in order for us to win over to the consumer we just need to focus on what it looks like, that it has a fancy appeal and that it's not ugly {vocalsound} and that it feels like the way they're gonna use it, so it doesn't give them any hand injuries or things like that.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: Thank you very much. That was that was great.
Industrial Designer: Mm'kay.
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound}'s move on to the next presentation um on effects. Was that you?
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: Great.
Marketing: Yeah, have I unscrewed it?
Project Manager: Push. User interface, right. Interface.
Marketing: Here we go.
User Interface: Cheers.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. And I think that's in the shared, if I did it right, if anyone wants to look at it.
Project Manager: Mm'kay, thank you.
Industrial Designer: Okay, great.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Here we go. Right so I'm gonna talk about the technical technical functions design of the remote control um. We need to start by considering what a remote control actually is. It's a device that allows us to produce certain effects on our television, so i it's basically a communication device. We we tell the remote control what we want to do, it sends a message to the television saying change the channel, change the volume, uh yeah, adjust these settings, adjust the brightness. Um how do we actually go about designing a new television remote control? First thing to do is to come up with the design specifications. We need to know what our final product is gonna be like, so we need a a clear idea of exactly what this product does, uh how it works, and what the end-user is gonna want from this product. Um. Oh, a way I'd suggest that we could go about this is by designing uh several different prototypes of user interfaces for this product, um and then uh trying to get some feedback uh about
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: h how well these particular prototypes work, uh sorta find out what people think of'em. Um using a remote control is is quite a subjective experience. Um,
Project Manager: Hmm.
User Interface: and different different people sort of prefer different things. Um we should remember that remote controls are a a fairly standard piece of equipment. When a users using a remote control, he or she expects the buttons to be in certain places. So in some sense we're gonna we're gonna have to aim for a device which is fairly conventional in design uh so that we're not completely shocking people. But I think within that there is also room for us to introduce novel ideas uh and to make something that's that's perhaps a little bit different, something that stands out. Um also in in designing the user interface we need to consider practicalities. Uh the first of these is is technological ye uh what can we do with the current state of technology as it is. The second is is economic, uh we need to find a balance between features and price. So as you mentioned things like voice recognition would would add to the price uh but it would also im improve the design of the product.
Project Manager: Hmm.
User Interface: So I had a look on the {disfmarker} on the web uh to see if I could find a few examples of existing television remote controls. In analysing these we can consider what what things {disfmarker} what's good about them, uh what things do they get right, what's bad about them, what's wrong with'em, um how we can improve on the designs that that that I found and what can we do to make our product stand out from from the large majority of remote controls. Here's two examples uh probably at the extreme ends of the spectrum.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Um on the left here we've got uh an engineering-based design for a remote control,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: so it's one that's got lots of buttons, it's it's fully featured, everything you might possibly want to do is there, you know, it's got forward, backwards, up, down, channel numbers, volume, uh freeze frame. Yeah, it's it's fully featured and it might take a while to get to learn to use it, but once you've learned it you can {disfmarker} you can do whatever you want with your T_V_. The one on the right is a lot more basic. It's just got the essential functions of the T_V_ changing the channel, play, stop, volume. It would be a lot quicker to learn to use it, but again th it's it's swings and roundabouts. There are disadvantages, you can't use it say to to freeze the television picture. Uh there's a lot of features that are missing from that remote control. So we've got to to find our {disfmarker} find a way of striking a balance between the two. Um as I said before, remote controls are subjective, different people want want different things. Um personally wa what I want from a remote control is a device that's simple, it it's easy to use, uh it's got big buttons for doing the things I do most often, changing the volume, changing the channel. It it does everything that I need it to uh, as I said before, I'm quite lazy, I don't wanna walk across the room just to adjust my television. I also want something that that looks cool, um and that that feels good, that's ergonomically designed.
Project Manager: Mm'kay. Thank you very much. That was very useful. {vocalsound} It's funny to see the {vocalsound} drastic difference between those two remotes. {vocalsound} Um.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: And neither of them were very pretty, you know?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: No.
Industrial Designer: I think that could be our selling point.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: A fashion fashion remote.
Industrial Designer: Right.
User Interface: I think there's there's certainly a market for technology that looks cool.
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: And I think that's that's why companies like Apple've've've made a lot of progress.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Right, I really can't see what I'm doing, so does anyone have a {disfmarker}
Project Manager: You {disfmarker} there it is.
Industrial Designer: Ah-ha, look at that, showing up already.
Project Manager: Lovely.
Marketing: So wait, did it let you go on the Internet or was that just what it let you see?
User Interface: Uh that was just on the d on the company web site, yeah.
Marketing: Okay.'Cause I was like googling
Project Manager: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: and then I'm like wait {vocalsound} it won't let me google. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Alright um {disfmarker} No, how do I play again?
Project Manager: Um the {disfmarker} it's right above Draw. There are three thingy if {disfmarker} it's way at the bottom. Under three icons
Industrial Designer: Ah.
Project Manager: and it's the one that looks like a desk. Yeah, that one. There are Y_s {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Okay. So this is our working design presentation. Um I had a bit of {disfmarker} some issues with this, because I wasn't able to find everything I needed, but I guess that's {disfmarker} we're still in early stages. Um so, yeah, this is this. Though th the thing about working design is the {disfmarker} what we're trying to do as a working design is figure out how the aparata apparatus can fulfil its function. Um one of the examples that kept coming up for me is that a coffee grinder. It works because it converts electrical energy to grinding the beans and then you put the bean through a filter and that filters out, and then you get coffee at the end that's nice and hot because of the combination of electrical energy and then the other things that are brought in to make it work. Don't know if I'm explaining that very well, but {disfmarker} how do I get to the next s ah. So h the method as um working designers figure out what you need to make it fulfil this practical function, what what needs to be done and how do we convert all the elements to make that done.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So wha the easiest thing to do is to break down all the points at which you need something to happen. So you make a schematic of the way that the the energy is converted tsh towards this practical function. And then I think the easiest thing to do is gonna be work on each task separately. So um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: You just press {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Uh. Uh.
Project Manager: yeah, just click. That'll be fine.
Industrial Designer: So the findings that I got uh very {disfmarker} just very briefly is that you have a choice of the way that the information is projected to the receiver and in my opinion infra-red is the best way to do that'cause you don't need a sight line. So that's one thing we're gonna work on. Um the user interface is critical here, because a lot of the things that happen in a remote control happen through the chip that controls {disfmarker} that converts the electrical energy into data, which then goes through the infra-red, so the the chip that uh I think Ian is designing, is gonna be crucial. And really it all comes down to the to the user, because they're the one that's controlling most of the working design. So the components that we find here are the energy source, you know the battery or whatever that's gonna m make it work, then the chip, which converts the data, the user that's controlling the chip, and the infra-red bulb that's gonna let us move the data to the receiver. So you have four main components and they are designed sort of like this. You have your energy source right there which then um brings uh energy or information to the chip, which is also controlled by the users. You have energy going to the user who's controlling the chip {disfmarker} ooh's not what I wanted to do uh uh.
Project Manager: Um yeah use that thing {gap} you can go back, previous.
Industrial Designer: Previous. Sorry about that, guys.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Pardon.
Industrial Designer: Oh.
Project Manager: Oh, well.
Industrial Designer: No, no, no, no, no.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Okay, let's just get back to my schematic here.
Project Manager: Ye Double click on it. With the right {disfmarker} with the left hand one.
Industrial Designer: W yeah, yeah. I think it's frozen. Here. Don't show me that tip again.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} There we are.
Industrial Designer: There we are. Sorry about this, guys.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I'm kind of pathetic with things like this. Um alright. So you have your energy source, your user interface who's controlling the chip, the chip also uses the energy, and the chip through the use of the user interface is gonna control the switch which will work your infra-red bulb, which will then bring the data to the receiver. So hopefully that makes sense for everyone in my kind of garbled way.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: This is the the parts of the working design that need to be figured out. And {vocalsound} personal preferences, besides the fact that I can't spell, we need a long-lasting energy source, people don't wanna be changing it a lot. We need a chip that works well with the user interface, that isn't too complicated. We need a straightforward interface, like Ian was saying, simple, not overwhelming it with information and we need a reliable and clear infra-red signal, so that you're not waving your remote around
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and having to get frustrated and go do it by hands. So that's pretty much it for the working design.
Project Manager: Excellent. {gap} So, um.
Industrial Designer: Rose, do you think you can give me a hand with this?
Project Manager: Yes, absolutely. Ah I can never tell which way to turn these things.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Lefty loosey, righty tighty, right?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: What's up?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Lefty loosey, righty tighty.
User Interface: Lefty loosey. Uh.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Never heard that before,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh yes.
User Interface: that's good. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I'll think of that every time now.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It's gonna stick in your head.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, that's a good one it'll stick with you.
Project Manager: Mm'kay. Um I have nothing on my screen. Just a sec. Here we are.
Industrial Designer: Mm. Ooh,
Project Manager: Okay, yeah, it's fine.
Industrial Designer: no signal.
Project Manager: Okay, requirements. We have a couple new requirements that I was just e-mailed right before the meeting and that we have to keep in in um in mind as we're creating this.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: We didn't bring it up yet, or at all in the meetings so far, but we're not gonna work with teletext because um {disfmarker} well it {disfmarker} that's been taken over by the internet, so we're not gonna worry about um {disfmarker} we're not gonna worry about that.
Marketing: What's teletext?
Project Manager: Um.
Industrial Designer: Uh, it's a British thing.
Marketing: Oh. Oh,
User Interface: You don't have it in the States?
Marketing: so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: It {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: No. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: no. W d could {disfmarker} would you care to explain it?
User Interface: Oh, I didn't realise. Um yeah, it's like a {disfmarker} I suppose it's kind of similar to a very very basic web browser. Um you have like you have uh numbers on your remote control, uh y and you type in the page number you want,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: so like you type a hundred on your remote control and this this kind of index appears on the television screen with just some some text and some very blocky looking graphics on it. And you just type numbers to go to different pages and it gives you information, mostly rather boring stuff like what's on T_V_ next and share prices and that kind of thing.
Marketing: {gap}
Industrial Designer: S {vocalsound} Lottery numbers and sport scores.
User Interface: Yep, news headlines.
Industrial Designer: But if you ever see the T_V_ saying like go to page one sixty on Ceefax now, that's what they're talking about.
Project Manager: How?
User Interface: It's earl it's pretty old technology.
Marketing: Oh.
User Interface: It's like nineteen eighties.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: That explains a lot.
Industrial Designer: I have no idea why we don't have it, but {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: That's good.
Project Manager: Interesting. Okay um, well, we're not gonna {disfmarker} the management has decided we're not gonna work with that. Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay um and we're also gonna w like your question earlier um whether this is going to be t for television, video, or etcetera. Just for television. That's what we're focused on.
User Interface: Right.
Project Manager: Um otherwise becomes to complex, we wanna get this out um very quickly. We only have a a short amount of time.
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
Project Manager: Um and finally there's more marketing, I think, um, our corporate image has to be recognisable. So while we're gonna make it look pretty we need to use our colour and our slogan i in the new design.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: So what's our corporate image like? It's {disfmarker} It's kind of yellow colour with uh we put fashion in electronics.
Project Manager: Looks like, yeah, kind of a yellow and black and we have that {disfmarker} the emphasis on the R_s in um {disfmarker}
User Interface: It's like double R_.
Project Manager: mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: But it's, yeah, we put the um fashion in electronics. So we gotta keep that in that in mind.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay, so we want something that looks good
Project Manager: Yep. Yep.
Industrial Designer: and is yellow.
Project Manager: Yeah, or {vocalsound} ha maybe some buttons could be yellow. Like, we can we can play around with it a little bit.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Um. Okay, we need to talk about our functions and our target group. We need to decide who our target group is. You um in your analysis of different market um {disfmarker} of the marketing, you identified that different groups wanted different things
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: or had certain preferences, for example that um that older people didn't really care for um voice recognition, but younger people did.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um and so who are we aiming this at?
Industrial Designer: Well if we're gonna say that function um fashion {disfmarker} we put the fashion in in electronics then you {disfmarker} automatically, I think, a sort of younger group that {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} who's gonna be attracted to this.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes, I do think, who's gonna have the money to buy that also, that one?
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. It's gonna be twenty five Euro remember, so um it has to be avai marketable to um whomever it is.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Is it {disfmarker} is it something that's gonna be sold separately from the television or is it something that comes w with a television?'Cause that would affect the way that we market it.
Project Manager: Well at least right now what we're doing is um deciding on just the remote itself, so it will probably be sold separately, twenty five Euro by itself.
User Interface: Right. Right, okay.
Marketing: The only break-down that I was given in terms of age was the voice activation and basically there's a big jump, after thirty five people don't really care if it has voice, so it's like basically fifteen to thirty five that think that that's a good idea.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: I dunno I'm gonna be given any other numbers broken down in terms of age later, but if that's sort of the only quality that we have that is divided into age then we would wanna stick between the fifteen and thirty five range.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's probably uh a population w quite a little bit of disposable income for use on technology anyway, so that might be a fairly good target group for us.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Now, those are {disfmarker} that's all specific for speech recognition. Are we gonna use that as one of our functions?
User Interface: Um.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: I I would say no, because it's gonna add too much to the price. Especially if we are marketing it as a separate product, people are gonna be paying
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: uh, well, uh we've got a price limit of {disfmarker} was it twelve twelve and a half Euros for {disfmarker} to produce it?
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: To produce it, yeah.
Project Manager: To produce it, yes.
User Interface: And I wonder if we can get voice recognition into that twelve and a half Euros without having to make too many other compromises.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: But what else are we gonna put, I mean not that I'm really gung-ho about it, I don't know what else you can put in a remote to make it technologically advanced though. So like other than just making it look good, how is it {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Marketing: I mean it can look really great and still have the same up-n-down buttons
Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} right.
Marketing: and why's anyone gonna buy a new remote?
Industrial Designer: Well but why are we why are we aiming for a technological advancement? Everything we're talking about is ease of use and simple and that doesn't necessarily mean more technology,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: That's a good thing to keep in mind.
Industrial Designer: in fact it could use {disfmarker} it could mean, not. If {vocalsound} {disfmarker} they might be overwhelmed with with remotes that have too many buttons and too much technology.
Marketing: If someone's looking to buy a new remote, don't they want like an upgrade? I dunno.
Project Manager: Upgrade? Well, we can look for {disfmarker} we can look at upgrade or we can look at um user-friendly.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, simplification.
Project Manager: Simplification,
Industrial Designer: They could have a crap remote
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: that came with their T_V_ that's just impossible to use, or maybe it broke, or maybe they're just missing it.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Uh-huh, mm. And we also need to talk about if we're only gonna have the very simple ones or also have the other ones just separate somehow or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Can you like {disfmarker} I mean this may be too complicated, but, I wish I had something to explain it, like if it was just a simple, either this way or this way, that had like the main buttons and then you could like pull something out, kind of and like you got the rest the buttons,
Industrial Designer: Ooh.
Marketing: but the rest of them like went in.
User Interface: The remote {disfmarker}
Marketing: Do you know what I'm saying?
Project Manager: Kind of pull out of the side.
User Interface: There are remote controls like that, yeah. Like some T_V_s they have a sort of uh a sliding screen on the remote control of it
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: that hides all the complicated buttons.
Industrial Designer: Ooh.
User Interface: So if you wanna do something complicated like programme your television or re-tune it, then you you open up this little hatch or or slide the screen down
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: and there's all the {disfmarker} all the special buttons.
Marketing:'Cause then's like people who don't wanna ever look at them, never even have to see them
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: and if you like get the instruction manual that comes with it and you just don't even read it then you'll never even know that those things can pull out.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: And you're a happy person and everyone else doesn't have to have like two remotes, one that has the easy ones and one that has
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's a good idea.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: more complicated ones,
User Interface: I think that's a good idea, yeah.
Marketing: but's all still in one.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Um we have to be careful that that that doesn't impede um the chip transmitting information, but um that's gonna be mostly technological thing. Um.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Good point.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay um, so what are we emphasising? I {disfmarker} what in this project?
User Interface: Si simplicity and fashion.
Project Manager: Simplicity and fashion.
Marketing: I think simplicity, fashion.
Industrial Designer: Yeah mm.
Project Manager: Okay, those are very good goals, I think, um that we have to keep in mind in {disfmarker} with everything we do. Simplicity and fashion and, yeah, {disfmarker} or usability speci however you wanna say that, which includes um an emphasis on making the infra-red very functional, so that you don't have to travel around a lot.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Um.
Marketing: What can you do to like make the infra-red more functional, like why would it not be? I'm just wondering.
Project Manager: I think it's a lot {vocalsound} to do with battery, but that's just my {disfmarker}
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: The battery and that {disfmarker} I think that the chip takes the data and presents it well, without sort of scattering.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So's just the quality of the chip.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. I think so.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: The quality {vocalsound} uh quality of all the components really, I mean, we can't really do anything {disfmarker} shoddy work,'cause it's
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: gonna be visible down the line.
Project Manager: So our target group, we're saying, fifteen to thirty five?
Marketing: Well, I dunno how useful that number is if we're not doing {disfmarker}
Project Manager: S voice recognition, which I kind of I kind of feel like voice recognition is not necessary in a remote control,
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. I don't.
Project Manager: like it might be necessary for a T_V_ but not for the remote c, you know.
User Interface: It's, yeah, it's pretty it's pretty high-tech.
Industrial Designer: Mm-mm.
Project Manager: Seems a little bit {disfmarker} Mm-hmm. Yeah,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: and it might be too expensive.
User Interface: {gap}
Marketing: And if the whole idea is you're using a remote then why would you have voice,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: like you know what I mean and then it's like you wouldn't need a remote you'd just talk to your T_V_.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Ooh. {vocalsound}
User Interface: It's for, like, the ultimately lazy people,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: who can't even be bothered to pick up the remote.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm yeah.
Industrial Designer: I
Marketing: Maybe {disfmarker} I mean if I get m more numbers, I'll e-mail you before the next meeting in terms of ages. But this doesn't divide up anything and there was only a hundred subjects also,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: which isn't, I mean, really isn't that representative, especially if it's a hundred subjects that th they then can subdivide into age groups that means there's very few in each age group, so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, but I th I think regardless we're we're aiming for the under sixty five or something.
Marketing: {gap}
Project Manager: Under sixty five, okay,
User Interface: Yep.
Project Manager: that's a good start. Um. I'd say we're {disfmarker} uh can we narrow it down to maybe um teenagers and families?'Cause that would go up to like fifty?
Industrial Designer: Or like single professionals or something.
Project Manager: Okay, single {disfmarker}
Marketing: Twenty to like fifty five.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: I dunno.
Project Manager: It's it's hard to narrow it down.
Industrial Designer: It's really hard to figure out right now.
User Interface: I think the product appeals across a quite a broad range of ages.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: I mean, we we said simplicity is is one of the features, so it's going to appeal to people, maybe people who have problems with technology, you know, people who get scared by having lots of buttons,
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: and that might be older people,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: but then we've also got fashion, which is something that definitely appeals to younger people.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Well maybe we don't have to defi define the target group by the demographic of age,
Project Manager: Right.
Marketing: maybe we can define it by like the demographic of like h t how much money they have to spend or something like that,
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah aim for a {disfmarker} an income group.
Industrial Designer: That's a good point.
Marketing: like, well
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Marketing: obviously it has to be someone who owns a television,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: and like how recently have they bought their television like that sort of thing.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: So maybe it's more useful to d d to define objectives like fashion and simplicity than to find specific target group as far as age is {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, t probably.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: because, yeah, things so different will appeal to different people, but {disfmarker} Okay. Um oh, there're a couple functions {disfmarker} do we want something so that {disfmarker} do we want some kind of thing to find it if it's lost? Like a button on a T_V_ you can press
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: and it'll ring or something, I don't know like {disfmarker} or beep?
Marketing: H I mean, like I said before, fifty per cent of of the fru f like frustration someone can have that was the biggest one and half the people said that happened and we all mentioned it before we knew about it.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: And if we're talking about making something easy that sort of goes along with it so it wouldn't be like a random thing to sort of add in.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: It would be relevant to like the overall goal I think,
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, that'll probably be good.
Marketing: so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay, we have to {disfmarker} we have about four minutes left to define our functions. So let's do that quickly. Um so we want something to keep it from getting lost.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yep.
Project Manager: And {vocalsound} we want um we want large buttons for the essential things. Large, accessible buttons for the essentials.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: We want a possibility to um to get um a possibility to get the extra functions.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Which are kind of hidden away in some way or well not hidden but they're uh they're not as prominent as the main features.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: Um, yeah, hidden way. And we also want it to be fashionable, which I'm not sure if that's a function so much as a um yeah {disfmarker}
Marketing: {gap} on your coffee table, it's not like an eye sore, that kind of thing.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Alright.
Project Manager: Okay, do it. Any other essential functions that we need? Battery? Do we need a long-life battery?
Industrial Designer: Battery battery use. Yeah, but I think that goes in with simplicity and ease of use really.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: But we might as well.
Marketing: So you never have to change the battery.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: We should maybe investigate whether it needs a battery at all. I suspect the remote control does need a battery,
Project Manager: Yeah, I would imagine.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: but I dunno if you can {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Just'cause it is an electronic device, the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} I think it does. I don't I don't think of a way you can operate a chip and convert that much data without without one.
User Interface: Yeah, without the energy, yeah.
Industrial Designer: But you could maybe have it in a little charging station like a mobile phone, or like a little cradle for your iPod.
User Interface: Yeah, that's that's possible. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: You could {disfmarker} we could maybe do that instead.
Project Manager: Charging.
Industrial Designer: So you don't ha you got like a rechargeable battery.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I dunno, that might contribute to less people losing it too if it {vocalsound} it stays in one place.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: We have to think about um space in living-rooms, too, like'cause they're {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: I mean, would you put it on top of the T_V_? I don't know, just think {disfmarker} okay, that's {vocalsound} that's a good idea, we'll keep it. Think it's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. That's just off the top of my head.
Project Manager: And maybe fun. Okay. Um'kay we're gonna conclude now, has everyone said their functions and {disfmarker}'kay.
User Interface: Yep.
Project Manager: Um after the meeting we're gonna each complete a sks um a questionnaire and a summaries {disfmarker} summary. I don't know what summarisation. Um and then we'll have our lunch break. After that we have thirty minutes of individual work. Um I'll make sure to put up um the minutes and the project documentation and including these PowerPoint slides. If everyone could do that as well, that'd be great. Um you each have individual actions, I_ um I_D_ Industrial Design you've your components concept, User Interface, the user interface concept, market trend wa watching.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And as as per last time you'll get specific incrat instructions from your personal coach e-mailed to you. And hopefully, I hope, next time you'll be able to access more of the web site that they they seem to tell you that you could. It's kinda frustrating,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, who knows.
Project Manager: but um {disfmarker} Be sure to note any frustrations or any um issues that come up in your um in your um summary.
Industrial Designer: Okay
Project Manager: Mm'kay?
Industrial Designer: Sounds good.
Project Manager: Great seeing y'all. {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: It's good.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Did you um {disfmarker} were you able to like put yours in the group folder?
Industrial Designer: Yes, I just did that.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Hopefully it is there for people.
Marketing: Yep.
Industrial Designer: Yeah?
Project Manager: Looks like there are um {disfmarker} looks like there's a second one kind of of mine that's {disfmarker} that I didn't do,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: it's from like an earlier project, I think so um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: Where is that? Yours is {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Under the shared folder, I don't know it might not even be under yours as well.
Industrial Designer: Technical. So
Project Manager: Projects.
Industrial Designer: in there we have technical functions presentation, working design presentation and the functional requirements. At least that's what I have in.
Marketing: I only have three, I just have like our three. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's what I have as well, R Rose {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay. You don't have mine?
Industrial Designer: So.
Marketing: No, but that's'cause I think yours is in the e-mail separate, like it's not on the server.
Project Manager: S
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: But if I open it and then save it, probably will be there. Oh wait, never mind you can't save it to the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay. Well I'll figure that out in the meantime.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: Okay. | This was the second meeting with functional design discussion purpose. Firstly, the group gave three individual presentations on working design, technical functions and functional requirements. They mentioned the importance of the fancy appeal, the practicality and the quality of components. Then, the group had a discussion about general requirements on the remote control. The group decided to market the remote as a separate product and focused on the user-friendly as well as simplicity, instead of too much technological advancement. Also, they agreed to target on income group and would add extra functionalities like keep lost and rechargeable stations for the remote control. | qmsum |
Why did the User Interface disagree with the Industrial Design when discussing their attempts to redesign the conceptual remote control because of the limited budget?
Project Manager: Okay. Uh first of all I'll start with the costs,
Marketing: {gap}.
Project Manager: because that's going to influence our design.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh no.
Marketing: Oh, {gap}. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: If you {disfmarker} Don't know if you al already had a look or not?
User Interface: No n I I already did it.
Industrial Designer: Did you do your questionnaire already?
Marketing: No.
User Interface: It's not much. It's just one question.
Project Manager: Because we have a problem.
Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: If you look closely, you can see.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: It wants {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Um I already took the liberty to make some suggestions. {gap}. {gap}. {vocalsound} At the moment we have fifteen buttons, one L_C_D_ screen, one advanced chip-on-print. We use a uh sensor, that's for the speech. Uh we use kinetic energy. And we wanted uh the buttons in a special colour. Okay. What's the first thing we should drop? The special colour of the buttons?
User Interface: No that's that's for the trendy uh feel and look. So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay. Uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah but everything is.
Project Manager: Should we switch to a hand dynamo?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh that's the still the same idea as the kinetic energy because you have to use it and do things.
Marketing: No.
User Interface: Yeah, b but {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah but young people like that.
Project Manager: Batteries?
Marketing: So just do normal battery.
Project Manager: Batteries.
User Interface: I think the battery option.
Industrial Designer: Just a normal battery then, yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: {gap}.
Marketing: It has to be twelve and a half.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Or not? {vocalsound}
User Interface: Oh. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Oh my goodness.
Project Manager: You're going to redesign something.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Oh no.
Project Manager: Okay, so we're at twenty five.
Marketing: Uh, yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Do we keep the shape doubly curved or g do we go for single curved?
Industrial Designer: Well I guess i we'll have to go for single curve then. I mean we have to drop on everything.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: But we can keep it single curved with uh top view still curved, but from the side it's it's flat,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: and the screen screen is just {disfmarker} Well you just have to hold it like this then. So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: How about {disfmarker} Sorry.
Project Manager: Uh another option I saw was to drop the buttons one through nine, so you can't directly access a channel, but instead use only the up and down arrows. That would skip nine buttons and four and a half Euros.
Industrial Designer: That's what I was thinking.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Alright.
Project Manager: Yeah?
Industrial Designer: A a
Marketing: Let's do it then. Yeah.
Project Manager: Uh then we have left {disfmarker}
User Interface: But we don't have any basic options any more.
Marketing: {gap} we {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh yeah. We do.
Industrial Designer: And uh'cause then they don't have to n They don't need special colour as well.
Marketing: F_ eight.
Project Manager: They don't need special colours. Fine. That's more like it.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} You were saying something.
Industrial Designer: That was exactly my point. Like let's drop all the buttons, and just make one
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} I mean we're gonna use the L_C_D_ screen anyway. So we'll just have to use it for everything.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And then you can make an overview of channels in the screen, and select a channel, click {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, some more menu options. Yeah. Okay so maybe we can drop few more buttons.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But um {disfmarker} Now let's look.
User Interface: Yeah we c could {disfmarker} We only need the the the the the menu arrow arrow button uh thing. Everything you can do with with the menu. So {disfmarker} With the display.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah we need one integrated button for everything then.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: The joystick.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Kind of. I was {disfmarker} Because {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, scroll-wheel, push-button uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. If you if you go to {disfmarker}
Marketing: Integrated scroll-wheel push-button, yeah.
Industrial Designer: If you go to our uh view, like you {disfmarker} if you are in the sound system there, uh and you wanna adjust the treble for instance,
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: this is just uh an example,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: y y you wanna see a bar on which you can adjust it from zero to ten for example.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: But you want a sound preview of how it's gonna sound,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: right? So you wanna click on it, activate it, whe and when you move it, hear the difference of the treble coming out or going into the sound.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So you'll you'll need a a kind of a joystick uh button.
Marketing: Yeah or or the integrated scroll-wheel push-button.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: So that's kind of on your mouse and then you can click it, adjust it, click again and then you're out of it.
Industrial Designer: Exactly.
Marketing: But you still {disfmarker} But you then still need to have {disfmarker} Well you can use the scroll-wheel as well for um maybe for the channels. But you still um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah it's r Yeah.
Marketing: You still have to have some some button in the menu to go back.
User Interface: So you do one inte You can do one integrated scroll-wheel push-button.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: And then just drop all the other buttons.
Project Manager: Uh yeah.
Marketing: Well not all.
User Interface: But but th the cost of one integrated button is far more than a few extra push-buttons.
Marketing: Not s not sound I guess.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No.
Project Manager: Yeah. It's uh {disfmarker} One integrated button is five times the cost of a normal button.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: So {disfmarker}
User Interface: So we have to to make it s uh more uh {disfmarker} It has to be {disfmarker}
Project Manager: You could also drop j three more of these, without losing much functionality. You just drop the Okay and the Back.
Marketing: Yeah. Wh wh what what what is the what is the uh sample sensor sample speaker?
Project Manager: Oh, that's for the speech.
Marketing: Speech recognition.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Could drop the speech recognition. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Right.
Project Manager: S s Drop speech recognition?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah that's possible. {vocalsound}
User Interface: We we d
Industrial Designer: Yeah it's it's expensive, but uh we never considered the possibilities of uh speech recognition.'Cause it can take the function of a lot of uh uh buttons.
Project Manager: Buttons.
Marketing: Buttons.
Project Manager: That's not very easy to use.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I
Marketing: No, it can be disturbed by by noise and
Industrial Designer: No.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah but lets just say that the speech recognition works.
Marketing: stuff like that. Let let let me see what's more what's more popular. I guess the the screen was more popular than um than the speech recognition.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I have to look on that. Let me see. {vocalsound} Uh well no I was wrong.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: There are more people who like speech recognition than an L_C_D_ screen.
Project Manager: Yep. Okay. Because if you d lose the L_C_D_ screen, we {vocalsound} need a lot of {disfmarker}
Marketing: But if it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But it it {disfmarker} it's a it's a both a hypers
User Interface: We lose our whole concept.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Uh so {disfmarker} No we just {disfmarker}
Project Manager: We need a lot of extra buttons.
Marketing: No, but {disfmarker}
User Interface: We keep the L_C_D_.
Marketing: Well we Yeah we keep the screen. I mean it's it's about the same. Eight one to ninety one percent, uh sixty six to seventy six.
Project Manager: Okay
Industrial Designer: We uh we we haven't really integrated this {disfmarker} the speech into the system,
Project Manager: so we drop the speech.
Industrial Designer: so we can might as well s drop that. {gap}
Project Manager: And drop it yeah?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. Let's drop the speech.
Project Manager: Okay. S Fo Four less Euros. So we still have three and a half Euro to lose.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Sixteen Euros.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We need to lose some buttons.
Marketing: But y y
Project Manager: Yeah if you lose the the Back, the Okay button {disfmarker} Uh v let's say we only have the four arrows, and the Menu button.
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: Then you're {disfmarker}
Marketing: And then and then use um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh and the power button we have also.
Marketing: The the {disfmarker} Okay. And the menu button does also does the okay function then.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: And then when you in the menu {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So that's one Euro.
Marketing: S so so you activate the menu.
User Interface: If we do uh two integrated scroll-wheel push-buttons, we can drop all the the push-buttons.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Yeah? And {gap} {disfmarker}
User Interface: With with one uh integrated button we can uh do the whole menu thing. With the other, we can do the the channel, the volume, et cetera.
Marketing: Yeah yeah. {vocalsound} Yeah. {gap}.
Project Manager: That would save zero point two Euros compared to {disfmarker} No.
User Interface: No it's three Euros. No? Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. To This together is more expensive than {disfmarker} Oof, it's almost the same as t keeping this.
User Interface: No it's it's n Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And we can drop these two.
Marketing: Well okay.
User Interface: It's the {disfmarker}
Marketing: For example if you have f f four buttons, {vocalsound} channel up and down, uh volume left right {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Volume.
Marketing: Okay, I've {disfmarker} I think we have to keep that.
Project Manager: And the power button.
Marketing: And then {disfmarker} and the power button. So that's five.
Project Manager: That's the basic.
Marketing: That's basic. That that's what you need anyway. And then for the menu, um you can have a button that activates menu. Or d or do we just integrate an an an scroll-wheel with a push-button. And then if the moment you use the scroll-wheel, the the the menu gets activated, and then you can scroll, choose an option, click on it, it goes into an feature. Click on it again, selects features, scroll, adjust it. Click again, it's okay. Then you only need one button to move back. Or or under each option, you set a {disfmarker} you set an a screen thing what says back, and you select that one, click again, and you go one step back. And in that menu, scroll, click, one step back.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So that then you need five buttons, and one integrated scroll-wheel push-button.
Project Manager: Yep. Okay th that's {disfmarker}
Marketing: But we can't drop three buttons.
Industrial Designer: Which {gap} {disfmarker} That's even {disfmarker}
Marketing: But I see that's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah that's one Euro more expensive.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that's not a good idea.
Project Manager: That's not an option.
Marketing: Because which buttons do we have now? Those five which I mentioned, and then menu, and then {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Menu, power.
Marketing: Yeah. F of the four things?
Project Manager: Four arrows?
Marketing: Yeah, th power.
Project Manager: Power. Uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah, if you if you go to eight {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Which more?
Industrial Designer: I don't know how to {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. Okay. So four arrows?
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Uh power I believe?
Marketing: Power. Th Yeah that's five.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker} We have a Back and a Okay button.
Marketing: Yeah, okay that's seven,
Project Manager: And the Menu.
Marketing: and one to activate the menu, yeah. So okay that's eight. Well we can't reduce that. We we keep the display.
Project Manager: Yeah, and even if we drop three buttons from here, we still have to make some adjustments around here. So {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh, well okay. Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, we need the chip for the for the L_C_ display.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: The L_C_D_? Yeah.
User Interface: Let's make the {disfmarker} Let's make the case plastic.
Marketing: Yeah well we need the advanced {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Then I rather make it wood.
Marketing: Instead of r
Project Manager: Because then also it's good in the market with the forty five plus uh people.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. True.
Marketing: Yeah but but that's not our market.
User Interface: But {disfmarker}
Project Manager: No that {disfmarker} maybe not. But maybe it's better than plastic anyway.
Marketing: Ah no, hard plastic. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Plastic with a with a special colour.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh.
User Interface: A woo wood uh wood uh wood colour.
Marketing: Yeah, plastic with special colour.
Project Manager: Yeah? {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} No but I I {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah okay uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} That's an option. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Because we have to use the special colour anyway. You forgot that.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yep. Yeah, yeah.
User Interface: So we do one one s
Marketing: {vocalsound} So let's go for the plastic.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, okay. Plastic.
Marketing: And since it's not kinetic, it doesn't have to flip around that much?
Project Manager: Uh that's easy because plastic is free. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Hmm.
Marketing: We still have problem of two Euros.
Project Manager: Yeah, okay. Uh if we dropped uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: No the buttons, those are really needed.
Project Manager: Yeah?
User Interface: Yeah th th it's it's uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah we can't drop them.
User Interface: An advanced chip-on-print. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} You still need that.
Industrial Designer: Yeah uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Do we really need that advanced chip for an L_C_D_ display?
Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker} uh uh {disfmarker} Yeah. So the other option would be to go for the the sample speaker, and {disfmarker} Which can use a regular chip, wh which is six Euros in total.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} S
Industrial Designer: That doesn't matter.
Marketing: Oh. I rather keep I rather keep the display.
Project Manager: No, I keep the re Yeah. Yeah. Because we already designed for it. So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well yeah.
Marketing: So the only option is an hand dynamo.
Industrial Designer: Exactly.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh that {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah and something else.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah but the {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh no tha Oh that's one Euro, right.
Industrial Designer: uh can't we f uh fit all the buttons in an intreg integrated scroll push-button?'Cause that will save us one and a half Euro already. And then if w
Marketing: And then integrated s Yeah but that would make it not so easy to use.
Project Manager: No y you would rec
Marketing: I mean it's not that important, easy to use, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Then you have {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Th then we have to scroll through a lot of menus to be able to get where you want, huh?
Project Manager: Then you still need two additional buttons I believe.
Industrial Designer: And uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: For the volume.
Industrial Designer: Yeah d at l Yeah. At least one for power.
Project Manager: You can use those {disfmarker} Yeah.
User Interface: But the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh yeah and power. That's three buttons and this would cost {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Oh. Yeah it's just as expensive as what we have now.
User Interface: But the integrated uh button? How many func functions can it uh have?
Project Manager: Yeah. Three. Up, down, Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah endlessly. I mean it can be a power button as soon as it powered on.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: You can go into you in you main menu,
Marketing: You you press it for like three seconds.
Industrial Designer: you can choose uh flip channel, uh you can choose sound options, any options.
Marketing: Then then then you should do everything in the menu. On the screen.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, okay. It would save enough {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe we should.'Cause we don't have money and w we want the screen.
Project Manager: Yeah you can choose this, drop these, then we have a half Euro left.
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} So we can maybe still use power button.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, but we'd {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Alright.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I guess we have to.
Marketing: It s it saves us four Euros and it costs us two and a half. So let's see, we we drop the price by one and a half.
Project Manager: Yeah. You see?
Industrial Designer: We'll we'll be on {disfmarker}
Marketing: But we still have thirteen left.
Project Manager: Oh still {disfmarker} Yeah? Oh then I miscalculated. Oh yeah.
Marketing: Thirteen. So still half. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Shit. Drop the special colour. {vocalsound}
Marketing: There goes the special co {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh no.
Marketing: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That would make it less appealing. So that's no option.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}'Kay. What else? Uncurved?
User Interface: No no, it has to be um curved.
Marketing: We sure about the advanced chip we need for the display?
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah it says right here.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} They made it very easy for us. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Well yeah. {vocalsound} {gap} yeah. We made it hard for ourselves with the display, but it's a cool feature.
Project Manager: Ah, I don't think I can s uh persuade the management to say, this is better for the market so you sell more than {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay. Wh what we could do is um {disfmarker} drop the the special colour, and uh do the special colour for the buttons.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Buttons. That's {disfmarker} Oh yeah since we only have one button.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah but I mean what is meant by special colour?
Project Manager: I just m I don't {disfmarker} I think {disfmarker}
User Interface: Just something else than than black or white I think.
Project Manager: Uh yeah it's {disfmarker} I think it's grey, regular.
Marketing: S yeah. Alright.
Project Manager: Grey and rubber.
Industrial Designer: But we definitely want the thing to be a special colour though.
Project Manager: Of plastic.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Damn.
Marketing: So I rather have an hand dynamo {vocalsound} than than drop the colour.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah and then {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Marketing: You can still play with it then I guess. I don't know.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, but a hand dynamo costs a lot of energy to keep the screen working. So I guess that isn't an option.
User Interface: The display {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Well, you only have to power it up when you wanna use it.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: The {disfmarker} But if you have to power the for ten minutes, {vocalsound} then the {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I don't know.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: No I don't think the current status of uh chips are pretty uh energy conserving, no.
Industrial Designer: {gap}.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah true.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Let's let's go for the hand dynamo then.
Project Manager: Yeah hand dynamo? Do you want an extra button? {vocalsound}
Marketing: Or or do we {disfmarker} Or do we do uncurved and flat? Instead of {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: No no it has to be curved.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah it has to be curved and has to have that colour.
User Interface: Yeah. Just put a special special colour of the buttons, or something.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: And a screen.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. That's the most import
Project Manager: Yep? Instead of an additional power button?
User Interface: Yeah or spe special form?
Marketing: Yeah. S what what is special f Oh yeah, special form.
Project Manager: Yeah?
Marketing: Maybe that's nicer.
Project Manager: It's for scroll {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Without {disfmarker}
Marketing: But we don't have any buttons.
Industrial Designer: We only have {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} So do {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. But it's it's for the integrated button, I think also. Or {disfmarker}
Marketing: d Uh make it a special colour then.
Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah ma make it a special colour then.
Project Manager: Yeah but it's just a scroll-wheel which you can push down. So {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Marketing: Okay. Make it a special colour and then it look fancy.
Project Manager: Yeah? So {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yep.
Project Manager: Woah we're within budget.
Marketing: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's a miracle. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Oh just {disfmarker}
Marketing: Let's let's save it.
User Interface: oh ma make it two special colours, but we only have one button.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Let's do it like this, I mean, because it does not lose our identity of the product as we {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah? {vocalsound} Okay. Um, well {disfmarker} {gap}.'Kay, this was old.
Industrial Designer: Well we come back to the drawing board then, huh? {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah all your designs are uh pretty much {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah back to work. Uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Did I save it?
Industrial Designer: It's silly'cause we we should have had this meeting before we start drawing.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah but that but that's the fun part of it. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I I wanted to go, but I wasn't allowed. So {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah? {gap} okay.
Marketing: Alright.
Project Manager: Uh I just forgot to save this. Just a minute. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap}.
Marketing: Yeah what's the next uh phase?
Project Manager: Yeah, this the last phase of course, so {disfmarker}
Marketing: Uh the agenda. By your humble P_M_.
Project Manager: Hmm. {vocalsound} Oh.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh f {vocalsound} Frustrated. {vocalsound} Alright. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay. Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Well we first should have had a uh prototype presentation. But well as you saw that hadn't made no sense, because we had to drop it.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Drop everything. Yeah.
Marketing: Drop, yeah.
Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: We went straight into finance? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah it was more important, so I just
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: For {disfmarker} Yeah.
Project Manager: pushed up the agenda.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Uh, evaluation criteria. You have t produced something about that?
Marketing: Yeah that that's {disfmarker} Yeah. I uh I sure did. And it combines with product evaluation. Uh so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Uh you put it in the {gap}.
Marketing: We all have to keep in mind what has changed now. So what we have left on the {disfmarker} Because evaluation is based on the initial uh user requirements.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Alright.
Project Manager: F_ five.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Let's make it big. {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Well we evaluate uh the design with a seven point scale, as following. Well the remote controls according criteria blah blah blah. True or false, and then on a scale of seven points, a {gap} scale, as we all know it.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Um {disfmarker} Well the criteria are based on the user requirements, uh the trends from the marketing research, and the marketing strategy of the company itself. Um well they are in a Word document, which I will open now.
Project Manager: Alt up
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. I don't know it's open yet. No. And we all have to uh agree on a certain level. What's this?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Freaky. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh. I don't know. Um {disfmarker} Well the first point is the remote control matches the operating behaviour of the young user. So that means the operating behaviour was using quite a lot of functions. How do you think about that?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I think it does. Because the operating {gap} behaviour of the young user was also defined in colour and shape and the use of L_C_D_,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: right?
Project Manager: Uh, of course we dropped a little bit of those uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah the us u It it {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: it's it's mainly con mainly concentrating on a lot of functions, in this question.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So do you think {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well, we have extended menus, on the on the L_C_D_ screen. So {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah. You can you can ma
User Interface: Yep.
Marketing: Yeah, you can make a lot of extended menus. That's true. I mean the the possibilities are almost unlimited, to to build in menus in the screen.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I {gap} No.
Marketing: So on a scale from one to seven, what do you think?
User Interface: Two or three. Two or three.
Marketing: Huh? Two or three? Something like that?
Project Manager: Two.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Well we have to choose one. So uh what do you say?
Project Manager: Uh y we should fill this in now.
Marketing: I agree on two.
Project Manager: Yeah okay.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: I uh I say two, personally. But {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah in the new design I s would say it's three. But now, in original design I say two.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah alright.
Marketing: Yeah well we have to evaluate I guess what we have now.
Project Manager: Okay then I say three.
Marketing: Yeah? You say three,
Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah.
Marketing: and you you said al also three?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Three? Okay well I say still two, but it has to be three then.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Hey, you're marketing, eh. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah I know. So it's made bold. But it's {disfmarker} nah, it's not very clear on the sc
Project Manager: Hmm. M maybe underline.
User Interface: Or give it a colour.
Marketing: Maybe other colour, yeah. That's better.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Red. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah. Alright. Oh, it doesn't have to be bold anymore.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh yeah very true.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah true one. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Um well the remote control has {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Wha {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} He types everything. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Definitely one. It has to be.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} The remote control has irrelevant or less used functions. For example audio settings and screen settings.
User Interface: It hides uh basic functions. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Everything. {vocalsound} You don't use anything else. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Well, yeah. So it it's a very true point. I mean it hides all those function.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} You're not gonna find them.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah okay. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah true.
Marketing: But, I mean uh they're hidden in the screen. If you don't want to use them, you don't s you s just scroll over them. And you place them {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: {vocalsound} F I don't know where. So that's very true, I guess, for our case.
Industrial Designer: Yeah the next {disfmarker} Not so much so.
Marketing: Uh the second point. It shows the relevant and most used functions.
Project Manager: Nope.
Marketing: Power button. Do we ha still have a power button?
Project Manager: Uh check with the Excel sheet.
Marketing: Well yeah the button's integrated, huh?
User Interface: {vocalsound} I think we are {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah it's uh it's integrated.
Marketing: Yeah we dropped it. You j you just push it in for {disfmarker}
User Interface: It's in {disfmarker} Oh yeah it was integrateds. Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah integrate it.
Marketing: Yeah just just push it in for th for three seconds or something, and then {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: E exactly just like a m mobile.
Marketing: Yeah. I don't know. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Just go scrolling and it will activate. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah. Um it shows the relevant and most used functions.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap}.
Marketing: Yeah uh on the other {disfmarker} uh on one side I would say yes, and the other side I would say no. So it's {disfmarker} I don't know.
Project Manager: It shows the most used functions and they are relevant, but {disfmarker}
User Interface: Can you uh change channels directly with with just one button?
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: No, you have to scroll through the menu, before
Marketing: With the scroll butt Yeah and then say channel. And then {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. So it's it's not {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well uh we should b build it so that if you don't kind of push into the menu or something, if {disfmarker} When it's on, yeah, it's turned on,
Project Manager: You say you double click on the {disfmarker}
Marketing: Hmm?
Industrial Designer: It automatically has the the programme and the volume function,
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: but as soon as you click it you go into the menu or some {gap} {disfmarker} Of you {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Or you double click it.
Marketing: But but how do you change from volume to channel?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: No because it has four arrows, right?
Project Manager: No, not anymore.
User Interface: No. {vocalsound}
Marketing: No. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Because he's {gap} now have a scroll-wheel that you can push in.
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Like on the the mouse.
Industrial Designer: Yeah I was thinking still about our uh integrated joystick.
Marketing: No we have n we have no buttons left. So {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Say.
Marketing: the joystick was not an option.
Industrial Designer: Yeah that is a bummer.
Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} so you hav {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: So you you have to double-click, I mean, for, I mean, uh volume,
Project Manager: To get into menu. Yeah.
Marketing: and three double click for the menu, or something.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh no.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Or hold it ten seconds. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We'll make it a Morse code.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Yeah. Yeah. Alright.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: But but ease of use was not very important, may I remind you.
Project Manager: No no no. Uh it should be trendy. {vocalsound}
Marketing: So that's {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah but that that's not a question.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Uh the remote control shows the relevant and most used functions.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Well I think it's pretty much in the middle.
Project Manager: Yeah. Four.
Marketing: You have to search for them in in the in the s in the screen, in the menu. So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, im {disfmarker} in the menu.
User Interface: Seven. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: So maybe it's more like a f a five. Or {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. Five.
Industrial Designer: Yeah I would go for five or six, yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. Five or six?
Project Manager: Five.
User Interface: Five. Yep.
Industrial Designer: Okay five.
Marketing: Five? Alright.
Industrial Designer: Let's not diss our remote.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: It's the weirdest remote control I've ever seen. So {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh. {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yep. Just one button. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well it's different. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Alright. Uh the the remote control makes use of technolog technological innovation like L_C_D_ screen and speech recognition.
Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker} Uh yep.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Well yeah but we dropped the speech recognition. But it has at least one innovation.
Project Manager: Yeah, it's still {disfmarker} Yeah, I say two.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We still have the fruit and vegetable print.
Marketing: I say two then.
Project Manager: Oh, that's the next. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that that's not that's not this question. Uh thi uh that's the other question.
Industrial Designer: Fr Oh I mean the {disfmarker} Oh never mind. I'm a bit lost.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: This one.
User Interface: I think a two. No.
Project Manager: Two.
Marketing: Two yeah.
Industrial Designer: {gap}.
User Interface: Yep.
Marketing: I think L_C_D_'s more useful than speech {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah definitely.
Marketing: What? Oh not the bold one.
Industrial Designer: It's way more practical, yeah.
Marketing: Right. Okay, it has a fancy look and feel by using fruit and vegetable prints, primary colours and sponge-like material.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} It should have been two questions. {vocalsound} I realise now, because {vocalsound} sponge-like material is dropped.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: But the look and feel {disfmarker}
Project Manager: You still have rubber d Or no.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. So we still uh we still have the primary colours. But only on the on the outside, not on the button.
User Interface: No you got a plastic.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: The button has also colour. Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} The one button we have. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. The one.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah still we we dropped also on the the double uh curve.
Project Manager: Yeah you could check with the Excel sheet.
Marketing: Mm mm.
User Interface: Yeah. You only have one {disfmarker} Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah we have single curve now,
Industrial Designer: And and colour.
Marketing: and no and no material
Industrial Designer: Yeah. S
Marketing: . So maybe in the middle or something.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Four. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, I mean it's
Project Manager: Yeah or three.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: worth the {disfmarker} Yeah.
Project Manager: We have something.
Industrial Designer: Actually we d we didn't do so well on this one. Because it's basically an old one, uh with little curve on the side, and in a different colour. Still, it's still hard.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I mean the sponge-like and the three D_ shape, that would give it something young and fresh.
Project Manager: New. Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. But then we would have to drop the screen.
User Interface: Red. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh red. Yeah.
Project Manager: You like both. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} I like bold.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Uh the remote control displays the corporate logo. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um oh yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Mm yeah yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Of course.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I just couldn't {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} You just have to draw it. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um, just one minute.
User Interface: It's the white part uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah but it {disfmarker} be because uh we couldn't hardly draw on the b s on the lower half of the screen, we could not make it big enough to actually draw in the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {gap}.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So {disfmarker}
User Interface: We have a we have a {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: So I mean I wanted to put digits on the buttons as well. But {disfmarker}
Marketing: But there's uh enough space for the corporate logo. I mean, {vocalsound} if there's only one thing.
Industrial Designer: Hell yeah. If we have only one button.
Marketing: Yeah. So I will say that is very true.
Project Manager: {gap}.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And even the shape we have now uh simulates kind of an R_ and the reversed R_,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: doesn't it?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} The remote control is easy to use. Well I would say {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: No.
Marketing: Skill, uh I would say six, or something. I don't think it's easy to use, or not so.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} The only e the only thing easy about it is that you don't have to move your fingers.'Cause it has only one button.
User Interface: Ah i
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: And that you only have to control one button. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah exactly.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. It it it has a nice screen. But {disfmarker} Yeah.
User Interface: It gives visual feedback. So {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah. Well I I would say a five or a six.
User Interface: I think a five. Five. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I would say six.
Marketing: What do you say? Easy to use? Five or a six?
Industrial Designer: It's really not easy to use.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No not anymore.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer:'Cause you're putting everything {disfmarker}
Marketing: So a six, more.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, uh I would go for the six too. So {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Most votes count. Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Um well, another question,
User Interface: Yeah that looks uh great.
Marketing: uh the remote control is durable.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I don't know if that's the correct word.
User Interface: Yeah. Nah {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Definitely in casing,'cause we have a hard plastic
Marketing: But uh {disfmarker} In use, both battery as casing?
Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} Yeah. Yeah because the the batteries, those thingies last forever.
Marketing: Yeah? True, true.
Industrial Designer: And the the casing, hard plastic also lasts forever.
Marketing: And the casing is plastic, {gap}?
User Interface: Yep.
Marketing: Yeah. If you don't drop it too much, it's uh should last pretty long.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So I would go for one.
Marketing: Yeah? But uh I think rubber compared is better. So I think a two is more appropriate
User Interface: Yeah. S
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yep.
Industrial Designer: Okay yeah.
Marketing: than {disfmarker}
User Interface: Wow. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah. Logo.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay I will go {disfmarker} go for two. {vocalsound} Uh the last one? The remote control's a good example for company's motto, we put the fashion in electronics.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh. No m
User Interface: No we put the electronics into the fashion. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah well {disfmarker} yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I would g
Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} uh {disfmarker} {gap} turn around. Yeah. But um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I would go for four.
Project Manager: No {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah?
Industrial Designer: Because we kind of tried to but we kind of failed with the budget that we have.
Marketing: It's not {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah, true.
Project Manager: Yeah okay.
Marketing: So a four. It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it g it g goes, it's not the best we could do, I guess.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: But it all has to do with the budget, because it's it's not the bad idea we had, so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah yeah.
User Interface: Yeah, four is okay.
Marketing: Alright, yeah. Right.
Project Manager: So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: That's it.
Marketing: So if I understood it right, we have to count these numbers.
Project Manager: Ooh. And {disfmarker} Yeah? What?
Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah. Mm-hmm. Oh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Oh {disfmarker} Alright. Word document, the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. That {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah we have to count them.
Project Manager: Count them. Add them? Or {disfmarker}
Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah just add them and then uh divide them.
Project Manager: Could somebody start calculator? {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Mm. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Ah we can do the math. Uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: I all made it po I I all made it
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I all made it possible uh for a positive questions, so we can count it.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: I mean if you have reversed question, you have to reverse the scale,
Project Manager: Yeah, yeah. You have to {disfmarker}
Marketing: uh {disfmarker} Yes.
Project Manager:'Kay. So four and {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Did you make this questionnaire or what?
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Thanks. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Nice work.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Oh.
User Interface: Three plus?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I wouldn't be able to do it that fast.
Project Manager: O one.
User Interface: Plus one.
Project Manager: Plus five.
User Interface: Plus five?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh {disfmarker} Easy.
Project Manager: Bo {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Question number four, yeah?
Project Manager: Uh two.
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Four.
User Interface: Oh. Wait a second. Oh. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: F
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: It's it's gone wrong.
Marketing: {vocalsound} How hard is it?
User Interface: Okay. It's your turn.
Industrial Designer: Pretty difficult.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah just use {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Start over?
User Interface: No it's if you press twice on the plus button, then you get s s
Marketing: Oh there tho uh there's no n There's no num pads.
Project Manager: You can {disfmarker} Oh yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: No. That's why it's uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} It's a it's a bit uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Just type in the digits. They're all one digit numbers right? And then you can count them together.
Marketing: Yeah. I think you can just count them by a {disfmarker}
User Interface: Just count it to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: Um let's move over.
Project Manager: Okay. Three, four, nine.
Marketing: Three, plus one, four. Nine.
Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Uh, yeah. Are you here?
Industrial Designer: Eleven.
Marketing: Eleven.
Project Manager: Eleven,
Industrial Designer: Fifteen.
Marketing: Fifteen.
Project Manager: fifteen.
User Interface: Sixteen.
Industrial Designer: Sixteen.
Marketing: Sixteen, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Seventeen.
Project Manager: Seventeen.
Marketing: No sixteen. Uh sixteen plus six.
Industrial Designer: Oh what?
User Interface: Twenty two. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: S Uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} How hard is this? {vocalsound}
Marketing: Twenty two. Twenty two, yeah?
User Interface: Twenty four. Twenty six.
Industrial Designer: Never mind. Twenty four. Twenty eight.
Marketing: Tw
User Interface: Oh, sorry. {gap}.
Marketing: Twenty {disfmarker} Twenty eight.
Project Manager: That was the last one. That was that.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh my.
Industrial Designer: Twenty eight.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Okay. Twenty eight.
Project Manager: So divided by nine.
Marketing: Twen Uh okay. By nine.
User Interface: Hmm.
Marketing: That's uh three uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Or le less than a three.
Project Manager: So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah the lower the {disfmarker} The lower the score the better, right?
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. Twenty eight
Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Divided by nine.
Marketing: di divided by nine
Project Manager: So thr t two.
Marketing: makes three point one one one one one one one.
Project Manager: So we're better than average.
Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I Are you sure we {disfmarker} this number actually tells us somethings?
Project Manager: No. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I don't think so because some questions are related to positive issues and some to negative.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Some questions are {disfmarker} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So if you give a true to a positive, it actually means that the low {disfmarker} the lower the better. But if you give true to a negative question {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, but there are no negative questions I guess.
Industrial Designer: No?
Marketing: Good example. Durable use.
Industrial Designer: Durable, that's good.
Marketing: Easy to use. This {gap} is good.
Industrial Designer: Easy to use. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Fancy look and feel, that's good.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {gap}.
Marketing: Technology innovation was good, because of a marketing uh requirement.
Industrial Designer: Also good. Yeah okay.
Marketing: Re relevant most used function.
Industrial Designer: I guess you did do it.
Marketing: And hides these functions. {vocalsound} That was also a good thing.
User Interface: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah yeah. No {disfmarker}
Marketing: And then matches the opera of the {gap} user was also a good thing.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Okay.
Marketing: So it were all positive questions, by uh by purpose. So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah true.
Marketing: Yes, so the {disfmarker} It tells us something, yes. Becau But the picture would be a lot different if we didn't have to drop those uh those things, I guess.
User Interface: Oh great.
Project Manager: Things, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah definitely definitely.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Because now it's just an average {disfmarker} It's remote.
Marketing: Yeah. Nah it it's it's better than average, but {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah okay because of the L_C_D_ screen. But uh it looks and stuff, it still uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah. So th
Project Manager: It's still {disfmarker} yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Has some shortcomings.
Industrial Designer: it's not, it's not really eye-catching, except for the colour.
Marketing: No.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: The colour and the screen.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um this we had, this we had. We have to do a product evaluation.
Industrial Designer: Product evaluation.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh prototype presentation we dropped. So {disfmarker} Uh the finance we looked. We have redesigned. Uh not on that, but {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah we we have to maybe if we have to redesign it on this {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} So you can just make one big L_C_D_ screen. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay it's your turn now. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Shall we try?
Marketing: {vocalsound} With some casing around it, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Black. Okay uh we're still gonna go for the fancy colours?
Project Manager: Yeah uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: But are we gonna stick with the green or are we gonna do blue?
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah we we can just uh use this one. And then uh over-paint it with uh uh the green uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: The the button has a special colour, the frame has a special colour.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: he only needs one button.
Industrial Designer: One scroll button and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: It's plastic. {vocalsound} And single curved.
User Interface: Yeah. Or we have to delete this one or {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Oh and you might want to add a uh infrared LED.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh {disfmarker} oh no. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Otherwise it uh doesn't function uh so well.
Industrial Designer: For what?
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: So that's {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Do we have to do other things?
Project Manager: Well I have to um um make an uh report of every decision we made so far.
Marketing: Or just redesign? {vocalsound} Alright.
Project Manager: And I try to get chip just before uh I uh receive the Excel sheet.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So I {disfmarker}
Marketing: So you made a start, right?
Project Manager: Yeah I'm I'm somewhere, but maybe you can help me.
Industrial Designer: Should give it some time?
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yay.
Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay, but how do we make the the scroll uh button?
Project Manager: I was here. So {disfmarker}
User Interface: It's just one {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Have to take this away also.
Marketing: Alright.
User Interface: yeah.
Project Manager: Ah {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: And this um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Uh that's the infrared uh {vocalsound} thing. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah, of course.
Marketing: The the target group has a weak spot for fruit and vegetables, like primary colours, spongy shape.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um pen yeah? Format. Current colour red.
Marketing: The playfulness, we decided to use kinetic energy as a power sour
Industrial Designer: Oh {disfmarker} Yeah we did our special colour for the {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Line widths, now that's a ten.
Marketing: That's conceptual, yes.
Project Manager: That's enough to get started with, so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. Um, uh it's just a scroll {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: It's gonna be one str scroll.
User Interface: Yeah, is it's horizontal or vertical?
Marketing: How many pages? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh, I just took one for every step and then a conclusion.
User Interface: I think {disfmarker}
Marketing: Alright. Y you have you have done the first two.
Industrial Designer: Horizontal's easier too,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer:'cause you can {disfmarker}
Marketing: Okay, and and the look and feel is {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Is it more natural than this?
Project Manager: Well I think I have to make a p an issue called finance.
User Interface: Yeah, yeah.
Industrial Designer: So let's say {disfmarker} Whoops.'Kay.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Basically. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} It doesn't look like uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: The items we had to drop. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Uh it {disfmarker} it's it's not {disfmarker} Yeah. It's not very fashionable anymore. But uh it's okay.
Industrial Designer: It's really ugly.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Where did we start with price?
User Interface: Maybe m make it bigger? Or {disfmarker}
Marketing: Twenty six and a half.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Or not? Or twenty six? Something like that.
User Interface: Yeah. That looks little bit more uh {disfmarker} Maybe that's a s a special colour for it. So we can make it uh special? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Oh {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: This?
Industrial Designer: What do you mean? Like a other colour than this one?
User Interface: {vocalsound} Or or speckles in it? I dunno. Uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Speckles?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah can we do it uh {disfmarker} uh can we do a print?
User Interface: . . $ I'm not sure.
Project Manager: . . . . I don't think so, if you see the options. But {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I think we have to choose, yeah?
Marketing: Uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay special colour. We do have special colour.
User Interface: Yeah red is already a special colour, I think. So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Does it mean uh that {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} It's not very special, but uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Shall we just give it some dots to make it look pretty?
User Interface: Yeah. Just uh put the purple uh purple on it. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Purdy.
Marketing: Yeah. Some some big dots.
Industrial Designer: Purple?
User Interface: That's trendy.
Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Oh no my remote has acne.
Marketing: . . . . We have the original balance sheet, or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Woah.
Industrial Designer: No. That's why we have that button.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh yeah.
Industrial Designer: It's so cute.
User Interface: Hmm. Oh what?
Industrial Designer: Doh.
Marketing: Woah.
User Interface: {gap}?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Just cut. Control Z_.
User Interface: Oh no. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Is that that?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
User Interface: No no. Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: How the {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} did we do that?
User Interface: Oh it's it's just one computer? Or {disfmarker}
Marketing: Just dual screen.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: No. But can we delete it, just with delete? Or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: We can try.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: That doesn't respond also to the undo. It looks like it's {disfmarker}
User Interface: Crashed. {vocalsound} Oh, no.
Industrial Designer: No, {gap} {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Very nice.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Where do you want some more dots?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah, over here. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} You can't even draw anymore.
User Interface: Hmm?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Y y you you {vocalsound}
User Interface: What's this?
Project Manager: Even children can draw. {vocalsound}
Marketing: you push the button or something. Or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Can you just push pen and then keep on {disfmarker}
User Interface: Oh yeah. Oh that's the select button.
Project Manager: Hmm.
User Interface: It's uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay, it's not the prettiest, I know.
User Interface: No, it looks {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It's not so random huh?
Marketing: Lot of options.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: It's okay. Specially the the R_. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, the R_ and another R_.
Industrial Designer: Yeah okay.
Marketing: It's called the Real Remote, right?
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Maybe maybe it c it can say that. The Real Remote.
Project Manager: Yeah just on the the m um the L_C_D_ display.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Welcome. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: This is your Real Remote. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: We can make a l a logo.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Like uh {gap} put it like the shape.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: D designed by {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Something like that.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: I mean it's not too uh {disfmarker} That's not their logo, is it?
User Interface: No. Do they have a lo {disfmarker} Oh, the {disfmarker} here. This i this is the logo.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Two R_s and a one {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It's a {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. You can just reuse that, because the name is the same. Initials.
User Interface: {gap}.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: You can copy and paste the picture if you want.
Industrial Designer: How {gap} {disfmarker} Shall we do the logo in black or not?
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} What is that? Look more {disfmarker} Looks more like a campfire.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Are you dissing my drawing? {vocalsound} This one?
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It looks like a ribbon. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap}. Yeah.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: So who wants to draw? This is actually quite fun. Do we need to do anything?
User Interface: Are we uh ready? Uh {disfmarker} Or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I hear you people are typing.
Marketing: Type in your report.
Industrial Designer: Oh, okay.
Marketing: I don't see any new messages. So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Luckily.
Marketing: Hmm? Luckily, yeah.
User Interface: Is this uh the last assignment? Or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah, it's uh
User Interface: Final {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {disfmarker} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: It's almost four.
Marketing: What time do we have to deliver the report? Four o'clock or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} At four, yeah, {gap}?
Marketing: Or before that?
Project Manager: Okay. And copy this.
Marketing: Just compare uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Just a minute.
Industrial Designer: This is really bizarre.
Project Manager: It's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It looks like there's a {disfmarker} It looks like a butterfly.
User Interface: Um bug. Bug.
Project Manager: It's somewhere {disfmarker} I d It isn't inside.
User Interface: No it's in inside the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, and don't know how it's {disfmarker} or eject it.
Marketing: No it's on the on the beamer I guess.
User Interface: No it {disfmarker} Oh. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: From up there?
Industrial Designer: No, but it i It's not a bu a beamer.
Project Manager: No.
Industrial Designer: B It's a normal T_V_ screen, kind of thing.
Project Manager: Yeah it's somewhere in here.
User Interface: Hey, you've got it uh read only. So you have to uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Save copy.
Marketing: Yeah. Strange. This something what's projection from behind, I guess.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {gap}.
Project Manager: {gap}.
User Interface: It's too uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Oh. Yeah there is some kind of projection I think.
Project Manager: Yes.
Marketing: Yeah it it's a beamer, but then with a {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: With a with a mirror, huh? Or something.
Marketing: within a mirror, yeah.
Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: So it looks like a big screen, but {gap} {disfmarker} in fact it isn't.
Industrial Designer: So are we gonna change anything to this?
User Interface: It is {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I mean is it gonna {disfmarker}
Marketing: Well it's it's single single curved.
Project Manager: Well {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: It's now single curved. So {disfmarker} It's flat. Oh no.
Industrial Designer: This is gonna be flat. Yeah exactly.
Marketing: Th this is flat. Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay. It doesn't matter. It's it's {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Marketing: But it's it's better to have in the front, this kind of shape, because it looks nice.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I mean you see more of this than of that.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, more like that.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. And this is also gonna be {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} It's not very uh ideal. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Nope.
Marketing: Do like this.
Industrial Designer: But sometimes then uh all of a sudden it does work.
Marketing: Yeah. What's this?
User Interface: {vocalsound} That's the detector uh for the {disfmarker}
Marketing: Ooh.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe {disfmarker}
Marketing: But I don't see a detector over there.
User Interface: Yeah. I don't know.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No it's {disfmarker} I think you only need two points. Or not. No, you sh
Marketing: I thought it was a kind of thing to put it on, and then draw right lines or something.
User Interface: Maybe that's why it's it's not working, because it's more {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Slanted yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Or just messed it up. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Well maybe.
User Interface: Oh. {vocalsound} Oh yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah it it matters for the aim of this thing.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah but it wasn't good. {vocalsound}
User Interface: You've to make it s uh ninety degrees.
Marketing: Yeah it it has to touch the corners, I guess. But th this one wasn't good, because if I was drawing here, I drew a line and then it came over here.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um now you probably have to recalibrate.
User Interface: You have {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh, five minutes to the end of the meeting.
User Interface: Oh we're always long.
Marketing: Oh.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} And the recalibration is done using this icon here.
User Interface: Yeah, can we t can we get to that @ i
Marketing: Ooh.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Oh it's not working anymore. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah well I just {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah yeah, it's it's okay. It's working again.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah, it's it's working, it's working.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {gap} {disfmarker} Yeah.
Marketing: It's better than before.
User Interface: We're improving uh {disfmarker} Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: You go ahead.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah that's improved uh pretty much.
Industrial Designer: Yeah it's only a bit like to that side, but that is that one by the way.
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah but it's better, it's better {disfmarker}
User Interface: No it {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer:'Cause this one makes the angle either like this. So i if I change this, it will go there, if I change that, will go there.
Marketing: Mm. No. It's better than it was I guess.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. I will take this away'cause it looks messy.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Silly. Yeah. Works pretty well. Five minutes before the meeting's over.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah.
Marketing: And then?
Project Manager: Then I have to uh uh write this,
Marketing: We have to present {disfmarker}
Project Manager: and I don't know if you have to present, because I didn't receive any information about that so far.
Marketing: Alright.
Industrial Designer: Maybe we will.
Project Manager: Maybe we get a a final mail.
Marketing: So it {disfmarker} after the {disfmarker} after after these five minutes, you have to {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Yeah, I have still ten minutes to finish the report.
Industrial Designer: What's this anyway?
User Interface: So cake. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Alright. After after that five minutes, you have ten minutes to finish it, or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It looks like candle wax.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Alright. And we uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And you can uh just uh relax and uh have cup of coffee or {disfmarker}
Marketing: Right. Chill. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: oh no, they don't have beer here so you can't celebrate.
Marketing: Huh.
Project Manager: You can just if you ma finish my presentation please. Uh over there.
Marketing: Uh {disfmarker} Yeah?
Project Manager: The presentation is still open. So if you finish that then you'll see uh {disfmarker} Yeah next.
Marketing: Next slide.
Project Manager: Oh yeah, we have to do the project uh evaluation. Just uh do that quickly.
Marketing: Yeah?
Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: How do you do it?
Project Manager: Uh well basically what that says, we discuss it and um {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright.
Project Manager: So how were {disfmarker} did the project process uh go? Did you, were you all pleased with the process as it was? Or are there uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Uh th uh do you mean the the interaction between us? Or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah the interaction and the steps we followed, and and so forth.
Industrial Designer: Yeah well at first I was really stressed. Because it went a bit fast.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: But then as I knew the tempo that I had to be on, the second time I think I did a bit better.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And the third time yeah, I mean {disfmarker}
Marketing: And we move more to to working together as team,
User Interface: No.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: because at first you you make your individual contribution, and then come here, and you have no idea what the others have to make.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap}.
User Interface: No.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
Marketing: And then finally you have some idea, okay this is gonna w this is what we gonna make together and okay I will arrange this and you will arrange that,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: and you have a k a kind of idea what you can expect on the next half hour when you have to work on your own. So {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah we {disfmarker}
Marketing: The process, I mean, the interaction between us became better and better I guess.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah. Especially after the first meeting.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, especially if f f if you see {disfmarker} uh you se you saw the largest difference from the first to the second meeting I guess.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Definitely.
Project Manager: Okay and was that due to my leadership? {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah yeah yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Well you did become more assertive the the second time round, so that {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah?
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. You were more in charge kind of thing.
Project Manager: That okay?
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. Um was there uh enough room for creativity?
Industrial Designer: I guess so.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah but only the the financial parts uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I mean {disfmarker}
Marketing: Li Limiteded afterwards,
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: but {disfmarker} If if you don't take that into account, there's plenty of room for creativ creativity.
Industrial Designer: I
Marketing: Also not only the drawing and the the making of the thing itself, but also in explaining it to the other people, by means of uh
Industrial Designer: We were pretty democratic.
Marketing: the the board and uh PowerPoint and Word and stuff like that.
Project Manager: So and the {disfmarker} uh about the board {gap} digital pen? Uh was that helpful or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Ooh.
Marketing: Mm uh I think in in essence
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: the digital pen is better than the SMARTboard. Because it it it just works better.
Project Manager: Yeah it works. {vocalsound}
Marketing: I mean uh uh I've made {disfmarker} yeah, uh I've made several notes just to test it, and and just put the pen in into it, and then it came onto my screen and it looked perfectly.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: So it it's better a better device than uh
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Maybe {disfmarker} Yeah.
Marketing: than the screen. But the screen is useful, in essence, but it doesn't work that well. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It's uh it's {disfmarker} The the pen is more intuitive,'cause we're all used to writing with pen.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Use the pen.
Industrial Designer: And uh as I said, uh I uh have no idea how PowerPoint works, so will take me half a day to be able to make a normal PowerPoint presentation.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: But once I get to know the program probably, I mean, it looks better, you know. Or uh something like that. You can give it a kind of a home style, like we have i the the logo and everything.
Project Manager: Yeah yeah.
Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} I don't know.
Marketing: Yep.
Project Manager: Blink. Oh. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Warning. Finish meeting now.
User Interface: Finish meeting.
Project Manager: Okay, are are there {vocalsound} any new ideas about this? All I think {disfmarker}
Marketing: Well, it {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I didn't really receive, yeah.
Marketing: It's use especially useful, I guess, to to evaluate designs and graph graphical stuff.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh uh w uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: And and
Project Manager: S sorry uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: the {gap} screen and stuff like that.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: I think the PowerPoint is is too limited. You can't uh draw easy in in PowerPoint. It has to be uh {disfmarker} yeah. The drawing board has to be integrated into PowerPoint, so that you can just easily {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah the the the problem with PowerPoint for me is that you have to i put in the pre-made chunks c as well.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: You know, you can draw something on the sketch-board and then take it there, or whatever.
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. But it it's useful to to show something to to an {disfmarker} a small audience, and then to {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah just for text, for text it's uh it's okay. But {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah. These these kind of screens this size are useful to discuss things. So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yes. Check your email.
Project Manager: Uh we should uh enter our questionnaire. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} You also. {vocalsound}
User Interface:'Kay.
Project Manager: Ah. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Woah.
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Marketing: Right.
Project Manager: Okay. Uh okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Marketing: Yes boss.
Industrial Designer: Well, s see you in a second huh? {gap}.
Project Manager: That's the management. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Well see you soon.
User Interface: Oh.
Project Manager: Hope so.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} we have to pull it this way, huh? Wait. | When discussing how to control their budget, the Industrial Design put forward to use an integrating joystick or a scroll-wheel push-button like the mouse to reduce the number of the buttons on the remote control. It did sound great for that it allowed users to function the remote control by manipulating only one button as well as saved the cost for the group. However, according to the User Interface, actually it could cost even five times to design and produce an integrating button than just produce several scattered buttons, so this might not be a feasible suggestion. | qmsum |
Why did Industrial Designer not agree to what Marketing and User Interface said before?
Project Manager: Wait for the marketing director actually, so. Anyways. Uh. See, shall we wait? I'm not sure if he's late or delayed or whatever, so I'm gonna start soon, we have now {disfmarker} don't have much time anyway.
User Interface: Oh, there he is.
Industrial Designer: Okay,
Marketing: Yes.
Project Manager: There you are,
Industrial Designer: we {disfmarker}
Marketing: Sorry,
Project Manager: okay.
Marketing: a little bit of pl little problem with computer.
Project Manager: Uh no problem. We're about to start, so have a seat. Okay, welcome again.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap}.
Project Manager: Today, functional design phase. I'll take you over the minutes of last last meeting. Okay, that was just to get to know each other,
Marketing: Uh.
Project Manager: have a little thoughts on what your vision is and {disfmarker} on this project, so {disfmarker} I put the minutes on the {disfmarker} I made on the on the p the the project share, so if you wanna review them, they're there. I will do so after every meeting, so if you have some information you wanna take back you can find it there. Anyways, um today three presentations, from every one of you. Um after that I got some new project requirements from project board, so we're gonna go af go after {disfmarker} over this later. But I wanna start with uh stuff you did first, so we can see what everybody came up with. And after that we can have the new requirements and share some thoughts, so. Who would like {disfmarker} wanna go first?
Marketing: Yeah, sure, no problem.
Project Manager: Take it.
User Interface: Go ahead.
Marketing: Um there was a little problem with my computer so not uh the whole uh presentation uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Anyway, let's see what you have.
Marketing: Yeah. Um {disfmarker} Okay,
Project Manager: Uh it's still a bit open.
Marketing: I want to open the my s oh no.
Project Manager: You should close it on your own notebook, I guess. Yeah. So there?
Marketing: Oh no,
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: that's okay. Uh slide show. Yes. The functional requirements, it's uh {vocalsound} uh very important for uh the user, he he wants to {disfmarker} yeah. The the method we used uh it it's not m not a slide, because it went wrong, but the method we use uh, um {vocalsound} we tested it w uh with uh a hundred uh men, and we asked them to w uh what the remote uh f feel uh like and uh what what's uh important. Uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: If I can cut in, is it people or men? {vocalsound}
Marketing: People,
Project Manager: Is it people, okay.
Marketing: sorry.
Project Manager:'Cause I thought it was only men,
Marketing: Both women and men,
Project Manager: so {disfmarker}
Marketing: yeah.
Project Manager:'Kay.
Marketing: Okay. Uh the findings um uh {vocalsound} seventy five percent of the users find most remote controls ugly. Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: That's pretty shocking uh. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So we have to s we have to do something about that.
Marketing: Yeah, and {disfmarker} yeah, most th th they want to spend money for a better system, for better remote control, so we can do uh a l a little uh nice things with it, and um they use {disfmarker} yeah, they use zap a lot, um uh fifty percent say they only {disfmarker} So that's the most important things.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Um {disfmarker} oh yeah, not all of it is it on mine on my PowerPoint presentation,
Project Manager: Okay, just talk ahead.
Marketing: but um uh the relevant buttons are the power, the channel selection and the volume selection.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: It's uh the most basic buttons that a user wants uh {vocalsound} to use. Uh less important is tel teletext,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound}
Marketing: uh um they use it, but it's not uh very uh important uh on the scale of zero to ten they six and a half uh
Project Manager: Okay, that's okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: and {disfmarker} but not important is the channel selection, the the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} hmm?
Project Manager: That's a little weird.
Marketing: Oh, {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Which channel selection?
Marketing: the the {disfmarker} no no no no no, that's very important, but uh w and not important in the audio settings, display settings
Project Manager: Okay,
Marketing: and uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: we can we can hide those under a menu or something,
User Interface: Oh, okay.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um new preferences preferences. Uh um um beep to find your control, was {disfmarker}
Project Manager: That's like a button on your T_V_?
Marketing: that was {gap} in the test, the the most people uh f find it uh irritating uh when they cannot find a rem their remote control,
Project Manager: Remote, okay.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: so uh I think it's a bee beep to sound it and uh you can find it. And another thing uh they want was uh speech recognition um so they can say uh what they want to {disfmarker} let's go to channel one and uh that's uh kind of things.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: And they want maybe an uh L_C_D_ screen um to to look it um wh what's on every channel uh and uh what do I want with it?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: We wanna have a little preview on the remote control. Preview what's on the channel.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Is that manageable?'Cause it sounds pretty expensive too.
Project Manager: That sounds too {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: It's possible, but uh I think it's expensive, but do continue.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Yeah. Um {disfmarker} Uh my personal preferences is uh a button for my favourite channel, so I can uh I dunno, so I can zap to my uh f uh quick uh to my favourite channel wh what I uh {disfmarker} so, the remote mu must see or um must um {vocalsound} see wha what mine preferences are for which channel,
Project Manager: Okay, you don't set it yourself,
Marketing: so I can zap t to {disfmarker}
Project Manager: it just remembers the channel that you are on most, for example.
Marketing: What?
Project Manager: You want the {disfmarker} you want it to be programmed, for example y programmed f
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: or you want it to recognise your favourite channel?
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Let's see, you you spend twenty minutes each day on that channel,
Marketing: Recognise {disfmarker}
Project Manager: so it recognises your favourite channel.
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah, that's uh what my personal preference like.
Project Manager: Okay, so it's it it does {disfmarker} it recognise itself, you don't have to set it {disfmarker}
Marketing: No,
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: itself. Maybe it's easier to {vocalsound} to sell it, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: I don't know it's manageable, but we will uh we will see.
Project Manager: I see.
Marketing: Yeah, it's a little bit uh it's the end of it.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: It's a little bit uh I lost it,
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: the computer uh crashed,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} No problem, it's it's okay,
Marketing: so.
Project Manager: that's {disfmarker} Yeah, go ahead.
User Interface: Shall I go? Okay.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: So, some technical functions.
Marketing: Darn computer.
User Interface: Basically I have some issues which you discussed earlier. Uh let's just start with the method.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} It sounds really easy, what does the user do, what does the th remote control do, but there are quite some issues. So the things I'm going to concentrate on are the user aspect, because the technical aspect, that's pretty much covered. We can do that. What goes wrong {vocalsound} at the user. Gets the remote control. Where is the remote control? We've all had it once, I want to watch some television,
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: where's the remote control? That was one of your ideas which you posted in the network folder,
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: That seems very good.
User Interface: a really good idea. Uh these are just the issues. I come to some uh personal experience, findings, possible solutions later. Searches for the button. There are many buttons on a remote control which are not clear. Uh so either we lose those or we try to make it a little bit more clear.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Uh also symbols tend to fade after a while.
Marketing: Mm uh.
User Interface: There's nothing more annoying than faded symbols, because you don't know which channel is this button, so possibly we could find uh something for that,
Project Manager: Okay, so have it more {disfmarker} make it more durable actually. Okay.
User Interface: yes. Uh covered that. Oh yes, user presses the button. Um usually when you have a lot of buttons, buttons are small. So you press more once remote control goes kablouey or something like that,
Project Manager: Okay, so the buttons should be {disfmarker}
User Interface: so we have to pay attention not to put too mun too many buttons on uh the remote control. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
User Interface: And possibly also the size, so more important buttons, bigger
Project Manager: Wow. The s Yeah. Make it {disfmarker} make them bigger.
User Interface: si
Project Manager: Even more durable uh.
User Interface: So this is basically what I h had in mind in the {disfmarker} fade-proof symbols, locator, a sound, uh so clear we should stick to existing symbols, but maybe we could do a little uh investigation to see whether some symbols are uh {disfmarker} need to be replaced by others. Uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: This I pretty much covered. {vocalsound} So what we want to go to is not this one,
Project Manager: Yeah, it's true.
User Interface: but more {disfmarker} less buttons, easy, some bigger buttons.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: that's basically uh what I had in mind. So
Project Manager: Yeah, that's clear.
User Interface: This is not the final design,
Project Manager: No, of course uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: this is just a general idea of how I'd like to see uh basically the general idea.
Project Manager: Yeah. I must say that it {disfmarker} Hmm.
User Interface: {vocalsound} So that was it.
Project Manager: That was it. Okay, that was good. So we agree on the the part that we need to get something on the on the remote to find it somewhere and increase it {disfmarker} the durability of of the thing,
User Interface: Yeah, I think it's a really good idea.
Project Manager: so {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: The other aspects, we'll just see how {disfmarker} what you came up with and what's possible for that budget.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Okay, that's fine. Um. Okay, now work a little with me. Okay. Well,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: let's start it as it is. Okay, uh the method. There are a few questions that need to be answered, uh you already uh talked about it a little bit. Which buttons are wanted, uh is our remote control universal or should it be programmable. Uh if it should be programmeab grammeale then we need um something like a mode that you can switch it. Because then the buttons have to send out a different signal then they would normally do.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And uh how big is the remote control uh going to be? I'll tell you why that's important to me. Um there are a lot of technical parts in the remote control, so uh uh that's {vocalsound} why I also would like to say uh go a little bit easy on the designs, uh I heard ab uh you talking about beeps and about uh video screens, but uh the material inside and the technical aspects are quite complex already.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So keep in mind that everything that you keep uh {disfmarker} think of, it has to b to be built.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Of course, hmm.
Industrial Designer: So it's {disfmarker} that's not as easy as it s might look like.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Uh material study, I'm working on that um for the the costs. I have to check out how far I can go with that. Normally, a circuit board is made of fibreglass uh and the wires are made of copper. Uh that is how it is done and all the remote controls work that way, I think we can just go on with that. Um then I've read more integration of materials means less cost for the production. The more we can make uh at once uh in one piece, uh that is cheaper.
Project Manager: You mean integrate them all into the circuit board. Okay.
Industrial Designer: Exactly, so if we make a circuit board with the the connections already on it, then that's cheaper.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, okay.
Industrial Designer: So we have to {vocalsound} make something that's not too difficult in design again.
Project Manager: So you have {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: This is what look like uh looks like if you press one button, so this is not the entire thing. You have the the power coming in, then you have like a switch. The switch uh uh {vocalsound} uh if you p press it then some electrical charge goes into the processor, that thinks over a Morse code, that's how you should see it. The Morse code goes to the amplifier, then uh the signal is sent to two uh light bulbs. You have infrared and an interv um {vocalsound} uh how to say it? Uh a light in indication, light that you know that it's functioning.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh here again, that's my story about the different modes, if you do want to make remote uh universal, then the processor has to uh make up a different Morse code when some button is pressed. That makes it much more complex, so we really need to have a look, do we want that or not. Uh I don't have any personal p uh preferences uh so far, except for uh the materials to be used uh light, that they are light.
Project Manager: Okay. Okay. That was it?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That was it.
Project Manager: I'll get back to my thing then. Uh {disfmarker} Okay, back this up {disfmarker} to the screen. So I got some new information on the project specifications are changing a little. Like you said uh teletext is not not very popular anymore because the uh the internet, nowadays people don't use the teletext anymore or hardly, so it can either {disfmarker} Well, I don't think we should remove the button, because there are always people who are using it.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: But I don't think it should be {vocalsound} very {disfmarker} it should be one of the big buttons for example. Just put it somewhere or under second option or whatever. It's not important anymore. Um we're targeting young people now, because our um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} This is a new product and with this new product we want to appeal to younger people,
Marketing: Uh.
Project Manager: which are {disfmarker} um the younger people were defined under forty.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: I so I think it's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: that's also good with the fashion and everything,
Marketing: B
Project Manager: so yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, and they want to pay for it
Project Manager: They want to pay for it, people are willing to spend money actually to buy a um remote that they like.
Marketing: and uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: If they like the way it looks, the way it functions, so they're actually gonna spend uh spend money on it.
Marketing: With more {disfmarker} Where {disfmarker} with more technical specifications
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: in the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} see how far we can go with it anyway, so
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: {disfmarker} And one thing that should be important is that the corporate l colour and slogan are recognisable, which is apparently {vocalsound} black and yellow, but {disfmarker} I'm not sure if we {disfmarker} I think we should keep the the logo in mind, because with colours you can uh have a lot of uh fashionable colours and everything on it, which suits everybody's taste. So {disfmarker} With that concept I started thinking, so why not just steal Nokia's idea and just make changeable covers for your {disfmarker}
User Interface: Oh.
Project Manager: I mean those cost hardly anything I think, and people could even spend extra money on buying a cover
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: and so have an entire new remote control that they like to see. Or we can sh for example we can make a different {vocalsound} {disfmarker} a basic design. And sell the covers separately, for example. That's just a little marketing idea that could be applied, so you can p it appeals to really everyone. So you don't have to {disfmarker} I think you don't have to make entire remote controls. We make a basic one and manufacture this cover separately.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So that was that was my idea on what we could do to appeal this product to everyone. So
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: just {disfmarker} I'm not sure if you came up with anything in the meantime, after making a presentation. Would you like to share?
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: No, I think this is a good idea.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker}
Marketing: But {disfmarker} oh?
User Interface: Is it manageable? Is it easy?
Industrial Designer: Go ahead.
Marketing: Yeah, with with an L_C_D_ screen you can {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh yeah. I think we should lose the L_C_D_ screen,
Industrial Designer: Y Yes, I think so too.
Project Manager: like you said. I think for example it's it's huge {disfmarker} I think the L_C_D_ is huge,
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Why? Nokia w
Project Manager: it consumes batteries like hell.
Marketing: Uh.
Project Manager: I think it takes up a lot of a lot of power.
User Interface: And it costs too much to fabricate,
Project Manager: It costs a lot, I think.
User Interface: so we're on a tight budget here.
Industrial Designer: Okay, uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: What we could do, what could be possible, is maybe not an L_C_D_ screen but with a preview,
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: but y I'm not sure if it's even possible {vocalsound}. For example, a little T_V_ guide.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Like you have a little {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: just just a text only, not colour, just a little text thing
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: so you can use your remote as a T_V_ guide. I'm not sure it's even possible,
Industrial Designer: Hmm. I have to check that out,
Project Manager: but maybe okay, make it {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I'm not sure.
Project Manager: Yeah, find a little compromise in that, but {disfmarker} What did I write down?
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: I think the p yeah, the beep is a very simple thing to imple implement, just make a button on your T_V_
Industrial Designer: That must be possible.
Project Manager: and just hit the button, it beeps somewhere. I think it's easy to implement,
Industrial Designer: Ja.
Project Manager: we should go for that.
Industrial Designer: I'm sorry,
Project Manager: Uh speech recognition.
User Interface: And it's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: whe where do you wanna hit the T_ {disfmarker} you wanna {vocalsound} {disfmarker} we want a button on the television. {gap}
Project Manager: I thin {vocalsound} Yeah, I mean where else should you put it?
Industrial Designer: In th okay, but that rules out a universal remote control.
Project Manager: Yeah,
Industrial Designer: Because that's not possible uh.
Project Manager: but {vocalsound} how are you gonna use that if your {disfmarker} I mean if your remote control is lost, how are you gonna press {disfmarker} where are you gonna press the button?
Industrial Designer: Uh. Yeah. Exactly.
User Interface: Maybe just a slap-on sticker with a button which sends out a small signal.
Project Manager: A slap-on sticker. Oh, you mean as like a separate thing you can attach to your T_V_.
Marketing: Mm uh.
Project Manager: Yeah, that could be possible.
User Interface: Yeah, exactly.
Project Manager: A little little box you can attach to your T_V_ is fine then, okay.
Industrial Designer: Okay, then uh I'd I'd like to know now if we want the uh universal remote control or not, because that's uh determines everything I'm gonna do.
Project Manager: I think it's universal. I think we should go for universal,
Industrial Designer: If not {disfmarker}
Project Manager: because apparently we're a separate company making separate c remote controls to sell to a lot of diverse people.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: I think universal remote control should be possible.
Marketing: Yeah. Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay, then I go for that.
Marketing: Everyone uh wants to buy it, so we w
Project Manager: Yeah, I think we're targeting everyone,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: so remote {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay. No,
Marketing: yeah.
Industrial Designer: it's fine with me, but then I know what to look for.
Project Manager: Okay, universal is good. Speech recognition, I think it's very hard, because we're selling across multiple countries. So I think implementing speech recognition is such a small um apparatus, it's very hard to do.
Marketing: Yeah. Or one.
User Interface: And it's {disfmarker}
Marketing: Or when you say one two uh i it uh it's enough,
Project Manager: Yeah, but I don't see Arabian people speaking one, two uh whatever.
Marketing: right? But {disfmarker} Oh yeah.
User Interface: Besides that, the technology isn't really super yet, so that {vocalsound} is a problem in implementing this.
Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: It's not a mature technology, I think it takes a lot of memory and everything in in a remote control,
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: so {disfmarker}
User Interface: It's a good idea, but it's just not {disfmarker} I don't think the market's ripe for that yet.
Project Manager: I don't think it should be implemented in a remote control yet uh.
Industrial Designer: Uh-huh.
Project Manager: What else do we have?
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Um well you should you should look into the in into the materials that are real durable. So the the the symbols won't fade,
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: maybe a little harder plastic
Industrial Designer: Exactly.
Project Manager: or especially li we don't {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I already noted that.
Project Manager: maybe we don't have have to do all the buttons, but especially the ones that are um the popular buttons, so those always fade first.
Industrial Designer: Mm, okay. Okay.
Project Manager: Mm the thing is the most important things that we have now.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: Let's see.
Industrial Designer: If we uh make a remote control with changeable covers, then we can also make uh a cover for every language area.
Project Manager: For example?
Industrial Designer: That's fo {vocalsound} is uh especially for older people, that they can read it read it in their own language.
Project Manager: Well, we're not we're not targeting older people,
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: we should remember that. Everything we target is under forty,
Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: so.
Industrial Designer: okay, okay.
Project Manager: You assume that that they read correctly and I think they're {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Huh.
Project Manager: The most important thing about young people is that they're really sensitive to to trends that are passing through the world,
Marketing: But b
Project Manager: so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Uh okay.
User Interface: But should the exchangeable covers include the buttons themselves or just the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: No, of course. No, I think it's just something you you put over them, because {disfmarker} Yeah we c Yeah, you ca Well,
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: tha that's not a that's not a bad {disfmarker} that's not even {disfmarker}
User Interface: C
Marketing: But every {disfmarker}
User Interface: that's a problem with the with the text then.
Project Manager: it's not even a bad idea. I mean, for example, if you're if you're into the durability issue you could {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: For example, if your buttons are faded, after {disfmarker} I mean if you make a durable remote, they are faded, you can just buy a new cover.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Uh I'm not sure it's it's hard to make.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: So it's a good and a bad idea.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh but I know that the buttons are like a Nokia telephone on uh one sleeve,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: so you don't have to change your whole cover. Uh we can make something that you can only remove the sleeve.
User Interface: Oh yeah, I know what you mean.
Industrial Designer: Know what I mean?
Marketing: Oh.
Industrial Designer: It works the same as a Nokia telephone, it's it's in my uh {disfmarker}'kay.
Project Manager: Yeah, I know, it's just just a one one piece of rubber for example,
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: okay. Yeah,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Exactly.
Project Manager: that's what I {disfmarker} something I have to look into. Either either change both the buttons and and the cover or just the cover, I'm not sure which which is easier,
Industrial Designer: Hmm. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um anyway, yeah, this is what we're gonna do afterwards, just lunch break and have more individual work after that, so let's see what we {disfmarker} let's see we {disfmarker} So you have to come up with a components concept, yeah. I want some {disfmarker} you should do some trend-watching, because even if we're if we're gonna do those covers and everything, what people really want, that's what we need to know in this phase,
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: because that's gonna be the essential final design that we're gonna come up with.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Yeah, I think user interface is fairly obvious. I mean it should be very intuitive,
User Interface: Pretty straightforward.
Project Manager: s Yeah, it should speak for itself. Uh for example I bought a remote control last week with a new T_V_, it was it l it's like all buttons and you have no idea what it does at first,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and I'm {gap} total T_V_ new, anyway. So I think it should be {disfmarker} have less or l very little buttons and maybe a second {vocalsound} second level menu for the advanced things. Or maybe just stick'em under a menu, like you said the um {vocalsound} the sound options and the surround and whatever, they're more complicated, just stick'em under one menu and uh give it a {disfmarker} just put it in in s in a software piece, you can menu and you can uh select everything you want to to set on your T_V_.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: Is it techni technically possible to uh {vocalsound} send a signal to a television and then pops up a menu,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: because we're working with different types of television, so we're going to work with that?
Project Manager: That is true.
Industrial Designer: I don't think so.
Project Manager: No, that's true.
Industrial Designer: No, I don't think so. Because the television needs to respond to the signal,
Project Manager: Yeah, that's true.
User Interface: It's an in-built menu,
Industrial Designer: and if it doesn't know how, it's {disfmarker}
User Interface: isn't it? Yes.
Industrial Designer: Exactly, that's not possible.
User Interface: So basically
Project Manager: I'm not sure if it's impossible,
User Interface: we {disfmarker}
Project Manager: but uh there's a chance it's not, so.
User Interface: Or we could use a double-sided {disfmarker} for {vocalsound} less used functions
Project Manager: A double-sided remote control?
User Interface: you {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I don't think that's useful.
User Interface: Yeah, with the cover. {vocalsound} I it's basically an idea to overcome these issues,
Project Manager: Yeah, but then you're gonna have a lot of wasted buttons.
User Interface: because {disfmarker}
Project Manager: For example you have a Sony T_V_ and the half of the buttons won't function if you have a {disfmarker} for a Sony that won't {disfmarker} for a Philips T_V_.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
User Interface: No, but basic functions {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: but functions which are not frequently used.
Project Manager: I don't think we should {disfmarker}
User Interface: Because if we use a universal remote control, we're going to have to have most buttons on it,
Project Manager: Yeah, for exam
User Interface: so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I'm not s
Marketing: Mm yeah.
Project Manager: yeah, for ex you have to make it a little decision between the part if you want a universal remote control that {disfmarker} it should do what people usually do with their T_V_s, not not the very complicated settings
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: that you can usually do that with uh either a old old remote control if they really hate that thing,
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: but you can't you cannot take into consideration all the different brands of T_V_s.
Industrial Designer: But that might be broken.
Project Manager: I think there's I think there is a standard for example between uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {gap} Hmm.
Project Manager: because usually the the menu is {disfmarker} the menu button is is usable between different brands. Especially the big ones, the big brands,
Industrial Designer: Hmm. Hmm.
Project Manager: so.'Cause everybody {disfmarker} I have a universal remote control and it can use the menu button, so I think {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: I'm not sure, if you can put some research into that, if it's possible. Uh I think just a b
Industrial Designer: Mm okay. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and the navigation is very basic, it's usually the same thing.
Industrial Designer: Mm. But I think there must be a way uh to invoke the more complicated functions of a television. For instance, if your old remote control is broken and you buy ours, then uh you should be able to get everything out of the television that's in it.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I think so
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Because otherwise you'll lose functions by buying our {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: uh we need to put some research into that if if we can open the menu, I think it's possible, just the way how to.
Industrial Designer: Okay, I thi I think so too.
Marketing: Yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, then then you could do everything I suppose, because usually the T_V_s have tha that inside in this other little piece of software, so it's okay.
Industrial Designer: And I think that our r remote control should not look like uh any other. For instance uh Sony makes all their remote controls exactly the same for all their devices,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and you always grab the wrong one because formatting of the buttons is exactly the same, only the labels are different.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah I think it should be a little distinct from everything else,
Industrial Designer: We should not do that.
Project Manager: because it's {disfmarker} either it's both {gap} mayb
Industrial Designer: Exactly.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah,
Project Manager: maybe the shape can be a little different.
User Interface: I have some ideas. I have some ideas.
Project Manager: Maybe it's a little more curves or whatever.
Industrial Designer: Mm that's your uh division. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Um {disfmarker} yeah. And uh with different colours uh.
Project Manager: So um {disfmarker}
User Interface: I'll put some on paper and present them next time uh the ideas that I have.
Project Manager: Yeah, this {gap}. Not sure what {disfmarker}
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: because we have forty minutes, I'm not sure how much time we have left for the meeting anyway, so.
User Interface: I heard a beep go.
Project Manager: Yeah, but it wasn't me, it was him closing something.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So anyway, yeah, we could do some i do some work now on on the design for example. I mean what do you want, do you want {gap}, but {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, but we like some some curves or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, may maybe something like this. But though smooth inside. So you have the transmitter here for example.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Let's see that you {disfmarker} what would be handy. I think that the {vocalsound} the buttons should be {disfmarker} the channel buttons should be {vocalsound} uh on their own.
Marketing: Uh. And a light uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Let's see one, two {disfmarker} God damn it.
User Interface: Oh, we get the general ideas, yes.
Project Manager: Yeah, okay. {vocalsound} Another one here. Let's see what {disfmarker} I think this should {disfmarker} these are always on top of the of the control, so they should be here.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
User Interface: Yeah, and since you're holding it like this, I suggest you put the channel up channel down and volume {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Think it's like this. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Volume.
Project Manager: Withi within the {disfmarker} Yeah, just take it.
User Interface: yeah yeah. So you have the up channel {vocalsound} the down channel {disfmarker} the volume, do we want that horizontal or vertical?
Project Manager: Do you take triangles or {disfmarker}
Marketing: Uh it's it's fine, I think.
Project Manager: Um I think it should be I think it {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: This is basically what people are accustomed to,
Project Manager: Maybe we should make'em bigger or whatever.
User Interface: so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah, but this is just a g general idea.
Marketing: Oh d {gap}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Uh maybe the menu button can go i in the middle.
Project Manager: Yeah, in the middle. It's it's usually uh there, but {disfmarker} Mm.
User Interface: Whoa.
Industrial Designer: Perhaps we should also make uh something like a flash on it, if you {disfmarker} if it's lost, for people that are deaf. They they won't hear the the beep.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, but for example if it's lost in your armchair, we'll not see the flash.
User Interface: You won't be able to find it. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: And flash takes up a lot of batteries again.
Industrial Designer: Uh. Yeah, it's true, but it's it's only has to do so when you press the button that it's lost.
Marketing: Just {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: We could make a combination that it goes beep and that you {disfmarker} that some light lights up.
Industrial Designer: So. {gap} deaf people?
Marketing: And L_E_D_ uh on it.
Project Manager: Yeah, I thought about for deaf people for example, so. We could do that. Uh let's see.
Marketing: Just a light on it or {disfmarker}
User Interface: So we have the basic channels we've got here, uh the power button somewhere over here?
Project Manager: Oh yeah, it's true. Um that thing should be central.
Marketing: Very important.
Project Manager: You shouldn't be {disfmarker} you uh shouldn't press it by accident, but it shouldn't be stacked away somewhere.
Marketing: Oh,
User Interface: I usually press it on top.
Marketing: that's {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: At least that's what I'm accustomed to.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I have another idea,
Project Manager: Yeah, like that's gonna work. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I'm not sure if it's possible.
Marketing: And {disfmarker}
User Interface: What would you like to {gap}?
Project Manager: Yeah, I thought maybe we should move the buttons down
Marketing: But you r
Project Manager: and put it here for example
Marketing: And you are reading from the t
Project Manager: to {disfmarker}
Marketing: you always read from the top to the the bottom of it.
Project Manager: From top to bottom. Yeah, that's true,
Marketing: Yeah,
Project Manager: you should {disfmarker}
Marketing: so it's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I think the bu the power button should be on top,
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager:'cause it's the first thing you do {vocalsound}, turn it on. So power button on top. Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay, mute button. Is that somewhere here?
Project Manager: Mute. Do we hardly {disfmarker} I think it should be at the bottom somewhere.
User Interface: Is that used often?
Marketing: So i it's {disfmarker}
User Interface: The mute button? Do people use that often?
Marketing: sorry?
Project Manager: Mute. Turn the sound off.
Marketing: No, it's {disfmarker} no. {vocalsound}
User Interface:'Cause uh I'm pretty much accustomed to it {vocalsound} right over here, at least in general,
Marketing: Uh. Hmm.
User Interface: but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't think it's important, {gap} but I think it I think it should be {disfmarker} you c
User Interface: It's not that important, no.
Project Manager: you could put it somewhere here.
Marketing: Or or with the volume selection. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No, because it {disfmarker} Yeah, people are accustomed to that,
Marketing: {vocalsound} Around uh not uh not at top at the {disfmarker} around the volume selection.
Project Manager: it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Can I have that? That's j
User Interface: Sure.
Marketing: I don't know where exactly,
Project Manager: Take this out and here see {disfmarker}
Marketing: but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Uh are we gonna take triangles anyway? I'm drawing triangles, but {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: That's pretty much what people are accustomed to,
Project Manager: Yeah,
User Interface: aren't they?
Project Manager: it's maybe a bigger lesser than thing. So anyway, I think this is {disfmarker} should be the channels and {disfmarker} or sh
User Interface: Well,
Marketing: Wha
User Interface: I'm accustomed to the channels being on top.
Marketing: No. Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Here,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, me too.
Project Manager: okay. Okay,
Marketing: Yeah, that's better.
Project Manager: should we chan
Marketing: On the right.
Project Manager: okay, {vocalsound} this two, channel up and down.
Industrial Designer: Shall we uh also look if it's possible to make a rechargeable remote? That you don't have to buy new batteries if every {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well,
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: for {disfmarker} that is it's on one part it's um it's a good thing to recharge it {disfmarker}
Marketing: Maybe it's more ex expensive.
Industrial Designer: Mm, yeah.
Project Manager: Maybe we should {disfmarker} what what could be possible is one with rechargeable batteries for example.
Industrial Designer: Uh.
Project Manager: You have {disfmarker} just put Penlite batteries that are rechargeable, because it's an it's it's it's very annoying.
User Interface: But isn't that expensive in the entire package?
Industrial Designer: But that's already possible.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: I'm not sure y {vocalsound} I'm not sure it's {disfmarker} if it's expensive, but just take a look at it, because it might be a very good idea. Because if {disfmarker} it's it's uh useful to have it rechargeable,
User Interface: {gap}
Project Manager: but at the same time, if you don't want recha if you forgot to recharge it and you wanna watch T_V_ now, you wanna be able to put different batteries in it, use it now and not in half an hour.
Industrial Designer: Yes. Yes. Okay. Uh you could make a device, but I'm not sure how that uh is possible with the costs, that you can put in normal batteries, rechargeable,
Project Manager: I think I have a nice idea.
Industrial Designer: but it {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} the remote also can act as a recharger. So then you can choose, you have every decision. Know what I mean?
Project Manager: Not exactly uh.
Industrial Designer: You can uh put in normal Penlites, rechargeable Penlites, but they can also be recharged with the remote, with a wire.
Marketing: Hmm. Yeah yeah.
Project Manager: I think it's uh it's a pretty good idea to have uh like sort of a {disfmarker} maybe a base station that you put on the T_V_. Could be flat, you could insert your uh remote into it.
Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} but {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, that's g
Industrial Designer: But I think that will cost a lot.
Project Manager: I'm not sure.
Industrial Designer: Uh a normal wire would be better.
Project Manager: A what?
Industrial Designer: Like a like a P_D_A_, a hand-held. You can uh just put it in the electricity and it charges itself,
Project Manager: Well, we were talking about the fact that we wanted to insert either a beep or a flash into the thing with a little separate signal
Industrial Designer: you don't need basic station. Yes.
Project Manager: or {disfmarker} So you could put that on a T_V_ for example.
Industrial Designer: That is possible, that's true.
Project Manager: It could be very flat, could be very small.
Marketing: But {disfmarker} Which {disfmarker}
Project Manager: It's a very small {disfmarker} Yeah, I'm drawing it big now, but {disfmarker} So you can put your remote on flat for example.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: And at the backside of remote just just just a little hole
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: for example um you just {vocalsound} put it down, it recharges for example.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: I don't think it's very expensive.
User Interface: But again, isn't that too expensive?
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface:'Cause that means that we have to implement rechargeable batteries, a docking station {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I'm not sure if it costs a lot, that that's what he r
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: That's that you {disfmarker} that's what you buy yourself.
Industrial Designer: Yes. I'm going to try to find that out. I'm not sure if there's information available on this,
Project Manager: It's just an idea, we have to find out if it's possible.
Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker}
Marketing: But {disfmarker}
User Interface: And do people actually want that? To pay extra {disfmarker} they want to pay for rechargeable?
Marketing: Yeah, they want to pay for it.
Project Manager: Do they want {disfmarker} but they want a rechargeable one?
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: I'm not sure, you should find out if it's {disfmarker} if rechargeable is important.
Marketing: Th uh there was not a el ask esque {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Hmm. These are uh comfort issues. So I think people will pay {disfmarker} they wanted to pay for comfort.
Marketing: But {disfmarker}
Project Manager: They want to pay for comfort,
Industrial Designer: Well, this is comfort.
Project Manager: we just assu we we could either make a separate station which just sends a signal to the remote control to either beep or flash to find it,
Marketing: But f hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Project Manager: um and {disfmarker} Yeah, we have to {disfmarker} either that or make it integrated with a with a docking station.
Industrial Designer: Hmm. Yeah. Exactly. I think this is a brilliant product.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think it would be good actually.
Industrial Designer: I would buy it myself.
Project Manager: I like the beep part {vocalsound} anyway.
Industrial Designer: Uh.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So um
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: let's go through the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I like the covers. That's a brilliant idea.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Can can we save this or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Covers is covers is good.
Industrial Designer: I never thought {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, it's {disfmarker} Oh we can save this. Up and saved. We even saved the ant. {gap} Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay. So
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: what we have is {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker} I think you have {vocalsound} to do a lot of work on if it's possible for the cost.
Industrial Designer: I hope if I have information about that,
Project Manager: Maybe {disfmarker} yeah,
Industrial Designer: I'm gonna {disfmarker}
Project Manager: or {vocalsound} maybe you can find out i what people are willing to pay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: We are going for twenty five Euros sales price,
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Marketing: Yeah, okay.
Project Manager: but just try to find out what they're willing to pay for it, because if they're willing to pay more, we could lose a little profit and maybe attract more customers,
Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm. {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: uh we just have to see what it looks like.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I would like to make a decision {gap}. What it costs and what kind of materials that we can uh choose what we want in it
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, if you have some financial information that that'd be nice,
Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} exactly, I need it.
Project Manager: so. Hmm. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Could you post some {vocalsound} other essentials of what people want, so that I can work with some buttons, where to put it {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: You seem to have information on that, I'd like to uh see some of it.
Industrial Designer: Was it not possible to uh send emails around the office?
Project Manager: No, it wasn't wasn't allo
User Interface: No, it's not. No.
Project Manager: it was possible,
Industrial Designer: Not {gap}.
Project Manager: not allowed, so. So that's um why I'm not sure that {vocalsound} you're allowed to share documents on the on the draft.
Marketing: Yeah. My computer crashed,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, okay.
Marketing: so uh
Project Manager: I don't care. I haven't heard any complaints yet,
User Interface: Oh, your computer. Okay.
Marketing: I lost my uh presentation,
Project Manager: so. Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: but I have the uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well, I have your PowerPoint presentation, I can get some inf information out of that.
Marketing: Yeah, but I Here I have the the s the homepage of uh our internet,
User Interface: Let's see.
Project Manager: Yeah, the oh, they inc uh
Marketing: and here is my
Project Manager: they include the new one. {vocalsound} Or just for you.
User Interface: Oh, where would we {disfmarker}
Marketing: here is my marketing report,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh
Marketing: maybe you ca you can look at uh {vocalsound} that
Project Manager: no, I didn't have that.
Marketing: and {disfmarker}
User Interface: Where would we want the uh teletext button?
Marketing: Ah yeah.
User Interface: Because we decided that it's n not that important.
Project Manager: All it tells {gap} just {disfmarker} let's make make a new {disfmarker}
Marketing: And one {disfmarker}
User Interface: Do we put it somewhere over here?
Project Manager: tick the new one. {vocalsound} Um other side. Yeah, let's increase it a little because {disfmarker}
Marketing: And uh wha what people want, I've uh
User Interface: Or maybe this is something for the next meeting, I can draw out some ideas.
Project Manager: Yeah, draw us up some some designs of of possible {disfmarker}
Marketing: I have another thing uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: just keep in mind that the important buttons should be on top and either big,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: so the more {disfmarker} less important {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well, we have decided {vocalsound} more or less the basic structure.
Project Manager: More or less.
User Interface: I can put the other buttons in {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Just play a little with this, put l shift a little up or down and we'll see what looks best.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: What uh what did you wanna say?
Project Manager: Or just po post your designs from time to time on the product share.
Marketing: Yeah. Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh what I al already said is the the uh the remote controls are always lost,
User Interface: Maybe another idea uh.
Marketing: but it it's also for people, {vocalsound} they want to learn it fast,
Industrial Designer: Mm. Mm.
Marketing: not uh {disfmarker} they want to {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, so we don't want {gap} we want very little buttons, just the buttons you use a lot.
Marketing: No
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: It's {disfmarker} yeah, it's easy to learn
User Interface: Yes, but it should cover all the functions,
Marketing: wi and uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well
User Interface: so possibly, just an idea that popped in {disfmarker}
Project Manager: what {disfmarker} we had function that what people do,
Marketing: Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: so. People change channels, people {vocalsound} {disfmarker} they change the volume and they they change channel, they turn T_V_ off and on, for example. That's the basic fu that's what you do {disfmarker} I'm not sure who present that again, but those are the basic function that people use it for, so those should be very well represented.
User Interface: Yeah, but we could go a step further,
Marketing: And {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} If {disfmarker}
User Interface: because some T_V_s have the uh possibility to adjust brightness, that kind of menus.
Project Manager: That's true, but that's what we stick under the menu button. Everything is {disfmarker} you say in every T_V_ that's configured under the menu.
User Interface: Yes, but it {disfmarker} Because we're making {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: But that's the question, is it?
Marketing: Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Because it needs to be configured in the television under the menu.
Project Manager: Yeah, but {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: If it isn't, then we cannot reach it.
User Interface: We need to adjust to the {vocalsound} technology.
Project Manager: But I think most modern T_V_s have it in their menu.
Industrial Designer: I think so too. I think so too.
User Interface: True.
Industrial Designer: Uh isn't there a possibility to do research on that, so we know that for sure? If you rule out functions, then uh {disfmarker} and that gets known, then people are not gonna buy it.
Marketing: {gap}
User Interface: {vocalsound} No, I thi
Industrial Designer: Then the consumer bond or something says uh you cannot do this and that with it. That's a bad bad com {vocalsound} commercial
Marketing: If um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Uh we'll we'll see what we can come up with.
Industrial Designer: for {vocalsound} {disfmarker} okay.
Marketing: Another thing I want to say is that uh we are looking at the market for the age uh {vocalsound} younger than forty.
Project Manager: Under forty. Yeah?
Industrial Designer: That's true.
Marketing: Um on my report, {vocalsound} I didn't uh {vocalsound} ish I didn't show it in my uh presentation,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: because my computer crashed.
Project Manager: Yeah yeah.
Marketing: Um they want to pay for an L_C_D_ screen and speech recognition.
Industrial Designer: Hmm. Hmm.
Project Manager: The want to pay for {disfmarker}
Marketing: So
Project Manager: Oh.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Did they really said it like that? Those two things.
Marketing: i yeah. Yeah,
Project Manager: Uh shall we?
Industrial Designer: Do they realise how much that costs? {vocalsound}
Marketing: and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: That's almost undoable.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Younger, age sixteen and forty five.
User Interface: Oh, we're not going to be able to sell it for twenty-five then, with an L_C_D_ screen.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: That's all here, here it says {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No, that's that's {gap}. Even if i if we have this lost unit, then we cannot do it for that price.
Project Manager: Yeah, age sixteen forty fi interest in main features more critical.
Marketing: If if they {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay, so we're not focusing on this. Um {disfmarker} All the interest in features, not really the L_C_ {disfmarker} oh here. Would you pay for uh speech recognition in a remote control. Hmm, okay?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah, that's true.
Marketing: So uh
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: we can
Project Manager: Speech recognition is quite {disfmarker}
Marketing: We can look at the possibilities for an uh L_C_D_ and uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, just look at the possibilities then,
Marketing: I dunno.
Project Manager: because if {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: apparently it's what people want,
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: it's supposed to be a luxurious remote,
Marketing: How much it will cost
Industrial Designer: Uh.
Marketing: and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: maybe it's not even that expensive. Or find a compromise, maybe just a black and white or {disfmarker} for some extra information on it, on your programmes.
Industrial Designer: Uh I {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well
Marketing: Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: I doubt it, but {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: But I really need finance information.
Project Manager: Me too. {vocalsound} I mean we all do. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} It will come uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: We all do. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Right. I think it's something we should put into consideration. Apparently it's what people want, so. We should see if {disfmarker} what it costs, if it's possible.
Industrial Designer: Mm. Uh.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Yeah, we should do a little thing about design, because it looks boring really to me. Even if you put it {disfmarker} even if you put a different cover on it, it looks {disfmarker} still looks boring,
Marketing: {vocalsound} Different colours maybe.
Project Manager: so.
Industrial Designer: Hmm. And the design, it should differ.
Marketing: But all {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: This is Philips, huh?
Project Manager: I have no clue.
Industrial Designer: Philips has this.
Project Manager: I just drew something what {disfmarker} which would fit into your hand easily.
User Interface: Well, I had basically {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay. Hmm. Uh.
User Interface: Something like this. To make it kind of futuristic.
Industrial Designer: Mm. Oh, I realise if we make it small, then it needs to be a little thicker,
Project Manager: I think it's a very {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: because I need to put all the electronics in it.
Project Manager: Sorry?
Industrial Designer: If we make it s uh smaller, uh less wide, then we need to m make it a little thicker,
Project Manager: Yeah?
Industrial Designer: because I have to put all the electronics in it.
Project Manager: Okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah, but you have to j just keep in mind it shouldn't be too heavy.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: I mean we can stick it in in there, I think.
Industrial Designer: No.
Project Manager: Huh even if {disfmarker}
User Interface: So
Project Manager: in the worst case we can even {disfmarker}
User Interface: what kind of {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Could you give me the pen back?
User Interface: Yeah, sure.
Project Manager: So let's say that people would want an L_C_D_ thing. Let's take take the basic design again, what we {disfmarker} oh, crap {disfmarker} uh came up with. I'll just make it a little bigger now. So a transmitter here. Anyway. We could {disfmarker} let's say we have an L_C_D_ screen, people want an L_C_D_ screen. So then we should probably put it here.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: It doesn't have to be really big, but just just have to be {disfmarker} has to be there.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: Think it's a good place, people don't {disfmarker}
Marketing: If you're reading from top to bottom, I think it's better to put it uh at the top.
Project Manager: No? It's not that uh {disfmarker} it's not the most important function,
Industrial Designer: Me too.
Marketing: It's j {vocalsound}
Project Manager: it's just an extra thing,
Industrial Designer: Ah
Project Manager: it just {disfmarker} you press the buttons on top,
Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh. But i if you if you are going to uh put the L_C_D_ on it, {vocalsound} I think it's very important to use it,
Industrial Designer: but {gap}.
Project Manager: because your finger is on top.
Marketing: uh because it's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} use it uh
Project Manager: How can you use an L_C_D_ screen?
Marketing: But nee the function of it. {vocalsound} So you can use it maximum, because uh it's a lot {disfmarker} it costs a lot.
Project Manager: Yeah, but why
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I {disfmarker} I'm not sure.
User Interface: Now it's pretty much tucked away in your hand.
Project Manager: Uh if you t if you press a button, you can see it,
Industrial Designer: Hmm. No.
Project Manager: ri I'm not sure wha I'm trying to imagine myself what it would look like.
User Interface: I'm {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: M I personally would prefer it on the top.
Project Manager: You would prefer it n Okay.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So we have three people saying it should be on top.
Industrial Designer: Huh.
Project Manager: Okay, but then you would would s have to stack away your buttons somewhere else.
Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} Hmm.
Project Manager: Anyways.
Marketing: It's expensive to build it,
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: so
Project Manager: Uh this looks a little {disfmarker}
User Interface: I'm still not convinced of the {disfmarker}
Marketing: you must use the maximum of it.
Project Manager: About the L_C_D_s thing.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Well if it if it's
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: if it's possible wi if it's not too expensive, we should include it,
Industrial Designer: They want it uh.
Project Manager: because it's it's cool. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We should just try to make that if it's possible. If it is possible we should really do it, but we need that information.
Marketing: Huh. Uh. But uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Also keep in mind again, the L_C_D_ screen is very flat, but it needs transistors, resistors, I don't know what more and that needs space. So I have to look if that's possible.
Marketing: Yeah, I know uh.
User Interface: So basically
Industrial Designer: But if we {disfmarker}
User Interface: {disfmarker} can I {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh we have green now uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: what we have to decide now is uh what goes on top. Do we put the volume control and the channel control here, or do we put it on he Would we like to press it in the middle?
Project Manager: Or maybe we should m we could uh draw draw something a bit {disfmarker} that has it on on on the bottom.
Marketing: In middle of it. In the middle.
Project Manager: Maybe in a circle for example, like we {disfmarker} like in this example. I think this is not good, but for {disfmarker} we could make circular buttons for example. For up and down, ma make it a circle on it,
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
User Interface: Yes, but we do agree that we {vocalsound} keep this at the centre,
Project Manager: because it {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
User Interface: because it's basically the most important function.
Project Manager: I think the channel button should be in the centre.
Marketing: It's the most import yeah.
Project Manager: Channel button should be st stick together, for example here in this section. Because it's uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well, that would make them quite small.
Project Manager: We're not sure about the size anyway,
User Interface: So maybe you'd put them here.
Project Manager: just a general design. You can make it as big as you want. For example if you take uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yes, but a big remote control probably not something which people would like.
Project Manager: No,
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: let's see. For example just {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: If we have a a space issue, we can also lose one battery. It is rechargeable, so we can stick with one instead of two.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: {gap}.
Project Manager: I don't think if we if we even use an L_C_D_ screen, we need to, definitely.
Industrial Designer: That might be an option. Yeah, but if we need two batteries and an L_C_D_ screen, that means a lot of space that we need.
Project Manager: Yeah, but we have to see what the si what the size is.
Industrial Designer: But it has to be a little bit heavier.
Project Manager: The L_C_D_ doesn't have to nee doesn't need to be very big.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: {gap} {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: No, but the things behind it. {gap} space.
Project Manager: Mm let's see.
Industrial Designer: Like a process uh.
Marketing: Finish meeting now.
Project Manager: Finish meeting now.
Marketing: It's on your computer.
Project Manager: Okay, we will. So either {disfmarker}
User Interface: So would we like this or would we like the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: We either we have to decide what what people want.
Industrial Designer: I like this one more.
Project Manager: Either this one, this this could be the luxurious one. So we have channel buttons here. I'm just drawing something uh. Uh {disfmarker} I think this would this would look cool. You could have it for example {disfmarker} small buttons here for some extra functions,
Marketing: Uh.
Project Manager: so if your basic function's here, we should {disfmarker} like we decided before, programmes up and down, and volume here.
User Interface: Let's see what we have here.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Or {disfmarker} And uh what about speech recognition uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well you can just {disfmarker} no, I'm not sure if we can do that,
Marketing: Yeah, yeah,
Project Manager: but we could put a microphone in here for example.
Marketing: but {disfmarker} or or an L_C_D_ or an uh speech.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: I think it's {disfmarker} L_C_D_ is better now.
Project Manager: Just to do research into both, w what it costs and what it takes for space.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I'll try to.
Project Manager: But let's cut the meeting for now yes.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: One more uh thing I'd like to say, uh let's give this uh a name, and not like some vague serial number that no one understands, like with cars.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Yeah, okay, yeah,
Industrial Designer: Shall we all try uh to think about a name?
User Interface: So I think of a name.
Marketing: that's {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, let's think of a name, okay.
Marketing: yeah, that's okay.
Project Manager: Uh okay.
Marketing: Oh, good.
Project Manager: Okay, at anyways, the the minutes will be on the on the web shortly,
User Interface: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: so there we go uh.
User Interface: Yes, go and finish up and I'll see you at lunch.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Good luck.
Project Manager: Yeah, to all.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Same.
Project Manager: {gap}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, I've {disfmarker} Do we uh save the {gap}?
Project Manager: {gap}
Marketing: {gap}. {gap}. | First Industrial Designer raised questions like whether their remote control would be universal and should it be programmable or not, because they needed something like a mode to send out a different signal so that the remote can work in this way. Then the size of the remote was also put by Industrial Designer since there were already plenty of technical parts in it and it was quite complex to deal with material problems. But at last Industrial Designer came up with the idea of integration of materials and in this way, the new product would cost less. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
Project Manager: Wait for the marketing director actually, so. Anyways. Uh. See, shall we wait? I'm not sure if he's late or delayed or whatever, so I'm gonna start soon, we have now {disfmarker} don't have much time anyway.
User Interface: Oh, there he is.
Industrial Designer: Okay,
Marketing: Yes.
Project Manager: There you are,
Industrial Designer: we {disfmarker}
Marketing: Sorry,
Project Manager: okay.
Marketing: a little bit of pl little problem with computer.
Project Manager: Uh no problem. We're about to start, so have a seat. Okay, welcome again.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap}.
Project Manager: Today, functional design phase. I'll take you over the minutes of last last meeting. Okay, that was just to get to know each other,
Marketing: Uh.
Project Manager: have a little thoughts on what your vision is and {disfmarker} on this project, so {disfmarker} I put the minutes on the {disfmarker} I made on the on the p the the project share, so if you wanna review them, they're there. I will do so after every meeting, so if you have some information you wanna take back you can find it there. Anyways, um today three presentations, from every one of you. Um after that I got some new project requirements from project board, so we're gonna go af go after {disfmarker} over this later. But I wanna start with uh stuff you did first, so we can see what everybody came up with. And after that we can have the new requirements and share some thoughts, so. Who would like {disfmarker} wanna go first?
Marketing: Yeah, sure, no problem.
Project Manager: Take it.
User Interface: Go ahead.
Marketing: Um there was a little problem with my computer so not uh the whole uh presentation uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Anyway, let's see what you have.
Marketing: Yeah. Um {disfmarker} Okay,
Project Manager: Uh it's still a bit open.
Marketing: I want to open the my s oh no.
Project Manager: You should close it on your own notebook, I guess. Yeah. So there?
Marketing: Oh no,
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: that's okay. Uh slide show. Yes. The functional requirements, it's uh {vocalsound} uh very important for uh the user, he he wants to {disfmarker} yeah. The the method we used uh it it's not m not a slide, because it went wrong, but the method we use uh, um {vocalsound} we tested it w uh with uh a hundred uh men, and we asked them to w uh what the remote uh f feel uh like and uh what what's uh important. Uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: If I can cut in, is it people or men? {vocalsound}
Marketing: People,
Project Manager: Is it people, okay.
Marketing: sorry.
Project Manager:'Cause I thought it was only men,
Marketing: Both women and men,
Project Manager: so {disfmarker}
Marketing: yeah.
Project Manager:'Kay.
Marketing: Okay. Uh the findings um uh {vocalsound} seventy five percent of the users find most remote controls ugly. Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: That's pretty shocking uh. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So we have to s we have to do something about that.
Marketing: Yeah, and {disfmarker} yeah, most th th they want to spend money for a better system, for better remote control, so we can do uh a l a little uh nice things with it, and um they use {disfmarker} yeah, they use zap a lot, um uh fifty percent say they only {disfmarker} So that's the most important things.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Um {disfmarker} oh yeah, not all of it is it on mine on my PowerPoint presentation,
Project Manager: Okay, just talk ahead.
Marketing: but um uh the relevant buttons are the power, the channel selection and the volume selection.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: It's uh the most basic buttons that a user wants uh {vocalsound} to use. Uh less important is tel teletext,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound}
Marketing: uh um they use it, but it's not uh very uh important uh on the scale of zero to ten they six and a half uh
Project Manager: Okay, that's okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: and {disfmarker} but not important is the channel selection, the the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} hmm?
Project Manager: That's a little weird.
Marketing: Oh, {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Which channel selection?
Marketing: the the {disfmarker} no no no no no, that's very important, but uh w and not important in the audio settings, display settings
Project Manager: Okay,
Marketing: and uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: we can we can hide those under a menu or something,
User Interface: Oh, okay.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um new preferences preferences. Uh um um beep to find your control, was {disfmarker}
Project Manager: That's like a button on your T_V_?
Marketing: that was {gap} in the test, the the most people uh f find it uh irritating uh when they cannot find a rem their remote control,
Project Manager: Remote, okay.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: so uh I think it's a bee beep to sound it and uh you can find it. And another thing uh they want was uh speech recognition um so they can say uh what they want to {disfmarker} let's go to channel one and uh that's uh kind of things.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: And they want maybe an uh L_C_D_ screen um to to look it um wh what's on every channel uh and uh what do I want with it?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: We wanna have a little preview on the remote control. Preview what's on the channel.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Is that manageable?'Cause it sounds pretty expensive too.
Project Manager: That sounds too {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: It's possible, but uh I think it's expensive, but do continue.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Yeah. Um {disfmarker} Uh my personal preferences is uh a button for my favourite channel, so I can uh I dunno, so I can zap to my uh f uh quick uh to my favourite channel wh what I uh {disfmarker} so, the remote mu must see or um must um {vocalsound} see wha what mine preferences are for which channel,
Project Manager: Okay, you don't set it yourself,
Marketing: so I can zap t to {disfmarker}
Project Manager: it just remembers the channel that you are on most, for example.
Marketing: What?
Project Manager: You want the {disfmarker} you want it to be programmed, for example y programmed f
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: or you want it to recognise your favourite channel?
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Let's see, you you spend twenty minutes each day on that channel,
Marketing: Recognise {disfmarker}
Project Manager: so it recognises your favourite channel.
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah, that's uh what my personal preference like.
Project Manager: Okay, so it's it it does {disfmarker} it recognise itself, you don't have to set it {disfmarker}
Marketing: No,
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: itself. Maybe it's easier to {vocalsound} to sell it, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: I don't know it's manageable, but we will uh we will see.
Project Manager: I see.
Marketing: Yeah, it's a little bit uh it's the end of it.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: It's a little bit uh I lost it,
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: the computer uh crashed,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} No problem, it's it's okay,
Marketing: so.
Project Manager: that's {disfmarker} Yeah, go ahead.
User Interface: Shall I go? Okay.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: So, some technical functions.
Marketing: Darn computer.
User Interface: Basically I have some issues which you discussed earlier. Uh let's just start with the method.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} It sounds really easy, what does the user do, what does the th remote control do, but there are quite some issues. So the things I'm going to concentrate on are the user aspect, because the technical aspect, that's pretty much covered. We can do that. What goes wrong {vocalsound} at the user. Gets the remote control. Where is the remote control? We've all had it once, I want to watch some television,
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: where's the remote control? That was one of your ideas which you posted in the network folder,
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: That seems very good.
User Interface: a really good idea. Uh these are just the issues. I come to some uh personal experience, findings, possible solutions later. Searches for the button. There are many buttons on a remote control which are not clear. Uh so either we lose those or we try to make it a little bit more clear.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Uh also symbols tend to fade after a while.
Marketing: Mm uh.
User Interface: There's nothing more annoying than faded symbols, because you don't know which channel is this button, so possibly we could find uh something for that,
Project Manager: Okay, so have it more {disfmarker} make it more durable actually. Okay.
User Interface: yes. Uh covered that. Oh yes, user presses the button. Um usually when you have a lot of buttons, buttons are small. So you press more once remote control goes kablouey or something like that,
Project Manager: Okay, so the buttons should be {disfmarker}
User Interface: so we have to pay attention not to put too mun too many buttons on uh the remote control. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
User Interface: And possibly also the size, so more important buttons, bigger
Project Manager: Wow. The s Yeah. Make it {disfmarker} make them bigger.
User Interface: si
Project Manager: Even more durable uh.
User Interface: So this is basically what I h had in mind in the {disfmarker} fade-proof symbols, locator, a sound, uh so clear we should stick to existing symbols, but maybe we could do a little uh investigation to see whether some symbols are uh {disfmarker} need to be replaced by others. Uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: This I pretty much covered. {vocalsound} So what we want to go to is not this one,
Project Manager: Yeah, it's true.
User Interface: but more {disfmarker} less buttons, easy, some bigger buttons.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: that's basically uh what I had in mind. So
Project Manager: Yeah, that's clear.
User Interface: This is not the final design,
Project Manager: No, of course uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: this is just a general idea of how I'd like to see uh basically the general idea.
Project Manager: Yeah. I must say that it {disfmarker} Hmm.
User Interface: {vocalsound} So that was it.
Project Manager: That was it. Okay, that was good. So we agree on the the part that we need to get something on the on the remote to find it somewhere and increase it {disfmarker} the durability of of the thing,
User Interface: Yeah, I think it's a really good idea.
Project Manager: so {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: The other aspects, we'll just see how {disfmarker} what you came up with and what's possible for that budget.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Okay, that's fine. Um. Okay, now work a little with me. Okay. Well,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: let's start it as it is. Okay, uh the method. There are a few questions that need to be answered, uh you already uh talked about it a little bit. Which buttons are wanted, uh is our remote control universal or should it be programmable. Uh if it should be programmeab grammeale then we need um something like a mode that you can switch it. Because then the buttons have to send out a different signal then they would normally do.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And uh how big is the remote control uh going to be? I'll tell you why that's important to me. Um there are a lot of technical parts in the remote control, so uh uh that's {vocalsound} why I also would like to say uh go a little bit easy on the designs, uh I heard ab uh you talking about beeps and about uh video screens, but uh the material inside and the technical aspects are quite complex already.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So keep in mind that everything that you keep uh {disfmarker} think of, it has to b to be built.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Of course, hmm.
Industrial Designer: So it's {disfmarker} that's not as easy as it s might look like.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Uh material study, I'm working on that um for the the costs. I have to check out how far I can go with that. Normally, a circuit board is made of fibreglass uh and the wires are made of copper. Uh that is how it is done and all the remote controls work that way, I think we can just go on with that. Um then I've read more integration of materials means less cost for the production. The more we can make uh at once uh in one piece, uh that is cheaper.
Project Manager: You mean integrate them all into the circuit board. Okay.
Industrial Designer: Exactly, so if we make a circuit board with the the connections already on it, then that's cheaper.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, okay.
Industrial Designer: So we have to {vocalsound} make something that's not too difficult in design again.
Project Manager: So you have {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: This is what look like uh looks like if you press one button, so this is not the entire thing. You have the the power coming in, then you have like a switch. The switch uh uh {vocalsound} uh if you p press it then some electrical charge goes into the processor, that thinks over a Morse code, that's how you should see it. The Morse code goes to the amplifier, then uh the signal is sent to two uh light bulbs. You have infrared and an interv um {vocalsound} uh how to say it? Uh a light in indication, light that you know that it's functioning.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh here again, that's my story about the different modes, if you do want to make remote uh universal, then the processor has to uh make up a different Morse code when some button is pressed. That makes it much more complex, so we really need to have a look, do we want that or not. Uh I don't have any personal p uh preferences uh so far, except for uh the materials to be used uh light, that they are light.
Project Manager: Okay. Okay. That was it?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That was it.
Project Manager: I'll get back to my thing then. Uh {disfmarker} Okay, back this up {disfmarker} to the screen. So I got some new information on the project specifications are changing a little. Like you said uh teletext is not not very popular anymore because the uh the internet, nowadays people don't use the teletext anymore or hardly, so it can either {disfmarker} Well, I don't think we should remove the button, because there are always people who are using it.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: But I don't think it should be {vocalsound} very {disfmarker} it should be one of the big buttons for example. Just put it somewhere or under second option or whatever. It's not important anymore. Um we're targeting young people now, because our um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} This is a new product and with this new product we want to appeal to younger people,
Marketing: Uh.
Project Manager: which are {disfmarker} um the younger people were defined under forty.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: I so I think it's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: that's also good with the fashion and everything,
Marketing: B
Project Manager: so yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, and they want to pay for it
Project Manager: They want to pay for it, people are willing to spend money actually to buy a um remote that they like.
Marketing: and uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: If they like the way it looks, the way it functions, so they're actually gonna spend uh spend money on it.
Marketing: With more {disfmarker} Where {disfmarker} with more technical specifications
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: in the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {gap} {vocalsound} see how far we can go with it anyway, so
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: {disfmarker} And one thing that should be important is that the corporate l colour and slogan are recognisable, which is apparently {vocalsound} black and yellow, but {disfmarker} I'm not sure if we {disfmarker} I think we should keep the the logo in mind, because with colours you can uh have a lot of uh fashionable colours and everything on it, which suits everybody's taste. So {disfmarker} With that concept I started thinking, so why not just steal Nokia's idea and just make changeable covers for your {disfmarker}
User Interface: Oh.
Project Manager: I mean those cost hardly anything I think, and people could even spend extra money on buying a cover
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: and so have an entire new remote control that they like to see. Or we can sh for example we can make a different {vocalsound} {disfmarker} a basic design. And sell the covers separately, for example. That's just a little marketing idea that could be applied, so you can p it appeals to really everyone. So you don't have to {disfmarker} I think you don't have to make entire remote controls. We make a basic one and manufacture this cover separately.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So that was that was my idea on what we could do to appeal this product to everyone. So
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: just {disfmarker} I'm not sure if you came up with anything in the meantime, after making a presentation. Would you like to share?
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: No, I think this is a good idea.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker}
Marketing: But {disfmarker} oh?
User Interface: Is it manageable? Is it easy?
Industrial Designer: Go ahead.
Marketing: Yeah, with with an L_C_D_ screen you can {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh yeah. I think we should lose the L_C_D_ screen,
Industrial Designer: Y Yes, I think so too.
Project Manager: like you said. I think for example it's it's huge {disfmarker} I think the L_C_D_ is huge,
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Why? Nokia w
Project Manager: it consumes batteries like hell.
Marketing: Uh.
Project Manager: I think it takes up a lot of a lot of power.
User Interface: And it costs too much to fabricate,
Project Manager: It costs a lot, I think.
User Interface: so we're on a tight budget here.
Industrial Designer: Okay, uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: What we could do, what could be possible, is maybe not an L_C_D_ screen but with a preview,
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: but y I'm not sure if it's even possible {vocalsound}. For example, a little T_V_ guide.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Like you have a little {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: just just a text only, not colour, just a little text thing
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: so you can use your remote as a T_V_ guide. I'm not sure it's even possible,
Industrial Designer: Hmm. I have to check that out,
Project Manager: but maybe okay, make it {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I'm not sure.
Project Manager: Yeah, find a little compromise in that, but {disfmarker} What did I write down?
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: I think the p yeah, the beep is a very simple thing to imple implement, just make a button on your T_V_
Industrial Designer: That must be possible.
Project Manager: and just hit the button, it beeps somewhere. I think it's easy to implement,
Industrial Designer: Ja.
Project Manager: we should go for that.
Industrial Designer: I'm sorry,
Project Manager: Uh speech recognition.
User Interface: And it's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: whe where do you wanna hit the T_ {disfmarker} you wanna {vocalsound} {disfmarker} we want a button on the television. {gap}
Project Manager: I thin {vocalsound} Yeah, I mean where else should you put it?
Industrial Designer: In th okay, but that rules out a universal remote control.
Project Manager: Yeah,
Industrial Designer: Because that's not possible uh.
Project Manager: but {vocalsound} how are you gonna use that if your {disfmarker} I mean if your remote control is lost, how are you gonna press {disfmarker} where are you gonna press the button?
Industrial Designer: Uh. Yeah. Exactly.
User Interface: Maybe just a slap-on sticker with a button which sends out a small signal.
Project Manager: A slap-on sticker. Oh, you mean as like a separate thing you can attach to your T_V_.
Marketing: Mm uh.
Project Manager: Yeah, that could be possible.
User Interface: Yeah, exactly.
Project Manager: A little little box you can attach to your T_V_ is fine then, okay.
Industrial Designer: Okay, then uh I'd I'd like to know now if we want the uh universal remote control or not, because that's uh determines everything I'm gonna do.
Project Manager: I think it's universal. I think we should go for universal,
Industrial Designer: If not {disfmarker}
Project Manager: because apparently we're a separate company making separate c remote controls to sell to a lot of diverse people.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: I think universal remote control should be possible.
Marketing: Yeah. Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay, then I go for that.
Marketing: Everyone uh wants to buy it, so we w
Project Manager: Yeah, I think we're targeting everyone,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: so remote {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay. No,
Marketing: yeah.
Industrial Designer: it's fine with me, but then I know what to look for.
Project Manager: Okay, universal is good. Speech recognition, I think it's very hard, because we're selling across multiple countries. So I think implementing speech recognition is such a small um apparatus, it's very hard to do.
Marketing: Yeah. Or one.
User Interface: And it's {disfmarker}
Marketing: Or when you say one two uh i it uh it's enough,
Project Manager: Yeah, but I don't see Arabian people speaking one, two uh whatever.
Marketing: right? But {disfmarker} Oh yeah.
User Interface: Besides that, the technology isn't really super yet, so that {vocalsound} is a problem in implementing this.
Project Manager: It's {disfmarker} Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: It's not a mature technology, I think it takes a lot of memory and everything in in a remote control,
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: so {disfmarker}
User Interface: It's a good idea, but it's just not {disfmarker} I don't think the market's ripe for that yet.
Project Manager: I don't think it should be implemented in a remote control yet uh.
Industrial Designer: Uh-huh.
Project Manager: What else do we have?
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Um well you should you should look into the in into the materials that are real durable. So the the the symbols won't fade,
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: maybe a little harder plastic
Industrial Designer: Exactly.
Project Manager: or especially li we don't {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I already noted that.
Project Manager: maybe we don't have have to do all the buttons, but especially the ones that are um the popular buttons, so those always fade first.
Industrial Designer: Mm, okay. Okay.
Project Manager: Mm the thing is the most important things that we have now.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: Let's see.
Industrial Designer: If we uh make a remote control with changeable covers, then we can also make uh a cover for every language area.
Project Manager: For example?
Industrial Designer: That's fo {vocalsound} is uh especially for older people, that they can read it read it in their own language.
Project Manager: Well, we're not we're not targeting older people,
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: we should remember that. Everything we target is under forty,
Industrial Designer: That's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: so.
Industrial Designer: okay, okay.
Project Manager: You assume that that they read correctly and I think they're {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Huh.
Project Manager: The most important thing about young people is that they're really sensitive to to trends that are passing through the world,
Marketing: But b
Project Manager: so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Uh okay.
User Interface: But should the exchangeable covers include the buttons themselves or just the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: No, of course. No, I think it's just something you you put over them, because {disfmarker} Yeah we c Yeah, you ca Well,
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: tha that's not a that's not a bad {disfmarker} that's not even {disfmarker}
User Interface: C
Marketing: But every {disfmarker}
User Interface: that's a problem with the with the text then.
Project Manager: it's not even a bad idea. I mean, for example, if you're if you're into the durability issue you could {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: For example, if your buttons are faded, after {disfmarker} I mean if you make a durable remote, they are faded, you can just buy a new cover.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Uh I'm not sure it's it's hard to make.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: So it's a good and a bad idea.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh but I know that the buttons are like a Nokia telephone on uh one sleeve,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: so you don't have to change your whole cover. Uh we can make something that you can only remove the sleeve.
User Interface: Oh yeah, I know what you mean.
Industrial Designer: Know what I mean?
Marketing: Oh.
Industrial Designer: It works the same as a Nokia telephone, it's it's in my uh {disfmarker}'kay.
Project Manager: Yeah, I know, it's just just a one one piece of rubber for example,
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: okay. Yeah,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Exactly.
Project Manager: that's what I {disfmarker} something I have to look into. Either either change both the buttons and and the cover or just the cover, I'm not sure which which is easier,
Industrial Designer: Hmm. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: so {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um anyway, yeah, this is what we're gonna do afterwards, just lunch break and have more individual work after that, so let's see what we {disfmarker} let's see we {disfmarker} So you have to come up with a components concept, yeah. I want some {disfmarker} you should do some trend-watching, because even if we're if we're gonna do those covers and everything, what people really want, that's what we need to know in this phase,
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: because that's gonna be the essential final design that we're gonna come up with.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Yeah, I think user interface is fairly obvious. I mean it should be very intuitive,
User Interface: Pretty straightforward.
Project Manager: s Yeah, it should speak for itself. Uh for example I bought a remote control last week with a new T_V_, it was it l it's like all buttons and you have no idea what it does at first,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and I'm {gap} total T_V_ new, anyway. So I think it should be {disfmarker} have less or l very little buttons and maybe a second {vocalsound} second level menu for the advanced things. Or maybe just stick'em under a menu, like you said the um {vocalsound} the sound options and the surround and whatever, they're more complicated, just stick'em under one menu and uh give it a {disfmarker} just put it in in s in a software piece, you can menu and you can uh select everything you want to to set on your T_V_.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: Is it techni technically possible to uh {vocalsound} send a signal to a television and then pops up a menu,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: because we're working with different types of television, so we're going to work with that?
Project Manager: That is true.
Industrial Designer: I don't think so.
Project Manager: No, that's true.
Industrial Designer: No, I don't think so. Because the television needs to respond to the signal,
Project Manager: Yeah, that's true.
User Interface: It's an in-built menu,
Industrial Designer: and if it doesn't know how, it's {disfmarker}
User Interface: isn't it? Yes.
Industrial Designer: Exactly, that's not possible.
User Interface: So basically
Project Manager: I'm not sure if it's impossible,
User Interface: we {disfmarker}
Project Manager: but uh there's a chance it's not, so.
User Interface: Or we could use a double-sided {disfmarker} for {vocalsound} less used functions
Project Manager: A double-sided remote control?
User Interface: you {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I don't think that's useful.
User Interface: Yeah, with the cover. {vocalsound} I it's basically an idea to overcome these issues,
Project Manager: Yeah, but then you're gonna have a lot of wasted buttons.
User Interface: because {disfmarker}
Project Manager: For example you have a Sony T_V_ and the half of the buttons won't function if you have a {disfmarker} for a Sony that won't {disfmarker} for a Philips T_V_.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
User Interface: No, but basic functions {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: but functions which are not frequently used.
Project Manager: I don't think we should {disfmarker}
User Interface: Because if we use a universal remote control, we're going to have to have most buttons on it,
Project Manager: Yeah, for exam
User Interface: so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I'm not s
Marketing: Mm yeah.
Project Manager: yeah, for ex you have to make it a little decision between the part if you want a universal remote control that {disfmarker} it should do what people usually do with their T_V_s, not not the very complicated settings
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: that you can usually do that with uh either a old old remote control if they really hate that thing,
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: but you can't you cannot take into consideration all the different brands of T_V_s.
Industrial Designer: But that might be broken.
Project Manager: I think there's I think there is a standard for example between uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {gap} Hmm.
Project Manager: because usually the the menu is {disfmarker} the menu button is is usable between different brands. Especially the big ones, the big brands,
Industrial Designer: Hmm. Hmm.
Project Manager: so.'Cause everybody {disfmarker} I have a universal remote control and it can use the menu button, so I think {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: I'm not sure, if you can put some research into that, if it's possible. Uh I think just a b
Industrial Designer: Mm okay. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and the navigation is very basic, it's usually the same thing.
Industrial Designer: Mm. But I think there must be a way uh to invoke the more complicated functions of a television. For instance, if your old remote control is broken and you buy ours, then uh you should be able to get everything out of the television that's in it.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I think so
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Because otherwise you'll lose functions by buying our {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: uh we need to put some research into that if if we can open the menu, I think it's possible, just the way how to.
Industrial Designer: Okay, I thi I think so too.
Marketing: Yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, then then you could do everything I suppose, because usually the T_V_s have tha that inside in this other little piece of software, so it's okay.
Industrial Designer: And I think that our r remote control should not look like uh any other. For instance uh Sony makes all their remote controls exactly the same for all their devices,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and you always grab the wrong one because formatting of the buttons is exactly the same, only the labels are different.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah I think it should be a little distinct from everything else,
Industrial Designer: We should not do that.
Project Manager: because it's {disfmarker} either it's both {gap} mayb
Industrial Designer: Exactly.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah,
Project Manager: maybe the shape can be a little different.
User Interface: I have some ideas. I have some ideas.
Project Manager: Maybe it's a little more curves or whatever.
Industrial Designer: Mm that's your uh division. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Um {disfmarker} yeah. And uh with different colours uh.
Project Manager: So um {disfmarker}
User Interface: I'll put some on paper and present them next time uh the ideas that I have.
Project Manager: Yeah, this {gap}. Not sure what {disfmarker}
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: because we have forty minutes, I'm not sure how much time we have left for the meeting anyway, so.
User Interface: I heard a beep go.
Project Manager: Yeah, but it wasn't me, it was him closing something.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So anyway, yeah, we could do some i do some work now on on the design for example. I mean what do you want, do you want {gap}, but {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, but we like some some curves or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, may maybe something like this. But though smooth inside. So you have the transmitter here for example.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Let's see that you {disfmarker} what would be handy. I think that the {vocalsound} the buttons should be {disfmarker} the channel buttons should be {vocalsound} uh on their own.
Marketing: Uh. And a light uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Let's see one, two {disfmarker} God damn it.
User Interface: Oh, we get the general ideas, yes.
Project Manager: Yeah, okay. {vocalsound} Another one here. Let's see what {disfmarker} I think this should {disfmarker} these are always on top of the of the control, so they should be here.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
User Interface: Yeah, and since you're holding it like this, I suggest you put the channel up channel down and volume {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Think it's like this. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Volume.
Project Manager: Withi within the {disfmarker} Yeah, just take it.
User Interface: yeah yeah. So you have the up channel {vocalsound} the down channel {disfmarker} the volume, do we want that horizontal or vertical?
Project Manager: Do you take triangles or {disfmarker}
Marketing: Uh it's it's fine, I think.
Project Manager: Um I think it should be I think it {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: This is basically what people are accustomed to,
Project Manager: Maybe we should make'em bigger or whatever.
User Interface: so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah, but this is just a g general idea.
Marketing: Oh d {gap}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Uh maybe the menu button can go i in the middle.
Project Manager: Yeah, in the middle. It's it's usually uh there, but {disfmarker} Mm.
User Interface: Whoa.
Industrial Designer: Perhaps we should also make uh something like a flash on it, if you {disfmarker} if it's lost, for people that are deaf. They they won't hear the the beep.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, but for example if it's lost in your armchair, we'll not see the flash.
User Interface: You won't be able to find it. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: And flash takes up a lot of batteries again.
Industrial Designer: Uh. Yeah, it's true, but it's it's only has to do so when you press the button that it's lost.
Marketing: Just {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: We could make a combination that it goes beep and that you {disfmarker} that some light lights up.
Industrial Designer: So. {gap} deaf people?
Marketing: And L_E_D_ uh on it.
Project Manager: Yeah, I thought about for deaf people for example, so. We could do that. Uh let's see.
Marketing: Just a light on it or {disfmarker}
User Interface: So we have the basic channels we've got here, uh the power button somewhere over here?
Project Manager: Oh yeah, it's true. Um that thing should be central.
Marketing: Very important.
Project Manager: You shouldn't be {disfmarker} you uh shouldn't press it by accident, but it shouldn't be stacked away somewhere.
Marketing: Oh,
User Interface: I usually press it on top.
Marketing: that's {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: At least that's what I'm accustomed to.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I have another idea,
Project Manager: Yeah, like that's gonna work. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I'm not sure if it's possible.
Marketing: And {disfmarker}
User Interface: What would you like to {gap}?
Project Manager: Yeah, I thought maybe we should move the buttons down
Marketing: But you r
Project Manager: and put it here for example
Marketing: And you are reading from the t
Project Manager: to {disfmarker}
Marketing: you always read from the top to the the bottom of it.
Project Manager: From top to bottom. Yeah, that's true,
Marketing: Yeah,
Project Manager: you should {disfmarker}
Marketing: so it's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I think the bu the power button should be on top,
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager:'cause it's the first thing you do {vocalsound}, turn it on. So power button on top. Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay, mute button. Is that somewhere here?
Project Manager: Mute. Do we hardly {disfmarker} I think it should be at the bottom somewhere.
User Interface: Is that used often?
Marketing: So i it's {disfmarker}
User Interface: The mute button? Do people use that often?
Marketing: sorry?
Project Manager: Mute. Turn the sound off.
Marketing: No, it's {disfmarker} no. {vocalsound}
User Interface:'Cause uh I'm pretty much accustomed to it {vocalsound} right over here, at least in general,
Marketing: Uh. Hmm.
User Interface: but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't think it's important, {gap} but I think it I think it should be {disfmarker} you c
User Interface: It's not that important, no.
Project Manager: you could put it somewhere here.
Marketing: Or or with the volume selection. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No, because it {disfmarker} Yeah, people are accustomed to that,
Marketing: {vocalsound} Around uh not uh not at top at the {disfmarker} around the volume selection.
Project Manager: it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Can I have that? That's j
User Interface: Sure.
Marketing: I don't know where exactly,
Project Manager: Take this out and here see {disfmarker}
Marketing: but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Uh are we gonna take triangles anyway? I'm drawing triangles, but {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: That's pretty much what people are accustomed to,
Project Manager: Yeah,
User Interface: aren't they?
Project Manager: it's maybe a bigger lesser than thing. So anyway, I think this is {disfmarker} should be the channels and {disfmarker} or sh
User Interface: Well,
Marketing: Wha
User Interface: I'm accustomed to the channels being on top.
Marketing: No. Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Here,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, me too.
Project Manager: okay. Okay,
Marketing: Yeah, that's better.
Project Manager: should we chan
Marketing: On the right.
Project Manager: okay, {vocalsound} this two, channel up and down.
Industrial Designer: Shall we uh also look if it's possible to make a rechargeable remote? That you don't have to buy new batteries if every {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well,
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: for {disfmarker} that is it's on one part it's um it's a good thing to recharge it {disfmarker}
Marketing: Maybe it's more ex expensive.
Industrial Designer: Mm, yeah.
Project Manager: Maybe we should {disfmarker} what what could be possible is one with rechargeable batteries for example.
Industrial Designer: Uh.
Project Manager: You have {disfmarker} just put Penlite batteries that are rechargeable, because it's an it's it's it's very annoying.
User Interface: But isn't that expensive in the entire package?
Industrial Designer: But that's already possible.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: I'm not sure y {vocalsound} I'm not sure it's {disfmarker} if it's expensive, but just take a look at it, because it might be a very good idea. Because if {disfmarker} it's it's uh useful to have it rechargeable,
User Interface: {gap}
Project Manager: but at the same time, if you don't want recha if you forgot to recharge it and you wanna watch T_V_ now, you wanna be able to put different batteries in it, use it now and not in half an hour.
Industrial Designer: Yes. Yes. Okay. Uh you could make a device, but I'm not sure how that uh is possible with the costs, that you can put in normal batteries, rechargeable,
Project Manager: I think I have a nice idea.
Industrial Designer: but it {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} the remote also can act as a recharger. So then you can choose, you have every decision. Know what I mean?
Project Manager: Not exactly uh.
Industrial Designer: You can uh put in normal Penlites, rechargeable Penlites, but they can also be recharged with the remote, with a wire.
Marketing: Hmm. Yeah yeah.
Project Manager: I think it's uh it's a pretty good idea to have uh like sort of a {disfmarker} maybe a base station that you put on the T_V_. Could be flat, you could insert your uh remote into it.
Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker} but {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, that's g
Industrial Designer: But I think that will cost a lot.
Project Manager: I'm not sure.
Industrial Designer: Uh a normal wire would be better.
Project Manager: A what?
Industrial Designer: Like a like a P_D_A_, a hand-held. You can uh just put it in the electricity and it charges itself,
Project Manager: Well, we were talking about the fact that we wanted to insert either a beep or a flash into the thing with a little separate signal
Industrial Designer: you don't need basic station. Yes.
Project Manager: or {disfmarker} So you could put that on a T_V_ for example.
Industrial Designer: That is possible, that's true.
Project Manager: It could be very flat, could be very small.
Marketing: But {disfmarker} Which {disfmarker}
Project Manager: It's a very small {disfmarker} Yeah, I'm drawing it big now, but {disfmarker} So you can put your remote on flat for example.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: And at the backside of remote just just just a little hole
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: for example um you just {vocalsound} put it down, it recharges for example.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: I don't think it's very expensive.
User Interface: But again, isn't that too expensive?
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface:'Cause that means that we have to implement rechargeable batteries, a docking station {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I'm not sure if it costs a lot, that that's what he r
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: That's that you {disfmarker} that's what you buy yourself.
Industrial Designer: Yes. I'm going to try to find that out. I'm not sure if there's information available on this,
Project Manager: It's just an idea, we have to find out if it's possible.
Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker}
Marketing: But {disfmarker}
User Interface: And do people actually want that? To pay extra {disfmarker} they want to pay for rechargeable?
Marketing: Yeah, they want to pay for it.
Project Manager: Do they want {disfmarker} but they want a rechargeable one?
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: I'm not sure, you should find out if it's {disfmarker} if rechargeable is important.
Marketing: Th uh there was not a el ask esque {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Hmm. These are uh comfort issues. So I think people will pay {disfmarker} they wanted to pay for comfort.
Marketing: But {disfmarker}
Project Manager: They want to pay for comfort,
Industrial Designer: Well, this is comfort.
Project Manager: we just assu we we could either make a separate station which just sends a signal to the remote control to either beep or flash to find it,
Marketing: But f hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Project Manager: um and {disfmarker} Yeah, we have to {disfmarker} either that or make it integrated with a with a docking station.
Industrial Designer: Hmm. Yeah. Exactly. I think this is a brilliant product.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think it would be good actually.
Industrial Designer: I would buy it myself.
Project Manager: I like the beep part {vocalsound} anyway.
Industrial Designer: Uh.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So um
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: let's go through the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I like the covers. That's a brilliant idea.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Can can we save this or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Covers is covers is good.
Industrial Designer: I never thought {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, it's {disfmarker} Oh we can save this. Up and saved. We even saved the ant. {gap} Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Okay. So
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: what we have is {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker} I think you have {vocalsound} to do a lot of work on if it's possible for the cost.
Industrial Designer: I hope if I have information about that,
Project Manager: Maybe {disfmarker} yeah,
Industrial Designer: I'm gonna {disfmarker}
Project Manager: or {vocalsound} maybe you can find out i what people are willing to pay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: We are going for twenty five Euros sales price,
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Marketing: Yeah, okay.
Project Manager: but just try to find out what they're willing to pay for it, because if they're willing to pay more, we could lose a little profit and maybe attract more customers,
Marketing: Yeah yeah yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm. {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: uh we just have to see what it looks like.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I would like to make a decision {gap}. What it costs and what kind of materials that we can uh choose what we want in it
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, if you have some financial information that that'd be nice,
Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker} exactly, I need it.
Project Manager: so. Hmm. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Could you post some {vocalsound} other essentials of what people want, so that I can work with some buttons, where to put it {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: You seem to have information on that, I'd like to uh see some of it.
Industrial Designer: Was it not possible to uh send emails around the office?
Project Manager: No, it wasn't wasn't allo
User Interface: No, it's not. No.
Project Manager: it was possible,
Industrial Designer: Not {gap}.
Project Manager: not allowed, so. So that's um why I'm not sure that {vocalsound} you're allowed to share documents on the on the draft.
Marketing: Yeah. My computer crashed,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, okay.
Marketing: so uh
Project Manager: I don't care. I haven't heard any complaints yet,
User Interface: Oh, your computer. Okay.
Marketing: I lost my uh presentation,
Project Manager: so. Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: but I have the uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well, I have your PowerPoint presentation, I can get some inf information out of that.
Marketing: Yeah, but I Here I have the the s the homepage of uh our internet,
User Interface: Let's see.
Project Manager: Yeah, the oh, they inc uh
Marketing: and here is my
Project Manager: they include the new one. {vocalsound} Or just for you.
User Interface: Oh, where would we {disfmarker}
Marketing: here is my marketing report,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh
Marketing: maybe you ca you can look at uh {vocalsound} that
Project Manager: no, I didn't have that.
Marketing: and {disfmarker}
User Interface: Where would we want the uh teletext button?
Marketing: Ah yeah.
User Interface: Because we decided that it's n not that important.
Project Manager: All it tells {gap} just {disfmarker} let's make make a new {disfmarker}
Marketing: And one {disfmarker}
User Interface: Do we put it somewhere over here?
Project Manager: tick the new one. {vocalsound} Um other side. Yeah, let's increase it a little because {disfmarker}
Marketing: And uh wha what people want, I've uh
User Interface: Or maybe this is something for the next meeting, I can draw out some ideas.
Project Manager: Yeah, draw us up some some designs of of possible {disfmarker}
Marketing: I have another thing uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: just keep in mind that the important buttons should be on top and either big,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: so the more {disfmarker} less important {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well, we have decided {vocalsound} more or less the basic structure.
Project Manager: More or less.
User Interface: I can put the other buttons in {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Just play a little with this, put l shift a little up or down and we'll see what looks best.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: What uh what did you wanna say?
Project Manager: Or just po post your designs from time to time on the product share.
Marketing: Yeah. Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh what I al already said is the the uh the remote controls are always lost,
User Interface: Maybe another idea uh.
Marketing: but it it's also for people, {vocalsound} they want to learn it fast,
Industrial Designer: Mm. Mm.
Marketing: not uh {disfmarker} they want to {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, so we don't want {gap} we want very little buttons, just the buttons you use a lot.
Marketing: No
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: It's {disfmarker} yeah, it's easy to learn
User Interface: Yes, but it should cover all the functions,
Marketing: wi and uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well
User Interface: so possibly, just an idea that popped in {disfmarker}
Project Manager: what {disfmarker} we had function that what people do,
Marketing: Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: so. People change channels, people {vocalsound} {disfmarker} they change the volume and they they change channel, they turn T_V_ off and on, for example. That's the basic fu that's what you do {disfmarker} I'm not sure who present that again, but those are the basic function that people use it for, so those should be very well represented.
User Interface: Yeah, but we could go a step further,
Marketing: And {disfmarker} The {disfmarker} If {disfmarker}
User Interface: because some T_V_s have the uh possibility to adjust brightness, that kind of menus.
Project Manager: That's true, but that's what we stick under the menu button. Everything is {disfmarker} you say in every T_V_ that's configured under the menu.
User Interface: Yes, but it {disfmarker} Because we're making {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: But that's the question, is it?
Marketing: Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Because it needs to be configured in the television under the menu.
Project Manager: Yeah, but {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: If it isn't, then we cannot reach it.
User Interface: We need to adjust to the {vocalsound} technology.
Project Manager: But I think most modern T_V_s have it in their menu.
Industrial Designer: I think so too. I think so too.
User Interface: True.
Industrial Designer: Uh isn't there a possibility to do research on that, so we know that for sure? If you rule out functions, then uh {disfmarker} and that gets known, then people are not gonna buy it.
Marketing: {gap}
User Interface: {vocalsound} No, I thi
Industrial Designer: Then the consumer bond or something says uh you cannot do this and that with it. That's a bad bad com {vocalsound} commercial
Marketing: If um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Uh we'll we'll see what we can come up with.
Industrial Designer: for {vocalsound} {disfmarker} okay.
Marketing: Another thing I want to say is that uh we are looking at the market for the age uh {vocalsound} younger than forty.
Project Manager: Under forty. Yeah?
Industrial Designer: That's true.
Marketing: Um on my report, {vocalsound} I didn't uh {vocalsound} ish I didn't show it in my uh presentation,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: because my computer crashed.
Project Manager: Yeah yeah.
Marketing: Um they want to pay for an L_C_D_ screen and speech recognition.
Industrial Designer: Hmm. Hmm.
Project Manager: The want to pay for {disfmarker}
Marketing: So
Project Manager: Oh.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Did they really said it like that? Those two things.
Marketing: i yeah. Yeah,
Project Manager: Uh shall we?
Industrial Designer: Do they realise how much that costs? {vocalsound}
Marketing: and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: That's almost undoable.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Younger, age sixteen and forty five.
User Interface: Oh, we're not going to be able to sell it for twenty-five then, with an L_C_D_ screen.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: That's all here, here it says {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No, that's that's {gap}. Even if i if we have this lost unit, then we cannot do it for that price.
Project Manager: Yeah, age sixteen forty fi interest in main features more critical.
Marketing: If if they {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay, so we're not focusing on this. Um {disfmarker} All the interest in features, not really the L_C_ {disfmarker} oh here. Would you pay for uh speech recognition in a remote control. Hmm, okay?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah, that's true.
Marketing: So uh
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: we can
Project Manager: Speech recognition is quite {disfmarker}
Marketing: We can look at the possibilities for an uh L_C_D_ and uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, just look at the possibilities then,
Marketing: I dunno.
Project Manager: because if {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: apparently it's what people want,
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: it's supposed to be a luxurious remote,
Marketing: How much it will cost
Industrial Designer: Uh.
Marketing: and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: maybe it's not even that expensive. Or find a compromise, maybe just a black and white or {disfmarker} for some extra information on it, on your programmes.
Industrial Designer: Uh I {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well
Marketing: Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: I doubt it, but {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: But I really need finance information.
Project Manager: Me too. {vocalsound} I mean we all do. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} It will come uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: We all do. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Right. I think it's something we should put into consideration. Apparently it's what people want, so. We should see if {disfmarker} what it costs, if it's possible.
Industrial Designer: Mm. Uh.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Yeah, we should do a little thing about design, because it looks boring really to me. Even if you put it {disfmarker} even if you put a different cover on it, it looks {disfmarker} still looks boring,
Marketing: {vocalsound} Different colours maybe.
Project Manager: so.
Industrial Designer: Hmm. And the design, it should differ.
Marketing: But all {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: This is Philips, huh?
Project Manager: I have no clue.
Industrial Designer: Philips has this.
Project Manager: I just drew something what {disfmarker} which would fit into your hand easily.
User Interface: Well, I had basically {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay. Hmm. Uh.
User Interface: Something like this. To make it kind of futuristic.
Industrial Designer: Mm. Oh, I realise if we make it small, then it needs to be a little thicker,
Project Manager: I think it's a very {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: because I need to put all the electronics in it.
Project Manager: Sorry?
Industrial Designer: If we make it s uh smaller, uh less wide, then we need to m make it a little thicker,
Project Manager: Yeah?
Industrial Designer: because I have to put all the electronics in it.
Project Manager: Okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah, but you have to j just keep in mind it shouldn't be too heavy.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: I mean we can stick it in in there, I think.
Industrial Designer: No.
Project Manager: Huh even if {disfmarker}
User Interface: So
Project Manager: in the worst case we can even {disfmarker}
User Interface: what kind of {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Could you give me the pen back?
User Interface: Yeah, sure.
Project Manager: So let's say that people would want an L_C_D_ thing. Let's take take the basic design again, what we {disfmarker} oh, crap {disfmarker} uh came up with. I'll just make it a little bigger now. So a transmitter here. Anyway. We could {disfmarker} let's say we have an L_C_D_ screen, people want an L_C_D_ screen. So then we should probably put it here.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: It doesn't have to be really big, but just just have to be {disfmarker} has to be there.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: Think it's a good place, people don't {disfmarker}
Marketing: If you're reading from top to bottom, I think it's better to put it uh at the top.
Project Manager: No? It's not that uh {disfmarker} it's not the most important function,
Industrial Designer: Me too.
Marketing: It's j {vocalsound}
Project Manager: it's just an extra thing,
Industrial Designer: Ah
Project Manager: it just {disfmarker} you press the buttons on top,
Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh. But i if you if you are going to uh put the L_C_D_ on it, {vocalsound} I think it's very important to use it,
Industrial Designer: but {gap}.
Project Manager: because your finger is on top.
Marketing: uh because it's {vocalsound} {disfmarker} use it uh
Project Manager: How can you use an L_C_D_ screen?
Marketing: But nee the function of it. {vocalsound} So you can use it maximum, because uh it's a lot {disfmarker} it costs a lot.
Project Manager: Yeah, but why
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I {disfmarker} I'm not sure.
User Interface: Now it's pretty much tucked away in your hand.
Project Manager: Uh if you t if you press a button, you can see it,
Industrial Designer: Hmm. No.
Project Manager: ri I'm not sure wha I'm trying to imagine myself what it would look like.
User Interface: I'm {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: M I personally would prefer it on the top.
Project Manager: You would prefer it n Okay.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So we have three people saying it should be on top.
Industrial Designer: Huh.
Project Manager: Okay, but then you would would s have to stack away your buttons somewhere else.
Industrial Designer: But it {disfmarker} Hmm.
Project Manager: Anyways.
Marketing: It's expensive to build it,
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: so
Project Manager: Uh this looks a little {disfmarker}
User Interface: I'm still not convinced of the {disfmarker}
Marketing: you must use the maximum of it.
Project Manager: About the L_C_D_s thing.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Well if it if it's
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: if it's possible wi if it's not too expensive, we should include it,
Industrial Designer: They want it uh.
Project Manager: because it's it's cool. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} We should just try to make that if it's possible. If it is possible we should really do it, but we need that information.
Marketing: Huh. Uh. But uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Also keep in mind again, the L_C_D_ screen is very flat, but it needs transistors, resistors, I don't know what more and that needs space. So I have to look if that's possible.
Marketing: Yeah, I know uh.
User Interface: So basically
Industrial Designer: But if we {disfmarker}
User Interface: {disfmarker} can I {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh we have green now uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: what we have to decide now is uh what goes on top. Do we put the volume control and the channel control here, or do we put it on he Would we like to press it in the middle?
Project Manager: Or maybe we should m we could uh draw draw something a bit {disfmarker} that has it on on on the bottom.
Marketing: In middle of it. In the middle.
Project Manager: Maybe in a circle for example, like we {disfmarker} like in this example. I think this is not good, but for {disfmarker} we could make circular buttons for example. For up and down, ma make it a circle on it,
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
User Interface: Yes, but we do agree that we {vocalsound} keep this at the centre,
Project Manager: because it {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
User Interface: because it's basically the most important function.
Project Manager: I think the channel button should be in the centre.
Marketing: It's the most import yeah.
Project Manager: Channel button should be st stick together, for example here in this section. Because it's uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well, that would make them quite small.
Project Manager: We're not sure about the size anyway,
User Interface: So maybe you'd put them here.
Project Manager: just a general design. You can make it as big as you want. For example if you take uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yes, but a big remote control probably not something which people would like.
Project Manager: No,
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: let's see. For example just {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: If we have a a space issue, we can also lose one battery. It is rechargeable, so we can stick with one instead of two.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: {gap}.
Project Manager: I don't think if we if we even use an L_C_D_ screen, we need to, definitely.
Industrial Designer: That might be an option. Yeah, but if we need two batteries and an L_C_D_ screen, that means a lot of space that we need.
Project Manager: Yeah, but we have to see what the si what the size is.
Industrial Designer: But it has to be a little bit heavier.
Project Manager: The L_C_D_ doesn't have to nee doesn't need to be very big.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: {gap} {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: No, but the things behind it. {gap} space.
Project Manager: Mm let's see.
Industrial Designer: Like a process uh.
Marketing: Finish meeting now.
Project Manager: Finish meeting now.
Marketing: It's on your computer.
Project Manager: Okay, we will. So either {disfmarker}
User Interface: So would we like this or would we like the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: We either we have to decide what what people want.
Industrial Designer: I like this one more.
Project Manager: Either this one, this this could be the luxurious one. So we have channel buttons here. I'm just drawing something uh. Uh {disfmarker} I think this would this would look cool. You could have it for example {disfmarker} small buttons here for some extra functions,
Marketing: Uh.
Project Manager: so if your basic function's here, we should {disfmarker} like we decided before, programmes up and down, and volume here.
User Interface: Let's see what we have here.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Or {disfmarker} And uh what about speech recognition uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well you can just {disfmarker} no, I'm not sure if we can do that,
Marketing: Yeah, yeah,
Project Manager: but we could put a microphone in here for example.
Marketing: but {disfmarker} or or an L_C_D_ or an uh speech.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: I think it's {disfmarker} L_C_D_ is better now.
Project Manager: Just to do research into both, w what it costs and what it takes for space.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I'll try to.
Project Manager: But let's cut the meeting for now yes.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: One more uh thing I'd like to say, uh let's give this uh a name, and not like some vague serial number that no one understands, like with cars.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Yeah, okay, yeah,
Industrial Designer: Shall we all try uh to think about a name?
User Interface: So I think of a name.
Marketing: that's {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, let's think of a name, okay.
Marketing: yeah, that's okay.
Project Manager: Uh okay.
Marketing: Oh, good.
Project Manager: Okay, at anyways, the the minutes will be on the on the web shortly,
User Interface: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: so there we go uh.
User Interface: Yes, go and finish up and I'll see you at lunch.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Good luck.
Project Manager: Yeah, to all.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Same.
Project Manager: {gap}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, I've {disfmarker} Do we uh save the {gap}?
Project Manager: {gap}
Marketing: {gap}. {gap}. | In this meeting, the team first gave presentations about their ideas most about remote control's functional design based on research and knowledge they had already known. And then Project Manager delivered new requirements for the look, functions, and some others about the remote control. Later on the team brainstormed about many functional designs--where to put buttons and how much size they should be, the necessity of beep and flash, the design of covers, and the choice of LCD screen and rechargeable batteries--of the remote control based on new requirements, researches, current technology and production price. Finally they decided about the remote's button design and had an optimistic attitude towards rechargeable things but there still needed more market research when they gave a sketch of the new product. | qmsum |
What did the team discuss during the product evaluation?
Project Manager: Okay. Here we go. Alright, the agenda for thi oh. Alright. Um the agenda for this meeting {vocalsound} is um {disfmarker} we'll initially have the prototype presentation by our two designers. And then we will evaluate it, given the criteria that um that we gave gave it. And um talk about our finances, whether we were under or over our budget. I have a um a spreadsheet where we can calculate um our prices for every aspect of of what we've made, given our options. And um evaluate the product, as a group.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: And um {disfmarker} So first we'll have the prototype presentation. Do you need the um PowerPoint for this?
Industrial Designer: Um yeah. I just got a few slides, so show them.
Project Manager: Alright.
Industrial Designer: Thank you. Do you want to present it? {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, here we are.
User Interface: {vocalsound} This is what we came up with. It's a pretty simple design. It's um based on a mango? Yeah. And {vocalsound} we {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: On?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mango shape.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} A mango. Okay.
User Interface: Yeah. And we have the company logo here and this will be the infrared here
Industrial Designer: The L_E_D_.
User Interface: and this'll be the power point, the on off button kind {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh. Okay.
User Interface: yeah.
Marketing: I'm sorry.
Project Manager: Oops.
Marketing: What was the {disfmarker} where's the L_E_D_?
User Interface: It's in the middle of one of the little R_s.
Marketing: Oh. Okay.
User Interface: And then the other one is the power. And uh we just have a simple design. We wanted it all to be
Industrial Designer: So it's palm-held.
User Interface: accessible from your thumb
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: {disfmarker} yeah palm-held
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: and all the buttons are accessible from your thumb.
Project Manager: Notice you have a number ten button.
User Interface: So you don't have to {disfmarker} Oh that was a mistake, wasn't it?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: You just need the nought. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Right no, that's a zero.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Take that one off. {vocalsound} Sorry. I was in charge of the numbers. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} No problem.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ah.
User Interface: And this is just if you've got like eleven or twelve or thirt the plus.
Industrial Designer: So one plus one would be eleven,
User Interface: {vocalsound} You can go one, three or something.
Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh. You press a plus button?
User Interface: You press that first and then you go one three yeah.
Project Manager: Oh okay. I've never heard of that kind before.
User Interface: Well we just thought, we have all the numbers here, so we wanted something representative of numbers larger than ten and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah because if you {disfmarker} on your average um remote, if you press one twice you just go to {disfmarker} um or uh say you wanted channel twelve, you press one, and then you go to channel one, and then two then you'd just go to channel two, instead of twelve.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Oh, there's no e
Project Manager: Oh.
Industrial Designer: So if you did like one plus two you could go to channel twelve, or two plus two is channel twenty two.
User Interface: So the plus and then {disfmarker}
Marketing: okay.
User Interface: yeah.
Project Manager: I
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: But {disfmarker} Would you have to go zero plus one if you wanted to go to channel one or two?
User Interface: No no, th all {disfmarker} that's why we have all these numbers. These numbers um these numbers all work independently up to nine. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah but I mean if you press, it'll go to that channel right away.'Cause you gotta press the plus afterwards.
User Interface: Yeah. Oh no. Uh, the plus is only for if you're going past the number nine.
Project Manager: Yeah I know, but if if I wanna go to say number like sixty five, channel sixty five, if I press the six it'll go to channel six, and then I'll press the plus, and then it'll go to six and then put the five and it'll go to sixty five?
Marketing: Sixty.
User Interface: You p Oh. No you press the plus first.
Industrial Designer: Oh.
User Interface: I I {disfmarker} well it doesn't {disfmarker} we haven't really s I would've thought you pressed the plus first and then the six five,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: but she says plus {disfmarker} {vocalsound} press {disfmarker} which {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well I don't mind, we can further define that.
User Interface: what do you think is simpler?
Project Manager: I th Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: It's a {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I wouldn't have thought it'd be a problem that it went to channel six first, in like on the way to channel sixty five.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah it wouldn't be a problem. But I was just wondering
Industrial Designer: But I suppose it's not as snappy.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: like as long as we realise that's what it'll do.
Marketing: Well the there is a {disfmarker} there's a delay on remotes I think.
User Interface: Oops. Yeah.
Marketing: Where you can have it {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: it's like a five second input time.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. If you don't put it {disfmarker}
Marketing: So as long as you hit them dada
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: that {disfmarker} yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} it should be fine.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: As long as there's not a big pause between the t hitting the two buttons.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah. So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: Was there {disfmarker} so on the top there is volume and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: And channel,
User Interface: A channel.
Industrial Designer: which is so you could just go like that without thinking about it, like {disfmarker}
Marketing: Channel up volume up. Okay cool.
Project Manager: C_ and V_.
User Interface: Just so we can flick {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Right, where um where's the power button?
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: It's in the middle of one of the little R_s. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It's the bigger R_.
Marketing: It's the R_.
Project Manager: Oh okay.
Industrial Designer: So it's just like {vocalsound}.
User Interface: Yeah,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: so it's all accessible. Without m taking your hand off the remote.
Industrial Designer: We deci
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah um we went for like a a circular design for the numbers
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: because we thought that's kind of a more natural movement than just going like that with your thumb.
Project Manager: Oh okay.
Industrial Designer: Uh e ergonomics are all considered.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Ergonomic, definitely ergonomic.
User Interface: And {vocalsound} it might actually help with the repetitive stress injury as well.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It could cause another type of repetitive stress injury though.
User Interface: Okay. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: But yeah, no I mean it's a different movement
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um and the feel of it, I mean, we've made this out of Play Doh, which is representing the, you know, the rubber, and the spongy rubberness.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: The spon yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Um'cause it was said before in the material specification that this {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this anti-R_S_I_ um material is often used in stress balls so this has got a you know a bit of give to it,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and it just feels feels different.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Bit of a stress ball feel.
Industrial Designer: Would you like to feel it yourselves?
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yes. I would.
Industrial Designer: How it fits in the palm of your hand?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: My goodness.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} There you go.
Industrial Designer: And you? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Genevieve?
Marketing: Yes
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: . Oh it's nice. Oh I think I killed the five.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I did.
Project Manager: And something hmm. {vocalsound}
Marketing: I killed the four. Oh god. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: O Okay, as for the colours, we were presented with um a limited range of colours for this prototype.
User Interface: Of Play Doh yeah.
Marketing: Oh it smells good. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: But we're thinking that, seeing as we're having it in interchangeable casing anyway, that this is not necessarily a representation of the true colours that we would necessarily use. Or the combination. Um and we're thinking to carry-on with the fruit and vegetable theme, the colour um combination just could just be named after different fruit, like banana could be black and yellow, watermelon red and green,
Project Manager: Oh right.
Industrial Designer: or vanilla might be the most popular if it just uh blends in
User Interface:'Cause it'd be quite subtle and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: more settled cream instead of the others are all a bit garish.
Project Manager: Yeah. It looks more {disfmarker} Think like vanilla and banana would.
Industrial Designer: Banana's more representative of our colour scheme, like the company {disfmarker} the yellow and black.
Project Manager: Okay yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So that {disfmarker} for corporate identity that would probably be the most strength.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I mean watermelon, you know, m probably appealing to the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Kinda Christmas, you know.
Industrial Designer: yeah, seasonal.
User Interface: Yeah, yeah, yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Apple green, brown, more kinda trendy, you know, khaki {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: The pomegranate's kinda girly and funky kind of,
Project Manager: Cool.
User Interface: and then the vanilla's more for the more sophisticated {vocalsound} customer who just wants something that fits in with all decor.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Okay. Um yeah we thought of the components it was definitely um a focus of ergonomics and just a single ha handheld device, I mean you don't need to use both hands, one hand to hold this and type in with the other, you can just use your thumb.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um, as we said the rubber's probably used for comfort and anti-R_S_I_ and that's about it.
Project Manager: Alright, thank you very much.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Good work everyone.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Bravo {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Alright. And so now that we've we have a prototype, uh we need to go over the finances and seeing if this prototype matches uh what our budget can handle.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So, I have something I'm going to {disfmarker} Oh wait a minute.
Marketing: You want the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Do you need to do a presentation first?
Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't know what order it goes in.
Project Manager: Yeah. I'm gonna check that out for a second.
Marketing: I have one.
Industrial Designer: Mm go {disfmarker}
Project Manager: What time is it anyw
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Project Manager: Oh yeah sorry you're right. Evaluation criteria is next in line.
Marketing: Evaluation cri Okay. That's me.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Hello. Oh there we go. Okay. Come on my computer. Come on. {vocalsound} Sorry my computer's giving me technical difficulties.
Project Manager: Just press um function eight again.
Marketing: Should I press it again? Last time I did that it sh Okay. You're right.
Project Manager: And then again I think. One more time.
Marketing: Oh. Still not there.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah.
Marketing: Okay now I think for this one I could {disfmarker} Would you guys prefer use the whiteboard or mayb maybe I'll just do it on {disfmarker} right on the screen where you can see it. Um, we're gonna be doing an evaluation report together based on the protoptype that we've just seen. Um and looking looking back at my notes from our {disfmarker} both our conceptual and our functional meetings, um I made a list of what our original requirements and goals were, um, back to our kick-off meeting this morning. Um, and we'll evaluate as to whether we've s done what we set out to do. Um and we're gonna do it on a one to seven scale where one is true and seven is false. So basically the lower p the lower the points the better. {vocalsound} Okay so question number one. Does the remote {disfmarker} whoops. Sorry. Oh I'm not gonna be able {disfmarker} um, I'll do it on the whiteboard. I can't change it so I'm g I'm gonna ask you to push it down once.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: I'll write down our scores up on the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Ooh.
Marketing: Okay so number one. Do we have a fancy look-and-feel?
Industrial Designer: Feel I think.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: We've been quite successful with the rubber coating
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: The look is a little bit more playful.
User Interface: Well {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah I guess that depends on your definition of fancy, but it's definitely different.
Project Manager: Oh definitely different yeah.
Marketing: It's not your traditional {disfmarker} yeah.
Industrial Designer: I think the colour has a lot to do with it. I mean {vocalsound} th the colours we were given for making the prototype aren't the colours that I think we would've necessarily chosen.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: It's not the kind of {disfmarker} ooh uh at all sleek
Project Manager: Oh you were only given red and black?
Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} red, black and yellow, and orange.
Project Manager: Oh okay.
User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} not very sleek and we don't wanna go for black because most remote controls are black or grey.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: So we want it to be stand out that way, anyway.
Project Manager: Yeah. Okay.
Industrial Designer: But if you can imagine that in like a s just a {disfmarker} maybe uh a kind of pale metallic-y finish or something {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. A metallic-y finish we were thinking.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I know know it's for rubber.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I mean diff if you can visualise this in nice colours I think it would look quite fancy. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Polished. Okay {disfmarker} Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. I kinda {disfmarker} I like the potato look.
Project Manager: It's mango. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh well, potato, mango, fruit and veg.
User Interface: {vocalsound} We we were {vocalsound} we were thinking about {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: It's very different. It's what?
Project Manager: It's mango. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh sorry the mango the mango look.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Potato's fine. Potato's fine.
User Interface: yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah it is, fruit or vegetable depends on your mood.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Totally. It's really adaptable.
Marketing: So I myself would say a one or a two.
Project Manager: Yeah. I would say two. Personally.
User Interface: I w I'd say two I think.
Marketing: It's a two?
Industrial Designer: For the
Marketing: Okay,
User Interface: Fanciness.
Marketing: and p
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: fancy {disfmarker}
Marketing: One being true. So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} uh two, three. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Two.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay, actu that's pro that's gonna get confusing, like that. Okay so question number two was {vocalsound} is it techn technologically innovative? So I know we have the kinetic energy which is very innovative.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah and the use of the rubber.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Use of the rubber, the use of the L_E_D_.
Industrial Designer: For the anti-R_S_I_.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: The L_E_D_ use isn't particularly innovative
Marketing: Isn't {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: and we don't have any scroll buttons, it's all pushbuttons,
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: there's no L_C_D_ control, so if we're thinking about the rest of the market, it's sort of probably halfway.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: In some aspects it is, like we said.
Project Manager: Yeah. I'd say maybe three.
User Interface: I'll go for three as well.
Marketing: Yeah. And I think {disfmarker} I mean it it's tough to say because we were {disfmarker} we didn't want it to be any more innovative than this, because then that would've defeated the purpose.
Project Manager: Yeah we want it simple.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Though it was our specification.
User Interface: No. Wouldn't be simple, yeah.
Marketing: So I mean I {disfmarker} we'll put three, but I think we actually reached our goal.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} We didn't want it any more than that. Okay question number three. Uh, will it be easy to use?
Project Manager: I think so. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah very.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: I think one for that.
Marketing: Yeah. S Yeah
Project Manager: Yeah. One.
Marketing: I think it's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: you can't really get confused with that.
User Interface: No.
Project Manager: Th
Marketing: I mean, there'll be s we have to work out the uh number {disfmarker} the plus system.
Project Manager: The plus number thing.
User Interface: Yeah that's the only thing yeah.
Marketing: But once that's figured out, it should be fine.
Industrial Designer: Yeah and perhaps the turning on but {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Number four. Is this a good-looking remote?
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Remember that seventy five percent of users find most remote controls ugly.
User Interface: {vocalsound} It's definitely {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Again I think the colour comes into this.
Project Manager: Yeah colour will definitely be a factor.
Marketing: Mm-hmm {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: I think that the logo could be smaller.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: And maybe not such a prominent way.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Maybe like at the bottom, kind of.
User Interface: But the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Not in {disfmarker}
User Interface: Remember the management said that it it had to be prominent.
Project Manager: Oh it just had to be on there I guess.
Marketing: Whoops.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Should just not touch it.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Don't worry. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} This time it's the three I killed. {vocalsound} I was just wondering if it should be like flatter. Or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I suppose I've got quite big hands.
Project Manager: I like the appeal of it being like a big glob in your hand.
Marketing: Well {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: But you know what I've just thought of there now. What {disfmarker} where's it gonna sit in your living room? Is it not gonna fall off the arm of the sofa?
Project Manager: Maybe if the bottom was just sort of flat, and then the rest is like
Marketing: Yeah the bottom could be like ch chopped a bit.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: round.
User Interface: But then it wouldn't sit as comfortably in your hand {vocalsound}.
Marketing: Oh. That's true.
Project Manager: It would still be comfortable I think. We c we could handle it I think.
Industrial Designer: Thing is like that, it's not going anywhere particularly.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: Maybe, it could {disfmarker} it could be on the bottom, so you wouldn't loo like if it's flat here, so it sits up.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Like that.
User Interface: Oh that would be nice. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Ah it'd fall over all the time though. It'd be annoying.
Industrial Designer: Uh yeah, it's less um, what's th ha.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I g If it's weighted maybe.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}'Kay we're done designing.
Industrial Designer: H it's got higher centre of gravity like that.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Details, details. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Come on.
Marketing: Okay. So, is this a good-looking remote? {vocalsound} Would we wanna show it off to our friends? {vocalsound}
User Interface: Three. You would though,'cause it's bit {disfmarker} it's more interesting than other remotes.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: I think, it was another colour and it was like {disfmarker} I think it'd look okay. I think maybe a two.
Marketing: Yeah?
Industrial Designer: I would definitely go for that rather than like your average plain old remote like that,
Marketing: I mean I gue yeah, it's personal taste, but {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: but definitely in another colour, I'm not happy with those colours.
Marketing: Okay, so should we say two for that?
Project Manager: Sure.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay. Uh, question number five. What's um {disfmarker} will people be willing to spend twenty five Euros on this product? Remember that eighty percent of users were willing to spend more money when a remote control looked fancy.
User Interface: I think we have to market it in the right way, that um {disfmarker} to say that it is simplistic.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So people don't just see it and think, uh, this is so simplistic, I don't want to spend twenty five Euros.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: We have to market it.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah it {disfmarker} the marketing will have a lot to do with it.
Industrial Designer: And {vocalsound} the kinetic energy, shaker-style-y, whoo,
User Interface: And the kinetic energy part. Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Durable. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: ooh no. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Shake it and the buttons fall off. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But you know, those'll be firmly on.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Don't shake {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Oh no the plus. {vocalsound} You're
Marketing: No, I guess, I don't know much about the remote control industry, how much your average sells for,
User Interface: {disfmarker} use the zero.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Make a new one.
Project Manager: But you're our Marketing Expert. {vocalsound}
Marketing: but {disfmarker} I know I am, aren't I?
User Interface: I think they're about ten po ten pound, aren't they? About ten pounds. Fifteen?
Marketing: But you don't have to buy batteries. So in the long term this can actually save you money.
Industrial Designer: Mm, yeah, that's true.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Oh. Exactly. Exactly.
Marketing: So we'll market it that way too.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Good point.
Marketing: So yeah I think with a good marketing scheme um and the personalisation options, it'll {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. I would give it a two still though.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: Yeah. Okay number six. Can someone read it out?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Does this prototype match the operating behaviour of the average user.
Marketing: Or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Um yeah. So that was mainly that the statistics {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: I think it does very well.
Project Manager: Oh yeah.
Industrial Designer: Because {disfmarker}
Marketing: we said {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: yeah, because the most accessible buttons are the volume and the and the channel-changing.
User Interface: The zap {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And it's just {disfmarker} you won't have to think about it.
User Interface: yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: You don't have to look down to find them.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: They're clearly there, easy to use.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Simple.
User Interface: Uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah I guess the {disfmarker} I think the key word there is average,'cause there were some people that used the uh video input and sound and stuff.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: But they're not you and I really.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: So. Okay so one?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay. Number seven. C Heather could you push it down? Will this remote control be easy to find when lost? Remember that fifty percent of users lose their remote regularly.
Project Manager: We have the alarm system.
Marketing: Now is there the {disfmarker} is the alarm system still {disfmarker} was it implemented?
User Interface: Yeah the bu when you press the alarm system, the {vocalsound} lights {vocalsound} behind the {disfmarker} and it'll vibra {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} Yeah
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: l lights on and, or flash as well. But I mean it's not obviously obvious from the outside that that's gonna happen'cause you can't s particularly see an alarm.
User Interface: It'll be again in the marketing.
Project Manager: I thought the light from the inside was gonna light up.
User Interface: Yeah. The light {disfmarker} it will.
Project Manager: Or or was it gonna make a noise?
Industrial Designer: Yeah. But when the alarm's not {disfmarker}
User Interface: But {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: yeah. If you {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: But both {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: You press the button it makes a noise right?
Marketing: {vocalsound} It turns into a duck and starts quacking.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: You could s {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. Awesome. Awesome.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh, that would be brilliant.
Marketing: Here I am.
User Interface: I'd be tempted to {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well the thing is, if it was {disfmarker} had an alarm system,
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I mean, when it when it lights up as we I mean it could light up when the alarm went. But if it was hidden underneath the cushion or something, there wouldn't be any point.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So you can't see the alarm, but it would light up.
User Interface: It would have to be in the market
Project Manager: I though w it was gonna make a noise.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Alarm,
User Interface: Yeah but you still couldn't see it.
Industrial Designer: but you can't see an alarm inside uh {disfmarker} the alarm system itself.
User Interface: It would just be a little speaker on the back or something.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: We {disfmarker} oh you're just explaining why it's not on the prototype.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah. It w yeah.
Marketing: But yeah, it'll be there.
Project Manager: Oh okay.
Marketing: So we can {disfmarker} we could say that {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Whoo. Okay.
Industrial Designer: Sorry.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: We can give it a one, because compared to every other remote ever m ever made, this one will be easier to find.
Project Manager: Yeah, totally.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay. Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorry Heather.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No problem, mm.
Industrial Designer: That wasn't very clear.
Marketing: Question number eight. Will it be easy to learn how to use this remote when brand new? Remember that thirty four percent of users usually found it difficult.
Project Manager: Totally.
Marketing: So it has to be {disfmarker} yeah, it's eas they'll pick it up and they'll know what to do.
User Interface: So the plu the plus {disfmarker} w once that's written down on the page that'll be really simple,
Marketing: The plus thing needs to be worked on.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah
User Interface: won't it?
Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: just because it's {disfmarker} we've decided to reduce it down to the basic buttons, I think that in itself makes it so much easier to use.
Marketing: Well {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Do {disfmarker} Does it make more sense for the middle one to be an {disfmarker} just an enter button? So then you would have to push two buttons every time at least.
Project Manager: Yeah, so it's just like channel six, six, enter.
User Interface: That kind of annoys me though, when it's zero six when you have to press {disfmarker}
Marketing: {gap}
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah but you don't have to press zeros.
User Interface: I don't know why. {vocalsound}
Marketing: You could just press six enter,
User Interface: Oh okay. Right.
Project Manager: And then like twelve, enter.
Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} or sixty six enter, y
Marketing: or one two enter.
User Interface: Alright, aye.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah I think that's probably more straightforward. Yeah. Good {gap} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Um, okay so we can {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: I'd say w yeah one.
Marketing: we'll say yes it's uh one?
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Ooh. Mm.
Marketing: Question number nine.
Industrial Designer: Oh.
Marketing: Uh, will it minimise the effects of R_S_I_, which was repeated strain injury?
Industrial Designer: Injury.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Um, which affected over a quarter of users.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Hmm.
Marketing: S
Project Manager: I think so. It's like right in the {disfmarker}
User Interface: But if you're zapping {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Your thumb might get a little bit uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
User Interface: yeah. I don't think it will f
Industrial Designer: We may have to do some more research into other strain injuries that we don't know about.
User Interface: Yeah,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: the biology.
Project Manager: But it is soft.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: It's soft,
Project Manager: And that's kind of what the um
Marketing: and {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: the PowerPoint slide thing said would be good for R_S_I_,
Marketing: And people could {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: so {disfmarker} maybe it is but {disfmarker}
Marketing: I don't know what other options there are.
Industrial Designer: I think we're getting {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: that's true.
Marketing: Could {disfmarker} I mean, you could hold it in your left hand and d use your index finger.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: But there's not really any other options unless it's like a keyboard.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: So, I think we did as as much as you can with a remote control.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: So, one or two do you think?
Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker}
User Interface: I I'd say t
Industrial Designer: yeah, I think too.
User Interface: two. Yeah
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Two okay. Okay number ten. Did we somehow incorporate the company colour and logo?
Project Manager: Yes we did.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Now is the colour gonna be there even if it's like vanilla?
User Interface: {vocalsound} N We we can't really do that
Marketing: Is the yellow {disfmarker}
User Interface: because for example on the banana theme we can't have it as being yellow.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: It won't stand out.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So n it's not always gonna be the same colour.
Marketing: It sounds like the colour's something that we {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well, yeah the colours are yellow and grey.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Gray, yeah.
Project Manager: So it could be grey on the banana one.
User Interface: Yeah, could be grey.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: But I mean the yell yeah d yellow's ugly though,
User Interface: Yeah that's right,
Marketing: depending on the {disfmarker}
User Interface: we didn't even rea
Marketing: So I think we'll have to talk to our executive managers, and see if we can get away with just the R_R_.
Industrial Designer: Mm. Yeah. I think this is the
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: the factor that we've been least successful in confronting.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Perhaps a metallic
Project Manager: Mm, yeah.
User Interface: or or {disfmarker} like that's grey, and it wouldn't be that expensive to have a little bit of metal. No?
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: That isn't rubber.
Marketing: And the buttons in the middle.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay So, do you think that's more of a three then? Three, four?
Industrial Designer: Four I think. Well I don't {disfmarker}
Marketing: Four?
Industrial Designer: what do {disfmarker} what {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Hum.
Marketing: Well we have good reasons for it, so we {disfmarker} but we can still put a a four?
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Okay, and final question. {vocalsound} Um, did we stay true to our motto and put the fashion into electronics?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Current trends of fruits and veggies, desire for sponginess. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I would say so.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Following that briefing we did.
Project Manager: But maybe more like two'cause there's no like pictures of fruit, it's just sort of naming it by a fruit.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: With the with the colours.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Like um the colour scheme names and stuff.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: No, uh, are the plates interchangeable?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I think I missed a few {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: they are? So you can have banana and kiwi and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: okay. Okay, so that's something that's kind of in the making too, like maybe it'll become more {disfmarker}
Project Manager: That's fashionable in itself to have interchangeable plates.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: It is.
User Interface: I think w yeah, I think one. Well that was our brief and we followed the brief.
Industrial Designer: The thing is, I think if somebody saw that and you said what was that inspired from, I don't know if you'd instantly say mango.
User Interface: Well we haven't got a big banana but {disfmarker} Oh yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Be like {disfmarker}
User Interface: No. {vocalsound} No. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Maybe if it was scented.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh that would be class. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah. There we go. That would be great.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah we have money for that. Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright so based on this evaluation, do we average them out sorta thing?
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yes we do. So I {disfmarker} wh what was I gonna put for that?
Project Manager: Oh.
Marketing: A two for fashion?
Project Manager: I would say two.
User Interface: Yeah. Two.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: Okay, so our average there, five, six, eight, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fifteen, nineteen, twenty one, divided by eleven
Project Manager: One point nine or something?
User Interface: It's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker}
Marketing: is {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't know these things. Um, between one and two.
Industrial Designer: Between one and two.
Marketing: Between {disfmarker} okay.
Industrial Designer: So that's pretty fantastic.
User Interface: Close to two.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, that's very good'cause the highest we coulda got is one.
Project Manager: Alright.
User Interface: I got {disfmarker}
Marketing: Does that seem right then?
User Interface: Yeah,'cause we've a four to bring down.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Uh, aye.
Industrial Designer: It seems like it should be more around two.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. Uh, should've added five.
Industrial Designer: Do we have an online calculator?
Project Manager: I'm attempting to do that {vocalsound} right now.
User Interface: {vocalsound} This is {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Yeah it is one point nine. Ooh.
Industrial Designer: Oh wow. Well done.
User Interface: Yay.
Project Manager: Go Heather Pauls.
Industrial Designer: Well that's excellent.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Alright, now with that over and done with, our next step is to see if we are under budget. And um my computer's frozen. And now it's not. Okay. So um in our shared folder, if everyone could go there right now, um I'm going to um steal a cable.
Marketing: Sorry. Are you gonna do that? Okay.
Project Manager: Um it's it's um
User Interface: Is that the project document?
Project Manager: it's an Excel file. Oh.
Industrial Designer: Production costs.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager:'Kay there we go. Um, production costs. And um I have to access that as well. One moment. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It says it {disfmarker}
Project Manager:'Kay so far I've added what I think {disfmarker} or what is going on? Great. It's blinking at me. It's locked for editing. Read only. I'm gonna open up a second one then'cause it's locked for editing. I have the original in my um my email account.
Marketing: Oh is it locked'cause I'm in it?
Project Manager: I dunno.
Industrial Designer: I think it just means that we can't add any more to it now.
Marketing: Or {disfmarker} okay.
Industrial Designer: Have you have you completed it?
Project Manager: No. No, I was hoping that you guys could.
Industrial Designer: Oh right. Okay. Okay.
Project Manager: Um, there we go.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay here we go. So we need to tally up how much our w our product will be costing. So um if you can look up at the screen, um the large screen,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: oh I guess looking at your own too and telling me which one you think. Okay we're using kinetic which is quite a large expense at three Euros.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um we're using a regular chip.
User Interface: Oh right.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Um, it's cur it's double curved, so its curved all around.
Industrial Designer: Double double-curved yeah.
Project Manager: That's another three. We're already at five. Um, we're using plastic and rubber,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Good thing plastic is free, we're at eight. Um {disfmarker} S
User Interface: What about a special colour?
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Are we using that?
Project Manager: I guess we should do it just for one kind. So it's like special colour {disfmarker} well we'll have two colours
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: right? Well one colour for the case, one colour for the buttons.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: So we can {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Um, we have push button interface, so that's inexpensive. And um we have a special colour for the button, and we also have a special form. And a special material.
User Interface: And a special material. Yeah.
Project Manager: Which puts us just barely under budget.
Industrial Designer: Oof.
Project Manager: Hurray.
Industrial Designer: Congratulations guys.
Project Manager: Yeah. Good work guys.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm.'S good. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So um our operating cost is twelve twenty Euros.
User Interface: That's good.
Project Manager: Awesome. And back to our PowerPoint. So we've {disfmarker}'Kay. Yes we are. So we need to do a product evaluation, again,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: which is probably um {disfmarker} I dunno. A different extension of a {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Of the actual project rather than the product?
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: A project? Is is {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah'cause we're talking about leadership, teamwork.
Industrial Designer: yeah. So wh how we actually went round uh about doing it.
Project Manager: Yeah. Alright so um {disfmarker} Do you guys feel like there was room for creativity?
Industrial Designer: I think we were pushed.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Pushed for creativity?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I mean we weren't really given a lot of time, or materials, yeah, to go about our design task.
User Interface: The ma Or materials. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So I think we could've done with a bit more time.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Ye Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So it'd be like need more time and materials. But you were allowed m creativity?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: I think so as like {disfmarker} but you were supposed to have creativ
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah and the conceptual and functional. Like we were very creative in in coming up with an idea I guess, but m
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Well we were just limited by resources really and like if we had decided to use the L_C_D_ screen, and like solar power backup and everything, then we wouldn't have been able to afford that.
Marketing: When we can down to it.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Right.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: So that did limit creativity.
User Interface: Creativity.
Project Manager: Right
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Just resources.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay
Industrial Designer: But yeah. The fruit and veg idea. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Great.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Leadership? Is this me being like, guys do you like me? Um. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound}.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Good leadership, I think we stayed on task.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah we did. We've, uh {disfmarker} seeing as we've come out with what we intended. A pro um a product within the budget. I think that's a sign of good leadership
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and also our personal coach helped us along the way,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: so you know {disfmarker} I think it's been fine.
Marketing: And the timing was good. We never were pushed for time, or sat around doing nothing, so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Good timing.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Oop {gap} Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Teamwork?
Industrial Designer: And project manager of course.
Project Manager: I think we worked great as a team. Yeah?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Was good teamwork. I think we are well-suited to our roles.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Alright how were our means?
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: We needed more Play Doh colours.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah and more Play Doh,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer:'cause that was all the red we had.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So even if we wanted to make a bigger prototype, we wouldn't have been able to.
User Interface: Yeah, it c it might've been bigger. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh really?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} But ever everything else was satisfactory?
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Is that good {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. The computer programmes are good.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. It could be really straightforward for the computer.
Marketing: The {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I think the only thing was having to remember to you know to tick the okays
Marketing: Yeah. I don't think there was anything {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: but I think I was the only one who struggled with that. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I'm actually not sure if I've saved my presentations. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Mm. Uh me too.
Marketing: They'll probably still be there.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: New ideas found. I don't really know what that means.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Well I think we've all learnt stuff from each other,
Marketing: Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: like the n um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. Through discussion.
Industrial Designer: yeah. Just about each different {gap}. Got new ideas from each other. {vocalsound}
Marketing: I'm not sure, new ideas found.
Project Manager: Hmm?
Marketing: Yeah well I guess we really {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} we bounced off of each other, which was cool.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Like based on marketing stuff and then you'd say something about interface and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: yeah, worked well.
User Interface: And we were a able to modify each other's ideas
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: to fit in with our areas of expertise. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. Each other's {gap}
Marketing: Oh does it have smart materials by the way?
Industrial Designer: Sorry?
Marketing: Does it have smart materials?
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Well mm, did it come into the into {disfmarker}
User Interface: If if it if it {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I dunno if we counted that in the costs. {vocalsound}
User Interface: If it can be afforded.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay? Well with that achieved, our last slide is our closing slide.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yes our costs are within budget. It's evaluated generally positively.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: And um don't forget to complete final questionnaire and meeting summary.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Then we celebrate
Industrial Designer: Uh. Fantastic.
User Interface: Yay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} By watching T_V_? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: in such a way that I have no idea.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay, brilliant.
Project Manager: Alright?
Industrial Designer: Thank you very much. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, bye. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm. Conclusion? Dadada. | The team agreed that the prototype had a fancy look-and-feels once they did not choose the traditional ugly black and grey color but incorporated the company's color. Although, there were only push buttons and no LED display, the incorporation of the kinetic energy, making the device more durable and rubber material made it technologically innovative. Moreover, the team thought the device was easy to use and good looking but Project Manager suggested that the company logo could be smaller. Besides, the device's simplistic made it stand out and customers were willing to pay a little more for that and its good appearance. Last but not least, the device could match the operating behavior of the average user and the alarming function, a light would vibrate, added value to the device. | qmsum |
What did the team discuss about the product cost?
Project Manager: Okay. Here we go. Alright, the agenda for thi oh. Alright. Um the agenda for this meeting {vocalsound} is um {disfmarker} we'll initially have the prototype presentation by our two designers. And then we will evaluate it, given the criteria that um that we gave gave it. And um talk about our finances, whether we were under or over our budget. I have a um a spreadsheet where we can calculate um our prices for every aspect of of what we've made, given our options. And um evaluate the product, as a group.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: And um {disfmarker} So first we'll have the prototype presentation. Do you need the um PowerPoint for this?
Industrial Designer: Um yeah. I just got a few slides, so show them.
Project Manager: Alright.
Industrial Designer: Thank you. Do you want to present it? {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, here we are.
User Interface: {vocalsound} This is what we came up with. It's a pretty simple design. It's um based on a mango? Yeah. And {vocalsound} we {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: On?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mango shape.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} A mango. Okay.
User Interface: Yeah. And we have the company logo here and this will be the infrared here
Industrial Designer: The L_E_D_.
User Interface: and this'll be the power point, the on off button kind {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh. Okay.
User Interface: yeah.
Marketing: I'm sorry.
Project Manager: Oops.
Marketing: What was the {disfmarker} where's the L_E_D_?
User Interface: It's in the middle of one of the little R_s.
Marketing: Oh. Okay.
User Interface: And then the other one is the power. And uh we just have a simple design. We wanted it all to be
Industrial Designer: So it's palm-held.
User Interface: accessible from your thumb
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: {disfmarker} yeah palm-held
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: and all the buttons are accessible from your thumb.
Project Manager: Notice you have a number ten button.
User Interface: So you don't have to {disfmarker} Oh that was a mistake, wasn't it?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: You just need the nought. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Right no, that's a zero.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Take that one off. {vocalsound} Sorry. I was in charge of the numbers. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} No problem.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ah.
User Interface: And this is just if you've got like eleven or twelve or thirt the plus.
Industrial Designer: So one plus one would be eleven,
User Interface: {vocalsound} You can go one, three or something.
Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh. You press a plus button?
User Interface: You press that first and then you go one three yeah.
Project Manager: Oh okay. I've never heard of that kind before.
User Interface: Well we just thought, we have all the numbers here, so we wanted something representative of numbers larger than ten and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah because if you {disfmarker} on your average um remote, if you press one twice you just go to {disfmarker} um or uh say you wanted channel twelve, you press one, and then you go to channel one, and then two then you'd just go to channel two, instead of twelve.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Oh, there's no e
Project Manager: Oh.
Industrial Designer: So if you did like one plus two you could go to channel twelve, or two plus two is channel twenty two.
User Interface: So the plus and then {disfmarker}
Marketing: okay.
User Interface: yeah.
Project Manager: I
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: But {disfmarker} Would you have to go zero plus one if you wanted to go to channel one or two?
User Interface: No no, th all {disfmarker} that's why we have all these numbers. These numbers um these numbers all work independently up to nine. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah but I mean if you press, it'll go to that channel right away.'Cause you gotta press the plus afterwards.
User Interface: Yeah. Oh no. Uh, the plus is only for if you're going past the number nine.
Project Manager: Yeah I know, but if if I wanna go to say number like sixty five, channel sixty five, if I press the six it'll go to channel six, and then I'll press the plus, and then it'll go to six and then put the five and it'll go to sixty five?
Marketing: Sixty.
User Interface: You p Oh. No you press the plus first.
Industrial Designer: Oh.
User Interface: I I {disfmarker} well it doesn't {disfmarker} we haven't really s I would've thought you pressed the plus first and then the six five,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: but she says plus {disfmarker} {vocalsound} press {disfmarker} which {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well I don't mind, we can further define that.
User Interface: what do you think is simpler?
Project Manager: I th Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: It's a {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I wouldn't have thought it'd be a problem that it went to channel six first, in like on the way to channel sixty five.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah it wouldn't be a problem. But I was just wondering
Industrial Designer: But I suppose it's not as snappy.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: like as long as we realise that's what it'll do.
Marketing: Well the there is a {disfmarker} there's a delay on remotes I think.
User Interface: Oops. Yeah.
Marketing: Where you can have it {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: it's like a five second input time.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. If you don't put it {disfmarker}
Marketing: So as long as you hit them dada
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: that {disfmarker} yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} it should be fine.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: As long as there's not a big pause between the t hitting the two buttons.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah. So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: Was there {disfmarker} so on the top there is volume and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: And channel,
User Interface: A channel.
Industrial Designer: which is so you could just go like that without thinking about it, like {disfmarker}
Marketing: Channel up volume up. Okay cool.
Project Manager: C_ and V_.
User Interface: Just so we can flick {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Right, where um where's the power button?
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: It's in the middle of one of the little R_s. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It's the bigger R_.
Marketing: It's the R_.
Project Manager: Oh okay.
Industrial Designer: So it's just like {vocalsound}.
User Interface: Yeah,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: so it's all accessible. Without m taking your hand off the remote.
Industrial Designer: We deci
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah um we went for like a a circular design for the numbers
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: because we thought that's kind of a more natural movement than just going like that with your thumb.
Project Manager: Oh okay.
Industrial Designer: Uh e ergonomics are all considered.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Ergonomic, definitely ergonomic.
User Interface: And {vocalsound} it might actually help with the repetitive stress injury as well.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It could cause another type of repetitive stress injury though.
User Interface: Okay. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: But yeah, no I mean it's a different movement
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um and the feel of it, I mean, we've made this out of Play Doh, which is representing the, you know, the rubber, and the spongy rubberness.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: The spon yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Um'cause it was said before in the material specification that this {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this anti-R_S_I_ um material is often used in stress balls so this has got a you know a bit of give to it,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and it just feels feels different.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Bit of a stress ball feel.
Industrial Designer: Would you like to feel it yourselves?
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yes. I would.
Industrial Designer: How it fits in the palm of your hand?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: My goodness.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} There you go.
Industrial Designer: And you? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Genevieve?
Marketing: Yes
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: . Oh it's nice. Oh I think I killed the five.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I did.
Project Manager: And something hmm. {vocalsound}
Marketing: I killed the four. Oh god. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: O Okay, as for the colours, we were presented with um a limited range of colours for this prototype.
User Interface: Of Play Doh yeah.
Marketing: Oh it smells good. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: But we're thinking that, seeing as we're having it in interchangeable casing anyway, that this is not necessarily a representation of the true colours that we would necessarily use. Or the combination. Um and we're thinking to carry-on with the fruit and vegetable theme, the colour um combination just could just be named after different fruit, like banana could be black and yellow, watermelon red and green,
Project Manager: Oh right.
Industrial Designer: or vanilla might be the most popular if it just uh blends in
User Interface:'Cause it'd be quite subtle and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: more settled cream instead of the others are all a bit garish.
Project Manager: Yeah. It looks more {disfmarker} Think like vanilla and banana would.
Industrial Designer: Banana's more representative of our colour scheme, like the company {disfmarker} the yellow and black.
Project Manager: Okay yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So that {disfmarker} for corporate identity that would probably be the most strength.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I mean watermelon, you know, m probably appealing to the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Kinda Christmas, you know.
Industrial Designer: yeah, seasonal.
User Interface: Yeah, yeah, yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Apple green, brown, more kinda trendy, you know, khaki {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: The pomegranate's kinda girly and funky kind of,
Project Manager: Cool.
User Interface: and then the vanilla's more for the more sophisticated {vocalsound} customer who just wants something that fits in with all decor.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Okay. Um yeah we thought of the components it was definitely um a focus of ergonomics and just a single ha handheld device, I mean you don't need to use both hands, one hand to hold this and type in with the other, you can just use your thumb.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um, as we said the rubber's probably used for comfort and anti-R_S_I_ and that's about it.
Project Manager: Alright, thank you very much.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Good work everyone.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Bravo {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Alright. And so now that we've we have a prototype, uh we need to go over the finances and seeing if this prototype matches uh what our budget can handle.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So, I have something I'm going to {disfmarker} Oh wait a minute.
Marketing: You want the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Do you need to do a presentation first?
Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't know what order it goes in.
Project Manager: Yeah. I'm gonna check that out for a second.
Marketing: I have one.
Industrial Designer: Mm go {disfmarker}
Project Manager: What time is it anyw
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Project Manager: Oh yeah sorry you're right. Evaluation criteria is next in line.
Marketing: Evaluation cri Okay. That's me.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Hello. Oh there we go. Okay. Come on my computer. Come on. {vocalsound} Sorry my computer's giving me technical difficulties.
Project Manager: Just press um function eight again.
Marketing: Should I press it again? Last time I did that it sh Okay. You're right.
Project Manager: And then again I think. One more time.
Marketing: Oh. Still not there.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah.
Marketing: Okay now I think for this one I could {disfmarker} Would you guys prefer use the whiteboard or mayb maybe I'll just do it on {disfmarker} right on the screen where you can see it. Um, we're gonna be doing an evaluation report together based on the protoptype that we've just seen. Um and looking looking back at my notes from our {disfmarker} both our conceptual and our functional meetings, um I made a list of what our original requirements and goals were, um, back to our kick-off meeting this morning. Um, and we'll evaluate as to whether we've s done what we set out to do. Um and we're gonna do it on a one to seven scale where one is true and seven is false. So basically the lower p the lower the points the better. {vocalsound} Okay so question number one. Does the remote {disfmarker} whoops. Sorry. Oh I'm not gonna be able {disfmarker} um, I'll do it on the whiteboard. I can't change it so I'm g I'm gonna ask you to push it down once.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: I'll write down our scores up on the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Ooh.
Marketing: Okay so number one. Do we have a fancy look-and-feel?
Industrial Designer: Feel I think.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: We've been quite successful with the rubber coating
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: The look is a little bit more playful.
User Interface: Well {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah I guess that depends on your definition of fancy, but it's definitely different.
Project Manager: Oh definitely different yeah.
Marketing: It's not your traditional {disfmarker} yeah.
Industrial Designer: I think the colour has a lot to do with it. I mean {vocalsound} th the colours we were given for making the prototype aren't the colours that I think we would've necessarily chosen.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: It's not the kind of {disfmarker} ooh uh at all sleek
Project Manager: Oh you were only given red and black?
Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} red, black and yellow, and orange.
Project Manager: Oh okay.
User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} not very sleek and we don't wanna go for black because most remote controls are black or grey.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: So we want it to be stand out that way, anyway.
Project Manager: Yeah. Okay.
Industrial Designer: But if you can imagine that in like a s just a {disfmarker} maybe uh a kind of pale metallic-y finish or something {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. A metallic-y finish we were thinking.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I know know it's for rubber.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I mean diff if you can visualise this in nice colours I think it would look quite fancy. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Polished. Okay {disfmarker} Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. I kinda {disfmarker} I like the potato look.
Project Manager: It's mango. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh well, potato, mango, fruit and veg.
User Interface: {vocalsound} We we were {vocalsound} we were thinking about {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: It's very different. It's what?
Project Manager: It's mango. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh sorry the mango the mango look.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Potato's fine. Potato's fine.
User Interface: yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah it is, fruit or vegetable depends on your mood.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Totally. It's really adaptable.
Marketing: So I myself would say a one or a two.
Project Manager: Yeah. I would say two. Personally.
User Interface: I w I'd say two I think.
Marketing: It's a two?
Industrial Designer: For the
Marketing: Okay,
User Interface: Fanciness.
Marketing: and p
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: fancy {disfmarker}
Marketing: One being true. So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} uh two, three. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Two.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay, actu that's pro that's gonna get confusing, like that. Okay so question number two was {vocalsound} is it techn technologically innovative? So I know we have the kinetic energy which is very innovative.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah and the use of the rubber.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Use of the rubber, the use of the L_E_D_.
Industrial Designer: For the anti-R_S_I_.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: The L_E_D_ use isn't particularly innovative
Marketing: Isn't {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: and we don't have any scroll buttons, it's all pushbuttons,
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: there's no L_C_D_ control, so if we're thinking about the rest of the market, it's sort of probably halfway.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: In some aspects it is, like we said.
Project Manager: Yeah. I'd say maybe three.
User Interface: I'll go for three as well.
Marketing: Yeah. And I think {disfmarker} I mean it it's tough to say because we were {disfmarker} we didn't want it to be any more innovative than this, because then that would've defeated the purpose.
Project Manager: Yeah we want it simple.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Though it was our specification.
User Interface: No. Wouldn't be simple, yeah.
Marketing: So I mean I {disfmarker} we'll put three, but I think we actually reached our goal.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} We didn't want it any more than that. Okay question number three. Uh, will it be easy to use?
Project Manager: I think so. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah very.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: I think one for that.
Marketing: Yeah. S Yeah
Project Manager: Yeah. One.
Marketing: I think it's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: you can't really get confused with that.
User Interface: No.
Project Manager: Th
Marketing: I mean, there'll be s we have to work out the uh number {disfmarker} the plus system.
Project Manager: The plus number thing.
User Interface: Yeah that's the only thing yeah.
Marketing: But once that's figured out, it should be fine.
Industrial Designer: Yeah and perhaps the turning on but {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Number four. Is this a good-looking remote?
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Remember that seventy five percent of users find most remote controls ugly.
User Interface: {vocalsound} It's definitely {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Again I think the colour comes into this.
Project Manager: Yeah colour will definitely be a factor.
Marketing: Mm-hmm {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: I think that the logo could be smaller.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: And maybe not such a prominent way.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Maybe like at the bottom, kind of.
User Interface: But the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Not in {disfmarker}
User Interface: Remember the management said that it it had to be prominent.
Project Manager: Oh it just had to be on there I guess.
Marketing: Whoops.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Should just not touch it.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Don't worry. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} This time it's the three I killed. {vocalsound} I was just wondering if it should be like flatter. Or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I suppose I've got quite big hands.
Project Manager: I like the appeal of it being like a big glob in your hand.
Marketing: Well {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: But you know what I've just thought of there now. What {disfmarker} where's it gonna sit in your living room? Is it not gonna fall off the arm of the sofa?
Project Manager: Maybe if the bottom was just sort of flat, and then the rest is like
Marketing: Yeah the bottom could be like ch chopped a bit.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: round.
User Interface: But then it wouldn't sit as comfortably in your hand {vocalsound}.
Marketing: Oh. That's true.
Project Manager: It would still be comfortable I think. We c we could handle it I think.
Industrial Designer: Thing is like that, it's not going anywhere particularly.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: Maybe, it could {disfmarker} it could be on the bottom, so you wouldn't loo like if it's flat here, so it sits up.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Like that.
User Interface: Oh that would be nice. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Ah it'd fall over all the time though. It'd be annoying.
Industrial Designer: Uh yeah, it's less um, what's th ha.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I g If it's weighted maybe.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}'Kay we're done designing.
Industrial Designer: H it's got higher centre of gravity like that.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Details, details. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Come on.
Marketing: Okay. So, is this a good-looking remote? {vocalsound} Would we wanna show it off to our friends? {vocalsound}
User Interface: Three. You would though,'cause it's bit {disfmarker} it's more interesting than other remotes.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: I think, it was another colour and it was like {disfmarker} I think it'd look okay. I think maybe a two.
Marketing: Yeah?
Industrial Designer: I would definitely go for that rather than like your average plain old remote like that,
Marketing: I mean I gue yeah, it's personal taste, but {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: but definitely in another colour, I'm not happy with those colours.
Marketing: Okay, so should we say two for that?
Project Manager: Sure.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay. Uh, question number five. What's um {disfmarker} will people be willing to spend twenty five Euros on this product? Remember that eighty percent of users were willing to spend more money when a remote control looked fancy.
User Interface: I think we have to market it in the right way, that um {disfmarker} to say that it is simplistic.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So people don't just see it and think, uh, this is so simplistic, I don't want to spend twenty five Euros.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: We have to market it.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah it {disfmarker} the marketing will have a lot to do with it.
Industrial Designer: And {vocalsound} the kinetic energy, shaker-style-y, whoo,
User Interface: And the kinetic energy part. Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Durable. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: ooh no. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Shake it and the buttons fall off. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But you know, those'll be firmly on.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Don't shake {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Oh no the plus. {vocalsound} You're
Marketing: No, I guess, I don't know much about the remote control industry, how much your average sells for,
User Interface: {disfmarker} use the zero.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Make a new one.
Project Manager: But you're our Marketing Expert. {vocalsound}
Marketing: but {disfmarker} I know I am, aren't I?
User Interface: I think they're about ten po ten pound, aren't they? About ten pounds. Fifteen?
Marketing: But you don't have to buy batteries. So in the long term this can actually save you money.
Industrial Designer: Mm, yeah, that's true.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Oh. Exactly. Exactly.
Marketing: So we'll market it that way too.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Good point.
Marketing: So yeah I think with a good marketing scheme um and the personalisation options, it'll {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. I would give it a two still though.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: Yeah. Okay number six. Can someone read it out?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Does this prototype match the operating behaviour of the average user.
Marketing: Or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Um yeah. So that was mainly that the statistics {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: I think it does very well.
Project Manager: Oh yeah.
Industrial Designer: Because {disfmarker}
Marketing: we said {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: yeah, because the most accessible buttons are the volume and the and the channel-changing.
User Interface: The zap {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And it's just {disfmarker} you won't have to think about it.
User Interface: yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: You don't have to look down to find them.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: They're clearly there, easy to use.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Simple.
User Interface: Uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah I guess the {disfmarker} I think the key word there is average,'cause there were some people that used the uh video input and sound and stuff.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: But they're not you and I really.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: So. Okay so one?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay. Number seven. C Heather could you push it down? Will this remote control be easy to find when lost? Remember that fifty percent of users lose their remote regularly.
Project Manager: We have the alarm system.
Marketing: Now is there the {disfmarker} is the alarm system still {disfmarker} was it implemented?
User Interface: Yeah the bu when you press the alarm system, the {vocalsound} lights {vocalsound} behind the {disfmarker} and it'll vibra {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} Yeah
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: l lights on and, or flash as well. But I mean it's not obviously obvious from the outside that that's gonna happen'cause you can't s particularly see an alarm.
User Interface: It'll be again in the marketing.
Project Manager: I thought the light from the inside was gonna light up.
User Interface: Yeah. The light {disfmarker} it will.
Project Manager: Or or was it gonna make a noise?
Industrial Designer: Yeah. But when the alarm's not {disfmarker}
User Interface: But {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: yeah. If you {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: But both {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: You press the button it makes a noise right?
Marketing: {vocalsound} It turns into a duck and starts quacking.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: You could s {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. Awesome. Awesome.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh, that would be brilliant.
Marketing: Here I am.
User Interface: I'd be tempted to {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well the thing is, if it was {disfmarker} had an alarm system,
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I mean, when it when it lights up as we I mean it could light up when the alarm went. But if it was hidden underneath the cushion or something, there wouldn't be any point.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So you can't see the alarm, but it would light up.
User Interface: It would have to be in the market
Project Manager: I though w it was gonna make a noise.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Alarm,
User Interface: Yeah but you still couldn't see it.
Industrial Designer: but you can't see an alarm inside uh {disfmarker} the alarm system itself.
User Interface: It would just be a little speaker on the back or something.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: We {disfmarker} oh you're just explaining why it's not on the prototype.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah. It w yeah.
Marketing: But yeah, it'll be there.
Project Manager: Oh okay.
Marketing: So we can {disfmarker} we could say that {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Whoo. Okay.
Industrial Designer: Sorry.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: We can give it a one, because compared to every other remote ever m ever made, this one will be easier to find.
Project Manager: Yeah, totally.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay. Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorry Heather.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No problem, mm.
Industrial Designer: That wasn't very clear.
Marketing: Question number eight. Will it be easy to learn how to use this remote when brand new? Remember that thirty four percent of users usually found it difficult.
Project Manager: Totally.
Marketing: So it has to be {disfmarker} yeah, it's eas they'll pick it up and they'll know what to do.
User Interface: So the plu the plus {disfmarker} w once that's written down on the page that'll be really simple,
Marketing: The plus thing needs to be worked on.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah
User Interface: won't it?
Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: just because it's {disfmarker} we've decided to reduce it down to the basic buttons, I think that in itself makes it so much easier to use.
Marketing: Well {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Do {disfmarker} Does it make more sense for the middle one to be an {disfmarker} just an enter button? So then you would have to push two buttons every time at least.
Project Manager: Yeah, so it's just like channel six, six, enter.
User Interface: That kind of annoys me though, when it's zero six when you have to press {disfmarker}
Marketing: {gap}
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah but you don't have to press zeros.
User Interface: I don't know why. {vocalsound}
Marketing: You could just press six enter,
User Interface: Oh okay. Right.
Project Manager: And then like twelve, enter.
Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} or sixty six enter, y
Marketing: or one two enter.
User Interface: Alright, aye.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah I think that's probably more straightforward. Yeah. Good {gap} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Um, okay so we can {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: I'd say w yeah one.
Marketing: we'll say yes it's uh one?
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Ooh. Mm.
Marketing: Question number nine.
Industrial Designer: Oh.
Marketing: Uh, will it minimise the effects of R_S_I_, which was repeated strain injury?
Industrial Designer: Injury.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Um, which affected over a quarter of users.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Hmm.
Marketing: S
Project Manager: I think so. It's like right in the {disfmarker}
User Interface: But if you're zapping {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Your thumb might get a little bit uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
User Interface: yeah. I don't think it will f
Industrial Designer: We may have to do some more research into other strain injuries that we don't know about.
User Interface: Yeah,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: the biology.
Project Manager: But it is soft.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: It's soft,
Project Manager: And that's kind of what the um
Marketing: and {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: the PowerPoint slide thing said would be good for R_S_I_,
Marketing: And people could {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: so {disfmarker} maybe it is but {disfmarker}
Marketing: I don't know what other options there are.
Industrial Designer: I think we're getting {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: that's true.
Marketing: Could {disfmarker} I mean, you could hold it in your left hand and d use your index finger.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: But there's not really any other options unless it's like a keyboard.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: So, I think we did as as much as you can with a remote control.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: So, one or two do you think?
Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker}
User Interface: I I'd say t
Industrial Designer: yeah, I think too.
User Interface: two. Yeah
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Two okay. Okay number ten. Did we somehow incorporate the company colour and logo?
Project Manager: Yes we did.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Now is the colour gonna be there even if it's like vanilla?
User Interface: {vocalsound} N We we can't really do that
Marketing: Is the yellow {disfmarker}
User Interface: because for example on the banana theme we can't have it as being yellow.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: It won't stand out.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So n it's not always gonna be the same colour.
Marketing: It sounds like the colour's something that we {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well, yeah the colours are yellow and grey.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Gray, yeah.
Project Manager: So it could be grey on the banana one.
User Interface: Yeah, could be grey.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: But I mean the yell yeah d yellow's ugly though,
User Interface: Yeah that's right,
Marketing: depending on the {disfmarker}
User Interface: we didn't even rea
Marketing: So I think we'll have to talk to our executive managers, and see if we can get away with just the R_R_.
Industrial Designer: Mm. Yeah. I think this is the
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: the factor that we've been least successful in confronting.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Perhaps a metallic
Project Manager: Mm, yeah.
User Interface: or or {disfmarker} like that's grey, and it wouldn't be that expensive to have a little bit of metal. No?
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: That isn't rubber.
Marketing: And the buttons in the middle.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay So, do you think that's more of a three then? Three, four?
Industrial Designer: Four I think. Well I don't {disfmarker}
Marketing: Four?
Industrial Designer: what do {disfmarker} what {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Hum.
Marketing: Well we have good reasons for it, so we {disfmarker} but we can still put a a four?
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Okay, and final question. {vocalsound} Um, did we stay true to our motto and put the fashion into electronics?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Current trends of fruits and veggies, desire for sponginess. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I would say so.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Following that briefing we did.
Project Manager: But maybe more like two'cause there's no like pictures of fruit, it's just sort of naming it by a fruit.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: With the with the colours.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Like um the colour scheme names and stuff.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: No, uh, are the plates interchangeable?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I think I missed a few {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: they are? So you can have banana and kiwi and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: okay. Okay, so that's something that's kind of in the making too, like maybe it'll become more {disfmarker}
Project Manager: That's fashionable in itself to have interchangeable plates.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: It is.
User Interface: I think w yeah, I think one. Well that was our brief and we followed the brief.
Industrial Designer: The thing is, I think if somebody saw that and you said what was that inspired from, I don't know if you'd instantly say mango.
User Interface: Well we haven't got a big banana but {disfmarker} Oh yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Be like {disfmarker}
User Interface: No. {vocalsound} No. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Maybe if it was scented.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh that would be class. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah. There we go. That would be great.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah we have money for that. Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright so based on this evaluation, do we average them out sorta thing?
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yes we do. So I {disfmarker} wh what was I gonna put for that?
Project Manager: Oh.
Marketing: A two for fashion?
Project Manager: I would say two.
User Interface: Yeah. Two.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: Okay, so our average there, five, six, eight, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fifteen, nineteen, twenty one, divided by eleven
Project Manager: One point nine or something?
User Interface: It's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker}
Marketing: is {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't know these things. Um, between one and two.
Industrial Designer: Between one and two.
Marketing: Between {disfmarker} okay.
Industrial Designer: So that's pretty fantastic.
User Interface: Close to two.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, that's very good'cause the highest we coulda got is one.
Project Manager: Alright.
User Interface: I got {disfmarker}
Marketing: Does that seem right then?
User Interface: Yeah,'cause we've a four to bring down.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Uh, aye.
Industrial Designer: It seems like it should be more around two.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. Uh, should've added five.
Industrial Designer: Do we have an online calculator?
Project Manager: I'm attempting to do that {vocalsound} right now.
User Interface: {vocalsound} This is {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Yeah it is one point nine. Ooh.
Industrial Designer: Oh wow. Well done.
User Interface: Yay.
Project Manager: Go Heather Pauls.
Industrial Designer: Well that's excellent.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Alright, now with that over and done with, our next step is to see if we are under budget. And um my computer's frozen. And now it's not. Okay. So um in our shared folder, if everyone could go there right now, um I'm going to um steal a cable.
Marketing: Sorry. Are you gonna do that? Okay.
Project Manager: Um it's it's um
User Interface: Is that the project document?
Project Manager: it's an Excel file. Oh.
Industrial Designer: Production costs.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager:'Kay there we go. Um, production costs. And um I have to access that as well. One moment. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It says it {disfmarker}
Project Manager:'Kay so far I've added what I think {disfmarker} or what is going on? Great. It's blinking at me. It's locked for editing. Read only. I'm gonna open up a second one then'cause it's locked for editing. I have the original in my um my email account.
Marketing: Oh is it locked'cause I'm in it?
Project Manager: I dunno.
Industrial Designer: I think it just means that we can't add any more to it now.
Marketing: Or {disfmarker} okay.
Industrial Designer: Have you have you completed it?
Project Manager: No. No, I was hoping that you guys could.
Industrial Designer: Oh right. Okay. Okay.
Project Manager: Um, there we go.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay here we go. So we need to tally up how much our w our product will be costing. So um if you can look up at the screen, um the large screen,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: oh I guess looking at your own too and telling me which one you think. Okay we're using kinetic which is quite a large expense at three Euros.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um we're using a regular chip.
User Interface: Oh right.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Um, it's cur it's double curved, so its curved all around.
Industrial Designer: Double double-curved yeah.
Project Manager: That's another three. We're already at five. Um, we're using plastic and rubber,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Good thing plastic is free, we're at eight. Um {disfmarker} S
User Interface: What about a special colour?
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Are we using that?
Project Manager: I guess we should do it just for one kind. So it's like special colour {disfmarker} well we'll have two colours
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: right? Well one colour for the case, one colour for the buttons.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: So we can {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Um, we have push button interface, so that's inexpensive. And um we have a special colour for the button, and we also have a special form. And a special material.
User Interface: And a special material. Yeah.
Project Manager: Which puts us just barely under budget.
Industrial Designer: Oof.
Project Manager: Hurray.
Industrial Designer: Congratulations guys.
Project Manager: Yeah. Good work guys.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm.'S good. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So um our operating cost is twelve twenty Euros.
User Interface: That's good.
Project Manager: Awesome. And back to our PowerPoint. So we've {disfmarker}'Kay. Yes we are. So we need to do a product evaluation, again,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: which is probably um {disfmarker} I dunno. A different extension of a {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Of the actual project rather than the product?
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: A project? Is is {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah'cause we're talking about leadership, teamwork.
Industrial Designer: yeah. So wh how we actually went round uh about doing it.
Project Manager: Yeah. Alright so um {disfmarker} Do you guys feel like there was room for creativity?
Industrial Designer: I think we were pushed.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Pushed for creativity?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I mean we weren't really given a lot of time, or materials, yeah, to go about our design task.
User Interface: The ma Or materials. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So I think we could've done with a bit more time.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Ye Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So it'd be like need more time and materials. But you were allowed m creativity?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: I think so as like {disfmarker} but you were supposed to have creativ
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah and the conceptual and functional. Like we were very creative in in coming up with an idea I guess, but m
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Well we were just limited by resources really and like if we had decided to use the L_C_D_ screen, and like solar power backup and everything, then we wouldn't have been able to afford that.
Marketing: When we can down to it.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Right.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: So that did limit creativity.
User Interface: Creativity.
Project Manager: Right
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Just resources.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay
Industrial Designer: But yeah. The fruit and veg idea. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Great.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Leadership? Is this me being like, guys do you like me? Um. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound}.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Good leadership, I think we stayed on task.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah we did. We've, uh {disfmarker} seeing as we've come out with what we intended. A pro um a product within the budget. I think that's a sign of good leadership
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and also our personal coach helped us along the way,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: so you know {disfmarker} I think it's been fine.
Marketing: And the timing was good. We never were pushed for time, or sat around doing nothing, so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Good timing.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Oop {gap} Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Teamwork?
Industrial Designer: And project manager of course.
Project Manager: I think we worked great as a team. Yeah?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Was good teamwork. I think we are well-suited to our roles.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Alright how were our means?
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: We needed more Play Doh colours.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah and more Play Doh,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer:'cause that was all the red we had.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So even if we wanted to make a bigger prototype, we wouldn't have been able to.
User Interface: Yeah, it c it might've been bigger. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh really?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} But ever everything else was satisfactory?
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Is that good {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. The computer programmes are good.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. It could be really straightforward for the computer.
Marketing: The {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I think the only thing was having to remember to you know to tick the okays
Marketing: Yeah. I don't think there was anything {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: but I think I was the only one who struggled with that. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I'm actually not sure if I've saved my presentations. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Mm. Uh me too.
Marketing: They'll probably still be there.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: New ideas found. I don't really know what that means.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Well I think we've all learnt stuff from each other,
Marketing: Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: like the n um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. Through discussion.
Industrial Designer: yeah. Just about each different {gap}. Got new ideas from each other. {vocalsound}
Marketing: I'm not sure, new ideas found.
Project Manager: Hmm?
Marketing: Yeah well I guess we really {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} we bounced off of each other, which was cool.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Like based on marketing stuff and then you'd say something about interface and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: yeah, worked well.
User Interface: And we were a able to modify each other's ideas
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: to fit in with our areas of expertise. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. Each other's {gap}
Marketing: Oh does it have smart materials by the way?
Industrial Designer: Sorry?
Marketing: Does it have smart materials?
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Well mm, did it come into the into {disfmarker}
User Interface: If if it if it {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I dunno if we counted that in the costs. {vocalsound}
User Interface: If it can be afforded.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay? Well with that achieved, our last slide is our closing slide.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yes our costs are within budget. It's evaluated generally positively.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: And um don't forget to complete final questionnaire and meeting summary.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Then we celebrate
Industrial Designer: Uh. Fantastic.
User Interface: Yay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} By watching T_V_? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: in such a way that I have no idea.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay, brilliant.
Project Manager: Alright?
Industrial Designer: Thank you very much. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, bye. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm. Conclusion? Dadada. | Firstly, using kinetic was quite a large expense at three Euros. Secondly, in terms of the material used on the device, the team decided to use a combination of rubber and plastic to cut costs with one color for the case and one color for the buttons. Moreover, the push button interface was inexpensive so the team agreed to add a special form for the case. Lastly, ssthe team did not choose joystick, LED display or advanced chips, they were able to make the budget under control. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
Project Manager: Okay. Here we go. Alright, the agenda for thi oh. Alright. Um the agenda for this meeting {vocalsound} is um {disfmarker} we'll initially have the prototype presentation by our two designers. And then we will evaluate it, given the criteria that um that we gave gave it. And um talk about our finances, whether we were under or over our budget. I have a um a spreadsheet where we can calculate um our prices for every aspect of of what we've made, given our options. And um evaluate the product, as a group.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: And um {disfmarker} So first we'll have the prototype presentation. Do you need the um PowerPoint for this?
Industrial Designer: Um yeah. I just got a few slides, so show them.
Project Manager: Alright.
Industrial Designer: Thank you. Do you want to present it? {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, here we are.
User Interface: {vocalsound} This is what we came up with. It's a pretty simple design. It's um based on a mango? Yeah. And {vocalsound} we {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: On?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mango shape.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} A mango. Okay.
User Interface: Yeah. And we have the company logo here and this will be the infrared here
Industrial Designer: The L_E_D_.
User Interface: and this'll be the power point, the on off button kind {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh. Okay.
User Interface: yeah.
Marketing: I'm sorry.
Project Manager: Oops.
Marketing: What was the {disfmarker} where's the L_E_D_?
User Interface: It's in the middle of one of the little R_s.
Marketing: Oh. Okay.
User Interface: And then the other one is the power. And uh we just have a simple design. We wanted it all to be
Industrial Designer: So it's palm-held.
User Interface: accessible from your thumb
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: {disfmarker} yeah palm-held
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: and all the buttons are accessible from your thumb.
Project Manager: Notice you have a number ten button.
User Interface: So you don't have to {disfmarker} Oh that was a mistake, wasn't it?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: You just need the nought. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Right no, that's a zero.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Take that one off. {vocalsound} Sorry. I was in charge of the numbers. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} No problem.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Ah.
User Interface: And this is just if you've got like eleven or twelve or thirt the plus.
Industrial Designer: So one plus one would be eleven,
User Interface: {vocalsound} You can go one, three or something.
Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh. You press a plus button?
User Interface: You press that first and then you go one three yeah.
Project Manager: Oh okay. I've never heard of that kind before.
User Interface: Well we just thought, we have all the numbers here, so we wanted something representative of numbers larger than ten and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah because if you {disfmarker} on your average um remote, if you press one twice you just go to {disfmarker} um or uh say you wanted channel twelve, you press one, and then you go to channel one, and then two then you'd just go to channel two, instead of twelve.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Oh, there's no e
Project Manager: Oh.
Industrial Designer: So if you did like one plus two you could go to channel twelve, or two plus two is channel twenty two.
User Interface: So the plus and then {disfmarker}
Marketing: okay.
User Interface: yeah.
Project Manager: I
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: But {disfmarker} Would you have to go zero plus one if you wanted to go to channel one or two?
User Interface: No no, th all {disfmarker} that's why we have all these numbers. These numbers um these numbers all work independently up to nine. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah but I mean if you press, it'll go to that channel right away.'Cause you gotta press the plus afterwards.
User Interface: Yeah. Oh no. Uh, the plus is only for if you're going past the number nine.
Project Manager: Yeah I know, but if if I wanna go to say number like sixty five, channel sixty five, if I press the six it'll go to channel six, and then I'll press the plus, and then it'll go to six and then put the five and it'll go to sixty five?
Marketing: Sixty.
User Interface: You p Oh. No you press the plus first.
Industrial Designer: Oh.
User Interface: I I {disfmarker} well it doesn't {disfmarker} we haven't really s I would've thought you pressed the plus first and then the six five,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: but she says plus {disfmarker} {vocalsound} press {disfmarker} which {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well I don't mind, we can further define that.
User Interface: what do you think is simpler?
Project Manager: I th Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: It's a {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I wouldn't have thought it'd be a problem that it went to channel six first, in like on the way to channel sixty five.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah it wouldn't be a problem. But I was just wondering
Industrial Designer: But I suppose it's not as snappy.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: like as long as we realise that's what it'll do.
Marketing: Well the there is a {disfmarker} there's a delay on remotes I think.
User Interface: Oops. Yeah.
Marketing: Where you can have it {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: it's like a five second input time.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. If you don't put it {disfmarker}
Marketing: So as long as you hit them dada
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: that {disfmarker} yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} it should be fine.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: As long as there's not a big pause between the t hitting the two buttons.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah. So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: Was there {disfmarker} so on the top there is volume and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: And channel,
User Interface: A channel.
Industrial Designer: which is so you could just go like that without thinking about it, like {disfmarker}
Marketing: Channel up volume up. Okay cool.
Project Manager: C_ and V_.
User Interface: Just so we can flick {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Right, where um where's the power button?
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: It's in the middle of one of the little R_s. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It's the bigger R_.
Marketing: It's the R_.
Project Manager: Oh okay.
Industrial Designer: So it's just like {vocalsound}.
User Interface: Yeah,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: so it's all accessible. Without m taking your hand off the remote.
Industrial Designer: We deci
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah um we went for like a a circular design for the numbers
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: because we thought that's kind of a more natural movement than just going like that with your thumb.
Project Manager: Oh okay.
Industrial Designer: Uh e ergonomics are all considered.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Ergonomic, definitely ergonomic.
User Interface: And {vocalsound} it might actually help with the repetitive stress injury as well.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It could cause another type of repetitive stress injury though.
User Interface: Okay. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: But yeah, no I mean it's a different movement
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker} yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um and the feel of it, I mean, we've made this out of Play Doh, which is representing the, you know, the rubber, and the spongy rubberness.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: The spon yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Um'cause it was said before in the material specification that this {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this anti-R_S_I_ um material is often used in stress balls so this has got a you know a bit of give to it,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and it just feels feels different.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Bit of a stress ball feel.
Industrial Designer: Would you like to feel it yourselves?
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yes. I would.
Industrial Designer: How it fits in the palm of your hand?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: My goodness.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} There you go.
Industrial Designer: And you? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Genevieve?
Marketing: Yes
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: . Oh it's nice. Oh I think I killed the five.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I did.
Project Manager: And something hmm. {vocalsound}
Marketing: I killed the four. Oh god. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: O Okay, as for the colours, we were presented with um a limited range of colours for this prototype.
User Interface: Of Play Doh yeah.
Marketing: Oh it smells good. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: But we're thinking that, seeing as we're having it in interchangeable casing anyway, that this is not necessarily a representation of the true colours that we would necessarily use. Or the combination. Um and we're thinking to carry-on with the fruit and vegetable theme, the colour um combination just could just be named after different fruit, like banana could be black and yellow, watermelon red and green,
Project Manager: Oh right.
Industrial Designer: or vanilla might be the most popular if it just uh blends in
User Interface:'Cause it'd be quite subtle and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: more settled cream instead of the others are all a bit garish.
Project Manager: Yeah. It looks more {disfmarker} Think like vanilla and banana would.
Industrial Designer: Banana's more representative of our colour scheme, like the company {disfmarker} the yellow and black.
Project Manager: Okay yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So that {disfmarker} for corporate identity that would probably be the most strength.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I mean watermelon, you know, m probably appealing to the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Kinda Christmas, you know.
Industrial Designer: yeah, seasonal.
User Interface: Yeah, yeah, yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Apple green, brown, more kinda trendy, you know, khaki {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: The pomegranate's kinda girly and funky kind of,
Project Manager: Cool.
User Interface: and then the vanilla's more for the more sophisticated {vocalsound} customer who just wants something that fits in with all decor.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Okay. Um yeah we thought of the components it was definitely um a focus of ergonomics and just a single ha handheld device, I mean you don't need to use both hands, one hand to hold this and type in with the other, you can just use your thumb.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um, as we said the rubber's probably used for comfort and anti-R_S_I_ and that's about it.
Project Manager: Alright, thank you very much.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Good work everyone.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Bravo {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Alright. And so now that we've we have a prototype, uh we need to go over the finances and seeing if this prototype matches uh what our budget can handle.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So, I have something I'm going to {disfmarker} Oh wait a minute.
Marketing: You want the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Do you need to do a presentation first?
Marketing: {vocalsound} I don't know what order it goes in.
Project Manager: Yeah. I'm gonna check that out for a second.
Marketing: I have one.
Industrial Designer: Mm go {disfmarker}
Project Manager: What time is it anyw
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Project Manager: Oh yeah sorry you're right. Evaluation criteria is next in line.
Marketing: Evaluation cri Okay. That's me.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Hello. Oh there we go. Okay. Come on my computer. Come on. {vocalsound} Sorry my computer's giving me technical difficulties.
Project Manager: Just press um function eight again.
Marketing: Should I press it again? Last time I did that it sh Okay. You're right.
Project Manager: And then again I think. One more time.
Marketing: Oh. Still not there.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah.
Marketing: Okay now I think for this one I could {disfmarker} Would you guys prefer use the whiteboard or mayb maybe I'll just do it on {disfmarker} right on the screen where you can see it. Um, we're gonna be doing an evaluation report together based on the protoptype that we've just seen. Um and looking looking back at my notes from our {disfmarker} both our conceptual and our functional meetings, um I made a list of what our original requirements and goals were, um, back to our kick-off meeting this morning. Um, and we'll evaluate as to whether we've s done what we set out to do. Um and we're gonna do it on a one to seven scale where one is true and seven is false. So basically the lower p the lower the points the better. {vocalsound} Okay so question number one. Does the remote {disfmarker} whoops. Sorry. Oh I'm not gonna be able {disfmarker} um, I'll do it on the whiteboard. I can't change it so I'm g I'm gonna ask you to push it down once.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: I'll write down our scores up on the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Ooh.
Marketing: Okay so number one. Do we have a fancy look-and-feel?
Industrial Designer: Feel I think.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: We've been quite successful with the rubber coating
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: The look is a little bit more playful.
User Interface: Well {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah I guess that depends on your definition of fancy, but it's definitely different.
Project Manager: Oh definitely different yeah.
Marketing: It's not your traditional {disfmarker} yeah.
Industrial Designer: I think the colour has a lot to do with it. I mean {vocalsound} th the colours we were given for making the prototype aren't the colours that I think we would've necessarily chosen.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: It's not the kind of {disfmarker} ooh uh at all sleek
Project Manager: Oh you were only given red and black?
Industrial Designer: {disfmarker} red, black and yellow, and orange.
Project Manager: Oh okay.
User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound} so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} not very sleek and we don't wanna go for black because most remote controls are black or grey.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: So we want it to be stand out that way, anyway.
Project Manager: Yeah. Okay.
Industrial Designer: But if you can imagine that in like a s just a {disfmarker} maybe uh a kind of pale metallic-y finish or something {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. A metallic-y finish we were thinking.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I know know it's for rubber.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I mean diff if you can visualise this in nice colours I think it would look quite fancy. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Polished. Okay {disfmarker} Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. I kinda {disfmarker} I like the potato look.
Project Manager: It's mango. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh well, potato, mango, fruit and veg.
User Interface: {vocalsound} We we were {vocalsound} we were thinking about {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: It's very different. It's what?
Project Manager: It's mango. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh sorry the mango the mango look.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Potato's fine. Potato's fine.
User Interface: yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah it is, fruit or vegetable depends on your mood.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Totally. It's really adaptable.
Marketing: So I myself would say a one or a two.
Project Manager: Yeah. I would say two. Personally.
User Interface: I w I'd say two I think.
Marketing: It's a two?
Industrial Designer: For the
Marketing: Okay,
User Interface: Fanciness.
Marketing: and p
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: fancy {disfmarker}
Marketing: One being true. So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker} uh two, three. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Two.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay, actu that's pro that's gonna get confusing, like that. Okay so question number two was {vocalsound} is it techn technologically innovative? So I know we have the kinetic energy which is very innovative.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah and the use of the rubber.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Use of the rubber, the use of the L_E_D_.
Industrial Designer: For the anti-R_S_I_.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: The L_E_D_ use isn't particularly innovative
Marketing: Isn't {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: and we don't have any scroll buttons, it's all pushbuttons,
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: there's no L_C_D_ control, so if we're thinking about the rest of the market, it's sort of probably halfway.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: In some aspects it is, like we said.
Project Manager: Yeah. I'd say maybe three.
User Interface: I'll go for three as well.
Marketing: Yeah. And I think {disfmarker} I mean it it's tough to say because we were {disfmarker} we didn't want it to be any more innovative than this, because then that would've defeated the purpose.
Project Manager: Yeah we want it simple.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Though it was our specification.
User Interface: No. Wouldn't be simple, yeah.
Marketing: So I mean I {disfmarker} we'll put three, but I think we actually reached our goal.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} We didn't want it any more than that. Okay question number three. Uh, will it be easy to use?
Project Manager: I think so. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah very.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: I think one for that.
Marketing: Yeah. S Yeah
Project Manager: Yeah. One.
Marketing: I think it's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: you can't really get confused with that.
User Interface: No.
Project Manager: Th
Marketing: I mean, there'll be s we have to work out the uh number {disfmarker} the plus system.
Project Manager: The plus number thing.
User Interface: Yeah that's the only thing yeah.
Marketing: But once that's figured out, it should be fine.
Industrial Designer: Yeah and perhaps the turning on but {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Number four. Is this a good-looking remote?
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Remember that seventy five percent of users find most remote controls ugly.
User Interface: {vocalsound} It's definitely {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Again I think the colour comes into this.
Project Manager: Yeah colour will definitely be a factor.
Marketing: Mm-hmm {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: I think that the logo could be smaller.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: And maybe not such a prominent way.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Maybe like at the bottom, kind of.
User Interface: But the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Not in {disfmarker}
User Interface: Remember the management said that it it had to be prominent.
Project Manager: Oh it just had to be on there I guess.
Marketing: Whoops.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Should just not touch it.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Don't worry. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} This time it's the three I killed. {vocalsound} I was just wondering if it should be like flatter. Or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I suppose I've got quite big hands.
Project Manager: I like the appeal of it being like a big glob in your hand.
Marketing: Well {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: But you know what I've just thought of there now. What {disfmarker} where's it gonna sit in your living room? Is it not gonna fall off the arm of the sofa?
Project Manager: Maybe if the bottom was just sort of flat, and then the rest is like
Marketing: Yeah the bottom could be like ch chopped a bit.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: round.
User Interface: But then it wouldn't sit as comfortably in your hand {vocalsound}.
Marketing: Oh. That's true.
Project Manager: It would still be comfortable I think. We c we could handle it I think.
Industrial Designer: Thing is like that, it's not going anywhere particularly.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: Maybe, it could {disfmarker} it could be on the bottom, so you wouldn't loo like if it's flat here, so it sits up.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Like that.
User Interface: Oh that would be nice. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Ah it'd fall over all the time though. It'd be annoying.
Industrial Designer: Uh yeah, it's less um, what's th ha.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I g If it's weighted maybe.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}'Kay we're done designing.
Industrial Designer: H it's got higher centre of gravity like that.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Details, details. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Come on.
Marketing: Okay. So, is this a good-looking remote? {vocalsound} Would we wanna show it off to our friends? {vocalsound}
User Interface: Three. You would though,'cause it's bit {disfmarker} it's more interesting than other remotes.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: I think, it was another colour and it was like {disfmarker} I think it'd look okay. I think maybe a two.
Marketing: Yeah?
Industrial Designer: I would definitely go for that rather than like your average plain old remote like that,
Marketing: I mean I gue yeah, it's personal taste, but {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: but definitely in another colour, I'm not happy with those colours.
Marketing: Okay, so should we say two for that?
Project Manager: Sure.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay. Uh, question number five. What's um {disfmarker} will people be willing to spend twenty five Euros on this product? Remember that eighty percent of users were willing to spend more money when a remote control looked fancy.
User Interface: I think we have to market it in the right way, that um {disfmarker} to say that it is simplistic.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So people don't just see it and think, uh, this is so simplistic, I don't want to spend twenty five Euros.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: We have to market it.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah it {disfmarker} the marketing will have a lot to do with it.
Industrial Designer: And {vocalsound} the kinetic energy, shaker-style-y, whoo,
User Interface: And the kinetic energy part. Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Durable. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: ooh no. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Shake it and the buttons fall off. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But you know, those'll be firmly on.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Don't shake {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Oh no the plus. {vocalsound} You're
Marketing: No, I guess, I don't know much about the remote control industry, how much your average sells for,
User Interface: {disfmarker} use the zero.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Make a new one.
Project Manager: But you're our Marketing Expert. {vocalsound}
Marketing: but {disfmarker} I know I am, aren't I?
User Interface: I think they're about ten po ten pound, aren't they? About ten pounds. Fifteen?
Marketing: But you don't have to buy batteries. So in the long term this can actually save you money.
Industrial Designer: Mm, yeah, that's true.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Oh. Exactly. Exactly.
Marketing: So we'll market it that way too.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Good point.
Marketing: So yeah I think with a good marketing scheme um and the personalisation options, it'll {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. I would give it a two still though.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: Yeah. Okay number six. Can someone read it out?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Does this prototype match the operating behaviour of the average user.
Marketing: Or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Um yeah. So that was mainly that the statistics {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: I think it does very well.
Project Manager: Oh yeah.
Industrial Designer: Because {disfmarker}
Marketing: we said {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: yeah, because the most accessible buttons are the volume and the and the channel-changing.
User Interface: The zap {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And it's just {disfmarker} you won't have to think about it.
User Interface: yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: You don't have to look down to find them.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: They're clearly there, easy to use.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Simple.
User Interface: Uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah I guess the {disfmarker} I think the key word there is average,'cause there were some people that used the uh video input and sound and stuff.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: But they're not you and I really.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: So. Okay so one?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay. Number seven. C Heather could you push it down? Will this remote control be easy to find when lost? Remember that fifty percent of users lose their remote regularly.
Project Manager: We have the alarm system.
Marketing: Now is there the {disfmarker} is the alarm system still {disfmarker} was it implemented?
User Interface: Yeah the bu when you press the alarm system, the {vocalsound} lights {vocalsound} behind the {disfmarker} and it'll vibra {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} Yeah
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: l lights on and, or flash as well. But I mean it's not obviously obvious from the outside that that's gonna happen'cause you can't s particularly see an alarm.
User Interface: It'll be again in the marketing.
Project Manager: I thought the light from the inside was gonna light up.
User Interface: Yeah. The light {disfmarker} it will.
Project Manager: Or or was it gonna make a noise?
Industrial Designer: Yeah. But when the alarm's not {disfmarker}
User Interface: But {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: yeah. If you {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: But both {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: You press the button it makes a noise right?
Marketing: {vocalsound} It turns into a duck and starts quacking.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: You could s {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. Awesome. Awesome.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh, that would be brilliant.
Marketing: Here I am.
User Interface: I'd be tempted to {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Well the thing is, if it was {disfmarker} had an alarm system,
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I mean, when it when it lights up as we I mean it could light up when the alarm went. But if it was hidden underneath the cushion or something, there wouldn't be any point.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So you can't see the alarm, but it would light up.
User Interface: It would have to be in the market
Project Manager: I though w it was gonna make a noise.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Alarm,
User Interface: Yeah but you still couldn't see it.
Industrial Designer: but you can't see an alarm inside uh {disfmarker} the alarm system itself.
User Interface: It would just be a little speaker on the back or something.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: We {disfmarker} oh you're just explaining why it's not on the prototype.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah. It w yeah.
Marketing: But yeah, it'll be there.
Project Manager: Oh okay.
Marketing: So we can {disfmarker} we could say that {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Whoo. Okay.
Industrial Designer: Sorry.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: We can give it a one, because compared to every other remote ever m ever made, this one will be easier to find.
Project Manager: Yeah, totally.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay. Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sorry Heather.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No problem, mm.
Industrial Designer: That wasn't very clear.
Marketing: Question number eight. Will it be easy to learn how to use this remote when brand new? Remember that thirty four percent of users usually found it difficult.
Project Manager: Totally.
Marketing: So it has to be {disfmarker} yeah, it's eas they'll pick it up and they'll know what to do.
User Interface: So the plu the plus {disfmarker} w once that's written down on the page that'll be really simple,
Marketing: The plus thing needs to be worked on.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah
User Interface: won't it?
Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: just because it's {disfmarker} we've decided to reduce it down to the basic buttons, I think that in itself makes it so much easier to use.
Marketing: Well {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Do {disfmarker} Does it make more sense for the middle one to be an {disfmarker} just an enter button? So then you would have to push two buttons every time at least.
Project Manager: Yeah, so it's just like channel six, six, enter.
User Interface: That kind of annoys me though, when it's zero six when you have to press {disfmarker}
Marketing: {gap}
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah but you don't have to press zeros.
User Interface: I don't know why. {vocalsound}
Marketing: You could just press six enter,
User Interface: Oh okay. Right.
Project Manager: And then like twelve, enter.
Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} or sixty six enter, y
Marketing: or one two enter.
User Interface: Alright, aye.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah I think that's probably more straightforward. Yeah. Good {gap} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Um, okay so we can {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: I'd say w yeah one.
Marketing: we'll say yes it's uh one?
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Ooh. Mm.
Marketing: Question number nine.
Industrial Designer: Oh.
Marketing: Uh, will it minimise the effects of R_S_I_, which was repeated strain injury?
Industrial Designer: Injury.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Um, which affected over a quarter of users.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Hmm.
Marketing: S
Project Manager: I think so. It's like right in the {disfmarker}
User Interface: But if you're zapping {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Your thumb might get a little bit uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
User Interface: yeah. I don't think it will f
Industrial Designer: We may have to do some more research into other strain injuries that we don't know about.
User Interface: Yeah,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: the biology.
Project Manager: But it is soft.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: It's soft,
Project Manager: And that's kind of what the um
Marketing: and {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: the PowerPoint slide thing said would be good for R_S_I_,
Marketing: And people could {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: so {disfmarker} maybe it is but {disfmarker}
Marketing: I don't know what other options there are.
Industrial Designer: I think we're getting {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: that's true.
Marketing: Could {disfmarker} I mean, you could hold it in your left hand and d use your index finger.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: But there's not really any other options unless it's like a keyboard.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: So, I think we did as as much as you can with a remote control.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: So, one or two do you think?
Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker}
User Interface: I I'd say t
Industrial Designer: yeah, I think too.
User Interface: two. Yeah
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Two okay. Okay number ten. Did we somehow incorporate the company colour and logo?
Project Manager: Yes we did.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Now is the colour gonna be there even if it's like vanilla?
User Interface: {vocalsound} N We we can't really do that
Marketing: Is the yellow {disfmarker}
User Interface: because for example on the banana theme we can't have it as being yellow.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: It won't stand out.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So n it's not always gonna be the same colour.
Marketing: It sounds like the colour's something that we {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well, yeah the colours are yellow and grey.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Gray, yeah.
Project Manager: So it could be grey on the banana one.
User Interface: Yeah, could be grey.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: But I mean the yell yeah d yellow's ugly though,
User Interface: Yeah that's right,
Marketing: depending on the {disfmarker}
User Interface: we didn't even rea
Marketing: So I think we'll have to talk to our executive managers, and see if we can get away with just the R_R_.
Industrial Designer: Mm. Yeah. I think this is the
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: the factor that we've been least successful in confronting.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Perhaps a metallic
Project Manager: Mm, yeah.
User Interface: or or {disfmarker} like that's grey, and it wouldn't be that expensive to have a little bit of metal. No?
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: That isn't rubber.
Marketing: And the buttons in the middle.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay So, do you think that's more of a three then? Three, four?
Industrial Designer: Four I think. Well I don't {disfmarker}
Marketing: Four?
Industrial Designer: what do {disfmarker} what {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Hum.
Marketing: Well we have good reasons for it, so we {disfmarker} but we can still put a a four?
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Okay, and final question. {vocalsound} Um, did we stay true to our motto and put the fashion into electronics?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Current trends of fruits and veggies, desire for sponginess. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I would say so.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Following that briefing we did.
Project Manager: But maybe more like two'cause there's no like pictures of fruit, it's just sort of naming it by a fruit.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: With the with the colours.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Like um the colour scheme names and stuff.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: No, uh, are the plates interchangeable?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I think I missed a few {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: they are? So you can have banana and kiwi and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: okay. Okay, so that's something that's kind of in the making too, like maybe it'll become more {disfmarker}
Project Manager: That's fashionable in itself to have interchangeable plates.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: It is.
User Interface: I think w yeah, I think one. Well that was our brief and we followed the brief.
Industrial Designer: The thing is, I think if somebody saw that and you said what was that inspired from, I don't know if you'd instantly say mango.
User Interface: Well we haven't got a big banana but {disfmarker} Oh yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Be like {disfmarker}
User Interface: No. {vocalsound} No. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Maybe if it was scented.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh that would be class. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah. There we go. That would be great.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah we have money for that. Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright so based on this evaluation, do we average them out sorta thing?
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yes we do. So I {disfmarker} wh what was I gonna put for that?
Project Manager: Oh.
Marketing: A two for fashion?
Project Manager: I would say two.
User Interface: Yeah. Two.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: Okay, so our average there, five, six, eight, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fifteen, nineteen, twenty one, divided by eleven
Project Manager: One point nine or something?
User Interface: It's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker}
Marketing: is {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't know these things. Um, between one and two.
Industrial Designer: Between one and two.
Marketing: Between {disfmarker} okay.
Industrial Designer: So that's pretty fantastic.
User Interface: Close to two.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, that's very good'cause the highest we coulda got is one.
Project Manager: Alright.
User Interface: I got {disfmarker}
Marketing: Does that seem right then?
User Interface: Yeah,'cause we've a four to bring down.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Uh, aye.
Industrial Designer: It seems like it should be more around two.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. Uh, should've added five.
Industrial Designer: Do we have an online calculator?
Project Manager: I'm attempting to do that {vocalsound} right now.
User Interface: {vocalsound} This is {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Yeah it is one point nine. Ooh.
Industrial Designer: Oh wow. Well done.
User Interface: Yay.
Project Manager: Go Heather Pauls.
Industrial Designer: Well that's excellent.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Alright, now with that over and done with, our next step is to see if we are under budget. And um my computer's frozen. And now it's not. Okay. So um in our shared folder, if everyone could go there right now, um I'm going to um steal a cable.
Marketing: Sorry. Are you gonna do that? Okay.
Project Manager: Um it's it's um
User Interface: Is that the project document?
Project Manager: it's an Excel file. Oh.
Industrial Designer: Production costs.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager:'Kay there we go. Um, production costs. And um I have to access that as well. One moment. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It says it {disfmarker}
Project Manager:'Kay so far I've added what I think {disfmarker} or what is going on? Great. It's blinking at me. It's locked for editing. Read only. I'm gonna open up a second one then'cause it's locked for editing. I have the original in my um my email account.
Marketing: Oh is it locked'cause I'm in it?
Project Manager: I dunno.
Industrial Designer: I think it just means that we can't add any more to it now.
Marketing: Or {disfmarker} okay.
Industrial Designer: Have you have you completed it?
Project Manager: No. No, I was hoping that you guys could.
Industrial Designer: Oh right. Okay. Okay.
Project Manager: Um, there we go.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay here we go. So we need to tally up how much our w our product will be costing. So um if you can look up at the screen, um the large screen,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: oh I guess looking at your own too and telling me which one you think. Okay we're using kinetic which is quite a large expense at three Euros.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um we're using a regular chip.
User Interface: Oh right.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Um, it's cur it's double curved, so its curved all around.
Industrial Designer: Double double-curved yeah.
Project Manager: That's another three. We're already at five. Um, we're using plastic and rubber,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: so {disfmarker} Good thing plastic is free, we're at eight. Um {disfmarker} S
User Interface: What about a special colour?
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Are we using that?
Project Manager: I guess we should do it just for one kind. So it's like special colour {disfmarker} well we'll have two colours
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: right? Well one colour for the case, one colour for the buttons.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: So we can {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Um, we have push button interface, so that's inexpensive. And um we have a special colour for the button, and we also have a special form. And a special material.
User Interface: And a special material. Yeah.
Project Manager: Which puts us just barely under budget.
Industrial Designer: Oof.
Project Manager: Hurray.
Industrial Designer: Congratulations guys.
Project Manager: Yeah. Good work guys.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm.'S good. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So um our operating cost is twelve twenty Euros.
User Interface: That's good.
Project Manager: Awesome. And back to our PowerPoint. So we've {disfmarker}'Kay. Yes we are. So we need to do a product evaluation, again,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: which is probably um {disfmarker} I dunno. A different extension of a {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Of the actual project rather than the product?
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: A project? Is is {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah'cause we're talking about leadership, teamwork.
Industrial Designer: yeah. So wh how we actually went round uh about doing it.
Project Manager: Yeah. Alright so um {disfmarker} Do you guys feel like there was room for creativity?
Industrial Designer: I think we were pushed.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Pushed for creativity?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I mean we weren't really given a lot of time, or materials, yeah, to go about our design task.
User Interface: The ma Or materials. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So I think we could've done with a bit more time.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Ye Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So it'd be like need more time and materials. But you were allowed m creativity?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: I think so as like {disfmarker} but you were supposed to have creativ
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah and the conceptual and functional. Like we were very creative in in coming up with an idea I guess, but m
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Well we were just limited by resources really and like if we had decided to use the L_C_D_ screen, and like solar power backup and everything, then we wouldn't have been able to afford that.
Marketing: When we can down to it.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Right.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: So that did limit creativity.
User Interface: Creativity.
Project Manager: Right
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Just resources.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay
Industrial Designer: But yeah. The fruit and veg idea. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Great.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Leadership? Is this me being like, guys do you like me? Um. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah {vocalsound}.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Good leadership, I think we stayed on task.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah we did. We've, uh {disfmarker} seeing as we've come out with what we intended. A pro um a product within the budget. I think that's a sign of good leadership
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and also our personal coach helped us along the way,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: so you know {disfmarker} I think it's been fine.
Marketing: And the timing was good. We never were pushed for time, or sat around doing nothing, so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Good timing.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Oop {gap} Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Teamwork?
Industrial Designer: And project manager of course.
Project Manager: I think we worked great as a team. Yeah?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Was good teamwork. I think we are well-suited to our roles.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Alright how were our means?
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: We needed more Play Doh colours.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah and more Play Doh,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer:'cause that was all the red we had.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So even if we wanted to make a bigger prototype, we wouldn't have been able to.
User Interface: Yeah, it c it might've been bigger. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh really?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} But ever everything else was satisfactory?
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Is that good {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. The computer programmes are good.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. It could be really straightforward for the computer.
Marketing: The {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I think the only thing was having to remember to you know to tick the okays
Marketing: Yeah. I don't think there was anything {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: but I think I was the only one who struggled with that. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I'm actually not sure if I've saved my presentations. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Mm. Uh me too.
Marketing: They'll probably still be there.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: New ideas found. I don't really know what that means.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Well I think we've all learnt stuff from each other,
Marketing: Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: like the n um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. Through discussion.
Industrial Designer: yeah. Just about each different {gap}. Got new ideas from each other. {vocalsound}
Marketing: I'm not sure, new ideas found.
Project Manager: Hmm?
Marketing: Yeah well I guess we really {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} we bounced off of each other, which was cool.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Like based on marketing stuff and then you'd say something about interface and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: yeah, worked well.
User Interface: And we were a able to modify each other's ideas
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: to fit in with our areas of expertise. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. Each other's {gap}
Marketing: Oh does it have smart materials by the way?
Industrial Designer: Sorry?
Marketing: Does it have smart materials?
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Well mm, did it come into the into {disfmarker}
User Interface: If if it if it {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I dunno if we counted that in the costs. {vocalsound}
User Interface: If it can be afforded.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay? Well with that achieved, our last slide is our closing slide.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yes our costs are within budget. It's evaluated generally positively.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: And um don't forget to complete final questionnaire and meeting summary.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Then we celebrate
Industrial Designer: Uh. Fantastic.
User Interface: Yay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} By watching T_V_? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: in such a way that I have no idea.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay, brilliant.
Project Manager: Alright?
Industrial Designer: Thank you very much. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, bye. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm. Conclusion? Dadada. | Firstly, User Interface introduced the prototype of remote control based on the previous discussion of its function. The prototype was a pretty simple design in a mango shape with the company logo on it and innovative functions like the plus button. Secondly, Marketing designed an evaluation test under the guidance of both the conceptual as well as functional meetings and the team gave one to seven points to each feature of the product to see if the prototype would meet the original requirements and goals. Thirdly, the team calculated the cost of the prototype and found that the most expensive part was the use of kinetic. But the team decided to use regular chips and cheap materials, which made the budget under control. Lastly, the team gave positive feedback on the project and the process. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
Project Manager: Okay, well I think we're ready to begin. Right, my name's Adam Duguid, we're here because of real reaction, um, we have in the group
Marketing: Oh, Ebenezer Ademesoye. Would you like me to spell that?
Project Manager: Um, yeah,
Marketing: S
Project Manager: go for it mate.
Marketing: Um, N_E_Z_
Project Manager: N_ E_ Z_.
Marketing: E_R_.
Project Manager: Ebenezer. And your role is?
Marketing: I'm the Marketing Expert.
Project Manager: You're the Marketing Expert, okay. Next we have?
Industrial Designer: Tarik Rahman. T_A_R_I_K_.
Project Manager: T_ R_ I_ K_. And your role in this is?
Industrial Designer: Industrial Designer.
Project Manager: Industrial Designer. And, lastly we have?
User Interface: Uh, Dave Cochrane.
Project Manager: And you're going to be the User Interface,
User Interface: User Interface Defin Designer, yes.
Project Manager: is it? Designer. Okay. Right. This is the agenda for today's meeting. As you can see, w opening, acquaintance, tool training, project plan discussion, and closing. Um, we already got n through opening, and partially through acquaintance. So, the reason we're here, we're gonna design a new remote control, as you probably all know. The very broad overview is original, trendy, and user-friendly. Course, we'll have to go into a bit more um detail than that, but uh {vocalsound} personally I think that the original is gonna be a very key aspect to this design. Um, there's a lot of remote controls out there anyway, so we're gonna need something that's really gonna set it apart. This is how today seems to be going to work. We're gonna have the three kay phases, as you've probably already been told, the functional, architectural, and the detailed design. Um {disfmarker} First one's gonna be covering the user requirement spec, technical functions, working design. Second seems to be conceptual components, properties, materials, and the last one is a detailed analysis of our design so far. Of course, you've all got the similar emails, I believe, right. {vocalsound} What can I say? Ebenezer, you wanna have a {disfmarker} you wanna draw your favourite animal {vocalsound}?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Sure. {vocalsound} Whiteboard.'Kay. S okay. I will make this quick, since we don't have much time. {vocalsound} Um. {vocalsound}'Kay, so it's not the best picture in the world.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Here we have an elephant. First point, begins with an E_, same like Ebenezer. Also, elephants have a very good memory, much like myself,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: and I can't remember back when I used to live back in Nigeria, but I think I used to have a pet elephant. So elephants are big, strong and gentle, and they have great memories, and they begin with the letter E_, just like Ebenezer.
Project Manager: Brilliantly done. Thank you. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Thank you.
Project Manager: Tarik, would you like to have a shot at a bit of artistry?
Industrial Designer: {gap}.
Project Manager: Oh, um,
Marketing: Oh. Oh {vocalsound} oh
Project Manager: you can clip them to your belt.
Industrial Designer: Do we take them off?
Marketing: I think you ga
Industrial Designer: Oh right,
Project Manager: You should also l um have your {disfmarker} the lapel mic on as well.
Industrial Designer: okay.
Marketing: The little {disfmarker} The the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Ah-ha.
Marketing: Oh that's good, we can clip them on. Okay. Yeah,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Now where do I put the {disfmarker}
Marketing: Just um somewhere {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yep, the {gap}, it's just across there, that's it. Yep.
Industrial Designer: Is this supposed to be clipped as well?
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: I think so.
Project Manager: It'll follow you if you {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah. There you go.
Project Manager: You can probably just stick it in your pocket for now, I wouldn't worry too much. Should have good range.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh, destroying your elephant here.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh, here we have a tiger. Uh {disfmarker} I've always loved tigers. They're just {disfmarker} they're big, they're biggest cats, uh I did a project on cats in the wild when I was a kid and uh it was my favourite cat, just'cause it was {disfmarker} looks the best, the stripes, orange. My dad used to talk about {disfmarker} he's from Bangladesh so he used to tell me all about them when he was {disfmarker} when I was a kid. And uh they're just the most feared of of uh animals in the wild. So uh that's why I like them. Didn't say an anything about me really but {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Excellent, thank you very much. Dave, if you'd like to uh have a dash.
User Interface: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Um, the monkey, um. The one f uh {disfmarker} in fact this is a {gap} somewhat oblique reference in fact to uh {disfmarker} well my {disfmarker} I have a three uh three y year old daughter who h who who who is affectionately known as Miss Monkey. Um, monkeys have attitude. Which I think is a good thing. And I mean fr {vocalsound} and from uh from the point of view of sort of the study of human evolution they and other primates are terribly interesting. Um, so I like monkeys. And and th th th th thi thi this one seems to have perhaps more attitude than most.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Cheers. Hardly what I'd call the best drawing in the world but it'll do for now. Also not quite as feared as your average tiger, but uh cats are one of my favourite animals, they're very independent, they're snotty as hell at the best of times, and uh, what can you say, you got to love those qualities in an animal. Right. I think we've all managed to master the whiteboard there by looks of it, so, on to it. Project finance. As you can see, twelve point five Euros per unit. That's not a terrible lot as far as I'm aware, and we're hoping to sell them for twenty five. If we're aiming for fifty million Euros we're gonna have to be selling an awful lot of them.
Marketing: Oh, that was profiting, that was an amount, so that's the amount made,
Project Manager: Yep.
Marketing: okay.
Project Manager: Well, fifty million, and if you're making twelve point five Euros on each one, then, awful lot need to be sold.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. Now we better actually just get on with the uh the meat of the project. So I'm gonna guess that we've all used remote controls. Any ideas of where you think a new remote control could go into this market?
User Interface: Well, one thing I'm aware of is, th there uh um at the sort of v very high price end of the market there's there's a em emerging market for sort of touch screen L_C_D_ remotes that can be uh programmed in m much more sophisticated ways than sort of conventional models, so you get the sort of you get um you {vocalsound} you can redesign the interface to your own needs, you can programme in macros, and you get a much greater degree um um I mean you get in these sort of {vocalsound} three in one, five in one, whatevers, but you can get integration between the different uh the the the diff the different things that it's designed to control, to a much greater extent, and you can have one uh you know one macro to turn the uh you know turn the T_V_ to the right channel, get the uh re uh rewind the tape in the V_C_R_ and get it to play once it's rewound, for instance.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Um b it occurs to me there might be a niche for uh for a remote that aimed towards some of that sort of functionality but using a just conventional push button design. And therefore putting it into a um well much lower price bracket.
Project Manager: Okay, yeah, tha that's true, with the price range we're looking at, going for a touch screen would probably be possibly out of our {disfmarker}
User Interface: Absolutely prohibitive,
Project Manager: yeah.
User Interface: yeah.
Marketing: Oh.
Project Manager: But you think uh again something to control multiple units in uh a simple fashion.
User Interface: Yeah, I mean I wouldn't like to say you g {vocalsound} I mean you get ones that you can switch between multiple units, but something that could um operate between multiple units in a more integrated fashion. Some {gap} and ideally something into which it would have some at least limited facility for {vocalsound} um running macros.
Project Manager: Would the the idea something along the lines of, one on button would turn on say the video recorder, the T_V_, maybe the sound system as well, all in one go, is that kind of {disfmarker}
User Interface: For instance, um let's say oh oh um, or um you know you pr uh you press uh say the play button for the D_V_D_ player and it turns the T_V_ on and onto the right channel as well, um
Project Manager: Okay, that sounds like a a good strong idea. Um {disfmarker}
Marketing:'Kay
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Any takes on this?
Marketing: Well um I've noticed that uh gaming c is becoming quite popular with television, um when I was younger we used to e play games using our cable, using the cable subscribed the cable providers,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: but our remote controls would get worn out really easily, and {vocalsound} the remote control was not a great kind of keyboar, um keypad, for playing games.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: So perhaps one that was more um specialised for game playing or interactive television. They they've recently brought out this new remote control, for people to set their favourite channels, or um to record things. Instead of people entering in what time things start, you simply stri slide a bar to say what time it begins,
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: and slide another bar to say what time it ends, you know that's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah I've heard {disfmarker} I've seen the bar-code design before,
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, it's it's taken out the {disfmarker} Y you don't have to be uh really clever to use a remote control. I think for gaming, you know you want you want some big buttons for up, down, left and right, shoot.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh, you wanna be able to change angles in interactive television, so you need buttons to change the television angle, the camera angles and stuff like that.
Project Manager: Okay, well
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
Project Manager: we're beginning to run out of time now, so, we've got a couple of ideas,
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: we can {disfmarker} we'll have to work fast, um, alright as you can see we've got thirty minutes until the next meeting, so {vocalsound} we'll have to try and decide on some of the basic functionality, um, how the user interface might work, that'll be a key aspect especially if the idea of um some kind of macros facility because you have to program it, you have to have a lot of response back, or at least some kind. Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: And we're gonna maybe n try and have to figure out
Marketing: What the user wants uh.
Project Manager: what the user wants, yes.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Um, right. Has anybody got anything they'd like to add at this stage, anything they think that might have been missed so far?
Industrial Designer: Well when you're talking about gaming and stuff, do you think they should have some sort of stick on it, rather than buttons?
Marketing: Oh. Okay, {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Like uh control pads, you know of games, but {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: or is that a bit ridiculous? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I I don't see why not, almost everybody is probably used to a console by now, and all of them incorporate small keypads on them, in fact even the mobile phones these days are beginning to use them as well, so it's probably an interface that most people are used to. Um
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: and that could allow n easy navigation, used as a joystick as well.
User Interface: Mm-hmm. The other key feature that uh that would be a good idea built into it is t is is to make something you know fairly sort of ergonomic, something that just fits {vocalsound} fits as comfortably as possible into the hand. But of course, uh al al also allows for {gap} the possibility of a more sort of slightly unconventional or attractive uh sha shape for it overall, {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: Okay. So,
User Interface: A curve,
Project Manager: small, stylish, and something that's just a little different.
User Interface: mm-hmm. Something sort of sort of sl slightly sort of biomorphic in form, {vocalsound} uh which it would need to be to sort of conform to the shape of the hand more efficiently anyway.
Project Manager: Okay. That's definitely something that we should be able to do quite easily. I would I would have hoped so anyway. Um, right. I'd say we finish this one up, we get started, I'll get in, I'll write up what we've um kind of quickly done, and I'll get that out to everybody. Yeah?
Marketing:'Kay. So.
Project Manager: Okay. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap}.
Industrial Designer: {gap}.
Project Manager: Um, as far as I'm aware we leave the microphones here, um unless we get told otherwise, and just take the laptops with us. | The team members introduced themselves and their positions respectively. Project Manager announced the plan for the three-phase remote control project. The team members drew their favourite animals to get more familiar with each other. Project Manager informed the team of their financial target, which was 50 million Euros. Each 25-Euro remote control would make a profit of 12. 5 Euros. The team members had many ideas on the remote control design. User Interface recommended an integrating remote control for several different devices, as well as an ergonomic curve design. Marketing spotted a niche in the game market and thus suggested adopting a bar-code design. Industrial Designer added that the team could consider incorporating a keypad for the better game experience. | qmsum |
What do the group think of the question whether the eligibility for free school meals is the best measure?
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this morning's Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask Members who are present if they wish to declare any interests? Okay, thank you. Item 2 this morning is our final evidence session for our inquiry into targeted funding to improve educational outcomes. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Cabinet Secretary for Education; Steve Davies, director of the education directorate; and Ruth Conway, deputy director, support for learners division. Welcome to all of you, and thank you for your attendance and also for the paper that you've provided in advance. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions, and the first questions are from Llyr Gruffydd.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bore da. I just want to start by asking some questions around the targeting of the pupil development grant because, clearly, we've had a lot of evidence around this apparent blurring of eligibility to an extent. I'm just wondering how comfortable you are that the money is being targeted appropriately because, clearly, it's being targeted more widely than just those eligible for free school meals, from some of the evidence we've had, but also that it seems to be predominantly focused on low-attaining frees--pupils who are eligible for free school meals.
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Llyr. I think it's important to be absolutely clear that when it comes to individual interventions, those individual interventions should only be targeted at those children who are eligible for free school meals. But in some cases, schools may use their PDG funding to provide a universal intervention, but we would want to--in challenge advisers'discussions in schools--we'd want to have evidence that that universal intervention would have a disproportionate effect on the outcomes for children on free school meals. So, for instance, if I give you an example in your own region, Llyr: at Brynteg County Primary School in Wrexham, if you look at that primary school in Wrexham, their results for free-school-meal children at the end of their primary school period in school are equivalent to their non-free-school-meal counterparts. So, there is no differentiation in those results. One of the things that they've used their PDG for is to really focus on the concept of growth mindset in school. So, that's a universal thing that they've trained all the teachers in, but what we know is that that has a disproportionate effect on those children who are on free school meals. So, if you're familiar with the concept of a growth mindset, it's about really challenging learners to think that,'I can do things. If sometimes I fail, I pick myself up, I'm more resilient.'Now, that has been, as I said, trained to all the teachers in the school--it's an ethos for the whole school--but we have seen that the impact on the free-school-meal children has been even greater, and now they're at the same level. So, that's the important distinction. Individual intervention per child has to be targeted at those children who are eligible for free school meals, but sometimes a school will employ a whole-school approach to train their staff, for instance, and that, then, has to demonstrate it has a disproportionate effect on free school meals. So, growth mindset; it may be attachment disorder training for staff, for instance, where we know it's of benefit to everybody, but will have particular benefits for that cohort of students. With regard to more able and talented, you know, Llyr, that this is an area of concern for me, generally, within the Welsh education system; that we've not been particularly good at identifying, supporting and driving attainment for those children. I'm absolutely clear that PDG needs to be used for those children who are eligible to drive potential, whatever the potential of that child is, including more able and talented. And again, I'll give you an example that has been seen as good practice in Pembrokeshire: a window on the world bus, again paid for by schools. I don't know if you're aware of it.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: We've heard about that.
Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, you've heard about it; well, it's a really good example the window on the world. And, again, that's very much targeted at raising aspirations and giving children who are more able and talented, who are eligible for PDG, those experiences, and to really push them. So, yes, I'm absolutely clear that PDG shouldn't just be seen to be getting individuals to the average. For those children who are more able and talented, it should be used to support them--
Llyr Gruffydd AM: And we all share those aspirations, I'm sure, and you pointed to examples of good practice, but of course, it's not universal, is it, so what I'm asking is: do you think that the guidance is sufficient as it is? Do you think that there's a great enough awareness of how the PDG should be used at the coalface? And also, are you confident that consortia and others have the measures in place to be able to demonstrate that it is being used properly?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think, if we look at what Estyn has said about PDG, it does actually recognise that the PDG is being used to push more able and talented children, but as always with the system, Llyr, it's whether we can be sure that that is strategic and that it's happening across all of our schools. So, you're--
Llyr Gruffydd AM: But not just in relation to more able and talented, I'm referring to the eligibility and the targeting.
Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, the eligibility. You'll be aware that, on the advice of Sir Alasdair, we have employed and appointed new PDG regional advisers, and I think their role is going to be absolutely crucial in spreading that good practice across the region, whether that's use of PDG for more able and talented, or ensuring that PDG is used in the appropriate way. So, that's there to provide strategic overall advice. And obviously, we have been very clear with regional challenge advisers, in the relationship and the conversations they're having with individual schools, that they're really challenging their schools about the use of PDG, not just in terms of targeting, but the programmes, what the money is being spent on, whether there is an evidence base for that and whether we are clear on impact. So, I think the new regional advisers are going to be crucial in enabling us to ensure more consistent practice across the regions.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, are you content that eligibility for free school meals is the best measure, really, of identifying which pupils to target?
Kirsty Williams AM: Llyr, in the absence of anything better. I'll be the first person to say that maybe it's not as absolutely focused, but in the absence of anything different to identify a proxy for need, I think it's probably the best that we've got at present. And we will continue to have discussions with local government about whether there are different ways. We have to be mindful. Some of the policy levers in this area are out of my hands, so if we look at the roll-out of universal credit, for instance, we've got officials working very hard at the moment to try and understand what universal credit is going to mean and where we are going to be able to identify relative need, going forward. We haven't had any additional resource as a result of this, but we're very mindful that, potentially, this has an impact, going forward. And, officials are working all of the time, I must say, in conjunction with the department in England, to understand their thinking in this area so that we are in a position to make some decisions about what a notional eligibility for free school meals will look like going forward, but before I make any decisions, I want to assure everybody that there will be a full public consultation on that.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Finally for now, on this issue of once a year, in January, if you're eligible for free school meals, then you're in that group for that year. We've had some quite strong evidence about how difficult that makes longer term planning for a number of schools and we've also been pointed in the direction of what's happened in England with the Ever 6, and I'm just wondering whether you're giving any thought to maybe changing that a little bit.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we're certainly giving thought to flexibility. In conversations with Alasdair, who is our independent adviser on this agenda, and individual schools, we're actively giving thought to greater flexibility and maybe longer term projections, so that schools know, for a number of years ahead, what their allocation will be. There are advantages to that system, because you could give that flexibility, you could give that long-term approach, but then, how do you make that responsive if a school suddenly has more children? We do know that, actually, the number of free-school-meal pupils is dropping. But there can be changes, you know, regional working in areas of north Wales in tourism, or maybe in other areas at Christmas time, parents are able to get a period of work. So, how can we create a more flexible system? We're actively looking at that at the moment. I wouldn't use it as an Ever 6 concept, but as an'Ever 2'concept. We have looked at Ever 6, and I'm going to be absolutely blunt with you: to introduce an Ever 6 concept for Wales would mean in the region of identifying an additional PS40 million. I'm going to be absolutely straight and blunt with you: we're not in a position at the moment to be able to identify an additional PS40 million to introduce an Ever 6. But issues around flexibility, certainly, are actively under consideration. In fact, we'll be having a discussion later on today about decisions, going forward, for the next two years.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Darren on this.
Darren Millar AM: It's just a very brief point in response to the PS40 million price ticket that you just put on that. That's, of course, assuming that you maintain the current level of PDG, yes? So, if you reduced the level of PDG slightly, but made it available to more individuals, if you like, via allocating it in a different way, then that PS40 million price ticket wouldn't be there, would it?
Kirsty Williams AM: I was asked a question about had I ever considered an Ever 6. We have looked at that, we've priced that up. I have to make decisions in the envelope of resources that are available to me. We could, indeed, change the way in which we allocate PDG money, but we have to do it within the envelope that is available to me, over PS90 million. That's a significant level of investment, but, of course, as always, Darren, we could cut the amount per pupil, but that might have quite challenging swings in allocations. What we have done--because what I am clear on is that there was evidence to suggest that in the secondary sector, a great deal of PDG was being focused on years 10 and 11, especially year 11, in catch-up provision, and you'll be aware, because we've said this in evidence to the committee in the papers, we've set a challenge to secondary schools to say,'Actually, the majority of your PDG allocation has to be used in key stage 3.'Now, we have to balance the needs, the moral hazard of turning round to children in years 10 and 11 and saying,'We're not going to provide catch-up opportunities for you,'because, clearly, those children need that support. But the evidence and the advice that we're receiving is: actually, strong focus on early years, primary and key stage 3, if we get that right, should negate the need for spending money on catch-up at years 10 and 11. That's why we, in our advice to local authorities and schools, say that we want to see evidence that they're spending this money earlier on in a child's career, rather than just a scramble at year 11 to say,'Right, we've got to get you through your exams.'Darren Millar AM: Okay, but have you actively considered, then, reducing the level you have?
Kirsty Williams AM: We've--
Ruth Conway: Sorry--I was just going to say that one of the things is looking at the scope of the definition, and I think it's about being more flexible with the definition, rather than reducing the amount per head.
Darren Millar AM: Okay. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. If we can go on, then, to talk about some of the practical uses of the PDG, you write in your written paper that'the majority of schools are making well thought out and appropriate decisions'on how to use it. But Estyn reported that only two thirds of primary and secondary schools make effective use of the PDG. Given that we've had it now for six years, would you not have expected there to be a higher level of schools actually making good use of that funding?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, to flip it on its head, the vast majority of schools, as identified by Estyn, are using this money to good effect. So, that's the way I like to see it--that the vast majority of schools are doing well. What Estyn has also indicated is the intrinsic link here to leadership within individual schools, and as you'll be aware, leadership, improving capacity in leadership and developing leadership talent in the Welsh education system is a key priority for me in our national mission. Of course, that's being developed in a different work stream. I think what's fair to say is that the use of PDG is evolving over time. I think we are seeing, increasingly, more and more schools understanding how best to deploy that money for best effect for students. So, if we're honest, when PDG first started, I think, in some schools it was spent on investing in tracking of children, because they'd never thought about tracking these children, they didn't have systems in place to look at the performance of these children, and to have a system in place. So we've moved now from spending money on the infrastructure around support for FSM children into actual inputs in terms of teaching and learning. We're also seeing from Estyn that, actually, in terms of money following the evidence of what we know works, Estyn says that PDG is probably the best example of schools following tried and tested and evidence-based interventions to deploy the money. But clearly we want all of this money to be deployed as well as it can be, and again we come back to the decision I've made to appoint regional PDG advisers so that we can get that better consistency of approach. We are, in the discussions that I have with the regional consortia about how they challenge individual schools on usage, looking for very clear evidence of schools using the Sutton Trust toolkit, and we could have a discussion about whether that's the right thing, because that's on my mind too. But we want to see schools demonstrating their evidence base, and if they're not, if a school isn't doing that, okay, so demonstrate to us why you've made those decisions and, crucially, what are you doing as the school to judge whether that decision is actually making a difference for your individual pupils. So, if you're moving away from tried and tested interventions, what we know works, if you're doing something different with your money, okay, you need to justify that and you need to explain how you're going to demonstrate impact. But I think what we're seeing is increasing good practice in this area as the PDG develops and as our understanding of our school-to-school working in our self-improving school system also develops. I think we're seeing better usage of the money year on year.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Llyr on this.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: You mentioned some schools will be moving from the tried-and-tested interventions, really, and I'm just wondering to what extent that evolution of use of PDG is being driven by cuts to core funding.
Kirsty Williams AM: No, I don't think it's being driven by cuts to core funding. I think there has been--. One of the biggest impacts of PDG has not been--well, I suppose it is the money in itself, because the money has concentrated the minds, hasn't it? So, one of the most important things that PDG has done is highlight the importance of this agenda within schools, and really raise this up in the thinking of leadership and senior management teams in our schools, and has driven a focus on scrutiny and accountability in the systems that are working with our schools. I think the changing use of PDG reflects the journeys that schools have been on, some of them from a very low base where this was not a priority for them, to better understanding, and as research and as intelligence grows over time in this area, both in Wales and outside of Wales, schools are increasingly learning to use that evidence to tailor approaches in their schools.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So you wouldn't accept at all that some of this money's being used to paper over some funding cracks from elsewhere. Because the unions and some others have told us that, whether we like it or not, there is some of that going on.
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, Llyr, we're very clear about the usage that this money can be spent on in terms of individuals or universal application within schools, and that forms an important part of the checks and balances that we have in our system. Can we continue to improve, and ensure that more and more of our schools are employing best practice? Yes, we can, and as I've said, we've taken steps to put in place the infrastructure to support that.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Mark's questions are next.
Mark Reckless AM: Cabinet Secretary, how would you assess the impact of PDG on attendance and hopefully subsequent engagement with education from children who have free school meals?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think what's important to note is that, as Estyn have themselves said, over the period of the last inspection report, we have seen improvements in attendance, but I do think we need to, again, look at how PDG can support this particular agenda. And as always in the Welsh education system, there are some excellent examples of how schools use the money to address this. Ysgol y Preseli in Pembrokeshire is a very good example of how they've deployed their money. Forgive me; I can't off the top of my head remember the name of the primary school I visited, again in north Wales, where the school has proactively used this money, and they actually send teaching assistants out of school in the morning before the start of the school day, and they actually have a walking bus. They call at homes for children, and they walk the children to the breakfast club. So, they're proactively going out into the community and making sure that those children are in the classrooms, because the teacher said,'We recognised we had a problem with attendance. We tried a variety of means of improving that, but in the end we have taken this quite bold step--we actually send the staff out and they create that walking bus, and they walk the children into school'. They say that they know that, for some of those children, because of the difficult circumstances they and their families are living in, they probably wouldn't be in school if it wasn't for that proactive approach. So, we're looking again at what more we can do to support this particular agenda in terms of improving attendance, because although, again, there are examples of good practice, there is still a gap between the attendance of free-school-meal pupils and non-free-school-meal pupils. And, of course, we can have the best curriculum in the world with really high-quality teaching, but unless the children are in the classes then we're not going to make the difference for them. Whilst that differential exists, then it's going to be hard to close the attainment gap for those children.
Mark Reckless AM: I was actually quite shocked just reading in advance of this meeting that the proportion attending 95 per cent or more, who have pretty full attendance, was only 35 per cent for free-school-meal children at level 4, compared to 60 per cent for non-free-school-meal pupils. It still is an extraordinary difference. My colleague here showed me, I think, last week, a graph showing the link between attendance and attainment, in particular. When people were absent, a lot of the--. As I'm sure you're aware, there's a huge connection. What more can PDG do to deal with it? In the example you give I can see how a school with an awful lot of free-school-meal children could do that, but a lot of the free-school-meal children are actually in schools that don't have that high a proportion of free school meals, where it would be much more challenging to bring in that type of initiative.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, indeed, and I think it gets more challenging the older the children get. I think it's more difficult to find interventions that are successful higher up, so key stage 4. So, you can do a walking bus with little ones, can't you, but I don't suppose your average 15 or 16-year-old is going to take very kindly to that. So, you do need a different approach to that. But again, we see in Ysgol y Preseli the employment of staff to directly work with families of older children to reinforce the messages around, as you quite rightly say, the linkage between attendance and attainment, and really work with individual families to understand the barriers to attendance: what's going on in the family that is preventing that child from going to school, and what more can the school do to address those situations. But you're absolutely right; there is more that we need to do to address this particular agenda of attainment. I don't know if there's anything extra you wanted to add, Steve.
Steve Davies: There is also another very good example--and I take what you say about where there are small numbers--but in our secondary schools where there are significant numbers, they're investing PDG in resources like a school nurse and a school counsellor, not just to work with the children but link to other agencies on whom the children and the families are dependent to support them in terms of working with schools. So, it's something, particularly in our most challenging areas, where it cannot just be delivered within the school. So, good use of that resource is being made to employ people to support them in those wider areas.
Mark Reckless AM: Thank you. To what extent is PDG also used to seek to reduce the higher rates of exclusion for children entitled to free school meals?
Kirsty Williams AM: So, if we looked at permanent exclusions, there isn't a differential, but if we look at temporary exclusions, there we see there is a disproportionate number of children on free school meals that are subject to those exclusions. Again, I think what schools employing best practice understand is that you need a multi-agency approach to supporting that particular child. Some of those exclusions can be as a result of the need to address other issues going on in a child's life. So, this is where we come back to the committee's work, for instance, on mental health and support for children, support for behaviour in school. So, again, it's a multi-agency approach that I think we need, and, in our good schools, our really, really good schools, there's a recognition of that need to have a whole team around a child to support that child in education. With EOTAS, we made some changes last year regarding PDG for EOTAS. So, for those children who do find themselves in education other than at school, we are providing additional support that previously was not available.
Mark Reckless AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We're going to move on now to talk about the impact of PDG on attainment. Hefin David has got some questions.
Hefin David AM: It appears that the attainment gap at 2017 has actually widened, in spite of PDG levels. Is that correct?
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. So, if you look at it--with the usual caveats about whether you can make direct comparisons on level 2 plus between the exams the year before and the exams that we had last summer--on the face of it, the gap has increased. I think what's important to recognise, Hefin, is a direction of travel. I'm sure we all want to, because I want to, have a discussion about why children on free school meals were less resilient in the exam system last year. But, if we look at the period that we have been employing PDG, over that period, we have seen a narrowing of the gap. I think what's quite stark, if we think about it--. So, if we look at where we started from: in 2009, one in five children on free school meals got level 2 plus--one in five--by 2016, we had got that down to one in three. Obviously, there's still a way to go, but, Sir Alasdair, who knows about these things, says that that is a significant improvement. Last year, we got some challenges. We need to understand why that happened, but I do think it's--
Hefin David AM: Why, do you think?
Kirsty Williams AM: Why, do I think? What I do think is there is no one answer. There is no one answer to this. I think we could look at and we can have discussions around the move from BTEC to science GCSEs. I think we have supplied figures to the committee about the significant change in the number of children on free school meals who weren't doing a single science GCSE and are now doing science GCSEs. We can look at the unintended consequences of literature. Again, we've supplied figures. Where children have done language and literature, whether that be through the medium of English or through the medium of Welsh, there is more resilience. So, it's that exposure to literacy in all its forms that I think could potentially make a difference. So, I think there's no one answer to why free-school-meal children were not so resilient last year. We continue to have discussions with Qualifications Wales to get a better understanding of this. At my next ministerial policy board, in May, we'll be doing a deep dive into this particular subject.
Hefin David AM: So, to what extent would exam boards be responsible for lack of grade stability?
Kirsty Williams AM: It could be one of the contributory factors. What I think is important is that there is no one, single reason why there seems to be less resilience in this cohort of children.
Hefin David AM: Will you be speaking to the exam boards about this and raising concerns?
Kirsty Williams AM: I have written to Qualifications Wales, we've had discussions about it, but I've asked them to formally submit evidence ahead of my policy board for May, where, as I said, we will be doing a formal, deep-dive discussion across the department about these issues. But, again, Hefin, what we've got to be clear on is--while we look at overall factors, you know, our overall national statistic--we did see some schools last year whose FSM performance was better than it had been the year before. So, what was it in those schools that enabled those children to do really well, whereas, in other schools, the performance was different? Even in individual cities, you can see a huge variety of performance. So, take Cardiff and Swansea, our two biggest cities. You've got schools in those cities with comparative levels of free school meals. So, you could have really high-performing schools with a very small number of the cohort on free school meals. The difference between those performances in a single city--so, that's the same local education authority and the same regional consortium--you can see a massive change. There's one school I can talk to: their free-school-meal performance is 88 per cent. A similar school in the same city with the same proportion of children on free school meals, their performance is down in the 20 per cents. So, I think what's important is that we can't draw broad-brush conclusions. For me, the challenge is to go into individual schools and understand what was happening in that particular school that ensured that their children did really well. We've got one school in Swansea, their FSM performance at GCSE level 2 outperforms non-FSM pupils.
Hefin David AM: But we still need to rely on the trends from a distance. If we take your argument that 2017 was an unusual year and the trends up to 2016 were positive, in a few years'time, when we will be looking back in two years'time, how are we going to measure this progress, say, in 2019? What are we likely to see and what methods are you going to use to measure progress that way?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, you'll be aware that we are moving away from level 2 plus as a performance measure anyway because of the--
Hefin David AM: So, what performance measures will you use?
Kirsty Williams AM: So, for the lack of sophistication around the level 2 plus, and for the unintended behaviours that that particular performance measure has driven within our schools. I'll be making a statement shortly to the Assembly around a new performance measure for schools. We were, at our most recent secondary heads conference, working with schools to develop that. What's important to me is that we have a more sophisticated model that looks at school performance for all children. What level 2 plus does is narrow, very much, the focus of schools on an individual part of the cohort, usually the C/D borderline, which is why then we have problems with the number of students getting a B grade or above. We have marked success in our schools by saying to schools that a C is good enough. Well, if a child gets a C but came to you in year 7 and they were destined to get an E, yes, indeed, a C is a success, because you've moved that child on; but, if that child came to you destined to get an A* and gets a C, then we haven't done a good job by that particular child. So, we need a performance measure that is much more sophisticated, looks at each individual child, tracks that progress, and measures the value added by that school in performance.
Hefin David AM: Last question: therefore, should we have confidence in the data up to 2016? Is there a lack of confidence in that data?
Kirsty Williams AM: No, it's not a lack of confidence in the data. The data is the data. What I'm saying is, using that as a performance measure and an accountability measure within our school system may have been right for the time. I think it is now right to have a different way of measuring success in schools. I think that particular set of performance measures has driven certain behaviours--not because Ministers wanted that to happen, but as an unintended consequence. I think we can work together with our school system, learning the lessons of international best practice, to develop much more sophisticated accountability and performance measures for individual schools, and, I should say, for the Government. So, you will be aware of my intention to issue the first national report card on Government performance later on this year. So, this is not about trying to avoid scrutiny. It's about trying to develop a more sophisticated way, which is in line with our national mission, where every child's education is valued, and where the impact of the school can be tracked more effectively.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Can I just ask, Cabinet Secretary, are you still holding on to your target of 37 per cent of free-school-meal pupils achieving the level 2 threshold?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we're moving away from the level 2 threshold. So, that's the first thing to say. So, we will want to develop a new suite, in line with our new accountability measures, as we go forward. So, we will be absolutely continuing to track and evaluate the performance of free-school-meal pupils. When we announce our new accountability measures, I will be in a position to address how we'll measure the Government's performance, and national performance, going forward. But, given the fact that we're moving away from level 2 plus, then we will need a different set of performance indicators.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The next questions are on looked-after children and adopted children, and I've got questions from Michelle then Mark.
Michelle Brown AM: Thank you. Good morning--
Mark Reckless AM: I was to come in first, I think. I was about to ask about ICF consulting.
Lynne Neagle AM: Go on then.
Mark Reckless AM: I think my questions are first, but, Michelle, please do correct me if you were planning to come in before. The PDG for looked-after children doesn't quite seem to have the degree of visibility as the PDG for the free-school-meals. I think we had the MORI/WISERD survey--only 15 per cent of primary schools and 23 per cent of secondary schools were aware that PDG was targeted at looked-after children. I just wonder--can you clarify on the record here what is the role of schools with PDG for looked-after children as compared to the regional consortia in this field?
Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. I think it is absolutely fair to say that most awareness around PDG is around free school meals. There is less awareness around the availability of PDG to support looked-after children. I think that's probably in the nature of the cohort, so, there are more children subject to free school meals than are subject to being looked after. So, I think that's part of the explanation. A decision was taken in 2015 to regionalise PDG for looked-after children. My understanding was that the thinking behind that at the time was around a greater strategic deployment of that resource and to try and drive a greater impact than how it was being used previously. So, looked-after PDG is held at a regional level. We have looked-after children PDG co-ordinators--they're in their second year this year--to look at a regional deployment of that resource. And that resource can be done in a variety of ways, through individual allocation to a school to support an individual child, through to capacity building for the whole system. So, for instance, if I give you an example, in Carmarthenshire, there's been a big emphasis on attachment disorder and training teachers with regard to the impact of attachment disorder. Carmarthenshire happens to be one of those local authorities that does quite well in terms of attainment for looked-after children. But, clearly, I have--not concerns.'Concerns'isn't the right word. But I have asked officials to give greater scrutiny to how that resource has been used in the last year. Steve, on my behalf, wrote out to the system, setting out our expectations, but also advising them of the fact we will be asking very detailed questions of accountability for that money. So, what has that money been used on and how can you account for the effect? But, Steve, maybe you can give some greater detail.
Steve Davies: I think the challenge that--. One of the rationales for shifting--not that all the money stays in the region, but having a regional strategic support--was that, historically, the money was going directly with that child to the school. Given the quite often rapid turnover of children in schools--the very nature of looked-after children is they do sometimes move through foster parents--historically, what happened, the money lands in the school, because, at that time in the year, when it's measured, the school gets the money and can spend it on some additional support for staff, but quite often that child moves on to another school and the money doesn't transfer. Some schools will go through quite a number of years without having a looked-after child and will not think strategically,'How do I need to support them?'So, that was the rationale of the shift. In terms of the implementation of the regional allocation, as of this financial year finishing, we are going into local authorities and regions to evaluate where they've located the resource, what the impact of that resource has been, so that is reinforced and shared more widely.
Kirsty Williams AM: And then, to reassure, it's not just internally that we're looking at this. We have a contract with an external agency to do an evaluation--
Mark Reckless AM: That's ICF consulting.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. Yes, so that was done in the autumn of last year, because, as I said, we had concerns about whether this was really having the effect that was intended. So, my expectation is that we will be in a position to receive that report later on this spring, and of course it would be my intention that that report would be made public for people to have a look at what--
Mark Reckless AM: That was commissioned last autumn--
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, in November 2017.
Mark Reckless AM: November 2017.
Kirsty Williams AM: So, I'm hoping to have that published before the summer recess. I'm very reluctant to say months; I've learnt not to say months, because they move.
Lynne Neagle AM: I'm going to go to Michelle now, Mark, because--
Mark Reckless AM: Sure. I will come back in if I have anything further to ask here after Michelle.
Lynne Neagle AM: --both of you asked for these questions, and that's what the pre-meeting is for.
Mark Reckless AM: Michelle, I defer to you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Michelle.
Michelle Brown AM: Okay, thank you. Would you be open, Cabinet Secretary, to the idea of adjusting the eligibility of the PDG so that pupils who have been looked after or adopted at any point within a previous given period of time would attract the PDG, rather than only if they're looked-after on a one-off date?
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said earlier, in questions from, I think it was, Llyr, who was talking about concepts of concepts of Ever 6, we are constantly looking at how we can get that balance between focus and flexibility for this resource. Llyr opened with the question of,'How can you absolutely ensure that these children are getting the money?', but then there's also a tension about how can you create some flexibility around the school's usage of the grant. So, we will look at that. I think there is the issue of where a school would know of a child that was looked after. Issues around adoption are slightly more sensitive, because we couldn't force a family to tell a school that their child was an adopted child. So, a family may be very open and very keen to explain that to a school, but we can't necessarily track as closely children who have been adopted, especially if that adoption happens before the child goes to school. We can't be in a position of forcing families to disclose this information if they don't want to, but we certainly can, as I say, look to strengthen our monitoring arrangements around PDG support for looked-after children and the impact that that's having. I just think we need to be a bit mindful of people's privacy in some instances. If they don't want to divulge that, it wouldn't be my job to tell a family,'You have to let us know if your child is adopted.'Lynne Neagle AM: Michelle.
Michelle Brown AM: Fair enough; thank you for that answer. The EAS consortium's approach to using the looked-after and adopted PDG is to use it as part of a broader approach targeted at vulnerable learners in general. What are your views on that approach?
Kirsty Williams AM: I'm a great believer in if we can get it right for our most vulnerable learners, we'll be getting it right for all of our learners. I gave the example earlier, for instance, of attachment disorder, and, Chair, you will know that I have had conversations. One of the emerging themes for me, as I go around visiting schools, is the impact and the growing awareness and the growing numbers of children who have attachment disorder, and how schools are best able to respond to that in their children. So, for instance, as I said about Carmarthenshire, there's been a huge effort to address that in the school sector in Carmarthenshire. Now, that has a disproportionate benefit for those children, because you're more likely to see attachment disorder in children who are care experienced, because of the nature of the lives that those children have lived, but that doesn't necessarily mean that attachment disorder is exclusively found in those children that are looked after. It can be found in other families as well. So, that vulnerable learner, regardless of their background, will benefit from having teachers who are better trained, understanding and have intervention strategies in place to be able to address that need.
Steve Davies: I think it's also important to add that this is not one region's approach; this is across four regions, so the others--. For example, ERW have run a significant programme looking at the impact of adverse childhood experiences on pupils, which has enabled teachers to detect some of the impact of some of those and then considers some of the work they need to do within the school but also with other agencies. So, it is something that's applied consistently across the four regions.
Kirsty Williams AM: I was in Pil Primary School recently where they use their PDG, both FSM PDG, and no doubt an element of PDG for looked-after, for nurture groups. So, for those children who really, really find it very difficult to be in the main classroom, they can have that nurture group experience to address issues around emotional behaviour, feelings, and it gets them in a position where they are able then to join the main classroom because issues around behaviour have been addressed and they're in a better position to learn. So, again, this is an example of how vulnerable learners in the wider sense can benefit.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Mark, did you have anything you wanted to ask?
Mark Reckless AM: Yes. Can I follow up on tracking adopted children? I entirely understand that you can't force parents to disclose that their child is adopted. However, my understanding was that, in England, there was a dataset with social services that was shared with schools in a way that I'm not clear is happening in Wales and how, if at all, that links to the pupil level annual school census data. Perhaps sort of linked to that, isn't there an argument for making the parents of adopted children in the schools, potentially, with adopted children more aware that adopted children who were previously looked after have this potential grant, and would they not be more willing to disclose this, at least confidentially to the school and Government, if they knew there was this upside of doing so?
Kirsty Williams AM: We're actively looking at whether we should try and find a way of collecting this data, with the caveats that I just gave earlier. We can't force parents to divulge information that is a matter for them, nor would I want to. But there is an active discussion going on at the moment about whether we could create a dataset where people divulge this information and we can then track the children through. You're absolutely right. One of the ways in which we can often encourage take-up, for instance, of free school meals, especially in those communities where there is a sense of reluctance to apply for support--even though people are entitled to it, there's a reluctance to do it; sometimes we see this in rural areas--. Actually, appealing to the parents by saying,'Actually, this will mean more money for your child's school budget'is a much more compelling reason why people will apply for it then saying,'Actually, it's going to help you', because they don't want to be seen being dependent, they don't want to be seen being helped. But, if you say to them,'Actually, do you know that this means more money for your child's school?', they go,'Oh, all right then, I'll fill in the forms now.'So, you're right, I think there is something that we could do to make parents understand, in the round, that this has an impact. But we are actively looking at and discussing whether we could create a dataset around adopted children and how we can do that in line with data protection and data sharing. One of the things I am concerned about in the performance of looked-after children generally is how we can, across Government, work more closely together. We can't see the educational attainment of looked-after children just being a job of education. It's got to be a job of social services and the health service as well. There's got to be a joined-up approach to doing that. Now, officials were at the ministerial advisory group that's chaired by David Melding on prospects for looked-after children. They were there at the group last week. David tells me that the paper was very positively received by the group. I will be sitting down with David Melding to talk through what more we can do on the education side. I think there's really an appetite between me and the Minister for children to get a closer working relationship on this. We can't expect schools to do it on their own and alone. And there are things that we can do out there in local authorities to help improve outcomes. It's not just about the PDG; it is about, when social services are thinking about a placement, where does the discussion about where children are going to go to school--when does that take place? Do we talk about the placement, move a child and then think,'Oh my goodness me, what are we going to do about the schooling?'If you can imagine, the school could have been working really, really hard with a pupil to get them in a good place, to get them being able to access the curriculum, and then social services decide that the placement is being changed. So, we potentially lose all of that. So, a greater involvement in education and better linked-up working in local authorities will help us with this. It can't be just the job of the PDG. If we think we can crack this with just PDG, then we're being delusional. It has to be a cross-government approach at a national level, and at a local government level as well, to get this right. Sometimes, data protection--how can we break down some of these barriers between, you know, the school doesn't need to, schools shouldn't see, the entire social services report? Well, maybe the school does need to see some of that background information if they're going to have an impact for that child. So, there's more work to do, but it cannot be just the job of education on its own if we're going to make a difference, nor can it just be the job of the PDG to make a difference for those children.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Julie's got some more questions on the impact on adopted and looked-after children.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes, before I go on to those, I just wanted to support, really, what Mark was saying about adopted children and how important it is, I think, that the adoptive parents feel able to speak to the school and to give information. Because certainly any evidence we've had from adoptive parents, and generally knowing about what adoptive parents do feel, is that they often feel that there's a degree of a lack of sensitivity in the school about the issues of adoption. I would certainly support some move towards ensuring that the atmosphere was open in a way that would encourage them to realise that it would be a help for the children if there was an awareness in the school. So, I just wanted to really reinforce that.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, and that would chime with what I hear from many adoptive parents. I'm just trying to be sensitive by saying we can't force people to divulge this information if they don't want to.
Julie Morgan AM: No, but they need to be given the opportunity.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, you're right. We need to make sure that those parents feel that they can discuss this with school leaders and classroom teachers and explore how best those individual children can be supported, and how best we can support parents. Because, again--and I've said this a lot--after the quality of teaching, the second biggest impact on a child's educational outcome will be parental engagement. So, being able to create an environment where adoptive parents feel very confident and able to talk about their children's education is absolutely crucial if we're going to get that parental engagement that we need for all of our children.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Thank you. Going on to looked-after children, you say that the latest data on looked-after children's attainment is extremely disappointing. Can you expand on that and what effect the PDG has had in this result, or not had?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, there's no getting away from it: the way in which we currently measure outcomes for looked-after children, the results are not good enough. It's a source of huge concern to me that we need to do better for those children. That's why officials are engaging with the group that David Melding is chairing, to make sure that education is integral to that group and it's not lost sight of. There's a discussion to be had about the cohort, whether it's right and correct to compare looked-after children to the main cohort, or whether these statistics are useful in any way. Sometimes as well--this is not to make an excuse because, as I've said in my paper, it's extremely disappointing, but sometimes it can be really difficult. Because the cohort sometimes can be very, very small, it can swing the statistics to look perhaps more dramatic.
Julie Morgan AM: I think, generally, when you look at how looked-after children do--
Kirsty Williams AM: It's not good.
Julie Morgan AM: --in a much wider evaluation, they're not doing well, are they?
Kirsty Williams AM: They're not doing well. So, that's why we've got the review, the independent review, into the impact of the PDG in this area. This is why Steve is doing the work that he is doing with the regional consortia because, clearly, at the moment, we are not doing what we need to do for that particular cohort of children. I would not make any bones about that at all.
Steve Davies: I think we will not move away from the fact that these children need good GCSEs to gain employment, so we'll continue to measure that. I think we need to look at more nuanced evaluations of the data at a lower level. So, for example, there were significant improvements in terms of PDG pupils who got three and four good GCSEs but didn't get past the threshold. That's not to cover anything that is not working in terms of improvement, but we will look at the full range and still hold on to the fact that we have to look at a measure that relates to the likelihood of these children going on to further education and training.
Julie Morgan AM: And then just one more question about the exclusion rates amongst looked-after children. They are, I understand, over six times more likely to be given a fixed-term exclusion. So, is there any way of trying to address this? Is the PDG used for anything to do with exclusions?
Kirsty Williams AM: We can look at exclusions. We also have to read across about how the whole system works, not just the PDG element of the system. So, we know, for example, that 66 per cent of looked-after learners have some additional learning need, so we can't just look at it in terms of this particular source of funding; we have to look at it at a wider level of support. So, given that the majority of those children will have an ALN, how can we make sure that our new ALN legislation and our new ALN regime meets the needs of these children? So, I think what we're looking at, again, is to say that it can't be just the job of the PDG. That's there as an additional level of support, but actually, we've got to get our ALN right. Unless we get our ALN right, lots and lots of these children are not going to get the support that they need day in, day out via that system. We do know that sometimes, if we're not addressing ALN, then we're not addressing behaviour issues that then potentially lead to an expulsion or potentially lead to non-attendance. So, we've got to look at it in the round and recognise the connections between the sometimes quite complex needs that these children have within the school setting, that are not just as a result of the fact that they're looked after; they have other needs as well.
Steve Davies: And investment in well-being--
Kirsty Williams AM: Absolutely. Steve is reminding me that that's why well-being is part of the national mission--to address issues around supporting children with their well-being, which is a way of keeping them in school.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to move on to Schools Challenge Cymru now. Llyr.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you, Chair. I was just wondering what your assessment is as to why some schools made progress and others didn't.
Kirsty Williams AM: I think we have to recognise that the 39 schools that were part of the programme were in very, very different places. So, I think one of the reasons why some schools did well was because their needs were not so complex, not so deep-seated and a certain level of intervention was enough to get them moving forward. Some schools had very, very different needs. I think, talking to those involved in the programme, as always, we had some support advisers, challenge advisers working with those schools as part of the programme who were really, really excellent and really good, and were the right fit for the school and really drove the school onwards. We had other people employed in the programme who, perhaps, were less effective at driving change within those individual schools. So, what we have is a mixed bag of performance, again reflecting the very different challenges that those schools were facing, which led them to be chosen for the programme in the first place.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, okay--
Steve Davies: Sorry. One of the other key additional factors was the extent to which there had been recent appointment of a new headteacher to that school just before the programme had started, because--
Kirsty Williams AM: Leadership is all.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: And that was seen as a positive.
Steve Davies: A positive, yes. I think one of the challenges is that sometimes the time it takes to make changes in leadership can be protracted and can be a barrier, sometimes, to the speed with which you can move. But, for a significant minority of the schools, there had been recent new appointments of headteachers, which was seen to be contributing, when you looked at the evaluation, to the speed with which they were able to engage.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: The reason I was asking was I wanted to understand what lessons the Government is taking from that three-year investment, really, and how, maybe, you're applying some of those lessons to your wider school improvement programme. I know Professor Mel Ainscow identified six interconnected lessons, although I also note that the Cabinet Secretary didn't actually meet him for about six or seven months after coming into post. So, I'm just wondering, can you give us confidence that, actually, you are serious about taking lessons from Schools Challenge Cymru and applying them to the wider school improvement agenda?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, absolutely, Llyr. I don't think anything should be read into when I met the individual concerned, because officials were meeting the individual concerned. Individual challenge advisers were meeting with the regions, there was crossover work with the FSM agenda as well, and we are absolutely determined that best practice and those interventions that drove school improvement are embedded in the new support that we have via the regional consortia. It's no coincidence that some of the best people that were employed by Schools Challenge Cymru are now in the employment of our regional consortia. So, those people that were really good and really made a difference don't work for the Schools Challenge Cymru scheme any more, they work for our regional school improvement services. So, we're absolutely determined. The things that we have learned, as always, are around leadership. It is absolutely key and crucial to have strong, capable school leadership as a driver for change within the system. We're looking at systems and processes, so, actually, has a school got in place comprehensive systems of tracking and processes within the school? We're looking at the teacher quality--how can we ensure that we have got consistent strategies in place to drive up pedagogy and teacher quality in the classroom? Collaborative activity--again, absolutely key. A school cannot see itself in isolation, and one of the key themes of the national mission is a self-improving system, so, collaborative working where schools are looking outside of each other, learning from best practice from other schools. So, there are lots of things that we've drawn from the evaluation that you will see as key themes running through the national mission, and, as I said, it's no coincidence that our really good people that were working in Schools Challenge Cymru are now working for the regional consortia, being able to use that expertise not just for a very small proportion of our schools--but that expertise is available to all our schools.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Although Estyn has told us, of course, that you can't expect the consortia to really carry on with that level of intervention and the same kind of intensity as was provided previously, so I'm just wondering--
Kirsty Williams AM: In what way?
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, we were told by Estyn in evidence that they didn't necessarily think that we could expect the consortia to provide the same type of tailored support, and certainly the level of intensity with the improvement boards and everything--
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the improvement boards are carrying on, so the improvement boards still exist, and I would--not that I want to argue with Estyn--
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, feel free; this is your opportunity to do so if you--
Kirsty Williams AM: What I would say is that those improvement boards are staying on, and our schools categorisation system is used to identify the level of support. Now, if you're a red school, that gives you the entitlement to 25 days of support. That is more than you would have got under the Schools Challenge Cymru programme, which would've been 20 days. So, actually, moving to this system allows us to really focus in on those schools that need that intensive level of support. And what's important for me, Llyr, in this, okay, is that those schools are not necessarily just the schools that were in the programme. Our system now of challenge, advice and support allows us to target resources across all of our schools and across all of our sectors, because you'll be aware that Schools Challenge was only available to secondary schools, not available to primary schools. What our system now allows us to do, via the schools categorisation, is to identify schools, wherever they are in Wales and whatever sector they're in, to have that intensive level of support that they need to make improvements.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, you're confident that that level of momentum is continuing through the consortia that was previously enjoyed by those particular schools, and you're also confident that there is minimal risk that they'll slip back to where they were, potentially, or at least part of the way back.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, actually, there are some really good examples of some of the Schools Challenge Cymru schools making that sustained improvement now that the programme has come to an end. You only have to look at Tredegar, where we have seen continual improvement and moving up through the categorisation system. That school is now a green school, so they've been able to sustain their progress at the end of the programme. If we look at Armando in Eastern High School, again--gosh, my goodness me, we had lots of debates in a previous Chamber about the future of Eastern. There was one person that said that Eastern had to be closed and that the only way forward for that particular school was for it to be shut down, but what we have seen is investment via Schools Challenge Cymru, but ongoing, continual support from the regional consortium, and that school has come out of special measures. I pay absolute tribute to the staff of that school and that community that have done such a good job. So, I'm absolutely convinced that where we've got good leadership and good support, some of those schools are making continued, sustained progress even after the end of the programme. The challenge for me is for those schools that Schools Challenge Cymru didn't work for, and we haven't seen that progress--how we can use our school improvement system now to continue to work with those schools to give them the level of support that they need to make a difference. So that's what my focus is on now: a whole-system approach, rather than choosing 39 schools to get that level of support, when we recognise that there are schools everywhere, potentially, that need intervention, support and challenge, and in the primary sector as well.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, you wouldn't agree with a number of--well, the near-unanimous evidence that we've had from academics, some of whom are Government advisers from consortia et cetera, that this kind of programme such as Schools Challenge Cymru would probably need about five years to really have the impact that it was intended to have.
Kirsty Williams AM: What I would say is that, from my understanding, from the outset, it was a time-limited programme. The schools were aware of that. There were no surprises that it was supposed to be a time-limited programme. Evidence from across the UK showed that school challenge programmes have differed in time. So, for instance, Manchester's challenge was a three-year programme. So, there's no consensus about how many years you need to run a programme for. The previous Minister was quite clear about the time-limited nature of the programme. That's not to say it was the wrong decision, because what's important, and an ongoing legacy of the programme, was the investment in regional school improvement capacity, because at the time our school improvement services and the regions were young, in their infancy. The ability of individual local authorities to make a difference, with so many local authorities in an Estyn categorisation, was limited, so one of the ongoing legacies of the programme is that significant investment of over PS10 million in the capacity of the regions to be able to continue this support and the school improvement work.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, how disappointed were you that the money for Schools Challenge Cymru went back into reserves and didn't stay in your envelope, as you described it earlier? I presume you made a pitch for it. Did you make a case for that money to stay within your department?
Kirsty Williams AM: Llyr, we are constantly having discussions with the Minister for Finance around support for the education budget. The Minister for Finance was quite clear that it was a time-limited programme. We were able to secure investment from the Finance Minister to be able to secure the programme and run it and phase it out to make sure there was transition support, so as we moved from the schools challenge programme into the regional consortia, there were resources to do that.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Did you feel there was a case to be made to add to the consortia's resources and be able to continue that level of support that schools had previously had?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we did make resources available to the regional consortia to do that. As I say, from the outset, the previous Minister was very clear it was a time-limited programme. Certainly the schools that I talk to--. And I want to be absolutely clear: I have visited many, many Schools Challenge Cymru schools. I have used that opportunity to talk to them about--Heolddu being one of them, Hefin, which we went to visit, and Willows, for instance. I'm going to one this afternoon--I'm going to St Illtyd's this afternoon, and I always take--. I've been to Caergybi in Anglesey. I always take the opportunity to speak to those teachers about their experience of the programme and to understand and assure myself that they are getting ongoing support that they see as an appropriate level for them. I think I've done 19 of the schools.
Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin on this.
Hefin David AM: With regard to it being a time-limited programme, the previous Minister was clear that it was a time-limited programme, but it wasn't quite as time-limited as you've decided to be. Is that fair to say?
Kirsty Williams AM: No, it was supposed to be a three-year programme at the most. So, there's no differential between when I decided it was time-limited and the expectations--
Hefin David AM: So the time limit was the same that the previous Minister put on it.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. No change.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: But Mel Ainscow did tell us that there was a fade out in that third year--not that people were giving up, don't get me wrong, but clearly there wasn't that commitment coming from Government because the decision had been made, and people felt that it was just fizzling out a little bit, and that impacted on the momentum.
Kirsty Williams AM: I wouldn't characterise it as that. I think there certainly was a transition phase when we knew that the programme was moving and schools were moving into a different level of support, but I certainly wouldn't describe it as a fading out--not at all. As I said, we were aware that the programme was transitioning and we were determined to get that right for those individual schools, and to learn the lessons and, crucially, to be able to apply those lessons right across the board.
Steve Davies: I can see where the perception would come if a programme director like Mel was managing the programme right to the end of the three years exactly the same, and it falls off--not a cliff, but it falls off, then the readiness for schools and the readiness in the system to hand over--so part of the shift of focus was that working as a Government with the programme in those schools to working with the programme, those schools and the region. So, I think, inevitably, one party might see it as a decrease in terms of emphasis on their work, but it was necessary for the transition.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: But does that cast a bit of a shadow over the transition, then--that one key player within that process felt as such, or are you confident that that was managed well and effectively?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think it was managed well, and we were very clear to recognise success where success has been achieved, but not to gloss over where the programme had not made an impact, because that wouldn't be good for anybody. There was a formal event to close the programme, which gave everybody an opportunity to get together, to be formally thanked, and for, as I said, congratulations to be given to those people who had really made a difference and, crucially, key staff transferred over into the regional consortia. So, for those individuals, they were able to continue their work, but just be able to apply that work on a regional basis rather than just in an individual school. So, I don't see that there was any fading out, but there was a transition into a new system, and many of those key personnel transitioned into the system with us.
Lynne Neagle AM: Have you got any figures for the numbers of staff who went from the programme into the consortia?
Kirsty Williams AM: Not off the top of my head, but I can let you know.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I've got Darren first, then Mark.
Kirsty Williams AM: And can I just say, I met with some of them? I met with a selection of those people who had been involved in the programme to get their feedback on what they felt had gone right, and what they didn't feel had gone right in the programme. So, I took the time not just to meet the figurehead of the programme, but actually to meet the people who were doing the work in the individual schools. Sorry.
Darren Millar AM: Yes, I just wanted to ask you, you mentioned the figurehead there, I assume by'the figurehead'you mean Professor Ainscow. And you've mentioned as well that you said you wanted to learn lessons from Schools Challenge Cymru, but he told us that nobody had been in touch with him since March of last year in order to have any sort of follow-up engagement, or to have a dialogue about his perspective on what worked, what didn't work, why there were failures in some areas and why there were successes in others. Why haven't you sought that level of engagement with the person who was responsible for running the programme?
Kirsty Williams AM: I've had that conversation with Mr Ainscow. We had the evaluation of the programme. We've spoken to the people who were actually involved in running the programme on a daily basis in individual schools. We've spoken to the regional consortia. We've spoken to local education authorities. We've spoken to a wide variety of people to get their insight into the lessons learned, what was valuable and what was not valuable. So, a wide variety of people have been involved in those conversations.
Darren Millar AM: But you've hardly engaged with Mr Ainscow--with Professor Ainscow himself.
Steve Davies: I would actually say that I have had meetings--
Darren Millar AM: Since March of last year.
Steve Davies: Yes, since March of last year. I haven't got the exact dates for you. I've had discussions with Mel Ainscow, and my line manager at the time, Owen Evans, also had meetings and discussions.
Darren Millar AM: So, when he told us,'Since last March, I literally have had no contact at all with anybody from Welsh Government', he was telling porky pies, was he?
Steve Davies: That's not my recollection. I'll go back and check for you.
Lynne Neagle AM: If you could check and let us know, that would be good. Mark.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, well, I just talked about the celebration event to formally mark the end of the programme. My understanding was that it was July of last year, so people were engaged in that. And this idea that somebody has been ignored or frozen out is not how I see or how I regard that situation.
Lynne Neagle AM: Mark.
Mark Reckless AM: I have to say, with Professor Ainscow my impression was he took great, great pride in the work that he'd done with Schools Challenge Cymru, and I think he really enjoyed the engagement, the work and the positive relations with the Welsh Government. But I think there was just a degree of disappointment, perhaps, that at least he didn't feel that he'd been interrogated as much as he might have been about the lessons learned from the programme, and how perhaps to entrench those as well as possible with the regional consortia. I just wonder, Cabinet Secretary, if you could invite the professor in, perhaps to have a further debrief with you and take account of some of his thoughts and suggestions for what might help in this area.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, Mark, as I said, I just don't think it should be right to characterise this as a failure to engage with a single individual.
Mark Reckless AM: I'm not characterising it that way, Cabinet Secretary.
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, I met with him, Steve has met with him, Owen Evans has met with him, my special policy adviser has met with him and had discussions. So, there has been an ongoing dialogue. But, Mark, I hope that I have demonstrated since I took on this job that I am willing to work with a wide variety of people and to tap into their expertise if it can help me to deliver on the national mission. And if the advice to me is that we haven't sufficiently learnt the lessons, then I'll gladly have another conversation. What I'm saying to you--and I'm absolutely confident--is that we have learnt the lessons, we are taking that work and the good practice forward, and we have done that with conversations with a wide variety of people who had a view on this, from individual schools that were involved in the programme, individual people who were working in those schools, local education authorities, some of which have been very scathing about the programme, I should say, regional consortia--. So, the lessons, I am confident, have been learnt.
Mark Reckless AM: I'm glad to hear that, Cabinet Secretary, but I still say that, listening to Professor Ainscow's evidence, there was a perception, at least from him individually, that the programme should not be seen to be a failure, but a desire that the lessons should be learnt and a feeling or exception, at least on his part, that there was more that he still had to contribute to the process. And just to take one particular example, I think he referred to the Schools Challenge Cymru advisers being very successful in bringing in people who might not otherwise have contributed to this, and the regional consortia have had greater challenges in recruiting people, perhaps in some areas, of the same high standard of some particular individuals, but also from a wide range of different areas that the Schools Challenge Cymru do, and that there could be more to learn in that area as to how to support real excellence and a greater diversity of recruitment for those people. Is that something you could perhaps draw on his thoughts further about? Because I think he does feel that he has more to say to Welsh Government to help in this area.
Kirsty Williams AM: Firstly, can I say that I have never described the programme as a failure? I would understand, as someone who has put so much personal investment into the brand of schools challenges, that he would not want anybody to characterise that particular approach to school improvement as a failure. And I want to be absolutely clear that I have never described the programme as a failure, and I want to reassure Mr Ainscow of that. As I've said, gosh, my goodness me, if you saw my e-mail inbox and you saw the letters that come in, people are never shy in coming forward to give me advice on what I need to do, what I need to do next, what I'm doing right, what I'm doing wrong, and, you know, our doors are always open to listen to people who have interesting things to say about how we can deliver our educational mission. So, people aren't slow in coming forward, I can assure you, with advice.
Lynne Neagle AM: Julie.
Julie Morgan AM: Just very quickly. I'm sure the Minister is aware that Cardiff put extra funds of its own in to continue Schools Challenge Cymru advisers. So, obviously, they appreciated the value of the scheme, but it does query whether it should have gone on longer.
Kirsty Williams AM: Julie, I think, to be fair, there are some people who think the scheme was absolutely fantastic. I've had feedback from people who didn't think the scheme was helpful at all--in fact, they felt it was a hindrance. I'm very much of the view that the scheme worked really well for some schools in some areas and had less impact in some areas. There is a mixed picture. What's important to me is that we understand what it was that led those schools to make those big changes, how we can--like Mark talked about, the expertise--how we can keep that expertise in the system, and how we can apply the lessons to all schools.
Lynne Neagle AM: The next questions, and the final questions, are from John. So, we're going to need succinct questions and succinct answers.
John Griffiths AM: Some questions on regional consortia, Cabinet Secretary, and, first of all, the role that you believe they should play and how schools use PDG.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it's an absolute--. It's one of the things that I have been very clear to the regional consortia that I expect their challenge and support advisers to be asking schools about. So, one of the conversations that they need to have when they are in schools is exploring, with that school, how they are using their PDG, and how they're demonstrating an impact for those resources. So, it's a fundamental role for the challenge and support advisers in the regional consortia in their school improvement work. It's crucial.
John Griffiths AM: That sort of brings to mind some of the research that's been done on the role of the challenge advisers, Cabinet Secretary, which suggested that they're not actually challenging schools in that way, and that there's very little evidence of schools changing their decisions on the use of PDG as a result of any challenge from those challenge advisers. So, how would you respond to those findings?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, in my scrutiny of the role and success of our regional consortia, I specifically asked them about free-school-meal performance and the use of PDG within their particular region. I think there is increasing evidence to suggest that good use is being made of that resource, and I think that is being fed back into us. Estyn tell us that it's one of the areas of school expenditure that is closely linked to research and an evidence base. But, clearly, there is more to do, and that's why we have appointed the new regional advisers for PDG going forward, because we think there can be improvements in how this agenda can be supported at a regional level.
John Griffiths AM: Okay. So, you would recognise the findings from that research.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. There's always more that we can do, and we are strengthening that role by the appointment of the new regional PDG advisers, so that individual school challenge advisers know what they should be looking for, know what they should be doing, and there is a regional approach to good practice.
John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could you tell the committee, Cabinet Secretary, how effective you believe the relationship was between the Schools Challenge Cymru programme and the regional consortia's school improvement functions, and to what extent it varied by region?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think it's fair to say that, on occasion, I have received feedback that there was a conflict between what was going on at an individual school under the school improvement programme and whether, then, they welcomed support from the regional consortia as part of that. So, in some cases, if we're being absolutely honest, there could sometimes be tensions between the two, but in most cases, the relationship was very, very positive and there was continuous feedback between the work going on in the schools under the programme and the regional consortia challenge advisers. But I'm going to be blunt and honest with people--in some cases, it has been reported to me--it's only anecdotal evidence; I haven't got hard and fast evidence--that there sometimes was a conflict:'We're a school challenge school so we don't need to participate or listen to any advice that's coming from the regional consortia.'Or, a local education authority said to me,'We felt that we couldn't get involved in that school anymore because it was part of a different programme.'Those were isolated incidents, and, as I said, it's only anecdotal feedback. In most cases, the relationship was a very positive one.
Steve Davies: Just very quickly, I think that, across the board, it was more complex in the beginning, getting--[Inaudible. ]. But when the programme itself recognised that they needed to work with the regions, and the regions needed to work with them--and I think Mel Ainscow in his evidence referred to this--it strengthened after some early challenges. I think Mel Ainscow was working in a number of regions--I can't remember which ones--so he's established relationships--[Interruption. ] Sorry?
Kirsty Williams AM: Central south.
Steve Davies: Central south. He has already been working in that, so I think it possibly had a stronger springboard in terms of the early working.
Kirsty Williams AM: Because he already had relationships that he had already developed in that particular region. As always, with many of these things, it's about individuals and relationships.
John Griffiths AM: Okay. Finally from me, Cabinet Secretary: in 2015-16, Estyn reported on regional consortia not sufficiently focusing on particular groups of pupils and tracking their outcomes--for example, vulnerable pupils. I just wonder what you are able to tell us in terms of to what extent there has been necessary progress since 2015-16.
Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, I think it's important to recognise that all four consortia underwent monitoring visits in the autumn of last year, of 2017, which weren't reflected in the Estyn annual report for 2015-16. Estyn, through these 2017 inspections, have said that three out of the four regional consortia are making strong progress in their particular work, and we are continuing, as Welsh Government, to work with the other regional consortia to address the findings of the Estyn report.
John Griffiths AM: And that would include these particular issues.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. The committee probably hasn't had an opportunity to see, but, only this morning, Estyn has released a report on more able and talented, and has positive things to say in the field of more able and talented, which was being asked about earlier by Members--you know, evidence of improved working and support in that particular arena. But, again, we need to ensure a consistency across all the regions, and that the findings of Estyn's most recent reports into regional performance are followed through.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. As we've got a couple of minutes left, if I can just jump back to the issue of practical uses of the PDG--because it's the only thing we haven't really covered and it would be good to get on the record--can I ask to what extent you'd like to see the PDG used to track the progress of eligible pupils? And the committee's heard that there are several different tracking systems and tools used by schools. To what extent is that an issue to do with what the Welsh Government is promoting? Or is it down to consortia or individual schools? And do you think there needs to be a more centralised push on how the tracking is undertaken?
Kirsty Williams AM: Firstly, can I say it's absolutely crucial that we track performance, absolutely crucial? That's the bedrock. We don't dictate to individual schools the nature of the system that they should employ in their school. There are a number of different programmes that allow schools to do this, but we are absolutely clear, and best practice and evidence shows us, that individual pupil tracking is key and crucial. And, as I said in the beginning, where we weren't tracking pupils at all, initial investment in PDG was used to establish these systems within schools. Again, one of the outcomes from the schools challenge review, and one of the lessons learnt, was, again, the importance of individual tracking of pupils throughout their school career. But we don't dictate a single system.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you.
Kirsty Williams AM: But the principle is a really important one.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, and you don't think there's more scope to look at what the best system is that can be recommended to schools.
Kirsty Williams AM: That's not something we're actively looking at. I am actively looking at developing a Welsh toolkit around good practice, evidence base and research. At the moment we use the Sutton Trust toolkit, which is fine and excellent, but we are having active discussions about whether we're in a position, now, to look at developing a suite of a Welsh toolkit to support this agenda, and that's under active consideration.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Well, we've reached the end of our session. Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary and the officials for attending and for answering such a wide range of questions? As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again for coming.
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you very much.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Okay. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Children and Social Care on Families First funding. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education, updating us on the supply teacher issue. Paper to note 3--another letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education, providing further information following our meeting on 15 February. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the WJEC on availability of textbooks. Paper to note 5--a letter from Qualifications Wales, also on availability of textbooks. And paper to note 6 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education to the Children's Commissioner for Wales, following up on the dialogue that they've been having about our inquiry. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then, is for me to propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you. | According to Kirsty Williams, it's probably the best that they've got at present, and will continue to have discussions with local government about whether there are different ways. Officials are working all the time in conjunction with the department in England, to understand their thinking in this area so that we are in a position to make some decisions about what a notional eligibility for free school meals will look like going forward, but before I make any decisions, I want to assure everybody that there will be a full public consultation on that. | qmsum |
How do the group think of the extent and condition that schools actually make good use of that funding of PDG?
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this morning's Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask Members who are present if they wish to declare any interests? Okay, thank you. Item 2 this morning is our final evidence session for our inquiry into targeted funding to improve educational outcomes. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Cabinet Secretary for Education; Steve Davies, director of the education directorate; and Ruth Conway, deputy director, support for learners division. Welcome to all of you, and thank you for your attendance and also for the paper that you've provided in advance. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions, and the first questions are from Llyr Gruffydd.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bore da. I just want to start by asking some questions around the targeting of the pupil development grant because, clearly, we've had a lot of evidence around this apparent blurring of eligibility to an extent. I'm just wondering how comfortable you are that the money is being targeted appropriately because, clearly, it's being targeted more widely than just those eligible for free school meals, from some of the evidence we've had, but also that it seems to be predominantly focused on low-attaining frees--pupils who are eligible for free school meals.
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Llyr. I think it's important to be absolutely clear that when it comes to individual interventions, those individual interventions should only be targeted at those children who are eligible for free school meals. But in some cases, schools may use their PDG funding to provide a universal intervention, but we would want to--in challenge advisers'discussions in schools--we'd want to have evidence that that universal intervention would have a disproportionate effect on the outcomes for children on free school meals. So, for instance, if I give you an example in your own region, Llyr: at Brynteg County Primary School in Wrexham, if you look at that primary school in Wrexham, their results for free-school-meal children at the end of their primary school period in school are equivalent to their non-free-school-meal counterparts. So, there is no differentiation in those results. One of the things that they've used their PDG for is to really focus on the concept of growth mindset in school. So, that's a universal thing that they've trained all the teachers in, but what we know is that that has a disproportionate effect on those children who are on free school meals. So, if you're familiar with the concept of a growth mindset, it's about really challenging learners to think that,'I can do things. If sometimes I fail, I pick myself up, I'm more resilient.'Now, that has been, as I said, trained to all the teachers in the school--it's an ethos for the whole school--but we have seen that the impact on the free-school-meal children has been even greater, and now they're at the same level. So, that's the important distinction. Individual intervention per child has to be targeted at those children who are eligible for free school meals, but sometimes a school will employ a whole-school approach to train their staff, for instance, and that, then, has to demonstrate it has a disproportionate effect on free school meals. So, growth mindset; it may be attachment disorder training for staff, for instance, where we know it's of benefit to everybody, but will have particular benefits for that cohort of students. With regard to more able and talented, you know, Llyr, that this is an area of concern for me, generally, within the Welsh education system; that we've not been particularly good at identifying, supporting and driving attainment for those children. I'm absolutely clear that PDG needs to be used for those children who are eligible to drive potential, whatever the potential of that child is, including more able and talented. And again, I'll give you an example that has been seen as good practice in Pembrokeshire: a window on the world bus, again paid for by schools. I don't know if you're aware of it.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: We've heard about that.
Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, you've heard about it; well, it's a really good example the window on the world. And, again, that's very much targeted at raising aspirations and giving children who are more able and talented, who are eligible for PDG, those experiences, and to really push them. So, yes, I'm absolutely clear that PDG shouldn't just be seen to be getting individuals to the average. For those children who are more able and talented, it should be used to support them--
Llyr Gruffydd AM: And we all share those aspirations, I'm sure, and you pointed to examples of good practice, but of course, it's not universal, is it, so what I'm asking is: do you think that the guidance is sufficient as it is? Do you think that there's a great enough awareness of how the PDG should be used at the coalface? And also, are you confident that consortia and others have the measures in place to be able to demonstrate that it is being used properly?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think, if we look at what Estyn has said about PDG, it does actually recognise that the PDG is being used to push more able and talented children, but as always with the system, Llyr, it's whether we can be sure that that is strategic and that it's happening across all of our schools. So, you're--
Llyr Gruffydd AM: But not just in relation to more able and talented, I'm referring to the eligibility and the targeting.
Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, the eligibility. You'll be aware that, on the advice of Sir Alasdair, we have employed and appointed new PDG regional advisers, and I think their role is going to be absolutely crucial in spreading that good practice across the region, whether that's use of PDG for more able and talented, or ensuring that PDG is used in the appropriate way. So, that's there to provide strategic overall advice. And obviously, we have been very clear with regional challenge advisers, in the relationship and the conversations they're having with individual schools, that they're really challenging their schools about the use of PDG, not just in terms of targeting, but the programmes, what the money is being spent on, whether there is an evidence base for that and whether we are clear on impact. So, I think the new regional advisers are going to be crucial in enabling us to ensure more consistent practice across the regions.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, are you content that eligibility for free school meals is the best measure, really, of identifying which pupils to target?
Kirsty Williams AM: Llyr, in the absence of anything better. I'll be the first person to say that maybe it's not as absolutely focused, but in the absence of anything different to identify a proxy for need, I think it's probably the best that we've got at present. And we will continue to have discussions with local government about whether there are different ways. We have to be mindful. Some of the policy levers in this area are out of my hands, so if we look at the roll-out of universal credit, for instance, we've got officials working very hard at the moment to try and understand what universal credit is going to mean and where we are going to be able to identify relative need, going forward. We haven't had any additional resource as a result of this, but we're very mindful that, potentially, this has an impact, going forward. And, officials are working all of the time, I must say, in conjunction with the department in England, to understand their thinking in this area so that we are in a position to make some decisions about what a notional eligibility for free school meals will look like going forward, but before I make any decisions, I want to assure everybody that there will be a full public consultation on that.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Finally for now, on this issue of once a year, in January, if you're eligible for free school meals, then you're in that group for that year. We've had some quite strong evidence about how difficult that makes longer term planning for a number of schools and we've also been pointed in the direction of what's happened in England with the Ever 6, and I'm just wondering whether you're giving any thought to maybe changing that a little bit.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we're certainly giving thought to flexibility. In conversations with Alasdair, who is our independent adviser on this agenda, and individual schools, we're actively giving thought to greater flexibility and maybe longer term projections, so that schools know, for a number of years ahead, what their allocation will be. There are advantages to that system, because you could give that flexibility, you could give that long-term approach, but then, how do you make that responsive if a school suddenly has more children? We do know that, actually, the number of free-school-meal pupils is dropping. But there can be changes, you know, regional working in areas of north Wales in tourism, or maybe in other areas at Christmas time, parents are able to get a period of work. So, how can we create a more flexible system? We're actively looking at that at the moment. I wouldn't use it as an Ever 6 concept, but as an'Ever 2'concept. We have looked at Ever 6, and I'm going to be absolutely blunt with you: to introduce an Ever 6 concept for Wales would mean in the region of identifying an additional PS40 million. I'm going to be absolutely straight and blunt with you: we're not in a position at the moment to be able to identify an additional PS40 million to introduce an Ever 6. But issues around flexibility, certainly, are actively under consideration. In fact, we'll be having a discussion later on today about decisions, going forward, for the next two years.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Darren on this.
Darren Millar AM: It's just a very brief point in response to the PS40 million price ticket that you just put on that. That's, of course, assuming that you maintain the current level of PDG, yes? So, if you reduced the level of PDG slightly, but made it available to more individuals, if you like, via allocating it in a different way, then that PS40 million price ticket wouldn't be there, would it?
Kirsty Williams AM: I was asked a question about had I ever considered an Ever 6. We have looked at that, we've priced that up. I have to make decisions in the envelope of resources that are available to me. We could, indeed, change the way in which we allocate PDG money, but we have to do it within the envelope that is available to me, over PS90 million. That's a significant level of investment, but, of course, as always, Darren, we could cut the amount per pupil, but that might have quite challenging swings in allocations. What we have done--because what I am clear on is that there was evidence to suggest that in the secondary sector, a great deal of PDG was being focused on years 10 and 11, especially year 11, in catch-up provision, and you'll be aware, because we've said this in evidence to the committee in the papers, we've set a challenge to secondary schools to say,'Actually, the majority of your PDG allocation has to be used in key stage 3.'Now, we have to balance the needs, the moral hazard of turning round to children in years 10 and 11 and saying,'We're not going to provide catch-up opportunities for you,'because, clearly, those children need that support. But the evidence and the advice that we're receiving is: actually, strong focus on early years, primary and key stage 3, if we get that right, should negate the need for spending money on catch-up at years 10 and 11. That's why we, in our advice to local authorities and schools, say that we want to see evidence that they're spending this money earlier on in a child's career, rather than just a scramble at year 11 to say,'Right, we've got to get you through your exams.'Darren Millar AM: Okay, but have you actively considered, then, reducing the level you have?
Kirsty Williams AM: We've--
Ruth Conway: Sorry--I was just going to say that one of the things is looking at the scope of the definition, and I think it's about being more flexible with the definition, rather than reducing the amount per head.
Darren Millar AM: Okay. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. If we can go on, then, to talk about some of the practical uses of the PDG, you write in your written paper that'the majority of schools are making well thought out and appropriate decisions'on how to use it. But Estyn reported that only two thirds of primary and secondary schools make effective use of the PDG. Given that we've had it now for six years, would you not have expected there to be a higher level of schools actually making good use of that funding?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, to flip it on its head, the vast majority of schools, as identified by Estyn, are using this money to good effect. So, that's the way I like to see it--that the vast majority of schools are doing well. What Estyn has also indicated is the intrinsic link here to leadership within individual schools, and as you'll be aware, leadership, improving capacity in leadership and developing leadership talent in the Welsh education system is a key priority for me in our national mission. Of course, that's being developed in a different work stream. I think what's fair to say is that the use of PDG is evolving over time. I think we are seeing, increasingly, more and more schools understanding how best to deploy that money for best effect for students. So, if we're honest, when PDG first started, I think, in some schools it was spent on investing in tracking of children, because they'd never thought about tracking these children, they didn't have systems in place to look at the performance of these children, and to have a system in place. So we've moved now from spending money on the infrastructure around support for FSM children into actual inputs in terms of teaching and learning. We're also seeing from Estyn that, actually, in terms of money following the evidence of what we know works, Estyn says that PDG is probably the best example of schools following tried and tested and evidence-based interventions to deploy the money. But clearly we want all of this money to be deployed as well as it can be, and again we come back to the decision I've made to appoint regional PDG advisers so that we can get that better consistency of approach. We are, in the discussions that I have with the regional consortia about how they challenge individual schools on usage, looking for very clear evidence of schools using the Sutton Trust toolkit, and we could have a discussion about whether that's the right thing, because that's on my mind too. But we want to see schools demonstrating their evidence base, and if they're not, if a school isn't doing that, okay, so demonstrate to us why you've made those decisions and, crucially, what are you doing as the school to judge whether that decision is actually making a difference for your individual pupils. So, if you're moving away from tried and tested interventions, what we know works, if you're doing something different with your money, okay, you need to justify that and you need to explain how you're going to demonstrate impact. But I think what we're seeing is increasing good practice in this area as the PDG develops and as our understanding of our school-to-school working in our self-improving school system also develops. I think we're seeing better usage of the money year on year.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Llyr on this.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: You mentioned some schools will be moving from the tried-and-tested interventions, really, and I'm just wondering to what extent that evolution of use of PDG is being driven by cuts to core funding.
Kirsty Williams AM: No, I don't think it's being driven by cuts to core funding. I think there has been--. One of the biggest impacts of PDG has not been--well, I suppose it is the money in itself, because the money has concentrated the minds, hasn't it? So, one of the most important things that PDG has done is highlight the importance of this agenda within schools, and really raise this up in the thinking of leadership and senior management teams in our schools, and has driven a focus on scrutiny and accountability in the systems that are working with our schools. I think the changing use of PDG reflects the journeys that schools have been on, some of them from a very low base where this was not a priority for them, to better understanding, and as research and as intelligence grows over time in this area, both in Wales and outside of Wales, schools are increasingly learning to use that evidence to tailor approaches in their schools.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So you wouldn't accept at all that some of this money's being used to paper over some funding cracks from elsewhere. Because the unions and some others have told us that, whether we like it or not, there is some of that going on.
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, Llyr, we're very clear about the usage that this money can be spent on in terms of individuals or universal application within schools, and that forms an important part of the checks and balances that we have in our system. Can we continue to improve, and ensure that more and more of our schools are employing best practice? Yes, we can, and as I've said, we've taken steps to put in place the infrastructure to support that.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Mark's questions are next.
Mark Reckless AM: Cabinet Secretary, how would you assess the impact of PDG on attendance and hopefully subsequent engagement with education from children who have free school meals?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think what's important to note is that, as Estyn have themselves said, over the period of the last inspection report, we have seen improvements in attendance, but I do think we need to, again, look at how PDG can support this particular agenda. And as always in the Welsh education system, there are some excellent examples of how schools use the money to address this. Ysgol y Preseli in Pembrokeshire is a very good example of how they've deployed their money. Forgive me; I can't off the top of my head remember the name of the primary school I visited, again in north Wales, where the school has proactively used this money, and they actually send teaching assistants out of school in the morning before the start of the school day, and they actually have a walking bus. They call at homes for children, and they walk the children to the breakfast club. So, they're proactively going out into the community and making sure that those children are in the classrooms, because the teacher said,'We recognised we had a problem with attendance. We tried a variety of means of improving that, but in the end we have taken this quite bold step--we actually send the staff out and they create that walking bus, and they walk the children into school'. They say that they know that, for some of those children, because of the difficult circumstances they and their families are living in, they probably wouldn't be in school if it wasn't for that proactive approach. So, we're looking again at what more we can do to support this particular agenda in terms of improving attendance, because although, again, there are examples of good practice, there is still a gap between the attendance of free-school-meal pupils and non-free-school-meal pupils. And, of course, we can have the best curriculum in the world with really high-quality teaching, but unless the children are in the classes then we're not going to make the difference for them. Whilst that differential exists, then it's going to be hard to close the attainment gap for those children.
Mark Reckless AM: I was actually quite shocked just reading in advance of this meeting that the proportion attending 95 per cent or more, who have pretty full attendance, was only 35 per cent for free-school-meal children at level 4, compared to 60 per cent for non-free-school-meal pupils. It still is an extraordinary difference. My colleague here showed me, I think, last week, a graph showing the link between attendance and attainment, in particular. When people were absent, a lot of the--. As I'm sure you're aware, there's a huge connection. What more can PDG do to deal with it? In the example you give I can see how a school with an awful lot of free-school-meal children could do that, but a lot of the free-school-meal children are actually in schools that don't have that high a proportion of free school meals, where it would be much more challenging to bring in that type of initiative.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, indeed, and I think it gets more challenging the older the children get. I think it's more difficult to find interventions that are successful higher up, so key stage 4. So, you can do a walking bus with little ones, can't you, but I don't suppose your average 15 or 16-year-old is going to take very kindly to that. So, you do need a different approach to that. But again, we see in Ysgol y Preseli the employment of staff to directly work with families of older children to reinforce the messages around, as you quite rightly say, the linkage between attendance and attainment, and really work with individual families to understand the barriers to attendance: what's going on in the family that is preventing that child from going to school, and what more can the school do to address those situations. But you're absolutely right; there is more that we need to do to address this particular agenda of attainment. I don't know if there's anything extra you wanted to add, Steve.
Steve Davies: There is also another very good example--and I take what you say about where there are small numbers--but in our secondary schools where there are significant numbers, they're investing PDG in resources like a school nurse and a school counsellor, not just to work with the children but link to other agencies on whom the children and the families are dependent to support them in terms of working with schools. So, it's something, particularly in our most challenging areas, where it cannot just be delivered within the school. So, good use of that resource is being made to employ people to support them in those wider areas.
Mark Reckless AM: Thank you. To what extent is PDG also used to seek to reduce the higher rates of exclusion for children entitled to free school meals?
Kirsty Williams AM: So, if we looked at permanent exclusions, there isn't a differential, but if we look at temporary exclusions, there we see there is a disproportionate number of children on free school meals that are subject to those exclusions. Again, I think what schools employing best practice understand is that you need a multi-agency approach to supporting that particular child. Some of those exclusions can be as a result of the need to address other issues going on in a child's life. So, this is where we come back to the committee's work, for instance, on mental health and support for children, support for behaviour in school. So, again, it's a multi-agency approach that I think we need, and, in our good schools, our really, really good schools, there's a recognition of that need to have a whole team around a child to support that child in education. With EOTAS, we made some changes last year regarding PDG for EOTAS. So, for those children who do find themselves in education other than at school, we are providing additional support that previously was not available.
Mark Reckless AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We're going to move on now to talk about the impact of PDG on attainment. Hefin David has got some questions.
Hefin David AM: It appears that the attainment gap at 2017 has actually widened, in spite of PDG levels. Is that correct?
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. So, if you look at it--with the usual caveats about whether you can make direct comparisons on level 2 plus between the exams the year before and the exams that we had last summer--on the face of it, the gap has increased. I think what's important to recognise, Hefin, is a direction of travel. I'm sure we all want to, because I want to, have a discussion about why children on free school meals were less resilient in the exam system last year. But, if we look at the period that we have been employing PDG, over that period, we have seen a narrowing of the gap. I think what's quite stark, if we think about it--. So, if we look at where we started from: in 2009, one in five children on free school meals got level 2 plus--one in five--by 2016, we had got that down to one in three. Obviously, there's still a way to go, but, Sir Alasdair, who knows about these things, says that that is a significant improvement. Last year, we got some challenges. We need to understand why that happened, but I do think it's--
Hefin David AM: Why, do you think?
Kirsty Williams AM: Why, do I think? What I do think is there is no one answer. There is no one answer to this. I think we could look at and we can have discussions around the move from BTEC to science GCSEs. I think we have supplied figures to the committee about the significant change in the number of children on free school meals who weren't doing a single science GCSE and are now doing science GCSEs. We can look at the unintended consequences of literature. Again, we've supplied figures. Where children have done language and literature, whether that be through the medium of English or through the medium of Welsh, there is more resilience. So, it's that exposure to literacy in all its forms that I think could potentially make a difference. So, I think there's no one answer to why free-school-meal children were not so resilient last year. We continue to have discussions with Qualifications Wales to get a better understanding of this. At my next ministerial policy board, in May, we'll be doing a deep dive into this particular subject.
Hefin David AM: So, to what extent would exam boards be responsible for lack of grade stability?
Kirsty Williams AM: It could be one of the contributory factors. What I think is important is that there is no one, single reason why there seems to be less resilience in this cohort of children.
Hefin David AM: Will you be speaking to the exam boards about this and raising concerns?
Kirsty Williams AM: I have written to Qualifications Wales, we've had discussions about it, but I've asked them to formally submit evidence ahead of my policy board for May, where, as I said, we will be doing a formal, deep-dive discussion across the department about these issues. But, again, Hefin, what we've got to be clear on is--while we look at overall factors, you know, our overall national statistic--we did see some schools last year whose FSM performance was better than it had been the year before. So, what was it in those schools that enabled those children to do really well, whereas, in other schools, the performance was different? Even in individual cities, you can see a huge variety of performance. So, take Cardiff and Swansea, our two biggest cities. You've got schools in those cities with comparative levels of free school meals. So, you could have really high-performing schools with a very small number of the cohort on free school meals. The difference between those performances in a single city--so, that's the same local education authority and the same regional consortium--you can see a massive change. There's one school I can talk to: their free-school-meal performance is 88 per cent. A similar school in the same city with the same proportion of children on free school meals, their performance is down in the 20 per cents. So, I think what's important is that we can't draw broad-brush conclusions. For me, the challenge is to go into individual schools and understand what was happening in that particular school that ensured that their children did really well. We've got one school in Swansea, their FSM performance at GCSE level 2 outperforms non-FSM pupils.
Hefin David AM: But we still need to rely on the trends from a distance. If we take your argument that 2017 was an unusual year and the trends up to 2016 were positive, in a few years'time, when we will be looking back in two years'time, how are we going to measure this progress, say, in 2019? What are we likely to see and what methods are you going to use to measure progress that way?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, you'll be aware that we are moving away from level 2 plus as a performance measure anyway because of the--
Hefin David AM: So, what performance measures will you use?
Kirsty Williams AM: So, for the lack of sophistication around the level 2 plus, and for the unintended behaviours that that particular performance measure has driven within our schools. I'll be making a statement shortly to the Assembly around a new performance measure for schools. We were, at our most recent secondary heads conference, working with schools to develop that. What's important to me is that we have a more sophisticated model that looks at school performance for all children. What level 2 plus does is narrow, very much, the focus of schools on an individual part of the cohort, usually the C/D borderline, which is why then we have problems with the number of students getting a B grade or above. We have marked success in our schools by saying to schools that a C is good enough. Well, if a child gets a C but came to you in year 7 and they were destined to get an E, yes, indeed, a C is a success, because you've moved that child on; but, if that child came to you destined to get an A* and gets a C, then we haven't done a good job by that particular child. So, we need a performance measure that is much more sophisticated, looks at each individual child, tracks that progress, and measures the value added by that school in performance.
Hefin David AM: Last question: therefore, should we have confidence in the data up to 2016? Is there a lack of confidence in that data?
Kirsty Williams AM: No, it's not a lack of confidence in the data. The data is the data. What I'm saying is, using that as a performance measure and an accountability measure within our school system may have been right for the time. I think it is now right to have a different way of measuring success in schools. I think that particular set of performance measures has driven certain behaviours--not because Ministers wanted that to happen, but as an unintended consequence. I think we can work together with our school system, learning the lessons of international best practice, to develop much more sophisticated accountability and performance measures for individual schools, and, I should say, for the Government. So, you will be aware of my intention to issue the first national report card on Government performance later on this year. So, this is not about trying to avoid scrutiny. It's about trying to develop a more sophisticated way, which is in line with our national mission, where every child's education is valued, and where the impact of the school can be tracked more effectively.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Can I just ask, Cabinet Secretary, are you still holding on to your target of 37 per cent of free-school-meal pupils achieving the level 2 threshold?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we're moving away from the level 2 threshold. So, that's the first thing to say. So, we will want to develop a new suite, in line with our new accountability measures, as we go forward. So, we will be absolutely continuing to track and evaluate the performance of free-school-meal pupils. When we announce our new accountability measures, I will be in a position to address how we'll measure the Government's performance, and national performance, going forward. But, given the fact that we're moving away from level 2 plus, then we will need a different set of performance indicators.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The next questions are on looked-after children and adopted children, and I've got questions from Michelle then Mark.
Michelle Brown AM: Thank you. Good morning--
Mark Reckless AM: I was to come in first, I think. I was about to ask about ICF consulting.
Lynne Neagle AM: Go on then.
Mark Reckless AM: I think my questions are first, but, Michelle, please do correct me if you were planning to come in before. The PDG for looked-after children doesn't quite seem to have the degree of visibility as the PDG for the free-school-meals. I think we had the MORI/WISERD survey--only 15 per cent of primary schools and 23 per cent of secondary schools were aware that PDG was targeted at looked-after children. I just wonder--can you clarify on the record here what is the role of schools with PDG for looked-after children as compared to the regional consortia in this field?
Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. I think it is absolutely fair to say that most awareness around PDG is around free school meals. There is less awareness around the availability of PDG to support looked-after children. I think that's probably in the nature of the cohort, so, there are more children subject to free school meals than are subject to being looked after. So, I think that's part of the explanation. A decision was taken in 2015 to regionalise PDG for looked-after children. My understanding was that the thinking behind that at the time was around a greater strategic deployment of that resource and to try and drive a greater impact than how it was being used previously. So, looked-after PDG is held at a regional level. We have looked-after children PDG co-ordinators--they're in their second year this year--to look at a regional deployment of that resource. And that resource can be done in a variety of ways, through individual allocation to a school to support an individual child, through to capacity building for the whole system. So, for instance, if I give you an example, in Carmarthenshire, there's been a big emphasis on attachment disorder and training teachers with regard to the impact of attachment disorder. Carmarthenshire happens to be one of those local authorities that does quite well in terms of attainment for looked-after children. But, clearly, I have--not concerns.'Concerns'isn't the right word. But I have asked officials to give greater scrutiny to how that resource has been used in the last year. Steve, on my behalf, wrote out to the system, setting out our expectations, but also advising them of the fact we will be asking very detailed questions of accountability for that money. So, what has that money been used on and how can you account for the effect? But, Steve, maybe you can give some greater detail.
Steve Davies: I think the challenge that--. One of the rationales for shifting--not that all the money stays in the region, but having a regional strategic support--was that, historically, the money was going directly with that child to the school. Given the quite often rapid turnover of children in schools--the very nature of looked-after children is they do sometimes move through foster parents--historically, what happened, the money lands in the school, because, at that time in the year, when it's measured, the school gets the money and can spend it on some additional support for staff, but quite often that child moves on to another school and the money doesn't transfer. Some schools will go through quite a number of years without having a looked-after child and will not think strategically,'How do I need to support them?'So, that was the rationale of the shift. In terms of the implementation of the regional allocation, as of this financial year finishing, we are going into local authorities and regions to evaluate where they've located the resource, what the impact of that resource has been, so that is reinforced and shared more widely.
Kirsty Williams AM: And then, to reassure, it's not just internally that we're looking at this. We have a contract with an external agency to do an evaluation--
Mark Reckless AM: That's ICF consulting.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. Yes, so that was done in the autumn of last year, because, as I said, we had concerns about whether this was really having the effect that was intended. So, my expectation is that we will be in a position to receive that report later on this spring, and of course it would be my intention that that report would be made public for people to have a look at what--
Mark Reckless AM: That was commissioned last autumn--
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, in November 2017.
Mark Reckless AM: November 2017.
Kirsty Williams AM: So, I'm hoping to have that published before the summer recess. I'm very reluctant to say months; I've learnt not to say months, because they move.
Lynne Neagle AM: I'm going to go to Michelle now, Mark, because--
Mark Reckless AM: Sure. I will come back in if I have anything further to ask here after Michelle.
Lynne Neagle AM: --both of you asked for these questions, and that's what the pre-meeting is for.
Mark Reckless AM: Michelle, I defer to you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Michelle.
Michelle Brown AM: Okay, thank you. Would you be open, Cabinet Secretary, to the idea of adjusting the eligibility of the PDG so that pupils who have been looked after or adopted at any point within a previous given period of time would attract the PDG, rather than only if they're looked-after on a one-off date?
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said earlier, in questions from, I think it was, Llyr, who was talking about concepts of concepts of Ever 6, we are constantly looking at how we can get that balance between focus and flexibility for this resource. Llyr opened with the question of,'How can you absolutely ensure that these children are getting the money?', but then there's also a tension about how can you create some flexibility around the school's usage of the grant. So, we will look at that. I think there is the issue of where a school would know of a child that was looked after. Issues around adoption are slightly more sensitive, because we couldn't force a family to tell a school that their child was an adopted child. So, a family may be very open and very keen to explain that to a school, but we can't necessarily track as closely children who have been adopted, especially if that adoption happens before the child goes to school. We can't be in a position of forcing families to disclose this information if they don't want to, but we certainly can, as I say, look to strengthen our monitoring arrangements around PDG support for looked-after children and the impact that that's having. I just think we need to be a bit mindful of people's privacy in some instances. If they don't want to divulge that, it wouldn't be my job to tell a family,'You have to let us know if your child is adopted.'Lynne Neagle AM: Michelle.
Michelle Brown AM: Fair enough; thank you for that answer. The EAS consortium's approach to using the looked-after and adopted PDG is to use it as part of a broader approach targeted at vulnerable learners in general. What are your views on that approach?
Kirsty Williams AM: I'm a great believer in if we can get it right for our most vulnerable learners, we'll be getting it right for all of our learners. I gave the example earlier, for instance, of attachment disorder, and, Chair, you will know that I have had conversations. One of the emerging themes for me, as I go around visiting schools, is the impact and the growing awareness and the growing numbers of children who have attachment disorder, and how schools are best able to respond to that in their children. So, for instance, as I said about Carmarthenshire, there's been a huge effort to address that in the school sector in Carmarthenshire. Now, that has a disproportionate benefit for those children, because you're more likely to see attachment disorder in children who are care experienced, because of the nature of the lives that those children have lived, but that doesn't necessarily mean that attachment disorder is exclusively found in those children that are looked after. It can be found in other families as well. So, that vulnerable learner, regardless of their background, will benefit from having teachers who are better trained, understanding and have intervention strategies in place to be able to address that need.
Steve Davies: I think it's also important to add that this is not one region's approach; this is across four regions, so the others--. For example, ERW have run a significant programme looking at the impact of adverse childhood experiences on pupils, which has enabled teachers to detect some of the impact of some of those and then considers some of the work they need to do within the school but also with other agencies. So, it is something that's applied consistently across the four regions.
Kirsty Williams AM: I was in Pil Primary School recently where they use their PDG, both FSM PDG, and no doubt an element of PDG for looked-after, for nurture groups. So, for those children who really, really find it very difficult to be in the main classroom, they can have that nurture group experience to address issues around emotional behaviour, feelings, and it gets them in a position where they are able then to join the main classroom because issues around behaviour have been addressed and they're in a better position to learn. So, again, this is an example of how vulnerable learners in the wider sense can benefit.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Mark, did you have anything you wanted to ask?
Mark Reckless AM: Yes. Can I follow up on tracking adopted children? I entirely understand that you can't force parents to disclose that their child is adopted. However, my understanding was that, in England, there was a dataset with social services that was shared with schools in a way that I'm not clear is happening in Wales and how, if at all, that links to the pupil level annual school census data. Perhaps sort of linked to that, isn't there an argument for making the parents of adopted children in the schools, potentially, with adopted children more aware that adopted children who were previously looked after have this potential grant, and would they not be more willing to disclose this, at least confidentially to the school and Government, if they knew there was this upside of doing so?
Kirsty Williams AM: We're actively looking at whether we should try and find a way of collecting this data, with the caveats that I just gave earlier. We can't force parents to divulge information that is a matter for them, nor would I want to. But there is an active discussion going on at the moment about whether we could create a dataset where people divulge this information and we can then track the children through. You're absolutely right. One of the ways in which we can often encourage take-up, for instance, of free school meals, especially in those communities where there is a sense of reluctance to apply for support--even though people are entitled to it, there's a reluctance to do it; sometimes we see this in rural areas--. Actually, appealing to the parents by saying,'Actually, this will mean more money for your child's school budget'is a much more compelling reason why people will apply for it then saying,'Actually, it's going to help you', because they don't want to be seen being dependent, they don't want to be seen being helped. But, if you say to them,'Actually, do you know that this means more money for your child's school?', they go,'Oh, all right then, I'll fill in the forms now.'So, you're right, I think there is something that we could do to make parents understand, in the round, that this has an impact. But we are actively looking at and discussing whether we could create a dataset around adopted children and how we can do that in line with data protection and data sharing. One of the things I am concerned about in the performance of looked-after children generally is how we can, across Government, work more closely together. We can't see the educational attainment of looked-after children just being a job of education. It's got to be a job of social services and the health service as well. There's got to be a joined-up approach to doing that. Now, officials were at the ministerial advisory group that's chaired by David Melding on prospects for looked-after children. They were there at the group last week. David tells me that the paper was very positively received by the group. I will be sitting down with David Melding to talk through what more we can do on the education side. I think there's really an appetite between me and the Minister for children to get a closer working relationship on this. We can't expect schools to do it on their own and alone. And there are things that we can do out there in local authorities to help improve outcomes. It's not just about the PDG; it is about, when social services are thinking about a placement, where does the discussion about where children are going to go to school--when does that take place? Do we talk about the placement, move a child and then think,'Oh my goodness me, what are we going to do about the schooling?'If you can imagine, the school could have been working really, really hard with a pupil to get them in a good place, to get them being able to access the curriculum, and then social services decide that the placement is being changed. So, we potentially lose all of that. So, a greater involvement in education and better linked-up working in local authorities will help us with this. It can't be just the job of the PDG. If we think we can crack this with just PDG, then we're being delusional. It has to be a cross-government approach at a national level, and at a local government level as well, to get this right. Sometimes, data protection--how can we break down some of these barriers between, you know, the school doesn't need to, schools shouldn't see, the entire social services report? Well, maybe the school does need to see some of that background information if they're going to have an impact for that child. So, there's more work to do, but it cannot be just the job of education on its own if we're going to make a difference, nor can it just be the job of the PDG to make a difference for those children.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Julie's got some more questions on the impact on adopted and looked-after children.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes, before I go on to those, I just wanted to support, really, what Mark was saying about adopted children and how important it is, I think, that the adoptive parents feel able to speak to the school and to give information. Because certainly any evidence we've had from adoptive parents, and generally knowing about what adoptive parents do feel, is that they often feel that there's a degree of a lack of sensitivity in the school about the issues of adoption. I would certainly support some move towards ensuring that the atmosphere was open in a way that would encourage them to realise that it would be a help for the children if there was an awareness in the school. So, I just wanted to really reinforce that.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, and that would chime with what I hear from many adoptive parents. I'm just trying to be sensitive by saying we can't force people to divulge this information if they don't want to.
Julie Morgan AM: No, but they need to be given the opportunity.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, you're right. We need to make sure that those parents feel that they can discuss this with school leaders and classroom teachers and explore how best those individual children can be supported, and how best we can support parents. Because, again--and I've said this a lot--after the quality of teaching, the second biggest impact on a child's educational outcome will be parental engagement. So, being able to create an environment where adoptive parents feel very confident and able to talk about their children's education is absolutely crucial if we're going to get that parental engagement that we need for all of our children.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Thank you. Going on to looked-after children, you say that the latest data on looked-after children's attainment is extremely disappointing. Can you expand on that and what effect the PDG has had in this result, or not had?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, there's no getting away from it: the way in which we currently measure outcomes for looked-after children, the results are not good enough. It's a source of huge concern to me that we need to do better for those children. That's why officials are engaging with the group that David Melding is chairing, to make sure that education is integral to that group and it's not lost sight of. There's a discussion to be had about the cohort, whether it's right and correct to compare looked-after children to the main cohort, or whether these statistics are useful in any way. Sometimes as well--this is not to make an excuse because, as I've said in my paper, it's extremely disappointing, but sometimes it can be really difficult. Because the cohort sometimes can be very, very small, it can swing the statistics to look perhaps more dramatic.
Julie Morgan AM: I think, generally, when you look at how looked-after children do--
Kirsty Williams AM: It's not good.
Julie Morgan AM: --in a much wider evaluation, they're not doing well, are they?
Kirsty Williams AM: They're not doing well. So, that's why we've got the review, the independent review, into the impact of the PDG in this area. This is why Steve is doing the work that he is doing with the regional consortia because, clearly, at the moment, we are not doing what we need to do for that particular cohort of children. I would not make any bones about that at all.
Steve Davies: I think we will not move away from the fact that these children need good GCSEs to gain employment, so we'll continue to measure that. I think we need to look at more nuanced evaluations of the data at a lower level. So, for example, there were significant improvements in terms of PDG pupils who got three and four good GCSEs but didn't get past the threshold. That's not to cover anything that is not working in terms of improvement, but we will look at the full range and still hold on to the fact that we have to look at a measure that relates to the likelihood of these children going on to further education and training.
Julie Morgan AM: And then just one more question about the exclusion rates amongst looked-after children. They are, I understand, over six times more likely to be given a fixed-term exclusion. So, is there any way of trying to address this? Is the PDG used for anything to do with exclusions?
Kirsty Williams AM: We can look at exclusions. We also have to read across about how the whole system works, not just the PDG element of the system. So, we know, for example, that 66 per cent of looked-after learners have some additional learning need, so we can't just look at it in terms of this particular source of funding; we have to look at it at a wider level of support. So, given that the majority of those children will have an ALN, how can we make sure that our new ALN legislation and our new ALN regime meets the needs of these children? So, I think what we're looking at, again, is to say that it can't be just the job of the PDG. That's there as an additional level of support, but actually, we've got to get our ALN right. Unless we get our ALN right, lots and lots of these children are not going to get the support that they need day in, day out via that system. We do know that sometimes, if we're not addressing ALN, then we're not addressing behaviour issues that then potentially lead to an expulsion or potentially lead to non-attendance. So, we've got to look at it in the round and recognise the connections between the sometimes quite complex needs that these children have within the school setting, that are not just as a result of the fact that they're looked after; they have other needs as well.
Steve Davies: And investment in well-being--
Kirsty Williams AM: Absolutely. Steve is reminding me that that's why well-being is part of the national mission--to address issues around supporting children with their well-being, which is a way of keeping them in school.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to move on to Schools Challenge Cymru now. Llyr.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you, Chair. I was just wondering what your assessment is as to why some schools made progress and others didn't.
Kirsty Williams AM: I think we have to recognise that the 39 schools that were part of the programme were in very, very different places. So, I think one of the reasons why some schools did well was because their needs were not so complex, not so deep-seated and a certain level of intervention was enough to get them moving forward. Some schools had very, very different needs. I think, talking to those involved in the programme, as always, we had some support advisers, challenge advisers working with those schools as part of the programme who were really, really excellent and really good, and were the right fit for the school and really drove the school onwards. We had other people employed in the programme who, perhaps, were less effective at driving change within those individual schools. So, what we have is a mixed bag of performance, again reflecting the very different challenges that those schools were facing, which led them to be chosen for the programme in the first place.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, okay--
Steve Davies: Sorry. One of the other key additional factors was the extent to which there had been recent appointment of a new headteacher to that school just before the programme had started, because--
Kirsty Williams AM: Leadership is all.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: And that was seen as a positive.
Steve Davies: A positive, yes. I think one of the challenges is that sometimes the time it takes to make changes in leadership can be protracted and can be a barrier, sometimes, to the speed with which you can move. But, for a significant minority of the schools, there had been recent new appointments of headteachers, which was seen to be contributing, when you looked at the evaluation, to the speed with which they were able to engage.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: The reason I was asking was I wanted to understand what lessons the Government is taking from that three-year investment, really, and how, maybe, you're applying some of those lessons to your wider school improvement programme. I know Professor Mel Ainscow identified six interconnected lessons, although I also note that the Cabinet Secretary didn't actually meet him for about six or seven months after coming into post. So, I'm just wondering, can you give us confidence that, actually, you are serious about taking lessons from Schools Challenge Cymru and applying them to the wider school improvement agenda?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, absolutely, Llyr. I don't think anything should be read into when I met the individual concerned, because officials were meeting the individual concerned. Individual challenge advisers were meeting with the regions, there was crossover work with the FSM agenda as well, and we are absolutely determined that best practice and those interventions that drove school improvement are embedded in the new support that we have via the regional consortia. It's no coincidence that some of the best people that were employed by Schools Challenge Cymru are now in the employment of our regional consortia. So, those people that were really good and really made a difference don't work for the Schools Challenge Cymru scheme any more, they work for our regional school improvement services. So, we're absolutely determined. The things that we have learned, as always, are around leadership. It is absolutely key and crucial to have strong, capable school leadership as a driver for change within the system. We're looking at systems and processes, so, actually, has a school got in place comprehensive systems of tracking and processes within the school? We're looking at the teacher quality--how can we ensure that we have got consistent strategies in place to drive up pedagogy and teacher quality in the classroom? Collaborative activity--again, absolutely key. A school cannot see itself in isolation, and one of the key themes of the national mission is a self-improving system, so, collaborative working where schools are looking outside of each other, learning from best practice from other schools. So, there are lots of things that we've drawn from the evaluation that you will see as key themes running through the national mission, and, as I said, it's no coincidence that our really good people that were working in Schools Challenge Cymru are now working for the regional consortia, being able to use that expertise not just for a very small proportion of our schools--but that expertise is available to all our schools.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Although Estyn has told us, of course, that you can't expect the consortia to really carry on with that level of intervention and the same kind of intensity as was provided previously, so I'm just wondering--
Kirsty Williams AM: In what way?
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, we were told by Estyn in evidence that they didn't necessarily think that we could expect the consortia to provide the same type of tailored support, and certainly the level of intensity with the improvement boards and everything--
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the improvement boards are carrying on, so the improvement boards still exist, and I would--not that I want to argue with Estyn--
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, feel free; this is your opportunity to do so if you--
Kirsty Williams AM: What I would say is that those improvement boards are staying on, and our schools categorisation system is used to identify the level of support. Now, if you're a red school, that gives you the entitlement to 25 days of support. That is more than you would have got under the Schools Challenge Cymru programme, which would've been 20 days. So, actually, moving to this system allows us to really focus in on those schools that need that intensive level of support. And what's important for me, Llyr, in this, okay, is that those schools are not necessarily just the schools that were in the programme. Our system now of challenge, advice and support allows us to target resources across all of our schools and across all of our sectors, because you'll be aware that Schools Challenge was only available to secondary schools, not available to primary schools. What our system now allows us to do, via the schools categorisation, is to identify schools, wherever they are in Wales and whatever sector they're in, to have that intensive level of support that they need to make improvements.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, you're confident that that level of momentum is continuing through the consortia that was previously enjoyed by those particular schools, and you're also confident that there is minimal risk that they'll slip back to where they were, potentially, or at least part of the way back.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, actually, there are some really good examples of some of the Schools Challenge Cymru schools making that sustained improvement now that the programme has come to an end. You only have to look at Tredegar, where we have seen continual improvement and moving up through the categorisation system. That school is now a green school, so they've been able to sustain their progress at the end of the programme. If we look at Armando in Eastern High School, again--gosh, my goodness me, we had lots of debates in a previous Chamber about the future of Eastern. There was one person that said that Eastern had to be closed and that the only way forward for that particular school was for it to be shut down, but what we have seen is investment via Schools Challenge Cymru, but ongoing, continual support from the regional consortium, and that school has come out of special measures. I pay absolute tribute to the staff of that school and that community that have done such a good job. So, I'm absolutely convinced that where we've got good leadership and good support, some of those schools are making continued, sustained progress even after the end of the programme. The challenge for me is for those schools that Schools Challenge Cymru didn't work for, and we haven't seen that progress--how we can use our school improvement system now to continue to work with those schools to give them the level of support that they need to make a difference. So that's what my focus is on now: a whole-system approach, rather than choosing 39 schools to get that level of support, when we recognise that there are schools everywhere, potentially, that need intervention, support and challenge, and in the primary sector as well.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, you wouldn't agree with a number of--well, the near-unanimous evidence that we've had from academics, some of whom are Government advisers from consortia et cetera, that this kind of programme such as Schools Challenge Cymru would probably need about five years to really have the impact that it was intended to have.
Kirsty Williams AM: What I would say is that, from my understanding, from the outset, it was a time-limited programme. The schools were aware of that. There were no surprises that it was supposed to be a time-limited programme. Evidence from across the UK showed that school challenge programmes have differed in time. So, for instance, Manchester's challenge was a three-year programme. So, there's no consensus about how many years you need to run a programme for. The previous Minister was quite clear about the time-limited nature of the programme. That's not to say it was the wrong decision, because what's important, and an ongoing legacy of the programme, was the investment in regional school improvement capacity, because at the time our school improvement services and the regions were young, in their infancy. The ability of individual local authorities to make a difference, with so many local authorities in an Estyn categorisation, was limited, so one of the ongoing legacies of the programme is that significant investment of over PS10 million in the capacity of the regions to be able to continue this support and the school improvement work.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, how disappointed were you that the money for Schools Challenge Cymru went back into reserves and didn't stay in your envelope, as you described it earlier? I presume you made a pitch for it. Did you make a case for that money to stay within your department?
Kirsty Williams AM: Llyr, we are constantly having discussions with the Minister for Finance around support for the education budget. The Minister for Finance was quite clear that it was a time-limited programme. We were able to secure investment from the Finance Minister to be able to secure the programme and run it and phase it out to make sure there was transition support, so as we moved from the schools challenge programme into the regional consortia, there were resources to do that.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Did you feel there was a case to be made to add to the consortia's resources and be able to continue that level of support that schools had previously had?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we did make resources available to the regional consortia to do that. As I say, from the outset, the previous Minister was very clear it was a time-limited programme. Certainly the schools that I talk to--. And I want to be absolutely clear: I have visited many, many Schools Challenge Cymru schools. I have used that opportunity to talk to them about--Heolddu being one of them, Hefin, which we went to visit, and Willows, for instance. I'm going to one this afternoon--I'm going to St Illtyd's this afternoon, and I always take--. I've been to Caergybi in Anglesey. I always take the opportunity to speak to those teachers about their experience of the programme and to understand and assure myself that they are getting ongoing support that they see as an appropriate level for them. I think I've done 19 of the schools.
Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin on this.
Hefin David AM: With regard to it being a time-limited programme, the previous Minister was clear that it was a time-limited programme, but it wasn't quite as time-limited as you've decided to be. Is that fair to say?
Kirsty Williams AM: No, it was supposed to be a three-year programme at the most. So, there's no differential between when I decided it was time-limited and the expectations--
Hefin David AM: So the time limit was the same that the previous Minister put on it.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. No change.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: But Mel Ainscow did tell us that there was a fade out in that third year--not that people were giving up, don't get me wrong, but clearly there wasn't that commitment coming from Government because the decision had been made, and people felt that it was just fizzling out a little bit, and that impacted on the momentum.
Kirsty Williams AM: I wouldn't characterise it as that. I think there certainly was a transition phase when we knew that the programme was moving and schools were moving into a different level of support, but I certainly wouldn't describe it as a fading out--not at all. As I said, we were aware that the programme was transitioning and we were determined to get that right for those individual schools, and to learn the lessons and, crucially, to be able to apply those lessons right across the board.
Steve Davies: I can see where the perception would come if a programme director like Mel was managing the programme right to the end of the three years exactly the same, and it falls off--not a cliff, but it falls off, then the readiness for schools and the readiness in the system to hand over--so part of the shift of focus was that working as a Government with the programme in those schools to working with the programme, those schools and the region. So, I think, inevitably, one party might see it as a decrease in terms of emphasis on their work, but it was necessary for the transition.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: But does that cast a bit of a shadow over the transition, then--that one key player within that process felt as such, or are you confident that that was managed well and effectively?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think it was managed well, and we were very clear to recognise success where success has been achieved, but not to gloss over where the programme had not made an impact, because that wouldn't be good for anybody. There was a formal event to close the programme, which gave everybody an opportunity to get together, to be formally thanked, and for, as I said, congratulations to be given to those people who had really made a difference and, crucially, key staff transferred over into the regional consortia. So, for those individuals, they were able to continue their work, but just be able to apply that work on a regional basis rather than just in an individual school. So, I don't see that there was any fading out, but there was a transition into a new system, and many of those key personnel transitioned into the system with us.
Lynne Neagle AM: Have you got any figures for the numbers of staff who went from the programme into the consortia?
Kirsty Williams AM: Not off the top of my head, but I can let you know.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I've got Darren first, then Mark.
Kirsty Williams AM: And can I just say, I met with some of them? I met with a selection of those people who had been involved in the programme to get their feedback on what they felt had gone right, and what they didn't feel had gone right in the programme. So, I took the time not just to meet the figurehead of the programme, but actually to meet the people who were doing the work in the individual schools. Sorry.
Darren Millar AM: Yes, I just wanted to ask you, you mentioned the figurehead there, I assume by'the figurehead'you mean Professor Ainscow. And you've mentioned as well that you said you wanted to learn lessons from Schools Challenge Cymru, but he told us that nobody had been in touch with him since March of last year in order to have any sort of follow-up engagement, or to have a dialogue about his perspective on what worked, what didn't work, why there were failures in some areas and why there were successes in others. Why haven't you sought that level of engagement with the person who was responsible for running the programme?
Kirsty Williams AM: I've had that conversation with Mr Ainscow. We had the evaluation of the programme. We've spoken to the people who were actually involved in running the programme on a daily basis in individual schools. We've spoken to the regional consortia. We've spoken to local education authorities. We've spoken to a wide variety of people to get their insight into the lessons learned, what was valuable and what was not valuable. So, a wide variety of people have been involved in those conversations.
Darren Millar AM: But you've hardly engaged with Mr Ainscow--with Professor Ainscow himself.
Steve Davies: I would actually say that I have had meetings--
Darren Millar AM: Since March of last year.
Steve Davies: Yes, since March of last year. I haven't got the exact dates for you. I've had discussions with Mel Ainscow, and my line manager at the time, Owen Evans, also had meetings and discussions.
Darren Millar AM: So, when he told us,'Since last March, I literally have had no contact at all with anybody from Welsh Government', he was telling porky pies, was he?
Steve Davies: That's not my recollection. I'll go back and check for you.
Lynne Neagle AM: If you could check and let us know, that would be good. Mark.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, well, I just talked about the celebration event to formally mark the end of the programme. My understanding was that it was July of last year, so people were engaged in that. And this idea that somebody has been ignored or frozen out is not how I see or how I regard that situation.
Lynne Neagle AM: Mark.
Mark Reckless AM: I have to say, with Professor Ainscow my impression was he took great, great pride in the work that he'd done with Schools Challenge Cymru, and I think he really enjoyed the engagement, the work and the positive relations with the Welsh Government. But I think there was just a degree of disappointment, perhaps, that at least he didn't feel that he'd been interrogated as much as he might have been about the lessons learned from the programme, and how perhaps to entrench those as well as possible with the regional consortia. I just wonder, Cabinet Secretary, if you could invite the professor in, perhaps to have a further debrief with you and take account of some of his thoughts and suggestions for what might help in this area.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, Mark, as I said, I just don't think it should be right to characterise this as a failure to engage with a single individual.
Mark Reckless AM: I'm not characterising it that way, Cabinet Secretary.
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, I met with him, Steve has met with him, Owen Evans has met with him, my special policy adviser has met with him and had discussions. So, there has been an ongoing dialogue. But, Mark, I hope that I have demonstrated since I took on this job that I am willing to work with a wide variety of people and to tap into their expertise if it can help me to deliver on the national mission. And if the advice to me is that we haven't sufficiently learnt the lessons, then I'll gladly have another conversation. What I'm saying to you--and I'm absolutely confident--is that we have learnt the lessons, we are taking that work and the good practice forward, and we have done that with conversations with a wide variety of people who had a view on this, from individual schools that were involved in the programme, individual people who were working in those schools, local education authorities, some of which have been very scathing about the programme, I should say, regional consortia--. So, the lessons, I am confident, have been learnt.
Mark Reckless AM: I'm glad to hear that, Cabinet Secretary, but I still say that, listening to Professor Ainscow's evidence, there was a perception, at least from him individually, that the programme should not be seen to be a failure, but a desire that the lessons should be learnt and a feeling or exception, at least on his part, that there was more that he still had to contribute to the process. And just to take one particular example, I think he referred to the Schools Challenge Cymru advisers being very successful in bringing in people who might not otherwise have contributed to this, and the regional consortia have had greater challenges in recruiting people, perhaps in some areas, of the same high standard of some particular individuals, but also from a wide range of different areas that the Schools Challenge Cymru do, and that there could be more to learn in that area as to how to support real excellence and a greater diversity of recruitment for those people. Is that something you could perhaps draw on his thoughts further about? Because I think he does feel that he has more to say to Welsh Government to help in this area.
Kirsty Williams AM: Firstly, can I say that I have never described the programme as a failure? I would understand, as someone who has put so much personal investment into the brand of schools challenges, that he would not want anybody to characterise that particular approach to school improvement as a failure. And I want to be absolutely clear that I have never described the programme as a failure, and I want to reassure Mr Ainscow of that. As I've said, gosh, my goodness me, if you saw my e-mail inbox and you saw the letters that come in, people are never shy in coming forward to give me advice on what I need to do, what I need to do next, what I'm doing right, what I'm doing wrong, and, you know, our doors are always open to listen to people who have interesting things to say about how we can deliver our educational mission. So, people aren't slow in coming forward, I can assure you, with advice.
Lynne Neagle AM: Julie.
Julie Morgan AM: Just very quickly. I'm sure the Minister is aware that Cardiff put extra funds of its own in to continue Schools Challenge Cymru advisers. So, obviously, they appreciated the value of the scheme, but it does query whether it should have gone on longer.
Kirsty Williams AM: Julie, I think, to be fair, there are some people who think the scheme was absolutely fantastic. I've had feedback from people who didn't think the scheme was helpful at all--in fact, they felt it was a hindrance. I'm very much of the view that the scheme worked really well for some schools in some areas and had less impact in some areas. There is a mixed picture. What's important to me is that we understand what it was that led those schools to make those big changes, how we can--like Mark talked about, the expertise--how we can keep that expertise in the system, and how we can apply the lessons to all schools.
Lynne Neagle AM: The next questions, and the final questions, are from John. So, we're going to need succinct questions and succinct answers.
John Griffiths AM: Some questions on regional consortia, Cabinet Secretary, and, first of all, the role that you believe they should play and how schools use PDG.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it's an absolute--. It's one of the things that I have been very clear to the regional consortia that I expect their challenge and support advisers to be asking schools about. So, one of the conversations that they need to have when they are in schools is exploring, with that school, how they are using their PDG, and how they're demonstrating an impact for those resources. So, it's a fundamental role for the challenge and support advisers in the regional consortia in their school improvement work. It's crucial.
John Griffiths AM: That sort of brings to mind some of the research that's been done on the role of the challenge advisers, Cabinet Secretary, which suggested that they're not actually challenging schools in that way, and that there's very little evidence of schools changing their decisions on the use of PDG as a result of any challenge from those challenge advisers. So, how would you respond to those findings?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, in my scrutiny of the role and success of our regional consortia, I specifically asked them about free-school-meal performance and the use of PDG within their particular region. I think there is increasing evidence to suggest that good use is being made of that resource, and I think that is being fed back into us. Estyn tell us that it's one of the areas of school expenditure that is closely linked to research and an evidence base. But, clearly, there is more to do, and that's why we have appointed the new regional advisers for PDG going forward, because we think there can be improvements in how this agenda can be supported at a regional level.
John Griffiths AM: Okay. So, you would recognise the findings from that research.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. There's always more that we can do, and we are strengthening that role by the appointment of the new regional PDG advisers, so that individual school challenge advisers know what they should be looking for, know what they should be doing, and there is a regional approach to good practice.
John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could you tell the committee, Cabinet Secretary, how effective you believe the relationship was between the Schools Challenge Cymru programme and the regional consortia's school improvement functions, and to what extent it varied by region?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think it's fair to say that, on occasion, I have received feedback that there was a conflict between what was going on at an individual school under the school improvement programme and whether, then, they welcomed support from the regional consortia as part of that. So, in some cases, if we're being absolutely honest, there could sometimes be tensions between the two, but in most cases, the relationship was very, very positive and there was continuous feedback between the work going on in the schools under the programme and the regional consortia challenge advisers. But I'm going to be blunt and honest with people--in some cases, it has been reported to me--it's only anecdotal evidence; I haven't got hard and fast evidence--that there sometimes was a conflict:'We're a school challenge school so we don't need to participate or listen to any advice that's coming from the regional consortia.'Or, a local education authority said to me,'We felt that we couldn't get involved in that school anymore because it was part of a different programme.'Those were isolated incidents, and, as I said, it's only anecdotal feedback. In most cases, the relationship was a very positive one.
Steve Davies: Just very quickly, I think that, across the board, it was more complex in the beginning, getting--[Inaudible. ]. But when the programme itself recognised that they needed to work with the regions, and the regions needed to work with them--and I think Mel Ainscow in his evidence referred to this--it strengthened after some early challenges. I think Mel Ainscow was working in a number of regions--I can't remember which ones--so he's established relationships--[Interruption. ] Sorry?
Kirsty Williams AM: Central south.
Steve Davies: Central south. He has already been working in that, so I think it possibly had a stronger springboard in terms of the early working.
Kirsty Williams AM: Because he already had relationships that he had already developed in that particular region. As always, with many of these things, it's about individuals and relationships.
John Griffiths AM: Okay. Finally from me, Cabinet Secretary: in 2015-16, Estyn reported on regional consortia not sufficiently focusing on particular groups of pupils and tracking their outcomes--for example, vulnerable pupils. I just wonder what you are able to tell us in terms of to what extent there has been necessary progress since 2015-16.
Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, I think it's important to recognise that all four consortia underwent monitoring visits in the autumn of last year, of 2017, which weren't reflected in the Estyn annual report for 2015-16. Estyn, through these 2017 inspections, have said that three out of the four regional consortia are making strong progress in their particular work, and we are continuing, as Welsh Government, to work with the other regional consortia to address the findings of the Estyn report.
John Griffiths AM: And that would include these particular issues.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. The committee probably hasn't had an opportunity to see, but, only this morning, Estyn has released a report on more able and talented, and has positive things to say in the field of more able and talented, which was being asked about earlier by Members--you know, evidence of improved working and support in that particular arena. But, again, we need to ensure a consistency across all the regions, and that the findings of Estyn's most recent reports into regional performance are followed through.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. As we've got a couple of minutes left, if I can just jump back to the issue of practical uses of the PDG--because it's the only thing we haven't really covered and it would be good to get on the record--can I ask to what extent you'd like to see the PDG used to track the progress of eligible pupils? And the committee's heard that there are several different tracking systems and tools used by schools. To what extent is that an issue to do with what the Welsh Government is promoting? Or is it down to consortia or individual schools? And do you think there needs to be a more centralised push on how the tracking is undertaken?
Kirsty Williams AM: Firstly, can I say it's absolutely crucial that we track performance, absolutely crucial? That's the bedrock. We don't dictate to individual schools the nature of the system that they should employ in their school. There are a number of different programmes that allow schools to do this, but we are absolutely clear, and best practice and evidence shows us, that individual pupil tracking is key and crucial. And, as I said in the beginning, where we weren't tracking pupils at all, initial investment in PDG was used to establish these systems within schools. Again, one of the outcomes from the schools challenge review, and one of the lessons learnt, was, again, the importance of individual tracking of pupils throughout their school career. But we don't dictate a single system.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you.
Kirsty Williams AM: But the principle is a really important one.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, and you don't think there's more scope to look at what the best system is that can be recommended to schools.
Kirsty Williams AM: That's not something we're actively looking at. I am actively looking at developing a Welsh toolkit around good practice, evidence base and research. At the moment we use the Sutton Trust toolkit, which is fine and excellent, but we are having active discussions about whether we're in a position, now, to look at developing a suite of a Welsh toolkit to support this agenda, and that's under active consideration.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Well, we've reached the end of our session. Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary and the officials for attending and for answering such a wide range of questions? As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again for coming.
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you very much.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Okay. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Children and Social Care on Families First funding. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education, updating us on the supply teacher issue. Paper to note 3--another letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education, providing further information following our meeting on 15 February. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the WJEC on availability of textbooks. Paper to note 5--a letter from Qualifications Wales, also on availability of textbooks. And paper to note 6 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education to the Children's Commissioner for Wales, following up on the dialogue that they've been having about our inquiry. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then, is for me to propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you. | As identified by Estyn, most schools are using this money to good effect. When PDG first started, in some schools it was spent on investing in tracking children, because they had never thought about tracking these children, they didn't have systems in place to look at the performance of these children and to have a system in place. Now they have moved from spending money on the infrastructure around support for FSM children into actual inputs in terms of teaching and learning. And they have appointed regional PDG advisers to better deploy the fund. | qmsum |
Summarize the discussion about why children on free school meals were less resilient in the exam system last year.
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this morning's Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask Members who are present if they wish to declare any interests? Okay, thank you. Item 2 this morning is our final evidence session for our inquiry into targeted funding to improve educational outcomes. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Cabinet Secretary for Education; Steve Davies, director of the education directorate; and Ruth Conway, deputy director, support for learners division. Welcome to all of you, and thank you for your attendance and also for the paper that you've provided in advance. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions, and the first questions are from Llyr Gruffydd.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bore da. I just want to start by asking some questions around the targeting of the pupil development grant because, clearly, we've had a lot of evidence around this apparent blurring of eligibility to an extent. I'm just wondering how comfortable you are that the money is being targeted appropriately because, clearly, it's being targeted more widely than just those eligible for free school meals, from some of the evidence we've had, but also that it seems to be predominantly focused on low-attaining frees--pupils who are eligible for free school meals.
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Llyr. I think it's important to be absolutely clear that when it comes to individual interventions, those individual interventions should only be targeted at those children who are eligible for free school meals. But in some cases, schools may use their PDG funding to provide a universal intervention, but we would want to--in challenge advisers'discussions in schools--we'd want to have evidence that that universal intervention would have a disproportionate effect on the outcomes for children on free school meals. So, for instance, if I give you an example in your own region, Llyr: at Brynteg County Primary School in Wrexham, if you look at that primary school in Wrexham, their results for free-school-meal children at the end of their primary school period in school are equivalent to their non-free-school-meal counterparts. So, there is no differentiation in those results. One of the things that they've used their PDG for is to really focus on the concept of growth mindset in school. So, that's a universal thing that they've trained all the teachers in, but what we know is that that has a disproportionate effect on those children who are on free school meals. So, if you're familiar with the concept of a growth mindset, it's about really challenging learners to think that,'I can do things. If sometimes I fail, I pick myself up, I'm more resilient.'Now, that has been, as I said, trained to all the teachers in the school--it's an ethos for the whole school--but we have seen that the impact on the free-school-meal children has been even greater, and now they're at the same level. So, that's the important distinction. Individual intervention per child has to be targeted at those children who are eligible for free school meals, but sometimes a school will employ a whole-school approach to train their staff, for instance, and that, then, has to demonstrate it has a disproportionate effect on free school meals. So, growth mindset; it may be attachment disorder training for staff, for instance, where we know it's of benefit to everybody, but will have particular benefits for that cohort of students. With regard to more able and talented, you know, Llyr, that this is an area of concern for me, generally, within the Welsh education system; that we've not been particularly good at identifying, supporting and driving attainment for those children. I'm absolutely clear that PDG needs to be used for those children who are eligible to drive potential, whatever the potential of that child is, including more able and talented. And again, I'll give you an example that has been seen as good practice in Pembrokeshire: a window on the world bus, again paid for by schools. I don't know if you're aware of it.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: We've heard about that.
Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, you've heard about it; well, it's a really good example the window on the world. And, again, that's very much targeted at raising aspirations and giving children who are more able and talented, who are eligible for PDG, those experiences, and to really push them. So, yes, I'm absolutely clear that PDG shouldn't just be seen to be getting individuals to the average. For those children who are more able and talented, it should be used to support them--
Llyr Gruffydd AM: And we all share those aspirations, I'm sure, and you pointed to examples of good practice, but of course, it's not universal, is it, so what I'm asking is: do you think that the guidance is sufficient as it is? Do you think that there's a great enough awareness of how the PDG should be used at the coalface? And also, are you confident that consortia and others have the measures in place to be able to demonstrate that it is being used properly?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think, if we look at what Estyn has said about PDG, it does actually recognise that the PDG is being used to push more able and talented children, but as always with the system, Llyr, it's whether we can be sure that that is strategic and that it's happening across all of our schools. So, you're--
Llyr Gruffydd AM: But not just in relation to more able and talented, I'm referring to the eligibility and the targeting.
Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, the eligibility. You'll be aware that, on the advice of Sir Alasdair, we have employed and appointed new PDG regional advisers, and I think their role is going to be absolutely crucial in spreading that good practice across the region, whether that's use of PDG for more able and talented, or ensuring that PDG is used in the appropriate way. So, that's there to provide strategic overall advice. And obviously, we have been very clear with regional challenge advisers, in the relationship and the conversations they're having with individual schools, that they're really challenging their schools about the use of PDG, not just in terms of targeting, but the programmes, what the money is being spent on, whether there is an evidence base for that and whether we are clear on impact. So, I think the new regional advisers are going to be crucial in enabling us to ensure more consistent practice across the regions.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, are you content that eligibility for free school meals is the best measure, really, of identifying which pupils to target?
Kirsty Williams AM: Llyr, in the absence of anything better. I'll be the first person to say that maybe it's not as absolutely focused, but in the absence of anything different to identify a proxy for need, I think it's probably the best that we've got at present. And we will continue to have discussions with local government about whether there are different ways. We have to be mindful. Some of the policy levers in this area are out of my hands, so if we look at the roll-out of universal credit, for instance, we've got officials working very hard at the moment to try and understand what universal credit is going to mean and where we are going to be able to identify relative need, going forward. We haven't had any additional resource as a result of this, but we're very mindful that, potentially, this has an impact, going forward. And, officials are working all of the time, I must say, in conjunction with the department in England, to understand their thinking in this area so that we are in a position to make some decisions about what a notional eligibility for free school meals will look like going forward, but before I make any decisions, I want to assure everybody that there will be a full public consultation on that.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Finally for now, on this issue of once a year, in January, if you're eligible for free school meals, then you're in that group for that year. We've had some quite strong evidence about how difficult that makes longer term planning for a number of schools and we've also been pointed in the direction of what's happened in England with the Ever 6, and I'm just wondering whether you're giving any thought to maybe changing that a little bit.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we're certainly giving thought to flexibility. In conversations with Alasdair, who is our independent adviser on this agenda, and individual schools, we're actively giving thought to greater flexibility and maybe longer term projections, so that schools know, for a number of years ahead, what their allocation will be. There are advantages to that system, because you could give that flexibility, you could give that long-term approach, but then, how do you make that responsive if a school suddenly has more children? We do know that, actually, the number of free-school-meal pupils is dropping. But there can be changes, you know, regional working in areas of north Wales in tourism, or maybe in other areas at Christmas time, parents are able to get a period of work. So, how can we create a more flexible system? We're actively looking at that at the moment. I wouldn't use it as an Ever 6 concept, but as an'Ever 2'concept. We have looked at Ever 6, and I'm going to be absolutely blunt with you: to introduce an Ever 6 concept for Wales would mean in the region of identifying an additional PS40 million. I'm going to be absolutely straight and blunt with you: we're not in a position at the moment to be able to identify an additional PS40 million to introduce an Ever 6. But issues around flexibility, certainly, are actively under consideration. In fact, we'll be having a discussion later on today about decisions, going forward, for the next two years.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Darren on this.
Darren Millar AM: It's just a very brief point in response to the PS40 million price ticket that you just put on that. That's, of course, assuming that you maintain the current level of PDG, yes? So, if you reduced the level of PDG slightly, but made it available to more individuals, if you like, via allocating it in a different way, then that PS40 million price ticket wouldn't be there, would it?
Kirsty Williams AM: I was asked a question about had I ever considered an Ever 6. We have looked at that, we've priced that up. I have to make decisions in the envelope of resources that are available to me. We could, indeed, change the way in which we allocate PDG money, but we have to do it within the envelope that is available to me, over PS90 million. That's a significant level of investment, but, of course, as always, Darren, we could cut the amount per pupil, but that might have quite challenging swings in allocations. What we have done--because what I am clear on is that there was evidence to suggest that in the secondary sector, a great deal of PDG was being focused on years 10 and 11, especially year 11, in catch-up provision, and you'll be aware, because we've said this in evidence to the committee in the papers, we've set a challenge to secondary schools to say,'Actually, the majority of your PDG allocation has to be used in key stage 3.'Now, we have to balance the needs, the moral hazard of turning round to children in years 10 and 11 and saying,'We're not going to provide catch-up opportunities for you,'because, clearly, those children need that support. But the evidence and the advice that we're receiving is: actually, strong focus on early years, primary and key stage 3, if we get that right, should negate the need for spending money on catch-up at years 10 and 11. That's why we, in our advice to local authorities and schools, say that we want to see evidence that they're spending this money earlier on in a child's career, rather than just a scramble at year 11 to say,'Right, we've got to get you through your exams.'Darren Millar AM: Okay, but have you actively considered, then, reducing the level you have?
Kirsty Williams AM: We've--
Ruth Conway: Sorry--I was just going to say that one of the things is looking at the scope of the definition, and I think it's about being more flexible with the definition, rather than reducing the amount per head.
Darren Millar AM: Okay. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. If we can go on, then, to talk about some of the practical uses of the PDG, you write in your written paper that'the majority of schools are making well thought out and appropriate decisions'on how to use it. But Estyn reported that only two thirds of primary and secondary schools make effective use of the PDG. Given that we've had it now for six years, would you not have expected there to be a higher level of schools actually making good use of that funding?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, to flip it on its head, the vast majority of schools, as identified by Estyn, are using this money to good effect. So, that's the way I like to see it--that the vast majority of schools are doing well. What Estyn has also indicated is the intrinsic link here to leadership within individual schools, and as you'll be aware, leadership, improving capacity in leadership and developing leadership talent in the Welsh education system is a key priority for me in our national mission. Of course, that's being developed in a different work stream. I think what's fair to say is that the use of PDG is evolving over time. I think we are seeing, increasingly, more and more schools understanding how best to deploy that money for best effect for students. So, if we're honest, when PDG first started, I think, in some schools it was spent on investing in tracking of children, because they'd never thought about tracking these children, they didn't have systems in place to look at the performance of these children, and to have a system in place. So we've moved now from spending money on the infrastructure around support for FSM children into actual inputs in terms of teaching and learning. We're also seeing from Estyn that, actually, in terms of money following the evidence of what we know works, Estyn says that PDG is probably the best example of schools following tried and tested and evidence-based interventions to deploy the money. But clearly we want all of this money to be deployed as well as it can be, and again we come back to the decision I've made to appoint regional PDG advisers so that we can get that better consistency of approach. We are, in the discussions that I have with the regional consortia about how they challenge individual schools on usage, looking for very clear evidence of schools using the Sutton Trust toolkit, and we could have a discussion about whether that's the right thing, because that's on my mind too. But we want to see schools demonstrating their evidence base, and if they're not, if a school isn't doing that, okay, so demonstrate to us why you've made those decisions and, crucially, what are you doing as the school to judge whether that decision is actually making a difference for your individual pupils. So, if you're moving away from tried and tested interventions, what we know works, if you're doing something different with your money, okay, you need to justify that and you need to explain how you're going to demonstrate impact. But I think what we're seeing is increasing good practice in this area as the PDG develops and as our understanding of our school-to-school working in our self-improving school system also develops. I think we're seeing better usage of the money year on year.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Llyr on this.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: You mentioned some schools will be moving from the tried-and-tested interventions, really, and I'm just wondering to what extent that evolution of use of PDG is being driven by cuts to core funding.
Kirsty Williams AM: No, I don't think it's being driven by cuts to core funding. I think there has been--. One of the biggest impacts of PDG has not been--well, I suppose it is the money in itself, because the money has concentrated the minds, hasn't it? So, one of the most important things that PDG has done is highlight the importance of this agenda within schools, and really raise this up in the thinking of leadership and senior management teams in our schools, and has driven a focus on scrutiny and accountability in the systems that are working with our schools. I think the changing use of PDG reflects the journeys that schools have been on, some of them from a very low base where this was not a priority for them, to better understanding, and as research and as intelligence grows over time in this area, both in Wales and outside of Wales, schools are increasingly learning to use that evidence to tailor approaches in their schools.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So you wouldn't accept at all that some of this money's being used to paper over some funding cracks from elsewhere. Because the unions and some others have told us that, whether we like it or not, there is some of that going on.
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, Llyr, we're very clear about the usage that this money can be spent on in terms of individuals or universal application within schools, and that forms an important part of the checks and balances that we have in our system. Can we continue to improve, and ensure that more and more of our schools are employing best practice? Yes, we can, and as I've said, we've taken steps to put in place the infrastructure to support that.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Mark's questions are next.
Mark Reckless AM: Cabinet Secretary, how would you assess the impact of PDG on attendance and hopefully subsequent engagement with education from children who have free school meals?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think what's important to note is that, as Estyn have themselves said, over the period of the last inspection report, we have seen improvements in attendance, but I do think we need to, again, look at how PDG can support this particular agenda. And as always in the Welsh education system, there are some excellent examples of how schools use the money to address this. Ysgol y Preseli in Pembrokeshire is a very good example of how they've deployed their money. Forgive me; I can't off the top of my head remember the name of the primary school I visited, again in north Wales, where the school has proactively used this money, and they actually send teaching assistants out of school in the morning before the start of the school day, and they actually have a walking bus. They call at homes for children, and they walk the children to the breakfast club. So, they're proactively going out into the community and making sure that those children are in the classrooms, because the teacher said,'We recognised we had a problem with attendance. We tried a variety of means of improving that, but in the end we have taken this quite bold step--we actually send the staff out and they create that walking bus, and they walk the children into school'. They say that they know that, for some of those children, because of the difficult circumstances they and their families are living in, they probably wouldn't be in school if it wasn't for that proactive approach. So, we're looking again at what more we can do to support this particular agenda in terms of improving attendance, because although, again, there are examples of good practice, there is still a gap between the attendance of free-school-meal pupils and non-free-school-meal pupils. And, of course, we can have the best curriculum in the world with really high-quality teaching, but unless the children are in the classes then we're not going to make the difference for them. Whilst that differential exists, then it's going to be hard to close the attainment gap for those children.
Mark Reckless AM: I was actually quite shocked just reading in advance of this meeting that the proportion attending 95 per cent or more, who have pretty full attendance, was only 35 per cent for free-school-meal children at level 4, compared to 60 per cent for non-free-school-meal pupils. It still is an extraordinary difference. My colleague here showed me, I think, last week, a graph showing the link between attendance and attainment, in particular. When people were absent, a lot of the--. As I'm sure you're aware, there's a huge connection. What more can PDG do to deal with it? In the example you give I can see how a school with an awful lot of free-school-meal children could do that, but a lot of the free-school-meal children are actually in schools that don't have that high a proportion of free school meals, where it would be much more challenging to bring in that type of initiative.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, indeed, and I think it gets more challenging the older the children get. I think it's more difficult to find interventions that are successful higher up, so key stage 4. So, you can do a walking bus with little ones, can't you, but I don't suppose your average 15 or 16-year-old is going to take very kindly to that. So, you do need a different approach to that. But again, we see in Ysgol y Preseli the employment of staff to directly work with families of older children to reinforce the messages around, as you quite rightly say, the linkage between attendance and attainment, and really work with individual families to understand the barriers to attendance: what's going on in the family that is preventing that child from going to school, and what more can the school do to address those situations. But you're absolutely right; there is more that we need to do to address this particular agenda of attainment. I don't know if there's anything extra you wanted to add, Steve.
Steve Davies: There is also another very good example--and I take what you say about where there are small numbers--but in our secondary schools where there are significant numbers, they're investing PDG in resources like a school nurse and a school counsellor, not just to work with the children but link to other agencies on whom the children and the families are dependent to support them in terms of working with schools. So, it's something, particularly in our most challenging areas, where it cannot just be delivered within the school. So, good use of that resource is being made to employ people to support them in those wider areas.
Mark Reckless AM: Thank you. To what extent is PDG also used to seek to reduce the higher rates of exclusion for children entitled to free school meals?
Kirsty Williams AM: So, if we looked at permanent exclusions, there isn't a differential, but if we look at temporary exclusions, there we see there is a disproportionate number of children on free school meals that are subject to those exclusions. Again, I think what schools employing best practice understand is that you need a multi-agency approach to supporting that particular child. Some of those exclusions can be as a result of the need to address other issues going on in a child's life. So, this is where we come back to the committee's work, for instance, on mental health and support for children, support for behaviour in school. So, again, it's a multi-agency approach that I think we need, and, in our good schools, our really, really good schools, there's a recognition of that need to have a whole team around a child to support that child in education. With EOTAS, we made some changes last year regarding PDG for EOTAS. So, for those children who do find themselves in education other than at school, we are providing additional support that previously was not available.
Mark Reckless AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We're going to move on now to talk about the impact of PDG on attainment. Hefin David has got some questions.
Hefin David AM: It appears that the attainment gap at 2017 has actually widened, in spite of PDG levels. Is that correct?
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. So, if you look at it--with the usual caveats about whether you can make direct comparisons on level 2 plus between the exams the year before and the exams that we had last summer--on the face of it, the gap has increased. I think what's important to recognise, Hefin, is a direction of travel. I'm sure we all want to, because I want to, have a discussion about why children on free school meals were less resilient in the exam system last year. But, if we look at the period that we have been employing PDG, over that period, we have seen a narrowing of the gap. I think what's quite stark, if we think about it--. So, if we look at where we started from: in 2009, one in five children on free school meals got level 2 plus--one in five--by 2016, we had got that down to one in three. Obviously, there's still a way to go, but, Sir Alasdair, who knows about these things, says that that is a significant improvement. Last year, we got some challenges. We need to understand why that happened, but I do think it's--
Hefin David AM: Why, do you think?
Kirsty Williams AM: Why, do I think? What I do think is there is no one answer. There is no one answer to this. I think we could look at and we can have discussions around the move from BTEC to science GCSEs. I think we have supplied figures to the committee about the significant change in the number of children on free school meals who weren't doing a single science GCSE and are now doing science GCSEs. We can look at the unintended consequences of literature. Again, we've supplied figures. Where children have done language and literature, whether that be through the medium of English or through the medium of Welsh, there is more resilience. So, it's that exposure to literacy in all its forms that I think could potentially make a difference. So, I think there's no one answer to why free-school-meal children were not so resilient last year. We continue to have discussions with Qualifications Wales to get a better understanding of this. At my next ministerial policy board, in May, we'll be doing a deep dive into this particular subject.
Hefin David AM: So, to what extent would exam boards be responsible for lack of grade stability?
Kirsty Williams AM: It could be one of the contributory factors. What I think is important is that there is no one, single reason why there seems to be less resilience in this cohort of children.
Hefin David AM: Will you be speaking to the exam boards about this and raising concerns?
Kirsty Williams AM: I have written to Qualifications Wales, we've had discussions about it, but I've asked them to formally submit evidence ahead of my policy board for May, where, as I said, we will be doing a formal, deep-dive discussion across the department about these issues. But, again, Hefin, what we've got to be clear on is--while we look at overall factors, you know, our overall national statistic--we did see some schools last year whose FSM performance was better than it had been the year before. So, what was it in those schools that enabled those children to do really well, whereas, in other schools, the performance was different? Even in individual cities, you can see a huge variety of performance. So, take Cardiff and Swansea, our two biggest cities. You've got schools in those cities with comparative levels of free school meals. So, you could have really high-performing schools with a very small number of the cohort on free school meals. The difference between those performances in a single city--so, that's the same local education authority and the same regional consortium--you can see a massive change. There's one school I can talk to: their free-school-meal performance is 88 per cent. A similar school in the same city with the same proportion of children on free school meals, their performance is down in the 20 per cents. So, I think what's important is that we can't draw broad-brush conclusions. For me, the challenge is to go into individual schools and understand what was happening in that particular school that ensured that their children did really well. We've got one school in Swansea, their FSM performance at GCSE level 2 outperforms non-FSM pupils.
Hefin David AM: But we still need to rely on the trends from a distance. If we take your argument that 2017 was an unusual year and the trends up to 2016 were positive, in a few years'time, when we will be looking back in two years'time, how are we going to measure this progress, say, in 2019? What are we likely to see and what methods are you going to use to measure progress that way?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, you'll be aware that we are moving away from level 2 plus as a performance measure anyway because of the--
Hefin David AM: So, what performance measures will you use?
Kirsty Williams AM: So, for the lack of sophistication around the level 2 plus, and for the unintended behaviours that that particular performance measure has driven within our schools. I'll be making a statement shortly to the Assembly around a new performance measure for schools. We were, at our most recent secondary heads conference, working with schools to develop that. What's important to me is that we have a more sophisticated model that looks at school performance for all children. What level 2 plus does is narrow, very much, the focus of schools on an individual part of the cohort, usually the C/D borderline, which is why then we have problems with the number of students getting a B grade or above. We have marked success in our schools by saying to schools that a C is good enough. Well, if a child gets a C but came to you in year 7 and they were destined to get an E, yes, indeed, a C is a success, because you've moved that child on; but, if that child came to you destined to get an A* and gets a C, then we haven't done a good job by that particular child. So, we need a performance measure that is much more sophisticated, looks at each individual child, tracks that progress, and measures the value added by that school in performance.
Hefin David AM: Last question: therefore, should we have confidence in the data up to 2016? Is there a lack of confidence in that data?
Kirsty Williams AM: No, it's not a lack of confidence in the data. The data is the data. What I'm saying is, using that as a performance measure and an accountability measure within our school system may have been right for the time. I think it is now right to have a different way of measuring success in schools. I think that particular set of performance measures has driven certain behaviours--not because Ministers wanted that to happen, but as an unintended consequence. I think we can work together with our school system, learning the lessons of international best practice, to develop much more sophisticated accountability and performance measures for individual schools, and, I should say, for the Government. So, you will be aware of my intention to issue the first national report card on Government performance later on this year. So, this is not about trying to avoid scrutiny. It's about trying to develop a more sophisticated way, which is in line with our national mission, where every child's education is valued, and where the impact of the school can be tracked more effectively.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Can I just ask, Cabinet Secretary, are you still holding on to your target of 37 per cent of free-school-meal pupils achieving the level 2 threshold?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we're moving away from the level 2 threshold. So, that's the first thing to say. So, we will want to develop a new suite, in line with our new accountability measures, as we go forward. So, we will be absolutely continuing to track and evaluate the performance of free-school-meal pupils. When we announce our new accountability measures, I will be in a position to address how we'll measure the Government's performance, and national performance, going forward. But, given the fact that we're moving away from level 2 plus, then we will need a different set of performance indicators.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The next questions are on looked-after children and adopted children, and I've got questions from Michelle then Mark.
Michelle Brown AM: Thank you. Good morning--
Mark Reckless AM: I was to come in first, I think. I was about to ask about ICF consulting.
Lynne Neagle AM: Go on then.
Mark Reckless AM: I think my questions are first, but, Michelle, please do correct me if you were planning to come in before. The PDG for looked-after children doesn't quite seem to have the degree of visibility as the PDG for the free-school-meals. I think we had the MORI/WISERD survey--only 15 per cent of primary schools and 23 per cent of secondary schools were aware that PDG was targeted at looked-after children. I just wonder--can you clarify on the record here what is the role of schools with PDG for looked-after children as compared to the regional consortia in this field?
Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. I think it is absolutely fair to say that most awareness around PDG is around free school meals. There is less awareness around the availability of PDG to support looked-after children. I think that's probably in the nature of the cohort, so, there are more children subject to free school meals than are subject to being looked after. So, I think that's part of the explanation. A decision was taken in 2015 to regionalise PDG for looked-after children. My understanding was that the thinking behind that at the time was around a greater strategic deployment of that resource and to try and drive a greater impact than how it was being used previously. So, looked-after PDG is held at a regional level. We have looked-after children PDG co-ordinators--they're in their second year this year--to look at a regional deployment of that resource. And that resource can be done in a variety of ways, through individual allocation to a school to support an individual child, through to capacity building for the whole system. So, for instance, if I give you an example, in Carmarthenshire, there's been a big emphasis on attachment disorder and training teachers with regard to the impact of attachment disorder. Carmarthenshire happens to be one of those local authorities that does quite well in terms of attainment for looked-after children. But, clearly, I have--not concerns.'Concerns'isn't the right word. But I have asked officials to give greater scrutiny to how that resource has been used in the last year. Steve, on my behalf, wrote out to the system, setting out our expectations, but also advising them of the fact we will be asking very detailed questions of accountability for that money. So, what has that money been used on and how can you account for the effect? But, Steve, maybe you can give some greater detail.
Steve Davies: I think the challenge that--. One of the rationales for shifting--not that all the money stays in the region, but having a regional strategic support--was that, historically, the money was going directly with that child to the school. Given the quite often rapid turnover of children in schools--the very nature of looked-after children is they do sometimes move through foster parents--historically, what happened, the money lands in the school, because, at that time in the year, when it's measured, the school gets the money and can spend it on some additional support for staff, but quite often that child moves on to another school and the money doesn't transfer. Some schools will go through quite a number of years without having a looked-after child and will not think strategically,'How do I need to support them?'So, that was the rationale of the shift. In terms of the implementation of the regional allocation, as of this financial year finishing, we are going into local authorities and regions to evaluate where they've located the resource, what the impact of that resource has been, so that is reinforced and shared more widely.
Kirsty Williams AM: And then, to reassure, it's not just internally that we're looking at this. We have a contract with an external agency to do an evaluation--
Mark Reckless AM: That's ICF consulting.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. Yes, so that was done in the autumn of last year, because, as I said, we had concerns about whether this was really having the effect that was intended. So, my expectation is that we will be in a position to receive that report later on this spring, and of course it would be my intention that that report would be made public for people to have a look at what--
Mark Reckless AM: That was commissioned last autumn--
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, in November 2017.
Mark Reckless AM: November 2017.
Kirsty Williams AM: So, I'm hoping to have that published before the summer recess. I'm very reluctant to say months; I've learnt not to say months, because they move.
Lynne Neagle AM: I'm going to go to Michelle now, Mark, because--
Mark Reckless AM: Sure. I will come back in if I have anything further to ask here after Michelle.
Lynne Neagle AM: --both of you asked for these questions, and that's what the pre-meeting is for.
Mark Reckless AM: Michelle, I defer to you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Michelle.
Michelle Brown AM: Okay, thank you. Would you be open, Cabinet Secretary, to the idea of adjusting the eligibility of the PDG so that pupils who have been looked after or adopted at any point within a previous given period of time would attract the PDG, rather than only if they're looked-after on a one-off date?
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said earlier, in questions from, I think it was, Llyr, who was talking about concepts of concepts of Ever 6, we are constantly looking at how we can get that balance between focus and flexibility for this resource. Llyr opened with the question of,'How can you absolutely ensure that these children are getting the money?', but then there's also a tension about how can you create some flexibility around the school's usage of the grant. So, we will look at that. I think there is the issue of where a school would know of a child that was looked after. Issues around adoption are slightly more sensitive, because we couldn't force a family to tell a school that their child was an adopted child. So, a family may be very open and very keen to explain that to a school, but we can't necessarily track as closely children who have been adopted, especially if that adoption happens before the child goes to school. We can't be in a position of forcing families to disclose this information if they don't want to, but we certainly can, as I say, look to strengthen our monitoring arrangements around PDG support for looked-after children and the impact that that's having. I just think we need to be a bit mindful of people's privacy in some instances. If they don't want to divulge that, it wouldn't be my job to tell a family,'You have to let us know if your child is adopted.'Lynne Neagle AM: Michelle.
Michelle Brown AM: Fair enough; thank you for that answer. The EAS consortium's approach to using the looked-after and adopted PDG is to use it as part of a broader approach targeted at vulnerable learners in general. What are your views on that approach?
Kirsty Williams AM: I'm a great believer in if we can get it right for our most vulnerable learners, we'll be getting it right for all of our learners. I gave the example earlier, for instance, of attachment disorder, and, Chair, you will know that I have had conversations. One of the emerging themes for me, as I go around visiting schools, is the impact and the growing awareness and the growing numbers of children who have attachment disorder, and how schools are best able to respond to that in their children. So, for instance, as I said about Carmarthenshire, there's been a huge effort to address that in the school sector in Carmarthenshire. Now, that has a disproportionate benefit for those children, because you're more likely to see attachment disorder in children who are care experienced, because of the nature of the lives that those children have lived, but that doesn't necessarily mean that attachment disorder is exclusively found in those children that are looked after. It can be found in other families as well. So, that vulnerable learner, regardless of their background, will benefit from having teachers who are better trained, understanding and have intervention strategies in place to be able to address that need.
Steve Davies: I think it's also important to add that this is not one region's approach; this is across four regions, so the others--. For example, ERW have run a significant programme looking at the impact of adverse childhood experiences on pupils, which has enabled teachers to detect some of the impact of some of those and then considers some of the work they need to do within the school but also with other agencies. So, it is something that's applied consistently across the four regions.
Kirsty Williams AM: I was in Pil Primary School recently where they use their PDG, both FSM PDG, and no doubt an element of PDG for looked-after, for nurture groups. So, for those children who really, really find it very difficult to be in the main classroom, they can have that nurture group experience to address issues around emotional behaviour, feelings, and it gets them in a position where they are able then to join the main classroom because issues around behaviour have been addressed and they're in a better position to learn. So, again, this is an example of how vulnerable learners in the wider sense can benefit.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Mark, did you have anything you wanted to ask?
Mark Reckless AM: Yes. Can I follow up on tracking adopted children? I entirely understand that you can't force parents to disclose that their child is adopted. However, my understanding was that, in England, there was a dataset with social services that was shared with schools in a way that I'm not clear is happening in Wales and how, if at all, that links to the pupil level annual school census data. Perhaps sort of linked to that, isn't there an argument for making the parents of adopted children in the schools, potentially, with adopted children more aware that adopted children who were previously looked after have this potential grant, and would they not be more willing to disclose this, at least confidentially to the school and Government, if they knew there was this upside of doing so?
Kirsty Williams AM: We're actively looking at whether we should try and find a way of collecting this data, with the caveats that I just gave earlier. We can't force parents to divulge information that is a matter for them, nor would I want to. But there is an active discussion going on at the moment about whether we could create a dataset where people divulge this information and we can then track the children through. You're absolutely right. One of the ways in which we can often encourage take-up, for instance, of free school meals, especially in those communities where there is a sense of reluctance to apply for support--even though people are entitled to it, there's a reluctance to do it; sometimes we see this in rural areas--. Actually, appealing to the parents by saying,'Actually, this will mean more money for your child's school budget'is a much more compelling reason why people will apply for it then saying,'Actually, it's going to help you', because they don't want to be seen being dependent, they don't want to be seen being helped. But, if you say to them,'Actually, do you know that this means more money for your child's school?', they go,'Oh, all right then, I'll fill in the forms now.'So, you're right, I think there is something that we could do to make parents understand, in the round, that this has an impact. But we are actively looking at and discussing whether we could create a dataset around adopted children and how we can do that in line with data protection and data sharing. One of the things I am concerned about in the performance of looked-after children generally is how we can, across Government, work more closely together. We can't see the educational attainment of looked-after children just being a job of education. It's got to be a job of social services and the health service as well. There's got to be a joined-up approach to doing that. Now, officials were at the ministerial advisory group that's chaired by David Melding on prospects for looked-after children. They were there at the group last week. David tells me that the paper was very positively received by the group. I will be sitting down with David Melding to talk through what more we can do on the education side. I think there's really an appetite between me and the Minister for children to get a closer working relationship on this. We can't expect schools to do it on their own and alone. And there are things that we can do out there in local authorities to help improve outcomes. It's not just about the PDG; it is about, when social services are thinking about a placement, where does the discussion about where children are going to go to school--when does that take place? Do we talk about the placement, move a child and then think,'Oh my goodness me, what are we going to do about the schooling?'If you can imagine, the school could have been working really, really hard with a pupil to get them in a good place, to get them being able to access the curriculum, and then social services decide that the placement is being changed. So, we potentially lose all of that. So, a greater involvement in education and better linked-up working in local authorities will help us with this. It can't be just the job of the PDG. If we think we can crack this with just PDG, then we're being delusional. It has to be a cross-government approach at a national level, and at a local government level as well, to get this right. Sometimes, data protection--how can we break down some of these barriers between, you know, the school doesn't need to, schools shouldn't see, the entire social services report? Well, maybe the school does need to see some of that background information if they're going to have an impact for that child. So, there's more work to do, but it cannot be just the job of education on its own if we're going to make a difference, nor can it just be the job of the PDG to make a difference for those children.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Julie's got some more questions on the impact on adopted and looked-after children.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes, before I go on to those, I just wanted to support, really, what Mark was saying about adopted children and how important it is, I think, that the adoptive parents feel able to speak to the school and to give information. Because certainly any evidence we've had from adoptive parents, and generally knowing about what adoptive parents do feel, is that they often feel that there's a degree of a lack of sensitivity in the school about the issues of adoption. I would certainly support some move towards ensuring that the atmosphere was open in a way that would encourage them to realise that it would be a help for the children if there was an awareness in the school. So, I just wanted to really reinforce that.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, and that would chime with what I hear from many adoptive parents. I'm just trying to be sensitive by saying we can't force people to divulge this information if they don't want to.
Julie Morgan AM: No, but they need to be given the opportunity.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, you're right. We need to make sure that those parents feel that they can discuss this with school leaders and classroom teachers and explore how best those individual children can be supported, and how best we can support parents. Because, again--and I've said this a lot--after the quality of teaching, the second biggest impact on a child's educational outcome will be parental engagement. So, being able to create an environment where adoptive parents feel very confident and able to talk about their children's education is absolutely crucial if we're going to get that parental engagement that we need for all of our children.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Thank you. Going on to looked-after children, you say that the latest data on looked-after children's attainment is extremely disappointing. Can you expand on that and what effect the PDG has had in this result, or not had?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, there's no getting away from it: the way in which we currently measure outcomes for looked-after children, the results are not good enough. It's a source of huge concern to me that we need to do better for those children. That's why officials are engaging with the group that David Melding is chairing, to make sure that education is integral to that group and it's not lost sight of. There's a discussion to be had about the cohort, whether it's right and correct to compare looked-after children to the main cohort, or whether these statistics are useful in any way. Sometimes as well--this is not to make an excuse because, as I've said in my paper, it's extremely disappointing, but sometimes it can be really difficult. Because the cohort sometimes can be very, very small, it can swing the statistics to look perhaps more dramatic.
Julie Morgan AM: I think, generally, when you look at how looked-after children do--
Kirsty Williams AM: It's not good.
Julie Morgan AM: --in a much wider evaluation, they're not doing well, are they?
Kirsty Williams AM: They're not doing well. So, that's why we've got the review, the independent review, into the impact of the PDG in this area. This is why Steve is doing the work that he is doing with the regional consortia because, clearly, at the moment, we are not doing what we need to do for that particular cohort of children. I would not make any bones about that at all.
Steve Davies: I think we will not move away from the fact that these children need good GCSEs to gain employment, so we'll continue to measure that. I think we need to look at more nuanced evaluations of the data at a lower level. So, for example, there were significant improvements in terms of PDG pupils who got three and four good GCSEs but didn't get past the threshold. That's not to cover anything that is not working in terms of improvement, but we will look at the full range and still hold on to the fact that we have to look at a measure that relates to the likelihood of these children going on to further education and training.
Julie Morgan AM: And then just one more question about the exclusion rates amongst looked-after children. They are, I understand, over six times more likely to be given a fixed-term exclusion. So, is there any way of trying to address this? Is the PDG used for anything to do with exclusions?
Kirsty Williams AM: We can look at exclusions. We also have to read across about how the whole system works, not just the PDG element of the system. So, we know, for example, that 66 per cent of looked-after learners have some additional learning need, so we can't just look at it in terms of this particular source of funding; we have to look at it at a wider level of support. So, given that the majority of those children will have an ALN, how can we make sure that our new ALN legislation and our new ALN regime meets the needs of these children? So, I think what we're looking at, again, is to say that it can't be just the job of the PDG. That's there as an additional level of support, but actually, we've got to get our ALN right. Unless we get our ALN right, lots and lots of these children are not going to get the support that they need day in, day out via that system. We do know that sometimes, if we're not addressing ALN, then we're not addressing behaviour issues that then potentially lead to an expulsion or potentially lead to non-attendance. So, we've got to look at it in the round and recognise the connections between the sometimes quite complex needs that these children have within the school setting, that are not just as a result of the fact that they're looked after; they have other needs as well.
Steve Davies: And investment in well-being--
Kirsty Williams AM: Absolutely. Steve is reminding me that that's why well-being is part of the national mission--to address issues around supporting children with their well-being, which is a way of keeping them in school.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to move on to Schools Challenge Cymru now. Llyr.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you, Chair. I was just wondering what your assessment is as to why some schools made progress and others didn't.
Kirsty Williams AM: I think we have to recognise that the 39 schools that were part of the programme were in very, very different places. So, I think one of the reasons why some schools did well was because their needs were not so complex, not so deep-seated and a certain level of intervention was enough to get them moving forward. Some schools had very, very different needs. I think, talking to those involved in the programme, as always, we had some support advisers, challenge advisers working with those schools as part of the programme who were really, really excellent and really good, and were the right fit for the school and really drove the school onwards. We had other people employed in the programme who, perhaps, were less effective at driving change within those individual schools. So, what we have is a mixed bag of performance, again reflecting the very different challenges that those schools were facing, which led them to be chosen for the programme in the first place.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, okay--
Steve Davies: Sorry. One of the other key additional factors was the extent to which there had been recent appointment of a new headteacher to that school just before the programme had started, because--
Kirsty Williams AM: Leadership is all.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: And that was seen as a positive.
Steve Davies: A positive, yes. I think one of the challenges is that sometimes the time it takes to make changes in leadership can be protracted and can be a barrier, sometimes, to the speed with which you can move. But, for a significant minority of the schools, there had been recent new appointments of headteachers, which was seen to be contributing, when you looked at the evaluation, to the speed with which they were able to engage.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: The reason I was asking was I wanted to understand what lessons the Government is taking from that three-year investment, really, and how, maybe, you're applying some of those lessons to your wider school improvement programme. I know Professor Mel Ainscow identified six interconnected lessons, although I also note that the Cabinet Secretary didn't actually meet him for about six or seven months after coming into post. So, I'm just wondering, can you give us confidence that, actually, you are serious about taking lessons from Schools Challenge Cymru and applying them to the wider school improvement agenda?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, absolutely, Llyr. I don't think anything should be read into when I met the individual concerned, because officials were meeting the individual concerned. Individual challenge advisers were meeting with the regions, there was crossover work with the FSM agenda as well, and we are absolutely determined that best practice and those interventions that drove school improvement are embedded in the new support that we have via the regional consortia. It's no coincidence that some of the best people that were employed by Schools Challenge Cymru are now in the employment of our regional consortia. So, those people that were really good and really made a difference don't work for the Schools Challenge Cymru scheme any more, they work for our regional school improvement services. So, we're absolutely determined. The things that we have learned, as always, are around leadership. It is absolutely key and crucial to have strong, capable school leadership as a driver for change within the system. We're looking at systems and processes, so, actually, has a school got in place comprehensive systems of tracking and processes within the school? We're looking at the teacher quality--how can we ensure that we have got consistent strategies in place to drive up pedagogy and teacher quality in the classroom? Collaborative activity--again, absolutely key. A school cannot see itself in isolation, and one of the key themes of the national mission is a self-improving system, so, collaborative working where schools are looking outside of each other, learning from best practice from other schools. So, there are lots of things that we've drawn from the evaluation that you will see as key themes running through the national mission, and, as I said, it's no coincidence that our really good people that were working in Schools Challenge Cymru are now working for the regional consortia, being able to use that expertise not just for a very small proportion of our schools--but that expertise is available to all our schools.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Although Estyn has told us, of course, that you can't expect the consortia to really carry on with that level of intervention and the same kind of intensity as was provided previously, so I'm just wondering--
Kirsty Williams AM: In what way?
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, we were told by Estyn in evidence that they didn't necessarily think that we could expect the consortia to provide the same type of tailored support, and certainly the level of intensity with the improvement boards and everything--
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the improvement boards are carrying on, so the improvement boards still exist, and I would--not that I want to argue with Estyn--
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, feel free; this is your opportunity to do so if you--
Kirsty Williams AM: What I would say is that those improvement boards are staying on, and our schools categorisation system is used to identify the level of support. Now, if you're a red school, that gives you the entitlement to 25 days of support. That is more than you would have got under the Schools Challenge Cymru programme, which would've been 20 days. So, actually, moving to this system allows us to really focus in on those schools that need that intensive level of support. And what's important for me, Llyr, in this, okay, is that those schools are not necessarily just the schools that were in the programme. Our system now of challenge, advice and support allows us to target resources across all of our schools and across all of our sectors, because you'll be aware that Schools Challenge was only available to secondary schools, not available to primary schools. What our system now allows us to do, via the schools categorisation, is to identify schools, wherever they are in Wales and whatever sector they're in, to have that intensive level of support that they need to make improvements.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, you're confident that that level of momentum is continuing through the consortia that was previously enjoyed by those particular schools, and you're also confident that there is minimal risk that they'll slip back to where they were, potentially, or at least part of the way back.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, actually, there are some really good examples of some of the Schools Challenge Cymru schools making that sustained improvement now that the programme has come to an end. You only have to look at Tredegar, where we have seen continual improvement and moving up through the categorisation system. That school is now a green school, so they've been able to sustain their progress at the end of the programme. If we look at Armando in Eastern High School, again--gosh, my goodness me, we had lots of debates in a previous Chamber about the future of Eastern. There was one person that said that Eastern had to be closed and that the only way forward for that particular school was for it to be shut down, but what we have seen is investment via Schools Challenge Cymru, but ongoing, continual support from the regional consortium, and that school has come out of special measures. I pay absolute tribute to the staff of that school and that community that have done such a good job. So, I'm absolutely convinced that where we've got good leadership and good support, some of those schools are making continued, sustained progress even after the end of the programme. The challenge for me is for those schools that Schools Challenge Cymru didn't work for, and we haven't seen that progress--how we can use our school improvement system now to continue to work with those schools to give them the level of support that they need to make a difference. So that's what my focus is on now: a whole-system approach, rather than choosing 39 schools to get that level of support, when we recognise that there are schools everywhere, potentially, that need intervention, support and challenge, and in the primary sector as well.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, you wouldn't agree with a number of--well, the near-unanimous evidence that we've had from academics, some of whom are Government advisers from consortia et cetera, that this kind of programme such as Schools Challenge Cymru would probably need about five years to really have the impact that it was intended to have.
Kirsty Williams AM: What I would say is that, from my understanding, from the outset, it was a time-limited programme. The schools were aware of that. There were no surprises that it was supposed to be a time-limited programme. Evidence from across the UK showed that school challenge programmes have differed in time. So, for instance, Manchester's challenge was a three-year programme. So, there's no consensus about how many years you need to run a programme for. The previous Minister was quite clear about the time-limited nature of the programme. That's not to say it was the wrong decision, because what's important, and an ongoing legacy of the programme, was the investment in regional school improvement capacity, because at the time our school improvement services and the regions were young, in their infancy. The ability of individual local authorities to make a difference, with so many local authorities in an Estyn categorisation, was limited, so one of the ongoing legacies of the programme is that significant investment of over PS10 million in the capacity of the regions to be able to continue this support and the school improvement work.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, how disappointed were you that the money for Schools Challenge Cymru went back into reserves and didn't stay in your envelope, as you described it earlier? I presume you made a pitch for it. Did you make a case for that money to stay within your department?
Kirsty Williams AM: Llyr, we are constantly having discussions with the Minister for Finance around support for the education budget. The Minister for Finance was quite clear that it was a time-limited programme. We were able to secure investment from the Finance Minister to be able to secure the programme and run it and phase it out to make sure there was transition support, so as we moved from the schools challenge programme into the regional consortia, there were resources to do that.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Did you feel there was a case to be made to add to the consortia's resources and be able to continue that level of support that schools had previously had?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we did make resources available to the regional consortia to do that. As I say, from the outset, the previous Minister was very clear it was a time-limited programme. Certainly the schools that I talk to--. And I want to be absolutely clear: I have visited many, many Schools Challenge Cymru schools. I have used that opportunity to talk to them about--Heolddu being one of them, Hefin, which we went to visit, and Willows, for instance. I'm going to one this afternoon--I'm going to St Illtyd's this afternoon, and I always take--. I've been to Caergybi in Anglesey. I always take the opportunity to speak to those teachers about their experience of the programme and to understand and assure myself that they are getting ongoing support that they see as an appropriate level for them. I think I've done 19 of the schools.
Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin on this.
Hefin David AM: With regard to it being a time-limited programme, the previous Minister was clear that it was a time-limited programme, but it wasn't quite as time-limited as you've decided to be. Is that fair to say?
Kirsty Williams AM: No, it was supposed to be a three-year programme at the most. So, there's no differential between when I decided it was time-limited and the expectations--
Hefin David AM: So the time limit was the same that the previous Minister put on it.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. No change.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: But Mel Ainscow did tell us that there was a fade out in that third year--not that people were giving up, don't get me wrong, but clearly there wasn't that commitment coming from Government because the decision had been made, and people felt that it was just fizzling out a little bit, and that impacted on the momentum.
Kirsty Williams AM: I wouldn't characterise it as that. I think there certainly was a transition phase when we knew that the programme was moving and schools were moving into a different level of support, but I certainly wouldn't describe it as a fading out--not at all. As I said, we were aware that the programme was transitioning and we were determined to get that right for those individual schools, and to learn the lessons and, crucially, to be able to apply those lessons right across the board.
Steve Davies: I can see where the perception would come if a programme director like Mel was managing the programme right to the end of the three years exactly the same, and it falls off--not a cliff, but it falls off, then the readiness for schools and the readiness in the system to hand over--so part of the shift of focus was that working as a Government with the programme in those schools to working with the programme, those schools and the region. So, I think, inevitably, one party might see it as a decrease in terms of emphasis on their work, but it was necessary for the transition.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: But does that cast a bit of a shadow over the transition, then--that one key player within that process felt as such, or are you confident that that was managed well and effectively?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think it was managed well, and we were very clear to recognise success where success has been achieved, but not to gloss over where the programme had not made an impact, because that wouldn't be good for anybody. There was a formal event to close the programme, which gave everybody an opportunity to get together, to be formally thanked, and for, as I said, congratulations to be given to those people who had really made a difference and, crucially, key staff transferred over into the regional consortia. So, for those individuals, they were able to continue their work, but just be able to apply that work on a regional basis rather than just in an individual school. So, I don't see that there was any fading out, but there was a transition into a new system, and many of those key personnel transitioned into the system with us.
Lynne Neagle AM: Have you got any figures for the numbers of staff who went from the programme into the consortia?
Kirsty Williams AM: Not off the top of my head, but I can let you know.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I've got Darren first, then Mark.
Kirsty Williams AM: And can I just say, I met with some of them? I met with a selection of those people who had been involved in the programme to get their feedback on what they felt had gone right, and what they didn't feel had gone right in the programme. So, I took the time not just to meet the figurehead of the programme, but actually to meet the people who were doing the work in the individual schools. Sorry.
Darren Millar AM: Yes, I just wanted to ask you, you mentioned the figurehead there, I assume by'the figurehead'you mean Professor Ainscow. And you've mentioned as well that you said you wanted to learn lessons from Schools Challenge Cymru, but he told us that nobody had been in touch with him since March of last year in order to have any sort of follow-up engagement, or to have a dialogue about his perspective on what worked, what didn't work, why there were failures in some areas and why there were successes in others. Why haven't you sought that level of engagement with the person who was responsible for running the programme?
Kirsty Williams AM: I've had that conversation with Mr Ainscow. We had the evaluation of the programme. We've spoken to the people who were actually involved in running the programme on a daily basis in individual schools. We've spoken to the regional consortia. We've spoken to local education authorities. We've spoken to a wide variety of people to get their insight into the lessons learned, what was valuable and what was not valuable. So, a wide variety of people have been involved in those conversations.
Darren Millar AM: But you've hardly engaged with Mr Ainscow--with Professor Ainscow himself.
Steve Davies: I would actually say that I have had meetings--
Darren Millar AM: Since March of last year.
Steve Davies: Yes, since March of last year. I haven't got the exact dates for you. I've had discussions with Mel Ainscow, and my line manager at the time, Owen Evans, also had meetings and discussions.
Darren Millar AM: So, when he told us,'Since last March, I literally have had no contact at all with anybody from Welsh Government', he was telling porky pies, was he?
Steve Davies: That's not my recollection. I'll go back and check for you.
Lynne Neagle AM: If you could check and let us know, that would be good. Mark.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, well, I just talked about the celebration event to formally mark the end of the programme. My understanding was that it was July of last year, so people were engaged in that. And this idea that somebody has been ignored or frozen out is not how I see or how I regard that situation.
Lynne Neagle AM: Mark.
Mark Reckless AM: I have to say, with Professor Ainscow my impression was he took great, great pride in the work that he'd done with Schools Challenge Cymru, and I think he really enjoyed the engagement, the work and the positive relations with the Welsh Government. But I think there was just a degree of disappointment, perhaps, that at least he didn't feel that he'd been interrogated as much as he might have been about the lessons learned from the programme, and how perhaps to entrench those as well as possible with the regional consortia. I just wonder, Cabinet Secretary, if you could invite the professor in, perhaps to have a further debrief with you and take account of some of his thoughts and suggestions for what might help in this area.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, Mark, as I said, I just don't think it should be right to characterise this as a failure to engage with a single individual.
Mark Reckless AM: I'm not characterising it that way, Cabinet Secretary.
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, I met with him, Steve has met with him, Owen Evans has met with him, my special policy adviser has met with him and had discussions. So, there has been an ongoing dialogue. But, Mark, I hope that I have demonstrated since I took on this job that I am willing to work with a wide variety of people and to tap into their expertise if it can help me to deliver on the national mission. And if the advice to me is that we haven't sufficiently learnt the lessons, then I'll gladly have another conversation. What I'm saying to you--and I'm absolutely confident--is that we have learnt the lessons, we are taking that work and the good practice forward, and we have done that with conversations with a wide variety of people who had a view on this, from individual schools that were involved in the programme, individual people who were working in those schools, local education authorities, some of which have been very scathing about the programme, I should say, regional consortia--. So, the lessons, I am confident, have been learnt.
Mark Reckless AM: I'm glad to hear that, Cabinet Secretary, but I still say that, listening to Professor Ainscow's evidence, there was a perception, at least from him individually, that the programme should not be seen to be a failure, but a desire that the lessons should be learnt and a feeling or exception, at least on his part, that there was more that he still had to contribute to the process. And just to take one particular example, I think he referred to the Schools Challenge Cymru advisers being very successful in bringing in people who might not otherwise have contributed to this, and the regional consortia have had greater challenges in recruiting people, perhaps in some areas, of the same high standard of some particular individuals, but also from a wide range of different areas that the Schools Challenge Cymru do, and that there could be more to learn in that area as to how to support real excellence and a greater diversity of recruitment for those people. Is that something you could perhaps draw on his thoughts further about? Because I think he does feel that he has more to say to Welsh Government to help in this area.
Kirsty Williams AM: Firstly, can I say that I have never described the programme as a failure? I would understand, as someone who has put so much personal investment into the brand of schools challenges, that he would not want anybody to characterise that particular approach to school improvement as a failure. And I want to be absolutely clear that I have never described the programme as a failure, and I want to reassure Mr Ainscow of that. As I've said, gosh, my goodness me, if you saw my e-mail inbox and you saw the letters that come in, people are never shy in coming forward to give me advice on what I need to do, what I need to do next, what I'm doing right, what I'm doing wrong, and, you know, our doors are always open to listen to people who have interesting things to say about how we can deliver our educational mission. So, people aren't slow in coming forward, I can assure you, with advice.
Lynne Neagle AM: Julie.
Julie Morgan AM: Just very quickly. I'm sure the Minister is aware that Cardiff put extra funds of its own in to continue Schools Challenge Cymru advisers. So, obviously, they appreciated the value of the scheme, but it does query whether it should have gone on longer.
Kirsty Williams AM: Julie, I think, to be fair, there are some people who think the scheme was absolutely fantastic. I've had feedback from people who didn't think the scheme was helpful at all--in fact, they felt it was a hindrance. I'm very much of the view that the scheme worked really well for some schools in some areas and had less impact in some areas. There is a mixed picture. What's important to me is that we understand what it was that led those schools to make those big changes, how we can--like Mark talked about, the expertise--how we can keep that expertise in the system, and how we can apply the lessons to all schools.
Lynne Neagle AM: The next questions, and the final questions, are from John. So, we're going to need succinct questions and succinct answers.
John Griffiths AM: Some questions on regional consortia, Cabinet Secretary, and, first of all, the role that you believe they should play and how schools use PDG.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it's an absolute--. It's one of the things that I have been very clear to the regional consortia that I expect their challenge and support advisers to be asking schools about. So, one of the conversations that they need to have when they are in schools is exploring, with that school, how they are using their PDG, and how they're demonstrating an impact for those resources. So, it's a fundamental role for the challenge and support advisers in the regional consortia in their school improvement work. It's crucial.
John Griffiths AM: That sort of brings to mind some of the research that's been done on the role of the challenge advisers, Cabinet Secretary, which suggested that they're not actually challenging schools in that way, and that there's very little evidence of schools changing their decisions on the use of PDG as a result of any challenge from those challenge advisers. So, how would you respond to those findings?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, in my scrutiny of the role and success of our regional consortia, I specifically asked them about free-school-meal performance and the use of PDG within their particular region. I think there is increasing evidence to suggest that good use is being made of that resource, and I think that is being fed back into us. Estyn tell us that it's one of the areas of school expenditure that is closely linked to research and an evidence base. But, clearly, there is more to do, and that's why we have appointed the new regional advisers for PDG going forward, because we think there can be improvements in how this agenda can be supported at a regional level.
John Griffiths AM: Okay. So, you would recognise the findings from that research.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. There's always more that we can do, and we are strengthening that role by the appointment of the new regional PDG advisers, so that individual school challenge advisers know what they should be looking for, know what they should be doing, and there is a regional approach to good practice.
John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could you tell the committee, Cabinet Secretary, how effective you believe the relationship was between the Schools Challenge Cymru programme and the regional consortia's school improvement functions, and to what extent it varied by region?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think it's fair to say that, on occasion, I have received feedback that there was a conflict between what was going on at an individual school under the school improvement programme and whether, then, they welcomed support from the regional consortia as part of that. So, in some cases, if we're being absolutely honest, there could sometimes be tensions between the two, but in most cases, the relationship was very, very positive and there was continuous feedback between the work going on in the schools under the programme and the regional consortia challenge advisers. But I'm going to be blunt and honest with people--in some cases, it has been reported to me--it's only anecdotal evidence; I haven't got hard and fast evidence--that there sometimes was a conflict:'We're a school challenge school so we don't need to participate or listen to any advice that's coming from the regional consortia.'Or, a local education authority said to me,'We felt that we couldn't get involved in that school anymore because it was part of a different programme.'Those were isolated incidents, and, as I said, it's only anecdotal feedback. In most cases, the relationship was a very positive one.
Steve Davies: Just very quickly, I think that, across the board, it was more complex in the beginning, getting--[Inaudible. ]. But when the programme itself recognised that they needed to work with the regions, and the regions needed to work with them--and I think Mel Ainscow in his evidence referred to this--it strengthened after some early challenges. I think Mel Ainscow was working in a number of regions--I can't remember which ones--so he's established relationships--[Interruption. ] Sorry?
Kirsty Williams AM: Central south.
Steve Davies: Central south. He has already been working in that, so I think it possibly had a stronger springboard in terms of the early working.
Kirsty Williams AM: Because he already had relationships that he had already developed in that particular region. As always, with many of these things, it's about individuals and relationships.
John Griffiths AM: Okay. Finally from me, Cabinet Secretary: in 2015-16, Estyn reported on regional consortia not sufficiently focusing on particular groups of pupils and tracking their outcomes--for example, vulnerable pupils. I just wonder what you are able to tell us in terms of to what extent there has been necessary progress since 2015-16.
Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, I think it's important to recognise that all four consortia underwent monitoring visits in the autumn of last year, of 2017, which weren't reflected in the Estyn annual report for 2015-16. Estyn, through these 2017 inspections, have said that three out of the four regional consortia are making strong progress in their particular work, and we are continuing, as Welsh Government, to work with the other regional consortia to address the findings of the Estyn report.
John Griffiths AM: And that would include these particular issues.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. The committee probably hasn't had an opportunity to see, but, only this morning, Estyn has released a report on more able and talented, and has positive things to say in the field of more able and talented, which was being asked about earlier by Members--you know, evidence of improved working and support in that particular arena. But, again, we need to ensure a consistency across all the regions, and that the findings of Estyn's most recent reports into regional performance are followed through.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. As we've got a couple of minutes left, if I can just jump back to the issue of practical uses of the PDG--because it's the only thing we haven't really covered and it would be good to get on the record--can I ask to what extent you'd like to see the PDG used to track the progress of eligible pupils? And the committee's heard that there are several different tracking systems and tools used by schools. To what extent is that an issue to do with what the Welsh Government is promoting? Or is it down to consortia or individual schools? And do you think there needs to be a more centralised push on how the tracking is undertaken?
Kirsty Williams AM: Firstly, can I say it's absolutely crucial that we track performance, absolutely crucial? That's the bedrock. We don't dictate to individual schools the nature of the system that they should employ in their school. There are a number of different programmes that allow schools to do this, but we are absolutely clear, and best practice and evidence shows us, that individual pupil tracking is key and crucial. And, as I said in the beginning, where we weren't tracking pupils at all, initial investment in PDG was used to establish these systems within schools. Again, one of the outcomes from the schools challenge review, and one of the lessons learnt, was, again, the importance of individual tracking of pupils throughout their school career. But we don't dictate a single system.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you.
Kirsty Williams AM: But the principle is a really important one.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, and you don't think there's more scope to look at what the best system is that can be recommended to schools.
Kirsty Williams AM: That's not something we're actively looking at. I am actively looking at developing a Welsh toolkit around good practice, evidence base and research. At the moment we use the Sutton Trust toolkit, which is fine and excellent, but we are having active discussions about whether we're in a position, now, to look at developing a suite of a Welsh toolkit to support this agenda, and that's under active consideration.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Well, we've reached the end of our session. Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary and the officials for attending and for answering such a wide range of questions? As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again for coming.
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you very much.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Okay. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Children and Social Care on Families First funding. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education, updating us on the supply teacher issue. Paper to note 3--another letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education, providing further information following our meeting on 15 February. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the WJEC on availability of textbooks. Paper to note 5--a letter from Qualifications Wales, also on availability of textbooks. And paper to note 6 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education to the Children's Commissioner for Wales, following up on the dialogue that they've been having about our inquiry. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then, is for me to propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you. | According to Kirsty Williams, there is no specific answer. There's no single reason why there seems to be less resilience in this cohort of children. They think that they can't draw broad-brush conclusions. The challenge is to go into individual schools and understand what was happening in that particular school that ensured that their children did really well. They continue to have discussions with Qualifications Wales to get a better understanding of this, and in May, they'll be doing a deep dive into this particular subject. | qmsum |
What does the group think of the EAS consortium's approach to using the looked-after and adopted PDG as part of a broader approach targeted at vulnerable learners?
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this morning's Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask Members who are present if they wish to declare any interests? Okay, thank you. Item 2 this morning is our final evidence session for our inquiry into targeted funding to improve educational outcomes. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Cabinet Secretary for Education; Steve Davies, director of the education directorate; and Ruth Conway, deputy director, support for learners division. Welcome to all of you, and thank you for your attendance and also for the paper that you've provided in advance. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions, and the first questions are from Llyr Gruffydd.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bore da. I just want to start by asking some questions around the targeting of the pupil development grant because, clearly, we've had a lot of evidence around this apparent blurring of eligibility to an extent. I'm just wondering how comfortable you are that the money is being targeted appropriately because, clearly, it's being targeted more widely than just those eligible for free school meals, from some of the evidence we've had, but also that it seems to be predominantly focused on low-attaining frees--pupils who are eligible for free school meals.
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Llyr. I think it's important to be absolutely clear that when it comes to individual interventions, those individual interventions should only be targeted at those children who are eligible for free school meals. But in some cases, schools may use their PDG funding to provide a universal intervention, but we would want to--in challenge advisers'discussions in schools--we'd want to have evidence that that universal intervention would have a disproportionate effect on the outcomes for children on free school meals. So, for instance, if I give you an example in your own region, Llyr: at Brynteg County Primary School in Wrexham, if you look at that primary school in Wrexham, their results for free-school-meal children at the end of their primary school period in school are equivalent to their non-free-school-meal counterparts. So, there is no differentiation in those results. One of the things that they've used their PDG for is to really focus on the concept of growth mindset in school. So, that's a universal thing that they've trained all the teachers in, but what we know is that that has a disproportionate effect on those children who are on free school meals. So, if you're familiar with the concept of a growth mindset, it's about really challenging learners to think that,'I can do things. If sometimes I fail, I pick myself up, I'm more resilient.'Now, that has been, as I said, trained to all the teachers in the school--it's an ethos for the whole school--but we have seen that the impact on the free-school-meal children has been even greater, and now they're at the same level. So, that's the important distinction. Individual intervention per child has to be targeted at those children who are eligible for free school meals, but sometimes a school will employ a whole-school approach to train their staff, for instance, and that, then, has to demonstrate it has a disproportionate effect on free school meals. So, growth mindset; it may be attachment disorder training for staff, for instance, where we know it's of benefit to everybody, but will have particular benefits for that cohort of students. With regard to more able and talented, you know, Llyr, that this is an area of concern for me, generally, within the Welsh education system; that we've not been particularly good at identifying, supporting and driving attainment for those children. I'm absolutely clear that PDG needs to be used for those children who are eligible to drive potential, whatever the potential of that child is, including more able and talented. And again, I'll give you an example that has been seen as good practice in Pembrokeshire: a window on the world bus, again paid for by schools. I don't know if you're aware of it.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: We've heard about that.
Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, you've heard about it; well, it's a really good example the window on the world. And, again, that's very much targeted at raising aspirations and giving children who are more able and talented, who are eligible for PDG, those experiences, and to really push them. So, yes, I'm absolutely clear that PDG shouldn't just be seen to be getting individuals to the average. For those children who are more able and talented, it should be used to support them--
Llyr Gruffydd AM: And we all share those aspirations, I'm sure, and you pointed to examples of good practice, but of course, it's not universal, is it, so what I'm asking is: do you think that the guidance is sufficient as it is? Do you think that there's a great enough awareness of how the PDG should be used at the coalface? And also, are you confident that consortia and others have the measures in place to be able to demonstrate that it is being used properly?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think, if we look at what Estyn has said about PDG, it does actually recognise that the PDG is being used to push more able and talented children, but as always with the system, Llyr, it's whether we can be sure that that is strategic and that it's happening across all of our schools. So, you're--
Llyr Gruffydd AM: But not just in relation to more able and talented, I'm referring to the eligibility and the targeting.
Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, the eligibility. You'll be aware that, on the advice of Sir Alasdair, we have employed and appointed new PDG regional advisers, and I think their role is going to be absolutely crucial in spreading that good practice across the region, whether that's use of PDG for more able and talented, or ensuring that PDG is used in the appropriate way. So, that's there to provide strategic overall advice. And obviously, we have been very clear with regional challenge advisers, in the relationship and the conversations they're having with individual schools, that they're really challenging their schools about the use of PDG, not just in terms of targeting, but the programmes, what the money is being spent on, whether there is an evidence base for that and whether we are clear on impact. So, I think the new regional advisers are going to be crucial in enabling us to ensure more consistent practice across the regions.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, are you content that eligibility for free school meals is the best measure, really, of identifying which pupils to target?
Kirsty Williams AM: Llyr, in the absence of anything better. I'll be the first person to say that maybe it's not as absolutely focused, but in the absence of anything different to identify a proxy for need, I think it's probably the best that we've got at present. And we will continue to have discussions with local government about whether there are different ways. We have to be mindful. Some of the policy levers in this area are out of my hands, so if we look at the roll-out of universal credit, for instance, we've got officials working very hard at the moment to try and understand what universal credit is going to mean and where we are going to be able to identify relative need, going forward. We haven't had any additional resource as a result of this, but we're very mindful that, potentially, this has an impact, going forward. And, officials are working all of the time, I must say, in conjunction with the department in England, to understand their thinking in this area so that we are in a position to make some decisions about what a notional eligibility for free school meals will look like going forward, but before I make any decisions, I want to assure everybody that there will be a full public consultation on that.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Finally for now, on this issue of once a year, in January, if you're eligible for free school meals, then you're in that group for that year. We've had some quite strong evidence about how difficult that makes longer term planning for a number of schools and we've also been pointed in the direction of what's happened in England with the Ever 6, and I'm just wondering whether you're giving any thought to maybe changing that a little bit.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we're certainly giving thought to flexibility. In conversations with Alasdair, who is our independent adviser on this agenda, and individual schools, we're actively giving thought to greater flexibility and maybe longer term projections, so that schools know, for a number of years ahead, what their allocation will be. There are advantages to that system, because you could give that flexibility, you could give that long-term approach, but then, how do you make that responsive if a school suddenly has more children? We do know that, actually, the number of free-school-meal pupils is dropping. But there can be changes, you know, regional working in areas of north Wales in tourism, or maybe in other areas at Christmas time, parents are able to get a period of work. So, how can we create a more flexible system? We're actively looking at that at the moment. I wouldn't use it as an Ever 6 concept, but as an'Ever 2'concept. We have looked at Ever 6, and I'm going to be absolutely blunt with you: to introduce an Ever 6 concept for Wales would mean in the region of identifying an additional PS40 million. I'm going to be absolutely straight and blunt with you: we're not in a position at the moment to be able to identify an additional PS40 million to introduce an Ever 6. But issues around flexibility, certainly, are actively under consideration. In fact, we'll be having a discussion later on today about decisions, going forward, for the next two years.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Darren on this.
Darren Millar AM: It's just a very brief point in response to the PS40 million price ticket that you just put on that. That's, of course, assuming that you maintain the current level of PDG, yes? So, if you reduced the level of PDG slightly, but made it available to more individuals, if you like, via allocating it in a different way, then that PS40 million price ticket wouldn't be there, would it?
Kirsty Williams AM: I was asked a question about had I ever considered an Ever 6. We have looked at that, we've priced that up. I have to make decisions in the envelope of resources that are available to me. We could, indeed, change the way in which we allocate PDG money, but we have to do it within the envelope that is available to me, over PS90 million. That's a significant level of investment, but, of course, as always, Darren, we could cut the amount per pupil, but that might have quite challenging swings in allocations. What we have done--because what I am clear on is that there was evidence to suggest that in the secondary sector, a great deal of PDG was being focused on years 10 and 11, especially year 11, in catch-up provision, and you'll be aware, because we've said this in evidence to the committee in the papers, we've set a challenge to secondary schools to say,'Actually, the majority of your PDG allocation has to be used in key stage 3.'Now, we have to balance the needs, the moral hazard of turning round to children in years 10 and 11 and saying,'We're not going to provide catch-up opportunities for you,'because, clearly, those children need that support. But the evidence and the advice that we're receiving is: actually, strong focus on early years, primary and key stage 3, if we get that right, should negate the need for spending money on catch-up at years 10 and 11. That's why we, in our advice to local authorities and schools, say that we want to see evidence that they're spending this money earlier on in a child's career, rather than just a scramble at year 11 to say,'Right, we've got to get you through your exams.'Darren Millar AM: Okay, but have you actively considered, then, reducing the level you have?
Kirsty Williams AM: We've--
Ruth Conway: Sorry--I was just going to say that one of the things is looking at the scope of the definition, and I think it's about being more flexible with the definition, rather than reducing the amount per head.
Darren Millar AM: Okay. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. If we can go on, then, to talk about some of the practical uses of the PDG, you write in your written paper that'the majority of schools are making well thought out and appropriate decisions'on how to use it. But Estyn reported that only two thirds of primary and secondary schools make effective use of the PDG. Given that we've had it now for six years, would you not have expected there to be a higher level of schools actually making good use of that funding?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, to flip it on its head, the vast majority of schools, as identified by Estyn, are using this money to good effect. So, that's the way I like to see it--that the vast majority of schools are doing well. What Estyn has also indicated is the intrinsic link here to leadership within individual schools, and as you'll be aware, leadership, improving capacity in leadership and developing leadership talent in the Welsh education system is a key priority for me in our national mission. Of course, that's being developed in a different work stream. I think what's fair to say is that the use of PDG is evolving over time. I think we are seeing, increasingly, more and more schools understanding how best to deploy that money for best effect for students. So, if we're honest, when PDG first started, I think, in some schools it was spent on investing in tracking of children, because they'd never thought about tracking these children, they didn't have systems in place to look at the performance of these children, and to have a system in place. So we've moved now from spending money on the infrastructure around support for FSM children into actual inputs in terms of teaching and learning. We're also seeing from Estyn that, actually, in terms of money following the evidence of what we know works, Estyn says that PDG is probably the best example of schools following tried and tested and evidence-based interventions to deploy the money. But clearly we want all of this money to be deployed as well as it can be, and again we come back to the decision I've made to appoint regional PDG advisers so that we can get that better consistency of approach. We are, in the discussions that I have with the regional consortia about how they challenge individual schools on usage, looking for very clear evidence of schools using the Sutton Trust toolkit, and we could have a discussion about whether that's the right thing, because that's on my mind too. But we want to see schools demonstrating their evidence base, and if they're not, if a school isn't doing that, okay, so demonstrate to us why you've made those decisions and, crucially, what are you doing as the school to judge whether that decision is actually making a difference for your individual pupils. So, if you're moving away from tried and tested interventions, what we know works, if you're doing something different with your money, okay, you need to justify that and you need to explain how you're going to demonstrate impact. But I think what we're seeing is increasing good practice in this area as the PDG develops and as our understanding of our school-to-school working in our self-improving school system also develops. I think we're seeing better usage of the money year on year.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Llyr on this.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: You mentioned some schools will be moving from the tried-and-tested interventions, really, and I'm just wondering to what extent that evolution of use of PDG is being driven by cuts to core funding.
Kirsty Williams AM: No, I don't think it's being driven by cuts to core funding. I think there has been--. One of the biggest impacts of PDG has not been--well, I suppose it is the money in itself, because the money has concentrated the minds, hasn't it? So, one of the most important things that PDG has done is highlight the importance of this agenda within schools, and really raise this up in the thinking of leadership and senior management teams in our schools, and has driven a focus on scrutiny and accountability in the systems that are working with our schools. I think the changing use of PDG reflects the journeys that schools have been on, some of them from a very low base where this was not a priority for them, to better understanding, and as research and as intelligence grows over time in this area, both in Wales and outside of Wales, schools are increasingly learning to use that evidence to tailor approaches in their schools.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So you wouldn't accept at all that some of this money's being used to paper over some funding cracks from elsewhere. Because the unions and some others have told us that, whether we like it or not, there is some of that going on.
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, Llyr, we're very clear about the usage that this money can be spent on in terms of individuals or universal application within schools, and that forms an important part of the checks and balances that we have in our system. Can we continue to improve, and ensure that more and more of our schools are employing best practice? Yes, we can, and as I've said, we've taken steps to put in place the infrastructure to support that.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Mark's questions are next.
Mark Reckless AM: Cabinet Secretary, how would you assess the impact of PDG on attendance and hopefully subsequent engagement with education from children who have free school meals?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think what's important to note is that, as Estyn have themselves said, over the period of the last inspection report, we have seen improvements in attendance, but I do think we need to, again, look at how PDG can support this particular agenda. And as always in the Welsh education system, there are some excellent examples of how schools use the money to address this. Ysgol y Preseli in Pembrokeshire is a very good example of how they've deployed their money. Forgive me; I can't off the top of my head remember the name of the primary school I visited, again in north Wales, where the school has proactively used this money, and they actually send teaching assistants out of school in the morning before the start of the school day, and they actually have a walking bus. They call at homes for children, and they walk the children to the breakfast club. So, they're proactively going out into the community and making sure that those children are in the classrooms, because the teacher said,'We recognised we had a problem with attendance. We tried a variety of means of improving that, but in the end we have taken this quite bold step--we actually send the staff out and they create that walking bus, and they walk the children into school'. They say that they know that, for some of those children, because of the difficult circumstances they and their families are living in, they probably wouldn't be in school if it wasn't for that proactive approach. So, we're looking again at what more we can do to support this particular agenda in terms of improving attendance, because although, again, there are examples of good practice, there is still a gap between the attendance of free-school-meal pupils and non-free-school-meal pupils. And, of course, we can have the best curriculum in the world with really high-quality teaching, but unless the children are in the classes then we're not going to make the difference for them. Whilst that differential exists, then it's going to be hard to close the attainment gap for those children.
Mark Reckless AM: I was actually quite shocked just reading in advance of this meeting that the proportion attending 95 per cent or more, who have pretty full attendance, was only 35 per cent for free-school-meal children at level 4, compared to 60 per cent for non-free-school-meal pupils. It still is an extraordinary difference. My colleague here showed me, I think, last week, a graph showing the link between attendance and attainment, in particular. When people were absent, a lot of the--. As I'm sure you're aware, there's a huge connection. What more can PDG do to deal with it? In the example you give I can see how a school with an awful lot of free-school-meal children could do that, but a lot of the free-school-meal children are actually in schools that don't have that high a proportion of free school meals, where it would be much more challenging to bring in that type of initiative.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, indeed, and I think it gets more challenging the older the children get. I think it's more difficult to find interventions that are successful higher up, so key stage 4. So, you can do a walking bus with little ones, can't you, but I don't suppose your average 15 or 16-year-old is going to take very kindly to that. So, you do need a different approach to that. But again, we see in Ysgol y Preseli the employment of staff to directly work with families of older children to reinforce the messages around, as you quite rightly say, the linkage between attendance and attainment, and really work with individual families to understand the barriers to attendance: what's going on in the family that is preventing that child from going to school, and what more can the school do to address those situations. But you're absolutely right; there is more that we need to do to address this particular agenda of attainment. I don't know if there's anything extra you wanted to add, Steve.
Steve Davies: There is also another very good example--and I take what you say about where there are small numbers--but in our secondary schools where there are significant numbers, they're investing PDG in resources like a school nurse and a school counsellor, not just to work with the children but link to other agencies on whom the children and the families are dependent to support them in terms of working with schools. So, it's something, particularly in our most challenging areas, where it cannot just be delivered within the school. So, good use of that resource is being made to employ people to support them in those wider areas.
Mark Reckless AM: Thank you. To what extent is PDG also used to seek to reduce the higher rates of exclusion for children entitled to free school meals?
Kirsty Williams AM: So, if we looked at permanent exclusions, there isn't a differential, but if we look at temporary exclusions, there we see there is a disproportionate number of children on free school meals that are subject to those exclusions. Again, I think what schools employing best practice understand is that you need a multi-agency approach to supporting that particular child. Some of those exclusions can be as a result of the need to address other issues going on in a child's life. So, this is where we come back to the committee's work, for instance, on mental health and support for children, support for behaviour in school. So, again, it's a multi-agency approach that I think we need, and, in our good schools, our really, really good schools, there's a recognition of that need to have a whole team around a child to support that child in education. With EOTAS, we made some changes last year regarding PDG for EOTAS. So, for those children who do find themselves in education other than at school, we are providing additional support that previously was not available.
Mark Reckless AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We're going to move on now to talk about the impact of PDG on attainment. Hefin David has got some questions.
Hefin David AM: It appears that the attainment gap at 2017 has actually widened, in spite of PDG levels. Is that correct?
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. So, if you look at it--with the usual caveats about whether you can make direct comparisons on level 2 plus between the exams the year before and the exams that we had last summer--on the face of it, the gap has increased. I think what's important to recognise, Hefin, is a direction of travel. I'm sure we all want to, because I want to, have a discussion about why children on free school meals were less resilient in the exam system last year. But, if we look at the period that we have been employing PDG, over that period, we have seen a narrowing of the gap. I think what's quite stark, if we think about it--. So, if we look at where we started from: in 2009, one in five children on free school meals got level 2 plus--one in five--by 2016, we had got that down to one in three. Obviously, there's still a way to go, but, Sir Alasdair, who knows about these things, says that that is a significant improvement. Last year, we got some challenges. We need to understand why that happened, but I do think it's--
Hefin David AM: Why, do you think?
Kirsty Williams AM: Why, do I think? What I do think is there is no one answer. There is no one answer to this. I think we could look at and we can have discussions around the move from BTEC to science GCSEs. I think we have supplied figures to the committee about the significant change in the number of children on free school meals who weren't doing a single science GCSE and are now doing science GCSEs. We can look at the unintended consequences of literature. Again, we've supplied figures. Where children have done language and literature, whether that be through the medium of English or through the medium of Welsh, there is more resilience. So, it's that exposure to literacy in all its forms that I think could potentially make a difference. So, I think there's no one answer to why free-school-meal children were not so resilient last year. We continue to have discussions with Qualifications Wales to get a better understanding of this. At my next ministerial policy board, in May, we'll be doing a deep dive into this particular subject.
Hefin David AM: So, to what extent would exam boards be responsible for lack of grade stability?
Kirsty Williams AM: It could be one of the contributory factors. What I think is important is that there is no one, single reason why there seems to be less resilience in this cohort of children.
Hefin David AM: Will you be speaking to the exam boards about this and raising concerns?
Kirsty Williams AM: I have written to Qualifications Wales, we've had discussions about it, but I've asked them to formally submit evidence ahead of my policy board for May, where, as I said, we will be doing a formal, deep-dive discussion across the department about these issues. But, again, Hefin, what we've got to be clear on is--while we look at overall factors, you know, our overall national statistic--we did see some schools last year whose FSM performance was better than it had been the year before. So, what was it in those schools that enabled those children to do really well, whereas, in other schools, the performance was different? Even in individual cities, you can see a huge variety of performance. So, take Cardiff and Swansea, our two biggest cities. You've got schools in those cities with comparative levels of free school meals. So, you could have really high-performing schools with a very small number of the cohort on free school meals. The difference between those performances in a single city--so, that's the same local education authority and the same regional consortium--you can see a massive change. There's one school I can talk to: their free-school-meal performance is 88 per cent. A similar school in the same city with the same proportion of children on free school meals, their performance is down in the 20 per cents. So, I think what's important is that we can't draw broad-brush conclusions. For me, the challenge is to go into individual schools and understand what was happening in that particular school that ensured that their children did really well. We've got one school in Swansea, their FSM performance at GCSE level 2 outperforms non-FSM pupils.
Hefin David AM: But we still need to rely on the trends from a distance. If we take your argument that 2017 was an unusual year and the trends up to 2016 were positive, in a few years'time, when we will be looking back in two years'time, how are we going to measure this progress, say, in 2019? What are we likely to see and what methods are you going to use to measure progress that way?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, you'll be aware that we are moving away from level 2 plus as a performance measure anyway because of the--
Hefin David AM: So, what performance measures will you use?
Kirsty Williams AM: So, for the lack of sophistication around the level 2 plus, and for the unintended behaviours that that particular performance measure has driven within our schools. I'll be making a statement shortly to the Assembly around a new performance measure for schools. We were, at our most recent secondary heads conference, working with schools to develop that. What's important to me is that we have a more sophisticated model that looks at school performance for all children. What level 2 plus does is narrow, very much, the focus of schools on an individual part of the cohort, usually the C/D borderline, which is why then we have problems with the number of students getting a B grade or above. We have marked success in our schools by saying to schools that a C is good enough. Well, if a child gets a C but came to you in year 7 and they were destined to get an E, yes, indeed, a C is a success, because you've moved that child on; but, if that child came to you destined to get an A* and gets a C, then we haven't done a good job by that particular child. So, we need a performance measure that is much more sophisticated, looks at each individual child, tracks that progress, and measures the value added by that school in performance.
Hefin David AM: Last question: therefore, should we have confidence in the data up to 2016? Is there a lack of confidence in that data?
Kirsty Williams AM: No, it's not a lack of confidence in the data. The data is the data. What I'm saying is, using that as a performance measure and an accountability measure within our school system may have been right for the time. I think it is now right to have a different way of measuring success in schools. I think that particular set of performance measures has driven certain behaviours--not because Ministers wanted that to happen, but as an unintended consequence. I think we can work together with our school system, learning the lessons of international best practice, to develop much more sophisticated accountability and performance measures for individual schools, and, I should say, for the Government. So, you will be aware of my intention to issue the first national report card on Government performance later on this year. So, this is not about trying to avoid scrutiny. It's about trying to develop a more sophisticated way, which is in line with our national mission, where every child's education is valued, and where the impact of the school can be tracked more effectively.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Can I just ask, Cabinet Secretary, are you still holding on to your target of 37 per cent of free-school-meal pupils achieving the level 2 threshold?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we're moving away from the level 2 threshold. So, that's the first thing to say. So, we will want to develop a new suite, in line with our new accountability measures, as we go forward. So, we will be absolutely continuing to track and evaluate the performance of free-school-meal pupils. When we announce our new accountability measures, I will be in a position to address how we'll measure the Government's performance, and national performance, going forward. But, given the fact that we're moving away from level 2 plus, then we will need a different set of performance indicators.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The next questions are on looked-after children and adopted children, and I've got questions from Michelle then Mark.
Michelle Brown AM: Thank you. Good morning--
Mark Reckless AM: I was to come in first, I think. I was about to ask about ICF consulting.
Lynne Neagle AM: Go on then.
Mark Reckless AM: I think my questions are first, but, Michelle, please do correct me if you were planning to come in before. The PDG for looked-after children doesn't quite seem to have the degree of visibility as the PDG for the free-school-meals. I think we had the MORI/WISERD survey--only 15 per cent of primary schools and 23 per cent of secondary schools were aware that PDG was targeted at looked-after children. I just wonder--can you clarify on the record here what is the role of schools with PDG for looked-after children as compared to the regional consortia in this field?
Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. I think it is absolutely fair to say that most awareness around PDG is around free school meals. There is less awareness around the availability of PDG to support looked-after children. I think that's probably in the nature of the cohort, so, there are more children subject to free school meals than are subject to being looked after. So, I think that's part of the explanation. A decision was taken in 2015 to regionalise PDG for looked-after children. My understanding was that the thinking behind that at the time was around a greater strategic deployment of that resource and to try and drive a greater impact than how it was being used previously. So, looked-after PDG is held at a regional level. We have looked-after children PDG co-ordinators--they're in their second year this year--to look at a regional deployment of that resource. And that resource can be done in a variety of ways, through individual allocation to a school to support an individual child, through to capacity building for the whole system. So, for instance, if I give you an example, in Carmarthenshire, there's been a big emphasis on attachment disorder and training teachers with regard to the impact of attachment disorder. Carmarthenshire happens to be one of those local authorities that does quite well in terms of attainment for looked-after children. But, clearly, I have--not concerns.'Concerns'isn't the right word. But I have asked officials to give greater scrutiny to how that resource has been used in the last year. Steve, on my behalf, wrote out to the system, setting out our expectations, but also advising them of the fact we will be asking very detailed questions of accountability for that money. So, what has that money been used on and how can you account for the effect? But, Steve, maybe you can give some greater detail.
Steve Davies: I think the challenge that--. One of the rationales for shifting--not that all the money stays in the region, but having a regional strategic support--was that, historically, the money was going directly with that child to the school. Given the quite often rapid turnover of children in schools--the very nature of looked-after children is they do sometimes move through foster parents--historically, what happened, the money lands in the school, because, at that time in the year, when it's measured, the school gets the money and can spend it on some additional support for staff, but quite often that child moves on to another school and the money doesn't transfer. Some schools will go through quite a number of years without having a looked-after child and will not think strategically,'How do I need to support them?'So, that was the rationale of the shift. In terms of the implementation of the regional allocation, as of this financial year finishing, we are going into local authorities and regions to evaluate where they've located the resource, what the impact of that resource has been, so that is reinforced and shared more widely.
Kirsty Williams AM: And then, to reassure, it's not just internally that we're looking at this. We have a contract with an external agency to do an evaluation--
Mark Reckless AM: That's ICF consulting.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. Yes, so that was done in the autumn of last year, because, as I said, we had concerns about whether this was really having the effect that was intended. So, my expectation is that we will be in a position to receive that report later on this spring, and of course it would be my intention that that report would be made public for people to have a look at what--
Mark Reckless AM: That was commissioned last autumn--
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, in November 2017.
Mark Reckless AM: November 2017.
Kirsty Williams AM: So, I'm hoping to have that published before the summer recess. I'm very reluctant to say months; I've learnt not to say months, because they move.
Lynne Neagle AM: I'm going to go to Michelle now, Mark, because--
Mark Reckless AM: Sure. I will come back in if I have anything further to ask here after Michelle.
Lynne Neagle AM: --both of you asked for these questions, and that's what the pre-meeting is for.
Mark Reckless AM: Michelle, I defer to you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Michelle.
Michelle Brown AM: Okay, thank you. Would you be open, Cabinet Secretary, to the idea of adjusting the eligibility of the PDG so that pupils who have been looked after or adopted at any point within a previous given period of time would attract the PDG, rather than only if they're looked-after on a one-off date?
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said earlier, in questions from, I think it was, Llyr, who was talking about concepts of concepts of Ever 6, we are constantly looking at how we can get that balance between focus and flexibility for this resource. Llyr opened with the question of,'How can you absolutely ensure that these children are getting the money?', but then there's also a tension about how can you create some flexibility around the school's usage of the grant. So, we will look at that. I think there is the issue of where a school would know of a child that was looked after. Issues around adoption are slightly more sensitive, because we couldn't force a family to tell a school that their child was an adopted child. So, a family may be very open and very keen to explain that to a school, but we can't necessarily track as closely children who have been adopted, especially if that adoption happens before the child goes to school. We can't be in a position of forcing families to disclose this information if they don't want to, but we certainly can, as I say, look to strengthen our monitoring arrangements around PDG support for looked-after children and the impact that that's having. I just think we need to be a bit mindful of people's privacy in some instances. If they don't want to divulge that, it wouldn't be my job to tell a family,'You have to let us know if your child is adopted.'Lynne Neagle AM: Michelle.
Michelle Brown AM: Fair enough; thank you for that answer. The EAS consortium's approach to using the looked-after and adopted PDG is to use it as part of a broader approach targeted at vulnerable learners in general. What are your views on that approach?
Kirsty Williams AM: I'm a great believer in if we can get it right for our most vulnerable learners, we'll be getting it right for all of our learners. I gave the example earlier, for instance, of attachment disorder, and, Chair, you will know that I have had conversations. One of the emerging themes for me, as I go around visiting schools, is the impact and the growing awareness and the growing numbers of children who have attachment disorder, and how schools are best able to respond to that in their children. So, for instance, as I said about Carmarthenshire, there's been a huge effort to address that in the school sector in Carmarthenshire. Now, that has a disproportionate benefit for those children, because you're more likely to see attachment disorder in children who are care experienced, because of the nature of the lives that those children have lived, but that doesn't necessarily mean that attachment disorder is exclusively found in those children that are looked after. It can be found in other families as well. So, that vulnerable learner, regardless of their background, will benefit from having teachers who are better trained, understanding and have intervention strategies in place to be able to address that need.
Steve Davies: I think it's also important to add that this is not one region's approach; this is across four regions, so the others--. For example, ERW have run a significant programme looking at the impact of adverse childhood experiences on pupils, which has enabled teachers to detect some of the impact of some of those and then considers some of the work they need to do within the school but also with other agencies. So, it is something that's applied consistently across the four regions.
Kirsty Williams AM: I was in Pil Primary School recently where they use their PDG, both FSM PDG, and no doubt an element of PDG for looked-after, for nurture groups. So, for those children who really, really find it very difficult to be in the main classroom, they can have that nurture group experience to address issues around emotional behaviour, feelings, and it gets them in a position where they are able then to join the main classroom because issues around behaviour have been addressed and they're in a better position to learn. So, again, this is an example of how vulnerable learners in the wider sense can benefit.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Mark, did you have anything you wanted to ask?
Mark Reckless AM: Yes. Can I follow up on tracking adopted children? I entirely understand that you can't force parents to disclose that their child is adopted. However, my understanding was that, in England, there was a dataset with social services that was shared with schools in a way that I'm not clear is happening in Wales and how, if at all, that links to the pupil level annual school census data. Perhaps sort of linked to that, isn't there an argument for making the parents of adopted children in the schools, potentially, with adopted children more aware that adopted children who were previously looked after have this potential grant, and would they not be more willing to disclose this, at least confidentially to the school and Government, if they knew there was this upside of doing so?
Kirsty Williams AM: We're actively looking at whether we should try and find a way of collecting this data, with the caveats that I just gave earlier. We can't force parents to divulge information that is a matter for them, nor would I want to. But there is an active discussion going on at the moment about whether we could create a dataset where people divulge this information and we can then track the children through. You're absolutely right. One of the ways in which we can often encourage take-up, for instance, of free school meals, especially in those communities where there is a sense of reluctance to apply for support--even though people are entitled to it, there's a reluctance to do it; sometimes we see this in rural areas--. Actually, appealing to the parents by saying,'Actually, this will mean more money for your child's school budget'is a much more compelling reason why people will apply for it then saying,'Actually, it's going to help you', because they don't want to be seen being dependent, they don't want to be seen being helped. But, if you say to them,'Actually, do you know that this means more money for your child's school?', they go,'Oh, all right then, I'll fill in the forms now.'So, you're right, I think there is something that we could do to make parents understand, in the round, that this has an impact. But we are actively looking at and discussing whether we could create a dataset around adopted children and how we can do that in line with data protection and data sharing. One of the things I am concerned about in the performance of looked-after children generally is how we can, across Government, work more closely together. We can't see the educational attainment of looked-after children just being a job of education. It's got to be a job of social services and the health service as well. There's got to be a joined-up approach to doing that. Now, officials were at the ministerial advisory group that's chaired by David Melding on prospects for looked-after children. They were there at the group last week. David tells me that the paper was very positively received by the group. I will be sitting down with David Melding to talk through what more we can do on the education side. I think there's really an appetite between me and the Minister for children to get a closer working relationship on this. We can't expect schools to do it on their own and alone. And there are things that we can do out there in local authorities to help improve outcomes. It's not just about the PDG; it is about, when social services are thinking about a placement, where does the discussion about where children are going to go to school--when does that take place? Do we talk about the placement, move a child and then think,'Oh my goodness me, what are we going to do about the schooling?'If you can imagine, the school could have been working really, really hard with a pupil to get them in a good place, to get them being able to access the curriculum, and then social services decide that the placement is being changed. So, we potentially lose all of that. So, a greater involvement in education and better linked-up working in local authorities will help us with this. It can't be just the job of the PDG. If we think we can crack this with just PDG, then we're being delusional. It has to be a cross-government approach at a national level, and at a local government level as well, to get this right. Sometimes, data protection--how can we break down some of these barriers between, you know, the school doesn't need to, schools shouldn't see, the entire social services report? Well, maybe the school does need to see some of that background information if they're going to have an impact for that child. So, there's more work to do, but it cannot be just the job of education on its own if we're going to make a difference, nor can it just be the job of the PDG to make a difference for those children.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Julie's got some more questions on the impact on adopted and looked-after children.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes, before I go on to those, I just wanted to support, really, what Mark was saying about adopted children and how important it is, I think, that the adoptive parents feel able to speak to the school and to give information. Because certainly any evidence we've had from adoptive parents, and generally knowing about what adoptive parents do feel, is that they often feel that there's a degree of a lack of sensitivity in the school about the issues of adoption. I would certainly support some move towards ensuring that the atmosphere was open in a way that would encourage them to realise that it would be a help for the children if there was an awareness in the school. So, I just wanted to really reinforce that.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, and that would chime with what I hear from many adoptive parents. I'm just trying to be sensitive by saying we can't force people to divulge this information if they don't want to.
Julie Morgan AM: No, but they need to be given the opportunity.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, you're right. We need to make sure that those parents feel that they can discuss this with school leaders and classroom teachers and explore how best those individual children can be supported, and how best we can support parents. Because, again--and I've said this a lot--after the quality of teaching, the second biggest impact on a child's educational outcome will be parental engagement. So, being able to create an environment where adoptive parents feel very confident and able to talk about their children's education is absolutely crucial if we're going to get that parental engagement that we need for all of our children.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Thank you. Going on to looked-after children, you say that the latest data on looked-after children's attainment is extremely disappointing. Can you expand on that and what effect the PDG has had in this result, or not had?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, there's no getting away from it: the way in which we currently measure outcomes for looked-after children, the results are not good enough. It's a source of huge concern to me that we need to do better for those children. That's why officials are engaging with the group that David Melding is chairing, to make sure that education is integral to that group and it's not lost sight of. There's a discussion to be had about the cohort, whether it's right and correct to compare looked-after children to the main cohort, or whether these statistics are useful in any way. Sometimes as well--this is not to make an excuse because, as I've said in my paper, it's extremely disappointing, but sometimes it can be really difficult. Because the cohort sometimes can be very, very small, it can swing the statistics to look perhaps more dramatic.
Julie Morgan AM: I think, generally, when you look at how looked-after children do--
Kirsty Williams AM: It's not good.
Julie Morgan AM: --in a much wider evaluation, they're not doing well, are they?
Kirsty Williams AM: They're not doing well. So, that's why we've got the review, the independent review, into the impact of the PDG in this area. This is why Steve is doing the work that he is doing with the regional consortia because, clearly, at the moment, we are not doing what we need to do for that particular cohort of children. I would not make any bones about that at all.
Steve Davies: I think we will not move away from the fact that these children need good GCSEs to gain employment, so we'll continue to measure that. I think we need to look at more nuanced evaluations of the data at a lower level. So, for example, there were significant improvements in terms of PDG pupils who got three and four good GCSEs but didn't get past the threshold. That's not to cover anything that is not working in terms of improvement, but we will look at the full range and still hold on to the fact that we have to look at a measure that relates to the likelihood of these children going on to further education and training.
Julie Morgan AM: And then just one more question about the exclusion rates amongst looked-after children. They are, I understand, over six times more likely to be given a fixed-term exclusion. So, is there any way of trying to address this? Is the PDG used for anything to do with exclusions?
Kirsty Williams AM: We can look at exclusions. We also have to read across about how the whole system works, not just the PDG element of the system. So, we know, for example, that 66 per cent of looked-after learners have some additional learning need, so we can't just look at it in terms of this particular source of funding; we have to look at it at a wider level of support. So, given that the majority of those children will have an ALN, how can we make sure that our new ALN legislation and our new ALN regime meets the needs of these children? So, I think what we're looking at, again, is to say that it can't be just the job of the PDG. That's there as an additional level of support, but actually, we've got to get our ALN right. Unless we get our ALN right, lots and lots of these children are not going to get the support that they need day in, day out via that system. We do know that sometimes, if we're not addressing ALN, then we're not addressing behaviour issues that then potentially lead to an expulsion or potentially lead to non-attendance. So, we've got to look at it in the round and recognise the connections between the sometimes quite complex needs that these children have within the school setting, that are not just as a result of the fact that they're looked after; they have other needs as well.
Steve Davies: And investment in well-being--
Kirsty Williams AM: Absolutely. Steve is reminding me that that's why well-being is part of the national mission--to address issues around supporting children with their well-being, which is a way of keeping them in school.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to move on to Schools Challenge Cymru now. Llyr.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you, Chair. I was just wondering what your assessment is as to why some schools made progress and others didn't.
Kirsty Williams AM: I think we have to recognise that the 39 schools that were part of the programme were in very, very different places. So, I think one of the reasons why some schools did well was because their needs were not so complex, not so deep-seated and a certain level of intervention was enough to get them moving forward. Some schools had very, very different needs. I think, talking to those involved in the programme, as always, we had some support advisers, challenge advisers working with those schools as part of the programme who were really, really excellent and really good, and were the right fit for the school and really drove the school onwards. We had other people employed in the programme who, perhaps, were less effective at driving change within those individual schools. So, what we have is a mixed bag of performance, again reflecting the very different challenges that those schools were facing, which led them to be chosen for the programme in the first place.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, okay--
Steve Davies: Sorry. One of the other key additional factors was the extent to which there had been recent appointment of a new headteacher to that school just before the programme had started, because--
Kirsty Williams AM: Leadership is all.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: And that was seen as a positive.
Steve Davies: A positive, yes. I think one of the challenges is that sometimes the time it takes to make changes in leadership can be protracted and can be a barrier, sometimes, to the speed with which you can move. But, for a significant minority of the schools, there had been recent new appointments of headteachers, which was seen to be contributing, when you looked at the evaluation, to the speed with which they were able to engage.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: The reason I was asking was I wanted to understand what lessons the Government is taking from that three-year investment, really, and how, maybe, you're applying some of those lessons to your wider school improvement programme. I know Professor Mel Ainscow identified six interconnected lessons, although I also note that the Cabinet Secretary didn't actually meet him for about six or seven months after coming into post. So, I'm just wondering, can you give us confidence that, actually, you are serious about taking lessons from Schools Challenge Cymru and applying them to the wider school improvement agenda?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, absolutely, Llyr. I don't think anything should be read into when I met the individual concerned, because officials were meeting the individual concerned. Individual challenge advisers were meeting with the regions, there was crossover work with the FSM agenda as well, and we are absolutely determined that best practice and those interventions that drove school improvement are embedded in the new support that we have via the regional consortia. It's no coincidence that some of the best people that were employed by Schools Challenge Cymru are now in the employment of our regional consortia. So, those people that were really good and really made a difference don't work for the Schools Challenge Cymru scheme any more, they work for our regional school improvement services. So, we're absolutely determined. The things that we have learned, as always, are around leadership. It is absolutely key and crucial to have strong, capable school leadership as a driver for change within the system. We're looking at systems and processes, so, actually, has a school got in place comprehensive systems of tracking and processes within the school? We're looking at the teacher quality--how can we ensure that we have got consistent strategies in place to drive up pedagogy and teacher quality in the classroom? Collaborative activity--again, absolutely key. A school cannot see itself in isolation, and one of the key themes of the national mission is a self-improving system, so, collaborative working where schools are looking outside of each other, learning from best practice from other schools. So, there are lots of things that we've drawn from the evaluation that you will see as key themes running through the national mission, and, as I said, it's no coincidence that our really good people that were working in Schools Challenge Cymru are now working for the regional consortia, being able to use that expertise not just for a very small proportion of our schools--but that expertise is available to all our schools.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Although Estyn has told us, of course, that you can't expect the consortia to really carry on with that level of intervention and the same kind of intensity as was provided previously, so I'm just wondering--
Kirsty Williams AM: In what way?
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, we were told by Estyn in evidence that they didn't necessarily think that we could expect the consortia to provide the same type of tailored support, and certainly the level of intensity with the improvement boards and everything--
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the improvement boards are carrying on, so the improvement boards still exist, and I would--not that I want to argue with Estyn--
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, feel free; this is your opportunity to do so if you--
Kirsty Williams AM: What I would say is that those improvement boards are staying on, and our schools categorisation system is used to identify the level of support. Now, if you're a red school, that gives you the entitlement to 25 days of support. That is more than you would have got under the Schools Challenge Cymru programme, which would've been 20 days. So, actually, moving to this system allows us to really focus in on those schools that need that intensive level of support. And what's important for me, Llyr, in this, okay, is that those schools are not necessarily just the schools that were in the programme. Our system now of challenge, advice and support allows us to target resources across all of our schools and across all of our sectors, because you'll be aware that Schools Challenge was only available to secondary schools, not available to primary schools. What our system now allows us to do, via the schools categorisation, is to identify schools, wherever they are in Wales and whatever sector they're in, to have that intensive level of support that they need to make improvements.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, you're confident that that level of momentum is continuing through the consortia that was previously enjoyed by those particular schools, and you're also confident that there is minimal risk that they'll slip back to where they were, potentially, or at least part of the way back.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, actually, there are some really good examples of some of the Schools Challenge Cymru schools making that sustained improvement now that the programme has come to an end. You only have to look at Tredegar, where we have seen continual improvement and moving up through the categorisation system. That school is now a green school, so they've been able to sustain their progress at the end of the programme. If we look at Armando in Eastern High School, again--gosh, my goodness me, we had lots of debates in a previous Chamber about the future of Eastern. There was one person that said that Eastern had to be closed and that the only way forward for that particular school was for it to be shut down, but what we have seen is investment via Schools Challenge Cymru, but ongoing, continual support from the regional consortium, and that school has come out of special measures. I pay absolute tribute to the staff of that school and that community that have done such a good job. So, I'm absolutely convinced that where we've got good leadership and good support, some of those schools are making continued, sustained progress even after the end of the programme. The challenge for me is for those schools that Schools Challenge Cymru didn't work for, and we haven't seen that progress--how we can use our school improvement system now to continue to work with those schools to give them the level of support that they need to make a difference. So that's what my focus is on now: a whole-system approach, rather than choosing 39 schools to get that level of support, when we recognise that there are schools everywhere, potentially, that need intervention, support and challenge, and in the primary sector as well.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, you wouldn't agree with a number of--well, the near-unanimous evidence that we've had from academics, some of whom are Government advisers from consortia et cetera, that this kind of programme such as Schools Challenge Cymru would probably need about five years to really have the impact that it was intended to have.
Kirsty Williams AM: What I would say is that, from my understanding, from the outset, it was a time-limited programme. The schools were aware of that. There were no surprises that it was supposed to be a time-limited programme. Evidence from across the UK showed that school challenge programmes have differed in time. So, for instance, Manchester's challenge was a three-year programme. So, there's no consensus about how many years you need to run a programme for. The previous Minister was quite clear about the time-limited nature of the programme. That's not to say it was the wrong decision, because what's important, and an ongoing legacy of the programme, was the investment in regional school improvement capacity, because at the time our school improvement services and the regions were young, in their infancy. The ability of individual local authorities to make a difference, with so many local authorities in an Estyn categorisation, was limited, so one of the ongoing legacies of the programme is that significant investment of over PS10 million in the capacity of the regions to be able to continue this support and the school improvement work.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, how disappointed were you that the money for Schools Challenge Cymru went back into reserves and didn't stay in your envelope, as you described it earlier? I presume you made a pitch for it. Did you make a case for that money to stay within your department?
Kirsty Williams AM: Llyr, we are constantly having discussions with the Minister for Finance around support for the education budget. The Minister for Finance was quite clear that it was a time-limited programme. We were able to secure investment from the Finance Minister to be able to secure the programme and run it and phase it out to make sure there was transition support, so as we moved from the schools challenge programme into the regional consortia, there were resources to do that.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Did you feel there was a case to be made to add to the consortia's resources and be able to continue that level of support that schools had previously had?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we did make resources available to the regional consortia to do that. As I say, from the outset, the previous Minister was very clear it was a time-limited programme. Certainly the schools that I talk to--. And I want to be absolutely clear: I have visited many, many Schools Challenge Cymru schools. I have used that opportunity to talk to them about--Heolddu being one of them, Hefin, which we went to visit, and Willows, for instance. I'm going to one this afternoon--I'm going to St Illtyd's this afternoon, and I always take--. I've been to Caergybi in Anglesey. I always take the opportunity to speak to those teachers about their experience of the programme and to understand and assure myself that they are getting ongoing support that they see as an appropriate level for them. I think I've done 19 of the schools.
Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin on this.
Hefin David AM: With regard to it being a time-limited programme, the previous Minister was clear that it was a time-limited programme, but it wasn't quite as time-limited as you've decided to be. Is that fair to say?
Kirsty Williams AM: No, it was supposed to be a three-year programme at the most. So, there's no differential between when I decided it was time-limited and the expectations--
Hefin David AM: So the time limit was the same that the previous Minister put on it.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. No change.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: But Mel Ainscow did tell us that there was a fade out in that third year--not that people were giving up, don't get me wrong, but clearly there wasn't that commitment coming from Government because the decision had been made, and people felt that it was just fizzling out a little bit, and that impacted on the momentum.
Kirsty Williams AM: I wouldn't characterise it as that. I think there certainly was a transition phase when we knew that the programme was moving and schools were moving into a different level of support, but I certainly wouldn't describe it as a fading out--not at all. As I said, we were aware that the programme was transitioning and we were determined to get that right for those individual schools, and to learn the lessons and, crucially, to be able to apply those lessons right across the board.
Steve Davies: I can see where the perception would come if a programme director like Mel was managing the programme right to the end of the three years exactly the same, and it falls off--not a cliff, but it falls off, then the readiness for schools and the readiness in the system to hand over--so part of the shift of focus was that working as a Government with the programme in those schools to working with the programme, those schools and the region. So, I think, inevitably, one party might see it as a decrease in terms of emphasis on their work, but it was necessary for the transition.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: But does that cast a bit of a shadow over the transition, then--that one key player within that process felt as such, or are you confident that that was managed well and effectively?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think it was managed well, and we were very clear to recognise success where success has been achieved, but not to gloss over where the programme had not made an impact, because that wouldn't be good for anybody. There was a formal event to close the programme, which gave everybody an opportunity to get together, to be formally thanked, and for, as I said, congratulations to be given to those people who had really made a difference and, crucially, key staff transferred over into the regional consortia. So, for those individuals, they were able to continue their work, but just be able to apply that work on a regional basis rather than just in an individual school. So, I don't see that there was any fading out, but there was a transition into a new system, and many of those key personnel transitioned into the system with us.
Lynne Neagle AM: Have you got any figures for the numbers of staff who went from the programme into the consortia?
Kirsty Williams AM: Not off the top of my head, but I can let you know.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I've got Darren first, then Mark.
Kirsty Williams AM: And can I just say, I met with some of them? I met with a selection of those people who had been involved in the programme to get their feedback on what they felt had gone right, and what they didn't feel had gone right in the programme. So, I took the time not just to meet the figurehead of the programme, but actually to meet the people who were doing the work in the individual schools. Sorry.
Darren Millar AM: Yes, I just wanted to ask you, you mentioned the figurehead there, I assume by'the figurehead'you mean Professor Ainscow. And you've mentioned as well that you said you wanted to learn lessons from Schools Challenge Cymru, but he told us that nobody had been in touch with him since March of last year in order to have any sort of follow-up engagement, or to have a dialogue about his perspective on what worked, what didn't work, why there were failures in some areas and why there were successes in others. Why haven't you sought that level of engagement with the person who was responsible for running the programme?
Kirsty Williams AM: I've had that conversation with Mr Ainscow. We had the evaluation of the programme. We've spoken to the people who were actually involved in running the programme on a daily basis in individual schools. We've spoken to the regional consortia. We've spoken to local education authorities. We've spoken to a wide variety of people to get their insight into the lessons learned, what was valuable and what was not valuable. So, a wide variety of people have been involved in those conversations.
Darren Millar AM: But you've hardly engaged with Mr Ainscow--with Professor Ainscow himself.
Steve Davies: I would actually say that I have had meetings--
Darren Millar AM: Since March of last year.
Steve Davies: Yes, since March of last year. I haven't got the exact dates for you. I've had discussions with Mel Ainscow, and my line manager at the time, Owen Evans, also had meetings and discussions.
Darren Millar AM: So, when he told us,'Since last March, I literally have had no contact at all with anybody from Welsh Government', he was telling porky pies, was he?
Steve Davies: That's not my recollection. I'll go back and check for you.
Lynne Neagle AM: If you could check and let us know, that would be good. Mark.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, well, I just talked about the celebration event to formally mark the end of the programme. My understanding was that it was July of last year, so people were engaged in that. And this idea that somebody has been ignored or frozen out is not how I see or how I regard that situation.
Lynne Neagle AM: Mark.
Mark Reckless AM: I have to say, with Professor Ainscow my impression was he took great, great pride in the work that he'd done with Schools Challenge Cymru, and I think he really enjoyed the engagement, the work and the positive relations with the Welsh Government. But I think there was just a degree of disappointment, perhaps, that at least he didn't feel that he'd been interrogated as much as he might have been about the lessons learned from the programme, and how perhaps to entrench those as well as possible with the regional consortia. I just wonder, Cabinet Secretary, if you could invite the professor in, perhaps to have a further debrief with you and take account of some of his thoughts and suggestions for what might help in this area.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, Mark, as I said, I just don't think it should be right to characterise this as a failure to engage with a single individual.
Mark Reckless AM: I'm not characterising it that way, Cabinet Secretary.
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, I met with him, Steve has met with him, Owen Evans has met with him, my special policy adviser has met with him and had discussions. So, there has been an ongoing dialogue. But, Mark, I hope that I have demonstrated since I took on this job that I am willing to work with a wide variety of people and to tap into their expertise if it can help me to deliver on the national mission. And if the advice to me is that we haven't sufficiently learnt the lessons, then I'll gladly have another conversation. What I'm saying to you--and I'm absolutely confident--is that we have learnt the lessons, we are taking that work and the good practice forward, and we have done that with conversations with a wide variety of people who had a view on this, from individual schools that were involved in the programme, individual people who were working in those schools, local education authorities, some of which have been very scathing about the programme, I should say, regional consortia--. So, the lessons, I am confident, have been learnt.
Mark Reckless AM: I'm glad to hear that, Cabinet Secretary, but I still say that, listening to Professor Ainscow's evidence, there was a perception, at least from him individually, that the programme should not be seen to be a failure, but a desire that the lessons should be learnt and a feeling or exception, at least on his part, that there was more that he still had to contribute to the process. And just to take one particular example, I think he referred to the Schools Challenge Cymru advisers being very successful in bringing in people who might not otherwise have contributed to this, and the regional consortia have had greater challenges in recruiting people, perhaps in some areas, of the same high standard of some particular individuals, but also from a wide range of different areas that the Schools Challenge Cymru do, and that there could be more to learn in that area as to how to support real excellence and a greater diversity of recruitment for those people. Is that something you could perhaps draw on his thoughts further about? Because I think he does feel that he has more to say to Welsh Government to help in this area.
Kirsty Williams AM: Firstly, can I say that I have never described the programme as a failure? I would understand, as someone who has put so much personal investment into the brand of schools challenges, that he would not want anybody to characterise that particular approach to school improvement as a failure. And I want to be absolutely clear that I have never described the programme as a failure, and I want to reassure Mr Ainscow of that. As I've said, gosh, my goodness me, if you saw my e-mail inbox and you saw the letters that come in, people are never shy in coming forward to give me advice on what I need to do, what I need to do next, what I'm doing right, what I'm doing wrong, and, you know, our doors are always open to listen to people who have interesting things to say about how we can deliver our educational mission. So, people aren't slow in coming forward, I can assure you, with advice.
Lynne Neagle AM: Julie.
Julie Morgan AM: Just very quickly. I'm sure the Minister is aware that Cardiff put extra funds of its own in to continue Schools Challenge Cymru advisers. So, obviously, they appreciated the value of the scheme, but it does query whether it should have gone on longer.
Kirsty Williams AM: Julie, I think, to be fair, there are some people who think the scheme was absolutely fantastic. I've had feedback from people who didn't think the scheme was helpful at all--in fact, they felt it was a hindrance. I'm very much of the view that the scheme worked really well for some schools in some areas and had less impact in some areas. There is a mixed picture. What's important to me is that we understand what it was that led those schools to make those big changes, how we can--like Mark talked about, the expertise--how we can keep that expertise in the system, and how we can apply the lessons to all schools.
Lynne Neagle AM: The next questions, and the final questions, are from John. So, we're going to need succinct questions and succinct answers.
John Griffiths AM: Some questions on regional consortia, Cabinet Secretary, and, first of all, the role that you believe they should play and how schools use PDG.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it's an absolute--. It's one of the things that I have been very clear to the regional consortia that I expect their challenge and support advisers to be asking schools about. So, one of the conversations that they need to have when they are in schools is exploring, with that school, how they are using their PDG, and how they're demonstrating an impact for those resources. So, it's a fundamental role for the challenge and support advisers in the regional consortia in their school improvement work. It's crucial.
John Griffiths AM: That sort of brings to mind some of the research that's been done on the role of the challenge advisers, Cabinet Secretary, which suggested that they're not actually challenging schools in that way, and that there's very little evidence of schools changing their decisions on the use of PDG as a result of any challenge from those challenge advisers. So, how would you respond to those findings?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, in my scrutiny of the role and success of our regional consortia, I specifically asked them about free-school-meal performance and the use of PDG within their particular region. I think there is increasing evidence to suggest that good use is being made of that resource, and I think that is being fed back into us. Estyn tell us that it's one of the areas of school expenditure that is closely linked to research and an evidence base. But, clearly, there is more to do, and that's why we have appointed the new regional advisers for PDG going forward, because we think there can be improvements in how this agenda can be supported at a regional level.
John Griffiths AM: Okay. So, you would recognise the findings from that research.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. There's always more that we can do, and we are strengthening that role by the appointment of the new regional PDG advisers, so that individual school challenge advisers know what they should be looking for, know what they should be doing, and there is a regional approach to good practice.
John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could you tell the committee, Cabinet Secretary, how effective you believe the relationship was between the Schools Challenge Cymru programme and the regional consortia's school improvement functions, and to what extent it varied by region?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think it's fair to say that, on occasion, I have received feedback that there was a conflict between what was going on at an individual school under the school improvement programme and whether, then, they welcomed support from the regional consortia as part of that. So, in some cases, if we're being absolutely honest, there could sometimes be tensions between the two, but in most cases, the relationship was very, very positive and there was continuous feedback between the work going on in the schools under the programme and the regional consortia challenge advisers. But I'm going to be blunt and honest with people--in some cases, it has been reported to me--it's only anecdotal evidence; I haven't got hard and fast evidence--that there sometimes was a conflict:'We're a school challenge school so we don't need to participate or listen to any advice that's coming from the regional consortia.'Or, a local education authority said to me,'We felt that we couldn't get involved in that school anymore because it was part of a different programme.'Those were isolated incidents, and, as I said, it's only anecdotal feedback. In most cases, the relationship was a very positive one.
Steve Davies: Just very quickly, I think that, across the board, it was more complex in the beginning, getting--[Inaudible. ]. But when the programme itself recognised that they needed to work with the regions, and the regions needed to work with them--and I think Mel Ainscow in his evidence referred to this--it strengthened after some early challenges. I think Mel Ainscow was working in a number of regions--I can't remember which ones--so he's established relationships--[Interruption. ] Sorry?
Kirsty Williams AM: Central south.
Steve Davies: Central south. He has already been working in that, so I think it possibly had a stronger springboard in terms of the early working.
Kirsty Williams AM: Because he already had relationships that he had already developed in that particular region. As always, with many of these things, it's about individuals and relationships.
John Griffiths AM: Okay. Finally from me, Cabinet Secretary: in 2015-16, Estyn reported on regional consortia not sufficiently focusing on particular groups of pupils and tracking their outcomes--for example, vulnerable pupils. I just wonder what you are able to tell us in terms of to what extent there has been necessary progress since 2015-16.
Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, I think it's important to recognise that all four consortia underwent monitoring visits in the autumn of last year, of 2017, which weren't reflected in the Estyn annual report for 2015-16. Estyn, through these 2017 inspections, have said that three out of the four regional consortia are making strong progress in their particular work, and we are continuing, as Welsh Government, to work with the other regional consortia to address the findings of the Estyn report.
John Griffiths AM: And that would include these particular issues.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. The committee probably hasn't had an opportunity to see, but, only this morning, Estyn has released a report on more able and talented, and has positive things to say in the field of more able and talented, which was being asked about earlier by Members--you know, evidence of improved working and support in that particular arena. But, again, we need to ensure a consistency across all the regions, and that the findings of Estyn's most recent reports into regional performance are followed through.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. As we've got a couple of minutes left, if I can just jump back to the issue of practical uses of the PDG--because it's the only thing we haven't really covered and it would be good to get on the record--can I ask to what extent you'd like to see the PDG used to track the progress of eligible pupils? And the committee's heard that there are several different tracking systems and tools used by schools. To what extent is that an issue to do with what the Welsh Government is promoting? Or is it down to consortia or individual schools? And do you think there needs to be a more centralised push on how the tracking is undertaken?
Kirsty Williams AM: Firstly, can I say it's absolutely crucial that we track performance, absolutely crucial? That's the bedrock. We don't dictate to individual schools the nature of the system that they should employ in their school. There are a number of different programmes that allow schools to do this, but we are absolutely clear, and best practice and evidence shows us, that individual pupil tracking is key and crucial. And, as I said in the beginning, where we weren't tracking pupils at all, initial investment in PDG was used to establish these systems within schools. Again, one of the outcomes from the schools challenge review, and one of the lessons learnt, was, again, the importance of individual tracking of pupils throughout their school career. But we don't dictate a single system.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you.
Kirsty Williams AM: But the principle is a really important one.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, and you don't think there's more scope to look at what the best system is that can be recommended to schools.
Kirsty Williams AM: That's not something we're actively looking at. I am actively looking at developing a Welsh toolkit around good practice, evidence base and research. At the moment we use the Sutton Trust toolkit, which is fine and excellent, but we are having active discussions about whether we're in a position, now, to look at developing a suite of a Welsh toolkit to support this agenda, and that's under active consideration.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Well, we've reached the end of our session. Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary and the officials for attending and for answering such a wide range of questions? As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again for coming.
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you very much.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Okay. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Children and Social Care on Families First funding. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education, updating us on the supply teacher issue. Paper to note 3--another letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education, providing further information following our meeting on 15 February. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the WJEC on availability of textbooks. Paper to note 5--a letter from Qualifications Wales, also on availability of textbooks. And paper to note 6 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education to the Children's Commissioner for Wales, following up on the dialogue that they've been having about our inquiry. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then, is for me to propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you. | They believe that if they can get it right for our most vulnerable learners, they'll be getting it right for all of our learners. An emerging theme is the impact, the growing awareness and the growing numbers of children who have attachment disorder, and how schools are best able to respond to that in their children. So, vulnerable learners, regardless of their background, will benefit from having teachers who are better trained, understanding and have intervention strategies in place to be able to address that need. And this is an action applied across four regions. | qmsum |
What is the progressing condition of the Schools Challenge Cymru?
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this morning's Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received no apologies for absence. Can I ask Members who are present if they wish to declare any interests? Okay, thank you. Item 2 this morning is our final evidence session for our inquiry into targeted funding to improve educational outcomes. I'm very pleased to welcome Kirsty Williams AM, Cabinet Secretary for Education; Steve Davies, director of the education directorate; and Ruth Conway, deputy director, support for learners division. Welcome to all of you, and thank you for your attendance and also for the paper that you've provided in advance. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions, and the first questions are from Llyr Gruffydd.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Bore da. I just want to start by asking some questions around the targeting of the pupil development grant because, clearly, we've had a lot of evidence around this apparent blurring of eligibility to an extent. I'm just wondering how comfortable you are that the money is being targeted appropriately because, clearly, it's being targeted more widely than just those eligible for free school meals, from some of the evidence we've had, but also that it seems to be predominantly focused on low-attaining frees--pupils who are eligible for free school meals.
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you, Llyr. I think it's important to be absolutely clear that when it comes to individual interventions, those individual interventions should only be targeted at those children who are eligible for free school meals. But in some cases, schools may use their PDG funding to provide a universal intervention, but we would want to--in challenge advisers'discussions in schools--we'd want to have evidence that that universal intervention would have a disproportionate effect on the outcomes for children on free school meals. So, for instance, if I give you an example in your own region, Llyr: at Brynteg County Primary School in Wrexham, if you look at that primary school in Wrexham, their results for free-school-meal children at the end of their primary school period in school are equivalent to their non-free-school-meal counterparts. So, there is no differentiation in those results. One of the things that they've used their PDG for is to really focus on the concept of growth mindset in school. So, that's a universal thing that they've trained all the teachers in, but what we know is that that has a disproportionate effect on those children who are on free school meals. So, if you're familiar with the concept of a growth mindset, it's about really challenging learners to think that,'I can do things. If sometimes I fail, I pick myself up, I'm more resilient.'Now, that has been, as I said, trained to all the teachers in the school--it's an ethos for the whole school--but we have seen that the impact on the free-school-meal children has been even greater, and now they're at the same level. So, that's the important distinction. Individual intervention per child has to be targeted at those children who are eligible for free school meals, but sometimes a school will employ a whole-school approach to train their staff, for instance, and that, then, has to demonstrate it has a disproportionate effect on free school meals. So, growth mindset; it may be attachment disorder training for staff, for instance, where we know it's of benefit to everybody, but will have particular benefits for that cohort of students. With regard to more able and talented, you know, Llyr, that this is an area of concern for me, generally, within the Welsh education system; that we've not been particularly good at identifying, supporting and driving attainment for those children. I'm absolutely clear that PDG needs to be used for those children who are eligible to drive potential, whatever the potential of that child is, including more able and talented. And again, I'll give you an example that has been seen as good practice in Pembrokeshire: a window on the world bus, again paid for by schools. I don't know if you're aware of it.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: We've heard about that.
Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, you've heard about it; well, it's a really good example the window on the world. And, again, that's very much targeted at raising aspirations and giving children who are more able and talented, who are eligible for PDG, those experiences, and to really push them. So, yes, I'm absolutely clear that PDG shouldn't just be seen to be getting individuals to the average. For those children who are more able and talented, it should be used to support them--
Llyr Gruffydd AM: And we all share those aspirations, I'm sure, and you pointed to examples of good practice, but of course, it's not universal, is it, so what I'm asking is: do you think that the guidance is sufficient as it is? Do you think that there's a great enough awareness of how the PDG should be used at the coalface? And also, are you confident that consortia and others have the measures in place to be able to demonstrate that it is being used properly?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think, if we look at what Estyn has said about PDG, it does actually recognise that the PDG is being used to push more able and talented children, but as always with the system, Llyr, it's whether we can be sure that that is strategic and that it's happening across all of our schools. So, you're--
Llyr Gruffydd AM: But not just in relation to more able and talented, I'm referring to the eligibility and the targeting.
Kirsty Williams AM: Oh, the eligibility. You'll be aware that, on the advice of Sir Alasdair, we have employed and appointed new PDG regional advisers, and I think their role is going to be absolutely crucial in spreading that good practice across the region, whether that's use of PDG for more able and talented, or ensuring that PDG is used in the appropriate way. So, that's there to provide strategic overall advice. And obviously, we have been very clear with regional challenge advisers, in the relationship and the conversations they're having with individual schools, that they're really challenging their schools about the use of PDG, not just in terms of targeting, but the programmes, what the money is being spent on, whether there is an evidence base for that and whether we are clear on impact. So, I think the new regional advisers are going to be crucial in enabling us to ensure more consistent practice across the regions.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, are you content that eligibility for free school meals is the best measure, really, of identifying which pupils to target?
Kirsty Williams AM: Llyr, in the absence of anything better. I'll be the first person to say that maybe it's not as absolutely focused, but in the absence of anything different to identify a proxy for need, I think it's probably the best that we've got at present. And we will continue to have discussions with local government about whether there are different ways. We have to be mindful. Some of the policy levers in this area are out of my hands, so if we look at the roll-out of universal credit, for instance, we've got officials working very hard at the moment to try and understand what universal credit is going to mean and where we are going to be able to identify relative need, going forward. We haven't had any additional resource as a result of this, but we're very mindful that, potentially, this has an impact, going forward. And, officials are working all of the time, I must say, in conjunction with the department in England, to understand their thinking in this area so that we are in a position to make some decisions about what a notional eligibility for free school meals will look like going forward, but before I make any decisions, I want to assure everybody that there will be a full public consultation on that.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. Finally for now, on this issue of once a year, in January, if you're eligible for free school meals, then you're in that group for that year. We've had some quite strong evidence about how difficult that makes longer term planning for a number of schools and we've also been pointed in the direction of what's happened in England with the Ever 6, and I'm just wondering whether you're giving any thought to maybe changing that a little bit.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we're certainly giving thought to flexibility. In conversations with Alasdair, who is our independent adviser on this agenda, and individual schools, we're actively giving thought to greater flexibility and maybe longer term projections, so that schools know, for a number of years ahead, what their allocation will be. There are advantages to that system, because you could give that flexibility, you could give that long-term approach, but then, how do you make that responsive if a school suddenly has more children? We do know that, actually, the number of free-school-meal pupils is dropping. But there can be changes, you know, regional working in areas of north Wales in tourism, or maybe in other areas at Christmas time, parents are able to get a period of work. So, how can we create a more flexible system? We're actively looking at that at the moment. I wouldn't use it as an Ever 6 concept, but as an'Ever 2'concept. We have looked at Ever 6, and I'm going to be absolutely blunt with you: to introduce an Ever 6 concept for Wales would mean in the region of identifying an additional PS40 million. I'm going to be absolutely straight and blunt with you: we're not in a position at the moment to be able to identify an additional PS40 million to introduce an Ever 6. But issues around flexibility, certainly, are actively under consideration. In fact, we'll be having a discussion later on today about decisions, going forward, for the next two years.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Darren on this.
Darren Millar AM: It's just a very brief point in response to the PS40 million price ticket that you just put on that. That's, of course, assuming that you maintain the current level of PDG, yes? So, if you reduced the level of PDG slightly, but made it available to more individuals, if you like, via allocating it in a different way, then that PS40 million price ticket wouldn't be there, would it?
Kirsty Williams AM: I was asked a question about had I ever considered an Ever 6. We have looked at that, we've priced that up. I have to make decisions in the envelope of resources that are available to me. We could, indeed, change the way in which we allocate PDG money, but we have to do it within the envelope that is available to me, over PS90 million. That's a significant level of investment, but, of course, as always, Darren, we could cut the amount per pupil, but that might have quite challenging swings in allocations. What we have done--because what I am clear on is that there was evidence to suggest that in the secondary sector, a great deal of PDG was being focused on years 10 and 11, especially year 11, in catch-up provision, and you'll be aware, because we've said this in evidence to the committee in the papers, we've set a challenge to secondary schools to say,'Actually, the majority of your PDG allocation has to be used in key stage 3.'Now, we have to balance the needs, the moral hazard of turning round to children in years 10 and 11 and saying,'We're not going to provide catch-up opportunities for you,'because, clearly, those children need that support. But the evidence and the advice that we're receiving is: actually, strong focus on early years, primary and key stage 3, if we get that right, should negate the need for spending money on catch-up at years 10 and 11. That's why we, in our advice to local authorities and schools, say that we want to see evidence that they're spending this money earlier on in a child's career, rather than just a scramble at year 11 to say,'Right, we've got to get you through your exams.'Darren Millar AM: Okay, but have you actively considered, then, reducing the level you have?
Kirsty Williams AM: We've--
Ruth Conway: Sorry--I was just going to say that one of the things is looking at the scope of the definition, and I think it's about being more flexible with the definition, rather than reducing the amount per head.
Darren Millar AM: Okay. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. If we can go on, then, to talk about some of the practical uses of the PDG, you write in your written paper that'the majority of schools are making well thought out and appropriate decisions'on how to use it. But Estyn reported that only two thirds of primary and secondary schools make effective use of the PDG. Given that we've had it now for six years, would you not have expected there to be a higher level of schools actually making good use of that funding?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, to flip it on its head, the vast majority of schools, as identified by Estyn, are using this money to good effect. So, that's the way I like to see it--that the vast majority of schools are doing well. What Estyn has also indicated is the intrinsic link here to leadership within individual schools, and as you'll be aware, leadership, improving capacity in leadership and developing leadership talent in the Welsh education system is a key priority for me in our national mission. Of course, that's being developed in a different work stream. I think what's fair to say is that the use of PDG is evolving over time. I think we are seeing, increasingly, more and more schools understanding how best to deploy that money for best effect for students. So, if we're honest, when PDG first started, I think, in some schools it was spent on investing in tracking of children, because they'd never thought about tracking these children, they didn't have systems in place to look at the performance of these children, and to have a system in place. So we've moved now from spending money on the infrastructure around support for FSM children into actual inputs in terms of teaching and learning. We're also seeing from Estyn that, actually, in terms of money following the evidence of what we know works, Estyn says that PDG is probably the best example of schools following tried and tested and evidence-based interventions to deploy the money. But clearly we want all of this money to be deployed as well as it can be, and again we come back to the decision I've made to appoint regional PDG advisers so that we can get that better consistency of approach. We are, in the discussions that I have with the regional consortia about how they challenge individual schools on usage, looking for very clear evidence of schools using the Sutton Trust toolkit, and we could have a discussion about whether that's the right thing, because that's on my mind too. But we want to see schools demonstrating their evidence base, and if they're not, if a school isn't doing that, okay, so demonstrate to us why you've made those decisions and, crucially, what are you doing as the school to judge whether that decision is actually making a difference for your individual pupils. So, if you're moving away from tried and tested interventions, what we know works, if you're doing something different with your money, okay, you need to justify that and you need to explain how you're going to demonstrate impact. But I think what we're seeing is increasing good practice in this area as the PDG develops and as our understanding of our school-to-school working in our self-improving school system also develops. I think we're seeing better usage of the money year on year.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Llyr on this.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: You mentioned some schools will be moving from the tried-and-tested interventions, really, and I'm just wondering to what extent that evolution of use of PDG is being driven by cuts to core funding.
Kirsty Williams AM: No, I don't think it's being driven by cuts to core funding. I think there has been--. One of the biggest impacts of PDG has not been--well, I suppose it is the money in itself, because the money has concentrated the minds, hasn't it? So, one of the most important things that PDG has done is highlight the importance of this agenda within schools, and really raise this up in the thinking of leadership and senior management teams in our schools, and has driven a focus on scrutiny and accountability in the systems that are working with our schools. I think the changing use of PDG reflects the journeys that schools have been on, some of them from a very low base where this was not a priority for them, to better understanding, and as research and as intelligence grows over time in this area, both in Wales and outside of Wales, schools are increasingly learning to use that evidence to tailor approaches in their schools.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So you wouldn't accept at all that some of this money's being used to paper over some funding cracks from elsewhere. Because the unions and some others have told us that, whether we like it or not, there is some of that going on.
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, Llyr, we're very clear about the usage that this money can be spent on in terms of individuals or universal application within schools, and that forms an important part of the checks and balances that we have in our system. Can we continue to improve, and ensure that more and more of our schools are employing best practice? Yes, we can, and as I've said, we've taken steps to put in place the infrastructure to support that.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Mark's questions are next.
Mark Reckless AM: Cabinet Secretary, how would you assess the impact of PDG on attendance and hopefully subsequent engagement with education from children who have free school meals?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think what's important to note is that, as Estyn have themselves said, over the period of the last inspection report, we have seen improvements in attendance, but I do think we need to, again, look at how PDG can support this particular agenda. And as always in the Welsh education system, there are some excellent examples of how schools use the money to address this. Ysgol y Preseli in Pembrokeshire is a very good example of how they've deployed their money. Forgive me; I can't off the top of my head remember the name of the primary school I visited, again in north Wales, where the school has proactively used this money, and they actually send teaching assistants out of school in the morning before the start of the school day, and they actually have a walking bus. They call at homes for children, and they walk the children to the breakfast club. So, they're proactively going out into the community and making sure that those children are in the classrooms, because the teacher said,'We recognised we had a problem with attendance. We tried a variety of means of improving that, but in the end we have taken this quite bold step--we actually send the staff out and they create that walking bus, and they walk the children into school'. They say that they know that, for some of those children, because of the difficult circumstances they and their families are living in, they probably wouldn't be in school if it wasn't for that proactive approach. So, we're looking again at what more we can do to support this particular agenda in terms of improving attendance, because although, again, there are examples of good practice, there is still a gap between the attendance of free-school-meal pupils and non-free-school-meal pupils. And, of course, we can have the best curriculum in the world with really high-quality teaching, but unless the children are in the classes then we're not going to make the difference for them. Whilst that differential exists, then it's going to be hard to close the attainment gap for those children.
Mark Reckless AM: I was actually quite shocked just reading in advance of this meeting that the proportion attending 95 per cent or more, who have pretty full attendance, was only 35 per cent for free-school-meal children at level 4, compared to 60 per cent for non-free-school-meal pupils. It still is an extraordinary difference. My colleague here showed me, I think, last week, a graph showing the link between attendance and attainment, in particular. When people were absent, a lot of the--. As I'm sure you're aware, there's a huge connection. What more can PDG do to deal with it? In the example you give I can see how a school with an awful lot of free-school-meal children could do that, but a lot of the free-school-meal children are actually in schools that don't have that high a proportion of free school meals, where it would be much more challenging to bring in that type of initiative.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, indeed, and I think it gets more challenging the older the children get. I think it's more difficult to find interventions that are successful higher up, so key stage 4. So, you can do a walking bus with little ones, can't you, but I don't suppose your average 15 or 16-year-old is going to take very kindly to that. So, you do need a different approach to that. But again, we see in Ysgol y Preseli the employment of staff to directly work with families of older children to reinforce the messages around, as you quite rightly say, the linkage between attendance and attainment, and really work with individual families to understand the barriers to attendance: what's going on in the family that is preventing that child from going to school, and what more can the school do to address those situations. But you're absolutely right; there is more that we need to do to address this particular agenda of attainment. I don't know if there's anything extra you wanted to add, Steve.
Steve Davies: There is also another very good example--and I take what you say about where there are small numbers--but in our secondary schools where there are significant numbers, they're investing PDG in resources like a school nurse and a school counsellor, not just to work with the children but link to other agencies on whom the children and the families are dependent to support them in terms of working with schools. So, it's something, particularly in our most challenging areas, where it cannot just be delivered within the school. So, good use of that resource is being made to employ people to support them in those wider areas.
Mark Reckless AM: Thank you. To what extent is PDG also used to seek to reduce the higher rates of exclusion for children entitled to free school meals?
Kirsty Williams AM: So, if we looked at permanent exclusions, there isn't a differential, but if we look at temporary exclusions, there we see there is a disproportionate number of children on free school meals that are subject to those exclusions. Again, I think what schools employing best practice understand is that you need a multi-agency approach to supporting that particular child. Some of those exclusions can be as a result of the need to address other issues going on in a child's life. So, this is where we come back to the committee's work, for instance, on mental health and support for children, support for behaviour in school. So, again, it's a multi-agency approach that I think we need, and, in our good schools, our really, really good schools, there's a recognition of that need to have a whole team around a child to support that child in education. With EOTAS, we made some changes last year regarding PDG for EOTAS. So, for those children who do find themselves in education other than at school, we are providing additional support that previously was not available.
Mark Reckless AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. We're going to move on now to talk about the impact of PDG on attainment. Hefin David has got some questions.
Hefin David AM: It appears that the attainment gap at 2017 has actually widened, in spite of PDG levels. Is that correct?
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. So, if you look at it--with the usual caveats about whether you can make direct comparisons on level 2 plus between the exams the year before and the exams that we had last summer--on the face of it, the gap has increased. I think what's important to recognise, Hefin, is a direction of travel. I'm sure we all want to, because I want to, have a discussion about why children on free school meals were less resilient in the exam system last year. But, if we look at the period that we have been employing PDG, over that period, we have seen a narrowing of the gap. I think what's quite stark, if we think about it--. So, if we look at where we started from: in 2009, one in five children on free school meals got level 2 plus--one in five--by 2016, we had got that down to one in three. Obviously, there's still a way to go, but, Sir Alasdair, who knows about these things, says that that is a significant improvement. Last year, we got some challenges. We need to understand why that happened, but I do think it's--
Hefin David AM: Why, do you think?
Kirsty Williams AM: Why, do I think? What I do think is there is no one answer. There is no one answer to this. I think we could look at and we can have discussions around the move from BTEC to science GCSEs. I think we have supplied figures to the committee about the significant change in the number of children on free school meals who weren't doing a single science GCSE and are now doing science GCSEs. We can look at the unintended consequences of literature. Again, we've supplied figures. Where children have done language and literature, whether that be through the medium of English or through the medium of Welsh, there is more resilience. So, it's that exposure to literacy in all its forms that I think could potentially make a difference. So, I think there's no one answer to why free-school-meal children were not so resilient last year. We continue to have discussions with Qualifications Wales to get a better understanding of this. At my next ministerial policy board, in May, we'll be doing a deep dive into this particular subject.
Hefin David AM: So, to what extent would exam boards be responsible for lack of grade stability?
Kirsty Williams AM: It could be one of the contributory factors. What I think is important is that there is no one, single reason why there seems to be less resilience in this cohort of children.
Hefin David AM: Will you be speaking to the exam boards about this and raising concerns?
Kirsty Williams AM: I have written to Qualifications Wales, we've had discussions about it, but I've asked them to formally submit evidence ahead of my policy board for May, where, as I said, we will be doing a formal, deep-dive discussion across the department about these issues. But, again, Hefin, what we've got to be clear on is--while we look at overall factors, you know, our overall national statistic--we did see some schools last year whose FSM performance was better than it had been the year before. So, what was it in those schools that enabled those children to do really well, whereas, in other schools, the performance was different? Even in individual cities, you can see a huge variety of performance. So, take Cardiff and Swansea, our two biggest cities. You've got schools in those cities with comparative levels of free school meals. So, you could have really high-performing schools with a very small number of the cohort on free school meals. The difference between those performances in a single city--so, that's the same local education authority and the same regional consortium--you can see a massive change. There's one school I can talk to: their free-school-meal performance is 88 per cent. A similar school in the same city with the same proportion of children on free school meals, their performance is down in the 20 per cents. So, I think what's important is that we can't draw broad-brush conclusions. For me, the challenge is to go into individual schools and understand what was happening in that particular school that ensured that their children did really well. We've got one school in Swansea, their FSM performance at GCSE level 2 outperforms non-FSM pupils.
Hefin David AM: But we still need to rely on the trends from a distance. If we take your argument that 2017 was an unusual year and the trends up to 2016 were positive, in a few years'time, when we will be looking back in two years'time, how are we going to measure this progress, say, in 2019? What are we likely to see and what methods are you going to use to measure progress that way?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, you'll be aware that we are moving away from level 2 plus as a performance measure anyway because of the--
Hefin David AM: So, what performance measures will you use?
Kirsty Williams AM: So, for the lack of sophistication around the level 2 plus, and for the unintended behaviours that that particular performance measure has driven within our schools. I'll be making a statement shortly to the Assembly around a new performance measure for schools. We were, at our most recent secondary heads conference, working with schools to develop that. What's important to me is that we have a more sophisticated model that looks at school performance for all children. What level 2 plus does is narrow, very much, the focus of schools on an individual part of the cohort, usually the C/D borderline, which is why then we have problems with the number of students getting a B grade or above. We have marked success in our schools by saying to schools that a C is good enough. Well, if a child gets a C but came to you in year 7 and they were destined to get an E, yes, indeed, a C is a success, because you've moved that child on; but, if that child came to you destined to get an A* and gets a C, then we haven't done a good job by that particular child. So, we need a performance measure that is much more sophisticated, looks at each individual child, tracks that progress, and measures the value added by that school in performance.
Hefin David AM: Last question: therefore, should we have confidence in the data up to 2016? Is there a lack of confidence in that data?
Kirsty Williams AM: No, it's not a lack of confidence in the data. The data is the data. What I'm saying is, using that as a performance measure and an accountability measure within our school system may have been right for the time. I think it is now right to have a different way of measuring success in schools. I think that particular set of performance measures has driven certain behaviours--not because Ministers wanted that to happen, but as an unintended consequence. I think we can work together with our school system, learning the lessons of international best practice, to develop much more sophisticated accountability and performance measures for individual schools, and, I should say, for the Government. So, you will be aware of my intention to issue the first national report card on Government performance later on this year. So, this is not about trying to avoid scrutiny. It's about trying to develop a more sophisticated way, which is in line with our national mission, where every child's education is valued, and where the impact of the school can be tracked more effectively.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Can I just ask, Cabinet Secretary, are you still holding on to your target of 37 per cent of free-school-meal pupils achieving the level 2 threshold?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we're moving away from the level 2 threshold. So, that's the first thing to say. So, we will want to develop a new suite, in line with our new accountability measures, as we go forward. So, we will be absolutely continuing to track and evaluate the performance of free-school-meal pupils. When we announce our new accountability measures, I will be in a position to address how we'll measure the Government's performance, and national performance, going forward. But, given the fact that we're moving away from level 2 plus, then we will need a different set of performance indicators.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. The next questions are on looked-after children and adopted children, and I've got questions from Michelle then Mark.
Michelle Brown AM: Thank you. Good morning--
Mark Reckless AM: I was to come in first, I think. I was about to ask about ICF consulting.
Lynne Neagle AM: Go on then.
Mark Reckless AM: I think my questions are first, but, Michelle, please do correct me if you were planning to come in before. The PDG for looked-after children doesn't quite seem to have the degree of visibility as the PDG for the free-school-meals. I think we had the MORI/WISERD survey--only 15 per cent of primary schools and 23 per cent of secondary schools were aware that PDG was targeted at looked-after children. I just wonder--can you clarify on the record here what is the role of schools with PDG for looked-after children as compared to the regional consortia in this field?
Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. I think it is absolutely fair to say that most awareness around PDG is around free school meals. There is less awareness around the availability of PDG to support looked-after children. I think that's probably in the nature of the cohort, so, there are more children subject to free school meals than are subject to being looked after. So, I think that's part of the explanation. A decision was taken in 2015 to regionalise PDG for looked-after children. My understanding was that the thinking behind that at the time was around a greater strategic deployment of that resource and to try and drive a greater impact than how it was being used previously. So, looked-after PDG is held at a regional level. We have looked-after children PDG co-ordinators--they're in their second year this year--to look at a regional deployment of that resource. And that resource can be done in a variety of ways, through individual allocation to a school to support an individual child, through to capacity building for the whole system. So, for instance, if I give you an example, in Carmarthenshire, there's been a big emphasis on attachment disorder and training teachers with regard to the impact of attachment disorder. Carmarthenshire happens to be one of those local authorities that does quite well in terms of attainment for looked-after children. But, clearly, I have--not concerns.'Concerns'isn't the right word. But I have asked officials to give greater scrutiny to how that resource has been used in the last year. Steve, on my behalf, wrote out to the system, setting out our expectations, but also advising them of the fact we will be asking very detailed questions of accountability for that money. So, what has that money been used on and how can you account for the effect? But, Steve, maybe you can give some greater detail.
Steve Davies: I think the challenge that--. One of the rationales for shifting--not that all the money stays in the region, but having a regional strategic support--was that, historically, the money was going directly with that child to the school. Given the quite often rapid turnover of children in schools--the very nature of looked-after children is they do sometimes move through foster parents--historically, what happened, the money lands in the school, because, at that time in the year, when it's measured, the school gets the money and can spend it on some additional support for staff, but quite often that child moves on to another school and the money doesn't transfer. Some schools will go through quite a number of years without having a looked-after child and will not think strategically,'How do I need to support them?'So, that was the rationale of the shift. In terms of the implementation of the regional allocation, as of this financial year finishing, we are going into local authorities and regions to evaluate where they've located the resource, what the impact of that resource has been, so that is reinforced and shared more widely.
Kirsty Williams AM: And then, to reassure, it's not just internally that we're looking at this. We have a contract with an external agency to do an evaluation--
Mark Reckless AM: That's ICF consulting.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. Yes, so that was done in the autumn of last year, because, as I said, we had concerns about whether this was really having the effect that was intended. So, my expectation is that we will be in a position to receive that report later on this spring, and of course it would be my intention that that report would be made public for people to have a look at what--
Mark Reckless AM: That was commissioned last autumn--
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, in November 2017.
Mark Reckless AM: November 2017.
Kirsty Williams AM: So, I'm hoping to have that published before the summer recess. I'm very reluctant to say months; I've learnt not to say months, because they move.
Lynne Neagle AM: I'm going to go to Michelle now, Mark, because--
Mark Reckless AM: Sure. I will come back in if I have anything further to ask here after Michelle.
Lynne Neagle AM: --both of you asked for these questions, and that's what the pre-meeting is for.
Mark Reckless AM: Michelle, I defer to you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Michelle.
Michelle Brown AM: Okay, thank you. Would you be open, Cabinet Secretary, to the idea of adjusting the eligibility of the PDG so that pupils who have been looked after or adopted at any point within a previous given period of time would attract the PDG, rather than only if they're looked-after on a one-off date?
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said earlier, in questions from, I think it was, Llyr, who was talking about concepts of concepts of Ever 6, we are constantly looking at how we can get that balance between focus and flexibility for this resource. Llyr opened with the question of,'How can you absolutely ensure that these children are getting the money?', but then there's also a tension about how can you create some flexibility around the school's usage of the grant. So, we will look at that. I think there is the issue of where a school would know of a child that was looked after. Issues around adoption are slightly more sensitive, because we couldn't force a family to tell a school that their child was an adopted child. So, a family may be very open and very keen to explain that to a school, but we can't necessarily track as closely children who have been adopted, especially if that adoption happens before the child goes to school. We can't be in a position of forcing families to disclose this information if they don't want to, but we certainly can, as I say, look to strengthen our monitoring arrangements around PDG support for looked-after children and the impact that that's having. I just think we need to be a bit mindful of people's privacy in some instances. If they don't want to divulge that, it wouldn't be my job to tell a family,'You have to let us know if your child is adopted.'Lynne Neagle AM: Michelle.
Michelle Brown AM: Fair enough; thank you for that answer. The EAS consortium's approach to using the looked-after and adopted PDG is to use it as part of a broader approach targeted at vulnerable learners in general. What are your views on that approach?
Kirsty Williams AM: I'm a great believer in if we can get it right for our most vulnerable learners, we'll be getting it right for all of our learners. I gave the example earlier, for instance, of attachment disorder, and, Chair, you will know that I have had conversations. One of the emerging themes for me, as I go around visiting schools, is the impact and the growing awareness and the growing numbers of children who have attachment disorder, and how schools are best able to respond to that in their children. So, for instance, as I said about Carmarthenshire, there's been a huge effort to address that in the school sector in Carmarthenshire. Now, that has a disproportionate benefit for those children, because you're more likely to see attachment disorder in children who are care experienced, because of the nature of the lives that those children have lived, but that doesn't necessarily mean that attachment disorder is exclusively found in those children that are looked after. It can be found in other families as well. So, that vulnerable learner, regardless of their background, will benefit from having teachers who are better trained, understanding and have intervention strategies in place to be able to address that need.
Steve Davies: I think it's also important to add that this is not one region's approach; this is across four regions, so the others--. For example, ERW have run a significant programme looking at the impact of adverse childhood experiences on pupils, which has enabled teachers to detect some of the impact of some of those and then considers some of the work they need to do within the school but also with other agencies. So, it is something that's applied consistently across the four regions.
Kirsty Williams AM: I was in Pil Primary School recently where they use their PDG, both FSM PDG, and no doubt an element of PDG for looked-after, for nurture groups. So, for those children who really, really find it very difficult to be in the main classroom, they can have that nurture group experience to address issues around emotional behaviour, feelings, and it gets them in a position where they are able then to join the main classroom because issues around behaviour have been addressed and they're in a better position to learn. So, again, this is an example of how vulnerable learners in the wider sense can benefit.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Mark, did you have anything you wanted to ask?
Mark Reckless AM: Yes. Can I follow up on tracking adopted children? I entirely understand that you can't force parents to disclose that their child is adopted. However, my understanding was that, in England, there was a dataset with social services that was shared with schools in a way that I'm not clear is happening in Wales and how, if at all, that links to the pupil level annual school census data. Perhaps sort of linked to that, isn't there an argument for making the parents of adopted children in the schools, potentially, with adopted children more aware that adopted children who were previously looked after have this potential grant, and would they not be more willing to disclose this, at least confidentially to the school and Government, if they knew there was this upside of doing so?
Kirsty Williams AM: We're actively looking at whether we should try and find a way of collecting this data, with the caveats that I just gave earlier. We can't force parents to divulge information that is a matter for them, nor would I want to. But there is an active discussion going on at the moment about whether we could create a dataset where people divulge this information and we can then track the children through. You're absolutely right. One of the ways in which we can often encourage take-up, for instance, of free school meals, especially in those communities where there is a sense of reluctance to apply for support--even though people are entitled to it, there's a reluctance to do it; sometimes we see this in rural areas--. Actually, appealing to the parents by saying,'Actually, this will mean more money for your child's school budget'is a much more compelling reason why people will apply for it then saying,'Actually, it's going to help you', because they don't want to be seen being dependent, they don't want to be seen being helped. But, if you say to them,'Actually, do you know that this means more money for your child's school?', they go,'Oh, all right then, I'll fill in the forms now.'So, you're right, I think there is something that we could do to make parents understand, in the round, that this has an impact. But we are actively looking at and discussing whether we could create a dataset around adopted children and how we can do that in line with data protection and data sharing. One of the things I am concerned about in the performance of looked-after children generally is how we can, across Government, work more closely together. We can't see the educational attainment of looked-after children just being a job of education. It's got to be a job of social services and the health service as well. There's got to be a joined-up approach to doing that. Now, officials were at the ministerial advisory group that's chaired by David Melding on prospects for looked-after children. They were there at the group last week. David tells me that the paper was very positively received by the group. I will be sitting down with David Melding to talk through what more we can do on the education side. I think there's really an appetite between me and the Minister for children to get a closer working relationship on this. We can't expect schools to do it on their own and alone. And there are things that we can do out there in local authorities to help improve outcomes. It's not just about the PDG; it is about, when social services are thinking about a placement, where does the discussion about where children are going to go to school--when does that take place? Do we talk about the placement, move a child and then think,'Oh my goodness me, what are we going to do about the schooling?'If you can imagine, the school could have been working really, really hard with a pupil to get them in a good place, to get them being able to access the curriculum, and then social services decide that the placement is being changed. So, we potentially lose all of that. So, a greater involvement in education and better linked-up working in local authorities will help us with this. It can't be just the job of the PDG. If we think we can crack this with just PDG, then we're being delusional. It has to be a cross-government approach at a national level, and at a local government level as well, to get this right. Sometimes, data protection--how can we break down some of these barriers between, you know, the school doesn't need to, schools shouldn't see, the entire social services report? Well, maybe the school does need to see some of that background information if they're going to have an impact for that child. So, there's more work to do, but it cannot be just the job of education on its own if we're going to make a difference, nor can it just be the job of the PDG to make a difference for those children.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Julie's got some more questions on the impact on adopted and looked-after children.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes, before I go on to those, I just wanted to support, really, what Mark was saying about adopted children and how important it is, I think, that the adoptive parents feel able to speak to the school and to give information. Because certainly any evidence we've had from adoptive parents, and generally knowing about what adoptive parents do feel, is that they often feel that there's a degree of a lack of sensitivity in the school about the issues of adoption. I would certainly support some move towards ensuring that the atmosphere was open in a way that would encourage them to realise that it would be a help for the children if there was an awareness in the school. So, I just wanted to really reinforce that.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, and that would chime with what I hear from many adoptive parents. I'm just trying to be sensitive by saying we can't force people to divulge this information if they don't want to.
Julie Morgan AM: No, but they need to be given the opportunity.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, you're right. We need to make sure that those parents feel that they can discuss this with school leaders and classroom teachers and explore how best those individual children can be supported, and how best we can support parents. Because, again--and I've said this a lot--after the quality of teaching, the second biggest impact on a child's educational outcome will be parental engagement. So, being able to create an environment where adoptive parents feel very confident and able to talk about their children's education is absolutely crucial if we're going to get that parental engagement that we need for all of our children.
Julie Morgan AM: Yes. Thank you. Going on to looked-after children, you say that the latest data on looked-after children's attainment is extremely disappointing. Can you expand on that and what effect the PDG has had in this result, or not had?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, there's no getting away from it: the way in which we currently measure outcomes for looked-after children, the results are not good enough. It's a source of huge concern to me that we need to do better for those children. That's why officials are engaging with the group that David Melding is chairing, to make sure that education is integral to that group and it's not lost sight of. There's a discussion to be had about the cohort, whether it's right and correct to compare looked-after children to the main cohort, or whether these statistics are useful in any way. Sometimes as well--this is not to make an excuse because, as I've said in my paper, it's extremely disappointing, but sometimes it can be really difficult. Because the cohort sometimes can be very, very small, it can swing the statistics to look perhaps more dramatic.
Julie Morgan AM: I think, generally, when you look at how looked-after children do--
Kirsty Williams AM: It's not good.
Julie Morgan AM: --in a much wider evaluation, they're not doing well, are they?
Kirsty Williams AM: They're not doing well. So, that's why we've got the review, the independent review, into the impact of the PDG in this area. This is why Steve is doing the work that he is doing with the regional consortia because, clearly, at the moment, we are not doing what we need to do for that particular cohort of children. I would not make any bones about that at all.
Steve Davies: I think we will not move away from the fact that these children need good GCSEs to gain employment, so we'll continue to measure that. I think we need to look at more nuanced evaluations of the data at a lower level. So, for example, there were significant improvements in terms of PDG pupils who got three and four good GCSEs but didn't get past the threshold. That's not to cover anything that is not working in terms of improvement, but we will look at the full range and still hold on to the fact that we have to look at a measure that relates to the likelihood of these children going on to further education and training.
Julie Morgan AM: And then just one more question about the exclusion rates amongst looked-after children. They are, I understand, over six times more likely to be given a fixed-term exclusion. So, is there any way of trying to address this? Is the PDG used for anything to do with exclusions?
Kirsty Williams AM: We can look at exclusions. We also have to read across about how the whole system works, not just the PDG element of the system. So, we know, for example, that 66 per cent of looked-after learners have some additional learning need, so we can't just look at it in terms of this particular source of funding; we have to look at it at a wider level of support. So, given that the majority of those children will have an ALN, how can we make sure that our new ALN legislation and our new ALN regime meets the needs of these children? So, I think what we're looking at, again, is to say that it can't be just the job of the PDG. That's there as an additional level of support, but actually, we've got to get our ALN right. Unless we get our ALN right, lots and lots of these children are not going to get the support that they need day in, day out via that system. We do know that sometimes, if we're not addressing ALN, then we're not addressing behaviour issues that then potentially lead to an expulsion or potentially lead to non-attendance. So, we've got to look at it in the round and recognise the connections between the sometimes quite complex needs that these children have within the school setting, that are not just as a result of the fact that they're looked after; they have other needs as well.
Steve Davies: And investment in well-being--
Kirsty Williams AM: Absolutely. Steve is reminding me that that's why well-being is part of the national mission--to address issues around supporting children with their well-being, which is a way of keeping them in school.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We're going to move on to Schools Challenge Cymru now. Llyr.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Thank you, Chair. I was just wondering what your assessment is as to why some schools made progress and others didn't.
Kirsty Williams AM: I think we have to recognise that the 39 schools that were part of the programme were in very, very different places. So, I think one of the reasons why some schools did well was because their needs were not so complex, not so deep-seated and a certain level of intervention was enough to get them moving forward. Some schools had very, very different needs. I think, talking to those involved in the programme, as always, we had some support advisers, challenge advisers working with those schools as part of the programme who were really, really excellent and really good, and were the right fit for the school and really drove the school onwards. We had other people employed in the programme who, perhaps, were less effective at driving change within those individual schools. So, what we have is a mixed bag of performance, again reflecting the very different challenges that those schools were facing, which led them to be chosen for the programme in the first place.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Yes, okay--
Steve Davies: Sorry. One of the other key additional factors was the extent to which there had been recent appointment of a new headteacher to that school just before the programme had started, because--
Kirsty Williams AM: Leadership is all.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: And that was seen as a positive.
Steve Davies: A positive, yes. I think one of the challenges is that sometimes the time it takes to make changes in leadership can be protracted and can be a barrier, sometimes, to the speed with which you can move. But, for a significant minority of the schools, there had been recent new appointments of headteachers, which was seen to be contributing, when you looked at the evaluation, to the speed with which they were able to engage.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: The reason I was asking was I wanted to understand what lessons the Government is taking from that three-year investment, really, and how, maybe, you're applying some of those lessons to your wider school improvement programme. I know Professor Mel Ainscow identified six interconnected lessons, although I also note that the Cabinet Secretary didn't actually meet him for about six or seven months after coming into post. So, I'm just wondering, can you give us confidence that, actually, you are serious about taking lessons from Schools Challenge Cymru and applying them to the wider school improvement agenda?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, absolutely, Llyr. I don't think anything should be read into when I met the individual concerned, because officials were meeting the individual concerned. Individual challenge advisers were meeting with the regions, there was crossover work with the FSM agenda as well, and we are absolutely determined that best practice and those interventions that drove school improvement are embedded in the new support that we have via the regional consortia. It's no coincidence that some of the best people that were employed by Schools Challenge Cymru are now in the employment of our regional consortia. So, those people that were really good and really made a difference don't work for the Schools Challenge Cymru scheme any more, they work for our regional school improvement services. So, we're absolutely determined. The things that we have learned, as always, are around leadership. It is absolutely key and crucial to have strong, capable school leadership as a driver for change within the system. We're looking at systems and processes, so, actually, has a school got in place comprehensive systems of tracking and processes within the school? We're looking at the teacher quality--how can we ensure that we have got consistent strategies in place to drive up pedagogy and teacher quality in the classroom? Collaborative activity--again, absolutely key. A school cannot see itself in isolation, and one of the key themes of the national mission is a self-improving system, so, collaborative working where schools are looking outside of each other, learning from best practice from other schools. So, there are lots of things that we've drawn from the evaluation that you will see as key themes running through the national mission, and, as I said, it's no coincidence that our really good people that were working in Schools Challenge Cymru are now working for the regional consortia, being able to use that expertise not just for a very small proportion of our schools--but that expertise is available to all our schools.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Although Estyn has told us, of course, that you can't expect the consortia to really carry on with that level of intervention and the same kind of intensity as was provided previously, so I'm just wondering--
Kirsty Williams AM: In what way?
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, we were told by Estyn in evidence that they didn't necessarily think that we could expect the consortia to provide the same type of tailored support, and certainly the level of intensity with the improvement boards and everything--
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, the improvement boards are carrying on, so the improvement boards still exist, and I would--not that I want to argue with Estyn--
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Well, feel free; this is your opportunity to do so if you--
Kirsty Williams AM: What I would say is that those improvement boards are staying on, and our schools categorisation system is used to identify the level of support. Now, if you're a red school, that gives you the entitlement to 25 days of support. That is more than you would have got under the Schools Challenge Cymru programme, which would've been 20 days. So, actually, moving to this system allows us to really focus in on those schools that need that intensive level of support. And what's important for me, Llyr, in this, okay, is that those schools are not necessarily just the schools that were in the programme. Our system now of challenge, advice and support allows us to target resources across all of our schools and across all of our sectors, because you'll be aware that Schools Challenge was only available to secondary schools, not available to primary schools. What our system now allows us to do, via the schools categorisation, is to identify schools, wherever they are in Wales and whatever sector they're in, to have that intensive level of support that they need to make improvements.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, you're confident that that level of momentum is continuing through the consortia that was previously enjoyed by those particular schools, and you're also confident that there is minimal risk that they'll slip back to where they were, potentially, or at least part of the way back.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, actually, there are some really good examples of some of the Schools Challenge Cymru schools making that sustained improvement now that the programme has come to an end. You only have to look at Tredegar, where we have seen continual improvement and moving up through the categorisation system. That school is now a green school, so they've been able to sustain their progress at the end of the programme. If we look at Armando in Eastern High School, again--gosh, my goodness me, we had lots of debates in a previous Chamber about the future of Eastern. There was one person that said that Eastern had to be closed and that the only way forward for that particular school was for it to be shut down, but what we have seen is investment via Schools Challenge Cymru, but ongoing, continual support from the regional consortium, and that school has come out of special measures. I pay absolute tribute to the staff of that school and that community that have done such a good job. So, I'm absolutely convinced that where we've got good leadership and good support, some of those schools are making continued, sustained progress even after the end of the programme. The challenge for me is for those schools that Schools Challenge Cymru didn't work for, and we haven't seen that progress--how we can use our school improvement system now to continue to work with those schools to give them the level of support that they need to make a difference. So that's what my focus is on now: a whole-system approach, rather than choosing 39 schools to get that level of support, when we recognise that there are schools everywhere, potentially, that need intervention, support and challenge, and in the primary sector as well.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Okay. So, you wouldn't agree with a number of--well, the near-unanimous evidence that we've had from academics, some of whom are Government advisers from consortia et cetera, that this kind of programme such as Schools Challenge Cymru would probably need about five years to really have the impact that it was intended to have.
Kirsty Williams AM: What I would say is that, from my understanding, from the outset, it was a time-limited programme. The schools were aware of that. There were no surprises that it was supposed to be a time-limited programme. Evidence from across the UK showed that school challenge programmes have differed in time. So, for instance, Manchester's challenge was a three-year programme. So, there's no consensus about how many years you need to run a programme for. The previous Minister was quite clear about the time-limited nature of the programme. That's not to say it was the wrong decision, because what's important, and an ongoing legacy of the programme, was the investment in regional school improvement capacity, because at the time our school improvement services and the regions were young, in their infancy. The ability of individual local authorities to make a difference, with so many local authorities in an Estyn categorisation, was limited, so one of the ongoing legacies of the programme is that significant investment of over PS10 million in the capacity of the regions to be able to continue this support and the school improvement work.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: So, how disappointed were you that the money for Schools Challenge Cymru went back into reserves and didn't stay in your envelope, as you described it earlier? I presume you made a pitch for it. Did you make a case for that money to stay within your department?
Kirsty Williams AM: Llyr, we are constantly having discussions with the Minister for Finance around support for the education budget. The Minister for Finance was quite clear that it was a time-limited programme. We were able to secure investment from the Finance Minister to be able to secure the programme and run it and phase it out to make sure there was transition support, so as we moved from the schools challenge programme into the regional consortia, there were resources to do that.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: Did you feel there was a case to be made to add to the consortia's resources and be able to continue that level of support that schools had previously had?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, we did make resources available to the regional consortia to do that. As I say, from the outset, the previous Minister was very clear it was a time-limited programme. Certainly the schools that I talk to--. And I want to be absolutely clear: I have visited many, many Schools Challenge Cymru schools. I have used that opportunity to talk to them about--Heolddu being one of them, Hefin, which we went to visit, and Willows, for instance. I'm going to one this afternoon--I'm going to St Illtyd's this afternoon, and I always take--. I've been to Caergybi in Anglesey. I always take the opportunity to speak to those teachers about their experience of the programme and to understand and assure myself that they are getting ongoing support that they see as an appropriate level for them. I think I've done 19 of the schools.
Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin on this.
Hefin David AM: With regard to it being a time-limited programme, the previous Minister was clear that it was a time-limited programme, but it wasn't quite as time-limited as you've decided to be. Is that fair to say?
Kirsty Williams AM: No, it was supposed to be a three-year programme at the most. So, there's no differential between when I decided it was time-limited and the expectations--
Hefin David AM: So the time limit was the same that the previous Minister put on it.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. No change.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: But Mel Ainscow did tell us that there was a fade out in that third year--not that people were giving up, don't get me wrong, but clearly there wasn't that commitment coming from Government because the decision had been made, and people felt that it was just fizzling out a little bit, and that impacted on the momentum.
Kirsty Williams AM: I wouldn't characterise it as that. I think there certainly was a transition phase when we knew that the programme was moving and schools were moving into a different level of support, but I certainly wouldn't describe it as a fading out--not at all. As I said, we were aware that the programme was transitioning and we were determined to get that right for those individual schools, and to learn the lessons and, crucially, to be able to apply those lessons right across the board.
Steve Davies: I can see where the perception would come if a programme director like Mel was managing the programme right to the end of the three years exactly the same, and it falls off--not a cliff, but it falls off, then the readiness for schools and the readiness in the system to hand over--so part of the shift of focus was that working as a Government with the programme in those schools to working with the programme, those schools and the region. So, I think, inevitably, one party might see it as a decrease in terms of emphasis on their work, but it was necessary for the transition.
Llyr Gruffydd AM: But does that cast a bit of a shadow over the transition, then--that one key player within that process felt as such, or are you confident that that was managed well and effectively?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think it was managed well, and we were very clear to recognise success where success has been achieved, but not to gloss over where the programme had not made an impact, because that wouldn't be good for anybody. There was a formal event to close the programme, which gave everybody an opportunity to get together, to be formally thanked, and for, as I said, congratulations to be given to those people who had really made a difference and, crucially, key staff transferred over into the regional consortia. So, for those individuals, they were able to continue their work, but just be able to apply that work on a regional basis rather than just in an individual school. So, I don't see that there was any fading out, but there was a transition into a new system, and many of those key personnel transitioned into the system with us.
Lynne Neagle AM: Have you got any figures for the numbers of staff who went from the programme into the consortia?
Kirsty Williams AM: Not off the top of my head, but I can let you know.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. I've got Darren first, then Mark.
Kirsty Williams AM: And can I just say, I met with some of them? I met with a selection of those people who had been involved in the programme to get their feedback on what they felt had gone right, and what they didn't feel had gone right in the programme. So, I took the time not just to meet the figurehead of the programme, but actually to meet the people who were doing the work in the individual schools. Sorry.
Darren Millar AM: Yes, I just wanted to ask you, you mentioned the figurehead there, I assume by'the figurehead'you mean Professor Ainscow. And you've mentioned as well that you said you wanted to learn lessons from Schools Challenge Cymru, but he told us that nobody had been in touch with him since March of last year in order to have any sort of follow-up engagement, or to have a dialogue about his perspective on what worked, what didn't work, why there were failures in some areas and why there were successes in others. Why haven't you sought that level of engagement with the person who was responsible for running the programme?
Kirsty Williams AM: I've had that conversation with Mr Ainscow. We had the evaluation of the programme. We've spoken to the people who were actually involved in running the programme on a daily basis in individual schools. We've spoken to the regional consortia. We've spoken to local education authorities. We've spoken to a wide variety of people to get their insight into the lessons learned, what was valuable and what was not valuable. So, a wide variety of people have been involved in those conversations.
Darren Millar AM: But you've hardly engaged with Mr Ainscow--with Professor Ainscow himself.
Steve Davies: I would actually say that I have had meetings--
Darren Millar AM: Since March of last year.
Steve Davies: Yes, since March of last year. I haven't got the exact dates for you. I've had discussions with Mel Ainscow, and my line manager at the time, Owen Evans, also had meetings and discussions.
Darren Millar AM: So, when he told us,'Since last March, I literally have had no contact at all with anybody from Welsh Government', he was telling porky pies, was he?
Steve Davies: That's not my recollection. I'll go back and check for you.
Lynne Neagle AM: If you could check and let us know, that would be good. Mark.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, well, I just talked about the celebration event to formally mark the end of the programme. My understanding was that it was July of last year, so people were engaged in that. And this idea that somebody has been ignored or frozen out is not how I see or how I regard that situation.
Lynne Neagle AM: Mark.
Mark Reckless AM: I have to say, with Professor Ainscow my impression was he took great, great pride in the work that he'd done with Schools Challenge Cymru, and I think he really enjoyed the engagement, the work and the positive relations with the Welsh Government. But I think there was just a degree of disappointment, perhaps, that at least he didn't feel that he'd been interrogated as much as he might have been about the lessons learned from the programme, and how perhaps to entrench those as well as possible with the regional consortia. I just wonder, Cabinet Secretary, if you could invite the professor in, perhaps to have a further debrief with you and take account of some of his thoughts and suggestions for what might help in this area.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, Mark, as I said, I just don't think it should be right to characterise this as a failure to engage with a single individual.
Mark Reckless AM: I'm not characterising it that way, Cabinet Secretary.
Kirsty Williams AM: As I said, I met with him, Steve has met with him, Owen Evans has met with him, my special policy adviser has met with him and had discussions. So, there has been an ongoing dialogue. But, Mark, I hope that I have demonstrated since I took on this job that I am willing to work with a wide variety of people and to tap into their expertise if it can help me to deliver on the national mission. And if the advice to me is that we haven't sufficiently learnt the lessons, then I'll gladly have another conversation. What I'm saying to you--and I'm absolutely confident--is that we have learnt the lessons, we are taking that work and the good practice forward, and we have done that with conversations with a wide variety of people who had a view on this, from individual schools that were involved in the programme, individual people who were working in those schools, local education authorities, some of which have been very scathing about the programme, I should say, regional consortia--. So, the lessons, I am confident, have been learnt.
Mark Reckless AM: I'm glad to hear that, Cabinet Secretary, but I still say that, listening to Professor Ainscow's evidence, there was a perception, at least from him individually, that the programme should not be seen to be a failure, but a desire that the lessons should be learnt and a feeling or exception, at least on his part, that there was more that he still had to contribute to the process. And just to take one particular example, I think he referred to the Schools Challenge Cymru advisers being very successful in bringing in people who might not otherwise have contributed to this, and the regional consortia have had greater challenges in recruiting people, perhaps in some areas, of the same high standard of some particular individuals, but also from a wide range of different areas that the Schools Challenge Cymru do, and that there could be more to learn in that area as to how to support real excellence and a greater diversity of recruitment for those people. Is that something you could perhaps draw on his thoughts further about? Because I think he does feel that he has more to say to Welsh Government to help in this area.
Kirsty Williams AM: Firstly, can I say that I have never described the programme as a failure? I would understand, as someone who has put so much personal investment into the brand of schools challenges, that he would not want anybody to characterise that particular approach to school improvement as a failure. And I want to be absolutely clear that I have never described the programme as a failure, and I want to reassure Mr Ainscow of that. As I've said, gosh, my goodness me, if you saw my e-mail inbox and you saw the letters that come in, people are never shy in coming forward to give me advice on what I need to do, what I need to do next, what I'm doing right, what I'm doing wrong, and, you know, our doors are always open to listen to people who have interesting things to say about how we can deliver our educational mission. So, people aren't slow in coming forward, I can assure you, with advice.
Lynne Neagle AM: Julie.
Julie Morgan AM: Just very quickly. I'm sure the Minister is aware that Cardiff put extra funds of its own in to continue Schools Challenge Cymru advisers. So, obviously, they appreciated the value of the scheme, but it does query whether it should have gone on longer.
Kirsty Williams AM: Julie, I think, to be fair, there are some people who think the scheme was absolutely fantastic. I've had feedback from people who didn't think the scheme was helpful at all--in fact, they felt it was a hindrance. I'm very much of the view that the scheme worked really well for some schools in some areas and had less impact in some areas. There is a mixed picture. What's important to me is that we understand what it was that led those schools to make those big changes, how we can--like Mark talked about, the expertise--how we can keep that expertise in the system, and how we can apply the lessons to all schools.
Lynne Neagle AM: The next questions, and the final questions, are from John. So, we're going to need succinct questions and succinct answers.
John Griffiths AM: Some questions on regional consortia, Cabinet Secretary, and, first of all, the role that you believe they should play and how schools use PDG.
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, it's an absolute--. It's one of the things that I have been very clear to the regional consortia that I expect their challenge and support advisers to be asking schools about. So, one of the conversations that they need to have when they are in schools is exploring, with that school, how they are using their PDG, and how they're demonstrating an impact for those resources. So, it's a fundamental role for the challenge and support advisers in the regional consortia in their school improvement work. It's crucial.
John Griffiths AM: That sort of brings to mind some of the research that's been done on the role of the challenge advisers, Cabinet Secretary, which suggested that they're not actually challenging schools in that way, and that there's very little evidence of schools changing their decisions on the use of PDG as a result of any challenge from those challenge advisers. So, how would you respond to those findings?
Kirsty Williams AM: Well, as I said, in my scrutiny of the role and success of our regional consortia, I specifically asked them about free-school-meal performance and the use of PDG within their particular region. I think there is increasing evidence to suggest that good use is being made of that resource, and I think that is being fed back into us. Estyn tell us that it's one of the areas of school expenditure that is closely linked to research and an evidence base. But, clearly, there is more to do, and that's why we have appointed the new regional advisers for PDG going forward, because we think there can be improvements in how this agenda can be supported at a regional level.
John Griffiths AM: Okay. So, you would recognise the findings from that research.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes. There's always more that we can do, and we are strengthening that role by the appointment of the new regional PDG advisers, so that individual school challenge advisers know what they should be looking for, know what they should be doing, and there is a regional approach to good practice.
John Griffiths AM: Okay. Could you tell the committee, Cabinet Secretary, how effective you believe the relationship was between the Schools Challenge Cymru programme and the regional consortia's school improvement functions, and to what extent it varied by region?
Kirsty Williams AM: I think it's fair to say that, on occasion, I have received feedback that there was a conflict between what was going on at an individual school under the school improvement programme and whether, then, they welcomed support from the regional consortia as part of that. So, in some cases, if we're being absolutely honest, there could sometimes be tensions between the two, but in most cases, the relationship was very, very positive and there was continuous feedback between the work going on in the schools under the programme and the regional consortia challenge advisers. But I'm going to be blunt and honest with people--in some cases, it has been reported to me--it's only anecdotal evidence; I haven't got hard and fast evidence--that there sometimes was a conflict:'We're a school challenge school so we don't need to participate or listen to any advice that's coming from the regional consortia.'Or, a local education authority said to me,'We felt that we couldn't get involved in that school anymore because it was part of a different programme.'Those were isolated incidents, and, as I said, it's only anecdotal feedback. In most cases, the relationship was a very positive one.
Steve Davies: Just very quickly, I think that, across the board, it was more complex in the beginning, getting--[Inaudible. ]. But when the programme itself recognised that they needed to work with the regions, and the regions needed to work with them--and I think Mel Ainscow in his evidence referred to this--it strengthened after some early challenges. I think Mel Ainscow was working in a number of regions--I can't remember which ones--so he's established relationships--[Interruption. ] Sorry?
Kirsty Williams AM: Central south.
Steve Davies: Central south. He has already been working in that, so I think it possibly had a stronger springboard in terms of the early working.
Kirsty Williams AM: Because he already had relationships that he had already developed in that particular region. As always, with many of these things, it's about individuals and relationships.
John Griffiths AM: Okay. Finally from me, Cabinet Secretary: in 2015-16, Estyn reported on regional consortia not sufficiently focusing on particular groups of pupils and tracking their outcomes--for example, vulnerable pupils. I just wonder what you are able to tell us in terms of to what extent there has been necessary progress since 2015-16.
Kirsty Williams AM: Okay. Well, I think it's important to recognise that all four consortia underwent monitoring visits in the autumn of last year, of 2017, which weren't reflected in the Estyn annual report for 2015-16. Estyn, through these 2017 inspections, have said that three out of the four regional consortia are making strong progress in their particular work, and we are continuing, as Welsh Government, to work with the other regional consortia to address the findings of the Estyn report.
John Griffiths AM: And that would include these particular issues.
Kirsty Williams AM: Yes, absolutely. The committee probably hasn't had an opportunity to see, but, only this morning, Estyn has released a report on more able and talented, and has positive things to say in the field of more able and talented, which was being asked about earlier by Members--you know, evidence of improved working and support in that particular arena. But, again, we need to ensure a consistency across all the regions, and that the findings of Estyn's most recent reports into regional performance are followed through.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. As we've got a couple of minutes left, if I can just jump back to the issue of practical uses of the PDG--because it's the only thing we haven't really covered and it would be good to get on the record--can I ask to what extent you'd like to see the PDG used to track the progress of eligible pupils? And the committee's heard that there are several different tracking systems and tools used by schools. To what extent is that an issue to do with what the Welsh Government is promoting? Or is it down to consortia or individual schools? And do you think there needs to be a more centralised push on how the tracking is undertaken?
Kirsty Williams AM: Firstly, can I say it's absolutely crucial that we track performance, absolutely crucial? That's the bedrock. We don't dictate to individual schools the nature of the system that they should employ in their school. There are a number of different programmes that allow schools to do this, but we are absolutely clear, and best practice and evidence shows us, that individual pupil tracking is key and crucial. And, as I said in the beginning, where we weren't tracking pupils at all, initial investment in PDG was used to establish these systems within schools. Again, one of the outcomes from the schools challenge review, and one of the lessons learnt, was, again, the importance of individual tracking of pupils throughout their school career. But we don't dictate a single system.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you.
Kirsty Williams AM: But the principle is a really important one.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, and you don't think there's more scope to look at what the best system is that can be recommended to schools.
Kirsty Williams AM: That's not something we're actively looking at. I am actively looking at developing a Welsh toolkit around good practice, evidence base and research. At the moment we use the Sutton Trust toolkit, which is fine and excellent, but we are having active discussions about whether we're in a position, now, to look at developing a suite of a Welsh toolkit to support this agenda, and that's under active consideration.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Well, we've reached the end of our session. Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary and the officials for attending and for answering such a wide range of questions? As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting, but thank you again for coming.
Kirsty Williams AM: Thank you very much.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. Okay. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Children and Social Care on Families First funding. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education, updating us on the supply teacher issue. Paper to note 3--another letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education, providing further information following our meeting on 15 February. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the WJEC on availability of textbooks. Paper to note 5--a letter from Qualifications Wales, also on availability of textbooks. And paper to note 6 is a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education to the Children's Commissioner for Wales, following up on the dialogue that they've been having about our inquiry. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Item 4, then, is for me to propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17. 42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content? Thank you. | Some of the Schools Challenge Cymru schools are making sustained improvement now that the programme has come to an end. Like the example of Tredegar, where we have seen continual improvement and moving up through the categorisation system. The challenge is for those schools that Schools Challenge Cymru didn't work for, and they haven't seen the progress of how to use the school improvement system now to continue to work with those schools. So now the focus is a whole-system approach, rather than choosing 39 schools to get that level of support. Schools Challenge Cymru would probably need about five years to really have the impact that it was intended to have. | qmsum |
Summarize the meeting
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Grad D: Um.
Grad E: I'm known. I {disfmarker}
Grad A: No, cuz she already told me it, before she told you.
Grad E: No, she told me a long time ago. She told me {disfmarker} she told me like two weeks ago.
Grad A: Oh, well, it doesn't matter what time.
Grad B: OK. You know how to toggle the display width {pause} function {disfmarker}
Grad A: Well maybe she hadn't just started transcribing me yet.
Grad D: Wow.
Grad A: Anyway.
Grad D: What is it?
Grad E: Let me explain something to you.
Grad D: Um,
Grad E: My laugh is better than yours.
Grad D: there.
Grad A: I beg to differ.
Grad B: Yo.
Grad D: Um, OK.
Grad A: But you have to say something genuinely funny before you'll get an example.
Grad E: Yeah.
Grad D: The thing is I don't know how to get to the next page. Here.
Grad E: No. You should be {disfmarker} at least be self - satisfied enough to laugh at your own jokes.
Grad D: Actually I thought {disfmarker}
Grad A: No, it's a different laugh.
Grad D: There.
Grad A: Ooh, wow!
Grad D: How weird.
Grad E: Oh! Holy mackerel.
Grad A: Wow. Whoa!
Grad D: What? ! Oh. OK. I wasn't even doing anything. {vocalsound} OK.
Grad A: Uh.
Grad E: Eva's got a laptop, she's trying to show it off.
Grad D: That was r actually Robert's idea. But anyhow. Um
Professor F: O K. So, here we are.
Grad E: Once again.
Professor F: Once again, right, together. Um, so we haven't had a meeting for a while, and {disfmarker} and probably won't have one next week, I think a number of people are gone. Um, so Robert, why don't you bring us up to date on where we are with EDU?
Grad B: Um, uh in a {disfmarker} in a smaller group we had uh, talked and decided about continuation of the data collection. So Fey's time with us is almost officially over, and she brought us some thirty subjects and, t collected the data, and ten dialogues have been transcribed and can be looked at. If you're interested in that, talk to me. Um, and we found another uh, cogsci student who's interested in playing wizard for us. Here we're gonna make it a little bit more complicated for the subjects, uh this round. She's actually suggested to look um, at the psychology department students, because they have to partake in two experiments in order to fulfill some requirements. So they have to be subjected, {vocalsound} {comment} before they can actually graduate. And um, we want to design it so that they really have to think about having some time, two days, for example, to plan certain things and figure out which can be done at what time, and, um, sort of package the whole thing in a {disfmarker} in a re in a few more complicated um, structure. That's for the data collection. As for SmartKom, I'm {disfmarker} the last SmartKom meeting I mentioned that we have some problems with the synthesis, which as of this morning should be resolved. And, so,
Professor F: Good.
Grad B:" should be" means they aren't yet, but {disfmarker} but I think I have the info now that I need. Plus, Johno and I are meeting tomorrow, so maybe uh uh, when tomorrow is over, we're done. And ha n hav we'll never have to look at it again Maybe it'll take some more time, to be realistic, but at least we're {disfmarker} we're seeing the end of the tunnel there. That was that. Um, the uh, uh I don't think we need to discuss the formalism that'll be done officially s once we're done. Um, something happened, in {disfmarker} on Eva's side with the PRM that we're gonna look at today, and um, we have a visitor from Bruchsal from the International University. Andreas, I think you've met everyone except Nancy.
Grad A: Sorry. Hi. Hi.
Grad C: Yeah.
Grad B: Hi. Hi.
Grad A: So when you said" Andreas" I thought you were talking about Stolcke.
Grad B: And, um,
Grad A: Now I know that we aren't, OK.
Grad B: Andy, you actually go by Andy, right? Oh, OK.
Grad C: Yeah.
Grad B: Eh {disfmarker}
Grad C: Cuz there is another Andreas around,
Grad A: Hmm.
Grad C: so, to avoid some confusion.
Grad B: That will be {pause} Reuter? Oh, OK.
Grad C: Yeah.
Grad B: So my scientific director of the EML is also the dean of the International University, one of his many occupations that just contributes to the fact that he is very occupied. And, um, the {disfmarker} um, he @ @ might tell us a little bit about what he's actually doing, and why it is s somewhat related, and {disfmarker} by uh using maybe some of the same technologies that we are using. And um. Was that enough of an update?
Professor F: I think so.
Grad B: In what order shall we proceed?
Grad D: OK.
Grad B: Maybe you have your on - line {disfmarker}
Grad D: Uh, yeah, sure. Um, so, I've be just been looking at, um, Ack! What are you doing? Yeah. OK. Um, I've been looking at the PRM stuff. Um, so, this is, sort of like the latest thing I have on it, and I sorta constructed a couple of classes. Like, a user class, a site class, and {disfmarker} and you know, a time, a route, and then {disfmarker} and a query class. And I tried to simplify it down a little bit, so that I can actually um, look at it more. It's the same paper that I gave to Jerry last time. Um, so basically I took out a lot of stuff, a lot of the decision nodes, and then tried to {disfmarker} The red lines on the, um, graph are the um, relations between the different um, classes. Like, a user has like, a query, and then, also has, you know um, reference slots to its preferences, um, the special needs and, you know, money, and the user interest. And so this is more or less similar to the flat Bayes - net that I have, you know, with the input nodes and all that. And {disfmarker} So I tried to construct the dependency models, and a lot of these stuff I got from the flat Bayes - net, and what they depend on, and it turns out, you know, the CPT's are really big, if I do that, so I tried to see how I can do, um {disfmarker} put in the computational nodes in between. And what that would look like in a PRM. And so I ended up making several classes {disfmarker} Actually, you know, a class of {disfmarker} with different attributes that are the intermediate nodes, and one of them is like, time affordability money affordability, site availability, and the travel compatibility. And so some of these classes are {disfmarker} s some of these attributes only depend on stuff from, say, the user, or s f just from, I don't know, like the site. S like, um, these here, it's only like, user, but, if you look at travel compatibility for each of these factors, you need to look at a pair of, you know, what the um, preference of the user is versus, you know, what type of an event it is, or you know, which form of transportation the user has and whether, you know, the onsite parking matters to the user, in that case. And that makes the scenario a little different in a PRM, because, um, then you have one - user objects and potentially you can have many different sites in {disfmarker} in mind. And so for each of the site you'll come up with this rating, of travel compatibility. And, they all depend on the same users, but different sites, and that makes a {disfmarker} I'm tr I w I wa have been trying to see whether the PRM would make it more efficient if we do inferencing like that. And so, I guess you end up having fewer number of nodes than in a flat Bayes - net, cuz otherwise you would {disfmarker} c well, it's probably the same. But um, No, you would definitely have {disfmarker} be able to re - use, like, {vocalsound} um, all the user stuff, and not {disfmarker} not having to recompute a lot of the stuff, because it's all from the user side. So if you changed sites, you {disfmarker} you can, you know, save some work on that. But, you know, in the case where, it depends on both the user and the site, then I'm still having a hard time trying to see how um, using the PRM will help. Um, so anyhow, using those intermediate nodes then, this {disfmarker} this would be the class that represent the intermediate nodes. And that would {disfmarker} basically it's just another class in the model, with, you know, references to the user and the site and the time. And then, after you group them together this {disfmarker} no the dependencies would {disfmarker} of the queries would be reduced to this. And so, you know, it's easier to specify the CPT and all. Um, so I think that's about as far as I've gone on the PRM stuff.
Professor F: Well
Grad D: Right.
Professor F: No. So y you didn't yet tell us what the output is.
Grad D: The output.
Professor F: So what decisions does this make?
Grad D: OK. So it only makes two decisions, in this model. And one is basically how desirable a site is meaning, um, how good it matches the needs of a user. And the other is the mode of the visit, whether th It's the EVA decision. Um, so, instead of um, {vocalsound} doing a lot of, you know, computation about, you know, which one site it wants of {disfmarker} the user wants to visit, I'll come {disfmarker} well, try to come up with like, sort of a list of sites. And for each site, you know, where {disfmarker} h how {disfmarker} how well it fits, and basically a rating of how well it fits and what to do with it. So. Anything else I missed?
Professor F: So that was pretty quick. She's ac uh uh Eva's got a little write - up on it that uh, probably gives the {disfmarker} the details to anybody who needs them. Um, so the {disfmarker} You {disfmarker} you didn't look at all yet to see if there's anybody has a implementation.
Grad D: No, not yet, um {disfmarker}
Professor F: OK. So one {disfmarker} so one of the questions, you know, about these P R Ms is
Grad D: Mm - hmm.
Professor F: uh, we aren't gonna build our own interpreter, so if {disfmarker} if we can't find one, then we uh, go off and do something else and wait until s one appears. Uh, so one of the things that Eva's gonna do over the next few weeks is see if we can track that down. Uh, the people at Stanford write papers as if they had one, but, um, we'll see. So w Anyway. So that's a {disfmarker} a major open issue. If there is an interpreter, it looks like you know, what Eva's got should run and we should be able to actually um, try to solve, you know, the problems, to actually take the data, and do it. Uh, and we'll see. Uh, I actually think it is cleaner, and the ability to instantiate, you know, instance of people and sites and stuff, um, will help in the expression. Whether the inference gets any faster or not I don't know. Uh, it wouldn't surprise me if it {disfmarker} if it doesn't.
Grad D: Mm - hmm.
Professor F: You know, it's the same kind of information. I think there are things that you can express this way which you can't express in a normal belief - net, uh, without going to some incredible hacking of {disfmarker} sort of rebuilding it on the fly. I mean, the notion of instantiating your el elements from the ontology and stuff fits this very nicely and doesn't fit very well into the extended belief - net. So that was one of the main reasons for doing it. Um. I don't know. So, uh, people who have thought about the problem, like Robert i it looked to me like if {comment} Eva were able to come up with a {vocalsound} you know, value for each of a number of uh, sites plus its EVA thing, that a travel planner should be able to take it from there. And {disfmarker} you know, with some other information about how much time the person has and whatever, and then plan a route.
Grad B: Um - hmm, um, {vocalsound} well, first of all uh, uh, great looks, mu much cleaner, nnn, nnn, Certain {disfmarker} certain beauty in it, so, um, if beauty is truth, then, uh we're in good shape. But, the um, as, uh, mentioned before we probably should look at t the details. So if you have a write - up then uh, I'd love to read it
Grad D: Mm - hmm.
Grad B: and uh {disfmarker} because, um, i Can you go all the way back to the {disfmarker} the very top?
Grad D: Yeah.
Grad B: Um, {vocalsound} uh these {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} these {disfmarker} w w when these are instantiated they take on the same values? that we had before?
Grad D: I can't really see the whole thing.
Grad B: or are they {disfmarker} have they changed, in a sense?
Grad D: Well I think I basically leave them to similar things.
Grad B: Uh - huh.
Grad D: Some of the things might {disfmarker} that might be different, maybe like {disfmarker} are that the hours for the site.
Grad B: Hmm.
Grad D: And, eventually I meant that to mean whether they're open at this hour or not.
Grad B: Uh - huh.
Grad D: And status would be, you know, more or less like, whether they're under construction, and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} or stuff like that.
Grad B: And the, uh, other question I would have is that presumably, from the way the Stanford people talk about it, you can put the probabilities also on the relations. If {disfmarker}
Grad D: Which is the structural uncertainty?
Professor F: Yeah. Yeah, I {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} That I think was actually in the previous {disfmarker} the Ubenth stuff. I don't remember whether they carried that over to this or not,
Grad A: Mmm.
Professor F: uh, structural uncertainty.
Grad B: It's sort of in the definition or {disfmarker} in the {disfmarker} in Daphne's definition of a PRM is that classes and relations,
Professor F: OK.
Grad B: and you're gonna have CPT's over the classes and their relations.
Professor F: Alright.
Grad B: More uncertainty, or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker}
Professor F: Uh,
Grad B: I should say.
Grad D: I remember them learning when, you know, you don't know the structure for sure,
Professor F: Yeah.
Grad D: but I don't remember reading how you specify
Grad B: Yeah, that would be exactly my question.
Professor F: Right.
Grad D: wh to start with. Yeah.
Grad B: Well {disfmarker}
Grad D: Yeah.
Professor F: Yeah. So, uh, the {disfmarker} the plan is {disfmarker} is when Daphne gets back, we'll get in touch and supposedly, um, we'll actually get s deep {disfmarker} seriously connected to {disfmarker} to their work and
Grad B: Yep.
Professor F: somebody'll {disfmarker} Uh, you know {disfmarker} If it's a group meeting once a week probably someone'll go down and, whatever. So, we'll actually figure all this out.
Grad B: OK. OK. Then I think the w {vocalsound} long term perspective is {disfmarker} is pretty clear. We get rocking and rolling on this again, once we get a package, if, when, and how, then this becomes foregrounded
Grad D: Mm - hmm.
Grad B: profiled, focused, again.
Grad E: Designated?
Grad A: Of course.
Grad B: And um, until then we'll come up with a something that's {disfmarker} @ @ {comment} that's way more complicated for you. Right?
Grad D: OK.
Grad B: Because this was laughingly easy, right?
Grad D: Actually I had to take out a lot of the complicated stuff, cuz I {disfmarker} I made it really complicated in the beginning, and Jerry was like, {vocalsound}" this is just too much" .
Professor F: Yeah. So, um, you could, from this, go on and say suppose there's a group of people traveling together and you wanted to plan something that somehow, with some Pareto optimal uh, {vocalsound} uh, thing for {disfmarker}
Grad A: That's good. That's definitely a job for artificial intelligence.
Professor F: uh, or {disfmarker}
Grad A: Except for humans can't really solve it either, so.
Grad B: Well that's not {disfmarker} not even something humans {disfmarker} yeah.
Professor F: Right. Right. Well that's the {disfmarker} that would {disfmarker} that would be a {disfmarker} uh, you could sell it, as a {disfmarker}
Grad A: Yeah.
Professor F: OK, eh you don't have to fight about this, just give your preferences to the {disfmarker}
Grad A: And then you can blame the computer.
Professor F: w Exactly.
Grad A: So.
Grad B: Hmm. But what does it {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} Would a pote potential result be to {disfmarker} to split up and never talk to each other again? You know.
Grad A: That should be one of them.
Grad B: Yeah.
Professor F: Yeah. Right.
Grad E: That'd be nice.
Grad A: Mmm.
Professor F: Anyway. So. So there i there are some {disfmarker} some u uh, you know, uh, elaborations of this that you could try to put in to this structure, but I don't think it's worth it now. Because we're gonna see what {disfmarker} what else uh {disfmarker} what else we're gonna do. Anyway. But uh, it's good, yeah and {disfmarker} and there were a couple other ideas of {disfmarker} of uh, things for Eva to look at in {disfmarker} in the interim.
Grad B: Good. Then, we can move on and see what Andreas has got out his sleeve. Or Andy, for that matter?
Grad C: OK. So uh, uh, well, thanks for having me here, first of all. Um, so maybe just a {disfmarker} a little background on {disfmarker} on my visit. So, uh, I'm not really involved in any project, that's uh {disfmarker} that's relevant to you uh, a at the moment, uh, the {disfmarker} the reason is really for me uh, to have an opportunity to talk to some other researchers in the field. And {disfmarker} and so I'll just n sort of give you a real quick introduction to what I'm working on, and um, I just hope that you have some comments or, maybe you're interested in it to find out more, and {disfmarker} and so I'll be uh, happy to talk to you and {disfmarker} and uh, I'd also like to find out some more and {disfmarker} and maybe I'll just walk around the office and and then {disfmarker} and ask some {disfmarker} some questions, uh, in a couple days. So I'll be here for uh, tomorrow and then uh, the remainder of uh, next week. OK, so, um, what I started looking at, uh, to begin with is just uh, content management systems uh, i i in general. So um, uh what's uh {disfmarker} Sort of the state of the art there is to um {disfmarker} uh you have a bunch of {disfmarker} of uh documents or learning units or learning objects, um, and you store meta - data uh, associate to them. So there's some international standards like the I - triple - E, uh {disfmarker} There's an I - triple - E, LON standard, and um, these fields are pretty straightforward, you have uh author information, you have uh, size information, format information and so on. Uh, but they're two uh fields that are um, more interesting. One is uh you store keywords associated with the uh {disfmarker} with the document, and one is uh, you have sort of a, um, well, what is the document about? So it's some sort of taxonomic uh, ordering of {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} of the units. Now, if you sort of put on your semantic glasses, uh you say, well that's not all that easy, because there's an implicit um, uh, assumption behind that is that uh, all the users of this system share the same interpretation of the keyword and the same interpretation of uh, whichever taxonomy is used, and uh, I think that's a {disfmarker} that's a very {disfmarker} that's a key point of these systems and they sort of always brush over this real quickly without really elaborating much of that and uh {disfmarker} As a matter of fact, the only thing that m apparently really works out so far are library ordering codes, which are very, very coarse grain, so you have some like, science, biology, and then {disfmarker} But that's really all that we have at the moment. So I think there's a huge, um, uh need for improvement there. Now, what this uh {disfmarker} a standard like this would give us is we could um, sort of uh with a search engine just query uh, different repositories all over the world. But we can't really {disfmarker} Um, so what I'm {disfmarker} what I try to do is um, to have um, uh {disfmarker} So. So the scenario is the following, you you're working on some sort of project and you encounter a certain problem. Now, what {disfmarker} what we have at our university quite a bit is that uh, students um, try to u program a certain assignment, for example, they always run into the same problems, uh, and they always come running to us, and they'll say why's it not {disfmarker} it's not working, and we always give out the same answer, so we thought, well, it'd be nice to have a system that could sort of take care of this, and so, what I want to build is basically a {disfmarker} a smart F A Q system. Now, what you uh need to do here is you need to provide some context information which is more elaborate than" I'm looking for this and this and this keyword." So. And I think that I don't need to tell you this. I'm {disfmarker} I'm sure you have the same {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when somebody utters a sentence in a certain, uh, context it, and {disfmarker} and the same sentence in another context makes a huge difference. So, I want to be able to model information like, um, so in the {disfmarker} in the context of {disfmarker} in the context of developing distributed systems, of a at a computer science school, um, what kind of software is the person using, which homework assignment is he or she working on at the moment, um, maybe what's the background of that student's um, which um, which error message was encountered. So this sort of information I think should be transmitted, uh, when a certain document is retrieved. Now, um, basically giving this um {disfmarker} Uh so we somehow need to have a formalized um, way of writing this down basically, and that's where the shared interpretation of {disfmarker} of certain terms and keywords comes in again. And, using this and some {disfmarker} some uh, knowledge about the domain I think you can do some {disfmarker} some simple inferences. Like you know that when somebody's working about {disfmarker} uh, working on {disfmarker} on servlets for example, he's using Java, cuz servlets are used {disfmarker} are written in Java. So some {disfmarker} some inferences like that, now, um, u using this you can infer more information, and you could then match this to the meta - data of um {disfmarker} off the documents you're {disfmarker} you're searching against. So, uh what I wanna do is basically have some sort of um {disfmarker} given these inputs, and then I can compute how many documents match, and use this as a metric in the search. Now, what I plan to do is I want to uh sort of do a uh {disfmarker} uh {pause} try to improve the quality of the search results, and I want to do this by having a depth uh, um, um {disfmarker} steepest descent approach. So if I knew which operating system the person was working on, would this improve my search result? And {disfmarker} and having uh, uh a symbolic formalized model of this I could simply compute that, and find out which um {disfmarker} which questions are worth um, asking. And that's what I then propagate back to the user, and {disfmarker} and sort of try to optimize the search in this way. Now, the big problem that I'm facing right now is um, it's fairly easy to hack up a system uh quickly, that {disfmarker} that works in the small domain, but the problem is obviously the scalability. And uh uh, so Robert was mentioning uh, earlier today is that uh, Microsoft for example with their printer set up program has a Bayesian network, which does exactly this, but there you face a problem that these are very hard to extend. And so, uh what I'm {disfmarker} What I try to do is basically try to model this uh, in a way that you could really combine uh, knowledge from very different sources, and {disfmarker} and um, sort of looking into some of the ideas that the semantic web community uh, came up with. Trying to {disfmarker} to have uh, an approach how to integrate s uh certain uh {disfmarker} representation of certain concepts and also some computational rules, um, what you can do with those. Um. What I'm also looking into is a probabilistic approach into this because document retrievals is a very fuzzy procedure, so it's probably not that easy to simply have a symbolic uh, computational model. That {disfmarker} that probably isn't expressive enough. So. So that's another thing, um, which I think you're also uh, uh looking into right now. And then um, uh sort of as an add - on to this whole idea, um, uh that would be now, depending on what the search engine or the content repository {disfmarker} depending on which {disfmarker} um, uh, which uh, rules and which ontologies it {disfmarker} it uses, or basically its view of the world, uh you can get very different results. So it might ma make a lot of sense to actually query a lot of different search engines. And there you could have an idea where you actually have sort of a {disfmarker} a peer to peer approach, where we're all sort of carrying around our individual bookshelves, and um, if you have a question about a homework, it's {disfmarker} probably makes sense to ask somebody who's in your class with you, sort of the guru in the certain area, rather than going to some Yahoo - like uh, search engine. So these are some of the {disfmarker} just in a nutshell, some of the ideas. And I think a lot of the {disfmarker} even though it's a {disfmarker} it's a very different domain, but I think a lot of the, um, issues are {disfmarker} are fairly similar. So. OK.
Grad A: And so some of the {disfmarker} I don't know how much you know about the larger Heidelberg project, I {disfmarker} Are you {disfmarker}
Grad C: Uh I know, yeah I know abou about it.
Grad A: So it seems like a lot of {disfmarker} some of the issues are the same. It's like, um, you know, the c context - based factors that influence how you interpret,
Grad C: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
Grad A: um, s how to interpret. In {disfmarker} in this case, infer in in knowing {disfmarker} wanting to know what kinds of things to ask. We - we've kind of talked about that, but we haven't worried too much about that end of the discourse.
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Grad A: But maybe you guys had that in the previous models.
Grad B: Well, in a {disfmarker} in one {disfmarker} t one s mmm, small difference in a {disfmarker} in a way, is that he doesn't have to come up with an answer, but he wants to point to the places w w
Grad A: Documents that have the answers.
Grad C: Yeah, so. So I'm {disfmarker} I'm not {disfmarker} I'm not building an expert {disfmarker}
Grad A: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: Uh, I want to build a smart librarian, basically
Grad A: Right. Right.
Grad C: that can point you to the right reference. I don't wanna compute the answer, so it's a little bit easier for me.
Grad B: Well. Uh, you have to s still m understand what the content says about itself, and then match it to what you think the informational needs {disfmarker}
Grad A: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: Mm - hmm.
Grad A: So you also don't have to figure out what the content is. You're just taking the keywords as a topic text, as {disfmarker}
Grad C: I {disfmarker} I assume that {disfmarker} that the there will be learning systems that {disfmarker} that tag their {disfmarker} their content.
Grad A: OK. Right.
Grad C: And um, um, m @ @ and basically what I {disfmarker} what I envision is that you {disfmarker} rather than just supplying a bunch of keywords you could basically {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for an FAQ for example you could state sort of like a logic condition, when this document applies. So" this document explains how to set up your uh, mail account on Linux" or something like this.
Grad A: Mm - hmm.
Grad C: So. So something {disfmarker} something very specific that you can then {disfmarker} But the {disfmarker} I think that the key point with these uh, learning systems is that uh, a learning system is only as good as uh the amount of content it {disfmarker} it carries.
Grad A: Mmm, mm - hmm.
Grad C: You can have the best learning system with the best search interface, if there's no content inside of it, it's not very useful. So I think ultimately because um, uh developing these {disfmarker} these rules and these inference uh {disfmarker} inferences I think is very costly, so um, uh I think you must be able to reuse some {disfmarker} some existing um, domain {disfmarker} domain information, or {disfmarker} or {disfmarker} or ontologies that {disfmarker} that uh other people wrote and then try to integrate them, and then also search the entire web basically, rather than just the small uh, content management system.
Grad A: OK. Mm - hmm.
Grad C: So I think that's {disfmarker} that's crucial for {disfmarker} for the success of {disfmarker} or @ @ {disfmarker}
Grad A: So, you're not {disfmarker} I guess I'm trying to figure out how {disfmarker} how it maps to the kinds of things that we've talked about in this group, and, actually associated groups,
Grad C: Mm - hmm.
Grad A: cuz some of us do pretty detailed linguistic analyses, and I'm guessing that you {disfmarker} you won't be doing that? OK.
Grad C: No.
Grad A: Just checking. So, {vocalsound} OK.
Grad B: Hmm.
Grad C: No.
Grad A: So, you take the query, and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker}
Professor F: On the other hand, uh, FrameNet could well be useful. So do you know the FrameNet story?
Grad C: Um, yeah. Uh, not {disfmarker} not too much,
Professor F: OK.
Grad C: but uh,
Professor F: Oh. Th - that's another thing you might wanna look into while you're here.
Grad C: I have a rough overview.
Professor F: Because, um, you know, the standard story is that keyworks {disfmarker} keywords evoke frames, and the frames may well give you additional keywords or uh, if you know that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that a {disfmarker} a bunch of keywords uh, indicate a frame, then you can find documents that actually have the whole frame, rather th than just uh, individual {disfmarker}
Grad C: Mmm. Mmm.
Professor F: So there's a lot of stuff, and people are looking at that. Most of the work here is just trying to get the frames right. There's linguists and stuff and there's a lot of it and they're {disfmarker} they're busily working away. But there are some application efforts trying to exploit it. And this looks t it seems to be that this is a place where you might be able to do that.
Grad C: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure I could learn a lot about um, yeah, just how to {disfmarker} how to come up with these structures,
Grad A: Mmm.
Grad C: cuz it's {disfmarker} it's very easy to whip up something quickly, but it maybe then makes sense to {disfmarker} to me, but not to anybody else, and {disfmarker} and if we want to share and integrate things, they must {disfmarker} well, they must be well designed really.
Grad B: Remember the uh, Prashant story?
Professor F: Right.
Grad B: The absolutely no {disfmarker} no linguistic background person that the IU sent over here.
Professor F: Right.
Grad B: And Andreas and I tried to come up wi or we had come up actually with a eh {disfmarker} with him working on an interface for FrameNet, as it was back then, that would p do some of the work for this machine,
Professor F: Right. Yeah.
Grad B: which uh, never got done because Prashant found a happy occupation
Professor F: W yeah, I know, I mean it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} w he did w what {disfmarker} what he did was much more s sensible for him.
Grad B: which in the {disfmarker} Absolutely. Yeah.
Professor F: I think uh,
Grad B: But so {disfmarker} I'm just saying, the uh, we had that idea
Professor F: you know {disfmarker} Yeah. The idea was there. Yeah, OK.
Grad B: uh to {disfmarker} to exploit FrameNet there as well.
Professor F: Yeah.
Grad A: Hmm.
Grad B: And um.
Professor F: Yeah, actually you guys never {disfmarker}
Grad B: And Srini's doing information extraction also, right?
Professor F: Right.
Grad B: with that FrameNet base.
Grad C: Mmm.
Professor F: Yeah.
Grad B: Mm - hmm.
Professor F: So you {disfmarker} you guys never sent anybody else from I U.
Grad C: Except {disfmarker} except Prashant?
Professor F: You were y no {disfmarker} Yeah.
Grad C: Um,
Professor F: Uh, this was supposedly an exchange program, and {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} you know, it's fine. We don't care, but it just {disfmarker} I'm a little surprised that uh, Andreas didn't come up with anyone else he wanted to send.
Grad A: Hmm.
Grad C: Uh I don't know, I mean the uh {disfmarker}
Professor F: Alright. I mean I had forgotten a I {disfmarker} To be honest with you, I'd totally forgotten we had a program.
Grad B: Uh it's in the program?
Grad C: Uh I {disfmarker} I think it's {disfmarker} it's really the lack of students uh, at IU at the moment.
Professor F: Yeah. Yeah. No, no. There was a whole co There was a little contract signed. It was {disfmarker} Yeah.
Grad C: Yeah, yeah. I think it's ju it's more the lack of {disfmarker} of students, really, and w we have all these sponsors that are always sort of eager to get some teams.
Professor F: Yeah, I know.
Grad A: Mmm.
Professor F: Right.
Grad C: But {disfmarker}
Professor F: Right.
Grad C: Well I mean if {disfmarker} if I were a student, I'd love to come here, rather than work for some German {vocalsound} {nonvocalsound} company, or {disfmarker}
Professor F: Yeah. Right.
Grad B: You are being recorded right now, so beware.
Professor F: Oh, right!
Grad C: Well, I didn't say anybody to {disfmarker} anything to offend {disfmarker} well, except for the sponsors maybe, but {disfmarker}
Professor F: Right. Anyway. Right. So I thi tha that's {disfmarker} that's one of the things that might be worth looking into while you're here.
Grad C: Mm - hmm.
Professor F: Uh, unfortunately, Srini, who is heavily involved in DAML and all this sort of stuff is himself out of town.
Grad C: Mm - hmm. Well I'll go to the uh, Semantic Web Workshop, uh, in two weeks.
Professor F: Right, and {disfmarker} Yeah, for {disfmarker} for some reason he's not doing that.
Grad A: Yeah. Well, he had other things to do.
Professor F: I don't know why he @ @ {disfmarker} oh, I, who knows?
Grad A: The uh {disfmarker}
Professor F: Anyway, s yeah, you'll see {disfmarker} you'll certainly see a lot of the people there.
Grad A: The other person I thought of is Dan Gildea? because he did some work on topic spotting
Professor F: Yeah. St - statistical stuff. That would be a very good idea.
Grad A: w um, which is, I mean, you {disfmarker} I mean. I don't {disfmarker} Depending on how well you wanna integrate with that end,
Grad C: Mm - hmm.
Grad A: you know, like, taking the data and fig you said the learning systems that figure out {disfmarker} We {disfmarker} There's someone in ICSI who actually has been working on {disfmarker} has worked on that kinda stuff, and he's worked with frame net, so you could talk to him about, you know, both of those things at once.
Grad C: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
Grad A: So. And he just finished writing a draft of his thesis. So. I u {vocalsound} Dan Gildea, GILDEA.
Grad C: So, uh, who is that again?
Grad A: And, he's in one of the rooms on the fifth floor and stuff,
Grad B: Who? I can take you to his office.
Grad A: and {disfmarker}
Grad B: It's just around the corner.
Grad C: OK, great.
Grad A: Hmm. Well, if you fal solve the problem, {vocalsound} hope you can do one for us too.
Professor F: Alright, was there anything else for this? One of these times soon we're gonna hear about construal.
Grad B: Yeah. I'm sure. I have um {disfmarker} I think it was November two thousand three or some {disfmarker} No. Wh - I had something in my calendar.
Professor F: Oh, OK. Right.
Grad B: Um,
Grad E: Wait a second. That's a long way away.
Professor F: Good thinking!
Grad B: Uh well, maybe I can {disfmarker} I can bribe my way out of this. So. So I did some double checking and it seems like spring break in two thousand {vocalsound} one.
Grad A: Talk about changing the topic.
Grad B: No.
Professor F: Well, no, but he's {disfmarker} he's {disfmarker} he's {disfmarker} he's {disfmarker} as you said, he's, like the state legislature, he's trying to offer us bribes.
Grad A: At least this is a private meeting. Right, exactly, OK, that's the link.
Grad B: This uh {disfmarker} Oh, they refused the budget again? Is it {disfmarker} so about CITRIS? Yeah, still nothing.
Professor F: Uh, this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} this {disfmarker} t the s we're, uh, involved in a literally three hundred million dollar uh, program. Uh, with the State of California. And, the State of California is now a month and a half behind its legis its legally required date to approve a budget. So the budget has not been approved. And two days ago {disfmarker} There's two l you know, so, two branches of legislature. One branch approved it,
Grad C: Mm - hmm.
Professor F: and, um, yesterdayday {comment} there was this uh {disfmarker} uh I thought that the other branch would just approve it, but now there's actually a little back sliding to people who {disfmarker} who approved it got flak from there, eh anyway. So, um {disfmarker} Oh! I have to tell you a wonderful story about this, OK? And then we'll go. So, I {disfmarker} it turns out I wound up having lunch today with a guy named Tom Kalil. KILL {disfmarker} KALIL. And, uh, he now works at Berkeley. In fact he's hired to run a lot of CITRIS, even though we don't have the money they {disfmarker} So they've been hiring people right and left, so, uh, they think the money's coming. So {disfmarker} and he was, I think, the chief staffer to Clinton on technology matters. He was in the White House, I don't remember what he was saying. A anyway, like that. And, is now doing all the politics for CITRIS, but also, has a uh, a lot of interest in uh, actually doing things for society, so digital divide and stuff like that. So that's s interesting to me but maybe not to you. But the really interesting thing was, he st he s he s said something about, you know I'm interested in things that have high social multiplier, something that is of great social value. He said," for example" , this was his only example," if you had a adult literacy program that was as good as an individual tutor, and as compelling as a video game, then that would have a huge social impact" . I said," Oh great! That's a good problem to work on." Anyway. So it was nice that uh, he's got this view, of A, that's what you should try to do, and B, uh, language would be a good way to do it.
Grad A: Mmm. Definitely.
Professor F: So that's {disfmarker} So anyway, that's the end of the story.
Grad A: But for adults and not for the children.
Professor F: This was {disfmarker} Yeah. I didn't push him on the ch on the child thing,
Grad A: Uh - huh.
Professor F: but, uh, you know, a again, if {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if you
Grad A: Oh.
Professor F: um, and this was {disfmarker} this was literacy, which actually is somewhat different problem.
Grad A: Mm - hmm.
Professor F: Maybe easier. I don't know. So this is reading, rather than teaching {disfmarker} Another project we started on, and {disfmarker} and didn't get funded for was, uh, to try to build an automatic tutoring program, for kids whose first language wasn't English. Which is like half the school population in California. Something like that,
Grad A: Mm - hmm.
Professor F: isn't it? Yeah. So, enormous problem in California, and the idea was if we're so smart about language understanding and speech understanding, couldn't we build {vocalsound} uh, programs that would be tutors for the kids. We think we could. Anyway. So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} But this is a slightly different problem,
Grad A: Mm - hmm.
Professor F: and um, I know none of us have the spare time to look at it right now, but it i it's {disfmarker} it's interesting and I may um, talk to him some more about is em somebody already doing this, and stuff like that. So anyway, that was {disfmarker} that was today's little story.
Grad E: Hmm.
Grad B: OK. So I {disfmarker} I did manage to get {disfmarker} pull my head out of the sling by sidetracking into CITRIS,
Professor F: No, no.
Grad B: but uh or {disfmarker} a temporarily putting it out of the sling
Professor F: Right.
Grad B: but, I {disfmarker} I'll volunteer to put it right back in by stating that I am n uh among some other things in the process of writing up stuff that we have been discussing at our daily meetings,
Professor F: Yeah.
Grad B: and also revising, thanks for all the comments, the c the original construal proposal. And, if I put one and one together, I may end up with a number that's greater than one and that I {disfmarker} I can potentially present once you get back.
Grad A: Greater than two?
Professor F: You're good.
Grad B: Nnn. {comment} s sometimes, you know the sum is not uh less than the {disfmarker}
Grad A: Uh, right, right.
Professor F: Right. Right. Anyway. Yeah, so {disfmarker} OK, so that'd be great, but I'd {disfmarker} I think it's {disfmarker} it's time again, right?
Grad B: Absolutely. Yeah.
Professor F: Yeah. OK.
Grad B: But um, and hopefully all sidetracking um, other things will have disappeared, soon.
Professor F: Good. Yep. Done? | The first phase of the data collection has finished. There is a new wizard for phase two, during which subjects will be given more complex scenarios. An alternative representation of the Bayes-net, it depicts context features as classes, and dependencies as relations between them. Following this, a visiting researcher presented an overview of a parallel project at the International University. It attempts to build a smart tutoring system for a computer science course. The assumption is that document searches can give more personalised results, if they take into account contextual parameters (user, situation). There were also further suggestions for meetings with ICSI researchers. | qmsum |
What did the group discuss about adding support for DVD players to the remote controls?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Hello. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {gap}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Dang it.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} And then you have to place your laptop exactly on the marked spot.
Marketing: Alright.
User Interface: {gap}
Project Manager: It's important to place your laptop exactly on the marked spot over here.
User Interface: Okay. No, that's okay. Joost, your mouse.
Marketing: What?
User Interface: No mouse needed?
Marketing: I've got a touch-pad.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: Do you know how how I can wake it up?
User Interface: A touch-pad?
Marketing: No, my laptop.
User Interface: Slap it.
Marketing: {vocalsound} You with your brilliant ideas. I don't know if I can touch the power button. Do you know how how I can wake it up?
User Interface: Is {disfmarker}
Project Manager: No. Yeah. Try the power button.
Marketing: Oh.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Come on, move it.
User Interface: Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: Now, wake up, bitch.
Project Manager: Huh.
User Interface: F_ five. F_ five {gap}.
Industrial Designer: I've lost my screen. Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, so did I.
User Interface: I don't.
Marketing: I closed it. That wasn that wasn't very smart, I guess.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Come on. Get back to me. Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I closed the {disfmarker}
Marketing: I closed it.
User Interface: You've got your name. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, my name is name.
Marketing: No, I didn't restart it, I just closed it. Yes.
User Interface: Hope it working.
Marketing: Alright.
Industrial Designer: No.
User Interface: Never close your laptop.
Project Manager: Yeah? Everybody's ready?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Great. Thanks.
Project Manager: Great. Well, welcome to the kick-off meeting. I uh forgot to put my name over here, it's uh {vocalsound} it's Martin. Uh, so you all know.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well, this is the agenda for today. Well, the opening is what I'm doing right now.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh, we gonna do some acquaintance acquaintance things. Uh give some um examples of the tool training, project plan discussion and the closing. We have twenty five minutes. Okay, the project aim is to design a new remote control.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Uh, some of the {vocalsound} oje objectives are that is has to be original, trendy, and user-friendly. So now we all know what our
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: goal is. Um, I {disfmarker} oh forget {disfmarker} I forget the whole acquaintance part, but we we all know each other. We all know each other's names. Joost, Guido, Antek.
User Interface: What is your name?
Marketing: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yes. Antek.
User Interface: Antek Ahmet. And Joost. {gap}
Project Manager: Okay. I think we uh al already uh been through that part.
User Interface: Okay. Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, it consists of uh three levels of design. Uh we begin with the functional design, then we go to the conceptual design and the detailed design. Every uh level of design consists of some individual work, and we uh close it with a meeting. You all received an email with a example of our explanation of what uh the particular level of design uh means to the different uh functions, and uh you p you probably read that already, so I don't have to tell you about that.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Yes.
Project Manager: Okay, first we're gonna um uh gonna try some different things with the tools we have over here, so you get acquainted with these uh um uh meeting tools. We have the smart-boards, uh the thes those two boards. This is the presentation boards, wh which one I'm using right now. You can uh um {disfmarker} there's a document folder called um the sh {vocalsound} shared document folder. You can upload your uh documents to that folder and then you can open them over here, so you can do your PowerPoint presentations on this screen. We also have the white-board. Uh, we're gonna skip through th
User Interface: Can we see the white-board on our laptops?
Project Manager: No, no. Just on the on the screen over there.
User Interface: No, I saw I saw the file, the smart-board that X_B_K_ but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh, no. Probably is, but I don't know if the software is on the laptop {gap}. Is is {disfmarker} if it's mainly a thing for in the meeting, so I don't think it's {disfmarker} I don't know if it's important.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: This an explanation of the smart-boards. There is a tool-bar over here. It's quite simple. You have the the pen function, eraser function. It's like a very simple uh paint application. Uh, we {disfmarker} well, we use the same file during uh the whole day, and uh you can make new sheets by uh by pu puttin pressing on the blank button. It works like this. Oh. {vocalsound} If pen is selected, yes.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh, no no.
User Interface: With that pen?
Project Manager: It's not {disfmarker} But it is pen. It's not working like a pen yet.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Huh. Huh.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: It's doing some stuff now. So you can use a pen.
User Interface: Little bit slower.
Project Manager: You can use an eraser. And you can make new uh fi uh new blanks, and you can change uh the line width and the colour of the pen by pressing on forward, which y you have to select pen format. And then select current colour or line width. So, it's quite easy. Uh well, now you're all uh acquainted with the different tools. Right, we're gonna try out the electronic white-boards. Uh, every participant should draw his favourite animal and some of its favourite characteristics,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: on blank sheets with different colours, with different pen widths. Uh, I'll start off then. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I'll use this uh same sheet. Alright. Oh, let me think. Different colours. Oh.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well, I'm gonna draw um a p piranha. Uh, a fish.
User Interface: {vocalsound} piranha. Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. I'm gonna use some different colour {gap} now.
User Interface: Oh.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Some {disfmarker} a little white. Looks like a fish. Think it is. Oh.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh. {vocalsound} Uh, colour. This is black? I think so.
User Interface: Yellow {gap} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh. Oh, this is just uh {vocalsound} useless uh drawings but {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh teeth. I need teeth. {vocalsound} Well, they're not supposed to be green, or whatever colour this is.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Hmm.
Project Manager: Okay. What was uh {disfmarker} I have su to sum up its favourite characteris
User Interface: Different.
Project Manager: Well, I like its uh sharp {disfmarker} razor sharp teeth. {vocalsound} Plus, uh the the big uh forehead and uh a small uh, well a small actual face. And I like its overall uh aggressive look and {disfmarker} Well, that's what I like about uh piranha. I think that's kind of what uh the intention should be.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Well, who wants to be next?
Marketing: Nobody, I guess. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} I will try. Yeah. I will try. Uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: You go, Guido? Okay. Uh, make a new sheet. Uh, it's by pressing on blank.
User Interface: Blank?
Project Manager: Yep.
User Interface: Okay. Then pen again?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yep.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: And uh {disfmarker} so in the format menu you can choose the different uh colours and uh pen widths.
User Interface: Okay, um {disfmarker}
Marketing: Format.
User Interface: {gap} control. Uh {disfmarker} Ah, purple. Um, I don't know what my uh favourite uh animal is,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: but the easiest animal I can think is is a bird.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh I will {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} You know, I thought of that actually.
User Interface: That's my bird. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Yeah?
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Isn't it quite {disfmarker} it's a little bit light.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh, another colour maybe. A red one.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: A small one. Uh, line width. Two? Three. Oh that's okay. That's another one.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well, tell us something about uh your favourite characteristics of these uh particular birds.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Ano {vocalsound} Uh {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} it's a {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Its simplicity. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah, it's uh the most simple uh animal I know, I think.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Um, I don't know. Maybe because uh there's there's some s uh free uh maybe in the sky or something like that.
Project Manager: Oh, okay. Okay.
User Interface: Maybe a little bit. Yeah. I don't know.
Project Manager: Okay. No, uh it's clear.
User Interface: So {gap} more uh birds?
Project Manager: N no {vocalsound} no.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: We get your point. Okay. Who wants to be next?
User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} Okay, {vocalsound} okay, {vocalsound} okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, whatever. I'll go next.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Thanks.
User Interface: M
Marketing: I haven't got a favourite animal too, so {disfmarker}
User Interface: Pictionary. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh. {vocalsound} What should I draw?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh.
User Interface: A cow.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay.
Marketing: Thank you,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I'll draw a penguin. {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} I'll draw a penguin. Whatever. I can't draw, so you can start to laugh already.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'll do so. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Whatever. Something like that.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Come on.
User Interface: Yeah, it's little bit hard.
Marketing: Mm hmm hmm, orange.
User Interface: Orange, of course.
Marketing: Whatever.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh, {vocalsound} it's better than your bird.
User Interface: {gap} Uh yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Everything's better than your bird.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} True.
Marketing: Whatever.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Hey, it's blue. No. Whatever. Um, I like its ugliness {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: and uh {disfmarker} Yeah, whatever. The way it walks or whatever.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Your turn.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer:'Kay. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Drawing. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I'm going to draw a cat. I don't know why, but a cat is a very uh smart animal.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: And you can have them at home.
User Interface: {gap}
Industrial Designer: Which is not as the case with uh with bingwings and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well, you can have a piranha at home.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ye yes, {vocalsound} yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Huh.
Marketing: Or a line.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: A little bit. {vocalsound}
Marketing: I mean a bird. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} Don't mess with my birds, yeah.
Industrial Designer: It's not very uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} very good drawn, but you can see a cat from it. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Hmm. It's a handicapped cat.
User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} cat.
Project Manager: I don't think uh I don't think uh Darwin would agree with that. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's {gap} {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ah, it's not scared. He's crying but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {gap}. Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} He's crying because it's ugl because of his ugliness.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} What do you like about it then?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh it's i most cats are small.
Project Manager: Oh, okay.
Industrial Designer: You can handle them. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. Okay. Okay,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and then we are uh through the tool training, I guess.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I wouldn't call it training, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay, this is uh something about the project finance. The selling price of our remote control is gonna be twenty five Euros. And our profit aim is fifteen million Euros. We're very ambitious on this one. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: The market range is international, so it's gonna be sold world-wide, and the production cost should be a maximum of twelve Euro fifty per remote control. So that's clear. {gap} {disfmarker} Yeah?
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Alright.
Project Manager: Okay, we're now gonna discuss some stuff when {disfmarker} well, we're gonna brainstorm about uh what kind of kemoro romo remote control it's gonna be. Uh, well tell me about your experiences with the remote controls. Do you have uh {disfmarker} know what good experiences with remote controls? Or do they annoy you sometimes?
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Project Manager: Are they difficult to understand, or maybe they don't interact with different kind of uh equipment very well?
User Interface: Hmm.
Marketing: I don't th I don't think the four of us got problems with remote controls,
Project Manager: Yeah, okay.
Marketing: but if you see elderly people, all these buttons, and then they buy new T_V_ because their previous one was stolen or whatever.
User Interface: Different.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: And then a totally different remote control with with different functions on different places, and half of the functions a are removed, or whatever. Uh, so I think what we need is is a clear uh remote control with uh grouped buttons, you know. All th all the buttons which apply to the text functions in in one uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Different functions of of uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Well, one area or whatever, not like the button to enter text on top of the remote control and the button to um, yeah, to minimise it to this this {vocalsound} {disfmarker} or whatever o o other functions {vocalsound} totally somewhere else.
Project Manager: Okay. Yeah.
Marketing: I think we should group them.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: And same for the for the volume buttons and the the t
Project Manager: And uh, is it gonna be a remote control that's um {disfmarker} what it can be used for different kind of equipment, like your T_V_ and your home stereo?
Marketing: Well I was I was thinking uh since a T_V_ is uh mostly used together with a V_C_R_ or D_V_D_ player or recorder, and not with a stereo, I think it should be good to include functions for V_C_R_s and D_V_D_ players, recorders.
Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But uh, the D_V_D_ players and home cinema sets often double as stereo hi-fi sets probably.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: It's what, from my experience.
User Interface: But isn't it {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: I don't know. Hi-fi set is uh not often used uh as I know of in combination with television.
Project Manager: Okay. But we gonna {disfmarker}
User Interface: It's only for television, I thought. Not {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes.
Project Manager: Oh, it is only for televis
User Interface: {gap} I thought it was only for television. So so we probably don't have to have to uh have the functions for D_V_D_ player or V_C_R_.
Marketing: Yes, it is only for television, but uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So wha what {disfmarker} What wha {vocalsound} what uh what document {disfmarker}
Marketing: Well {disfmarker} well we we're gonna brainstorm about that. If we think it's useful, we do it.
Project Manager: But, where where did it uh {disfmarker} Where did you find that?
User Interface: Uh, in the email.
Project Manager: Oh, okay.
User Interface: I thought it said uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: That's right. It's a television remote control.
User Interface: Yeah, television remote control.
Industrial Designer: Yes, {gap} {disfmarker}
Marketing: But I was thinking since it is useful with D_V_D_ {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, but most television remote controls support other functions as well. So we can {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yes, that's uh something extras.
Project Manager: No, we have to think about that.
User Interface: True. Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, uh but uh we've gonna put some a uh is is it so user-friendliness, is a is a pri priority in this case, or {disfmarker}
User Interface: True.
Marketing: Yep.
User Interface: Yeah, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, also no one's gonna buy it.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah. True.
Industrial Designer: Only the experts. {vocalsound}
Marketing: I guess.
Project Manager: Well, this the maybe is uh some aspect of the {disfmarker} uh, or or some point at at which we can excel by making it very useful.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: That w Well, then you're you're the usability uh man, so this uh gonna be a very important task for you then.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh my God. Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. Well, other ideas? How can we make it trendy or something? Do uh by just sh shape and the look of it?
Industrial Designer: Uh, to go with to go with fashion and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Maybe a can opener underneath it?
User Interface: {vocalsound} For the bear. Uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I don't know. Or someth something special, like uh M_P_ three player inside of it, or uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: I I uh, no I think it {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh, well then the production costs are gonna be too high probably.
User Interface: Uh, I th I think yo we have to keep it simple, to get a whole market.
Marketing: Yeah, way too high. Yep.
Project Manager: Okay. Maybe with different type of fronts or uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: It's international, so we have to use a standard.
Project Manager: Well, m has to be something {vocalsound} spectacular or uh one which makes it {disfmarker}
Marketing: Well that's an idea of course, yeah.
Project Manager: We gonna skip back to the goals probably. Uh,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: original, trendly, and user-friendly {disfmarker} Well, we al also already talked about user-friendliness.
User Interface: Hmm.
Project Manager: No, well something trendy and original, well that that goes hand in hand I guess. When something is original, it tends to be trendy, probably,
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: or we should make it combination of that.'Kay, so you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} the um technical part of the process is something you're gonna look after for, so you have to think about what kind of uh equipment you want to uh, you know, you want to manage with it. Well, and that's an important part for you then, with gogors regards to the user-friendly part of it.
User Interface: Use friendly. Yep.
Project Manager: Well, and you uh should look out for what makes it trendy. {vocalsound} Well, you know, y like some special feature. Or some {disfmarker} {gap} Does it does it gets some gadgetness or something.
Marketing: Yeah. Yes, what the market wishes.
Project Manager: Okay. Well, the closing. Next meeting starts in thirty minutes. Individual, I think so. The the Industrial Designer will w or the working design, of course, we will uh {disfmarker} Already s said that. The User Interface Designer {vocalsound} {disfmarker} is it a User Inter User Interface {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Interface d
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: the technical functions design. And the Management Expert of uh {disfmarker} the Marketing Expert. User requirements specifi Well, this one was already clear to us. Specific instructions will be sent to you by your personal coach. I don't know how much time we have left.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh, not many I guess. We started at twelve.
Marketing: You just got a message.
Project Manager: Oh, and what does it said?
Marketing: And it said uh five minutes, so we got four and a half.
User Interface: Oh, I don't {disfmarker}
Project Manager: W Okay, well um {disfmarker}
User Interface: I didn't get a message.
Marketing: No. He's the whatever.
User Interface: Oh, the Project Manager.
Industrial Designer: Team Leader. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No, we're uh ahead of schedule then.
Marketing: Team Leader. {vocalsound} He is the whatever. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, close it. I'm gonna make some minutes or take some minutes. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes.
Project Manager: And uh it's it's clear you can put the stuff in the project documents presentations.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: You can all {disfmarker} Or we're all uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Project joc project documents is for showing uh on the white-board.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah, but we're all familiar with uh uh Microsoft PowerPoint, are we?
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yes.
Project Manager: I'm gonna wri uh write some stuff down
Marketing: Alright.
Project Manager: and then we're ready.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Or we can leave already {gap} I guess.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: {gap} or uh or sh or should we uh {disfmarker} or is important that we leave at exact uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: No.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: No. I don't think so.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I don't think {disfmarker} Oh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yes?
Project Manager: Yes.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Oh.
Marketing: Great.
Project Manager: We'll see each other in uh thirty minutes.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Good luck.
Project Manager: Yeah, good luck.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I will need it. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I will need it. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} | Project Manager suggested designing a remote control useful for multiple devices such as TV and home stereo. Marketing disagreed by pointing out that TV was mostly used with VCR or DVD player or recorders, functions for which should be included, rather than with a stereo. Against this point, Project Manager argued that DVD players and home cinema sets usually doubled as stereo hi-fi sets. The discussion took a turn when the User interface disagreed and suggested designing a remote control only for televisions. Project Manager insisted on including other functions as most remote controls did and everyone was on board in the end. | qmsum |
Summarize the discussion about Industrial Designer's presentation on technical design.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Okay everyone's ready.
User Interface: Hello.
Project Manager: So we are here for uh for uh functional design.
User Interface: {gap}
Project Manager: Okay? So we are here for the functional design meeting mm {vocalsound} so first I will show the agenda so we will uh I will take notes during this meeting so I will try to summarise it and put that summary in the shared folder if you want to look at it afterwards
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: so then uh each of you will uh lead a presentation on the task that has been required last time so user requirement specification, technical function design and working design. Then I will uh present you some new project requirements I received from uh the management board. Then we will take uh the decision on on the remote control uh needed functions and then I will assign you the task for the next part of the meeting. Of the {disfmarker} of the process. So uh who want to start the the presentation of what they did?
Industrial Designer: F do you want to start?
User Interface: Make a start yeah.
Project Manager: You can start.
User Interface: So. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Cable, camera.
Project Manager: You have uh PowerPoint?
User Interface: Should be in my {disfmarker} in their folder no?
Project Manager: Ah yeah maybe there. Okay.
User Interface: Up.
Project Manager: Who are you? {vocalsound}
User Interface: Um at three I think.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: No? {vocalsound} Mm.
Project Manager: Ouch. And {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: We have a technical problem uh.
User Interface: Do we think w s in the {disfmarker} in the wrong folder maybe? {vocalsound} It is possible.
Project Manager: You put it on {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: No.
User Interface: It was somewhere in something like this. I don't remember the name actually must be something like messenger AMI or something.
Industrial Designer: What do you have in short cut?
User Interface: Go up.
Industrial Designer: Participant two.
User Interface: Yeah go up.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Again. No. Go back.
Project Manager: You have no {disfmarker}
User Interface: Uh maybe messenger AMI. Messenger.
Project Manager: Over. Okay.
User Interface: No. There is nothing.
Project Manager: There's no {disfmarker} We have a technical problem.
User Interface: Let's go and check.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: I'll go and check.
Industrial Designer: Otherwise, could you just describe by hand?
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: With the the whiteboard?
Project Manager: If you remember yeah
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: but that's {disfmarker}
User Interface: So uh. Basically {vocalsound} what we want here is a remote control right.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} So um the question well first of all what to control. So {vocalsound} most people want to have a a remote for their hi-fi and T_V_ and stuff like that.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And {disfmarker} but other people want th also remotes for {vocalsound} controlling uh and toys like robotic pets and little robots and stuff
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: and other people also want to have remotes for controlling um whole house.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah, so there's a project I think called X_ house or something like that that does that, uh you can integrate your remote with uh computers stuff. So {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: there is one {disfmarker} that is one thing. The other is the the finder feature yeah by whistling or whatever. Uh if you have the finder feature then you can also have
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: uh at the same time as {disfmarker} and general voice commands if you want yeah. {vocalsound} So I think it should be a package in that case.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Uh so the user interface will consist of two parts. {vocalsound} One is the voice command part and on one is the actual buttons part. {vocalsound} Uh and th the buttons part would be uh a set of buttons for choosing devices, a set of buttons for special navigation in space,
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: a set of buttons for {vocalsound} linear access of medium and a set of buttons for random access.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah?
Industrial Designer: What do you mean by linear access then?
User Interface: Like a video tape goes forward, backwards, uh fast and stuff yeah.
Industrial Designer: Ah.
Project Manager: Okay so special navigation, linear access, random access
User Interface: Um.
Project Manager: and there's a fourth one no?
User Interface: Mm?
Project Manager: So the better now for special navigation?
User Interface: Yeah. For special navigation for example you might have a T_V_ in the menu and you going to change yeah?
Project Manager: Okay. Then linear access
User Interface: Uh.
Project Manager: then random access.
User Interface: Mm. Yeah and also parameter changing.
Project Manager: Ah yeah parameter okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} So if there are common parameters maybe we should put special buttons for that um
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: or maybe we could have everything uh generic but uh there are a lot of uh remotes on the market right now and {vocalsound} basically this is most of the {disfmarker} almost everybody has this stuff.
Project Manager: Okay. Okay and and voice command did you uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Voice command w we could specify anything. We could assign any button {disfmarker} a command to any button, if we have enough processing power,
Project Manager: Okay. Okay.
User Interface: I guess so. {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: So that's uh that close your investigations?
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Uh yeah I think so.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Not so far.
Project Manager: Maybe we can have a look at the user requirements with {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Um I dunno if you can open the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I dunno if I can open it. Maybe you can s
Marketing: uh m is not here.
Project Manager: It's {disfmarker}
Marketing: Uh in {disfmarker} yeah okay.
Project Manager: Messenger no?
Marketing: No. In document {gap}. Mm computer yeah.
Project Manager: In which folder?
User Interface: Where did you put it?
Marketing: Here. Here.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Short-cut to AMI shared folder?
User Interface: {gap} mm.
Marketing: But it's not {disfmarker} Um.
Project Manager: Maybe you can send it to me by email. Just to participant one. At AMI.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I can do that.
Project Manager: I will try to show it to everyone, that would be more comfortable.
Marketing: Okay. Um.
Project Manager: You send it?
Marketing: {vocalsound} It's participant one?
Project Manager: Yeah. Uh this is this email.
User Interface: I'm designing the user interface. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay. You can uh.
Project Manager: Okay. So maybe I can switch slides when you {disfmarker} whenever you ask,
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: that will be more convenient. So okay, functional requirements.
Marketing: Okay so you can {disfmarker} you can go. Okay so {vocalsound} in our usability lab we observed the remote control use among one hundred subjects
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: and the subjects also filled a questionnaire
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: okay? And here I have the results so you can see that um seventy five per cent of users find most remote controls ugly so we have to find something to make them more {vocalsound} more nice, more kind. Eighty per cents of users would spend more money when the remote control would look fancy. {vocalsound} Eighty hundred per cent of users would spend more money when the remote control would look {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: oh {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} it's not good. {vocalsound} So okay.
Project Manager: We can just keep doing that?
Marketing: So it's not in theory {disfmarker} but I I can I can say yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Fifty f uh seventy five per cent of users say they s zap a lot. So mm {vocalsound} we have to have a remote control uh very um {vocalsound} out for that. {vocalsound} Uh the buttons have {disfmarker} are to be um uh uh like you say resist resisting to to shocks.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um and fifty per cents of users say they only use uh {vocalsound} ten per cents of but of the buttons in the {disfmarker} in the remote control.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: So all the buttons we we have to put are {disfmarker} have to to have um a use a real use
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: and not only or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay, so fewer buttons maybe would be good?
Marketing: Yeah. F not many buttons, and uh and uh uh u useable buttons {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: But what kind of remote controls did you look at?
Marketing: Sorry?
User Interface: What kind of task was it? It was a T_V_?
Marketing: Yeah. Uh {vocalsound} most for most is T_V_.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah but in fact we {disfmarker} it it seems that we are going to make a T_V_ remote control according to new requirements I received from the management
User Interface: Huh.
Project Manager: bo I will present them in the following.
User Interface: Uh-huh. Ah! Good.
Marketing: {vocalsound}'Kay you can go so.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: So there are other frustrations expressed by users, so they said uh they lost uh often the remote control in in the room so they want to have a way to {vocalsound} to
Project Manager: Yeah. To find it.
Marketing: to find it.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Um and um lot of the time they {disfmarker} it takes too much time to learn how to use a new remote control.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: So they want something s really very simple and uh easy to use.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: And uh remote controls are bad for
Project Manager: What is her other side?
Marketing: R_S_I_ {vocalsound} um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Other side yeah, yo wa your wrist
Marketing: I dunno.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: It i can become painful you can have tendonditis.
Project Manager: Oh yeah?
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: I did not knew that.
User Interface: If you also {gap} up on a computer in a strange position.
Project Manager: Okay so you {disfmarker} we have to make it uh more ergonomic yeah.
User Interface: Ergonomic. But uh {vocalsound}.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Have to say ha ha. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's your job {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh.
Project Manager: Uh sorry {vocalsound} got a message from Microsoft. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay um before that I I have some some {vocalsound} some thing {vocalsound} uh to say before um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} We know that uh the user use uh a lot their um remote control um to to change channel.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um and um to to change uh volume selection of the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: and uh and not uh a lot for setting {disfmarker} for setting the the channels and uh thing things like that.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So it's better to put uh uh uh something very easy to set and uh and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. This function should be very uh accessible.
Marketing: Very accessible yes.
Project Manager: Yeah, okay. This is the main function okay.
Marketing: That's right. {vocalsound} So then we asked some questions to them
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: and um we asked this question if they prefer an L_C_D_ screen or on their remultific function remotes control
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: and if they mm pay more for speech recognition in remote control
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: and you can go {vocalsound} we have here the results of
User Interface: The first question.
Marketing: of the questions. So you know that um
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} for the younger it's very important
Project Manager: To have L_C_D_ and voice.
Marketing: to have the s yes and speech recognition. And uh and the others is not so important but uh we know that uh uh people between fifteen and twenty five are people who watch a lot T_V_ and uh who who wh can use a lot this uh.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: So maybe we we can have a speech recognition in.
Project Manager: Yeah maybe this this is important.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Moreover th maybe those uh like those teenager customer could advice their parents to buy this equipment and so we can {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: we have to take care of that point of view I think or so.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay and if there is th the conclusion now. So as we say before, I think uh um a remote control lightening in the dark it's it's a good thing.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Uh not to many mud buttons like we we said before,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: e easy to use uh a way to find it easily in the room and uh uh resistant to to shock and to to {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} An I s no, yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay these are the user requi
Marketing: {vocalsound} I dunno if you see something else important or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I'm just thinking of some thing.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Um {disfmarker} We want to have a {disfmarker} no, I don't know if this is a good idea. We want to have a a general remote control for everything.
Project Manager: No no no. We {disfmarker} w it seems that we no want to have a T_V_ remote control. From the management board I receive an email.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Yeah.
Project Manager: Cos it would be costly uh and and also it it would take more time to develop to have a a general generic remote control.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Mm {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} it's not true I think. The the second claim that you put.
Industrial Designer: No no. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: That it would be too long to develop.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I think that should be the same.
Project Manager: Oh yeah. Because I received that email from management board and they seems to tell that that if we want to be on the market as early as possible we should uh focus on T_V_ more where it seems that the market is more important. So maybe it's a good decision. I dunno. What's your opinion?
User Interface: I have uh I've no idea I mean I should know a bit more about how fast we can uh design it.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I don't think {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh yeah.
Industrial Designer: Finish tonight.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} But basically yeah maybe I can continue with my presentation, it would be al you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: but I think we have some technical problem or so. So I'm just going to describe briefly what we do in the remote control.
Project Manager: Maybe you can go to the whiteboard if you have some drawings to do
Industrial Designer: If fact {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I don't know.
Industrial Designer: Yeah but {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Do I have {disfmarker} oh yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Now I have enough cables.
User Interface: Like a {disfmarker} you feel a bit like a dog with this stuff.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay so I'm just going to describe {disfmarker} in fact for for a remote control this is quite easy. We just have {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: sorry, I'm going {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Are you okay? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Like that. I'm just going to describe. Basically we have a a battery a power supply here. After that we just have um user interface. Let's say that um something like that, which could be um a L_C_D_ let's say or um an array of push button, something like that. Push button or a L_C_D_. After that we we feed that into um uh an electronic chip. So I say U_C_ and I feed that to uh L_E_D_ which is uh infrared {disfmarker} um which is a an infrared um component. And so what we {disfmarker} for for myself this {disfmarker} for for us this is quite easy.
Project Manager: U_C_ is the central unit?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay yeah.
Industrial Designer: Y it's a {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} this just a chip which does all the um numerical
Project Manager: Computation.
Industrial Designer: numerical computation according to your display.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: And so for us uh this is quite easy. We just need to take {disfmarker} to define what we want to do when the user interface um wants something and after that we just do the coding to s and send that to to to the {disfmarker} not the {disfmarker} to the television.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: So for us this is quite easy.
Project Manager: Okay so this is quite easy. There is not that much constraints.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Um we just have to define the processing power that we need uh especially if we want to do some uh speech recognition, in that case that mean that we are going to use more for simple {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} This will {disfmarker} think this will take more time to develop also.
Industrial Designer: Yeah of course of course.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: And um but for a standard one this is really easy. It's a question of one month and so on s
User Interface: Soon.
Project Manager: To have a {disfmarker} you s you speak about with voi voice control?
Industrial Designer: No no no no,
Project Manager: Standard button one.
Industrial Designer: I say {disfmarker} yeah {disfmarker} standard uh standard remote control takes maybe uh one month to to do that.
User Interface: Yeah. So the only time problem is the sp voice recognition.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Definitely.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: So do you have any idea of how long it would take to have voice recognition now?
User Interface: {vocalsound} Ten years.
Industrial Designer: I would say {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I would say uh about eight months to have the first results.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so i it's a bit long yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. I can {disfmarker} Um.
Project Manager: One month for the standard one with button.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Even if we have a L_C_D_ display?
Industrial Designer: Yeah even. I mean that this is really standard devices now. Um eight. For uh speech recognition.
Project Manager: Okay yeah. Okay so we can take this into account. So who think it would be good to go for uh like speech recognition?
User Interface: But we don't have time to market.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah it will.
Industrial Designer: And also {disfmarker} how much uh I think
User Interface: I think we should contact management.
Industrial Designer: during the kickoff meeting you say that we we shouldn't {disfmarker} we shouldn't go up to twelve point five Euro per unit
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Euros. Yeah, yeah.
Industrial Designer: so how many units should we sell to have a {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well. Uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well each unit is is sell uh twenty five Euros.
Industrial Designer: Yeah but how many {disfmarker} yeah.
User Interface: How muc how much do you get {disfmarker} how much do you {disfmarker} if you buy one million units h no, one hundred thousand units.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Eh chips. We're gonna need chips right.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. How much will it cost for one hundred thousand?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Usually this is less tha at two dollars per chip.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Because we are {disfmarker}
User Interface: So you have any idea for a powerful one that has uh good enough for do speech recognition.
Industrial Designer: Yeah,
User Interface: Yeah? Okay.
Industrial Designer: we can {disfmarker}
User Interface: So.
Project Manager: It seems that that we want to sell like four million units from the first meeting.
User Interface: No it doesn't.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Okay. Four million. {gap}
Project Manager: Okay. Maybe we can uh we can look at the new requirement I receive from the management board and discus discuss all function we want to have.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Um I just had a question uh do you want to continue with your presenta?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah I I will continue.
Industrial Designer: Is it {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well ask your question if you want.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um you say that I don't remember by heart but thirty per cent
Marketing: Mm?
Industrial Designer: of the tested people say that's it's quite difficult to to to use the remote control.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Do they say that this is difficult but for the same reason or do they have other reason? To to {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh.
Industrial Designer: maybe to keep in mind maybe to access to that menu you should do something like that.
Marketing: Would j Uh {vocalsound} yeah w I I think they they say that it's uh difficult to learn how to use it but i when you know how to use it, it's it's okay.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay. It's not intuitive first.
Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker}
Marketing: But {disfmarker} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: But yeah maybe and what about if we design a remote control which can be configure as you want? You say that I want, I have six button {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mh-hmm. A a lot of people are uh {disfmarker} if you have the L_C_D_ screen if you can do it completely the way you want because the buttons also look the way you want them
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. But, but also it seems that {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: but it will be hard to configure I mean imagine i uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: so it's really something for the expert user. So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: I mean there are markets and markets. I think the young people are th uh are uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Christine here said uh you have a {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} uh it is yeah. {vocalsound} So for our young people uh it will be cool, they can be able to use it. Th maybe their parents will not but they will configure it. I guess. I don't know if there is study about that.
Project Manager: Yeah. Maybe it would be more complex to configure it to be simple {vocalsound} than creating a simple product.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: And there are {disfmarker} another thing is that if we make something that's simple and easy to use that's bas to use immediately that means that it will be exactly the same as everything else.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: All right?
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Otherwise, if it's different then of course everybody has {disfmarker} somebody has to learn to use it first.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: But also we we see that that most people find it {disfmarker} find remote controls too complex because they have too many buttons and they mainly use only channels and volume buttons.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: So we may just uh make a very easy to use remote control with mainly those buttons
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: and maybe also um some lightning stuff too because most people find also hard to to find the remote control. Losed lose it etcetera.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: These {disfmarker} these are {disfmarker} these two points are the main frustrations so maybe if we design something very simple and easy to uh find when lost it will uh add uh a serious competitive advantage without making something too complex and too long to develop.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So but le let us see first the new requirement. So we don't have to {disfmarker} so this this uh is uh is um in the this is in the same direction as we were speaking so we don't have to make a very complex remote controls to access teletext and stuff like that {disfmarker}
User Interface: But teletext is just one button.
Project Manager: Yeah but then you have to {disfmarker} you have to define the buttons to surf amongst pages and stuff.
User Interface: You you just write the {disfmarker} write the numbers.
Project Manager: Yeah. So well {disfmarker}
User Interface: So will you add with the channel keys, right?
Project Manager: Yeah. So anyway we don't have to include this feature because it's it's not used any more by users,
User Interface: So. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: they prefer to s
User Interface: I am. I'm sure that uh it don't like but uh I don't see just one button.
Project Manager: Yeah. I dunno.
User Interface: So.
Project Manager: If i one button is still one more button. If {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if we want to make it very simple we have to reduce number of buttons compared to th to our competitors.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Well anyway I have this point. We can discuss. Also um {disfmarker} so as as I told before uh it would be better if it's only for the T_V_ um because we want to be quick on on the market. And then also we have to make very uh uh clear that this uh this remote control is is part of of our products and show our corporate uh logo and and colours on the {disfmarker} on the design as well so that uh they identify it as one of our product. So this is the the key point.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So before uh finishing we can uh define uh what would be the characteristic of the {disfmarker} o th of the control {disfmarker} of the remote control and which button do we need which function do we want etcetera.
User Interface: Capital.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} So do you um so so from from the the Marketing Expert I think a key aspect is the easy to use aspect, it should be very simple and most button are never used
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: only ten per cent of the button are are used often so I think we have to do something very simple and I think we all agree on that point, no?
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Well if it is going to be just a T_V_ remote control it is going to be very simple.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah okay. So yeah the key point here is simple. Maybe. {vocalsound} So few buttons, channel, volume control and what el what function do you see in addition to that?
User Interface: Well if it's going to be as simple as possible then just have the remote control, there is no other function that I can see
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: really.
Project Manager: Maybe switch T_V_ on and off {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: no you want to keep television on so that the advertising can {disfmarker} revenue can come back to us.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Or something.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Volume, maybe a mute button, and then on off button.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: And that's all?
Industrial Designer: Uh I know that som you say that many people are doing plenty of {disfmarker} a lot of zapping.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I know tha I discovered that when I did a quick look, uh they do now som they do something which is quite nice now,
User Interface: It's a memory, yeah.
Industrial Designer: you have a button, you you press it, and this is uh the previous channel which has come back.
Project Manager: Okay. Yeah this is cool. Maybe we can include that also. Previous previous channel button. So we have like channel button, the previous channel button, the volume button, plus a mute button, and uh just the the traditional on off button.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And uh and of course the channel changing buttons.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. I I talk about that, yeah?
User Interface: How should they how should we implement that? Because uh could be numerical only or could be also incremental.
Project Manager: Yeah. Incremental definitely because zapping you you switch them.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Let's say that we can do something like that. This is uh incremental, but once you press it for a long time, you go five by five.
Project Manager: We go faster?
Industrial Designer: To go fa to go faster.
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: Mm. It's an interesting idea, that if you press it for a long time it does something else, in general. So if you you have your ten buttons for the {disfmarker} for the numeric the numerical buttons and you have {disfmarker} instead of having just one memory
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: you have if you press them for a long time {disfmarker} No. Doesn't work {vocalsound} does it.
Project Manager: Maybe we should have also a digit button {disfmarker}
User Interface: Maybe we should have a complete keyboard and just type console commands.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Change channel to eight.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Maybe we have also to have digits or only incremental.
User Interface: No. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I dunno bec because if you have the {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well if it's useful like if if you want to change between three channels for example then you h you cannot {disfmarker} you cannot cannot work with just memory being incremental.
Project Manager: Uh. Yeah. Because you have your previous channel button if you have incremental only it's not uh it isn't worth it because the previous channel is eith either minus one or plus one.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I think we need also digits.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Maybe we we can make very obvious the channel and volume button button and smaller button down there with the the digits.
User Interface: Yeah when you zap usually you will have to press the same button all the time {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Or we can do something like that.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: We can design the remote control to have access. You know some remote control have uh protection
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and so you you y
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Hey I just thought this thing {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: You {disfmarker}
User Interface: there is a {disfmarker} I mean you know there is are some {gap} with a wheel like this. Instead of having the up down buttons for uh you can have the wheel.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, a kind of joystick.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. Maybe we can have a wheel for incremental.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: So have a wheel for incremental, have the digits uh on the lower side that can be closed so as you say protected,
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} and uh yeah I think this is the basi
User Interface: On the lower side I think it {disfmarker} you have to turn it.
Project Manager: And do we {disfmarker} do we have a {disfmarker}
User Interface: No? If we do that.
Industrial Designer: Or a {disfmarker} or a ball, yeah, not a a wheel but a ball, and you say uh to {disfmarker}
Project Manager: No, a wheel is better.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: I would say the wheel is better.
User Interface: Because of that {vocalsound}
Project Manager: What is the expert of uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: The channels change one by one.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: So you have to the user has to like to should feel the the the discrete sense a bit.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. That's a good idea.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Well also we have to decide uh so it should be lightening in the dark I think because most people lost their remote control.
Industrial Designer:'S quite {disfmarker} it's quite easy we do that w with back light on the {disfmarker} on the wheel.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. Even if i L_E_D_ uh or a if if it's the L_C_D_ feature uh
Industrial Designer: A blue {disfmarker} a blue L_E_D_ and we sell that um.
Project Manager: Yeah,
User Interface: whatever, yeah.
Project Manager: and do we put an L_C_D_ display?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Because it was important for young customers if you remember.
User Interface: {vocalsound} I think it's only put on if cou have multi function. If you do not multi function then there is no p point in having L_C_D_.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Just increase the cost.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} The user does not have an advantage really.
Project Manager: So no L_C_D_?
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: And so no speech as well because it w it would delay too much the development process
User Interface: Well if it's going to delay yeah
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: but uh {vocalsound} it will be cool. It would. Because a user could say C_N_N_ for example and it would go C_N_N_. Mm.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Yeah. That would be cool. But eight months is really long
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: and {disfmarker} Maybe we can just uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Ten years {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay. So um I I will uh {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} so I we will move to next meeting so in {disfmarker} after the lunch break uh here are the individual uh action uh you are required to do
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: but you will be uh recalled to the actions by uh email I think but you can take notes if you {disfmarker} if you want but well the instruction will be sent. So thank you for uh your suggestion
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: and I I will make a summary of that meeting that I will put in the shared folder you can't see {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay. Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and uh and then you will um you will be able to to see what has been uh has been said on on this meeting and and what has been decided. Uh maybe for next meeting uh send me your presentation before by email so that we can see them uh altogether. That would be easier.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: What is the folder that you put yours in? And did it it did work?
Marketing: {vocalsound} No.
Project Manager: No it did not work.
Marketing: No no.
Project Manager: She send it to me by email.
User Interface: Ah yeah. Mm.
Marketing: I dunno, I dunno it.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: So maybe this is better, to send it by email. Okay?
User Interface: Okay what is your email?
Project Manager: So yeah I I'm {disfmarker} it's in the first uh email so I'm participant one at AMI
User Interface: At participant one. Okay.
Project Manager: uh where is that, it's here. Participant one at AMI. {vocalsound} Okay. So see you after lunch break.
User Interface: Well during lunch break actually. {vocalsound}
Marketing:'Kay thank you.
User Interface: So next time we should have a fight.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: How about uh {gap} management or something. Who happens to be your friend.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {gap} | Industrial Designer first briefly described the components of the remote control, including a battery power supply, a user interface, an array of push buttons or a LCD, an electronic chip, an infrared component, and a UC as the central unit. Subsequent to the brief description, Industrial Designer pointed out the eight-month-long time problem for designing speech recognition, while the designing time for the standard one button was only one month. Moreover, Industrial Designer proposed the idea of configuring remote controls for the expert users and could better fit the market. | qmsum |
What did Dr Frank Atherton say about investment?
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Michelle Brown and Jack Sargeant; there are no substitutions. Can I ask if Members have any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. We'll move on, then, to item 2, which is our scrutiny of the'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'draft strategy, and I'm very pleased to welcome Dr Frank Atherton, the Chief Medical Officer for Wales, and Nathan Cook, who is the head of the healthy and active branch at Welsh Government. Thank you, both, for attending this morning. We're very much looking forward to hearing what you've got to say. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions. If I can just start by asking about the fact that'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'is an all-age strategy, really, and how confident you are that it will deliver for children and young people.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, we're very confident. I mean, it has to, quite clearly. We do need to think about the present generation, the problems faced by the current generation. We have high prevalence of overweight and obesity among adults--we know that, and we can't walk away from that because that's translating into demand on health services. But we have to take a focus, a future generation's focus, almost, on the next generation. I don't write off the current generation, we can't afford to do that, but we do need to think about what can we do that would be different for the next generation so that they don't get into the sorts of problems that we're currently seeing with overweight and obesity. We know that the consequences of that for our young people are going to be enormous if we don't do something and something quite soon. We know that overweight children go on to become overweight adults, unfortunately, and that brings all the consequences of multiple disease issues--diabetes is often cited--cancer risk et cetera. So, we have to focus on children, and, in fact, during the consultation, we've been very clear that we need to engage with children and young people as well. Perhaps we'll get into that at some point, Chair, but, yes, I can give you that assurance.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. What my follow-up question, really, is: can you just tell us what kind of engagement you've had with children and young people to inform the draft strategy?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, Nathan may be able to influence some of the detail, but in broad terms, we have discussed with young people in a number of fora. In fact, I was delighted that we had a young person, Evie Morgan, a schoolgirl from mid Wales, who came to the joint launch on the consultation. She met the Minister there and gave a very good personal account of her views on obesity and overweight. We've been visiting a number of schools during the consultation process. I'm visiting a school, either this week or next week, at Treorchy, to talk with teachers and young people there. Obviously, we're hopeful that schools and young people will contribute to the consultation as well. So, we've had quite good input, I would say, from children and young people. There is always more we can do we and we want to hear those voices.
Nathan Cook: I was going to say, we've also had a session with youth ambassadors as well, and what we've actually produced for the consultation is not just the children and young people's version, but also a toolkit in terms of getting schools really engaged and involved in terms of the work that we want them to do to feed into this as well. So, we've already had some really good responses from a lot of youth group and schools already.
Lynne Neagle AM: And you've got a structured programme, have you, to roll that out? Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on leadership, and the first questions are from Sian Gwenllian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. I'll be speaking in Welsh. The Minister for health said yesterday, in answering a question from me on the Chamber floor, that you gave him advice not to have a target in terms of reducing obesity among children. Could you confirm that that's what your advice was and tell us why you don't think that a target is needed?
Dr Frank Atherton: My advice was not that we don't need a target--we may well need a target, and that's one of the issues we need to consult on--but that the target that had been adopted in England and in Scotland to halve the prevalence of obesity in children was more aspirational than deliverable, and that if we are to choose a target in Wales, then we need to balance deliverability with challenge. We need a challenging environment. So, there is something about performance management, because I would be looking to not just the health system but the health and care system and to public services boards to think about how they're delivering on this, and I think we can use targets to that. But they are one tool in the box that I would think we could use, and part of the consultation is to ask that question--'If we are to go down a route in Wales of choosing a target, what might that look like?'Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. So, to be clear, you're not ruling out that maybe we would need a target.
Dr Frank Atherton: It's certainly something that we could consider in terms of the final strategy.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And is that your opinion too?
Nathan Cook: Yes.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Well, that is contrary to what I was told yesterday on the floor of the Chamber by the Minister, but there we go. I'm glad to hear that you're not ruling out having a target, because without a target, without something to aim for, how do we know that we're getting there?
Dr Frank Atherton: I think your point about evaluation is really important. Whatever we produce at the end of this process--and we're looking to produce a final strategy towards the autumn--we do need to have a strong evaluation. So, some metrics in there, it would seem, would be appropriate, but what those are, what the nature of those are, do we frame them as targets or ambitions--that's the point we need to consult on.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And the other point, of course, is the investment. If the Government is going to be successful in terms of the aim of reducing childhood obesity, then it needs to fund and support the actions. Have you made an assessment of the level of investment needed to implement this plan?
Dr Frank Atherton: Resourcing will be important. We currently do make investments in a number of areas that relate to child health generally, and, of course, obesity and overweight in particular. So, the question of resourcing is important. Now, we can't quantify an absolute amount of resource that will be needed to deliver until we know exactly what's going to come out of the consultation and what actions we might want to deliver to a greater degree in Wales. A figure of PS8 million to PS10 million a year has been banded around as a broad kind of area of what we might need to invest, but that would need to be drawn from existing programmes. We need to look at existing programmes, how effective they are. Can we make them more effective? Can we get better value from them? And there may well be a case for new investment, and that's a question, of course, that would need to be discussed with Ministers when we're producing the final strategy.
Nathan Cook: But I think a key consideration as well is we already know there is investment across health boards in some kind of obesity-related services. So, I think what we really need to think about across Wales is how we can drive greater scale, how we can look at current programmes in terms of making sure that they're better evaluated, and how we can make sure that we're also drawing up on the existing resources and capacity out there as well.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And does the level of investment depend on what the target is--what the goal is?
Dr Frank Atherton: I don't think you can necessarily just link the two. The issue of resourcing is one that's there irrespective of whether we choose to put a target in place.
Sian Gwenllian AM: But how would we know that it's being used effectively if there isn't something to aim for?
Dr Frank Atherton: Which brings you back to the question about evaluation. We need proper evaluation of the various programmes that we have.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but without a target, how can you properly evaluate? If you don't know what you're trying to do, how can you properly evaluate? Anyway, you're open to suggestions about having a target, which is great. Would you agree that Government could use the revenue that's being produced through the levy on soft drinks towards some of these efforts to--?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, of course, there are some consequentials that are coming to the Welsh Government as part of the levy on sugary soft drinks. That funding, of course, is less than we had anticipated, and that reflects, actually, a success story because industry is reformulating, and so the amount of sugar in soft drinks is already starting to decrease, which is a good thing. But to your question: should we use the funding? Well, of course we should use funding. I'm not personally in favour of hypothecation, I think I'm more interested in the totality of resource that goes into public health programmes than into marginal resource. There are, of course, a number of initiatives that we currently fund through the general revenue. And when I think about obesity, I don't just think about the relatively small marginal amounts of money that come in through whatever source, but I think about the totality of the PS7 billion we spend in health and social care and how we can divert and channel some of that towards broad prevention initiatives in general, and towards tackling being overweight and obesity in particular.
Sian Gwenllian AM: You're saying that it's less than expected. Could you give us any kind of figure?
Dr Frank Atherton: I'm sorry, could you repeat the question?
Sian Gwenllian AM: You say that there is less money that's come in through these consequentials from the levy, can you mention some sort of figure?
Dr Frank Atherton: The figure that I have in mind is about PS56 million that's coming in in terms of revenue over a two-year period. But I'd have to confirm that with the committee. What the anticipated--. When the sugar levy was first brought in, there was some modelling at UK level about what level of revenue that would bring, but it was based on the amount of sugar that was currently then in drinks and the fact that the sugar has reduced in drinks, I mean, the total amount available to the UK is less and hence our consequentials are less. Nathan may have some precise figures.
Nathan Cook: Yes, I was going to say, there was a mid-year report done where the levy has raised PS150 million to date since coming into force in April, and the original forecast was PS520 million a year. So, I think that shows the amount of work that's been done by industry around reformulation.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And the consequentials of that? That is the consequential--PS150 million.
Nathan Cook: On a UK level.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, so what's the Welsh consequential?
Lynne Neagle AM: Fifty-six.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Fifty-six? Gosh, that sounds a lot. Anyway, it's a good sum of money and you're talking about investing PS8 million to PS10 million. So, obviously, you know, we can be more ambitious because there is money in that pot if that money was ring-fenced for this particular scheme.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, the resource is going to be a real issue that we need to address, and I think as Nathan has said, there is funding of various initiatives currently in the system, and we need to look at that and make that as effective as possible. Will there be a need for some additional resource? There may well be, and that's a question that we'll have to look at in terms of the strategy when we develop it and have a discussion with Ministers about the level of resourcing.
Lynne Neagle AM: Can I just ask on that before Sian moves on? What assessment have you made of how that money is being spent in other UK nations? Because my understanding is that the money is being used in other UK nations to directly impact on obesity. Have you given any consideration to--? As I understand it, that money now is being dispersed around a plethora of programmes, including the transformation programme, and what I found very odd, really, was vaccination, which is surely the core business of the NHS. Have you got any view on that?
Dr Frank Atherton: I'm not sure I understand your point, Chair, in terms of the link between the consequentials from--. Are you talking about the consequentials from the sugar levy or are you talking about--?
Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, because in other nations, it is being used to directly impact on initiatives to tackle obesity, whereas, we've kind of put it here in Wales into the general pot and it's being used to fund a plethora of different things.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, that cuts to what I was talking about. My preference--it's a personal view--is that hypothecation doesn't really help us too much. I mean, what we need to look at is whether the programmes, the sorts of programmes that are being funded in England, or indeed in Scotland, are working effectively, and if they are, are they being delivered here in Wales? We have looked very carefully at the plans that England and Scotland have for tackling obesity and overweight, and we've made a comparison with what we're doing in Wales, and our ambition in Wales is to go further than those nations, in many ways. But I come back to the point that just linking the hypothecation of a relatively small amount of resource is likely to be less impactful than asking a question of public services boards and of the health system, indeed, about how much money, overall, are we putting into prevention.
Lynne Neagle AM: No, I recognise that, and I think we're talking about additional resource. Suzy.
Suzy Davies AM: I was just wondering whether you thought that there was a useful psychological link on the part of the public between saying,'Here's a sugar levy', and'It's going to be used to help children and adults stay healthier.'Going into a pot, it actually makes it quite difficult to explain the purpose of the tax in the first place. So, I take your overall point, but in terms of the people who we're trying to help in all this, actually creating a direct link might be quite helpful.
Dr Frank Atherton: You may be right. I'm not a behavioural psychologist. We'd have to ask--
Suzy Davies AM: Neither am I. I'm a person who eats a lot of sugar. [Laughter. ]
Dr Frank Atherton: Your point's taken.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thanks. Sian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: The last question from me, about partnership working. You're putting an emphasis on the whole-system approach in implementing the plan, how are you going to create a system that co-ordinates action and drives change across relevant partners, avoiding a situation where it's everyone's role, but nobody's responsibility? How are you going to avoid that?
Dr Frank Atherton: It's a very important question, and one of the four strands in the consultation is exactly related to that, around leadership and drive nationally. I'm not interested in producing a strategy that sits on a shelf. If you look around the world, there are plenty of obesity strategies. You may notice, by the way, that we've chosen not to talk about an obesity strategy but a healthy weight strategy, because I think having a positive construct is really quite important to us here in Wales. But leadership will be really important, and we will need some sort of structure to lead this, to provide oversight. I'm not a great believer in creating new structures, so we do need something that will give that drive, but the leadership comes from the top down. We need political commitment to this, and that's why I welcome the input from this committee. So, that needs to be assured. And then we need to make sure that the public sector generally is engaged in this, but it goes way beyond the public sector, of course, because we have to work with industry, and we have to work with communities, and we have to work with the public on this. So we need to think about our governance system for this and how we drive it forward. Interestingly, we had quite a large discussion two days ago between health and social care, but also involving the third sector and some members of the public, around how can we drive prevention more generally. It wasn't specifically on obesity, but of course obesity came up because it's such a pressing issue. This question of governance was discussed quite extensively, and we do have governance systems, of course, in Wales. We have public services boards, we have regional partnership boards, and how we can get those aligned behind this common agenda is really important. But I'd like to see--and I know I'm a public health professional, so I know that only maybe 10 per cent, 15 per cent, possibly 20 per cent of what makes and keeps us healthy as individuals and as communities can be driven through the health system; but I would like the system to step up and take these kinds of issues more seriously as well. So I'd be looking for local leadership through directors of public health and indeed through chief executives to work with their public services boards on this. So, we'll need some sort of national oversight, absolutely, but we need local ownership and local leadership, too.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got some questions now from Janet Finch-Saunders.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. Delivery of the plan will be led by a national implementation board that will be accountable to Ministers. Which Minister do you believe it should be accountable to, or, given the complexity of obesity, should the board be directly accountable to the First Minister?
Dr Frank Atherton: Ultimately, the First Minister will be responsible for this and will want to have a strong oversight of this. It is often framed as a health issue, and the Minister, Vaughan Gething, has a strong personal commitment to this, I know. We've talked extensively with him and with sports and recreation colleagues about that, so there's a link there. It does cut across all portfolios, and so this is an issue that I have discussed with Cabinet, and that collective ownership is really important, and will be, because it can't just sit in one domain. I think what you do need to have is you do need to have a lead organisation or a lead ministry, and I would see health as--I work within health, so I'm perhaps biased, but I would see health as leading this, but it needs broad ownership across Government.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I know my colleague Sian Gwenllian mentioned earlier targets and things, but I know in Wales we're not too good at collecting data. What data is currently available on childhood obesity and what metrics will be used to measure progress against the plan's objectives?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, of course, our main data source is the child measurement programme, which collects information on children entering school aged four or five. That's our main source of information. If we look at that data, it shows us--. Well, I'm sure you're familiar with the statistics, but it'll be just under a third of children at that age who are overweight or obese--
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Could I just ask--sorry to interrupt--how up to date is that?
Dr Frank Atherton: The last survey was just last year.
Nathan Cook: The data was published last week.
Dr Frank Atherton: Yes, the lastest data was out last week.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It is pretty up to date.
Dr Frank Atherton: So, it's pretty up to date, and what it shows--. It's not getting radically worse--there's always statistical variation in these things--but it's not getting any better. And, for the first time last year, we did look at the question not just of children who were overweight or obese, but we actually singled out the proportion who are obese, severely obese. So we have a figure for that for the first time, which is about 12 per cent, which is quite shocking, in a way.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It is shocking.
Dr Frank Atherton: So, that's our main source of information. Does that answer your question?
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, but how will any gaps in your data be addressed?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, one of the questions that are often asked is: could we measure more on a longitudinal basis? By that I mean in England, for example, children are measured at school entry and then again at year 11--at age 11 or 12. , that kind of age group. And so you do have a longitudinal view over time of what's happening to children. I think that would be helpful to us in Wales, and it's one of the questions in the consultation about whether we should expand that. Obviously, that would have significant resource implications, not just for the funding, but also for schools and for the system to deliver it. But it's something that maybe would help us in terms of better understanding and better evaluation--the point that was made earlier.
Nathan Cook: And the other data we do have is the millennium cohort study, which has been released, for 14 and 15-year-olds. That's going to be--. We're starting to think about how we can utilise some of that data, looking at that longitudinal picture around children as well, which will be really helpful.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. You've answered my next question. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Can I just ask about the child measurement programme? The strategy commits to looking at whether we can have a second measurement taking place in Wales. Can you just tell us a bit more about your thinking on that and when you would see a second measurement taking place and how you would use that data?
Dr Frank Atherton: I touched on that just now, but personally I do think it would be helpful to have more information. It's always the case, There's always a trade-off between the cost of getting that information and the value of the information. So, the question of how it would be used would be really important. There is still a lot that we don't know. We know an awful lot about obesity and being overweight and the causes of it, but we don't really have a very clear understanding, in Wales at least, of the point at which children start to become overweight. Although we know that overweight children tend to go on to become overweight adults, we don't know what proportion of them between school entry and later teenage years--what those changes are. So, it would help us to have some better understanding, which would help to direct some of our initiatives. I'd be generally supportive of the principle. We'll wait and see what comes out in the consultation, and it's something that we need to give thought to, but we do have to trade off the additionality of what the information would give us with the cost of doing that, of course.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on healthy environments from Dawn Bowden.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. In the draft plan, some of the measures in there suggest legislating for restricting price promotions and banning energy drinks, and that sort of thing. Do you think that, if we go down that road, there's going to be time within this Assembly to introduce such legislation? And, if not, what do you think might be the timescale for such legislation?
Dr Frank Atherton: It may well be that there are things in Wales that we might wish to legislate on, and you've mentioned two of them, and they're good examples. We would, obviously, need to undertake quite detailed consultation on those and, in a way, we need to mirror what's happening in England and in Scotland to some degree around the consultations they're having on energy drinks. We also need to influence the issues that are not devolved to us and we seek to do that. As to your question of legislative time, I'm not really in a position to answer that. What I could say is that legislation may well be one of the outcomes of the consultation. There may well be things that we wish to choose to legislate on. The timing of that will have to be subject to other pressures, and I come back to the point that legislation, of course, is one of the tools that we've got--we need to deploy them all.
Dawn Bowden AM: Sure, I understand that, that you could do other things. I know--. We've heard from the Government, on other calls for legislation, that the programme's very tight, certainly for this term, so I was just wondering whether we might get that in, but okay. If I turn now to the planning system--and this might not be something that you have great deal of knowledge of; I'd just welcome your view on this, because, when we discussed with stakeholders, we talked about whether the planning system, for instance, could be used to, as an example, restrict hot food takeaways around schools and so on. Would that be a measure that you would support, something like that?
Dr Frank Atherton: I think it's definitely something we want to look at and, of course, that question is asked in the consultation, so we would like to know people's views on that. It's an interesting one. I think there is a question--a really important question--about how we can use the planning system more effectively. I've discussed with Nathan on a number of occasions, with planning colleagues in Welsh Government and in local authorities, about the art of the possible, let's say. There may be things that we could think about and we want to get those ideas through the consultation. The specific question around takeaways, particularly takeaways near schools, is often asked. I was very interested to see, up in the north-east, some time ago, that one of the local authorities up there did put a moratorium on the opening of new fast-food venues near to schools, or indeed in areas where levels of obesity and overweight were particularly high. I understand London is now--some London boroughs are now--experimenting with that as well. So, that gave me comfort, because maybe there are powers within local authorities that can be used more effectively. I think my view at the moment is that the jury's kind of out on whether those are effective and how effective they're going to be. But the fact that we have some initiatives around the UK does give us an opportunity to study that and to learn from experience perhaps and then, if it is shown to be beneficial, to think about that here in Wales, yes.
Dawn Bowden AM: Sure, because it will only be one of a suite of measures anyway. Of itself, it wouldn't address the problem, but, added to other initiatives, I guess it would. Can I just ask you briefly, then, about community sport infrastructure and, in particular, of new schools? So, Welsh Government, as you know, has ploughed a huge amount of money into the twenty-first century schools programme. What we heard when we spoke to stakeholders recently, particularly headteachers, was that, in some of the new schools that have been built, we haven't had changing rooms and toilet facilities, for instance, built into the new buildings. So, if we're going to try and utilise these buildings for general community activity to get kids and the wider public, actually, more active, do you think that's something that we ought to be building in? Again, not your particular direct area of responsibility, but something that you might have an input into, is that, when we're developing schools, we should be making sure that they have those kinds of facilities so that they become accessible to the wider public. Is that something that you would be prepared to make a recommendation around?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, it's certainly a fascinating area and one that I think has a lot of potential. It goes--. You're right to raise it in the context of schools, and I can understand why this committee would, but I think it goes beyond that, actually, into all developments in the public sector and how they're developed and whether we're building health into our environment, which perhaps is your starting point. One of the things that I was really pleased to see in terms of the Public Health (Wales) Act 2017 that was passed a couple of years ago was the use of health impact assessment as a tool, and we're still working on how that will inform policy and how that will be applied in issues such as policy decisions through Government, but also in more downstream issues about how we create the public infrastructure that the public can and should be using. And so I would like to see the use of health impact assessments to a much greater degree to inform those kinds of decisions. If you apply that kind of lens and you take the point, which is inherent in your question, I think, that schools are not just for kids, they're for communities, then you would--it would lead you to a conclusion that you would perhaps design and build them in a different way. So, on a personal basis, I would certainly support your view that we should be looking to use the sports environment in schools in the same way as we use leisure centres. There are all kinds of barriers in there, and I understand all of that, and it's not really my field, exactly as you say, but, as a matter of principle, I think it's a good one to pursue.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you. And widening it out to other public services buildings as well.
Dr Frank Atherton: Indeed.
Dawn Bowden AM: Yes. Okay. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We're going to move on now to talk about how we create healthy settings. I've got some questions from Suzy Davies.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much. Yes, perhaps if we could just stay in this area of education just for a moment, I think we all agree that healthy habits acquired early on probably tend to last quite well, so I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about the healthy and sustainable preschool scheme and whether you think some timescales should be made public about what you expect the achievements from that scheme to be. But, in particular, I was struck with what you said about local leadership, and I just want you to bear that in mind in answering the next question, which is about the foundation phase. You're probably aware that this committee has heard from various school leaders that they're struggling in some cases to meet the ratio of staffing for the foundation phase, which potentially compromises the purpose of it in terms of physical activity. I'm just wondering how the strategy development board is considering that at the moment. Is it something that's come on the radar for the board? Is it something you're thinking about? And, if so, who do you think should be responsible for pinning that down a little bit? Because this is education, not health, and--.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, look, I've got to confess to you, I'm not an educationist, and so the question on staffing numbers in schools is not one that I have been asked to give a deal of consideration to, and it hasn't really been discussed, I don't believe, in the context of development of the strategy. If there is a specific point around that that the committee would like to make in terms of a response into the consultation, which I presume you'll be making, then we'd be happy to consider that. As to healthy preschools, I don't know, Nathan may have some view on that. I've not been closely involved with the work. We have standards and we perhaps need to think about how we tighten those standards and how we--enforce isn't the right word, but how we implement and make sure that those standards are properly implemented, because you're absolutely right to say that habits are developed early in life. That's in the preschool; it's also in the home of course, and then later in the school. So, we do need to look at all of those as settings and are there more things we can do within those settings to drive healthier behaviours--that's exactly why we need the consultation.
Nathan Cook: But I would say, through that scheme as well, we've really got a really good bank of preschools that are actually doing some really great work in this area as well. So, I think the more we can understand the successes that some of those environments are having--you know, how we can roll those out and work across other settings to create that wider impact as well is going to be really important.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. What I'm thinking about is expectations at that level will be expectations at a slightly older level, which will be contained within the foundation phase. And while you're quite right--obviously, parents have a role in this, or families--there will be, particularly with the introduction of the new curriculum, certain expectations on schools to provide not just healthy environments but to actively work towards well-being and healthy weight in children and things. And that's why I asked you about local leadership, because, if it fails for reasons that have nothing to do with the plan at foundation phase, it's going to fail further up the school years as well. I think it might be something that the board might want to consider here, because at some point there'll be an accountability question and we will want to know how'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'fits in with the new plans for the new curriculum, and whether it's merely persuasive and influential or whether it has the weight to place some obligations on school leaders about what they do in their schools. So, this connection, I think, is quite an important one, and, if the strategy development board could consider that, I think it would be very helpful, because this doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, I'd certainly be delighted to take that back and we can look at it in terms of how we move from the consultation into the final strategy. It's certainly a point we can try and look at.
Suzy Davies AM: Because we will want to know who to ask:'you're the accountable person--why has something worked, or not worked?'We will need to know that at some point.
Dr Frank Atherton: Just building on Nathan's point, some of the schools--I know it's schools rather than the preschools, and I take your point, but some of the schools we've been working with have absolutely brilliant models of good practice and good local leadership. I remember the Minister actually at the launch, and one of the schools was represented there, and they presented--the school came and some of the children came and presented--to the whole audience about the activities that they were undertaking in their school around physical activity and on healthy eating, and it was such a model of good behaviour the question was,'Well, why not everywhere?', so that probably speaks to your question.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, well, thank you for that commitment anyway.
Lynne Neagle AM: And have you had any discussions, then, with education officials around things like teacher training and CPD, because you'll be aware the Health and Social Care Committee has made a number of recommendations in this area? It's crucial that we skill up the staff to develop these things in an appropriate way, isn't it?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, we certainly discuss with education colleagues in Welsh Government. There's more we need to do in terms of that, because you're absolutely right: there's something about building the whole of the workforce--education is really important, but elsewhere as well; it's about how do we really make every contact count, you know, that construct. So, everybody who's working in the health and social care system should have a role in this; everybody who works in education, whether it's the old--. Do we still have dinner ladies? Or teachers, you know, they have a role to play in supporting children to be as healthy as they possibly can. And, actually, I see them, Chair, as a really essential part of the public health workforce.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy, are you going to do your curriculum one?
Suzy Davies AM: Well, I've bound it in together, but that final point you make about teachers being part of the answer to this, they're already under a range of pressures: is it fair to make them accountable for whether this works or not? Or should that local leadership lie somewhere else? I don't expect you to pin down a person today.
Dr Frank Atherton: I wouldn't like to blame a teacher or performance manage them on the proportion of their children in their class who are overweight. That would clearly be nonsense, wouldn't it? But they are part of the solution, and so the accountability lies further up the chain, doesn't it? The question I think we would have, and public services boards might well ask, and the local education authorities may well ask, is: how effective is any particular school at driving forwards these healthy behaviours?
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. I'll leave some questions for Hefin.
Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin.
Hefin David AM: Is that all right, Chair?
Lynne Neagle AM: You've got the floor, Hefin.
Hefin David AM: Thank you, Chair. You make a commitment to embedding physical activity at an early stage in primary school education. What would that look like?
Dr Frank Atherton: Just in terms of the physical activity, I have to say it's a really important dimension and we need to move further on. We know not enough of our children are physically active and they're not meeting the various guidelines, so it's really important. It doesn't actually have as much of an impact on weight as the dietary issue. I'd just say that. It's really important for all sorts of reasons. It does have an impact on healthy weight, but it has a huge impact in terms of socialisation, in terms of mental health issues, et cetera, you know. So--I'm sorry, I've lost track of your question.
Nathan Cook: I'd just say that one thing we have got in train is, obviously, Sport Wales, Public Health Wales and Natural Resources Wales--we have them working together as a collaborative at the moment to look at how their joint delivery on physical activity can be taken forward more efficiently. So, one of the things they are looking at is obviously the schools programmes they do through eco-schools, the Welsh network of healthy schools and the sports programme to really think about that physical activity and how we can have better join up in terms of the programmes that we're already delivering as well.
Hefin David AM: With that in mind, I'm going to confess to you, chief medical officer, I did anything in school I could to avoid physical education lessons. I hated it. I didn't feel engaged with it. Yet, two weeks ago, I played for the Assembly rugby team--I wanted to get that in. The school sports survey, that would suggest that we're still not hitting those targets with children. How can we get children more engaged with physical education in ways that--? I felt completely alienated in school.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, you're right, and many people go through that same journey and come to physical activity later in life, and that's great if they do that. The sad reality is that many people don't, and we also know that there are issues around the dropping off, particularly for girls, of physical activity towards the teenage years. So, there are specific moments that we need to understand. We do have a lot of information about these kinds of things. Public Health Wales is very good at collating the information. We do need to turn that into programmes. I mean, at the heart of it, it's about making sports and physical activity enjoyable and attractive to people. Sometimes that's easier, I sense, for boys than for girls, but we need to tailor things to different audiences.
Hefin David AM: Yes, that's the trick, isn't it? It's about finding out what children enjoy doing. That could be quite a wide and varied range of things. Is that the key?
Dawn Bowden AM: It's not all about organised team sports.
Hefin David AM: Yes. As Dawn said, it's not just about organised team sports. There are some very individual activities you could do.
Dr Frank Atherton: Absolutely, yes. And that's where I think--. I'm delighted that Sport Wales has moved beyond. It's not just about elite sports; it's about getting everybody engaged and active in sports, and that partnership with Public Health Wales that Nathan talked about is really important, because we need a population approach to driving physical activity.
Hefin David AM: So, do you think, with that in mind, we need statutory guidance for schools on physical education?
Dr Frank Atherton: Again, I'd look to the consultation as to whether there was an appetite for any kind of guidance. It may well be that that is something that could be considered.
Hefin David AM: Okay. And finally, with regard to free school meals to all pupils in primary and secondary schools, do you think that extending that to all pupils would be beneficial in providing a more varied diet for pupils?
Dr Frank Atherton: I don't have a personal view on that. I think it's the quality of the food that kids are getting, whether that comes from home or through school, and whether it's free or whether it's paid for. I think it's the quality of the food that we need to focus on. The question of children being hungry at school is a really important one and needs to be addressed at a national level. I think that's a--
Hefin David AM: So, you think that's more about the provision of food for those who might not have access to it than providing a varied diet.
Dr Frank Atherton: I think it's important that children have access to food, absolutely, if that's your question, but we also need to look at the quality of the food and what's in that food offer.
Hefin David AM: But you don't necessarily think universal provision would--.
Dr Frank Atherton: I don't have a clear view on that. I know there's a larger debate about that.
Hefin David AM: Okay, thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: I've got some supplementaries from Janet and then Suzy.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. I've been around some amazing schools in my own constituency, where they've got proper canteen facilities for pupils and really, really good produce in the meals. However, there's probably only a third having school meals; the rest are packed lunches. And, to be honest, I've been very surprised and shocked at what I've seen of the quality of the food in the packed lunches. Nobody can really police, and I wouldn't want to see parents being policed over what goes in a packed lunch, so if there is data out there to suggest that there's a larger percentage of parents providing packed lunched that are really not good at all, then there is some merit to be said for what Hefin is--. Me, personally, I'd love to see the introduction of universal school meals. I think it's been a very retrograde step, going backwards. Would you be willing to carry out any research?
Dr Frank Atherton: So, I mean, your point about food that's brought in in the packed lunches is a really important one, and I've talked to some headteachers as well about this. We could go down a route of guidance and prohibition, but that gets you into the role of nanny in chief and I don't really see that as my role or Government's role, and I don't think it's effective either. Do you remember--? You must have seen on tv--I think it was in Scotland; I don't know if it's happened in Wales--parents pushing the fish and chip packets through the school railings. We don't need to get into that. What I have seen, though, is some really good innovative practice in schools where, for example, they reward children for bringing the healthy options. Schools can give guidance to parents about what would be a healthy lunch and what sort of things might be expected to be seen in the lunch box. And you can reward children, and children do respond to rewards. So, I've seen some of those approaches that have transformed, actually, the offer of what comes in school boxes. But I think just banning chocolate bars and crisps in the packed lunch is unlikely to be successful.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: We can't do that. So, my point to the question was: isn't there some merit, perhaps, about all children being equal and eating similar good-quality food in schools?
Dr Frank Atherton: Yes. That gets you back to the question about universal school meals.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Perhaps some of that PS56 million sugar tax, even. Who knows?
Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy.
Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Mine is just a short question. The draft plan commits, doesn't it, to updating the healthy eating in schools regulations--the 2013 regulations? I appreciate this is a consultation, but what is it that needs changing in those regulations at the moment, just to give us a bit of steer?
Nathan Cook: It's mainly on sugar content, so, obviously, they don't adhere to current Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition guidelines around sugar levels. So, what we'd want to consider is, you know, what we need to be careful of is unintended consequences of changing that, as well, if you see a shift to more kids bringing in school packed lunches as well. So, I think we want to consider the best way of doing that and consider through the consultation how we can go about it.
Suzy Davies AM: All right. So, it's very pertinent to Janet's question, in that way. Okay, so it's mainly about sugar, but it could be about other things as well. Okay. Thanks.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. The next questions are from Janet anyway; firstly, on the clinical obesity pathway.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'plan commits to a review of the clinical obesity pathway. What are the time frames for this review, and what do you think are the basic essentials of a clinical obesity pathway for children and young people?
Dr Frank Atherton: We do have a pathway for managing overweight, and that's been in place since about 2010, I believe, and we do need to bring that up to date in terms of current knowledge and experiences. We've challenged Public Health Wales; we've asked Public Health Wales to undertake a review of that pathway, and they are going through that process now. I'm not sure of exactly the time frame that we have given them for that.
Nathan Cook: We were asking them to review the pathway before we launch the final strategy in October because, obviously, what we want is for that to inform what that final strategy looks like. So, we'll be looking probably early autumn for them to report back on that.
Dr Frank Atherton: The second point of your question about what are the essential elements, I mean, they are already there; we need to tweak them and we need to make sure that they're properly delivered. But it's a tiered approach, so, having access to information through schools and through communities and into families is part of the first step of that. And then, if children are overweight, it's a question about how they're identified. There are questions about the ability of the public to recognise large children, so there may be an issue there. But when children are running into issues around weight, what kind of interventions can be put in, either through primary care or through communities through health visitors, et cetera? And then of course we do have--and we've started to shine a light on this, haven't we--the very overweight children. I don't think we have enough in the way of targeted support to be able to support those. There are programmes available, but they're perhaps not universally provided. So, I think there's something about looking at our whole pathway, mapping out what the current evidence now shows us is needed, and then thinking about what is our provision in Wales and what do we need to do to bring that up to the level of the places that are the best.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. The draft plan recognises the importance of the first 1,000 days, but it doesn't appear to include any new proposals to help parents to enable lifestyle changes. It lists existing initiatives, such as the Healthy Child Wales programme and breastfeeding action plan. Are you satisfied that the draft plan does enough to address the influence that family and parents have on children's healthy weight behaviours, particularly in the first 1,000 days?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, the first 1,000 days are really critically in shaping lives, as I'm sure you'd agree. We are absolutely open to any other suggestions that the public or this committee have as to what more we can and should do. There are a number of things, the sorts of programmes you've mentioned, that I think could be more effective. We're currently looking at breastfeeding because it starts before birth, actually. We know that children who are breastfed are less likely to suffer from obesity in childhood and, indeed, to go on to be obese adults. So, we do need to go further on that. We do have some programmes--Healthy Working Wales, et cetera--that need to be improved. If there are other interventions in other areas that we need to take, then we'd be delighted to hear what they are, but those are the ones that have jumped out so far.
Nathan Cook: Can I just say--? One of the proposals we're looking for is, obviously, we know that during pregnancy it's a really critical time when we can actually look to work with mothers. We know from looking at some of the behaviour change that it's actually a really critical point when new mothers really start thinking about their lives, wanting the best for their child and their families. So, what we are thinking about is how we could develop some kind of approaches to that going forward. But we know our Healthy Start scheme is also a good lever for us, just in terms of how we can look to improve that kind of dietary offer at the earliest stage as well.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Finally, we know that for some families day-to-day challenges can make it difficult for them to make healthy choices, particularly for those on lower incomes and/or maybe using food banks. Could the Welsh Government take bolder action to better support low-income families to eat healthily?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, you've touched on a really important point about inequalities because overweight and obesity is not evenly distributed across our population. It absolutely is more prevalent in more socioeconomically deprived communities, and that's something that should really concern us all. So, it gets you to questions of availability of fresh food and produce; it gets you to questions of formulation of products and whether value brands are less healthy than more premium brands. So, it cuts across all of those issues that we talked about in terms of settings and in terms of environment earlier. There is something about the affordability of good-quality healthy food that we need to think about. We do need to think in broad terms--broader terms than just obesity, but we do need to think in broad terms--about how we create a society where families have the wherewithal to lead healthy lives, and that gets you to really important questions about the minimum wage and income poverty. There's no doubt in my mind--I'm a public health professional--and there's no doubt in my mind that economic success and health success go hand in hand. So, you speak to a very deep question there. In terms of what we can do through this particular consultation, there are some things in there about providing better access, but without tackling some of those deeper determinants of health, their impact will necessarily be limited.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Just finally from me, then, you referred earlier to the importance of making every contact count, but some stakeholders have told the committee that they struggle to do that because of difficulties in availability of people to refer to. Is that a situation that you recognise and what, really, can we do to improve that situation?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, it depends what you mean as to where to refer to. So, the health system obviously needs to respond to this issue. What we're seeing across the NHS is a gradual transformation in primary care so that primary care is no longer about going to see your GP, it's about going to see a practice where you have a range of health professionals. Would I like to see more dietetic support, for example, in that setting? Absolutely I would. I think we need to think in terms of that pathway that we were talking about earlier, about access to that kind of advice and support, which can head off people getting into problems and kids getting into problems with weight issues. So, that question of redesign of the pathway really speaks to, I think, your point about,'Well, where do people go when they have problems with their weight?'That's true for adults and it's true for children as well.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you both very much for your attendance? It's been a really productive session. We appreciate your time. You will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy in due course, but thank you again.
Dr Frank Atherton: We'll do that. Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the committee, because getting some input into the consultation from children's perspectives, this would be one of the routes we would absolutely welcome. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee on CAMHS tier 4 provision. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Health and Social Services also on CAMHS in-patient provision. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Children Commissioner for Wales on tier 4 CAMHS provision. Paper to note 4 is a letter from Qualifications Wales to the Minister for Education on qualifications for the new curriculum. Paper to note 5 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education on the development of the new curriculum. Paper to note 6 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education seeking clarification on the draft additional learning needs code. Paper to note 7 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education seeking clarification on the response to our Brexit report. Paper to note 8 is a letter from the Equality and Human Rights Commission on a cumulative impact assessment briefing for committee, which has been offered. Paper to note 9 is a letter from the Chair of the Petitions Committee on a national taskforce for children's mental health. Paper to note 10 is a letter to the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union from the children's commissioners for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on the implications of Brexit for children. There are a few that I'd like to return to in private, but are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Okay. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17. 42 to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content?
Suzy Davies AM: Yes. There's somebody up there.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. | Investment needed to implement the plan was more about resourcing. Dr Frank Atherton said they currently did make investments in a number of areas that related to child health generally, and, of course, obesity and overweight in particular. And now, according to existing programmes, a figure of PS8 million to PS10 million a year had been bandied around as a broad kind of area of what they might need. Dr Frank Atherton also put priority in thinking about the totality of the PS7 billion they spent in health and social care and how they could divert and channel some of that towards broad prevention initiatives in general, and towards tackling being overweight and obesity in particular. | qmsum |
What did Dr Frank Atherton's answer to how would any gaps in their data be addressed?
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Michelle Brown and Jack Sargeant; there are no substitutions. Can I ask if Members have any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. We'll move on, then, to item 2, which is our scrutiny of the'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'draft strategy, and I'm very pleased to welcome Dr Frank Atherton, the Chief Medical Officer for Wales, and Nathan Cook, who is the head of the healthy and active branch at Welsh Government. Thank you, both, for attending this morning. We're very much looking forward to hearing what you've got to say. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions. If I can just start by asking about the fact that'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'is an all-age strategy, really, and how confident you are that it will deliver for children and young people.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, we're very confident. I mean, it has to, quite clearly. We do need to think about the present generation, the problems faced by the current generation. We have high prevalence of overweight and obesity among adults--we know that, and we can't walk away from that because that's translating into demand on health services. But we have to take a focus, a future generation's focus, almost, on the next generation. I don't write off the current generation, we can't afford to do that, but we do need to think about what can we do that would be different for the next generation so that they don't get into the sorts of problems that we're currently seeing with overweight and obesity. We know that the consequences of that for our young people are going to be enormous if we don't do something and something quite soon. We know that overweight children go on to become overweight adults, unfortunately, and that brings all the consequences of multiple disease issues--diabetes is often cited--cancer risk et cetera. So, we have to focus on children, and, in fact, during the consultation, we've been very clear that we need to engage with children and young people as well. Perhaps we'll get into that at some point, Chair, but, yes, I can give you that assurance.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. What my follow-up question, really, is: can you just tell us what kind of engagement you've had with children and young people to inform the draft strategy?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, Nathan may be able to influence some of the detail, but in broad terms, we have discussed with young people in a number of fora. In fact, I was delighted that we had a young person, Evie Morgan, a schoolgirl from mid Wales, who came to the joint launch on the consultation. She met the Minister there and gave a very good personal account of her views on obesity and overweight. We've been visiting a number of schools during the consultation process. I'm visiting a school, either this week or next week, at Treorchy, to talk with teachers and young people there. Obviously, we're hopeful that schools and young people will contribute to the consultation as well. So, we've had quite good input, I would say, from children and young people. There is always more we can do we and we want to hear those voices.
Nathan Cook: I was going to say, we've also had a session with youth ambassadors as well, and what we've actually produced for the consultation is not just the children and young people's version, but also a toolkit in terms of getting schools really engaged and involved in terms of the work that we want them to do to feed into this as well. So, we've already had some really good responses from a lot of youth group and schools already.
Lynne Neagle AM: And you've got a structured programme, have you, to roll that out? Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on leadership, and the first questions are from Sian Gwenllian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. I'll be speaking in Welsh. The Minister for health said yesterday, in answering a question from me on the Chamber floor, that you gave him advice not to have a target in terms of reducing obesity among children. Could you confirm that that's what your advice was and tell us why you don't think that a target is needed?
Dr Frank Atherton: My advice was not that we don't need a target--we may well need a target, and that's one of the issues we need to consult on--but that the target that had been adopted in England and in Scotland to halve the prevalence of obesity in children was more aspirational than deliverable, and that if we are to choose a target in Wales, then we need to balance deliverability with challenge. We need a challenging environment. So, there is something about performance management, because I would be looking to not just the health system but the health and care system and to public services boards to think about how they're delivering on this, and I think we can use targets to that. But they are one tool in the box that I would think we could use, and part of the consultation is to ask that question--'If we are to go down a route in Wales of choosing a target, what might that look like?'Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. So, to be clear, you're not ruling out that maybe we would need a target.
Dr Frank Atherton: It's certainly something that we could consider in terms of the final strategy.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And is that your opinion too?
Nathan Cook: Yes.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Well, that is contrary to what I was told yesterday on the floor of the Chamber by the Minister, but there we go. I'm glad to hear that you're not ruling out having a target, because without a target, without something to aim for, how do we know that we're getting there?
Dr Frank Atherton: I think your point about evaluation is really important. Whatever we produce at the end of this process--and we're looking to produce a final strategy towards the autumn--we do need to have a strong evaluation. So, some metrics in there, it would seem, would be appropriate, but what those are, what the nature of those are, do we frame them as targets or ambitions--that's the point we need to consult on.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And the other point, of course, is the investment. If the Government is going to be successful in terms of the aim of reducing childhood obesity, then it needs to fund and support the actions. Have you made an assessment of the level of investment needed to implement this plan?
Dr Frank Atherton: Resourcing will be important. We currently do make investments in a number of areas that relate to child health generally, and, of course, obesity and overweight in particular. So, the question of resourcing is important. Now, we can't quantify an absolute amount of resource that will be needed to deliver until we know exactly what's going to come out of the consultation and what actions we might want to deliver to a greater degree in Wales. A figure of PS8 million to PS10 million a year has been banded around as a broad kind of area of what we might need to invest, but that would need to be drawn from existing programmes. We need to look at existing programmes, how effective they are. Can we make them more effective? Can we get better value from them? And there may well be a case for new investment, and that's a question, of course, that would need to be discussed with Ministers when we're producing the final strategy.
Nathan Cook: But I think a key consideration as well is we already know there is investment across health boards in some kind of obesity-related services. So, I think what we really need to think about across Wales is how we can drive greater scale, how we can look at current programmes in terms of making sure that they're better evaluated, and how we can make sure that we're also drawing up on the existing resources and capacity out there as well.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And does the level of investment depend on what the target is--what the goal is?
Dr Frank Atherton: I don't think you can necessarily just link the two. The issue of resourcing is one that's there irrespective of whether we choose to put a target in place.
Sian Gwenllian AM: But how would we know that it's being used effectively if there isn't something to aim for?
Dr Frank Atherton: Which brings you back to the question about evaluation. We need proper evaluation of the various programmes that we have.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but without a target, how can you properly evaluate? If you don't know what you're trying to do, how can you properly evaluate? Anyway, you're open to suggestions about having a target, which is great. Would you agree that Government could use the revenue that's being produced through the levy on soft drinks towards some of these efforts to--?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, of course, there are some consequentials that are coming to the Welsh Government as part of the levy on sugary soft drinks. That funding, of course, is less than we had anticipated, and that reflects, actually, a success story because industry is reformulating, and so the amount of sugar in soft drinks is already starting to decrease, which is a good thing. But to your question: should we use the funding? Well, of course we should use funding. I'm not personally in favour of hypothecation, I think I'm more interested in the totality of resource that goes into public health programmes than into marginal resource. There are, of course, a number of initiatives that we currently fund through the general revenue. And when I think about obesity, I don't just think about the relatively small marginal amounts of money that come in through whatever source, but I think about the totality of the PS7 billion we spend in health and social care and how we can divert and channel some of that towards broad prevention initiatives in general, and towards tackling being overweight and obesity in particular.
Sian Gwenllian AM: You're saying that it's less than expected. Could you give us any kind of figure?
Dr Frank Atherton: I'm sorry, could you repeat the question?
Sian Gwenllian AM: You say that there is less money that's come in through these consequentials from the levy, can you mention some sort of figure?
Dr Frank Atherton: The figure that I have in mind is about PS56 million that's coming in in terms of revenue over a two-year period. But I'd have to confirm that with the committee. What the anticipated--. When the sugar levy was first brought in, there was some modelling at UK level about what level of revenue that would bring, but it was based on the amount of sugar that was currently then in drinks and the fact that the sugar has reduced in drinks, I mean, the total amount available to the UK is less and hence our consequentials are less. Nathan may have some precise figures.
Nathan Cook: Yes, I was going to say, there was a mid-year report done where the levy has raised PS150 million to date since coming into force in April, and the original forecast was PS520 million a year. So, I think that shows the amount of work that's been done by industry around reformulation.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And the consequentials of that? That is the consequential--PS150 million.
Nathan Cook: On a UK level.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, so what's the Welsh consequential?
Lynne Neagle AM: Fifty-six.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Fifty-six? Gosh, that sounds a lot. Anyway, it's a good sum of money and you're talking about investing PS8 million to PS10 million. So, obviously, you know, we can be more ambitious because there is money in that pot if that money was ring-fenced for this particular scheme.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, the resource is going to be a real issue that we need to address, and I think as Nathan has said, there is funding of various initiatives currently in the system, and we need to look at that and make that as effective as possible. Will there be a need for some additional resource? There may well be, and that's a question that we'll have to look at in terms of the strategy when we develop it and have a discussion with Ministers about the level of resourcing.
Lynne Neagle AM: Can I just ask on that before Sian moves on? What assessment have you made of how that money is being spent in other UK nations? Because my understanding is that the money is being used in other UK nations to directly impact on obesity. Have you given any consideration to--? As I understand it, that money now is being dispersed around a plethora of programmes, including the transformation programme, and what I found very odd, really, was vaccination, which is surely the core business of the NHS. Have you got any view on that?
Dr Frank Atherton: I'm not sure I understand your point, Chair, in terms of the link between the consequentials from--. Are you talking about the consequentials from the sugar levy or are you talking about--?
Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, because in other nations, it is being used to directly impact on initiatives to tackle obesity, whereas, we've kind of put it here in Wales into the general pot and it's being used to fund a plethora of different things.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, that cuts to what I was talking about. My preference--it's a personal view--is that hypothecation doesn't really help us too much. I mean, what we need to look at is whether the programmes, the sorts of programmes that are being funded in England, or indeed in Scotland, are working effectively, and if they are, are they being delivered here in Wales? We have looked very carefully at the plans that England and Scotland have for tackling obesity and overweight, and we've made a comparison with what we're doing in Wales, and our ambition in Wales is to go further than those nations, in many ways. But I come back to the point that just linking the hypothecation of a relatively small amount of resource is likely to be less impactful than asking a question of public services boards and of the health system, indeed, about how much money, overall, are we putting into prevention.
Lynne Neagle AM: No, I recognise that, and I think we're talking about additional resource. Suzy.
Suzy Davies AM: I was just wondering whether you thought that there was a useful psychological link on the part of the public between saying,'Here's a sugar levy', and'It's going to be used to help children and adults stay healthier.'Going into a pot, it actually makes it quite difficult to explain the purpose of the tax in the first place. So, I take your overall point, but in terms of the people who we're trying to help in all this, actually creating a direct link might be quite helpful.
Dr Frank Atherton: You may be right. I'm not a behavioural psychologist. We'd have to ask--
Suzy Davies AM: Neither am I. I'm a person who eats a lot of sugar. [Laughter. ]
Dr Frank Atherton: Your point's taken.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thanks. Sian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: The last question from me, about partnership working. You're putting an emphasis on the whole-system approach in implementing the plan, how are you going to create a system that co-ordinates action and drives change across relevant partners, avoiding a situation where it's everyone's role, but nobody's responsibility? How are you going to avoid that?
Dr Frank Atherton: It's a very important question, and one of the four strands in the consultation is exactly related to that, around leadership and drive nationally. I'm not interested in producing a strategy that sits on a shelf. If you look around the world, there are plenty of obesity strategies. You may notice, by the way, that we've chosen not to talk about an obesity strategy but a healthy weight strategy, because I think having a positive construct is really quite important to us here in Wales. But leadership will be really important, and we will need some sort of structure to lead this, to provide oversight. I'm not a great believer in creating new structures, so we do need something that will give that drive, but the leadership comes from the top down. We need political commitment to this, and that's why I welcome the input from this committee. So, that needs to be assured. And then we need to make sure that the public sector generally is engaged in this, but it goes way beyond the public sector, of course, because we have to work with industry, and we have to work with communities, and we have to work with the public on this. So we need to think about our governance system for this and how we drive it forward. Interestingly, we had quite a large discussion two days ago between health and social care, but also involving the third sector and some members of the public, around how can we drive prevention more generally. It wasn't specifically on obesity, but of course obesity came up because it's such a pressing issue. This question of governance was discussed quite extensively, and we do have governance systems, of course, in Wales. We have public services boards, we have regional partnership boards, and how we can get those aligned behind this common agenda is really important. But I'd like to see--and I know I'm a public health professional, so I know that only maybe 10 per cent, 15 per cent, possibly 20 per cent of what makes and keeps us healthy as individuals and as communities can be driven through the health system; but I would like the system to step up and take these kinds of issues more seriously as well. So I'd be looking for local leadership through directors of public health and indeed through chief executives to work with their public services boards on this. So, we'll need some sort of national oversight, absolutely, but we need local ownership and local leadership, too.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got some questions now from Janet Finch-Saunders.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. Delivery of the plan will be led by a national implementation board that will be accountable to Ministers. Which Minister do you believe it should be accountable to, or, given the complexity of obesity, should the board be directly accountable to the First Minister?
Dr Frank Atherton: Ultimately, the First Minister will be responsible for this and will want to have a strong oversight of this. It is often framed as a health issue, and the Minister, Vaughan Gething, has a strong personal commitment to this, I know. We've talked extensively with him and with sports and recreation colleagues about that, so there's a link there. It does cut across all portfolios, and so this is an issue that I have discussed with Cabinet, and that collective ownership is really important, and will be, because it can't just sit in one domain. I think what you do need to have is you do need to have a lead organisation or a lead ministry, and I would see health as--I work within health, so I'm perhaps biased, but I would see health as leading this, but it needs broad ownership across Government.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I know my colleague Sian Gwenllian mentioned earlier targets and things, but I know in Wales we're not too good at collecting data. What data is currently available on childhood obesity and what metrics will be used to measure progress against the plan's objectives?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, of course, our main data source is the child measurement programme, which collects information on children entering school aged four or five. That's our main source of information. If we look at that data, it shows us--. Well, I'm sure you're familiar with the statistics, but it'll be just under a third of children at that age who are overweight or obese--
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Could I just ask--sorry to interrupt--how up to date is that?
Dr Frank Atherton: The last survey was just last year.
Nathan Cook: The data was published last week.
Dr Frank Atherton: Yes, the lastest data was out last week.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It is pretty up to date.
Dr Frank Atherton: So, it's pretty up to date, and what it shows--. It's not getting radically worse--there's always statistical variation in these things--but it's not getting any better. And, for the first time last year, we did look at the question not just of children who were overweight or obese, but we actually singled out the proportion who are obese, severely obese. So we have a figure for that for the first time, which is about 12 per cent, which is quite shocking, in a way.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It is shocking.
Dr Frank Atherton: So, that's our main source of information. Does that answer your question?
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, but how will any gaps in your data be addressed?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, one of the questions that are often asked is: could we measure more on a longitudinal basis? By that I mean in England, for example, children are measured at school entry and then again at year 11--at age 11 or 12. , that kind of age group. And so you do have a longitudinal view over time of what's happening to children. I think that would be helpful to us in Wales, and it's one of the questions in the consultation about whether we should expand that. Obviously, that would have significant resource implications, not just for the funding, but also for schools and for the system to deliver it. But it's something that maybe would help us in terms of better understanding and better evaluation--the point that was made earlier.
Nathan Cook: And the other data we do have is the millennium cohort study, which has been released, for 14 and 15-year-olds. That's going to be--. We're starting to think about how we can utilise some of that data, looking at that longitudinal picture around children as well, which will be really helpful.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. You've answered my next question. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Can I just ask about the child measurement programme? The strategy commits to looking at whether we can have a second measurement taking place in Wales. Can you just tell us a bit more about your thinking on that and when you would see a second measurement taking place and how you would use that data?
Dr Frank Atherton: I touched on that just now, but personally I do think it would be helpful to have more information. It's always the case, There's always a trade-off between the cost of getting that information and the value of the information. So, the question of how it would be used would be really important. There is still a lot that we don't know. We know an awful lot about obesity and being overweight and the causes of it, but we don't really have a very clear understanding, in Wales at least, of the point at which children start to become overweight. Although we know that overweight children tend to go on to become overweight adults, we don't know what proportion of them between school entry and later teenage years--what those changes are. So, it would help us to have some better understanding, which would help to direct some of our initiatives. I'd be generally supportive of the principle. We'll wait and see what comes out in the consultation, and it's something that we need to give thought to, but we do have to trade off the additionality of what the information would give us with the cost of doing that, of course.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on healthy environments from Dawn Bowden.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. In the draft plan, some of the measures in there suggest legislating for restricting price promotions and banning energy drinks, and that sort of thing. Do you think that, if we go down that road, there's going to be time within this Assembly to introduce such legislation? And, if not, what do you think might be the timescale for such legislation?
Dr Frank Atherton: It may well be that there are things in Wales that we might wish to legislate on, and you've mentioned two of them, and they're good examples. We would, obviously, need to undertake quite detailed consultation on those and, in a way, we need to mirror what's happening in England and in Scotland to some degree around the consultations they're having on energy drinks. We also need to influence the issues that are not devolved to us and we seek to do that. As to your question of legislative time, I'm not really in a position to answer that. What I could say is that legislation may well be one of the outcomes of the consultation. There may well be things that we wish to choose to legislate on. The timing of that will have to be subject to other pressures, and I come back to the point that legislation, of course, is one of the tools that we've got--we need to deploy them all.
Dawn Bowden AM: Sure, I understand that, that you could do other things. I know--. We've heard from the Government, on other calls for legislation, that the programme's very tight, certainly for this term, so I was just wondering whether we might get that in, but okay. If I turn now to the planning system--and this might not be something that you have great deal of knowledge of; I'd just welcome your view on this, because, when we discussed with stakeholders, we talked about whether the planning system, for instance, could be used to, as an example, restrict hot food takeaways around schools and so on. Would that be a measure that you would support, something like that?
Dr Frank Atherton: I think it's definitely something we want to look at and, of course, that question is asked in the consultation, so we would like to know people's views on that. It's an interesting one. I think there is a question--a really important question--about how we can use the planning system more effectively. I've discussed with Nathan on a number of occasions, with planning colleagues in Welsh Government and in local authorities, about the art of the possible, let's say. There may be things that we could think about and we want to get those ideas through the consultation. The specific question around takeaways, particularly takeaways near schools, is often asked. I was very interested to see, up in the north-east, some time ago, that one of the local authorities up there did put a moratorium on the opening of new fast-food venues near to schools, or indeed in areas where levels of obesity and overweight were particularly high. I understand London is now--some London boroughs are now--experimenting with that as well. So, that gave me comfort, because maybe there are powers within local authorities that can be used more effectively. I think my view at the moment is that the jury's kind of out on whether those are effective and how effective they're going to be. But the fact that we have some initiatives around the UK does give us an opportunity to study that and to learn from experience perhaps and then, if it is shown to be beneficial, to think about that here in Wales, yes.
Dawn Bowden AM: Sure, because it will only be one of a suite of measures anyway. Of itself, it wouldn't address the problem, but, added to other initiatives, I guess it would. Can I just ask you briefly, then, about community sport infrastructure and, in particular, of new schools? So, Welsh Government, as you know, has ploughed a huge amount of money into the twenty-first century schools programme. What we heard when we spoke to stakeholders recently, particularly headteachers, was that, in some of the new schools that have been built, we haven't had changing rooms and toilet facilities, for instance, built into the new buildings. So, if we're going to try and utilise these buildings for general community activity to get kids and the wider public, actually, more active, do you think that's something that we ought to be building in? Again, not your particular direct area of responsibility, but something that you might have an input into, is that, when we're developing schools, we should be making sure that they have those kinds of facilities so that they become accessible to the wider public. Is that something that you would be prepared to make a recommendation around?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, it's certainly a fascinating area and one that I think has a lot of potential. It goes--. You're right to raise it in the context of schools, and I can understand why this committee would, but I think it goes beyond that, actually, into all developments in the public sector and how they're developed and whether we're building health into our environment, which perhaps is your starting point. One of the things that I was really pleased to see in terms of the Public Health (Wales) Act 2017 that was passed a couple of years ago was the use of health impact assessment as a tool, and we're still working on how that will inform policy and how that will be applied in issues such as policy decisions through Government, but also in more downstream issues about how we create the public infrastructure that the public can and should be using. And so I would like to see the use of health impact assessments to a much greater degree to inform those kinds of decisions. If you apply that kind of lens and you take the point, which is inherent in your question, I think, that schools are not just for kids, they're for communities, then you would--it would lead you to a conclusion that you would perhaps design and build them in a different way. So, on a personal basis, I would certainly support your view that we should be looking to use the sports environment in schools in the same way as we use leisure centres. There are all kinds of barriers in there, and I understand all of that, and it's not really my field, exactly as you say, but, as a matter of principle, I think it's a good one to pursue.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you. And widening it out to other public services buildings as well.
Dr Frank Atherton: Indeed.
Dawn Bowden AM: Yes. Okay. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We're going to move on now to talk about how we create healthy settings. I've got some questions from Suzy Davies.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much. Yes, perhaps if we could just stay in this area of education just for a moment, I think we all agree that healthy habits acquired early on probably tend to last quite well, so I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about the healthy and sustainable preschool scheme and whether you think some timescales should be made public about what you expect the achievements from that scheme to be. But, in particular, I was struck with what you said about local leadership, and I just want you to bear that in mind in answering the next question, which is about the foundation phase. You're probably aware that this committee has heard from various school leaders that they're struggling in some cases to meet the ratio of staffing for the foundation phase, which potentially compromises the purpose of it in terms of physical activity. I'm just wondering how the strategy development board is considering that at the moment. Is it something that's come on the radar for the board? Is it something you're thinking about? And, if so, who do you think should be responsible for pinning that down a little bit? Because this is education, not health, and--.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, look, I've got to confess to you, I'm not an educationist, and so the question on staffing numbers in schools is not one that I have been asked to give a deal of consideration to, and it hasn't really been discussed, I don't believe, in the context of development of the strategy. If there is a specific point around that that the committee would like to make in terms of a response into the consultation, which I presume you'll be making, then we'd be happy to consider that. As to healthy preschools, I don't know, Nathan may have some view on that. I've not been closely involved with the work. We have standards and we perhaps need to think about how we tighten those standards and how we--enforce isn't the right word, but how we implement and make sure that those standards are properly implemented, because you're absolutely right to say that habits are developed early in life. That's in the preschool; it's also in the home of course, and then later in the school. So, we do need to look at all of those as settings and are there more things we can do within those settings to drive healthier behaviours--that's exactly why we need the consultation.
Nathan Cook: But I would say, through that scheme as well, we've really got a really good bank of preschools that are actually doing some really great work in this area as well. So, I think the more we can understand the successes that some of those environments are having--you know, how we can roll those out and work across other settings to create that wider impact as well is going to be really important.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. What I'm thinking about is expectations at that level will be expectations at a slightly older level, which will be contained within the foundation phase. And while you're quite right--obviously, parents have a role in this, or families--there will be, particularly with the introduction of the new curriculum, certain expectations on schools to provide not just healthy environments but to actively work towards well-being and healthy weight in children and things. And that's why I asked you about local leadership, because, if it fails for reasons that have nothing to do with the plan at foundation phase, it's going to fail further up the school years as well. I think it might be something that the board might want to consider here, because at some point there'll be an accountability question and we will want to know how'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'fits in with the new plans for the new curriculum, and whether it's merely persuasive and influential or whether it has the weight to place some obligations on school leaders about what they do in their schools. So, this connection, I think, is quite an important one, and, if the strategy development board could consider that, I think it would be very helpful, because this doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, I'd certainly be delighted to take that back and we can look at it in terms of how we move from the consultation into the final strategy. It's certainly a point we can try and look at.
Suzy Davies AM: Because we will want to know who to ask:'you're the accountable person--why has something worked, or not worked?'We will need to know that at some point.
Dr Frank Atherton: Just building on Nathan's point, some of the schools--I know it's schools rather than the preschools, and I take your point, but some of the schools we've been working with have absolutely brilliant models of good practice and good local leadership. I remember the Minister actually at the launch, and one of the schools was represented there, and they presented--the school came and some of the children came and presented--to the whole audience about the activities that they were undertaking in their school around physical activity and on healthy eating, and it was such a model of good behaviour the question was,'Well, why not everywhere?', so that probably speaks to your question.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, well, thank you for that commitment anyway.
Lynne Neagle AM: And have you had any discussions, then, with education officials around things like teacher training and CPD, because you'll be aware the Health and Social Care Committee has made a number of recommendations in this area? It's crucial that we skill up the staff to develop these things in an appropriate way, isn't it?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, we certainly discuss with education colleagues in Welsh Government. There's more we need to do in terms of that, because you're absolutely right: there's something about building the whole of the workforce--education is really important, but elsewhere as well; it's about how do we really make every contact count, you know, that construct. So, everybody who's working in the health and social care system should have a role in this; everybody who works in education, whether it's the old--. Do we still have dinner ladies? Or teachers, you know, they have a role to play in supporting children to be as healthy as they possibly can. And, actually, I see them, Chair, as a really essential part of the public health workforce.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy, are you going to do your curriculum one?
Suzy Davies AM: Well, I've bound it in together, but that final point you make about teachers being part of the answer to this, they're already under a range of pressures: is it fair to make them accountable for whether this works or not? Or should that local leadership lie somewhere else? I don't expect you to pin down a person today.
Dr Frank Atherton: I wouldn't like to blame a teacher or performance manage them on the proportion of their children in their class who are overweight. That would clearly be nonsense, wouldn't it? But they are part of the solution, and so the accountability lies further up the chain, doesn't it? The question I think we would have, and public services boards might well ask, and the local education authorities may well ask, is: how effective is any particular school at driving forwards these healthy behaviours?
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. I'll leave some questions for Hefin.
Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin.
Hefin David AM: Is that all right, Chair?
Lynne Neagle AM: You've got the floor, Hefin.
Hefin David AM: Thank you, Chair. You make a commitment to embedding physical activity at an early stage in primary school education. What would that look like?
Dr Frank Atherton: Just in terms of the physical activity, I have to say it's a really important dimension and we need to move further on. We know not enough of our children are physically active and they're not meeting the various guidelines, so it's really important. It doesn't actually have as much of an impact on weight as the dietary issue. I'd just say that. It's really important for all sorts of reasons. It does have an impact on healthy weight, but it has a huge impact in terms of socialisation, in terms of mental health issues, et cetera, you know. So--I'm sorry, I've lost track of your question.
Nathan Cook: I'd just say that one thing we have got in train is, obviously, Sport Wales, Public Health Wales and Natural Resources Wales--we have them working together as a collaborative at the moment to look at how their joint delivery on physical activity can be taken forward more efficiently. So, one of the things they are looking at is obviously the schools programmes they do through eco-schools, the Welsh network of healthy schools and the sports programme to really think about that physical activity and how we can have better join up in terms of the programmes that we're already delivering as well.
Hefin David AM: With that in mind, I'm going to confess to you, chief medical officer, I did anything in school I could to avoid physical education lessons. I hated it. I didn't feel engaged with it. Yet, two weeks ago, I played for the Assembly rugby team--I wanted to get that in. The school sports survey, that would suggest that we're still not hitting those targets with children. How can we get children more engaged with physical education in ways that--? I felt completely alienated in school.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, you're right, and many people go through that same journey and come to physical activity later in life, and that's great if they do that. The sad reality is that many people don't, and we also know that there are issues around the dropping off, particularly for girls, of physical activity towards the teenage years. So, there are specific moments that we need to understand. We do have a lot of information about these kinds of things. Public Health Wales is very good at collating the information. We do need to turn that into programmes. I mean, at the heart of it, it's about making sports and physical activity enjoyable and attractive to people. Sometimes that's easier, I sense, for boys than for girls, but we need to tailor things to different audiences.
Hefin David AM: Yes, that's the trick, isn't it? It's about finding out what children enjoy doing. That could be quite a wide and varied range of things. Is that the key?
Dawn Bowden AM: It's not all about organised team sports.
Hefin David AM: Yes. As Dawn said, it's not just about organised team sports. There are some very individual activities you could do.
Dr Frank Atherton: Absolutely, yes. And that's where I think--. I'm delighted that Sport Wales has moved beyond. It's not just about elite sports; it's about getting everybody engaged and active in sports, and that partnership with Public Health Wales that Nathan talked about is really important, because we need a population approach to driving physical activity.
Hefin David AM: So, do you think, with that in mind, we need statutory guidance for schools on physical education?
Dr Frank Atherton: Again, I'd look to the consultation as to whether there was an appetite for any kind of guidance. It may well be that that is something that could be considered.
Hefin David AM: Okay. And finally, with regard to free school meals to all pupils in primary and secondary schools, do you think that extending that to all pupils would be beneficial in providing a more varied diet for pupils?
Dr Frank Atherton: I don't have a personal view on that. I think it's the quality of the food that kids are getting, whether that comes from home or through school, and whether it's free or whether it's paid for. I think it's the quality of the food that we need to focus on. The question of children being hungry at school is a really important one and needs to be addressed at a national level. I think that's a--
Hefin David AM: So, you think that's more about the provision of food for those who might not have access to it than providing a varied diet.
Dr Frank Atherton: I think it's important that children have access to food, absolutely, if that's your question, but we also need to look at the quality of the food and what's in that food offer.
Hefin David AM: But you don't necessarily think universal provision would--.
Dr Frank Atherton: I don't have a clear view on that. I know there's a larger debate about that.
Hefin David AM: Okay, thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: I've got some supplementaries from Janet and then Suzy.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. I've been around some amazing schools in my own constituency, where they've got proper canteen facilities for pupils and really, really good produce in the meals. However, there's probably only a third having school meals; the rest are packed lunches. And, to be honest, I've been very surprised and shocked at what I've seen of the quality of the food in the packed lunches. Nobody can really police, and I wouldn't want to see parents being policed over what goes in a packed lunch, so if there is data out there to suggest that there's a larger percentage of parents providing packed lunched that are really not good at all, then there is some merit to be said for what Hefin is--. Me, personally, I'd love to see the introduction of universal school meals. I think it's been a very retrograde step, going backwards. Would you be willing to carry out any research?
Dr Frank Atherton: So, I mean, your point about food that's brought in in the packed lunches is a really important one, and I've talked to some headteachers as well about this. We could go down a route of guidance and prohibition, but that gets you into the role of nanny in chief and I don't really see that as my role or Government's role, and I don't think it's effective either. Do you remember--? You must have seen on tv--I think it was in Scotland; I don't know if it's happened in Wales--parents pushing the fish and chip packets through the school railings. We don't need to get into that. What I have seen, though, is some really good innovative practice in schools where, for example, they reward children for bringing the healthy options. Schools can give guidance to parents about what would be a healthy lunch and what sort of things might be expected to be seen in the lunch box. And you can reward children, and children do respond to rewards. So, I've seen some of those approaches that have transformed, actually, the offer of what comes in school boxes. But I think just banning chocolate bars and crisps in the packed lunch is unlikely to be successful.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: We can't do that. So, my point to the question was: isn't there some merit, perhaps, about all children being equal and eating similar good-quality food in schools?
Dr Frank Atherton: Yes. That gets you back to the question about universal school meals.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Perhaps some of that PS56 million sugar tax, even. Who knows?
Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy.
Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Mine is just a short question. The draft plan commits, doesn't it, to updating the healthy eating in schools regulations--the 2013 regulations? I appreciate this is a consultation, but what is it that needs changing in those regulations at the moment, just to give us a bit of steer?
Nathan Cook: It's mainly on sugar content, so, obviously, they don't adhere to current Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition guidelines around sugar levels. So, what we'd want to consider is, you know, what we need to be careful of is unintended consequences of changing that, as well, if you see a shift to more kids bringing in school packed lunches as well. So, I think we want to consider the best way of doing that and consider through the consultation how we can go about it.
Suzy Davies AM: All right. So, it's very pertinent to Janet's question, in that way. Okay, so it's mainly about sugar, but it could be about other things as well. Okay. Thanks.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. The next questions are from Janet anyway; firstly, on the clinical obesity pathway.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'plan commits to a review of the clinical obesity pathway. What are the time frames for this review, and what do you think are the basic essentials of a clinical obesity pathway for children and young people?
Dr Frank Atherton: We do have a pathway for managing overweight, and that's been in place since about 2010, I believe, and we do need to bring that up to date in terms of current knowledge and experiences. We've challenged Public Health Wales; we've asked Public Health Wales to undertake a review of that pathway, and they are going through that process now. I'm not sure of exactly the time frame that we have given them for that.
Nathan Cook: We were asking them to review the pathway before we launch the final strategy in October because, obviously, what we want is for that to inform what that final strategy looks like. So, we'll be looking probably early autumn for them to report back on that.
Dr Frank Atherton: The second point of your question about what are the essential elements, I mean, they are already there; we need to tweak them and we need to make sure that they're properly delivered. But it's a tiered approach, so, having access to information through schools and through communities and into families is part of the first step of that. And then, if children are overweight, it's a question about how they're identified. There are questions about the ability of the public to recognise large children, so there may be an issue there. But when children are running into issues around weight, what kind of interventions can be put in, either through primary care or through communities through health visitors, et cetera? And then of course we do have--and we've started to shine a light on this, haven't we--the very overweight children. I don't think we have enough in the way of targeted support to be able to support those. There are programmes available, but they're perhaps not universally provided. So, I think there's something about looking at our whole pathway, mapping out what the current evidence now shows us is needed, and then thinking about what is our provision in Wales and what do we need to do to bring that up to the level of the places that are the best.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. The draft plan recognises the importance of the first 1,000 days, but it doesn't appear to include any new proposals to help parents to enable lifestyle changes. It lists existing initiatives, such as the Healthy Child Wales programme and breastfeeding action plan. Are you satisfied that the draft plan does enough to address the influence that family and parents have on children's healthy weight behaviours, particularly in the first 1,000 days?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, the first 1,000 days are really critically in shaping lives, as I'm sure you'd agree. We are absolutely open to any other suggestions that the public or this committee have as to what more we can and should do. There are a number of things, the sorts of programmes you've mentioned, that I think could be more effective. We're currently looking at breastfeeding because it starts before birth, actually. We know that children who are breastfed are less likely to suffer from obesity in childhood and, indeed, to go on to be obese adults. So, we do need to go further on that. We do have some programmes--Healthy Working Wales, et cetera--that need to be improved. If there are other interventions in other areas that we need to take, then we'd be delighted to hear what they are, but those are the ones that have jumped out so far.
Nathan Cook: Can I just say--? One of the proposals we're looking for is, obviously, we know that during pregnancy it's a really critical time when we can actually look to work with mothers. We know from looking at some of the behaviour change that it's actually a really critical point when new mothers really start thinking about their lives, wanting the best for their child and their families. So, what we are thinking about is how we could develop some kind of approaches to that going forward. But we know our Healthy Start scheme is also a good lever for us, just in terms of how we can look to improve that kind of dietary offer at the earliest stage as well.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Finally, we know that for some families day-to-day challenges can make it difficult for them to make healthy choices, particularly for those on lower incomes and/or maybe using food banks. Could the Welsh Government take bolder action to better support low-income families to eat healthily?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, you've touched on a really important point about inequalities because overweight and obesity is not evenly distributed across our population. It absolutely is more prevalent in more socioeconomically deprived communities, and that's something that should really concern us all. So, it gets you to questions of availability of fresh food and produce; it gets you to questions of formulation of products and whether value brands are less healthy than more premium brands. So, it cuts across all of those issues that we talked about in terms of settings and in terms of environment earlier. There is something about the affordability of good-quality healthy food that we need to think about. We do need to think in broad terms--broader terms than just obesity, but we do need to think in broad terms--about how we create a society where families have the wherewithal to lead healthy lives, and that gets you to really important questions about the minimum wage and income poverty. There's no doubt in my mind--I'm a public health professional--and there's no doubt in my mind that economic success and health success go hand in hand. So, you speak to a very deep question there. In terms of what we can do through this particular consultation, there are some things in there about providing better access, but without tackling some of those deeper determinants of health, their impact will necessarily be limited.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Just finally from me, then, you referred earlier to the importance of making every contact count, but some stakeholders have told the committee that they struggle to do that because of difficulties in availability of people to refer to. Is that a situation that you recognise and what, really, can we do to improve that situation?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, it depends what you mean as to where to refer to. So, the health system obviously needs to respond to this issue. What we're seeing across the NHS is a gradual transformation in primary care so that primary care is no longer about going to see your GP, it's about going to see a practice where you have a range of health professionals. Would I like to see more dietetic support, for example, in that setting? Absolutely I would. I think we need to think in terms of that pathway that we were talking about earlier, about access to that kind of advice and support, which can head off people getting into problems and kids getting into problems with weight issues. So, that question of redesign of the pathway really speaks to, I think, your point about,'Well, where do people go when they have problems with their weight?'That's true for adults and it's true for children as well.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you both very much for your attendance? It's been a really productive session. We appreciate your time. You will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy in due course, but thank you again.
Dr Frank Atherton: We'll do that. Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the committee, because getting some input into the consultation from children's perspectives, this would be one of the routes we would absolutely welcome. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee on CAMHS tier 4 provision. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Health and Social Services also on CAMHS in-patient provision. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Children Commissioner for Wales on tier 4 CAMHS provision. Paper to note 4 is a letter from Qualifications Wales to the Minister for Education on qualifications for the new curriculum. Paper to note 5 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education on the development of the new curriculum. Paper to note 6 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education seeking clarification on the draft additional learning needs code. Paper to note 7 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education seeking clarification on the response to our Brexit report. Paper to note 8 is a letter from the Equality and Human Rights Commission on a cumulative impact assessment briefing for committee, which has been offered. Paper to note 9 is a letter from the Chair of the Petitions Committee on a national taskforce for children's mental health. Paper to note 10 is a letter to the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union from the children's commissioners for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on the implications of Brexit for children. There are a few that I'd like to return to in private, but are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Okay. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17. 42 to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content?
Suzy Davies AM: Yes. There's somebody up there.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. | Dr Frank Atherton put out one" often asked" question and attached some importance to having a longitudinal view over time of what's happening to Children, which meant children were measured at school entry and then again at age 11 or 12. That would have significant resource implications, not just for the funding, but also for schools and for the system to deliver it. And also, according to Dr Frank Atherton, the longitudinal data would be helpful in strategy evaluation. | qmsum |
Summarize the discussion about legislation and sports infrastructural construction to make a healthy environment.
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Michelle Brown and Jack Sargeant; there are no substitutions. Can I ask if Members have any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. We'll move on, then, to item 2, which is our scrutiny of the'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'draft strategy, and I'm very pleased to welcome Dr Frank Atherton, the Chief Medical Officer for Wales, and Nathan Cook, who is the head of the healthy and active branch at Welsh Government. Thank you, both, for attending this morning. We're very much looking forward to hearing what you've got to say. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions. If I can just start by asking about the fact that'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'is an all-age strategy, really, and how confident you are that it will deliver for children and young people.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, we're very confident. I mean, it has to, quite clearly. We do need to think about the present generation, the problems faced by the current generation. We have high prevalence of overweight and obesity among adults--we know that, and we can't walk away from that because that's translating into demand on health services. But we have to take a focus, a future generation's focus, almost, on the next generation. I don't write off the current generation, we can't afford to do that, but we do need to think about what can we do that would be different for the next generation so that they don't get into the sorts of problems that we're currently seeing with overweight and obesity. We know that the consequences of that for our young people are going to be enormous if we don't do something and something quite soon. We know that overweight children go on to become overweight adults, unfortunately, and that brings all the consequences of multiple disease issues--diabetes is often cited--cancer risk et cetera. So, we have to focus on children, and, in fact, during the consultation, we've been very clear that we need to engage with children and young people as well. Perhaps we'll get into that at some point, Chair, but, yes, I can give you that assurance.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. What my follow-up question, really, is: can you just tell us what kind of engagement you've had with children and young people to inform the draft strategy?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, Nathan may be able to influence some of the detail, but in broad terms, we have discussed with young people in a number of fora. In fact, I was delighted that we had a young person, Evie Morgan, a schoolgirl from mid Wales, who came to the joint launch on the consultation. She met the Minister there and gave a very good personal account of her views on obesity and overweight. We've been visiting a number of schools during the consultation process. I'm visiting a school, either this week or next week, at Treorchy, to talk with teachers and young people there. Obviously, we're hopeful that schools and young people will contribute to the consultation as well. So, we've had quite good input, I would say, from children and young people. There is always more we can do we and we want to hear those voices.
Nathan Cook: I was going to say, we've also had a session with youth ambassadors as well, and what we've actually produced for the consultation is not just the children and young people's version, but also a toolkit in terms of getting schools really engaged and involved in terms of the work that we want them to do to feed into this as well. So, we've already had some really good responses from a lot of youth group and schools already.
Lynne Neagle AM: And you've got a structured programme, have you, to roll that out? Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on leadership, and the first questions are from Sian Gwenllian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. I'll be speaking in Welsh. The Minister for health said yesterday, in answering a question from me on the Chamber floor, that you gave him advice not to have a target in terms of reducing obesity among children. Could you confirm that that's what your advice was and tell us why you don't think that a target is needed?
Dr Frank Atherton: My advice was not that we don't need a target--we may well need a target, and that's one of the issues we need to consult on--but that the target that had been adopted in England and in Scotland to halve the prevalence of obesity in children was more aspirational than deliverable, and that if we are to choose a target in Wales, then we need to balance deliverability with challenge. We need a challenging environment. So, there is something about performance management, because I would be looking to not just the health system but the health and care system and to public services boards to think about how they're delivering on this, and I think we can use targets to that. But they are one tool in the box that I would think we could use, and part of the consultation is to ask that question--'If we are to go down a route in Wales of choosing a target, what might that look like?'Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. So, to be clear, you're not ruling out that maybe we would need a target.
Dr Frank Atherton: It's certainly something that we could consider in terms of the final strategy.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And is that your opinion too?
Nathan Cook: Yes.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Well, that is contrary to what I was told yesterday on the floor of the Chamber by the Minister, but there we go. I'm glad to hear that you're not ruling out having a target, because without a target, without something to aim for, how do we know that we're getting there?
Dr Frank Atherton: I think your point about evaluation is really important. Whatever we produce at the end of this process--and we're looking to produce a final strategy towards the autumn--we do need to have a strong evaluation. So, some metrics in there, it would seem, would be appropriate, but what those are, what the nature of those are, do we frame them as targets or ambitions--that's the point we need to consult on.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And the other point, of course, is the investment. If the Government is going to be successful in terms of the aim of reducing childhood obesity, then it needs to fund and support the actions. Have you made an assessment of the level of investment needed to implement this plan?
Dr Frank Atherton: Resourcing will be important. We currently do make investments in a number of areas that relate to child health generally, and, of course, obesity and overweight in particular. So, the question of resourcing is important. Now, we can't quantify an absolute amount of resource that will be needed to deliver until we know exactly what's going to come out of the consultation and what actions we might want to deliver to a greater degree in Wales. A figure of PS8 million to PS10 million a year has been banded around as a broad kind of area of what we might need to invest, but that would need to be drawn from existing programmes. We need to look at existing programmes, how effective they are. Can we make them more effective? Can we get better value from them? And there may well be a case for new investment, and that's a question, of course, that would need to be discussed with Ministers when we're producing the final strategy.
Nathan Cook: But I think a key consideration as well is we already know there is investment across health boards in some kind of obesity-related services. So, I think what we really need to think about across Wales is how we can drive greater scale, how we can look at current programmes in terms of making sure that they're better evaluated, and how we can make sure that we're also drawing up on the existing resources and capacity out there as well.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And does the level of investment depend on what the target is--what the goal is?
Dr Frank Atherton: I don't think you can necessarily just link the two. The issue of resourcing is one that's there irrespective of whether we choose to put a target in place.
Sian Gwenllian AM: But how would we know that it's being used effectively if there isn't something to aim for?
Dr Frank Atherton: Which brings you back to the question about evaluation. We need proper evaluation of the various programmes that we have.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but without a target, how can you properly evaluate? If you don't know what you're trying to do, how can you properly evaluate? Anyway, you're open to suggestions about having a target, which is great. Would you agree that Government could use the revenue that's being produced through the levy on soft drinks towards some of these efforts to--?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, of course, there are some consequentials that are coming to the Welsh Government as part of the levy on sugary soft drinks. That funding, of course, is less than we had anticipated, and that reflects, actually, a success story because industry is reformulating, and so the amount of sugar in soft drinks is already starting to decrease, which is a good thing. But to your question: should we use the funding? Well, of course we should use funding. I'm not personally in favour of hypothecation, I think I'm more interested in the totality of resource that goes into public health programmes than into marginal resource. There are, of course, a number of initiatives that we currently fund through the general revenue. And when I think about obesity, I don't just think about the relatively small marginal amounts of money that come in through whatever source, but I think about the totality of the PS7 billion we spend in health and social care and how we can divert and channel some of that towards broad prevention initiatives in general, and towards tackling being overweight and obesity in particular.
Sian Gwenllian AM: You're saying that it's less than expected. Could you give us any kind of figure?
Dr Frank Atherton: I'm sorry, could you repeat the question?
Sian Gwenllian AM: You say that there is less money that's come in through these consequentials from the levy, can you mention some sort of figure?
Dr Frank Atherton: The figure that I have in mind is about PS56 million that's coming in in terms of revenue over a two-year period. But I'd have to confirm that with the committee. What the anticipated--. When the sugar levy was first brought in, there was some modelling at UK level about what level of revenue that would bring, but it was based on the amount of sugar that was currently then in drinks and the fact that the sugar has reduced in drinks, I mean, the total amount available to the UK is less and hence our consequentials are less. Nathan may have some precise figures.
Nathan Cook: Yes, I was going to say, there was a mid-year report done where the levy has raised PS150 million to date since coming into force in April, and the original forecast was PS520 million a year. So, I think that shows the amount of work that's been done by industry around reformulation.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And the consequentials of that? That is the consequential--PS150 million.
Nathan Cook: On a UK level.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, so what's the Welsh consequential?
Lynne Neagle AM: Fifty-six.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Fifty-six? Gosh, that sounds a lot. Anyway, it's a good sum of money and you're talking about investing PS8 million to PS10 million. So, obviously, you know, we can be more ambitious because there is money in that pot if that money was ring-fenced for this particular scheme.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, the resource is going to be a real issue that we need to address, and I think as Nathan has said, there is funding of various initiatives currently in the system, and we need to look at that and make that as effective as possible. Will there be a need for some additional resource? There may well be, and that's a question that we'll have to look at in terms of the strategy when we develop it and have a discussion with Ministers about the level of resourcing.
Lynne Neagle AM: Can I just ask on that before Sian moves on? What assessment have you made of how that money is being spent in other UK nations? Because my understanding is that the money is being used in other UK nations to directly impact on obesity. Have you given any consideration to--? As I understand it, that money now is being dispersed around a plethora of programmes, including the transformation programme, and what I found very odd, really, was vaccination, which is surely the core business of the NHS. Have you got any view on that?
Dr Frank Atherton: I'm not sure I understand your point, Chair, in terms of the link between the consequentials from--. Are you talking about the consequentials from the sugar levy or are you talking about--?
Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, because in other nations, it is being used to directly impact on initiatives to tackle obesity, whereas, we've kind of put it here in Wales into the general pot and it's being used to fund a plethora of different things.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, that cuts to what I was talking about. My preference--it's a personal view--is that hypothecation doesn't really help us too much. I mean, what we need to look at is whether the programmes, the sorts of programmes that are being funded in England, or indeed in Scotland, are working effectively, and if they are, are they being delivered here in Wales? We have looked very carefully at the plans that England and Scotland have for tackling obesity and overweight, and we've made a comparison with what we're doing in Wales, and our ambition in Wales is to go further than those nations, in many ways. But I come back to the point that just linking the hypothecation of a relatively small amount of resource is likely to be less impactful than asking a question of public services boards and of the health system, indeed, about how much money, overall, are we putting into prevention.
Lynne Neagle AM: No, I recognise that, and I think we're talking about additional resource. Suzy.
Suzy Davies AM: I was just wondering whether you thought that there was a useful psychological link on the part of the public between saying,'Here's a sugar levy', and'It's going to be used to help children and adults stay healthier.'Going into a pot, it actually makes it quite difficult to explain the purpose of the tax in the first place. So, I take your overall point, but in terms of the people who we're trying to help in all this, actually creating a direct link might be quite helpful.
Dr Frank Atherton: You may be right. I'm not a behavioural psychologist. We'd have to ask--
Suzy Davies AM: Neither am I. I'm a person who eats a lot of sugar. [Laughter. ]
Dr Frank Atherton: Your point's taken.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thanks. Sian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: The last question from me, about partnership working. You're putting an emphasis on the whole-system approach in implementing the plan, how are you going to create a system that co-ordinates action and drives change across relevant partners, avoiding a situation where it's everyone's role, but nobody's responsibility? How are you going to avoid that?
Dr Frank Atherton: It's a very important question, and one of the four strands in the consultation is exactly related to that, around leadership and drive nationally. I'm not interested in producing a strategy that sits on a shelf. If you look around the world, there are plenty of obesity strategies. You may notice, by the way, that we've chosen not to talk about an obesity strategy but a healthy weight strategy, because I think having a positive construct is really quite important to us here in Wales. But leadership will be really important, and we will need some sort of structure to lead this, to provide oversight. I'm not a great believer in creating new structures, so we do need something that will give that drive, but the leadership comes from the top down. We need political commitment to this, and that's why I welcome the input from this committee. So, that needs to be assured. And then we need to make sure that the public sector generally is engaged in this, but it goes way beyond the public sector, of course, because we have to work with industry, and we have to work with communities, and we have to work with the public on this. So we need to think about our governance system for this and how we drive it forward. Interestingly, we had quite a large discussion two days ago between health and social care, but also involving the third sector and some members of the public, around how can we drive prevention more generally. It wasn't specifically on obesity, but of course obesity came up because it's such a pressing issue. This question of governance was discussed quite extensively, and we do have governance systems, of course, in Wales. We have public services boards, we have regional partnership boards, and how we can get those aligned behind this common agenda is really important. But I'd like to see--and I know I'm a public health professional, so I know that only maybe 10 per cent, 15 per cent, possibly 20 per cent of what makes and keeps us healthy as individuals and as communities can be driven through the health system; but I would like the system to step up and take these kinds of issues more seriously as well. So I'd be looking for local leadership through directors of public health and indeed through chief executives to work with their public services boards on this. So, we'll need some sort of national oversight, absolutely, but we need local ownership and local leadership, too.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got some questions now from Janet Finch-Saunders.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. Delivery of the plan will be led by a national implementation board that will be accountable to Ministers. Which Minister do you believe it should be accountable to, or, given the complexity of obesity, should the board be directly accountable to the First Minister?
Dr Frank Atherton: Ultimately, the First Minister will be responsible for this and will want to have a strong oversight of this. It is often framed as a health issue, and the Minister, Vaughan Gething, has a strong personal commitment to this, I know. We've talked extensively with him and with sports and recreation colleagues about that, so there's a link there. It does cut across all portfolios, and so this is an issue that I have discussed with Cabinet, and that collective ownership is really important, and will be, because it can't just sit in one domain. I think what you do need to have is you do need to have a lead organisation or a lead ministry, and I would see health as--I work within health, so I'm perhaps biased, but I would see health as leading this, but it needs broad ownership across Government.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I know my colleague Sian Gwenllian mentioned earlier targets and things, but I know in Wales we're not too good at collecting data. What data is currently available on childhood obesity and what metrics will be used to measure progress against the plan's objectives?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, of course, our main data source is the child measurement programme, which collects information on children entering school aged four or five. That's our main source of information. If we look at that data, it shows us--. Well, I'm sure you're familiar with the statistics, but it'll be just under a third of children at that age who are overweight or obese--
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Could I just ask--sorry to interrupt--how up to date is that?
Dr Frank Atherton: The last survey was just last year.
Nathan Cook: The data was published last week.
Dr Frank Atherton: Yes, the lastest data was out last week.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It is pretty up to date.
Dr Frank Atherton: So, it's pretty up to date, and what it shows--. It's not getting radically worse--there's always statistical variation in these things--but it's not getting any better. And, for the first time last year, we did look at the question not just of children who were overweight or obese, but we actually singled out the proportion who are obese, severely obese. So we have a figure for that for the first time, which is about 12 per cent, which is quite shocking, in a way.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It is shocking.
Dr Frank Atherton: So, that's our main source of information. Does that answer your question?
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, but how will any gaps in your data be addressed?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, one of the questions that are often asked is: could we measure more on a longitudinal basis? By that I mean in England, for example, children are measured at school entry and then again at year 11--at age 11 or 12. , that kind of age group. And so you do have a longitudinal view over time of what's happening to children. I think that would be helpful to us in Wales, and it's one of the questions in the consultation about whether we should expand that. Obviously, that would have significant resource implications, not just for the funding, but also for schools and for the system to deliver it. But it's something that maybe would help us in terms of better understanding and better evaluation--the point that was made earlier.
Nathan Cook: And the other data we do have is the millennium cohort study, which has been released, for 14 and 15-year-olds. That's going to be--. We're starting to think about how we can utilise some of that data, looking at that longitudinal picture around children as well, which will be really helpful.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. You've answered my next question. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Can I just ask about the child measurement programme? The strategy commits to looking at whether we can have a second measurement taking place in Wales. Can you just tell us a bit more about your thinking on that and when you would see a second measurement taking place and how you would use that data?
Dr Frank Atherton: I touched on that just now, but personally I do think it would be helpful to have more information. It's always the case, There's always a trade-off between the cost of getting that information and the value of the information. So, the question of how it would be used would be really important. There is still a lot that we don't know. We know an awful lot about obesity and being overweight and the causes of it, but we don't really have a very clear understanding, in Wales at least, of the point at which children start to become overweight. Although we know that overweight children tend to go on to become overweight adults, we don't know what proportion of them between school entry and later teenage years--what those changes are. So, it would help us to have some better understanding, which would help to direct some of our initiatives. I'd be generally supportive of the principle. We'll wait and see what comes out in the consultation, and it's something that we need to give thought to, but we do have to trade off the additionality of what the information would give us with the cost of doing that, of course.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on healthy environments from Dawn Bowden.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. In the draft plan, some of the measures in there suggest legislating for restricting price promotions and banning energy drinks, and that sort of thing. Do you think that, if we go down that road, there's going to be time within this Assembly to introduce such legislation? And, if not, what do you think might be the timescale for such legislation?
Dr Frank Atherton: It may well be that there are things in Wales that we might wish to legislate on, and you've mentioned two of them, and they're good examples. We would, obviously, need to undertake quite detailed consultation on those and, in a way, we need to mirror what's happening in England and in Scotland to some degree around the consultations they're having on energy drinks. We also need to influence the issues that are not devolved to us and we seek to do that. As to your question of legislative time, I'm not really in a position to answer that. What I could say is that legislation may well be one of the outcomes of the consultation. There may well be things that we wish to choose to legislate on. The timing of that will have to be subject to other pressures, and I come back to the point that legislation, of course, is one of the tools that we've got--we need to deploy them all.
Dawn Bowden AM: Sure, I understand that, that you could do other things. I know--. We've heard from the Government, on other calls for legislation, that the programme's very tight, certainly for this term, so I was just wondering whether we might get that in, but okay. If I turn now to the planning system--and this might not be something that you have great deal of knowledge of; I'd just welcome your view on this, because, when we discussed with stakeholders, we talked about whether the planning system, for instance, could be used to, as an example, restrict hot food takeaways around schools and so on. Would that be a measure that you would support, something like that?
Dr Frank Atherton: I think it's definitely something we want to look at and, of course, that question is asked in the consultation, so we would like to know people's views on that. It's an interesting one. I think there is a question--a really important question--about how we can use the planning system more effectively. I've discussed with Nathan on a number of occasions, with planning colleagues in Welsh Government and in local authorities, about the art of the possible, let's say. There may be things that we could think about and we want to get those ideas through the consultation. The specific question around takeaways, particularly takeaways near schools, is often asked. I was very interested to see, up in the north-east, some time ago, that one of the local authorities up there did put a moratorium on the opening of new fast-food venues near to schools, or indeed in areas where levels of obesity and overweight were particularly high. I understand London is now--some London boroughs are now--experimenting with that as well. So, that gave me comfort, because maybe there are powers within local authorities that can be used more effectively. I think my view at the moment is that the jury's kind of out on whether those are effective and how effective they're going to be. But the fact that we have some initiatives around the UK does give us an opportunity to study that and to learn from experience perhaps and then, if it is shown to be beneficial, to think about that here in Wales, yes.
Dawn Bowden AM: Sure, because it will only be one of a suite of measures anyway. Of itself, it wouldn't address the problem, but, added to other initiatives, I guess it would. Can I just ask you briefly, then, about community sport infrastructure and, in particular, of new schools? So, Welsh Government, as you know, has ploughed a huge amount of money into the twenty-first century schools programme. What we heard when we spoke to stakeholders recently, particularly headteachers, was that, in some of the new schools that have been built, we haven't had changing rooms and toilet facilities, for instance, built into the new buildings. So, if we're going to try and utilise these buildings for general community activity to get kids and the wider public, actually, more active, do you think that's something that we ought to be building in? Again, not your particular direct area of responsibility, but something that you might have an input into, is that, when we're developing schools, we should be making sure that they have those kinds of facilities so that they become accessible to the wider public. Is that something that you would be prepared to make a recommendation around?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, it's certainly a fascinating area and one that I think has a lot of potential. It goes--. You're right to raise it in the context of schools, and I can understand why this committee would, but I think it goes beyond that, actually, into all developments in the public sector and how they're developed and whether we're building health into our environment, which perhaps is your starting point. One of the things that I was really pleased to see in terms of the Public Health (Wales) Act 2017 that was passed a couple of years ago was the use of health impact assessment as a tool, and we're still working on how that will inform policy and how that will be applied in issues such as policy decisions through Government, but also in more downstream issues about how we create the public infrastructure that the public can and should be using. And so I would like to see the use of health impact assessments to a much greater degree to inform those kinds of decisions. If you apply that kind of lens and you take the point, which is inherent in your question, I think, that schools are not just for kids, they're for communities, then you would--it would lead you to a conclusion that you would perhaps design and build them in a different way. So, on a personal basis, I would certainly support your view that we should be looking to use the sports environment in schools in the same way as we use leisure centres. There are all kinds of barriers in there, and I understand all of that, and it's not really my field, exactly as you say, but, as a matter of principle, I think it's a good one to pursue.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you. And widening it out to other public services buildings as well.
Dr Frank Atherton: Indeed.
Dawn Bowden AM: Yes. Okay. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We're going to move on now to talk about how we create healthy settings. I've got some questions from Suzy Davies.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much. Yes, perhaps if we could just stay in this area of education just for a moment, I think we all agree that healthy habits acquired early on probably tend to last quite well, so I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about the healthy and sustainable preschool scheme and whether you think some timescales should be made public about what you expect the achievements from that scheme to be. But, in particular, I was struck with what you said about local leadership, and I just want you to bear that in mind in answering the next question, which is about the foundation phase. You're probably aware that this committee has heard from various school leaders that they're struggling in some cases to meet the ratio of staffing for the foundation phase, which potentially compromises the purpose of it in terms of physical activity. I'm just wondering how the strategy development board is considering that at the moment. Is it something that's come on the radar for the board? Is it something you're thinking about? And, if so, who do you think should be responsible for pinning that down a little bit? Because this is education, not health, and--.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, look, I've got to confess to you, I'm not an educationist, and so the question on staffing numbers in schools is not one that I have been asked to give a deal of consideration to, and it hasn't really been discussed, I don't believe, in the context of development of the strategy. If there is a specific point around that that the committee would like to make in terms of a response into the consultation, which I presume you'll be making, then we'd be happy to consider that. As to healthy preschools, I don't know, Nathan may have some view on that. I've not been closely involved with the work. We have standards and we perhaps need to think about how we tighten those standards and how we--enforce isn't the right word, but how we implement and make sure that those standards are properly implemented, because you're absolutely right to say that habits are developed early in life. That's in the preschool; it's also in the home of course, and then later in the school. So, we do need to look at all of those as settings and are there more things we can do within those settings to drive healthier behaviours--that's exactly why we need the consultation.
Nathan Cook: But I would say, through that scheme as well, we've really got a really good bank of preschools that are actually doing some really great work in this area as well. So, I think the more we can understand the successes that some of those environments are having--you know, how we can roll those out and work across other settings to create that wider impact as well is going to be really important.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. What I'm thinking about is expectations at that level will be expectations at a slightly older level, which will be contained within the foundation phase. And while you're quite right--obviously, parents have a role in this, or families--there will be, particularly with the introduction of the new curriculum, certain expectations on schools to provide not just healthy environments but to actively work towards well-being and healthy weight in children and things. And that's why I asked you about local leadership, because, if it fails for reasons that have nothing to do with the plan at foundation phase, it's going to fail further up the school years as well. I think it might be something that the board might want to consider here, because at some point there'll be an accountability question and we will want to know how'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'fits in with the new plans for the new curriculum, and whether it's merely persuasive and influential or whether it has the weight to place some obligations on school leaders about what they do in their schools. So, this connection, I think, is quite an important one, and, if the strategy development board could consider that, I think it would be very helpful, because this doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, I'd certainly be delighted to take that back and we can look at it in terms of how we move from the consultation into the final strategy. It's certainly a point we can try and look at.
Suzy Davies AM: Because we will want to know who to ask:'you're the accountable person--why has something worked, or not worked?'We will need to know that at some point.
Dr Frank Atherton: Just building on Nathan's point, some of the schools--I know it's schools rather than the preschools, and I take your point, but some of the schools we've been working with have absolutely brilliant models of good practice and good local leadership. I remember the Minister actually at the launch, and one of the schools was represented there, and they presented--the school came and some of the children came and presented--to the whole audience about the activities that they were undertaking in their school around physical activity and on healthy eating, and it was such a model of good behaviour the question was,'Well, why not everywhere?', so that probably speaks to your question.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, well, thank you for that commitment anyway.
Lynne Neagle AM: And have you had any discussions, then, with education officials around things like teacher training and CPD, because you'll be aware the Health and Social Care Committee has made a number of recommendations in this area? It's crucial that we skill up the staff to develop these things in an appropriate way, isn't it?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, we certainly discuss with education colleagues in Welsh Government. There's more we need to do in terms of that, because you're absolutely right: there's something about building the whole of the workforce--education is really important, but elsewhere as well; it's about how do we really make every contact count, you know, that construct. So, everybody who's working in the health and social care system should have a role in this; everybody who works in education, whether it's the old--. Do we still have dinner ladies? Or teachers, you know, they have a role to play in supporting children to be as healthy as they possibly can. And, actually, I see them, Chair, as a really essential part of the public health workforce.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy, are you going to do your curriculum one?
Suzy Davies AM: Well, I've bound it in together, but that final point you make about teachers being part of the answer to this, they're already under a range of pressures: is it fair to make them accountable for whether this works or not? Or should that local leadership lie somewhere else? I don't expect you to pin down a person today.
Dr Frank Atherton: I wouldn't like to blame a teacher or performance manage them on the proportion of their children in their class who are overweight. That would clearly be nonsense, wouldn't it? But they are part of the solution, and so the accountability lies further up the chain, doesn't it? The question I think we would have, and public services boards might well ask, and the local education authorities may well ask, is: how effective is any particular school at driving forwards these healthy behaviours?
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. I'll leave some questions for Hefin.
Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin.
Hefin David AM: Is that all right, Chair?
Lynne Neagle AM: You've got the floor, Hefin.
Hefin David AM: Thank you, Chair. You make a commitment to embedding physical activity at an early stage in primary school education. What would that look like?
Dr Frank Atherton: Just in terms of the physical activity, I have to say it's a really important dimension and we need to move further on. We know not enough of our children are physically active and they're not meeting the various guidelines, so it's really important. It doesn't actually have as much of an impact on weight as the dietary issue. I'd just say that. It's really important for all sorts of reasons. It does have an impact on healthy weight, but it has a huge impact in terms of socialisation, in terms of mental health issues, et cetera, you know. So--I'm sorry, I've lost track of your question.
Nathan Cook: I'd just say that one thing we have got in train is, obviously, Sport Wales, Public Health Wales and Natural Resources Wales--we have them working together as a collaborative at the moment to look at how their joint delivery on physical activity can be taken forward more efficiently. So, one of the things they are looking at is obviously the schools programmes they do through eco-schools, the Welsh network of healthy schools and the sports programme to really think about that physical activity and how we can have better join up in terms of the programmes that we're already delivering as well.
Hefin David AM: With that in mind, I'm going to confess to you, chief medical officer, I did anything in school I could to avoid physical education lessons. I hated it. I didn't feel engaged with it. Yet, two weeks ago, I played for the Assembly rugby team--I wanted to get that in. The school sports survey, that would suggest that we're still not hitting those targets with children. How can we get children more engaged with physical education in ways that--? I felt completely alienated in school.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, you're right, and many people go through that same journey and come to physical activity later in life, and that's great if they do that. The sad reality is that many people don't, and we also know that there are issues around the dropping off, particularly for girls, of physical activity towards the teenage years. So, there are specific moments that we need to understand. We do have a lot of information about these kinds of things. Public Health Wales is very good at collating the information. We do need to turn that into programmes. I mean, at the heart of it, it's about making sports and physical activity enjoyable and attractive to people. Sometimes that's easier, I sense, for boys than for girls, but we need to tailor things to different audiences.
Hefin David AM: Yes, that's the trick, isn't it? It's about finding out what children enjoy doing. That could be quite a wide and varied range of things. Is that the key?
Dawn Bowden AM: It's not all about organised team sports.
Hefin David AM: Yes. As Dawn said, it's not just about organised team sports. There are some very individual activities you could do.
Dr Frank Atherton: Absolutely, yes. And that's where I think--. I'm delighted that Sport Wales has moved beyond. It's not just about elite sports; it's about getting everybody engaged and active in sports, and that partnership with Public Health Wales that Nathan talked about is really important, because we need a population approach to driving physical activity.
Hefin David AM: So, do you think, with that in mind, we need statutory guidance for schools on physical education?
Dr Frank Atherton: Again, I'd look to the consultation as to whether there was an appetite for any kind of guidance. It may well be that that is something that could be considered.
Hefin David AM: Okay. And finally, with regard to free school meals to all pupils in primary and secondary schools, do you think that extending that to all pupils would be beneficial in providing a more varied diet for pupils?
Dr Frank Atherton: I don't have a personal view on that. I think it's the quality of the food that kids are getting, whether that comes from home or through school, and whether it's free or whether it's paid for. I think it's the quality of the food that we need to focus on. The question of children being hungry at school is a really important one and needs to be addressed at a national level. I think that's a--
Hefin David AM: So, you think that's more about the provision of food for those who might not have access to it than providing a varied diet.
Dr Frank Atherton: I think it's important that children have access to food, absolutely, if that's your question, but we also need to look at the quality of the food and what's in that food offer.
Hefin David AM: But you don't necessarily think universal provision would--.
Dr Frank Atherton: I don't have a clear view on that. I know there's a larger debate about that.
Hefin David AM: Okay, thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: I've got some supplementaries from Janet and then Suzy.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. I've been around some amazing schools in my own constituency, where they've got proper canteen facilities for pupils and really, really good produce in the meals. However, there's probably only a third having school meals; the rest are packed lunches. And, to be honest, I've been very surprised and shocked at what I've seen of the quality of the food in the packed lunches. Nobody can really police, and I wouldn't want to see parents being policed over what goes in a packed lunch, so if there is data out there to suggest that there's a larger percentage of parents providing packed lunched that are really not good at all, then there is some merit to be said for what Hefin is--. Me, personally, I'd love to see the introduction of universal school meals. I think it's been a very retrograde step, going backwards. Would you be willing to carry out any research?
Dr Frank Atherton: So, I mean, your point about food that's brought in in the packed lunches is a really important one, and I've talked to some headteachers as well about this. We could go down a route of guidance and prohibition, but that gets you into the role of nanny in chief and I don't really see that as my role or Government's role, and I don't think it's effective either. Do you remember--? You must have seen on tv--I think it was in Scotland; I don't know if it's happened in Wales--parents pushing the fish and chip packets through the school railings. We don't need to get into that. What I have seen, though, is some really good innovative practice in schools where, for example, they reward children for bringing the healthy options. Schools can give guidance to parents about what would be a healthy lunch and what sort of things might be expected to be seen in the lunch box. And you can reward children, and children do respond to rewards. So, I've seen some of those approaches that have transformed, actually, the offer of what comes in school boxes. But I think just banning chocolate bars and crisps in the packed lunch is unlikely to be successful.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: We can't do that. So, my point to the question was: isn't there some merit, perhaps, about all children being equal and eating similar good-quality food in schools?
Dr Frank Atherton: Yes. That gets you back to the question about universal school meals.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Perhaps some of that PS56 million sugar tax, even. Who knows?
Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy.
Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Mine is just a short question. The draft plan commits, doesn't it, to updating the healthy eating in schools regulations--the 2013 regulations? I appreciate this is a consultation, but what is it that needs changing in those regulations at the moment, just to give us a bit of steer?
Nathan Cook: It's mainly on sugar content, so, obviously, they don't adhere to current Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition guidelines around sugar levels. So, what we'd want to consider is, you know, what we need to be careful of is unintended consequences of changing that, as well, if you see a shift to more kids bringing in school packed lunches as well. So, I think we want to consider the best way of doing that and consider through the consultation how we can go about it.
Suzy Davies AM: All right. So, it's very pertinent to Janet's question, in that way. Okay, so it's mainly about sugar, but it could be about other things as well. Okay. Thanks.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. The next questions are from Janet anyway; firstly, on the clinical obesity pathway.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'plan commits to a review of the clinical obesity pathway. What are the time frames for this review, and what do you think are the basic essentials of a clinical obesity pathway for children and young people?
Dr Frank Atherton: We do have a pathway for managing overweight, and that's been in place since about 2010, I believe, and we do need to bring that up to date in terms of current knowledge and experiences. We've challenged Public Health Wales; we've asked Public Health Wales to undertake a review of that pathway, and they are going through that process now. I'm not sure of exactly the time frame that we have given them for that.
Nathan Cook: We were asking them to review the pathway before we launch the final strategy in October because, obviously, what we want is for that to inform what that final strategy looks like. So, we'll be looking probably early autumn for them to report back on that.
Dr Frank Atherton: The second point of your question about what are the essential elements, I mean, they are already there; we need to tweak them and we need to make sure that they're properly delivered. But it's a tiered approach, so, having access to information through schools and through communities and into families is part of the first step of that. And then, if children are overweight, it's a question about how they're identified. There are questions about the ability of the public to recognise large children, so there may be an issue there. But when children are running into issues around weight, what kind of interventions can be put in, either through primary care or through communities through health visitors, et cetera? And then of course we do have--and we've started to shine a light on this, haven't we--the very overweight children. I don't think we have enough in the way of targeted support to be able to support those. There are programmes available, but they're perhaps not universally provided. So, I think there's something about looking at our whole pathway, mapping out what the current evidence now shows us is needed, and then thinking about what is our provision in Wales and what do we need to do to bring that up to the level of the places that are the best.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. The draft plan recognises the importance of the first 1,000 days, but it doesn't appear to include any new proposals to help parents to enable lifestyle changes. It lists existing initiatives, such as the Healthy Child Wales programme and breastfeeding action plan. Are you satisfied that the draft plan does enough to address the influence that family and parents have on children's healthy weight behaviours, particularly in the first 1,000 days?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, the first 1,000 days are really critically in shaping lives, as I'm sure you'd agree. We are absolutely open to any other suggestions that the public or this committee have as to what more we can and should do. There are a number of things, the sorts of programmes you've mentioned, that I think could be more effective. We're currently looking at breastfeeding because it starts before birth, actually. We know that children who are breastfed are less likely to suffer from obesity in childhood and, indeed, to go on to be obese adults. So, we do need to go further on that. We do have some programmes--Healthy Working Wales, et cetera--that need to be improved. If there are other interventions in other areas that we need to take, then we'd be delighted to hear what they are, but those are the ones that have jumped out so far.
Nathan Cook: Can I just say--? One of the proposals we're looking for is, obviously, we know that during pregnancy it's a really critical time when we can actually look to work with mothers. We know from looking at some of the behaviour change that it's actually a really critical point when new mothers really start thinking about their lives, wanting the best for their child and their families. So, what we are thinking about is how we could develop some kind of approaches to that going forward. But we know our Healthy Start scheme is also a good lever for us, just in terms of how we can look to improve that kind of dietary offer at the earliest stage as well.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Finally, we know that for some families day-to-day challenges can make it difficult for them to make healthy choices, particularly for those on lower incomes and/or maybe using food banks. Could the Welsh Government take bolder action to better support low-income families to eat healthily?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, you've touched on a really important point about inequalities because overweight and obesity is not evenly distributed across our population. It absolutely is more prevalent in more socioeconomically deprived communities, and that's something that should really concern us all. So, it gets you to questions of availability of fresh food and produce; it gets you to questions of formulation of products and whether value brands are less healthy than more premium brands. So, it cuts across all of those issues that we talked about in terms of settings and in terms of environment earlier. There is something about the affordability of good-quality healthy food that we need to think about. We do need to think in broad terms--broader terms than just obesity, but we do need to think in broad terms--about how we create a society where families have the wherewithal to lead healthy lives, and that gets you to really important questions about the minimum wage and income poverty. There's no doubt in my mind--I'm a public health professional--and there's no doubt in my mind that economic success and health success go hand in hand. So, you speak to a very deep question there. In terms of what we can do through this particular consultation, there are some things in there about providing better access, but without tackling some of those deeper determinants of health, their impact will necessarily be limited.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Just finally from me, then, you referred earlier to the importance of making every contact count, but some stakeholders have told the committee that they struggle to do that because of difficulties in availability of people to refer to. Is that a situation that you recognise and what, really, can we do to improve that situation?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, it depends what you mean as to where to refer to. So, the health system obviously needs to respond to this issue. What we're seeing across the NHS is a gradual transformation in primary care so that primary care is no longer about going to see your GP, it's about going to see a practice where you have a range of health professionals. Would I like to see more dietetic support, for example, in that setting? Absolutely I would. I think we need to think in terms of that pathway that we were talking about earlier, about access to that kind of advice and support, which can head off people getting into problems and kids getting into problems with weight issues. So, that question of redesign of the pathway really speaks to, I think, your point about,'Well, where do people go when they have problems with their weight?'That's true for adults and it's true for children as well.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you both very much for your attendance? It's been a really productive session. We appreciate your time. You will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy in due course, but thank you again.
Dr Frank Atherton: We'll do that. Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the committee, because getting some input into the consultation from children's perspectives, this would be one of the routes we would absolutely welcome. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee on CAMHS tier 4 provision. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Health and Social Services also on CAMHS in-patient provision. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Children Commissioner for Wales on tier 4 CAMHS provision. Paper to note 4 is a letter from Qualifications Wales to the Minister for Education on qualifications for the new curriculum. Paper to note 5 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education on the development of the new curriculum. Paper to note 6 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education seeking clarification on the draft additional learning needs code. Paper to note 7 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education seeking clarification on the response to our Brexit report. Paper to note 8 is a letter from the Equality and Human Rights Commission on a cumulative impact assessment briefing for committee, which has been offered. Paper to note 9 is a letter from the Chair of the Petitions Committee on a national taskforce for children's mental health. Paper to note 10 is a letter to the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union from the children's commissioners for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on the implications of Brexit for children. There are a few that I'd like to return to in private, but are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Okay. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17. 42 to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content?
Suzy Davies AM: Yes. There's somebody up there.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. | Dr Frank Atherton was first asked about legislations in the draft plan and their ideas on those things. The use of legislation was affirmed by Dr Frank Atherton but it was just one of the tools they have got, they need to employ them all. Then as to sports infrastructure, Dr Frank Atherton, though not an expert in that field, also supported it as a good one to pursue not only in schools but also in a broadening area. | qmsum |
What did Dr Frank Atherton said about legislation to build a healthy environment?
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Michelle Brown and Jack Sargeant; there are no substitutions. Can I ask if Members have any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. We'll move on, then, to item 2, which is our scrutiny of the'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'draft strategy, and I'm very pleased to welcome Dr Frank Atherton, the Chief Medical Officer for Wales, and Nathan Cook, who is the head of the healthy and active branch at Welsh Government. Thank you, both, for attending this morning. We're very much looking forward to hearing what you've got to say. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions. If I can just start by asking about the fact that'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'is an all-age strategy, really, and how confident you are that it will deliver for children and young people.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, we're very confident. I mean, it has to, quite clearly. We do need to think about the present generation, the problems faced by the current generation. We have high prevalence of overweight and obesity among adults--we know that, and we can't walk away from that because that's translating into demand on health services. But we have to take a focus, a future generation's focus, almost, on the next generation. I don't write off the current generation, we can't afford to do that, but we do need to think about what can we do that would be different for the next generation so that they don't get into the sorts of problems that we're currently seeing with overweight and obesity. We know that the consequences of that for our young people are going to be enormous if we don't do something and something quite soon. We know that overweight children go on to become overweight adults, unfortunately, and that brings all the consequences of multiple disease issues--diabetes is often cited--cancer risk et cetera. So, we have to focus on children, and, in fact, during the consultation, we've been very clear that we need to engage with children and young people as well. Perhaps we'll get into that at some point, Chair, but, yes, I can give you that assurance.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. What my follow-up question, really, is: can you just tell us what kind of engagement you've had with children and young people to inform the draft strategy?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, Nathan may be able to influence some of the detail, but in broad terms, we have discussed with young people in a number of fora. In fact, I was delighted that we had a young person, Evie Morgan, a schoolgirl from mid Wales, who came to the joint launch on the consultation. She met the Minister there and gave a very good personal account of her views on obesity and overweight. We've been visiting a number of schools during the consultation process. I'm visiting a school, either this week or next week, at Treorchy, to talk with teachers and young people there. Obviously, we're hopeful that schools and young people will contribute to the consultation as well. So, we've had quite good input, I would say, from children and young people. There is always more we can do we and we want to hear those voices.
Nathan Cook: I was going to say, we've also had a session with youth ambassadors as well, and what we've actually produced for the consultation is not just the children and young people's version, but also a toolkit in terms of getting schools really engaged and involved in terms of the work that we want them to do to feed into this as well. So, we've already had some really good responses from a lot of youth group and schools already.
Lynne Neagle AM: And you've got a structured programme, have you, to roll that out? Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on leadership, and the first questions are from Sian Gwenllian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. I'll be speaking in Welsh. The Minister for health said yesterday, in answering a question from me on the Chamber floor, that you gave him advice not to have a target in terms of reducing obesity among children. Could you confirm that that's what your advice was and tell us why you don't think that a target is needed?
Dr Frank Atherton: My advice was not that we don't need a target--we may well need a target, and that's one of the issues we need to consult on--but that the target that had been adopted in England and in Scotland to halve the prevalence of obesity in children was more aspirational than deliverable, and that if we are to choose a target in Wales, then we need to balance deliverability with challenge. We need a challenging environment. So, there is something about performance management, because I would be looking to not just the health system but the health and care system and to public services boards to think about how they're delivering on this, and I think we can use targets to that. But they are one tool in the box that I would think we could use, and part of the consultation is to ask that question--'If we are to go down a route in Wales of choosing a target, what might that look like?'Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. So, to be clear, you're not ruling out that maybe we would need a target.
Dr Frank Atherton: It's certainly something that we could consider in terms of the final strategy.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And is that your opinion too?
Nathan Cook: Yes.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Well, that is contrary to what I was told yesterday on the floor of the Chamber by the Minister, but there we go. I'm glad to hear that you're not ruling out having a target, because without a target, without something to aim for, how do we know that we're getting there?
Dr Frank Atherton: I think your point about evaluation is really important. Whatever we produce at the end of this process--and we're looking to produce a final strategy towards the autumn--we do need to have a strong evaluation. So, some metrics in there, it would seem, would be appropriate, but what those are, what the nature of those are, do we frame them as targets or ambitions--that's the point we need to consult on.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And the other point, of course, is the investment. If the Government is going to be successful in terms of the aim of reducing childhood obesity, then it needs to fund and support the actions. Have you made an assessment of the level of investment needed to implement this plan?
Dr Frank Atherton: Resourcing will be important. We currently do make investments in a number of areas that relate to child health generally, and, of course, obesity and overweight in particular. So, the question of resourcing is important. Now, we can't quantify an absolute amount of resource that will be needed to deliver until we know exactly what's going to come out of the consultation and what actions we might want to deliver to a greater degree in Wales. A figure of PS8 million to PS10 million a year has been banded around as a broad kind of area of what we might need to invest, but that would need to be drawn from existing programmes. We need to look at existing programmes, how effective they are. Can we make them more effective? Can we get better value from them? And there may well be a case for new investment, and that's a question, of course, that would need to be discussed with Ministers when we're producing the final strategy.
Nathan Cook: But I think a key consideration as well is we already know there is investment across health boards in some kind of obesity-related services. So, I think what we really need to think about across Wales is how we can drive greater scale, how we can look at current programmes in terms of making sure that they're better evaluated, and how we can make sure that we're also drawing up on the existing resources and capacity out there as well.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And does the level of investment depend on what the target is--what the goal is?
Dr Frank Atherton: I don't think you can necessarily just link the two. The issue of resourcing is one that's there irrespective of whether we choose to put a target in place.
Sian Gwenllian AM: But how would we know that it's being used effectively if there isn't something to aim for?
Dr Frank Atherton: Which brings you back to the question about evaluation. We need proper evaluation of the various programmes that we have.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but without a target, how can you properly evaluate? If you don't know what you're trying to do, how can you properly evaluate? Anyway, you're open to suggestions about having a target, which is great. Would you agree that Government could use the revenue that's being produced through the levy on soft drinks towards some of these efforts to--?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, of course, there are some consequentials that are coming to the Welsh Government as part of the levy on sugary soft drinks. That funding, of course, is less than we had anticipated, and that reflects, actually, a success story because industry is reformulating, and so the amount of sugar in soft drinks is already starting to decrease, which is a good thing. But to your question: should we use the funding? Well, of course we should use funding. I'm not personally in favour of hypothecation, I think I'm more interested in the totality of resource that goes into public health programmes than into marginal resource. There are, of course, a number of initiatives that we currently fund through the general revenue. And when I think about obesity, I don't just think about the relatively small marginal amounts of money that come in through whatever source, but I think about the totality of the PS7 billion we spend in health and social care and how we can divert and channel some of that towards broad prevention initiatives in general, and towards tackling being overweight and obesity in particular.
Sian Gwenllian AM: You're saying that it's less than expected. Could you give us any kind of figure?
Dr Frank Atherton: I'm sorry, could you repeat the question?
Sian Gwenllian AM: You say that there is less money that's come in through these consequentials from the levy, can you mention some sort of figure?
Dr Frank Atherton: The figure that I have in mind is about PS56 million that's coming in in terms of revenue over a two-year period. But I'd have to confirm that with the committee. What the anticipated--. When the sugar levy was first brought in, there was some modelling at UK level about what level of revenue that would bring, but it was based on the amount of sugar that was currently then in drinks and the fact that the sugar has reduced in drinks, I mean, the total amount available to the UK is less and hence our consequentials are less. Nathan may have some precise figures.
Nathan Cook: Yes, I was going to say, there was a mid-year report done where the levy has raised PS150 million to date since coming into force in April, and the original forecast was PS520 million a year. So, I think that shows the amount of work that's been done by industry around reformulation.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And the consequentials of that? That is the consequential--PS150 million.
Nathan Cook: On a UK level.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, so what's the Welsh consequential?
Lynne Neagle AM: Fifty-six.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Fifty-six? Gosh, that sounds a lot. Anyway, it's a good sum of money and you're talking about investing PS8 million to PS10 million. So, obviously, you know, we can be more ambitious because there is money in that pot if that money was ring-fenced for this particular scheme.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, the resource is going to be a real issue that we need to address, and I think as Nathan has said, there is funding of various initiatives currently in the system, and we need to look at that and make that as effective as possible. Will there be a need for some additional resource? There may well be, and that's a question that we'll have to look at in terms of the strategy when we develop it and have a discussion with Ministers about the level of resourcing.
Lynne Neagle AM: Can I just ask on that before Sian moves on? What assessment have you made of how that money is being spent in other UK nations? Because my understanding is that the money is being used in other UK nations to directly impact on obesity. Have you given any consideration to--? As I understand it, that money now is being dispersed around a plethora of programmes, including the transformation programme, and what I found very odd, really, was vaccination, which is surely the core business of the NHS. Have you got any view on that?
Dr Frank Atherton: I'm not sure I understand your point, Chair, in terms of the link between the consequentials from--. Are you talking about the consequentials from the sugar levy or are you talking about--?
Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, because in other nations, it is being used to directly impact on initiatives to tackle obesity, whereas, we've kind of put it here in Wales into the general pot and it's being used to fund a plethora of different things.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, that cuts to what I was talking about. My preference--it's a personal view--is that hypothecation doesn't really help us too much. I mean, what we need to look at is whether the programmes, the sorts of programmes that are being funded in England, or indeed in Scotland, are working effectively, and if they are, are they being delivered here in Wales? We have looked very carefully at the plans that England and Scotland have for tackling obesity and overweight, and we've made a comparison with what we're doing in Wales, and our ambition in Wales is to go further than those nations, in many ways. But I come back to the point that just linking the hypothecation of a relatively small amount of resource is likely to be less impactful than asking a question of public services boards and of the health system, indeed, about how much money, overall, are we putting into prevention.
Lynne Neagle AM: No, I recognise that, and I think we're talking about additional resource. Suzy.
Suzy Davies AM: I was just wondering whether you thought that there was a useful psychological link on the part of the public between saying,'Here's a sugar levy', and'It's going to be used to help children and adults stay healthier.'Going into a pot, it actually makes it quite difficult to explain the purpose of the tax in the first place. So, I take your overall point, but in terms of the people who we're trying to help in all this, actually creating a direct link might be quite helpful.
Dr Frank Atherton: You may be right. I'm not a behavioural psychologist. We'd have to ask--
Suzy Davies AM: Neither am I. I'm a person who eats a lot of sugar. [Laughter. ]
Dr Frank Atherton: Your point's taken.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thanks. Sian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: The last question from me, about partnership working. You're putting an emphasis on the whole-system approach in implementing the plan, how are you going to create a system that co-ordinates action and drives change across relevant partners, avoiding a situation where it's everyone's role, but nobody's responsibility? How are you going to avoid that?
Dr Frank Atherton: It's a very important question, and one of the four strands in the consultation is exactly related to that, around leadership and drive nationally. I'm not interested in producing a strategy that sits on a shelf. If you look around the world, there are plenty of obesity strategies. You may notice, by the way, that we've chosen not to talk about an obesity strategy but a healthy weight strategy, because I think having a positive construct is really quite important to us here in Wales. But leadership will be really important, and we will need some sort of structure to lead this, to provide oversight. I'm not a great believer in creating new structures, so we do need something that will give that drive, but the leadership comes from the top down. We need political commitment to this, and that's why I welcome the input from this committee. So, that needs to be assured. And then we need to make sure that the public sector generally is engaged in this, but it goes way beyond the public sector, of course, because we have to work with industry, and we have to work with communities, and we have to work with the public on this. So we need to think about our governance system for this and how we drive it forward. Interestingly, we had quite a large discussion two days ago between health and social care, but also involving the third sector and some members of the public, around how can we drive prevention more generally. It wasn't specifically on obesity, but of course obesity came up because it's such a pressing issue. This question of governance was discussed quite extensively, and we do have governance systems, of course, in Wales. We have public services boards, we have regional partnership boards, and how we can get those aligned behind this common agenda is really important. But I'd like to see--and I know I'm a public health professional, so I know that only maybe 10 per cent, 15 per cent, possibly 20 per cent of what makes and keeps us healthy as individuals and as communities can be driven through the health system; but I would like the system to step up and take these kinds of issues more seriously as well. So I'd be looking for local leadership through directors of public health and indeed through chief executives to work with their public services boards on this. So, we'll need some sort of national oversight, absolutely, but we need local ownership and local leadership, too.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got some questions now from Janet Finch-Saunders.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. Delivery of the plan will be led by a national implementation board that will be accountable to Ministers. Which Minister do you believe it should be accountable to, or, given the complexity of obesity, should the board be directly accountable to the First Minister?
Dr Frank Atherton: Ultimately, the First Minister will be responsible for this and will want to have a strong oversight of this. It is often framed as a health issue, and the Minister, Vaughan Gething, has a strong personal commitment to this, I know. We've talked extensively with him and with sports and recreation colleagues about that, so there's a link there. It does cut across all portfolios, and so this is an issue that I have discussed with Cabinet, and that collective ownership is really important, and will be, because it can't just sit in one domain. I think what you do need to have is you do need to have a lead organisation or a lead ministry, and I would see health as--I work within health, so I'm perhaps biased, but I would see health as leading this, but it needs broad ownership across Government.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I know my colleague Sian Gwenllian mentioned earlier targets and things, but I know in Wales we're not too good at collecting data. What data is currently available on childhood obesity and what metrics will be used to measure progress against the plan's objectives?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, of course, our main data source is the child measurement programme, which collects information on children entering school aged four or five. That's our main source of information. If we look at that data, it shows us--. Well, I'm sure you're familiar with the statistics, but it'll be just under a third of children at that age who are overweight or obese--
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Could I just ask--sorry to interrupt--how up to date is that?
Dr Frank Atherton: The last survey was just last year.
Nathan Cook: The data was published last week.
Dr Frank Atherton: Yes, the lastest data was out last week.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It is pretty up to date.
Dr Frank Atherton: So, it's pretty up to date, and what it shows--. It's not getting radically worse--there's always statistical variation in these things--but it's not getting any better. And, for the first time last year, we did look at the question not just of children who were overweight or obese, but we actually singled out the proportion who are obese, severely obese. So we have a figure for that for the first time, which is about 12 per cent, which is quite shocking, in a way.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It is shocking.
Dr Frank Atherton: So, that's our main source of information. Does that answer your question?
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, but how will any gaps in your data be addressed?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, one of the questions that are often asked is: could we measure more on a longitudinal basis? By that I mean in England, for example, children are measured at school entry and then again at year 11--at age 11 or 12. , that kind of age group. And so you do have a longitudinal view over time of what's happening to children. I think that would be helpful to us in Wales, and it's one of the questions in the consultation about whether we should expand that. Obviously, that would have significant resource implications, not just for the funding, but also for schools and for the system to deliver it. But it's something that maybe would help us in terms of better understanding and better evaluation--the point that was made earlier.
Nathan Cook: And the other data we do have is the millennium cohort study, which has been released, for 14 and 15-year-olds. That's going to be--. We're starting to think about how we can utilise some of that data, looking at that longitudinal picture around children as well, which will be really helpful.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. You've answered my next question. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Can I just ask about the child measurement programme? The strategy commits to looking at whether we can have a second measurement taking place in Wales. Can you just tell us a bit more about your thinking on that and when you would see a second measurement taking place and how you would use that data?
Dr Frank Atherton: I touched on that just now, but personally I do think it would be helpful to have more information. It's always the case, There's always a trade-off between the cost of getting that information and the value of the information. So, the question of how it would be used would be really important. There is still a lot that we don't know. We know an awful lot about obesity and being overweight and the causes of it, but we don't really have a very clear understanding, in Wales at least, of the point at which children start to become overweight. Although we know that overweight children tend to go on to become overweight adults, we don't know what proportion of them between school entry and later teenage years--what those changes are. So, it would help us to have some better understanding, which would help to direct some of our initiatives. I'd be generally supportive of the principle. We'll wait and see what comes out in the consultation, and it's something that we need to give thought to, but we do have to trade off the additionality of what the information would give us with the cost of doing that, of course.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on healthy environments from Dawn Bowden.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. In the draft plan, some of the measures in there suggest legislating for restricting price promotions and banning energy drinks, and that sort of thing. Do you think that, if we go down that road, there's going to be time within this Assembly to introduce such legislation? And, if not, what do you think might be the timescale for such legislation?
Dr Frank Atherton: It may well be that there are things in Wales that we might wish to legislate on, and you've mentioned two of them, and they're good examples. We would, obviously, need to undertake quite detailed consultation on those and, in a way, we need to mirror what's happening in England and in Scotland to some degree around the consultations they're having on energy drinks. We also need to influence the issues that are not devolved to us and we seek to do that. As to your question of legislative time, I'm not really in a position to answer that. What I could say is that legislation may well be one of the outcomes of the consultation. There may well be things that we wish to choose to legislate on. The timing of that will have to be subject to other pressures, and I come back to the point that legislation, of course, is one of the tools that we've got--we need to deploy them all.
Dawn Bowden AM: Sure, I understand that, that you could do other things. I know--. We've heard from the Government, on other calls for legislation, that the programme's very tight, certainly for this term, so I was just wondering whether we might get that in, but okay. If I turn now to the planning system--and this might not be something that you have great deal of knowledge of; I'd just welcome your view on this, because, when we discussed with stakeholders, we talked about whether the planning system, for instance, could be used to, as an example, restrict hot food takeaways around schools and so on. Would that be a measure that you would support, something like that?
Dr Frank Atherton: I think it's definitely something we want to look at and, of course, that question is asked in the consultation, so we would like to know people's views on that. It's an interesting one. I think there is a question--a really important question--about how we can use the planning system more effectively. I've discussed with Nathan on a number of occasions, with planning colleagues in Welsh Government and in local authorities, about the art of the possible, let's say. There may be things that we could think about and we want to get those ideas through the consultation. The specific question around takeaways, particularly takeaways near schools, is often asked. I was very interested to see, up in the north-east, some time ago, that one of the local authorities up there did put a moratorium on the opening of new fast-food venues near to schools, or indeed in areas where levels of obesity and overweight were particularly high. I understand London is now--some London boroughs are now--experimenting with that as well. So, that gave me comfort, because maybe there are powers within local authorities that can be used more effectively. I think my view at the moment is that the jury's kind of out on whether those are effective and how effective they're going to be. But the fact that we have some initiatives around the UK does give us an opportunity to study that and to learn from experience perhaps and then, if it is shown to be beneficial, to think about that here in Wales, yes.
Dawn Bowden AM: Sure, because it will only be one of a suite of measures anyway. Of itself, it wouldn't address the problem, but, added to other initiatives, I guess it would. Can I just ask you briefly, then, about community sport infrastructure and, in particular, of new schools? So, Welsh Government, as you know, has ploughed a huge amount of money into the twenty-first century schools programme. What we heard when we spoke to stakeholders recently, particularly headteachers, was that, in some of the new schools that have been built, we haven't had changing rooms and toilet facilities, for instance, built into the new buildings. So, if we're going to try and utilise these buildings for general community activity to get kids and the wider public, actually, more active, do you think that's something that we ought to be building in? Again, not your particular direct area of responsibility, but something that you might have an input into, is that, when we're developing schools, we should be making sure that they have those kinds of facilities so that they become accessible to the wider public. Is that something that you would be prepared to make a recommendation around?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, it's certainly a fascinating area and one that I think has a lot of potential. It goes--. You're right to raise it in the context of schools, and I can understand why this committee would, but I think it goes beyond that, actually, into all developments in the public sector and how they're developed and whether we're building health into our environment, which perhaps is your starting point. One of the things that I was really pleased to see in terms of the Public Health (Wales) Act 2017 that was passed a couple of years ago was the use of health impact assessment as a tool, and we're still working on how that will inform policy and how that will be applied in issues such as policy decisions through Government, but also in more downstream issues about how we create the public infrastructure that the public can and should be using. And so I would like to see the use of health impact assessments to a much greater degree to inform those kinds of decisions. If you apply that kind of lens and you take the point, which is inherent in your question, I think, that schools are not just for kids, they're for communities, then you would--it would lead you to a conclusion that you would perhaps design and build them in a different way. So, on a personal basis, I would certainly support your view that we should be looking to use the sports environment in schools in the same way as we use leisure centres. There are all kinds of barriers in there, and I understand all of that, and it's not really my field, exactly as you say, but, as a matter of principle, I think it's a good one to pursue.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you. And widening it out to other public services buildings as well.
Dr Frank Atherton: Indeed.
Dawn Bowden AM: Yes. Okay. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We're going to move on now to talk about how we create healthy settings. I've got some questions from Suzy Davies.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much. Yes, perhaps if we could just stay in this area of education just for a moment, I think we all agree that healthy habits acquired early on probably tend to last quite well, so I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about the healthy and sustainable preschool scheme and whether you think some timescales should be made public about what you expect the achievements from that scheme to be. But, in particular, I was struck with what you said about local leadership, and I just want you to bear that in mind in answering the next question, which is about the foundation phase. You're probably aware that this committee has heard from various school leaders that they're struggling in some cases to meet the ratio of staffing for the foundation phase, which potentially compromises the purpose of it in terms of physical activity. I'm just wondering how the strategy development board is considering that at the moment. Is it something that's come on the radar for the board? Is it something you're thinking about? And, if so, who do you think should be responsible for pinning that down a little bit? Because this is education, not health, and--.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, look, I've got to confess to you, I'm not an educationist, and so the question on staffing numbers in schools is not one that I have been asked to give a deal of consideration to, and it hasn't really been discussed, I don't believe, in the context of development of the strategy. If there is a specific point around that that the committee would like to make in terms of a response into the consultation, which I presume you'll be making, then we'd be happy to consider that. As to healthy preschools, I don't know, Nathan may have some view on that. I've not been closely involved with the work. We have standards and we perhaps need to think about how we tighten those standards and how we--enforce isn't the right word, but how we implement and make sure that those standards are properly implemented, because you're absolutely right to say that habits are developed early in life. That's in the preschool; it's also in the home of course, and then later in the school. So, we do need to look at all of those as settings and are there more things we can do within those settings to drive healthier behaviours--that's exactly why we need the consultation.
Nathan Cook: But I would say, through that scheme as well, we've really got a really good bank of preschools that are actually doing some really great work in this area as well. So, I think the more we can understand the successes that some of those environments are having--you know, how we can roll those out and work across other settings to create that wider impact as well is going to be really important.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. What I'm thinking about is expectations at that level will be expectations at a slightly older level, which will be contained within the foundation phase. And while you're quite right--obviously, parents have a role in this, or families--there will be, particularly with the introduction of the new curriculum, certain expectations on schools to provide not just healthy environments but to actively work towards well-being and healthy weight in children and things. And that's why I asked you about local leadership, because, if it fails for reasons that have nothing to do with the plan at foundation phase, it's going to fail further up the school years as well. I think it might be something that the board might want to consider here, because at some point there'll be an accountability question and we will want to know how'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'fits in with the new plans for the new curriculum, and whether it's merely persuasive and influential or whether it has the weight to place some obligations on school leaders about what they do in their schools. So, this connection, I think, is quite an important one, and, if the strategy development board could consider that, I think it would be very helpful, because this doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, I'd certainly be delighted to take that back and we can look at it in terms of how we move from the consultation into the final strategy. It's certainly a point we can try and look at.
Suzy Davies AM: Because we will want to know who to ask:'you're the accountable person--why has something worked, or not worked?'We will need to know that at some point.
Dr Frank Atherton: Just building on Nathan's point, some of the schools--I know it's schools rather than the preschools, and I take your point, but some of the schools we've been working with have absolutely brilliant models of good practice and good local leadership. I remember the Minister actually at the launch, and one of the schools was represented there, and they presented--the school came and some of the children came and presented--to the whole audience about the activities that they were undertaking in their school around physical activity and on healthy eating, and it was such a model of good behaviour the question was,'Well, why not everywhere?', so that probably speaks to your question.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, well, thank you for that commitment anyway.
Lynne Neagle AM: And have you had any discussions, then, with education officials around things like teacher training and CPD, because you'll be aware the Health and Social Care Committee has made a number of recommendations in this area? It's crucial that we skill up the staff to develop these things in an appropriate way, isn't it?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, we certainly discuss with education colleagues in Welsh Government. There's more we need to do in terms of that, because you're absolutely right: there's something about building the whole of the workforce--education is really important, but elsewhere as well; it's about how do we really make every contact count, you know, that construct. So, everybody who's working in the health and social care system should have a role in this; everybody who works in education, whether it's the old--. Do we still have dinner ladies? Or teachers, you know, they have a role to play in supporting children to be as healthy as they possibly can. And, actually, I see them, Chair, as a really essential part of the public health workforce.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy, are you going to do your curriculum one?
Suzy Davies AM: Well, I've bound it in together, but that final point you make about teachers being part of the answer to this, they're already under a range of pressures: is it fair to make them accountable for whether this works or not? Or should that local leadership lie somewhere else? I don't expect you to pin down a person today.
Dr Frank Atherton: I wouldn't like to blame a teacher or performance manage them on the proportion of their children in their class who are overweight. That would clearly be nonsense, wouldn't it? But they are part of the solution, and so the accountability lies further up the chain, doesn't it? The question I think we would have, and public services boards might well ask, and the local education authorities may well ask, is: how effective is any particular school at driving forwards these healthy behaviours?
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. I'll leave some questions for Hefin.
Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin.
Hefin David AM: Is that all right, Chair?
Lynne Neagle AM: You've got the floor, Hefin.
Hefin David AM: Thank you, Chair. You make a commitment to embedding physical activity at an early stage in primary school education. What would that look like?
Dr Frank Atherton: Just in terms of the physical activity, I have to say it's a really important dimension and we need to move further on. We know not enough of our children are physically active and they're not meeting the various guidelines, so it's really important. It doesn't actually have as much of an impact on weight as the dietary issue. I'd just say that. It's really important for all sorts of reasons. It does have an impact on healthy weight, but it has a huge impact in terms of socialisation, in terms of mental health issues, et cetera, you know. So--I'm sorry, I've lost track of your question.
Nathan Cook: I'd just say that one thing we have got in train is, obviously, Sport Wales, Public Health Wales and Natural Resources Wales--we have them working together as a collaborative at the moment to look at how their joint delivery on physical activity can be taken forward more efficiently. So, one of the things they are looking at is obviously the schools programmes they do through eco-schools, the Welsh network of healthy schools and the sports programme to really think about that physical activity and how we can have better join up in terms of the programmes that we're already delivering as well.
Hefin David AM: With that in mind, I'm going to confess to you, chief medical officer, I did anything in school I could to avoid physical education lessons. I hated it. I didn't feel engaged with it. Yet, two weeks ago, I played for the Assembly rugby team--I wanted to get that in. The school sports survey, that would suggest that we're still not hitting those targets with children. How can we get children more engaged with physical education in ways that--? I felt completely alienated in school.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, you're right, and many people go through that same journey and come to physical activity later in life, and that's great if they do that. The sad reality is that many people don't, and we also know that there are issues around the dropping off, particularly for girls, of physical activity towards the teenage years. So, there are specific moments that we need to understand. We do have a lot of information about these kinds of things. Public Health Wales is very good at collating the information. We do need to turn that into programmes. I mean, at the heart of it, it's about making sports and physical activity enjoyable and attractive to people. Sometimes that's easier, I sense, for boys than for girls, but we need to tailor things to different audiences.
Hefin David AM: Yes, that's the trick, isn't it? It's about finding out what children enjoy doing. That could be quite a wide and varied range of things. Is that the key?
Dawn Bowden AM: It's not all about organised team sports.
Hefin David AM: Yes. As Dawn said, it's not just about organised team sports. There are some very individual activities you could do.
Dr Frank Atherton: Absolutely, yes. And that's where I think--. I'm delighted that Sport Wales has moved beyond. It's not just about elite sports; it's about getting everybody engaged and active in sports, and that partnership with Public Health Wales that Nathan talked about is really important, because we need a population approach to driving physical activity.
Hefin David AM: So, do you think, with that in mind, we need statutory guidance for schools on physical education?
Dr Frank Atherton: Again, I'd look to the consultation as to whether there was an appetite for any kind of guidance. It may well be that that is something that could be considered.
Hefin David AM: Okay. And finally, with regard to free school meals to all pupils in primary and secondary schools, do you think that extending that to all pupils would be beneficial in providing a more varied diet for pupils?
Dr Frank Atherton: I don't have a personal view on that. I think it's the quality of the food that kids are getting, whether that comes from home or through school, and whether it's free or whether it's paid for. I think it's the quality of the food that we need to focus on. The question of children being hungry at school is a really important one and needs to be addressed at a national level. I think that's a--
Hefin David AM: So, you think that's more about the provision of food for those who might not have access to it than providing a varied diet.
Dr Frank Atherton: I think it's important that children have access to food, absolutely, if that's your question, but we also need to look at the quality of the food and what's in that food offer.
Hefin David AM: But you don't necessarily think universal provision would--.
Dr Frank Atherton: I don't have a clear view on that. I know there's a larger debate about that.
Hefin David AM: Okay, thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: I've got some supplementaries from Janet and then Suzy.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. I've been around some amazing schools in my own constituency, where they've got proper canteen facilities for pupils and really, really good produce in the meals. However, there's probably only a third having school meals; the rest are packed lunches. And, to be honest, I've been very surprised and shocked at what I've seen of the quality of the food in the packed lunches. Nobody can really police, and I wouldn't want to see parents being policed over what goes in a packed lunch, so if there is data out there to suggest that there's a larger percentage of parents providing packed lunched that are really not good at all, then there is some merit to be said for what Hefin is--. Me, personally, I'd love to see the introduction of universal school meals. I think it's been a very retrograde step, going backwards. Would you be willing to carry out any research?
Dr Frank Atherton: So, I mean, your point about food that's brought in in the packed lunches is a really important one, and I've talked to some headteachers as well about this. We could go down a route of guidance and prohibition, but that gets you into the role of nanny in chief and I don't really see that as my role or Government's role, and I don't think it's effective either. Do you remember--? You must have seen on tv--I think it was in Scotland; I don't know if it's happened in Wales--parents pushing the fish and chip packets through the school railings. We don't need to get into that. What I have seen, though, is some really good innovative practice in schools where, for example, they reward children for bringing the healthy options. Schools can give guidance to parents about what would be a healthy lunch and what sort of things might be expected to be seen in the lunch box. And you can reward children, and children do respond to rewards. So, I've seen some of those approaches that have transformed, actually, the offer of what comes in school boxes. But I think just banning chocolate bars and crisps in the packed lunch is unlikely to be successful.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: We can't do that. So, my point to the question was: isn't there some merit, perhaps, about all children being equal and eating similar good-quality food in schools?
Dr Frank Atherton: Yes. That gets you back to the question about universal school meals.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Perhaps some of that PS56 million sugar tax, even. Who knows?
Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy.
Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Mine is just a short question. The draft plan commits, doesn't it, to updating the healthy eating in schools regulations--the 2013 regulations? I appreciate this is a consultation, but what is it that needs changing in those regulations at the moment, just to give us a bit of steer?
Nathan Cook: It's mainly on sugar content, so, obviously, they don't adhere to current Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition guidelines around sugar levels. So, what we'd want to consider is, you know, what we need to be careful of is unintended consequences of changing that, as well, if you see a shift to more kids bringing in school packed lunches as well. So, I think we want to consider the best way of doing that and consider through the consultation how we can go about it.
Suzy Davies AM: All right. So, it's very pertinent to Janet's question, in that way. Okay, so it's mainly about sugar, but it could be about other things as well. Okay. Thanks.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. The next questions are from Janet anyway; firstly, on the clinical obesity pathway.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'plan commits to a review of the clinical obesity pathway. What are the time frames for this review, and what do you think are the basic essentials of a clinical obesity pathway for children and young people?
Dr Frank Atherton: We do have a pathway for managing overweight, and that's been in place since about 2010, I believe, and we do need to bring that up to date in terms of current knowledge and experiences. We've challenged Public Health Wales; we've asked Public Health Wales to undertake a review of that pathway, and they are going through that process now. I'm not sure of exactly the time frame that we have given them for that.
Nathan Cook: We were asking them to review the pathway before we launch the final strategy in October because, obviously, what we want is for that to inform what that final strategy looks like. So, we'll be looking probably early autumn for them to report back on that.
Dr Frank Atherton: The second point of your question about what are the essential elements, I mean, they are already there; we need to tweak them and we need to make sure that they're properly delivered. But it's a tiered approach, so, having access to information through schools and through communities and into families is part of the first step of that. And then, if children are overweight, it's a question about how they're identified. There are questions about the ability of the public to recognise large children, so there may be an issue there. But when children are running into issues around weight, what kind of interventions can be put in, either through primary care or through communities through health visitors, et cetera? And then of course we do have--and we've started to shine a light on this, haven't we--the very overweight children. I don't think we have enough in the way of targeted support to be able to support those. There are programmes available, but they're perhaps not universally provided. So, I think there's something about looking at our whole pathway, mapping out what the current evidence now shows us is needed, and then thinking about what is our provision in Wales and what do we need to do to bring that up to the level of the places that are the best.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. The draft plan recognises the importance of the first 1,000 days, but it doesn't appear to include any new proposals to help parents to enable lifestyle changes. It lists existing initiatives, such as the Healthy Child Wales programme and breastfeeding action plan. Are you satisfied that the draft plan does enough to address the influence that family and parents have on children's healthy weight behaviours, particularly in the first 1,000 days?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, the first 1,000 days are really critically in shaping lives, as I'm sure you'd agree. We are absolutely open to any other suggestions that the public or this committee have as to what more we can and should do. There are a number of things, the sorts of programmes you've mentioned, that I think could be more effective. We're currently looking at breastfeeding because it starts before birth, actually. We know that children who are breastfed are less likely to suffer from obesity in childhood and, indeed, to go on to be obese adults. So, we do need to go further on that. We do have some programmes--Healthy Working Wales, et cetera--that need to be improved. If there are other interventions in other areas that we need to take, then we'd be delighted to hear what they are, but those are the ones that have jumped out so far.
Nathan Cook: Can I just say--? One of the proposals we're looking for is, obviously, we know that during pregnancy it's a really critical time when we can actually look to work with mothers. We know from looking at some of the behaviour change that it's actually a really critical point when new mothers really start thinking about their lives, wanting the best for their child and their families. So, what we are thinking about is how we could develop some kind of approaches to that going forward. But we know our Healthy Start scheme is also a good lever for us, just in terms of how we can look to improve that kind of dietary offer at the earliest stage as well.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Finally, we know that for some families day-to-day challenges can make it difficult for them to make healthy choices, particularly for those on lower incomes and/or maybe using food banks. Could the Welsh Government take bolder action to better support low-income families to eat healthily?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, you've touched on a really important point about inequalities because overweight and obesity is not evenly distributed across our population. It absolutely is more prevalent in more socioeconomically deprived communities, and that's something that should really concern us all. So, it gets you to questions of availability of fresh food and produce; it gets you to questions of formulation of products and whether value brands are less healthy than more premium brands. So, it cuts across all of those issues that we talked about in terms of settings and in terms of environment earlier. There is something about the affordability of good-quality healthy food that we need to think about. We do need to think in broad terms--broader terms than just obesity, but we do need to think in broad terms--about how we create a society where families have the wherewithal to lead healthy lives, and that gets you to really important questions about the minimum wage and income poverty. There's no doubt in my mind--I'm a public health professional--and there's no doubt in my mind that economic success and health success go hand in hand. So, you speak to a very deep question there. In terms of what we can do through this particular consultation, there are some things in there about providing better access, but without tackling some of those deeper determinants of health, their impact will necessarily be limited.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Just finally from me, then, you referred earlier to the importance of making every contact count, but some stakeholders have told the committee that they struggle to do that because of difficulties in availability of people to refer to. Is that a situation that you recognise and what, really, can we do to improve that situation?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, it depends what you mean as to where to refer to. So, the health system obviously needs to respond to this issue. What we're seeing across the NHS is a gradual transformation in primary care so that primary care is no longer about going to see your GP, it's about going to see a practice where you have a range of health professionals. Would I like to see more dietetic support, for example, in that setting? Absolutely I would. I think we need to think in terms of that pathway that we were talking about earlier, about access to that kind of advice and support, which can head off people getting into problems and kids getting into problems with weight issues. So, that question of redesign of the pathway really speaks to, I think, your point about,'Well, where do people go when they have problems with their weight?'That's true for adults and it's true for children as well.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you both very much for your attendance? It's been a really productive session. We appreciate your time. You will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy in due course, but thank you again.
Dr Frank Atherton: We'll do that. Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the committee, because getting some input into the consultation from children's perspectives, this would be one of the routes we would absolutely welcome. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee on CAMHS tier 4 provision. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Health and Social Services also on CAMHS in-patient provision. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Children Commissioner for Wales on tier 4 CAMHS provision. Paper to note 4 is a letter from Qualifications Wales to the Minister for Education on qualifications for the new curriculum. Paper to note 5 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education on the development of the new curriculum. Paper to note 6 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education seeking clarification on the draft additional learning needs code. Paper to note 7 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education seeking clarification on the response to our Brexit report. Paper to note 8 is a letter from the Equality and Human Rights Commission on a cumulative impact assessment briefing for committee, which has been offered. Paper to note 9 is a letter from the Chair of the Petitions Committee on a national taskforce for children's mental health. Paper to note 10 is a letter to the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union from the children's commissioners for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on the implications of Brexit for children. There are a few that I'd like to return to in private, but are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Okay. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17. 42 to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content?
Suzy Davies AM: Yes. There's somebody up there.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. | According to Dr Frank Atherton's answer to legislations'timing, it was very clear that the implementation of legislation to build a healthy environment was very approved by Dr Frank Atherton and even by a large group in the consultation. Dr Frank Atherton reviewed that they needed a mirror to see what had been happening in this country and legislation was a good way and took some examples of food takeaways which showed that they needed to consider effectiveness things. | qmsum |
What did Dawn Bowden AM mean when he talked about sports infrastructure?
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Michelle Brown and Jack Sargeant; there are no substitutions. Can I ask if Members have any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. We'll move on, then, to item 2, which is our scrutiny of the'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'draft strategy, and I'm very pleased to welcome Dr Frank Atherton, the Chief Medical Officer for Wales, and Nathan Cook, who is the head of the healthy and active branch at Welsh Government. Thank you, both, for attending this morning. We're very much looking forward to hearing what you've got to say. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions. If I can just start by asking about the fact that'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'is an all-age strategy, really, and how confident you are that it will deliver for children and young people.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, we're very confident. I mean, it has to, quite clearly. We do need to think about the present generation, the problems faced by the current generation. We have high prevalence of overweight and obesity among adults--we know that, and we can't walk away from that because that's translating into demand on health services. But we have to take a focus, a future generation's focus, almost, on the next generation. I don't write off the current generation, we can't afford to do that, but we do need to think about what can we do that would be different for the next generation so that they don't get into the sorts of problems that we're currently seeing with overweight and obesity. We know that the consequences of that for our young people are going to be enormous if we don't do something and something quite soon. We know that overweight children go on to become overweight adults, unfortunately, and that brings all the consequences of multiple disease issues--diabetes is often cited--cancer risk et cetera. So, we have to focus on children, and, in fact, during the consultation, we've been very clear that we need to engage with children and young people as well. Perhaps we'll get into that at some point, Chair, but, yes, I can give you that assurance.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. What my follow-up question, really, is: can you just tell us what kind of engagement you've had with children and young people to inform the draft strategy?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, Nathan may be able to influence some of the detail, but in broad terms, we have discussed with young people in a number of fora. In fact, I was delighted that we had a young person, Evie Morgan, a schoolgirl from mid Wales, who came to the joint launch on the consultation. She met the Minister there and gave a very good personal account of her views on obesity and overweight. We've been visiting a number of schools during the consultation process. I'm visiting a school, either this week or next week, at Treorchy, to talk with teachers and young people there. Obviously, we're hopeful that schools and young people will contribute to the consultation as well. So, we've had quite good input, I would say, from children and young people. There is always more we can do we and we want to hear those voices.
Nathan Cook: I was going to say, we've also had a session with youth ambassadors as well, and what we've actually produced for the consultation is not just the children and young people's version, but also a toolkit in terms of getting schools really engaged and involved in terms of the work that we want them to do to feed into this as well. So, we've already had some really good responses from a lot of youth group and schools already.
Lynne Neagle AM: And you've got a structured programme, have you, to roll that out? Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on leadership, and the first questions are from Sian Gwenllian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. I'll be speaking in Welsh. The Minister for health said yesterday, in answering a question from me on the Chamber floor, that you gave him advice not to have a target in terms of reducing obesity among children. Could you confirm that that's what your advice was and tell us why you don't think that a target is needed?
Dr Frank Atherton: My advice was not that we don't need a target--we may well need a target, and that's one of the issues we need to consult on--but that the target that had been adopted in England and in Scotland to halve the prevalence of obesity in children was more aspirational than deliverable, and that if we are to choose a target in Wales, then we need to balance deliverability with challenge. We need a challenging environment. So, there is something about performance management, because I would be looking to not just the health system but the health and care system and to public services boards to think about how they're delivering on this, and I think we can use targets to that. But they are one tool in the box that I would think we could use, and part of the consultation is to ask that question--'If we are to go down a route in Wales of choosing a target, what might that look like?'Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. So, to be clear, you're not ruling out that maybe we would need a target.
Dr Frank Atherton: It's certainly something that we could consider in terms of the final strategy.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And is that your opinion too?
Nathan Cook: Yes.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Well, that is contrary to what I was told yesterday on the floor of the Chamber by the Minister, but there we go. I'm glad to hear that you're not ruling out having a target, because without a target, without something to aim for, how do we know that we're getting there?
Dr Frank Atherton: I think your point about evaluation is really important. Whatever we produce at the end of this process--and we're looking to produce a final strategy towards the autumn--we do need to have a strong evaluation. So, some metrics in there, it would seem, would be appropriate, but what those are, what the nature of those are, do we frame them as targets or ambitions--that's the point we need to consult on.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And the other point, of course, is the investment. If the Government is going to be successful in terms of the aim of reducing childhood obesity, then it needs to fund and support the actions. Have you made an assessment of the level of investment needed to implement this plan?
Dr Frank Atherton: Resourcing will be important. We currently do make investments in a number of areas that relate to child health generally, and, of course, obesity and overweight in particular. So, the question of resourcing is important. Now, we can't quantify an absolute amount of resource that will be needed to deliver until we know exactly what's going to come out of the consultation and what actions we might want to deliver to a greater degree in Wales. A figure of PS8 million to PS10 million a year has been banded around as a broad kind of area of what we might need to invest, but that would need to be drawn from existing programmes. We need to look at existing programmes, how effective they are. Can we make them more effective? Can we get better value from them? And there may well be a case for new investment, and that's a question, of course, that would need to be discussed with Ministers when we're producing the final strategy.
Nathan Cook: But I think a key consideration as well is we already know there is investment across health boards in some kind of obesity-related services. So, I think what we really need to think about across Wales is how we can drive greater scale, how we can look at current programmes in terms of making sure that they're better evaluated, and how we can make sure that we're also drawing up on the existing resources and capacity out there as well.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And does the level of investment depend on what the target is--what the goal is?
Dr Frank Atherton: I don't think you can necessarily just link the two. The issue of resourcing is one that's there irrespective of whether we choose to put a target in place.
Sian Gwenllian AM: But how would we know that it's being used effectively if there isn't something to aim for?
Dr Frank Atherton: Which brings you back to the question about evaluation. We need proper evaluation of the various programmes that we have.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but without a target, how can you properly evaluate? If you don't know what you're trying to do, how can you properly evaluate? Anyway, you're open to suggestions about having a target, which is great. Would you agree that Government could use the revenue that's being produced through the levy on soft drinks towards some of these efforts to--?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, of course, there are some consequentials that are coming to the Welsh Government as part of the levy on sugary soft drinks. That funding, of course, is less than we had anticipated, and that reflects, actually, a success story because industry is reformulating, and so the amount of sugar in soft drinks is already starting to decrease, which is a good thing. But to your question: should we use the funding? Well, of course we should use funding. I'm not personally in favour of hypothecation, I think I'm more interested in the totality of resource that goes into public health programmes than into marginal resource. There are, of course, a number of initiatives that we currently fund through the general revenue. And when I think about obesity, I don't just think about the relatively small marginal amounts of money that come in through whatever source, but I think about the totality of the PS7 billion we spend in health and social care and how we can divert and channel some of that towards broad prevention initiatives in general, and towards tackling being overweight and obesity in particular.
Sian Gwenllian AM: You're saying that it's less than expected. Could you give us any kind of figure?
Dr Frank Atherton: I'm sorry, could you repeat the question?
Sian Gwenllian AM: You say that there is less money that's come in through these consequentials from the levy, can you mention some sort of figure?
Dr Frank Atherton: The figure that I have in mind is about PS56 million that's coming in in terms of revenue over a two-year period. But I'd have to confirm that with the committee. What the anticipated--. When the sugar levy was first brought in, there was some modelling at UK level about what level of revenue that would bring, but it was based on the amount of sugar that was currently then in drinks and the fact that the sugar has reduced in drinks, I mean, the total amount available to the UK is less and hence our consequentials are less. Nathan may have some precise figures.
Nathan Cook: Yes, I was going to say, there was a mid-year report done where the levy has raised PS150 million to date since coming into force in April, and the original forecast was PS520 million a year. So, I think that shows the amount of work that's been done by industry around reformulation.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And the consequentials of that? That is the consequential--PS150 million.
Nathan Cook: On a UK level.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, so what's the Welsh consequential?
Lynne Neagle AM: Fifty-six.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Fifty-six? Gosh, that sounds a lot. Anyway, it's a good sum of money and you're talking about investing PS8 million to PS10 million. So, obviously, you know, we can be more ambitious because there is money in that pot if that money was ring-fenced for this particular scheme.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, the resource is going to be a real issue that we need to address, and I think as Nathan has said, there is funding of various initiatives currently in the system, and we need to look at that and make that as effective as possible. Will there be a need for some additional resource? There may well be, and that's a question that we'll have to look at in terms of the strategy when we develop it and have a discussion with Ministers about the level of resourcing.
Lynne Neagle AM: Can I just ask on that before Sian moves on? What assessment have you made of how that money is being spent in other UK nations? Because my understanding is that the money is being used in other UK nations to directly impact on obesity. Have you given any consideration to--? As I understand it, that money now is being dispersed around a plethora of programmes, including the transformation programme, and what I found very odd, really, was vaccination, which is surely the core business of the NHS. Have you got any view on that?
Dr Frank Atherton: I'm not sure I understand your point, Chair, in terms of the link between the consequentials from--. Are you talking about the consequentials from the sugar levy or are you talking about--?
Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, because in other nations, it is being used to directly impact on initiatives to tackle obesity, whereas, we've kind of put it here in Wales into the general pot and it's being used to fund a plethora of different things.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, that cuts to what I was talking about. My preference--it's a personal view--is that hypothecation doesn't really help us too much. I mean, what we need to look at is whether the programmes, the sorts of programmes that are being funded in England, or indeed in Scotland, are working effectively, and if they are, are they being delivered here in Wales? We have looked very carefully at the plans that England and Scotland have for tackling obesity and overweight, and we've made a comparison with what we're doing in Wales, and our ambition in Wales is to go further than those nations, in many ways. But I come back to the point that just linking the hypothecation of a relatively small amount of resource is likely to be less impactful than asking a question of public services boards and of the health system, indeed, about how much money, overall, are we putting into prevention.
Lynne Neagle AM: No, I recognise that, and I think we're talking about additional resource. Suzy.
Suzy Davies AM: I was just wondering whether you thought that there was a useful psychological link on the part of the public between saying,'Here's a sugar levy', and'It's going to be used to help children and adults stay healthier.'Going into a pot, it actually makes it quite difficult to explain the purpose of the tax in the first place. So, I take your overall point, but in terms of the people who we're trying to help in all this, actually creating a direct link might be quite helpful.
Dr Frank Atherton: You may be right. I'm not a behavioural psychologist. We'd have to ask--
Suzy Davies AM: Neither am I. I'm a person who eats a lot of sugar. [Laughter. ]
Dr Frank Atherton: Your point's taken.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thanks. Sian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: The last question from me, about partnership working. You're putting an emphasis on the whole-system approach in implementing the plan, how are you going to create a system that co-ordinates action and drives change across relevant partners, avoiding a situation where it's everyone's role, but nobody's responsibility? How are you going to avoid that?
Dr Frank Atherton: It's a very important question, and one of the four strands in the consultation is exactly related to that, around leadership and drive nationally. I'm not interested in producing a strategy that sits on a shelf. If you look around the world, there are plenty of obesity strategies. You may notice, by the way, that we've chosen not to talk about an obesity strategy but a healthy weight strategy, because I think having a positive construct is really quite important to us here in Wales. But leadership will be really important, and we will need some sort of structure to lead this, to provide oversight. I'm not a great believer in creating new structures, so we do need something that will give that drive, but the leadership comes from the top down. We need political commitment to this, and that's why I welcome the input from this committee. So, that needs to be assured. And then we need to make sure that the public sector generally is engaged in this, but it goes way beyond the public sector, of course, because we have to work with industry, and we have to work with communities, and we have to work with the public on this. So we need to think about our governance system for this and how we drive it forward. Interestingly, we had quite a large discussion two days ago between health and social care, but also involving the third sector and some members of the public, around how can we drive prevention more generally. It wasn't specifically on obesity, but of course obesity came up because it's such a pressing issue. This question of governance was discussed quite extensively, and we do have governance systems, of course, in Wales. We have public services boards, we have regional partnership boards, and how we can get those aligned behind this common agenda is really important. But I'd like to see--and I know I'm a public health professional, so I know that only maybe 10 per cent, 15 per cent, possibly 20 per cent of what makes and keeps us healthy as individuals and as communities can be driven through the health system; but I would like the system to step up and take these kinds of issues more seriously as well. So I'd be looking for local leadership through directors of public health and indeed through chief executives to work with their public services boards on this. So, we'll need some sort of national oversight, absolutely, but we need local ownership and local leadership, too.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got some questions now from Janet Finch-Saunders.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. Delivery of the plan will be led by a national implementation board that will be accountable to Ministers. Which Minister do you believe it should be accountable to, or, given the complexity of obesity, should the board be directly accountable to the First Minister?
Dr Frank Atherton: Ultimately, the First Minister will be responsible for this and will want to have a strong oversight of this. It is often framed as a health issue, and the Minister, Vaughan Gething, has a strong personal commitment to this, I know. We've talked extensively with him and with sports and recreation colleagues about that, so there's a link there. It does cut across all portfolios, and so this is an issue that I have discussed with Cabinet, and that collective ownership is really important, and will be, because it can't just sit in one domain. I think what you do need to have is you do need to have a lead organisation or a lead ministry, and I would see health as--I work within health, so I'm perhaps biased, but I would see health as leading this, but it needs broad ownership across Government.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I know my colleague Sian Gwenllian mentioned earlier targets and things, but I know in Wales we're not too good at collecting data. What data is currently available on childhood obesity and what metrics will be used to measure progress against the plan's objectives?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, of course, our main data source is the child measurement programme, which collects information on children entering school aged four or five. That's our main source of information. If we look at that data, it shows us--. Well, I'm sure you're familiar with the statistics, but it'll be just under a third of children at that age who are overweight or obese--
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Could I just ask--sorry to interrupt--how up to date is that?
Dr Frank Atherton: The last survey was just last year.
Nathan Cook: The data was published last week.
Dr Frank Atherton: Yes, the lastest data was out last week.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It is pretty up to date.
Dr Frank Atherton: So, it's pretty up to date, and what it shows--. It's not getting radically worse--there's always statistical variation in these things--but it's not getting any better. And, for the first time last year, we did look at the question not just of children who were overweight or obese, but we actually singled out the proportion who are obese, severely obese. So we have a figure for that for the first time, which is about 12 per cent, which is quite shocking, in a way.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It is shocking.
Dr Frank Atherton: So, that's our main source of information. Does that answer your question?
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, but how will any gaps in your data be addressed?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, one of the questions that are often asked is: could we measure more on a longitudinal basis? By that I mean in England, for example, children are measured at school entry and then again at year 11--at age 11 or 12. , that kind of age group. And so you do have a longitudinal view over time of what's happening to children. I think that would be helpful to us in Wales, and it's one of the questions in the consultation about whether we should expand that. Obviously, that would have significant resource implications, not just for the funding, but also for schools and for the system to deliver it. But it's something that maybe would help us in terms of better understanding and better evaluation--the point that was made earlier.
Nathan Cook: And the other data we do have is the millennium cohort study, which has been released, for 14 and 15-year-olds. That's going to be--. We're starting to think about how we can utilise some of that data, looking at that longitudinal picture around children as well, which will be really helpful.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. You've answered my next question. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Can I just ask about the child measurement programme? The strategy commits to looking at whether we can have a second measurement taking place in Wales. Can you just tell us a bit more about your thinking on that and when you would see a second measurement taking place and how you would use that data?
Dr Frank Atherton: I touched on that just now, but personally I do think it would be helpful to have more information. It's always the case, There's always a trade-off between the cost of getting that information and the value of the information. So, the question of how it would be used would be really important. There is still a lot that we don't know. We know an awful lot about obesity and being overweight and the causes of it, but we don't really have a very clear understanding, in Wales at least, of the point at which children start to become overweight. Although we know that overweight children tend to go on to become overweight adults, we don't know what proportion of them between school entry and later teenage years--what those changes are. So, it would help us to have some better understanding, which would help to direct some of our initiatives. I'd be generally supportive of the principle. We'll wait and see what comes out in the consultation, and it's something that we need to give thought to, but we do have to trade off the additionality of what the information would give us with the cost of doing that, of course.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on healthy environments from Dawn Bowden.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. In the draft plan, some of the measures in there suggest legislating for restricting price promotions and banning energy drinks, and that sort of thing. Do you think that, if we go down that road, there's going to be time within this Assembly to introduce such legislation? And, if not, what do you think might be the timescale for such legislation?
Dr Frank Atherton: It may well be that there are things in Wales that we might wish to legislate on, and you've mentioned two of them, and they're good examples. We would, obviously, need to undertake quite detailed consultation on those and, in a way, we need to mirror what's happening in England and in Scotland to some degree around the consultations they're having on energy drinks. We also need to influence the issues that are not devolved to us and we seek to do that. As to your question of legislative time, I'm not really in a position to answer that. What I could say is that legislation may well be one of the outcomes of the consultation. There may well be things that we wish to choose to legislate on. The timing of that will have to be subject to other pressures, and I come back to the point that legislation, of course, is one of the tools that we've got--we need to deploy them all.
Dawn Bowden AM: Sure, I understand that, that you could do other things. I know--. We've heard from the Government, on other calls for legislation, that the programme's very tight, certainly for this term, so I was just wondering whether we might get that in, but okay. If I turn now to the planning system--and this might not be something that you have great deal of knowledge of; I'd just welcome your view on this, because, when we discussed with stakeholders, we talked about whether the planning system, for instance, could be used to, as an example, restrict hot food takeaways around schools and so on. Would that be a measure that you would support, something like that?
Dr Frank Atherton: I think it's definitely something we want to look at and, of course, that question is asked in the consultation, so we would like to know people's views on that. It's an interesting one. I think there is a question--a really important question--about how we can use the planning system more effectively. I've discussed with Nathan on a number of occasions, with planning colleagues in Welsh Government and in local authorities, about the art of the possible, let's say. There may be things that we could think about and we want to get those ideas through the consultation. The specific question around takeaways, particularly takeaways near schools, is often asked. I was very interested to see, up in the north-east, some time ago, that one of the local authorities up there did put a moratorium on the opening of new fast-food venues near to schools, or indeed in areas where levels of obesity and overweight were particularly high. I understand London is now--some London boroughs are now--experimenting with that as well. So, that gave me comfort, because maybe there are powers within local authorities that can be used more effectively. I think my view at the moment is that the jury's kind of out on whether those are effective and how effective they're going to be. But the fact that we have some initiatives around the UK does give us an opportunity to study that and to learn from experience perhaps and then, if it is shown to be beneficial, to think about that here in Wales, yes.
Dawn Bowden AM: Sure, because it will only be one of a suite of measures anyway. Of itself, it wouldn't address the problem, but, added to other initiatives, I guess it would. Can I just ask you briefly, then, about community sport infrastructure and, in particular, of new schools? So, Welsh Government, as you know, has ploughed a huge amount of money into the twenty-first century schools programme. What we heard when we spoke to stakeholders recently, particularly headteachers, was that, in some of the new schools that have been built, we haven't had changing rooms and toilet facilities, for instance, built into the new buildings. So, if we're going to try and utilise these buildings for general community activity to get kids and the wider public, actually, more active, do you think that's something that we ought to be building in? Again, not your particular direct area of responsibility, but something that you might have an input into, is that, when we're developing schools, we should be making sure that they have those kinds of facilities so that they become accessible to the wider public. Is that something that you would be prepared to make a recommendation around?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, it's certainly a fascinating area and one that I think has a lot of potential. It goes--. You're right to raise it in the context of schools, and I can understand why this committee would, but I think it goes beyond that, actually, into all developments in the public sector and how they're developed and whether we're building health into our environment, which perhaps is your starting point. One of the things that I was really pleased to see in terms of the Public Health (Wales) Act 2017 that was passed a couple of years ago was the use of health impact assessment as a tool, and we're still working on how that will inform policy and how that will be applied in issues such as policy decisions through Government, but also in more downstream issues about how we create the public infrastructure that the public can and should be using. And so I would like to see the use of health impact assessments to a much greater degree to inform those kinds of decisions. If you apply that kind of lens and you take the point, which is inherent in your question, I think, that schools are not just for kids, they're for communities, then you would--it would lead you to a conclusion that you would perhaps design and build them in a different way. So, on a personal basis, I would certainly support your view that we should be looking to use the sports environment in schools in the same way as we use leisure centres. There are all kinds of barriers in there, and I understand all of that, and it's not really my field, exactly as you say, but, as a matter of principle, I think it's a good one to pursue.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you. And widening it out to other public services buildings as well.
Dr Frank Atherton: Indeed.
Dawn Bowden AM: Yes. Okay. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We're going to move on now to talk about how we create healthy settings. I've got some questions from Suzy Davies.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much. Yes, perhaps if we could just stay in this area of education just for a moment, I think we all agree that healthy habits acquired early on probably tend to last quite well, so I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about the healthy and sustainable preschool scheme and whether you think some timescales should be made public about what you expect the achievements from that scheme to be. But, in particular, I was struck with what you said about local leadership, and I just want you to bear that in mind in answering the next question, which is about the foundation phase. You're probably aware that this committee has heard from various school leaders that they're struggling in some cases to meet the ratio of staffing for the foundation phase, which potentially compromises the purpose of it in terms of physical activity. I'm just wondering how the strategy development board is considering that at the moment. Is it something that's come on the radar for the board? Is it something you're thinking about? And, if so, who do you think should be responsible for pinning that down a little bit? Because this is education, not health, and--.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, look, I've got to confess to you, I'm not an educationist, and so the question on staffing numbers in schools is not one that I have been asked to give a deal of consideration to, and it hasn't really been discussed, I don't believe, in the context of development of the strategy. If there is a specific point around that that the committee would like to make in terms of a response into the consultation, which I presume you'll be making, then we'd be happy to consider that. As to healthy preschools, I don't know, Nathan may have some view on that. I've not been closely involved with the work. We have standards and we perhaps need to think about how we tighten those standards and how we--enforce isn't the right word, but how we implement and make sure that those standards are properly implemented, because you're absolutely right to say that habits are developed early in life. That's in the preschool; it's also in the home of course, and then later in the school. So, we do need to look at all of those as settings and are there more things we can do within those settings to drive healthier behaviours--that's exactly why we need the consultation.
Nathan Cook: But I would say, through that scheme as well, we've really got a really good bank of preschools that are actually doing some really great work in this area as well. So, I think the more we can understand the successes that some of those environments are having--you know, how we can roll those out and work across other settings to create that wider impact as well is going to be really important.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. What I'm thinking about is expectations at that level will be expectations at a slightly older level, which will be contained within the foundation phase. And while you're quite right--obviously, parents have a role in this, or families--there will be, particularly with the introduction of the new curriculum, certain expectations on schools to provide not just healthy environments but to actively work towards well-being and healthy weight in children and things. And that's why I asked you about local leadership, because, if it fails for reasons that have nothing to do with the plan at foundation phase, it's going to fail further up the school years as well. I think it might be something that the board might want to consider here, because at some point there'll be an accountability question and we will want to know how'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'fits in with the new plans for the new curriculum, and whether it's merely persuasive and influential or whether it has the weight to place some obligations on school leaders about what they do in their schools. So, this connection, I think, is quite an important one, and, if the strategy development board could consider that, I think it would be very helpful, because this doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, I'd certainly be delighted to take that back and we can look at it in terms of how we move from the consultation into the final strategy. It's certainly a point we can try and look at.
Suzy Davies AM: Because we will want to know who to ask:'you're the accountable person--why has something worked, or not worked?'We will need to know that at some point.
Dr Frank Atherton: Just building on Nathan's point, some of the schools--I know it's schools rather than the preschools, and I take your point, but some of the schools we've been working with have absolutely brilliant models of good practice and good local leadership. I remember the Minister actually at the launch, and one of the schools was represented there, and they presented--the school came and some of the children came and presented--to the whole audience about the activities that they were undertaking in their school around physical activity and on healthy eating, and it was such a model of good behaviour the question was,'Well, why not everywhere?', so that probably speaks to your question.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, well, thank you for that commitment anyway.
Lynne Neagle AM: And have you had any discussions, then, with education officials around things like teacher training and CPD, because you'll be aware the Health and Social Care Committee has made a number of recommendations in this area? It's crucial that we skill up the staff to develop these things in an appropriate way, isn't it?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, we certainly discuss with education colleagues in Welsh Government. There's more we need to do in terms of that, because you're absolutely right: there's something about building the whole of the workforce--education is really important, but elsewhere as well; it's about how do we really make every contact count, you know, that construct. So, everybody who's working in the health and social care system should have a role in this; everybody who works in education, whether it's the old--. Do we still have dinner ladies? Or teachers, you know, they have a role to play in supporting children to be as healthy as they possibly can. And, actually, I see them, Chair, as a really essential part of the public health workforce.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy, are you going to do your curriculum one?
Suzy Davies AM: Well, I've bound it in together, but that final point you make about teachers being part of the answer to this, they're already under a range of pressures: is it fair to make them accountable for whether this works or not? Or should that local leadership lie somewhere else? I don't expect you to pin down a person today.
Dr Frank Atherton: I wouldn't like to blame a teacher or performance manage them on the proportion of their children in their class who are overweight. That would clearly be nonsense, wouldn't it? But they are part of the solution, and so the accountability lies further up the chain, doesn't it? The question I think we would have, and public services boards might well ask, and the local education authorities may well ask, is: how effective is any particular school at driving forwards these healthy behaviours?
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. I'll leave some questions for Hefin.
Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin.
Hefin David AM: Is that all right, Chair?
Lynne Neagle AM: You've got the floor, Hefin.
Hefin David AM: Thank you, Chair. You make a commitment to embedding physical activity at an early stage in primary school education. What would that look like?
Dr Frank Atherton: Just in terms of the physical activity, I have to say it's a really important dimension and we need to move further on. We know not enough of our children are physically active and they're not meeting the various guidelines, so it's really important. It doesn't actually have as much of an impact on weight as the dietary issue. I'd just say that. It's really important for all sorts of reasons. It does have an impact on healthy weight, but it has a huge impact in terms of socialisation, in terms of mental health issues, et cetera, you know. So--I'm sorry, I've lost track of your question.
Nathan Cook: I'd just say that one thing we have got in train is, obviously, Sport Wales, Public Health Wales and Natural Resources Wales--we have them working together as a collaborative at the moment to look at how their joint delivery on physical activity can be taken forward more efficiently. So, one of the things they are looking at is obviously the schools programmes they do through eco-schools, the Welsh network of healthy schools and the sports programme to really think about that physical activity and how we can have better join up in terms of the programmes that we're already delivering as well.
Hefin David AM: With that in mind, I'm going to confess to you, chief medical officer, I did anything in school I could to avoid physical education lessons. I hated it. I didn't feel engaged with it. Yet, two weeks ago, I played for the Assembly rugby team--I wanted to get that in. The school sports survey, that would suggest that we're still not hitting those targets with children. How can we get children more engaged with physical education in ways that--? I felt completely alienated in school.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, you're right, and many people go through that same journey and come to physical activity later in life, and that's great if they do that. The sad reality is that many people don't, and we also know that there are issues around the dropping off, particularly for girls, of physical activity towards the teenage years. So, there are specific moments that we need to understand. We do have a lot of information about these kinds of things. Public Health Wales is very good at collating the information. We do need to turn that into programmes. I mean, at the heart of it, it's about making sports and physical activity enjoyable and attractive to people. Sometimes that's easier, I sense, for boys than for girls, but we need to tailor things to different audiences.
Hefin David AM: Yes, that's the trick, isn't it? It's about finding out what children enjoy doing. That could be quite a wide and varied range of things. Is that the key?
Dawn Bowden AM: It's not all about organised team sports.
Hefin David AM: Yes. As Dawn said, it's not just about organised team sports. There are some very individual activities you could do.
Dr Frank Atherton: Absolutely, yes. And that's where I think--. I'm delighted that Sport Wales has moved beyond. It's not just about elite sports; it's about getting everybody engaged and active in sports, and that partnership with Public Health Wales that Nathan talked about is really important, because we need a population approach to driving physical activity.
Hefin David AM: So, do you think, with that in mind, we need statutory guidance for schools on physical education?
Dr Frank Atherton: Again, I'd look to the consultation as to whether there was an appetite for any kind of guidance. It may well be that that is something that could be considered.
Hefin David AM: Okay. And finally, with regard to free school meals to all pupils in primary and secondary schools, do you think that extending that to all pupils would be beneficial in providing a more varied diet for pupils?
Dr Frank Atherton: I don't have a personal view on that. I think it's the quality of the food that kids are getting, whether that comes from home or through school, and whether it's free or whether it's paid for. I think it's the quality of the food that we need to focus on. The question of children being hungry at school is a really important one and needs to be addressed at a national level. I think that's a--
Hefin David AM: So, you think that's more about the provision of food for those who might not have access to it than providing a varied diet.
Dr Frank Atherton: I think it's important that children have access to food, absolutely, if that's your question, but we also need to look at the quality of the food and what's in that food offer.
Hefin David AM: But you don't necessarily think universal provision would--.
Dr Frank Atherton: I don't have a clear view on that. I know there's a larger debate about that.
Hefin David AM: Okay, thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: I've got some supplementaries from Janet and then Suzy.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. I've been around some amazing schools in my own constituency, where they've got proper canteen facilities for pupils and really, really good produce in the meals. However, there's probably only a third having school meals; the rest are packed lunches. And, to be honest, I've been very surprised and shocked at what I've seen of the quality of the food in the packed lunches. Nobody can really police, and I wouldn't want to see parents being policed over what goes in a packed lunch, so if there is data out there to suggest that there's a larger percentage of parents providing packed lunched that are really not good at all, then there is some merit to be said for what Hefin is--. Me, personally, I'd love to see the introduction of universal school meals. I think it's been a very retrograde step, going backwards. Would you be willing to carry out any research?
Dr Frank Atherton: So, I mean, your point about food that's brought in in the packed lunches is a really important one, and I've talked to some headteachers as well about this. We could go down a route of guidance and prohibition, but that gets you into the role of nanny in chief and I don't really see that as my role or Government's role, and I don't think it's effective either. Do you remember--? You must have seen on tv--I think it was in Scotland; I don't know if it's happened in Wales--parents pushing the fish and chip packets through the school railings. We don't need to get into that. What I have seen, though, is some really good innovative practice in schools where, for example, they reward children for bringing the healthy options. Schools can give guidance to parents about what would be a healthy lunch and what sort of things might be expected to be seen in the lunch box. And you can reward children, and children do respond to rewards. So, I've seen some of those approaches that have transformed, actually, the offer of what comes in school boxes. But I think just banning chocolate bars and crisps in the packed lunch is unlikely to be successful.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: We can't do that. So, my point to the question was: isn't there some merit, perhaps, about all children being equal and eating similar good-quality food in schools?
Dr Frank Atherton: Yes. That gets you back to the question about universal school meals.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Perhaps some of that PS56 million sugar tax, even. Who knows?
Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy.
Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Mine is just a short question. The draft plan commits, doesn't it, to updating the healthy eating in schools regulations--the 2013 regulations? I appreciate this is a consultation, but what is it that needs changing in those regulations at the moment, just to give us a bit of steer?
Nathan Cook: It's mainly on sugar content, so, obviously, they don't adhere to current Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition guidelines around sugar levels. So, what we'd want to consider is, you know, what we need to be careful of is unintended consequences of changing that, as well, if you see a shift to more kids bringing in school packed lunches as well. So, I think we want to consider the best way of doing that and consider through the consultation how we can go about it.
Suzy Davies AM: All right. So, it's very pertinent to Janet's question, in that way. Okay, so it's mainly about sugar, but it could be about other things as well. Okay. Thanks.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. The next questions are from Janet anyway; firstly, on the clinical obesity pathway.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'plan commits to a review of the clinical obesity pathway. What are the time frames for this review, and what do you think are the basic essentials of a clinical obesity pathway for children and young people?
Dr Frank Atherton: We do have a pathway for managing overweight, and that's been in place since about 2010, I believe, and we do need to bring that up to date in terms of current knowledge and experiences. We've challenged Public Health Wales; we've asked Public Health Wales to undertake a review of that pathway, and they are going through that process now. I'm not sure of exactly the time frame that we have given them for that.
Nathan Cook: We were asking them to review the pathway before we launch the final strategy in October because, obviously, what we want is for that to inform what that final strategy looks like. So, we'll be looking probably early autumn for them to report back on that.
Dr Frank Atherton: The second point of your question about what are the essential elements, I mean, they are already there; we need to tweak them and we need to make sure that they're properly delivered. But it's a tiered approach, so, having access to information through schools and through communities and into families is part of the first step of that. And then, if children are overweight, it's a question about how they're identified. There are questions about the ability of the public to recognise large children, so there may be an issue there. But when children are running into issues around weight, what kind of interventions can be put in, either through primary care or through communities through health visitors, et cetera? And then of course we do have--and we've started to shine a light on this, haven't we--the very overweight children. I don't think we have enough in the way of targeted support to be able to support those. There are programmes available, but they're perhaps not universally provided. So, I think there's something about looking at our whole pathway, mapping out what the current evidence now shows us is needed, and then thinking about what is our provision in Wales and what do we need to do to bring that up to the level of the places that are the best.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. The draft plan recognises the importance of the first 1,000 days, but it doesn't appear to include any new proposals to help parents to enable lifestyle changes. It lists existing initiatives, such as the Healthy Child Wales programme and breastfeeding action plan. Are you satisfied that the draft plan does enough to address the influence that family and parents have on children's healthy weight behaviours, particularly in the first 1,000 days?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, the first 1,000 days are really critically in shaping lives, as I'm sure you'd agree. We are absolutely open to any other suggestions that the public or this committee have as to what more we can and should do. There are a number of things, the sorts of programmes you've mentioned, that I think could be more effective. We're currently looking at breastfeeding because it starts before birth, actually. We know that children who are breastfed are less likely to suffer from obesity in childhood and, indeed, to go on to be obese adults. So, we do need to go further on that. We do have some programmes--Healthy Working Wales, et cetera--that need to be improved. If there are other interventions in other areas that we need to take, then we'd be delighted to hear what they are, but those are the ones that have jumped out so far.
Nathan Cook: Can I just say--? One of the proposals we're looking for is, obviously, we know that during pregnancy it's a really critical time when we can actually look to work with mothers. We know from looking at some of the behaviour change that it's actually a really critical point when new mothers really start thinking about their lives, wanting the best for their child and their families. So, what we are thinking about is how we could develop some kind of approaches to that going forward. But we know our Healthy Start scheme is also a good lever for us, just in terms of how we can look to improve that kind of dietary offer at the earliest stage as well.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Finally, we know that for some families day-to-day challenges can make it difficult for them to make healthy choices, particularly for those on lower incomes and/or maybe using food banks. Could the Welsh Government take bolder action to better support low-income families to eat healthily?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, you've touched on a really important point about inequalities because overweight and obesity is not evenly distributed across our population. It absolutely is more prevalent in more socioeconomically deprived communities, and that's something that should really concern us all. So, it gets you to questions of availability of fresh food and produce; it gets you to questions of formulation of products and whether value brands are less healthy than more premium brands. So, it cuts across all of those issues that we talked about in terms of settings and in terms of environment earlier. There is something about the affordability of good-quality healthy food that we need to think about. We do need to think in broad terms--broader terms than just obesity, but we do need to think in broad terms--about how we create a society where families have the wherewithal to lead healthy lives, and that gets you to really important questions about the minimum wage and income poverty. There's no doubt in my mind--I'm a public health professional--and there's no doubt in my mind that economic success and health success go hand in hand. So, you speak to a very deep question there. In terms of what we can do through this particular consultation, there are some things in there about providing better access, but without tackling some of those deeper determinants of health, their impact will necessarily be limited.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Just finally from me, then, you referred earlier to the importance of making every contact count, but some stakeholders have told the committee that they struggle to do that because of difficulties in availability of people to refer to. Is that a situation that you recognise and what, really, can we do to improve that situation?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, it depends what you mean as to where to refer to. So, the health system obviously needs to respond to this issue. What we're seeing across the NHS is a gradual transformation in primary care so that primary care is no longer about going to see your GP, it's about going to see a practice where you have a range of health professionals. Would I like to see more dietetic support, for example, in that setting? Absolutely I would. I think we need to think in terms of that pathway that we were talking about earlier, about access to that kind of advice and support, which can head off people getting into problems and kids getting into problems with weight issues. So, that question of redesign of the pathway really speaks to, I think, your point about,'Well, where do people go when they have problems with their weight?'That's true for adults and it's true for children as well.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you both very much for your attendance? It's been a really productive session. We appreciate your time. You will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy in due course, but thank you again.
Dr Frank Atherton: We'll do that. Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the committee, because getting some input into the consultation from children's perspectives, this would be one of the routes we would absolutely welcome. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee on CAMHS tier 4 provision. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Health and Social Services also on CAMHS in-patient provision. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Children Commissioner for Wales on tier 4 CAMHS provision. Paper to note 4 is a letter from Qualifications Wales to the Minister for Education on qualifications for the new curriculum. Paper to note 5 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education on the development of the new curriculum. Paper to note 6 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education seeking clarification on the draft additional learning needs code. Paper to note 7 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education seeking clarification on the response to our Brexit report. Paper to note 8 is a letter from the Equality and Human Rights Commission on a cumulative impact assessment briefing for committee, which has been offered. Paper to note 9 is a letter from the Chair of the Petitions Committee on a national taskforce for children's mental health. Paper to note 10 is a letter to the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union from the children's commissioners for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on the implications of Brexit for children. There are a few that I'd like to return to in private, but are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Okay. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17. 42 to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content?
Suzy Davies AM: Yes. There's somebody up there.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. | Dawn Bowden AM asked for Dr Frank Atherton's ideas on community sport infrastructure of new schools, and pointed out that Welsh Government has ploughed a huge amount of money into the twenty-first century schools programme. At the end of speech, Dawn Bowden AM thought they should be making sure that they have those kinds of facilities so that they become accessible to the wider public. At the same time, Dawn Bowden AM gave advice on making a recommendation of sports infrastructure to Dr Frank Atherton. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
Lynne Neagle AM: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Michelle Brown and Jack Sargeant; there are no substitutions. Can I ask if Members have any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. We'll move on, then, to item 2, which is our scrutiny of the'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'draft strategy, and I'm very pleased to welcome Dr Frank Atherton, the Chief Medical Officer for Wales, and Nathan Cook, who is the head of the healthy and active branch at Welsh Government. Thank you, both, for attending this morning. We're very much looking forward to hearing what you've got to say. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions. If I can just start by asking about the fact that'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'is an all-age strategy, really, and how confident you are that it will deliver for children and young people.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, we're very confident. I mean, it has to, quite clearly. We do need to think about the present generation, the problems faced by the current generation. We have high prevalence of overweight and obesity among adults--we know that, and we can't walk away from that because that's translating into demand on health services. But we have to take a focus, a future generation's focus, almost, on the next generation. I don't write off the current generation, we can't afford to do that, but we do need to think about what can we do that would be different for the next generation so that they don't get into the sorts of problems that we're currently seeing with overweight and obesity. We know that the consequences of that for our young people are going to be enormous if we don't do something and something quite soon. We know that overweight children go on to become overweight adults, unfortunately, and that brings all the consequences of multiple disease issues--diabetes is often cited--cancer risk et cetera. So, we have to focus on children, and, in fact, during the consultation, we've been very clear that we need to engage with children and young people as well. Perhaps we'll get into that at some point, Chair, but, yes, I can give you that assurance.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. What my follow-up question, really, is: can you just tell us what kind of engagement you've had with children and young people to inform the draft strategy?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, Nathan may be able to influence some of the detail, but in broad terms, we have discussed with young people in a number of fora. In fact, I was delighted that we had a young person, Evie Morgan, a schoolgirl from mid Wales, who came to the joint launch on the consultation. She met the Minister there and gave a very good personal account of her views on obesity and overweight. We've been visiting a number of schools during the consultation process. I'm visiting a school, either this week or next week, at Treorchy, to talk with teachers and young people there. Obviously, we're hopeful that schools and young people will contribute to the consultation as well. So, we've had quite good input, I would say, from children and young people. There is always more we can do we and we want to hear those voices.
Nathan Cook: I was going to say, we've also had a session with youth ambassadors as well, and what we've actually produced for the consultation is not just the children and young people's version, but also a toolkit in terms of getting schools really engaged and involved in terms of the work that we want them to do to feed into this as well. So, we've already had some really good responses from a lot of youth group and schools already.
Lynne Neagle AM: And you've got a structured programme, have you, to roll that out? Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on leadership, and the first questions are from Sian Gwenllian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Good morning. I'll be speaking in Welsh. The Minister for health said yesterday, in answering a question from me on the Chamber floor, that you gave him advice not to have a target in terms of reducing obesity among children. Could you confirm that that's what your advice was and tell us why you don't think that a target is needed?
Dr Frank Atherton: My advice was not that we don't need a target--we may well need a target, and that's one of the issues we need to consult on--but that the target that had been adopted in England and in Scotland to halve the prevalence of obesity in children was more aspirational than deliverable, and that if we are to choose a target in Wales, then we need to balance deliverability with challenge. We need a challenging environment. So, there is something about performance management, because I would be looking to not just the health system but the health and care system and to public services boards to think about how they're delivering on this, and I think we can use targets to that. But they are one tool in the box that I would think we could use, and part of the consultation is to ask that question--'If we are to go down a route in Wales of choosing a target, what might that look like?'Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. So, to be clear, you're not ruling out that maybe we would need a target.
Dr Frank Atherton: It's certainly something that we could consider in terms of the final strategy.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And is that your opinion too?
Nathan Cook: Yes.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. Well, that is contrary to what I was told yesterday on the floor of the Chamber by the Minister, but there we go. I'm glad to hear that you're not ruling out having a target, because without a target, without something to aim for, how do we know that we're getting there?
Dr Frank Atherton: I think your point about evaluation is really important. Whatever we produce at the end of this process--and we're looking to produce a final strategy towards the autumn--we do need to have a strong evaluation. So, some metrics in there, it would seem, would be appropriate, but what those are, what the nature of those are, do we frame them as targets or ambitions--that's the point we need to consult on.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Okay. And the other point, of course, is the investment. If the Government is going to be successful in terms of the aim of reducing childhood obesity, then it needs to fund and support the actions. Have you made an assessment of the level of investment needed to implement this plan?
Dr Frank Atherton: Resourcing will be important. We currently do make investments in a number of areas that relate to child health generally, and, of course, obesity and overweight in particular. So, the question of resourcing is important. Now, we can't quantify an absolute amount of resource that will be needed to deliver until we know exactly what's going to come out of the consultation and what actions we might want to deliver to a greater degree in Wales. A figure of PS8 million to PS10 million a year has been banded around as a broad kind of area of what we might need to invest, but that would need to be drawn from existing programmes. We need to look at existing programmes, how effective they are. Can we make them more effective? Can we get better value from them? And there may well be a case for new investment, and that's a question, of course, that would need to be discussed with Ministers when we're producing the final strategy.
Nathan Cook: But I think a key consideration as well is we already know there is investment across health boards in some kind of obesity-related services. So, I think what we really need to think about across Wales is how we can drive greater scale, how we can look at current programmes in terms of making sure that they're better evaluated, and how we can make sure that we're also drawing up on the existing resources and capacity out there as well.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And does the level of investment depend on what the target is--what the goal is?
Dr Frank Atherton: I don't think you can necessarily just link the two. The issue of resourcing is one that's there irrespective of whether we choose to put a target in place.
Sian Gwenllian AM: But how would we know that it's being used effectively if there isn't something to aim for?
Dr Frank Atherton: Which brings you back to the question about evaluation. We need proper evaluation of the various programmes that we have.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, but without a target, how can you properly evaluate? If you don't know what you're trying to do, how can you properly evaluate? Anyway, you're open to suggestions about having a target, which is great. Would you agree that Government could use the revenue that's being produced through the levy on soft drinks towards some of these efforts to--?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, of course, there are some consequentials that are coming to the Welsh Government as part of the levy on sugary soft drinks. That funding, of course, is less than we had anticipated, and that reflects, actually, a success story because industry is reformulating, and so the amount of sugar in soft drinks is already starting to decrease, which is a good thing. But to your question: should we use the funding? Well, of course we should use funding. I'm not personally in favour of hypothecation, I think I'm more interested in the totality of resource that goes into public health programmes than into marginal resource. There are, of course, a number of initiatives that we currently fund through the general revenue. And when I think about obesity, I don't just think about the relatively small marginal amounts of money that come in through whatever source, but I think about the totality of the PS7 billion we spend in health and social care and how we can divert and channel some of that towards broad prevention initiatives in general, and towards tackling being overweight and obesity in particular.
Sian Gwenllian AM: You're saying that it's less than expected. Could you give us any kind of figure?
Dr Frank Atherton: I'm sorry, could you repeat the question?
Sian Gwenllian AM: You say that there is less money that's come in through these consequentials from the levy, can you mention some sort of figure?
Dr Frank Atherton: The figure that I have in mind is about PS56 million that's coming in in terms of revenue over a two-year period. But I'd have to confirm that with the committee. What the anticipated--. When the sugar levy was first brought in, there was some modelling at UK level about what level of revenue that would bring, but it was based on the amount of sugar that was currently then in drinks and the fact that the sugar has reduced in drinks, I mean, the total amount available to the UK is less and hence our consequentials are less. Nathan may have some precise figures.
Nathan Cook: Yes, I was going to say, there was a mid-year report done where the levy has raised PS150 million to date since coming into force in April, and the original forecast was PS520 million a year. So, I think that shows the amount of work that's been done by industry around reformulation.
Sian Gwenllian AM: And the consequentials of that? That is the consequential--PS150 million.
Nathan Cook: On a UK level.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Yes, so what's the Welsh consequential?
Lynne Neagle AM: Fifty-six.
Sian Gwenllian AM: Fifty-six? Gosh, that sounds a lot. Anyway, it's a good sum of money and you're talking about investing PS8 million to PS10 million. So, obviously, you know, we can be more ambitious because there is money in that pot if that money was ring-fenced for this particular scheme.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, the resource is going to be a real issue that we need to address, and I think as Nathan has said, there is funding of various initiatives currently in the system, and we need to look at that and make that as effective as possible. Will there be a need for some additional resource? There may well be, and that's a question that we'll have to look at in terms of the strategy when we develop it and have a discussion with Ministers about the level of resourcing.
Lynne Neagle AM: Can I just ask on that before Sian moves on? What assessment have you made of how that money is being spent in other UK nations? Because my understanding is that the money is being used in other UK nations to directly impact on obesity. Have you given any consideration to--? As I understand it, that money now is being dispersed around a plethora of programmes, including the transformation programme, and what I found very odd, really, was vaccination, which is surely the core business of the NHS. Have you got any view on that?
Dr Frank Atherton: I'm not sure I understand your point, Chair, in terms of the link between the consequentials from--. Are you talking about the consequentials from the sugar levy or are you talking about--?
Lynne Neagle AM: Yes, because in other nations, it is being used to directly impact on initiatives to tackle obesity, whereas, we've kind of put it here in Wales into the general pot and it's being used to fund a plethora of different things.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, that cuts to what I was talking about. My preference--it's a personal view--is that hypothecation doesn't really help us too much. I mean, what we need to look at is whether the programmes, the sorts of programmes that are being funded in England, or indeed in Scotland, are working effectively, and if they are, are they being delivered here in Wales? We have looked very carefully at the plans that England and Scotland have for tackling obesity and overweight, and we've made a comparison with what we're doing in Wales, and our ambition in Wales is to go further than those nations, in many ways. But I come back to the point that just linking the hypothecation of a relatively small amount of resource is likely to be less impactful than asking a question of public services boards and of the health system, indeed, about how much money, overall, are we putting into prevention.
Lynne Neagle AM: No, I recognise that, and I think we're talking about additional resource. Suzy.
Suzy Davies AM: I was just wondering whether you thought that there was a useful psychological link on the part of the public between saying,'Here's a sugar levy', and'It's going to be used to help children and adults stay healthier.'Going into a pot, it actually makes it quite difficult to explain the purpose of the tax in the first place. So, I take your overall point, but in terms of the people who we're trying to help in all this, actually creating a direct link might be quite helpful.
Dr Frank Atherton: You may be right. I'm not a behavioural psychologist. We'd have to ask--
Suzy Davies AM: Neither am I. I'm a person who eats a lot of sugar. [Laughter. ]
Dr Frank Atherton: Your point's taken.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thanks. Sian.
Sian Gwenllian AM: The last question from me, about partnership working. You're putting an emphasis on the whole-system approach in implementing the plan, how are you going to create a system that co-ordinates action and drives change across relevant partners, avoiding a situation where it's everyone's role, but nobody's responsibility? How are you going to avoid that?
Dr Frank Atherton: It's a very important question, and one of the four strands in the consultation is exactly related to that, around leadership and drive nationally. I'm not interested in producing a strategy that sits on a shelf. If you look around the world, there are plenty of obesity strategies. You may notice, by the way, that we've chosen not to talk about an obesity strategy but a healthy weight strategy, because I think having a positive construct is really quite important to us here in Wales. But leadership will be really important, and we will need some sort of structure to lead this, to provide oversight. I'm not a great believer in creating new structures, so we do need something that will give that drive, but the leadership comes from the top down. We need political commitment to this, and that's why I welcome the input from this committee. So, that needs to be assured. And then we need to make sure that the public sector generally is engaged in this, but it goes way beyond the public sector, of course, because we have to work with industry, and we have to work with communities, and we have to work with the public on this. So we need to think about our governance system for this and how we drive it forward. Interestingly, we had quite a large discussion two days ago between health and social care, but also involving the third sector and some members of the public, around how can we drive prevention more generally. It wasn't specifically on obesity, but of course obesity came up because it's such a pressing issue. This question of governance was discussed quite extensively, and we do have governance systems, of course, in Wales. We have public services boards, we have regional partnership boards, and how we can get those aligned behind this common agenda is really important. But I'd like to see--and I know I'm a public health professional, so I know that only maybe 10 per cent, 15 per cent, possibly 20 per cent of what makes and keeps us healthy as individuals and as communities can be driven through the health system; but I would like the system to step up and take these kinds of issues more seriously as well. So I'd be looking for local leadership through directors of public health and indeed through chief executives to work with their public services boards on this. So, we'll need some sort of national oversight, absolutely, but we need local ownership and local leadership, too.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. We've got some questions now from Janet Finch-Saunders.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you, Chair. Delivery of the plan will be led by a national implementation board that will be accountable to Ministers. Which Minister do you believe it should be accountable to, or, given the complexity of obesity, should the board be directly accountable to the First Minister?
Dr Frank Atherton: Ultimately, the First Minister will be responsible for this and will want to have a strong oversight of this. It is often framed as a health issue, and the Minister, Vaughan Gething, has a strong personal commitment to this, I know. We've talked extensively with him and with sports and recreation colleagues about that, so there's a link there. It does cut across all portfolios, and so this is an issue that I have discussed with Cabinet, and that collective ownership is really important, and will be, because it can't just sit in one domain. I think what you do need to have is you do need to have a lead organisation or a lead ministry, and I would see health as--I work within health, so I'm perhaps biased, but I would see health as leading this, but it needs broad ownership across Government.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: I know my colleague Sian Gwenllian mentioned earlier targets and things, but I know in Wales we're not too good at collecting data. What data is currently available on childhood obesity and what metrics will be used to measure progress against the plan's objectives?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, of course, our main data source is the child measurement programme, which collects information on children entering school aged four or five. That's our main source of information. If we look at that data, it shows us--. Well, I'm sure you're familiar with the statistics, but it'll be just under a third of children at that age who are overweight or obese--
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Could I just ask--sorry to interrupt--how up to date is that?
Dr Frank Atherton: The last survey was just last year.
Nathan Cook: The data was published last week.
Dr Frank Atherton: Yes, the lastest data was out last week.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It is pretty up to date.
Dr Frank Atherton: So, it's pretty up to date, and what it shows--. It's not getting radically worse--there's always statistical variation in these things--but it's not getting any better. And, for the first time last year, we did look at the question not just of children who were overweight or obese, but we actually singled out the proportion who are obese, severely obese. So we have a figure for that for the first time, which is about 12 per cent, which is quite shocking, in a way.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: It is shocking.
Dr Frank Atherton: So, that's our main source of information. Does that answer your question?
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes, but how will any gaps in your data be addressed?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, one of the questions that are often asked is: could we measure more on a longitudinal basis? By that I mean in England, for example, children are measured at school entry and then again at year 11--at age 11 or 12. , that kind of age group. And so you do have a longitudinal view over time of what's happening to children. I think that would be helpful to us in Wales, and it's one of the questions in the consultation about whether we should expand that. Obviously, that would have significant resource implications, not just for the funding, but also for schools and for the system to deliver it. But it's something that maybe would help us in terms of better understanding and better evaluation--the point that was made earlier.
Nathan Cook: And the other data we do have is the millennium cohort study, which has been released, for 14 and 15-year-olds. That's going to be--. We're starting to think about how we can utilise some of that data, looking at that longitudinal picture around children as well, which will be really helpful.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. You've answered my next question. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Can I just ask about the child measurement programme? The strategy commits to looking at whether we can have a second measurement taking place in Wales. Can you just tell us a bit more about your thinking on that and when you would see a second measurement taking place and how you would use that data?
Dr Frank Atherton: I touched on that just now, but personally I do think it would be helpful to have more information. It's always the case, There's always a trade-off between the cost of getting that information and the value of the information. So, the question of how it would be used would be really important. There is still a lot that we don't know. We know an awful lot about obesity and being overweight and the causes of it, but we don't really have a very clear understanding, in Wales at least, of the point at which children start to become overweight. Although we know that overweight children tend to go on to become overweight adults, we don't know what proportion of them between school entry and later teenage years--what those changes are. So, it would help us to have some better understanding, which would help to direct some of our initiatives. I'd be generally supportive of the principle. We'll wait and see what comes out in the consultation, and it's something that we need to give thought to, but we do have to trade off the additionality of what the information would give us with the cost of doing that, of course.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on healthy environments from Dawn Bowden.
Dawn Bowden AM: Thank you, Chair. In the draft plan, some of the measures in there suggest legislating for restricting price promotions and banning energy drinks, and that sort of thing. Do you think that, if we go down that road, there's going to be time within this Assembly to introduce such legislation? And, if not, what do you think might be the timescale for such legislation?
Dr Frank Atherton: It may well be that there are things in Wales that we might wish to legislate on, and you've mentioned two of them, and they're good examples. We would, obviously, need to undertake quite detailed consultation on those and, in a way, we need to mirror what's happening in England and in Scotland to some degree around the consultations they're having on energy drinks. We also need to influence the issues that are not devolved to us and we seek to do that. As to your question of legislative time, I'm not really in a position to answer that. What I could say is that legislation may well be one of the outcomes of the consultation. There may well be things that we wish to choose to legislate on. The timing of that will have to be subject to other pressures, and I come back to the point that legislation, of course, is one of the tools that we've got--we need to deploy them all.
Dawn Bowden AM: Sure, I understand that, that you could do other things. I know--. We've heard from the Government, on other calls for legislation, that the programme's very tight, certainly for this term, so I was just wondering whether we might get that in, but okay. If I turn now to the planning system--and this might not be something that you have great deal of knowledge of; I'd just welcome your view on this, because, when we discussed with stakeholders, we talked about whether the planning system, for instance, could be used to, as an example, restrict hot food takeaways around schools and so on. Would that be a measure that you would support, something like that?
Dr Frank Atherton: I think it's definitely something we want to look at and, of course, that question is asked in the consultation, so we would like to know people's views on that. It's an interesting one. I think there is a question--a really important question--about how we can use the planning system more effectively. I've discussed with Nathan on a number of occasions, with planning colleagues in Welsh Government and in local authorities, about the art of the possible, let's say. There may be things that we could think about and we want to get those ideas through the consultation. The specific question around takeaways, particularly takeaways near schools, is often asked. I was very interested to see, up in the north-east, some time ago, that one of the local authorities up there did put a moratorium on the opening of new fast-food venues near to schools, or indeed in areas where levels of obesity and overweight were particularly high. I understand London is now--some London boroughs are now--experimenting with that as well. So, that gave me comfort, because maybe there are powers within local authorities that can be used more effectively. I think my view at the moment is that the jury's kind of out on whether those are effective and how effective they're going to be. But the fact that we have some initiatives around the UK does give us an opportunity to study that and to learn from experience perhaps and then, if it is shown to be beneficial, to think about that here in Wales, yes.
Dawn Bowden AM: Sure, because it will only be one of a suite of measures anyway. Of itself, it wouldn't address the problem, but, added to other initiatives, I guess it would. Can I just ask you briefly, then, about community sport infrastructure and, in particular, of new schools? So, Welsh Government, as you know, has ploughed a huge amount of money into the twenty-first century schools programme. What we heard when we spoke to stakeholders recently, particularly headteachers, was that, in some of the new schools that have been built, we haven't had changing rooms and toilet facilities, for instance, built into the new buildings. So, if we're going to try and utilise these buildings for general community activity to get kids and the wider public, actually, more active, do you think that's something that we ought to be building in? Again, not your particular direct area of responsibility, but something that you might have an input into, is that, when we're developing schools, we should be making sure that they have those kinds of facilities so that they become accessible to the wider public. Is that something that you would be prepared to make a recommendation around?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, it's certainly a fascinating area and one that I think has a lot of potential. It goes--. You're right to raise it in the context of schools, and I can understand why this committee would, but I think it goes beyond that, actually, into all developments in the public sector and how they're developed and whether we're building health into our environment, which perhaps is your starting point. One of the things that I was really pleased to see in terms of the Public Health (Wales) Act 2017 that was passed a couple of years ago was the use of health impact assessment as a tool, and we're still working on how that will inform policy and how that will be applied in issues such as policy decisions through Government, but also in more downstream issues about how we create the public infrastructure that the public can and should be using. And so I would like to see the use of health impact assessments to a much greater degree to inform those kinds of decisions. If you apply that kind of lens and you take the point, which is inherent in your question, I think, that schools are not just for kids, they're for communities, then you would--it would lead you to a conclusion that you would perhaps design and build them in a different way. So, on a personal basis, I would certainly support your view that we should be looking to use the sports environment in schools in the same way as we use leisure centres. There are all kinds of barriers in there, and I understand all of that, and it's not really my field, exactly as you say, but, as a matter of principle, I think it's a good one to pursue.
Dawn Bowden AM: Okay. Thank you. And widening it out to other public services buildings as well.
Dr Frank Atherton: Indeed.
Dawn Bowden AM: Yes. Okay. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. We're going to move on now to talk about how we create healthy settings. I've got some questions from Suzy Davies.
Suzy Davies AM: Thank you very much. Yes, perhaps if we could just stay in this area of education just for a moment, I think we all agree that healthy habits acquired early on probably tend to last quite well, so I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about the healthy and sustainable preschool scheme and whether you think some timescales should be made public about what you expect the achievements from that scheme to be. But, in particular, I was struck with what you said about local leadership, and I just want you to bear that in mind in answering the next question, which is about the foundation phase. You're probably aware that this committee has heard from various school leaders that they're struggling in some cases to meet the ratio of staffing for the foundation phase, which potentially compromises the purpose of it in terms of physical activity. I'm just wondering how the strategy development board is considering that at the moment. Is it something that's come on the radar for the board? Is it something you're thinking about? And, if so, who do you think should be responsible for pinning that down a little bit? Because this is education, not health, and--.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, look, I've got to confess to you, I'm not an educationist, and so the question on staffing numbers in schools is not one that I have been asked to give a deal of consideration to, and it hasn't really been discussed, I don't believe, in the context of development of the strategy. If there is a specific point around that that the committee would like to make in terms of a response into the consultation, which I presume you'll be making, then we'd be happy to consider that. As to healthy preschools, I don't know, Nathan may have some view on that. I've not been closely involved with the work. We have standards and we perhaps need to think about how we tighten those standards and how we--enforce isn't the right word, but how we implement and make sure that those standards are properly implemented, because you're absolutely right to say that habits are developed early in life. That's in the preschool; it's also in the home of course, and then later in the school. So, we do need to look at all of those as settings and are there more things we can do within those settings to drive healthier behaviours--that's exactly why we need the consultation.
Nathan Cook: But I would say, through that scheme as well, we've really got a really good bank of preschools that are actually doing some really great work in this area as well. So, I think the more we can understand the successes that some of those environments are having--you know, how we can roll those out and work across other settings to create that wider impact as well is going to be really important.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay. Thank you. What I'm thinking about is expectations at that level will be expectations at a slightly older level, which will be contained within the foundation phase. And while you're quite right--obviously, parents have a role in this, or families--there will be, particularly with the introduction of the new curriculum, certain expectations on schools to provide not just healthy environments but to actively work towards well-being and healthy weight in children and things. And that's why I asked you about local leadership, because, if it fails for reasons that have nothing to do with the plan at foundation phase, it's going to fail further up the school years as well. I think it might be something that the board might want to consider here, because at some point there'll be an accountability question and we will want to know how'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'fits in with the new plans for the new curriculum, and whether it's merely persuasive and influential or whether it has the weight to place some obligations on school leaders about what they do in their schools. So, this connection, I think, is quite an important one, and, if the strategy development board could consider that, I think it would be very helpful, because this doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, I'd certainly be delighted to take that back and we can look at it in terms of how we move from the consultation into the final strategy. It's certainly a point we can try and look at.
Suzy Davies AM: Because we will want to know who to ask:'you're the accountable person--why has something worked, or not worked?'We will need to know that at some point.
Dr Frank Atherton: Just building on Nathan's point, some of the schools--I know it's schools rather than the preschools, and I take your point, but some of the schools we've been working with have absolutely brilliant models of good practice and good local leadership. I remember the Minister actually at the launch, and one of the schools was represented there, and they presented--the school came and some of the children came and presented--to the whole audience about the activities that they were undertaking in their school around physical activity and on healthy eating, and it was such a model of good behaviour the question was,'Well, why not everywhere?', so that probably speaks to your question.
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, well, thank you for that commitment anyway.
Lynne Neagle AM: And have you had any discussions, then, with education officials around things like teacher training and CPD, because you'll be aware the Health and Social Care Committee has made a number of recommendations in this area? It's crucial that we skill up the staff to develop these things in an appropriate way, isn't it?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, we certainly discuss with education colleagues in Welsh Government. There's more we need to do in terms of that, because you're absolutely right: there's something about building the whole of the workforce--education is really important, but elsewhere as well; it's about how do we really make every contact count, you know, that construct. So, everybody who's working in the health and social care system should have a role in this; everybody who works in education, whether it's the old--. Do we still have dinner ladies? Or teachers, you know, they have a role to play in supporting children to be as healthy as they possibly can. And, actually, I see them, Chair, as a really essential part of the public health workforce.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Suzy, are you going to do your curriculum one?
Suzy Davies AM: Well, I've bound it in together, but that final point you make about teachers being part of the answer to this, they're already under a range of pressures: is it fair to make them accountable for whether this works or not? Or should that local leadership lie somewhere else? I don't expect you to pin down a person today.
Dr Frank Atherton: I wouldn't like to blame a teacher or performance manage them on the proportion of their children in their class who are overweight. That would clearly be nonsense, wouldn't it? But they are part of the solution, and so the accountability lies further up the chain, doesn't it? The question I think we would have, and public services boards might well ask, and the local education authorities may well ask, is: how effective is any particular school at driving forwards these healthy behaviours?
Suzy Davies AM: Okay, thank you. I'll leave some questions for Hefin.
Lynne Neagle AM: Hefin.
Hefin David AM: Is that all right, Chair?
Lynne Neagle AM: You've got the floor, Hefin.
Hefin David AM: Thank you, Chair. You make a commitment to embedding physical activity at an early stage in primary school education. What would that look like?
Dr Frank Atherton: Just in terms of the physical activity, I have to say it's a really important dimension and we need to move further on. We know not enough of our children are physically active and they're not meeting the various guidelines, so it's really important. It doesn't actually have as much of an impact on weight as the dietary issue. I'd just say that. It's really important for all sorts of reasons. It does have an impact on healthy weight, but it has a huge impact in terms of socialisation, in terms of mental health issues, et cetera, you know. So--I'm sorry, I've lost track of your question.
Nathan Cook: I'd just say that one thing we have got in train is, obviously, Sport Wales, Public Health Wales and Natural Resources Wales--we have them working together as a collaborative at the moment to look at how their joint delivery on physical activity can be taken forward more efficiently. So, one of the things they are looking at is obviously the schools programmes they do through eco-schools, the Welsh network of healthy schools and the sports programme to really think about that physical activity and how we can have better join up in terms of the programmes that we're already delivering as well.
Hefin David AM: With that in mind, I'm going to confess to you, chief medical officer, I did anything in school I could to avoid physical education lessons. I hated it. I didn't feel engaged with it. Yet, two weeks ago, I played for the Assembly rugby team--I wanted to get that in. The school sports survey, that would suggest that we're still not hitting those targets with children. How can we get children more engaged with physical education in ways that--? I felt completely alienated in school.
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, you're right, and many people go through that same journey and come to physical activity later in life, and that's great if they do that. The sad reality is that many people don't, and we also know that there are issues around the dropping off, particularly for girls, of physical activity towards the teenage years. So, there are specific moments that we need to understand. We do have a lot of information about these kinds of things. Public Health Wales is very good at collating the information. We do need to turn that into programmes. I mean, at the heart of it, it's about making sports and physical activity enjoyable and attractive to people. Sometimes that's easier, I sense, for boys than for girls, but we need to tailor things to different audiences.
Hefin David AM: Yes, that's the trick, isn't it? It's about finding out what children enjoy doing. That could be quite a wide and varied range of things. Is that the key?
Dawn Bowden AM: It's not all about organised team sports.
Hefin David AM: Yes. As Dawn said, it's not just about organised team sports. There are some very individual activities you could do.
Dr Frank Atherton: Absolutely, yes. And that's where I think--. I'm delighted that Sport Wales has moved beyond. It's not just about elite sports; it's about getting everybody engaged and active in sports, and that partnership with Public Health Wales that Nathan talked about is really important, because we need a population approach to driving physical activity.
Hefin David AM: So, do you think, with that in mind, we need statutory guidance for schools on physical education?
Dr Frank Atherton: Again, I'd look to the consultation as to whether there was an appetite for any kind of guidance. It may well be that that is something that could be considered.
Hefin David AM: Okay. And finally, with regard to free school meals to all pupils in primary and secondary schools, do you think that extending that to all pupils would be beneficial in providing a more varied diet for pupils?
Dr Frank Atherton: I don't have a personal view on that. I think it's the quality of the food that kids are getting, whether that comes from home or through school, and whether it's free or whether it's paid for. I think it's the quality of the food that we need to focus on. The question of children being hungry at school is a really important one and needs to be addressed at a national level. I think that's a--
Hefin David AM: So, you think that's more about the provision of food for those who might not have access to it than providing a varied diet.
Dr Frank Atherton: I think it's important that children have access to food, absolutely, if that's your question, but we also need to look at the quality of the food and what's in that food offer.
Hefin David AM: But you don't necessarily think universal provision would--.
Dr Frank Atherton: I don't have a clear view on that. I know there's a larger debate about that.
Hefin David AM: Okay, thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: I've got some supplementaries from Janet and then Suzy.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Yes. I've been around some amazing schools in my own constituency, where they've got proper canteen facilities for pupils and really, really good produce in the meals. However, there's probably only a third having school meals; the rest are packed lunches. And, to be honest, I've been very surprised and shocked at what I've seen of the quality of the food in the packed lunches. Nobody can really police, and I wouldn't want to see parents being policed over what goes in a packed lunch, so if there is data out there to suggest that there's a larger percentage of parents providing packed lunched that are really not good at all, then there is some merit to be said for what Hefin is--. Me, personally, I'd love to see the introduction of universal school meals. I think it's been a very retrograde step, going backwards. Would you be willing to carry out any research?
Dr Frank Atherton: So, I mean, your point about food that's brought in in the packed lunches is a really important one, and I've talked to some headteachers as well about this. We could go down a route of guidance and prohibition, but that gets you into the role of nanny in chief and I don't really see that as my role or Government's role, and I don't think it's effective either. Do you remember--? You must have seen on tv--I think it was in Scotland; I don't know if it's happened in Wales--parents pushing the fish and chip packets through the school railings. We don't need to get into that. What I have seen, though, is some really good innovative practice in schools where, for example, they reward children for bringing the healthy options. Schools can give guidance to parents about what would be a healthy lunch and what sort of things might be expected to be seen in the lunch box. And you can reward children, and children do respond to rewards. So, I've seen some of those approaches that have transformed, actually, the offer of what comes in school boxes. But I think just banning chocolate bars and crisps in the packed lunch is unlikely to be successful.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: We can't do that. So, my point to the question was: isn't there some merit, perhaps, about all children being equal and eating similar good-quality food in schools?
Dr Frank Atherton: Yes. That gets you back to the question about universal school meals.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Perhaps some of that PS56 million sugar tax, even. Who knows?
Lynne Neagle AM: Suzy.
Suzy Davies AM: Yes. Mine is just a short question. The draft plan commits, doesn't it, to updating the healthy eating in schools regulations--the 2013 regulations? I appreciate this is a consultation, but what is it that needs changing in those regulations at the moment, just to give us a bit of steer?
Nathan Cook: It's mainly on sugar content, so, obviously, they don't adhere to current Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition guidelines around sugar levels. So, what we'd want to consider is, you know, what we need to be careful of is unintended consequences of changing that, as well, if you see a shift to more kids bringing in school packed lunches as well. So, I think we want to consider the best way of doing that and consider through the consultation how we can go about it.
Suzy Davies AM: All right. So, it's very pertinent to Janet's question, in that way. Okay, so it's mainly about sugar, but it could be about other things as well. Okay. Thanks.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay. The next questions are from Janet anyway; firstly, on the clinical obesity pathway.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: The'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'plan commits to a review of the clinical obesity pathway. What are the time frames for this review, and what do you think are the basic essentials of a clinical obesity pathway for children and young people?
Dr Frank Atherton: We do have a pathway for managing overweight, and that's been in place since about 2010, I believe, and we do need to bring that up to date in terms of current knowledge and experiences. We've challenged Public Health Wales; we've asked Public Health Wales to undertake a review of that pathway, and they are going through that process now. I'm not sure of exactly the time frame that we have given them for that.
Nathan Cook: We were asking them to review the pathway before we launch the final strategy in October because, obviously, what we want is for that to inform what that final strategy looks like. So, we'll be looking probably early autumn for them to report back on that.
Dr Frank Atherton: The second point of your question about what are the essential elements, I mean, they are already there; we need to tweak them and we need to make sure that they're properly delivered. But it's a tiered approach, so, having access to information through schools and through communities and into families is part of the first step of that. And then, if children are overweight, it's a question about how they're identified. There are questions about the ability of the public to recognise large children, so there may be an issue there. But when children are running into issues around weight, what kind of interventions can be put in, either through primary care or through communities through health visitors, et cetera? And then of course we do have--and we've started to shine a light on this, haven't we--the very overweight children. I don't think we have enough in the way of targeted support to be able to support those. There are programmes available, but they're perhaps not universally provided. So, I think there's something about looking at our whole pathway, mapping out what the current evidence now shows us is needed, and then thinking about what is our provision in Wales and what do we need to do to bring that up to the level of the places that are the best.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. The draft plan recognises the importance of the first 1,000 days, but it doesn't appear to include any new proposals to help parents to enable lifestyle changes. It lists existing initiatives, such as the Healthy Child Wales programme and breastfeeding action plan. Are you satisfied that the draft plan does enough to address the influence that family and parents have on children's healthy weight behaviours, particularly in the first 1,000 days?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, the first 1,000 days are really critically in shaping lives, as I'm sure you'd agree. We are absolutely open to any other suggestions that the public or this committee have as to what more we can and should do. There are a number of things, the sorts of programmes you've mentioned, that I think could be more effective. We're currently looking at breastfeeding because it starts before birth, actually. We know that children who are breastfed are less likely to suffer from obesity in childhood and, indeed, to go on to be obese adults. So, we do need to go further on that. We do have some programmes--Healthy Working Wales, et cetera--that need to be improved. If there are other interventions in other areas that we need to take, then we'd be delighted to hear what they are, but those are the ones that have jumped out so far.
Nathan Cook: Can I just say--? One of the proposals we're looking for is, obviously, we know that during pregnancy it's a really critical time when we can actually look to work with mothers. We know from looking at some of the behaviour change that it's actually a really critical point when new mothers really start thinking about their lives, wanting the best for their child and their families. So, what we are thinking about is how we could develop some kind of approaches to that going forward. But we know our Healthy Start scheme is also a good lever for us, just in terms of how we can look to improve that kind of dietary offer at the earliest stage as well.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you. Finally, we know that for some families day-to-day challenges can make it difficult for them to make healthy choices, particularly for those on lower incomes and/or maybe using food banks. Could the Welsh Government take bolder action to better support low-income families to eat healthily?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, you've touched on a really important point about inequalities because overweight and obesity is not evenly distributed across our population. It absolutely is more prevalent in more socioeconomically deprived communities, and that's something that should really concern us all. So, it gets you to questions of availability of fresh food and produce; it gets you to questions of formulation of products and whether value brands are less healthy than more premium brands. So, it cuts across all of those issues that we talked about in terms of settings and in terms of environment earlier. There is something about the affordability of good-quality healthy food that we need to think about. We do need to think in broad terms--broader terms than just obesity, but we do need to think in broad terms--about how we create a society where families have the wherewithal to lead healthy lives, and that gets you to really important questions about the minimum wage and income poverty. There's no doubt in my mind--I'm a public health professional--and there's no doubt in my mind that economic success and health success go hand in hand. So, you speak to a very deep question there. In terms of what we can do through this particular consultation, there are some things in there about providing better access, but without tackling some of those deeper determinants of health, their impact will necessarily be limited.
Janet Finch-Saunders AM: Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Just finally from me, then, you referred earlier to the importance of making every contact count, but some stakeholders have told the committee that they struggle to do that because of difficulties in availability of people to refer to. Is that a situation that you recognise and what, really, can we do to improve that situation?
Dr Frank Atherton: Well, it depends what you mean as to where to refer to. So, the health system obviously needs to respond to this issue. What we're seeing across the NHS is a gradual transformation in primary care so that primary care is no longer about going to see your GP, it's about going to see a practice where you have a range of health professionals. Would I like to see more dietetic support, for example, in that setting? Absolutely I would. I think we need to think in terms of that pathway that we were talking about earlier, about access to that kind of advice and support, which can head off people getting into problems and kids getting into problems with weight issues. So, that question of redesign of the pathway really speaks to, I think, your point about,'Well, where do people go when they have problems with their weight?'That's true for adults and it's true for children as well.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No. Okay. Well, can I thank you both very much for your attendance? It's been a really productive session. We appreciate your time. You will be sent a transcript to check for accuracy in due course, but thank you again.
Dr Frank Atherton: We'll do that. Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the committee, because getting some input into the consultation from children's perspectives, this would be one of the routes we would absolutely welcome. Thank you.
Lynne Neagle AM: Okay, thank you very much. Item 3, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee on CAMHS tier 4 provision. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Health and Social Services also on CAMHS in-patient provision. Paper to note 3 is a letter from the Children Commissioner for Wales on tier 4 CAMHS provision. Paper to note 4 is a letter from Qualifications Wales to the Minister for Education on qualifications for the new curriculum. Paper to note 5 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education on the development of the new curriculum. Paper to note 6 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education seeking clarification on the draft additional learning needs code. Paper to note 7 is a letter from me to the Minister for Education seeking clarification on the response to our Brexit report. Paper to note 8 is a letter from the Equality and Human Rights Commission on a cumulative impact assessment briefing for committee, which has been offered. Paper to note 9 is a letter from the Chair of the Petitions Committee on a national taskforce for children's mental health. Paper to note 10 is a letter to the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union from the children's commissioners for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on the implications of Brexit for children. There are a few that I'd like to return to in private, but are Members happy to note those? Thank you. Okay. Item 4, then, is a motion under Standing Order 17. 42 to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content?
Suzy Davies AM: Yes. There's somebody up there.
Lynne Neagle AM: Thank you. | The meeting with Dr Frank Atherton, the Chief Medical Officer for Wales, and Nathan Cook, who is the head of the healthy and active branch at Welsh Government, was mainly about the'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'draft strategy in Wales and subsequent questions about it. To start with, Sian Gwenllian AM proposed questions like the strategy's evaluation, investment and principal. Dr Frank Atherton, at the same time, indicated that there was a n exact evaluation and the nation has already imposed tax on sugar and the first Minister will definitely be the ultimate man at the wheel. Then they paid much attention to existing data measuring child obesity and decided to put it in great use in tackling obesity. Meanwhile, the meeting talked about government legislation for some sort of things like restricting price promotions and banning energy drinks, and sports infrastructure in schools as part of efforts to make a healthy environment. What's more, they went into details on how healthy settings constructions and whom that would be the one to take responsibility. Also, they had a discussion on physical education and school meals for pupils. Finally, the meeting participants gave some supplements of education and the draft strategy and the chair concluded the meeting with the future universality of the draft strategy. | qmsum |
Summarize the recap of the last meeting regarding the presentation by Industrial Designer.
Project Manager: Well hi everyone again.
User Interface: Hello.
Industrial Designer: Hello.
Marketing: Hello
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} like before we uh {disfmarker} I have to redo the meetings from {vocalsound} {disfmarker} n th the minutes from the last meeting
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and so here we go. Uh it was discussed in the last meeting uh which was opened by the presentation from the interface um designer {vocalsound} that uh looks would be very important on this new remote
User Interface: Designer. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and um it is to send messages of course to the T_V_. It should have nine channel buttons, a next button, volume buttons, subtitle buttons, switch to control features, colour contrast, sharpness etcetera. It should have a memory switch, a mute button in case the telephone rings or something. Uh speech recognition is one of her very f favourite personal uh features she would like see d d to be integrated in this um in this new remote. Um. {vocalsound} Should be child friendly design with few buttons, colourful maybe with s star shaped or other shaped buttons. Um she uh presented also an oversized remote which she guarantees nobody will ever be able to lose.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: And she was challenged on that point {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} that's right. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But uh her very f personal favourite really she, she would very much like to see a speech recogniser integrated in this remote. The industrial designer um presented her uh {vocalsound} thoughts on the issue. She would like a special case made out of plastic that is very strong, not using any harmful materials, should be recyclable and should be colourful. Should have an integrated circuit board that's highly sophisticated and temperature resistant. She would like to see a timer and or alarm facility integrated. Uh technically this thing would also have a resistor and a capacitor, diode transistor, resonator, and if possible a rechargeable battery. Uh and of course a circuit board. And how it would works, you press the button, the chip is morse {disfmarker} morse code related relays the {disfmarker} uh to the generat to the generator amplification and uh the circuit board is very inexpensive to build and so she thinks this is a great feature uh to to to consider.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: She would like uh {disfmarker} this whole thing should be push buttons with a simple chip uh scrolling method is more expensive and not that practical anymore. Should be battery operated and of course she would have the special cases. The marketing expert uh who has to finally come up with {disfmarker} to to to market this product has been watching the competition, has done some research on the internet and also has used h her personal observations to come up with the fact that such a remote sh should be small, easy to use and it should be eye catching. From her point of view of course one of the most important facts is that we should get to market before our competition does. To do that uh maybe one or two features should be developed on which we could dwell on or in other words on which our campaign could be built on. Too many new features or too many points would only confuse matter. So we prefer to have one or two features that can be really uh driven home. Um it should have a fruit and vegetable design and should have a soft feel. She feels that's really what people want today. And the decision that we took last time was that uh the special feature we would like to see is a speech recogniser, the energy should be battery uh should be on a chip, should be trendy design, compact and strong, and should have buttons. And that concludes the presentation from the last minutes {disfmarker} from the last meeting. Now uh we are ready for the presentation of the prototype.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Just the look like, the button part I'll explain.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Uh so this is our {disfmarker} what uh we have made. This is a model of the remote control which we are going to build.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh this is us in a snail shape so uh it it is attractive
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: um and it's {disfmarker} it's blue in colour uh bright and uh it has yellow buttons and all the different colour buttons
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: so it is a {disfmarker} uh uh a {disfmarker} looks-wise it is beautiful.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh and also compact in shape.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh um and also i it it will be easily fit into {disfmarker} into the hands and you can access all the buttons easily.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Good.
Industrial Designer: Yeah,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: oops, sorry. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} You used to have all the buttons {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um yeah and um uh the material which we are going to use for the case is uh plastic and uh w which which is s strong um uh and also uh for the {disfmarker} Um the material is plastic and uh for the buttons it is uh s soft rubber um and als
Marketing: Oh that's good,
Industrial Designer: yeah.
Marketing: no, that's nice and friendly.
Industrial Designer: Yeah because uh uh you'll be touching the buttons more so it is soft when you touch it.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And then um uh for the {disfmarker} for the led, for the light emitting diode it is a fluorescent green
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and it's a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} it is a bulb like an ordinary infrared.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} and the button {disfmarker} button's part uh will be explained by F Francina.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Now the um {disfmarker} we decided upon including certain features on our remote. Now these features includes the s um signal emitting uh signal {disfmarker} it's the led or L_E_D_ the infrared.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm,
Marketing: Yeah, okay, mm-hmm.
Project Manager: mm-hmm.
User Interface: Now uh we have included the switch on and off button.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Now we have included another feature that is the mute button
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: on the side of the model. Then we have included one to nine buttons
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: for controlling the programmes {disfmarker} the different channels.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: We have also included two buttons for increasing or decreasing the volume.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And we have also included two buttons for scrolling up and scrolling down the programme channels. Now our {disfmarker} our model also contains a button which is called as the menu button.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: What kind of button?
User Interface: Menu button.
Project Manager: Menu? Uh menu th menu, uh one one.
User Interface: Yes, menu {disfmarker}
Marketing: Menu button. {vocalsound}
User Interface: At the centre
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: we have included a button which is fluorescent green colour and this is the menu button which will control the colour, sharpness, brightness
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Of the screen. Mm, mm-hmm.
User Interface: of this uh picture. We have also included a button which is called as the swapping button. Now this is uh a special, special feature which we have included. Now this button is an elongated shaped button and this is slightly flexible so if it is turned towards the right it will take to the previous channel, if it is turned towards the right it will take to the next channel. It will take the user to the previous and the next channel so this is a swapping button.
Marketing: The next channel in the numeric pattern, or {disfmarker}
User Interface: No, swapping is if if example you're {disfmarker} you're watching the second channel and then you go to the tenth channel and if you want to go back to the second channel you can swap, this button.
Marketing: Yeah, mm-hmm. Mm.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Okay, okay.
User Interface: And at the end, it {disfmarker} this remote has inbuilt voice recogniser which c which will recognise the user's voice and then it'll act accordingly.
Project Manager: Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So this is our proposed model.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Now the marketing expert has to
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Tell, yeah.
User Interface: give her suggestion whether it'll be sellable {vocalsound} or it'll be cost effective.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay, well um what {disfmarker} what I really like a lot about it is that you can reach the whole thing with one thumb,
User Interface: Yes, yes.
Marketing: that you can really hold it in one h you don't need two hands
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: and it's easily reachable even for somebody with a small hand, yeah?
Project Manager: Yes the buttons are all raised, right?
Marketing: The buttons are all raised
Project Manager: Are raised, mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: and if you hold it in the centre of your hand you can even reach it over here so you don't have to turn it around, turn it upside down, move it up, up and down,
Project Manager: Right. Or have two hands to operate it, yeah.
Marketing: I really like that.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: You really did a good job on that, my little designers.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um and um I like the idea that the on-off button is in a really prominent place. That's that's a really good good thing.
Project Manager: Yes, and it sort of sticks up so that you really {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, that's great.
Project Manager: you don't have to g first go like oh yeah here it's on and yeah, mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Abs okay.
Marketing: The colour's very attractive. Um the um these buttons uh around here are the mute
User Interface: No, these {disfmarker} the front buttons which are here, are the mute buttons.
Marketing: and {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} mm-hmm On both sides they're mute?
User Interface: Yes, yes.
Marketing: So you can push either one?
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: So if you're left-handed or right-handed it doesn't matter.
Marketing: And this brings the menu up on the screen?
User Interface: {vocalsound} Pardon me? This is the menu {disfmarker} yes, yes.
Marketing: This brings the menu up on the screen and the orange ones are {disfmarker}
User Interface: A the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these two are th to increase or decrease the volumes,
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: and these two are to uh scroll the programme channels.
Marketing: F f okay.
User Interface: Scroll up or scroll down the channels.
Marketing: Right, very good. Uh it looks mm looks like something I can sell.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay and now I'm supposed to {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well, I have one question
Marketing: yeah.
Project Manager: uh will there be anything written on the buttons, like that people know, or they have to learn that from a piece of paper which button does what?
User Interface: Yes, it will have uh {disfmarker} these buttons will have the numbers and all the rest of the buttons will have symbols.
Industrial Designer: Ah. Yeah, definitely.
Project Manager: Will have symbols so that that {disfmarker} that the user really knows you know and doesn't have to first learn it {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yes, which can be easily recognised.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
Marketing: Good point because we need the symbols'cause we're going into an international market we can't have anything that's language dependent.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah of course, and also {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: Yeah. But anyway it would ha i i i it has to have some kind of of symbols, text or something so that people kn
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah we can {disfmarker} Text.
Marketing: Symbols on it. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Text that we can have on the case itself,
Project Manager: That's right.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: we can {disfmarker} it will be printed on the case and symbols as well as the buttons. Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay, yeah just wanted make sure of that mm-hmm.
User Interface: And {disfmarker} and one more feature is we we have a holder for this remote which is an oyster shape.
Marketing: Mm,'kay, mm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: A shell shape.
Marketing: For the snail, yeah, mm-hmm,
Project Manager: Right, mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes, yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. So it is {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} we have the snail shell.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes, snail shell.
Industrial Designer: yeah,
Marketing: He goes right back into his shell.
Industrial Designer: yeah {disfmarker} shell.
Project Manager: Right.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Well you know I think we could do something really funny with this too because the snail is known to be slow
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: and we could have some sort of little comic effect on our marketing about how this is a rapid snail or something like that
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Y Yes {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah, of course, yeah.
Marketing: you know that would, that would really work.
Project Manager: Now what, what are our special features for the marketing?
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: That's really the voice recognition that's really unusual {disfmarker}
Marketing: I think voice recognition is our big selling point
Industrial Designer: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Marketing:'cause nobody else seems to have that in in this price range.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: And then, and then the other thing would basically be sh shape or practicality of use.
Marketing: Yep
Project Manager: You know.
Marketing: uh well I think that everybody's gonna say their remote control is practical. I think we have to, we have to dwell on on on the appearance.
Project Manager: Colours. Mm-hmm.
Marketing: We're really gonna have the be the
Project Manager: Cutest.
Marketing: cutest remote control on the block.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: So I think we have to play with the image, play with the snail image um play with the visual and then the voice recognition.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: I think those are the two things to push. The look and the voice recognition. They're gonna be our two selling points.
Project Manager: Okay, now uh having said that {disfmarker}
Marketing: I'm supposed to make a little presentation, aren't I?
Project Manager: No, now this was our evaluation criteria which we uh just have done.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Now we're gonna talk about financing. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Ah, but in my instructions I think it said I was supposed to go to the board and do something.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well, there is a production evaluation.
Marketing: No?
Project Manager: Is that you?
Marketing: Yeah, that's me.
Project Manager: But that's after the financing.
Marketing: Oh, okay.
Project Manager: See? Fi see?
Marketing: Sorry, sorry. Mm-mm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um. {vocalsound} Okay, we had looks and voice recognition. Okay now on the financing we bring up the mm there it is. Okay uh energy source we say that's battery, right?
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: That's right.
Project Manager: Okay, now. So we {disfmarker} I guess we use one.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: What? T cell or chart you are trying to change is protected. Well, that's nice. She told me I could just ch change it here and then it would {disfmarker} It doesn't work. Hmm.
Marketing: Can you just fill it in in the yellow boxes? Or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh, okay yeah, okay,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: let's see. Okay, one, okay.
User Interface: Yes.
Project Manager: Oh go away. Um kinetic source so that's {disfmarker} in the energy source that's all we need.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Uh electronics, simple chip on print? Is that's what we're using?
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah,
Project Manager: One of those?
Industrial Designer: yeah.
Project Manager: Come on. Okay, one. Uh regular chip on print. No. That's all we need, the one
Industrial Designer: No. Yeah.
Project Manager: {disfmarker} case, uncurved flat, single curved, double curved.
Marketing: Well. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: This is a {disfmarker}
User Interface: Single curve? Mm.
Marketing: I guess it's double curved.
Project Manager: Double curved? One of those?
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Case materi s supplements. Plastic we said, right?
User Interface: Plastic.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Uh wood, rubber?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Rubber, because we're gonna have the soft buttons.
Project Manager: Uh but, yes but {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I think uh that is uh f for rubbers that is uh {disfmarker} yeah case material.
Project Manager: That's just for the case material,
User Interface: Is this for the case? Yes.
Project Manager: so special colours though, we having that,
Marketing: Oh okay, the mm-hmm, mm'kay.
Project Manager: right?
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: And then we have to interface push buttons.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Scroll wheel, no. Integrated scroll wheel, L_C_ display?
User Interface: No.
Marketing: No,
Project Manager: Button.
Marketing:'cause we didn't put the clock in it after all, right?
Project Manager: No.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Uh, button supplement special colour?
User Interface: Speci Yes
Project Manager: Special form?
User Interface: Yes d we do have special form.
Marketing: Yes.
Project Manager: And special material, rubber, wood, yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. {vocalsound} Total seven point six whatever that means.
Industrial Designer: Uh, I think that's the price.
Project Manager: That's the price.
User Interface: One two three four five six seven eight nine
Project Manager: Mm?
Industrial Designer: Maybe it {disfmarker} is it just {disfmarker} n
Project Manager: Eight, eight point two. That's {disfmarker}
User Interface: Nine points,
Project Manager: hmm?
User Interface: okay, yes.
Project Manager: Eight point two, right? So, we {disfmarker} looks like we are well within budget.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay. I guess I should save this I suppose, huh?
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Oops. Uh-huh huh huh.
User Interface: On the desktop.
Project Manager: I just tried that. My documents, computer.
Industrial Designer: AMI.
Project Manager: My compu Ah oh here it is, yes.
Industrial Designer: AMI should for
Project Manager: Okay, fine. Save. Okay good, so that's the good news. We gonna be popular.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um. So that uh {disfmarker} I think financing was pretty simple.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Now we would like to have a presentation by the marketing expert on production evaluation.
Marketing: Okay, I'll take my file down so you can bring it up.'Kay should be able to get it now.'Kay, why don't you move just to the next slide right away.
Project Manager: You wanna go to the next slide?
Marketing: Yeah right away.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Okay, well uh obviously my method for uh s m the marketing of this thing is first to ask the big question, will it sell? And I think we should show this prototype to people from various age and socio-economic groups and see about any fine tuning that {disfmarker} maybe little things we haven't thought of.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: We can't accept every suggestion of course, but maybe we just need to get a few.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: And show the the prototype to consumer research groups, we don't s want somebody to suddenly come to us and tell us that this button is toxic and you know some child will swallow it and then we won't sell any.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Mm.
Marketing: So we have to get some input from those people.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: And then after that we just have to go with our best intuition and you know we like it, we think it's good, we're gonna get behind it and sell it. Um, next slide please. Okay, now the things that I was thinking and th my wish list has really been realised in this prototype. I wanted the shape to be biomorphic, I didn't want anything with angles and all square, I wanted it to be comfy and roundy so we we've got that. The size is small, the colour's bright and warm which is what we wanted. We wanted the feel to be as soft as possible, we'll have the soft buttons
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: and the way this is shaped, even though it's gonna be hard plastic, it feels good in your hand so that's nice. And functionality I put last on my list because people aren't going to use it before they buy it.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} So paradoxically the other features, in other words, the look, the feel um and the shape, that's what people are gonna get in the store.
User Interface: Fee selling.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: They don't have a television in the store, they can't play with it.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Um so they'll be our main selling points. So um {vocalsound} th those have been fulfilled by your prototype and go ahead to the next slide please. Okay, so um the shape um I think is a {disfmarker} a one. That's really, really excellent shape. The size is small um and th these points are in the importance for the, for the marketing, these aren't i in how I feel. I think that it's {disfmarker} I think that it's plenty small enough to sell but I think we're sort of right {disfmarker} the scale is one to seven. I think we're sort of right in the middle as far as c other competitors.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: And our colour I think is great. The colours are bright and warm and we really do great job there. And given um the constraints that we had I think we got it as soft as possible. And then functionality um I think you did a really good job on functionality, obviously we could have ad added different functions but then we'd disturb something else so I would say that we got to a five out of seven on on functionality.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So I think that basically we've got a great product and we can get off and running with it.
Project Manager: Um I just realised one thing.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: In the financing there was no room for our voice recogniser.
Marketing: Yes.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Ah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: And uh I don't know how we can evaluate that or how we can include that, too.
Marketing: Well, um we had what, eight eight euros twenty as our cost?
Project Manager: Eight, eight twenty, yes.
Industrial Designer: Eight twenty so {disfmarker}
Marketing: And so we've got {disfmarker} we've still got four euros to go {disfmarker} to spend.
Industrial Designer: We have um four euros, yeah
Project Manager: I mean maximum we have another four point three euros I mean {vocalsound} four thirty.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Well um that's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: But I mean we have no way of presenting that to management as you know as a f finished, as a finished product and saying okay with the voice recogniser that costs so much.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So um we just have to beware of that. I mean and know whether the four thirty will really cover that.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Well as we know in today's technic technological world you can do just about anything at any price, the the the problem is quality.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap}.
Marketing: So we're just gonna have to settle for whatever quality that will buy us.
Industrial Designer: Yeah,
User Interface: Yes, yes.
Industrial Designer: yeah.
Marketing: And um it may not be the greatest quality but it may sell anyway.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, still.
Marketing: {vocalsound} As we've seen with so many of these kinds of products. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I'm sorry to interrupt then but I just uh recog I just remembered that there was no {disfmarker} that that was not um included uh {disfmarker} that there was no room for any special features, okay?
Industrial Designer: Included, yeah. Hmm,
User Interface: Yeah mm.
Industrial Designer: hmm
Project Manager: So to beware of that. You wanna go to this next slide, marketing expert?
Marketing: Uh, well I isn't this my last slide?
Project Manager: I dunno.
Marketing: Maybe.
Project Manager: Yes it is. Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Go ahead. I think that was my last slide, yeah. Um. Mm okay. And I'm supposed to present this scale on the whiteboard. Um and we're supposed to talk about those things as a team now, so if you put my last slide back up there.
Project Manager: Oh.
Marketing: I'm sorry I've um forgot to do that, um.
Project Manager: Why? Wh why you need that up?
Marketing: Hmm? Well because I can't remember what I put on there. {vocalsound} Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Now I'm supposed to see how long my leash is here.
Project Manager: I think you can make it there.
Marketing: Mm'kay. You ready. So now we're all supposed to say what we think. Um okay so on shape I gave it a one. Wait what would you ra uh one being good and seven being the worst.
User Interface: Worse, okay.
Marketing: Um what do you think the shape is?
User Interface: One.
Marketing: One, okay, and Be Betsy?
Project Manager: Yes I think uh shape is one.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, even my {disfmarker} yeah, shape is one.
Marketing: Okay, uh-huh one, okay. And how about on size? On size {disfmarker}
Project Manager: You {disfmarker} you gave it a four.
Marketing: I gave it a four, yeah, I feel it's just average.
Project Manager: Um, I dunno. I think I would give it at least a two.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: One.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, even I think it is one. It's quite small.
Marketing: Okay. Okay {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: you're the designer, of course you wanna give it a one.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um and then how about {disfmarker} how we doing on colour?
Project Manager: Colour uh I {disfmarker}
Marketing: Colour, I gave it a one.
Project Manager: One.
Marketing: I really like all those nice bright, warm colours.
Project Manager: I {disfmarker} I like the colours. One.
User Interface: One. Yes.
Marketing: One.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, one.
Marketing: One, one, one, okay. And how about the feel? Taking into um consideration texture and comfort in the hand.
Project Manager: Uh, I think I would give it a two.
Marketing: Okay, I gave it a three, two,
User Interface: I'll give three.
Marketing: yeah? Three.
Industrial Designer: Uh maybe two,
Marketing: Two, okay.
Industrial Designer: yeah.
Marketing: And the next is functionality where I I admit I was a little hard on our team here, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well it's also you can't really try it out uh the other things you have have more {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} are more tangible so from that point of view
Marketing: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: but um {disfmarker} I'll give it a three.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Two.
Marketing: Two, okay.
Industrial Designer: Uh three, mm-hmm.
Marketing: Three? Okay. Well, um. It looks like we've got got ourselves a pretty good product. Um the functionality's the only place where maybe we have to think about m m maybe, heaven forbid, having another meeting.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} But um otherwise I think we're {disfmarker} we're ready to go to {disfmarker} go with this product. Anybody else have any other comments or any other things that we feel we should evaluate?
Project Manager: Uh. Here is what we looking at uh satisfaction on for example room for creativity. Um. Is there more room for creativity or are we absolutely happy?
User Interface: We can always improve, yes.
Industrial Designer: Maybe we can {disfmarker} yeah, include some more buttons and uh um
User Interface: Yes, features.
Industrial Designer: yeah features. We can make the buttons {disfmarker} few buttons smaller. Uh I think they are quite big, so I think {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean we can just have small buttons and more buttons in that case. If we want to have more features than that.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Well then again if we're gonna um {vocalsound} do the speech recognition thing we're gon there gonna be some buttons that are gonna have to be added for that for the recording of the the speech.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
User Interface: Yes. Voices.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So that that's where we're gonna have to do {disfmarker} maybe we can eliminate one of the mute buttons, instead of having two mute buttons.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, definitely, yeah, two mu mute buttons.
User Interface: Yes. Yes.
Marketing: And um then maybe we can do something with the um the volume control. Maybe we can put that all on one button.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Marketing: Um and a couple of other th maybe comp uh consolidate some of the usage an and see what we can do with that.
Project Manager: Y um al always bearing in mind that right now we are of course well within the budget
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And maybe {disfmarker}
Project Manager: and that we still you know we probably can't, with this particular item, we probably can't just uh add a whole lot of more things.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. No.
Project Manager: Uh um we need uh {disfmarker} you know we need to leave space money-wise for the voice recogniser.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So th the question really is how do we feel with the project process? Uh, um are we happy with the creativity that has passed here or we're not happy with the new product we created or that was created? Uh I think {disfmarker} personally I think uh I'm pretty happy.
Marketing: I'm pretty happy with it too, yeah um,
Project Manager: Um an
Industrial Designer: Even I'm happy.
Marketing: it's something I think I can market. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: and then the next question is are we happy with the leadership of this project? Uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I think you've done a good job, Miss leader. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yes, yes you've done a good job.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah, definitely. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And I think team work I think was very very good, I think we really {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Yeah I d I do too I think we worked well together as a team, yeah. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: And uh I think we {disfmarker} are we happy with the means we used? We used whiteboard, we didn't use digital p well digital pens I guess are these things.
Marketing: Yeah maybe we could've used the whiteboard a little bit more, yeah,
User Interface: Whiteboard more, yes, yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, probably.
Marketing: we didn't use that enough.
Project Manager: Yes, we could. Uh, it's maybe not in the best position in the room um you know like sometimes it's positioned so that it's much better visible for everybody and I think from that point of view we sort of ignored it a little bit.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: And we used the slide because it was better positioned.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes, I think so, I think absolutely,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: No.
Marketing: Mm I think that's true mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and fortunately we all had slides presentation which made it a little easier.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: Um did we new {disfmarker} did we find new ideas?
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: I think we did.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, many.
Marketing: I think we were we were very good, yeah, mm.
Project Manager: I think we we did, uh in more than one respect and uh so I think we did very well here.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Okay.
Project Manager: Are the costs within budget? Yes, yes. Uh is the project evaluated? Yes.
Marketing: Yes, yes.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Um then celebration. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Celebration.
User Interface: Cel celebration {vocalsound} yes, yes. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Ah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Today we have apple juice and after we sell m million of'em we have champagne. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So I {disfmarker} I thank you all very much. Um, I think this was very good and um
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: I think we did come up with a new product that's uh feasible. Feasible from the production point of view and feasible from a marketing point of view.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So, thank you.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Thank you.
Industrial Designer: Thank you very much.
Marketing: Okay. Watch I I have my cord behind you here.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: I always get it on here, but getting it off is {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Do we {disfmarker} do we have some time left? Uh {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker}
User Interface: They say it's forty minutes.
Project Manager: Ah yes we have time later
Marketing: But we we were told we could end the final meeting at any time, whenever we felt we were finished.
Project Manager: but we don't {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Oh, alright.
Marketing: It'll take me the rest of the time to get my microphone out from my necklace. {vocalsound} Oh, there we go. | Making a recyclable and colourful case out of plastic that was strong without using harmful materials was proposed. For the components, there would be a resistor, a capacitor, a diode transistor, resonator, and if possible, a rechargeable battery. Also, it should have an integrated circuit board that was highly sophisticated, temperature resistant and inexpensive. Furthermore, it was hoped that there would be a timer or alarm. For the working design, morse code would be relayed to the generator for amplification after buttons were pressed. The team thought push buttons were better than scroll wheel as the former was more practical and cheap. | qmsum |
What was the feedback regarding the prototype of the remote?
Project Manager: Well hi everyone again.
User Interface: Hello.
Industrial Designer: Hello.
Marketing: Hello
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} like before we uh {disfmarker} I have to redo the meetings from {vocalsound} {disfmarker} n th the minutes from the last meeting
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and so here we go. Uh it was discussed in the last meeting uh which was opened by the presentation from the interface um designer {vocalsound} that uh looks would be very important on this new remote
User Interface: Designer. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and um it is to send messages of course to the T_V_. It should have nine channel buttons, a next button, volume buttons, subtitle buttons, switch to control features, colour contrast, sharpness etcetera. It should have a memory switch, a mute button in case the telephone rings or something. Uh speech recognition is one of her very f favourite personal uh features she would like see d d to be integrated in this um in this new remote. Um. {vocalsound} Should be child friendly design with few buttons, colourful maybe with s star shaped or other shaped buttons. Um she uh presented also an oversized remote which she guarantees nobody will ever be able to lose.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: And she was challenged on that point {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} that's right. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But uh her very f personal favourite really she, she would very much like to see a speech recogniser integrated in this remote. The industrial designer um presented her uh {vocalsound} thoughts on the issue. She would like a special case made out of plastic that is very strong, not using any harmful materials, should be recyclable and should be colourful. Should have an integrated circuit board that's highly sophisticated and temperature resistant. She would like to see a timer and or alarm facility integrated. Uh technically this thing would also have a resistor and a capacitor, diode transistor, resonator, and if possible a rechargeable battery. Uh and of course a circuit board. And how it would works, you press the button, the chip is morse {disfmarker} morse code related relays the {disfmarker} uh to the generat to the generator amplification and uh the circuit board is very inexpensive to build and so she thinks this is a great feature uh to to to consider.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: She would like uh {disfmarker} this whole thing should be push buttons with a simple chip uh scrolling method is more expensive and not that practical anymore. Should be battery operated and of course she would have the special cases. The marketing expert uh who has to finally come up with {disfmarker} to to to market this product has been watching the competition, has done some research on the internet and also has used h her personal observations to come up with the fact that such a remote sh should be small, easy to use and it should be eye catching. From her point of view of course one of the most important facts is that we should get to market before our competition does. To do that uh maybe one or two features should be developed on which we could dwell on or in other words on which our campaign could be built on. Too many new features or too many points would only confuse matter. So we prefer to have one or two features that can be really uh driven home. Um it should have a fruit and vegetable design and should have a soft feel. She feels that's really what people want today. And the decision that we took last time was that uh the special feature we would like to see is a speech recogniser, the energy should be battery uh should be on a chip, should be trendy design, compact and strong, and should have buttons. And that concludes the presentation from the last minutes {disfmarker} from the last meeting. Now uh we are ready for the presentation of the prototype.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Just the look like, the button part I'll explain.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Uh so this is our {disfmarker} what uh we have made. This is a model of the remote control which we are going to build.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh this is us in a snail shape so uh it it is attractive
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: um and it's {disfmarker} it's blue in colour uh bright and uh it has yellow buttons and all the different colour buttons
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: so it is a {disfmarker} uh uh a {disfmarker} looks-wise it is beautiful.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh and also compact in shape.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh um and also i it it will be easily fit into {disfmarker} into the hands and you can access all the buttons easily.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Good.
Industrial Designer: Yeah,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: oops, sorry. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} You used to have all the buttons {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um yeah and um uh the material which we are going to use for the case is uh plastic and uh w which which is s strong um uh and also uh for the {disfmarker} Um the material is plastic and uh for the buttons it is uh s soft rubber um and als
Marketing: Oh that's good,
Industrial Designer: yeah.
Marketing: no, that's nice and friendly.
Industrial Designer: Yeah because uh uh you'll be touching the buttons more so it is soft when you touch it.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And then um uh for the {disfmarker} for the led, for the light emitting diode it is a fluorescent green
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and it's a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} it is a bulb like an ordinary infrared.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} and the button {disfmarker} button's part uh will be explained by F Francina.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Now the um {disfmarker} we decided upon including certain features on our remote. Now these features includes the s um signal emitting uh signal {disfmarker} it's the led or L_E_D_ the infrared.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm,
Marketing: Yeah, okay, mm-hmm.
Project Manager: mm-hmm.
User Interface: Now uh we have included the switch on and off button.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Now we have included another feature that is the mute button
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: on the side of the model. Then we have included one to nine buttons
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: for controlling the programmes {disfmarker} the different channels.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: We have also included two buttons for increasing or decreasing the volume.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And we have also included two buttons for scrolling up and scrolling down the programme channels. Now our {disfmarker} our model also contains a button which is called as the menu button.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: What kind of button?
User Interface: Menu button.
Project Manager: Menu? Uh menu th menu, uh one one.
User Interface: Yes, menu {disfmarker}
Marketing: Menu button. {vocalsound}
User Interface: At the centre
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: we have included a button which is fluorescent green colour and this is the menu button which will control the colour, sharpness, brightness
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Of the screen. Mm, mm-hmm.
User Interface: of this uh picture. We have also included a button which is called as the swapping button. Now this is uh a special, special feature which we have included. Now this button is an elongated shaped button and this is slightly flexible so if it is turned towards the right it will take to the previous channel, if it is turned towards the right it will take to the next channel. It will take the user to the previous and the next channel so this is a swapping button.
Marketing: The next channel in the numeric pattern, or {disfmarker}
User Interface: No, swapping is if if example you're {disfmarker} you're watching the second channel and then you go to the tenth channel and if you want to go back to the second channel you can swap, this button.
Marketing: Yeah, mm-hmm. Mm.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Okay, okay.
User Interface: And at the end, it {disfmarker} this remote has inbuilt voice recogniser which c which will recognise the user's voice and then it'll act accordingly.
Project Manager: Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So this is our proposed model.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Now the marketing expert has to
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Tell, yeah.
User Interface: give her suggestion whether it'll be sellable {vocalsound} or it'll be cost effective.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay, well um what {disfmarker} what I really like a lot about it is that you can reach the whole thing with one thumb,
User Interface: Yes, yes.
Marketing: that you can really hold it in one h you don't need two hands
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: and it's easily reachable even for somebody with a small hand, yeah?
Project Manager: Yes the buttons are all raised, right?
Marketing: The buttons are all raised
Project Manager: Are raised, mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: and if you hold it in the centre of your hand you can even reach it over here so you don't have to turn it around, turn it upside down, move it up, up and down,
Project Manager: Right. Or have two hands to operate it, yeah.
Marketing: I really like that.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: You really did a good job on that, my little designers.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um and um I like the idea that the on-off button is in a really prominent place. That's that's a really good good thing.
Project Manager: Yes, and it sort of sticks up so that you really {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, that's great.
Project Manager: you don't have to g first go like oh yeah here it's on and yeah, mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Abs okay.
Marketing: The colour's very attractive. Um the um these buttons uh around here are the mute
User Interface: No, these {disfmarker} the front buttons which are here, are the mute buttons.
Marketing: and {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} mm-hmm On both sides they're mute?
User Interface: Yes, yes.
Marketing: So you can push either one?
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: So if you're left-handed or right-handed it doesn't matter.
Marketing: And this brings the menu up on the screen?
User Interface: {vocalsound} Pardon me? This is the menu {disfmarker} yes, yes.
Marketing: This brings the menu up on the screen and the orange ones are {disfmarker}
User Interface: A the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these two are th to increase or decrease the volumes,
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: and these two are to uh scroll the programme channels.
Marketing: F f okay.
User Interface: Scroll up or scroll down the channels.
Marketing: Right, very good. Uh it looks mm looks like something I can sell.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay and now I'm supposed to {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well, I have one question
Marketing: yeah.
Project Manager: uh will there be anything written on the buttons, like that people know, or they have to learn that from a piece of paper which button does what?
User Interface: Yes, it will have uh {disfmarker} these buttons will have the numbers and all the rest of the buttons will have symbols.
Industrial Designer: Ah. Yeah, definitely.
Project Manager: Will have symbols so that that {disfmarker} that the user really knows you know and doesn't have to first learn it {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yes, which can be easily recognised.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
Marketing: Good point because we need the symbols'cause we're going into an international market we can't have anything that's language dependent.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah of course, and also {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: Yeah. But anyway it would ha i i i it has to have some kind of of symbols, text or something so that people kn
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah we can {disfmarker} Text.
Marketing: Symbols on it. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Text that we can have on the case itself,
Project Manager: That's right.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: we can {disfmarker} it will be printed on the case and symbols as well as the buttons. Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay, yeah just wanted make sure of that mm-hmm.
User Interface: And {disfmarker} and one more feature is we we have a holder for this remote which is an oyster shape.
Marketing: Mm,'kay, mm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: A shell shape.
Marketing: For the snail, yeah, mm-hmm,
Project Manager: Right, mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes, yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. So it is {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} we have the snail shell.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes, snail shell.
Industrial Designer: yeah,
Marketing: He goes right back into his shell.
Industrial Designer: yeah {disfmarker} shell.
Project Manager: Right.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Well you know I think we could do something really funny with this too because the snail is known to be slow
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: and we could have some sort of little comic effect on our marketing about how this is a rapid snail or something like that
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Y Yes {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah, of course, yeah.
Marketing: you know that would, that would really work.
Project Manager: Now what, what are our special features for the marketing?
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: That's really the voice recognition that's really unusual {disfmarker}
Marketing: I think voice recognition is our big selling point
Industrial Designer: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Marketing:'cause nobody else seems to have that in in this price range.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: And then, and then the other thing would basically be sh shape or practicality of use.
Marketing: Yep
Project Manager: You know.
Marketing: uh well I think that everybody's gonna say their remote control is practical. I think we have to, we have to dwell on on on the appearance.
Project Manager: Colours. Mm-hmm.
Marketing: We're really gonna have the be the
Project Manager: Cutest.
Marketing: cutest remote control on the block.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: So I think we have to play with the image, play with the snail image um play with the visual and then the voice recognition.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: I think those are the two things to push. The look and the voice recognition. They're gonna be our two selling points.
Project Manager: Okay, now uh having said that {disfmarker}
Marketing: I'm supposed to make a little presentation, aren't I?
Project Manager: No, now this was our evaluation criteria which we uh just have done.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Now we're gonna talk about financing. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Ah, but in my instructions I think it said I was supposed to go to the board and do something.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well, there is a production evaluation.
Marketing: No?
Project Manager: Is that you?
Marketing: Yeah, that's me.
Project Manager: But that's after the financing.
Marketing: Oh, okay.
Project Manager: See? Fi see?
Marketing: Sorry, sorry. Mm-mm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um. {vocalsound} Okay, we had looks and voice recognition. Okay now on the financing we bring up the mm there it is. Okay uh energy source we say that's battery, right?
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: That's right.
Project Manager: Okay, now. So we {disfmarker} I guess we use one.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: What? T cell or chart you are trying to change is protected. Well, that's nice. She told me I could just ch change it here and then it would {disfmarker} It doesn't work. Hmm.
Marketing: Can you just fill it in in the yellow boxes? Or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh, okay yeah, okay,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: let's see. Okay, one, okay.
User Interface: Yes.
Project Manager: Oh go away. Um kinetic source so that's {disfmarker} in the energy source that's all we need.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Uh electronics, simple chip on print? Is that's what we're using?
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah,
Project Manager: One of those?
Industrial Designer: yeah.
Project Manager: Come on. Okay, one. Uh regular chip on print. No. That's all we need, the one
Industrial Designer: No. Yeah.
Project Manager: {disfmarker} case, uncurved flat, single curved, double curved.
Marketing: Well. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: This is a {disfmarker}
User Interface: Single curve? Mm.
Marketing: I guess it's double curved.
Project Manager: Double curved? One of those?
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Case materi s supplements. Plastic we said, right?
User Interface: Plastic.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Uh wood, rubber?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Rubber, because we're gonna have the soft buttons.
Project Manager: Uh but, yes but {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I think uh that is uh f for rubbers that is uh {disfmarker} yeah case material.
Project Manager: That's just for the case material,
User Interface: Is this for the case? Yes.
Project Manager: so special colours though, we having that,
Marketing: Oh okay, the mm-hmm, mm'kay.
Project Manager: right?
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: And then we have to interface push buttons.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Scroll wheel, no. Integrated scroll wheel, L_C_ display?
User Interface: No.
Marketing: No,
Project Manager: Button.
Marketing:'cause we didn't put the clock in it after all, right?
Project Manager: No.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Uh, button supplement special colour?
User Interface: Speci Yes
Project Manager: Special form?
User Interface: Yes d we do have special form.
Marketing: Yes.
Project Manager: And special material, rubber, wood, yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. {vocalsound} Total seven point six whatever that means.
Industrial Designer: Uh, I think that's the price.
Project Manager: That's the price.
User Interface: One two three four five six seven eight nine
Project Manager: Mm?
Industrial Designer: Maybe it {disfmarker} is it just {disfmarker} n
Project Manager: Eight, eight point two. That's {disfmarker}
User Interface: Nine points,
Project Manager: hmm?
User Interface: okay, yes.
Project Manager: Eight point two, right? So, we {disfmarker} looks like we are well within budget.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay. I guess I should save this I suppose, huh?
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Oops. Uh-huh huh huh.
User Interface: On the desktop.
Project Manager: I just tried that. My documents, computer.
Industrial Designer: AMI.
Project Manager: My compu Ah oh here it is, yes.
Industrial Designer: AMI should for
Project Manager: Okay, fine. Save. Okay good, so that's the good news. We gonna be popular.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um. So that uh {disfmarker} I think financing was pretty simple.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Now we would like to have a presentation by the marketing expert on production evaluation.
Marketing: Okay, I'll take my file down so you can bring it up.'Kay should be able to get it now.'Kay, why don't you move just to the next slide right away.
Project Manager: You wanna go to the next slide?
Marketing: Yeah right away.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Okay, well uh obviously my method for uh s m the marketing of this thing is first to ask the big question, will it sell? And I think we should show this prototype to people from various age and socio-economic groups and see about any fine tuning that {disfmarker} maybe little things we haven't thought of.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: We can't accept every suggestion of course, but maybe we just need to get a few.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: And show the the prototype to consumer research groups, we don't s want somebody to suddenly come to us and tell us that this button is toxic and you know some child will swallow it and then we won't sell any.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Mm.
Marketing: So we have to get some input from those people.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: And then after that we just have to go with our best intuition and you know we like it, we think it's good, we're gonna get behind it and sell it. Um, next slide please. Okay, now the things that I was thinking and th my wish list has really been realised in this prototype. I wanted the shape to be biomorphic, I didn't want anything with angles and all square, I wanted it to be comfy and roundy so we we've got that. The size is small, the colour's bright and warm which is what we wanted. We wanted the feel to be as soft as possible, we'll have the soft buttons
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: and the way this is shaped, even though it's gonna be hard plastic, it feels good in your hand so that's nice. And functionality I put last on my list because people aren't going to use it before they buy it.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} So paradoxically the other features, in other words, the look, the feel um and the shape, that's what people are gonna get in the store.
User Interface: Fee selling.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: They don't have a television in the store, they can't play with it.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Um so they'll be our main selling points. So um {vocalsound} th those have been fulfilled by your prototype and go ahead to the next slide please. Okay, so um the shape um I think is a {disfmarker} a one. That's really, really excellent shape. The size is small um and th these points are in the importance for the, for the marketing, these aren't i in how I feel. I think that it's {disfmarker} I think that it's plenty small enough to sell but I think we're sort of right {disfmarker} the scale is one to seven. I think we're sort of right in the middle as far as c other competitors.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: And our colour I think is great. The colours are bright and warm and we really do great job there. And given um the constraints that we had I think we got it as soft as possible. And then functionality um I think you did a really good job on functionality, obviously we could have ad added different functions but then we'd disturb something else so I would say that we got to a five out of seven on on functionality.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So I think that basically we've got a great product and we can get off and running with it.
Project Manager: Um I just realised one thing.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: In the financing there was no room for our voice recogniser.
Marketing: Yes.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Ah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: And uh I don't know how we can evaluate that or how we can include that, too.
Marketing: Well, um we had what, eight eight euros twenty as our cost?
Project Manager: Eight, eight twenty, yes.
Industrial Designer: Eight twenty so {disfmarker}
Marketing: And so we've got {disfmarker} we've still got four euros to go {disfmarker} to spend.
Industrial Designer: We have um four euros, yeah
Project Manager: I mean maximum we have another four point three euros I mean {vocalsound} four thirty.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Well um that's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: But I mean we have no way of presenting that to management as you know as a f finished, as a finished product and saying okay with the voice recogniser that costs so much.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So um we just have to beware of that. I mean and know whether the four thirty will really cover that.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Well as we know in today's technic technological world you can do just about anything at any price, the the the problem is quality.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap}.
Marketing: So we're just gonna have to settle for whatever quality that will buy us.
Industrial Designer: Yeah,
User Interface: Yes, yes.
Industrial Designer: yeah.
Marketing: And um it may not be the greatest quality but it may sell anyway.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, still.
Marketing: {vocalsound} As we've seen with so many of these kinds of products. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I'm sorry to interrupt then but I just uh recog I just remembered that there was no {disfmarker} that that was not um included uh {disfmarker} that there was no room for any special features, okay?
Industrial Designer: Included, yeah. Hmm,
User Interface: Yeah mm.
Industrial Designer: hmm
Project Manager: So to beware of that. You wanna go to this next slide, marketing expert?
Marketing: Uh, well I isn't this my last slide?
Project Manager: I dunno.
Marketing: Maybe.
Project Manager: Yes it is. Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Go ahead. I think that was my last slide, yeah. Um. Mm okay. And I'm supposed to present this scale on the whiteboard. Um and we're supposed to talk about those things as a team now, so if you put my last slide back up there.
Project Manager: Oh.
Marketing: I'm sorry I've um forgot to do that, um.
Project Manager: Why? Wh why you need that up?
Marketing: Hmm? Well because I can't remember what I put on there. {vocalsound} Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Now I'm supposed to see how long my leash is here.
Project Manager: I think you can make it there.
Marketing: Mm'kay. You ready. So now we're all supposed to say what we think. Um okay so on shape I gave it a one. Wait what would you ra uh one being good and seven being the worst.
User Interface: Worse, okay.
Marketing: Um what do you think the shape is?
User Interface: One.
Marketing: One, okay, and Be Betsy?
Project Manager: Yes I think uh shape is one.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, even my {disfmarker} yeah, shape is one.
Marketing: Okay, uh-huh one, okay. And how about on size? On size {disfmarker}
Project Manager: You {disfmarker} you gave it a four.
Marketing: I gave it a four, yeah, I feel it's just average.
Project Manager: Um, I dunno. I think I would give it at least a two.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: One.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, even I think it is one. It's quite small.
Marketing: Okay. Okay {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: you're the designer, of course you wanna give it a one.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um and then how about {disfmarker} how we doing on colour?
Project Manager: Colour uh I {disfmarker}
Marketing: Colour, I gave it a one.
Project Manager: One.
Marketing: I really like all those nice bright, warm colours.
Project Manager: I {disfmarker} I like the colours. One.
User Interface: One. Yes.
Marketing: One.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, one.
Marketing: One, one, one, okay. And how about the feel? Taking into um consideration texture and comfort in the hand.
Project Manager: Uh, I think I would give it a two.
Marketing: Okay, I gave it a three, two,
User Interface: I'll give three.
Marketing: yeah? Three.
Industrial Designer: Uh maybe two,
Marketing: Two, okay.
Industrial Designer: yeah.
Marketing: And the next is functionality where I I admit I was a little hard on our team here, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well it's also you can't really try it out uh the other things you have have more {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} are more tangible so from that point of view
Marketing: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: but um {disfmarker} I'll give it a three.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Two.
Marketing: Two, okay.
Industrial Designer: Uh three, mm-hmm.
Marketing: Three? Okay. Well, um. It looks like we've got got ourselves a pretty good product. Um the functionality's the only place where maybe we have to think about m m maybe, heaven forbid, having another meeting.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} But um otherwise I think we're {disfmarker} we're ready to go to {disfmarker} go with this product. Anybody else have any other comments or any other things that we feel we should evaluate?
Project Manager: Uh. Here is what we looking at uh satisfaction on for example room for creativity. Um. Is there more room for creativity or are we absolutely happy?
User Interface: We can always improve, yes.
Industrial Designer: Maybe we can {disfmarker} yeah, include some more buttons and uh um
User Interface: Yes, features.
Industrial Designer: yeah features. We can make the buttons {disfmarker} few buttons smaller. Uh I think they are quite big, so I think {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean we can just have small buttons and more buttons in that case. If we want to have more features than that.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Well then again if we're gonna um {vocalsound} do the speech recognition thing we're gon there gonna be some buttons that are gonna have to be added for that for the recording of the the speech.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
User Interface: Yes. Voices.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So that that's where we're gonna have to do {disfmarker} maybe we can eliminate one of the mute buttons, instead of having two mute buttons.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, definitely, yeah, two mu mute buttons.
User Interface: Yes. Yes.
Marketing: And um then maybe we can do something with the um the volume control. Maybe we can put that all on one button.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Marketing: Um and a couple of other th maybe comp uh consolidate some of the usage an and see what we can do with that.
Project Manager: Y um al always bearing in mind that right now we are of course well within the budget
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And maybe {disfmarker}
Project Manager: and that we still you know we probably can't, with this particular item, we probably can't just uh add a whole lot of more things.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. No.
Project Manager: Uh um we need uh {disfmarker} you know we need to leave space money-wise for the voice recogniser.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So th the question really is how do we feel with the project process? Uh, um are we happy with the creativity that has passed here or we're not happy with the new product we created or that was created? Uh I think {disfmarker} personally I think uh I'm pretty happy.
Marketing: I'm pretty happy with it too, yeah um,
Project Manager: Um an
Industrial Designer: Even I'm happy.
Marketing: it's something I think I can market. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: and then the next question is are we happy with the leadership of this project? Uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I think you've done a good job, Miss leader. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yes, yes you've done a good job.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah, definitely. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And I think team work I think was very very good, I think we really {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Yeah I d I do too I think we worked well together as a team, yeah. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: And uh I think we {disfmarker} are we happy with the means we used? We used whiteboard, we didn't use digital p well digital pens I guess are these things.
Marketing: Yeah maybe we could've used the whiteboard a little bit more, yeah,
User Interface: Whiteboard more, yes, yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, probably.
Marketing: we didn't use that enough.
Project Manager: Yes, we could. Uh, it's maybe not in the best position in the room um you know like sometimes it's positioned so that it's much better visible for everybody and I think from that point of view we sort of ignored it a little bit.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: And we used the slide because it was better positioned.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes, I think so, I think absolutely,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: No.
Marketing: Mm I think that's true mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and fortunately we all had slides presentation which made it a little easier.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: Um did we new {disfmarker} did we find new ideas?
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: I think we did.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, many.
Marketing: I think we were we were very good, yeah, mm.
Project Manager: I think we we did, uh in more than one respect and uh so I think we did very well here.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Okay.
Project Manager: Are the costs within budget? Yes, yes. Uh is the project evaluated? Yes.
Marketing: Yes, yes.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Um then celebration. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Celebration.
User Interface: Cel celebration {vocalsound} yes, yes. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Ah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Today we have apple juice and after we sell m million of'em we have champagne. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So I {disfmarker} I thank you all very much. Um, I think this was very good and um
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: I think we did come up with a new product that's uh feasible. Feasible from the production point of view and feasible from a marketing point of view.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So, thank you.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Thank you.
Industrial Designer: Thank you very much.
Marketing: Okay. Watch I I have my cord behind you here.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: I always get it on here, but getting it off is {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Do we {disfmarker} do we have some time left? Uh {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker}
User Interface: They say it's forty minutes.
Project Manager: Ah yes we have time later
Marketing: But we we were told we could end the final meeting at any time, whenever we felt we were finished.
Project Manager: but we don't {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Oh, alright.
Marketing: It'll take me the rest of the time to get my microphone out from my necklace. {vocalsound} Oh, there we go. | Marketing liked how users could reach all the buttons with one thumb, even for someone with a small hand, so users did not need to shift it around or operate with two hands. Also, it was good that the on-off button was in a prominent place and the colours of the remote were attractive. Mute buttons were on either side so it would work for left- or right-handed people. On the other hand, channel buttons would be inscribed with numbers and the rest would be marked with easily recognized symbols that would be ideal for the international market. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
Project Manager: Well hi everyone again.
User Interface: Hello.
Industrial Designer: Hello.
Marketing: Hello
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} like before we uh {disfmarker} I have to redo the meetings from {vocalsound} {disfmarker} n th the minutes from the last meeting
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and so here we go. Uh it was discussed in the last meeting uh which was opened by the presentation from the interface um designer {vocalsound} that uh looks would be very important on this new remote
User Interface: Designer. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and um it is to send messages of course to the T_V_. It should have nine channel buttons, a next button, volume buttons, subtitle buttons, switch to control features, colour contrast, sharpness etcetera. It should have a memory switch, a mute button in case the telephone rings or something. Uh speech recognition is one of her very f favourite personal uh features she would like see d d to be integrated in this um in this new remote. Um. {vocalsound} Should be child friendly design with few buttons, colourful maybe with s star shaped or other shaped buttons. Um she uh presented also an oversized remote which she guarantees nobody will ever be able to lose.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: And she was challenged on that point {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} that's right. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yes. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But uh her very f personal favourite really she, she would very much like to see a speech recogniser integrated in this remote. The industrial designer um presented her uh {vocalsound} thoughts on the issue. She would like a special case made out of plastic that is very strong, not using any harmful materials, should be recyclable and should be colourful. Should have an integrated circuit board that's highly sophisticated and temperature resistant. She would like to see a timer and or alarm facility integrated. Uh technically this thing would also have a resistor and a capacitor, diode transistor, resonator, and if possible a rechargeable battery. Uh and of course a circuit board. And how it would works, you press the button, the chip is morse {disfmarker} morse code related relays the {disfmarker} uh to the generat to the generator amplification and uh the circuit board is very inexpensive to build and so she thinks this is a great feature uh to to to consider.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: She would like uh {disfmarker} this whole thing should be push buttons with a simple chip uh scrolling method is more expensive and not that practical anymore. Should be battery operated and of course she would have the special cases. The marketing expert uh who has to finally come up with {disfmarker} to to to market this product has been watching the competition, has done some research on the internet and also has used h her personal observations to come up with the fact that such a remote sh should be small, easy to use and it should be eye catching. From her point of view of course one of the most important facts is that we should get to market before our competition does. To do that uh maybe one or two features should be developed on which we could dwell on or in other words on which our campaign could be built on. Too many new features or too many points would only confuse matter. So we prefer to have one or two features that can be really uh driven home. Um it should have a fruit and vegetable design and should have a soft feel. She feels that's really what people want today. And the decision that we took last time was that uh the special feature we would like to see is a speech recogniser, the energy should be battery uh should be on a chip, should be trendy design, compact and strong, and should have buttons. And that concludes the presentation from the last minutes {disfmarker} from the last meeting. Now uh we are ready for the presentation of the prototype.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Just the look like, the button part I'll explain.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Uh so this is our {disfmarker} what uh we have made. This is a model of the remote control which we are going to build.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh this is us in a snail shape so uh it it is attractive
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: um and it's {disfmarker} it's blue in colour uh bright and uh it has yellow buttons and all the different colour buttons
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: so it is a {disfmarker} uh uh a {disfmarker} looks-wise it is beautiful.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh and also compact in shape.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh um and also i it it will be easily fit into {disfmarker} into the hands and you can access all the buttons easily.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Good.
Industrial Designer: Yeah,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: oops, sorry. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} You used to have all the buttons {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um yeah and um uh the material which we are going to use for the case is uh plastic and uh w which which is s strong um uh and also uh for the {disfmarker} Um the material is plastic and uh for the buttons it is uh s soft rubber um and als
Marketing: Oh that's good,
Industrial Designer: yeah.
Marketing: no, that's nice and friendly.
Industrial Designer: Yeah because uh uh you'll be touching the buttons more so it is soft when you touch it.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And then um uh for the {disfmarker} for the led, for the light emitting diode it is a fluorescent green
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and it's a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} it is a bulb like an ordinary infrared.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker} and the button {disfmarker} button's part uh will be explained by F Francina.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Now the um {disfmarker} we decided upon including certain features on our remote. Now these features includes the s um signal emitting uh signal {disfmarker} it's the led or L_E_D_ the infrared.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm,
Marketing: Yeah, okay, mm-hmm.
Project Manager: mm-hmm.
User Interface: Now uh we have included the switch on and off button.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Now we have included another feature that is the mute button
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: on the side of the model. Then we have included one to nine buttons
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: for controlling the programmes {disfmarker} the different channels.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: We have also included two buttons for increasing or decreasing the volume.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And we have also included two buttons for scrolling up and scrolling down the programme channels. Now our {disfmarker} our model also contains a button which is called as the menu button.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: What kind of button?
User Interface: Menu button.
Project Manager: Menu? Uh menu th menu, uh one one.
User Interface: Yes, menu {disfmarker}
Marketing: Menu button. {vocalsound}
User Interface: At the centre
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: we have included a button which is fluorescent green colour and this is the menu button which will control the colour, sharpness, brightness
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Of the screen. Mm, mm-hmm.
User Interface: of this uh picture. We have also included a button which is called as the swapping button. Now this is uh a special, special feature which we have included. Now this button is an elongated shaped button and this is slightly flexible so if it is turned towards the right it will take to the previous channel, if it is turned towards the right it will take to the next channel. It will take the user to the previous and the next channel so this is a swapping button.
Marketing: The next channel in the numeric pattern, or {disfmarker}
User Interface: No, swapping is if if example you're {disfmarker} you're watching the second channel and then you go to the tenth channel and if you want to go back to the second channel you can swap, this button.
Marketing: Yeah, mm-hmm. Mm.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Okay, okay.
User Interface: And at the end, it {disfmarker} this remote has inbuilt voice recogniser which c which will recognise the user's voice and then it'll act accordingly.
Project Manager: Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So this is our proposed model.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Now the marketing expert has to
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Tell, yeah.
User Interface: give her suggestion whether it'll be sellable {vocalsound} or it'll be cost effective.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay, well um what {disfmarker} what I really like a lot about it is that you can reach the whole thing with one thumb,
User Interface: Yes, yes.
Marketing: that you can really hold it in one h you don't need two hands
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: and it's easily reachable even for somebody with a small hand, yeah?
Project Manager: Yes the buttons are all raised, right?
Marketing: The buttons are all raised
Project Manager: Are raised, mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: and if you hold it in the centre of your hand you can even reach it over here so you don't have to turn it around, turn it upside down, move it up, up and down,
Project Manager: Right. Or have two hands to operate it, yeah.
Marketing: I really like that.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: You really did a good job on that, my little designers.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um and um I like the idea that the on-off button is in a really prominent place. That's that's a really good good thing.
Project Manager: Yes, and it sort of sticks up so that you really {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, that's great.
Project Manager: you don't have to g first go like oh yeah here it's on and yeah, mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Abs okay.
Marketing: The colour's very attractive. Um the um these buttons uh around here are the mute
User Interface: No, these {disfmarker} the front buttons which are here, are the mute buttons.
Marketing: and {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} mm-hmm On both sides they're mute?
User Interface: Yes, yes.
Marketing: So you can push either one?
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: So if you're left-handed or right-handed it doesn't matter.
Marketing: And this brings the menu up on the screen?
User Interface: {vocalsound} Pardon me? This is the menu {disfmarker} yes, yes.
Marketing: This brings the menu up on the screen and the orange ones are {disfmarker}
User Interface: A the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these two are th to increase or decrease the volumes,
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: and these two are to uh scroll the programme channels.
Marketing: F f okay.
User Interface: Scroll up or scroll down the channels.
Marketing: Right, very good. Uh it looks mm looks like something I can sell.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay and now I'm supposed to {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well, I have one question
Marketing: yeah.
Project Manager: uh will there be anything written on the buttons, like that people know, or they have to learn that from a piece of paper which button does what?
User Interface: Yes, it will have uh {disfmarker} these buttons will have the numbers and all the rest of the buttons will have symbols.
Industrial Designer: Ah. Yeah, definitely.
Project Manager: Will have symbols so that that {disfmarker} that the user really knows you know and doesn't have to first learn it {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yes, which can be easily recognised.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
Marketing: Good point because we need the symbols'cause we're going into an international market we can't have anything that's language dependent.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah of course, and also {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: Yeah. But anyway it would ha i i i it has to have some kind of of symbols, text or something so that people kn
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah we can {disfmarker} Text.
Marketing: Symbols on it. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Text that we can have on the case itself,
Project Manager: That's right.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: we can {disfmarker} it will be printed on the case and symbols as well as the buttons. Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay, yeah just wanted make sure of that mm-hmm.
User Interface: And {disfmarker} and one more feature is we we have a holder for this remote which is an oyster shape.
Marketing: Mm,'kay, mm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: A shell shape.
Marketing: For the snail, yeah, mm-hmm,
Project Manager: Right, mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes, yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. So it is {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} we have the snail shell.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes, snail shell.
Industrial Designer: yeah,
Marketing: He goes right back into his shell.
Industrial Designer: yeah {disfmarker} shell.
Project Manager: Right.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Well you know I think we could do something really funny with this too because the snail is known to be slow
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: and we could have some sort of little comic effect on our marketing about how this is a rapid snail or something like that
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Y Yes {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah, of course, yeah.
Marketing: you know that would, that would really work.
Project Manager: Now what, what are our special features for the marketing?
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: That's really the voice recognition that's really unusual {disfmarker}
Marketing: I think voice recognition is our big selling point
Industrial Designer: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Marketing:'cause nobody else seems to have that in in this price range.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: And then, and then the other thing would basically be sh shape or practicality of use.
Marketing: Yep
Project Manager: You know.
Marketing: uh well I think that everybody's gonna say their remote control is practical. I think we have to, we have to dwell on on on the appearance.
Project Manager: Colours. Mm-hmm.
Marketing: We're really gonna have the be the
Project Manager: Cutest.
Marketing: cutest remote control on the block.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: So I think we have to play with the image, play with the snail image um play with the visual and then the voice recognition.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: I think those are the two things to push. The look and the voice recognition. They're gonna be our two selling points.
Project Manager: Okay, now uh having said that {disfmarker}
Marketing: I'm supposed to make a little presentation, aren't I?
Project Manager: No, now this was our evaluation criteria which we uh just have done.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Now we're gonna talk about financing. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Ah, but in my instructions I think it said I was supposed to go to the board and do something.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well, there is a production evaluation.
Marketing: No?
Project Manager: Is that you?
Marketing: Yeah, that's me.
Project Manager: But that's after the financing.
Marketing: Oh, okay.
Project Manager: See? Fi see?
Marketing: Sorry, sorry. Mm-mm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um. {vocalsound} Okay, we had looks and voice recognition. Okay now on the financing we bring up the mm there it is. Okay uh energy source we say that's battery, right?
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: That's right.
Project Manager: Okay, now. So we {disfmarker} I guess we use one.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: What? T cell or chart you are trying to change is protected. Well, that's nice. She told me I could just ch change it here and then it would {disfmarker} It doesn't work. Hmm.
Marketing: Can you just fill it in in the yellow boxes? Or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh, okay yeah, okay,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: let's see. Okay, one, okay.
User Interface: Yes.
Project Manager: Oh go away. Um kinetic source so that's {disfmarker} in the energy source that's all we need.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Uh electronics, simple chip on print? Is that's what we're using?
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah,
Project Manager: One of those?
Industrial Designer: yeah.
Project Manager: Come on. Okay, one. Uh regular chip on print. No. That's all we need, the one
Industrial Designer: No. Yeah.
Project Manager: {disfmarker} case, uncurved flat, single curved, double curved.
Marketing: Well. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: This is a {disfmarker}
User Interface: Single curve? Mm.
Marketing: I guess it's double curved.
Project Manager: Double curved? One of those?
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Case materi s supplements. Plastic we said, right?
User Interface: Plastic.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Uh wood, rubber?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Rubber, because we're gonna have the soft buttons.
Project Manager: Uh but, yes but {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I think uh that is uh f for rubbers that is uh {disfmarker} yeah case material.
Project Manager: That's just for the case material,
User Interface: Is this for the case? Yes.
Project Manager: so special colours though, we having that,
Marketing: Oh okay, the mm-hmm, mm'kay.
Project Manager: right?
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: And then we have to interface push buttons.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Scroll wheel, no. Integrated scroll wheel, L_C_ display?
User Interface: No.
Marketing: No,
Project Manager: Button.
Marketing:'cause we didn't put the clock in it after all, right?
Project Manager: No.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Uh, button supplement special colour?
User Interface: Speci Yes
Project Manager: Special form?
User Interface: Yes d we do have special form.
Marketing: Yes.
Project Manager: And special material, rubber, wood, yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. {vocalsound} Total seven point six whatever that means.
Industrial Designer: Uh, I think that's the price.
Project Manager: That's the price.
User Interface: One two three four five six seven eight nine
Project Manager: Mm?
Industrial Designer: Maybe it {disfmarker} is it just {disfmarker} n
Project Manager: Eight, eight point two. That's {disfmarker}
User Interface: Nine points,
Project Manager: hmm?
User Interface: okay, yes.
Project Manager: Eight point two, right? So, we {disfmarker} looks like we are well within budget.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay. I guess I should save this I suppose, huh?
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Oops. Uh-huh huh huh.
User Interface: On the desktop.
Project Manager: I just tried that. My documents, computer.
Industrial Designer: AMI.
Project Manager: My compu Ah oh here it is, yes.
Industrial Designer: AMI should for
Project Manager: Okay, fine. Save. Okay good, so that's the good news. We gonna be popular.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um. So that uh {disfmarker} I think financing was pretty simple.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Now we would like to have a presentation by the marketing expert on production evaluation.
Marketing: Okay, I'll take my file down so you can bring it up.'Kay should be able to get it now.'Kay, why don't you move just to the next slide right away.
Project Manager: You wanna go to the next slide?
Marketing: Yeah right away.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Okay, well uh obviously my method for uh s m the marketing of this thing is first to ask the big question, will it sell? And I think we should show this prototype to people from various age and socio-economic groups and see about any fine tuning that {disfmarker} maybe little things we haven't thought of.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: We can't accept every suggestion of course, but maybe we just need to get a few.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: And show the the prototype to consumer research groups, we don't s want somebody to suddenly come to us and tell us that this button is toxic and you know some child will swallow it and then we won't sell any.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Mm.
Marketing: So we have to get some input from those people.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: And then after that we just have to go with our best intuition and you know we like it, we think it's good, we're gonna get behind it and sell it. Um, next slide please. Okay, now the things that I was thinking and th my wish list has really been realised in this prototype. I wanted the shape to be biomorphic, I didn't want anything with angles and all square, I wanted it to be comfy and roundy so we we've got that. The size is small, the colour's bright and warm which is what we wanted. We wanted the feel to be as soft as possible, we'll have the soft buttons
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: and the way this is shaped, even though it's gonna be hard plastic, it feels good in your hand so that's nice. And functionality I put last on my list because people aren't going to use it before they buy it.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} So paradoxically the other features, in other words, the look, the feel um and the shape, that's what people are gonna get in the store.
User Interface: Fee selling.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: They don't have a television in the store, they can't play with it.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Um so they'll be our main selling points. So um {vocalsound} th those have been fulfilled by your prototype and go ahead to the next slide please. Okay, so um the shape um I think is a {disfmarker} a one. That's really, really excellent shape. The size is small um and th these points are in the importance for the, for the marketing, these aren't i in how I feel. I think that it's {disfmarker} I think that it's plenty small enough to sell but I think we're sort of right {disfmarker} the scale is one to seven. I think we're sort of right in the middle as far as c other competitors.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: And our colour I think is great. The colours are bright and warm and we really do great job there. And given um the constraints that we had I think we got it as soft as possible. And then functionality um I think you did a really good job on functionality, obviously we could have ad added different functions but then we'd disturb something else so I would say that we got to a five out of seven on on functionality.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So I think that basically we've got a great product and we can get off and running with it.
Project Manager: Um I just realised one thing.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: In the financing there was no room for our voice recogniser.
Marketing: Yes.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Ah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: And uh I don't know how we can evaluate that or how we can include that, too.
Marketing: Well, um we had what, eight eight euros twenty as our cost?
Project Manager: Eight, eight twenty, yes.
Industrial Designer: Eight twenty so {disfmarker}
Marketing: And so we've got {disfmarker} we've still got four euros to go {disfmarker} to spend.
Industrial Designer: We have um four euros, yeah
Project Manager: I mean maximum we have another four point three euros I mean {vocalsound} four thirty.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Well um that's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: But I mean we have no way of presenting that to management as you know as a f finished, as a finished product and saying okay with the voice recogniser that costs so much.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So um we just have to beware of that. I mean and know whether the four thirty will really cover that.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Well as we know in today's technic technological world you can do just about anything at any price, the the the problem is quality.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap}.
Marketing: So we're just gonna have to settle for whatever quality that will buy us.
Industrial Designer: Yeah,
User Interface: Yes, yes.
Industrial Designer: yeah.
Marketing: And um it may not be the greatest quality but it may sell anyway.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, still.
Marketing: {vocalsound} As we've seen with so many of these kinds of products. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I'm sorry to interrupt then but I just uh recog I just remembered that there was no {disfmarker} that that was not um included uh {disfmarker} that there was no room for any special features, okay?
Industrial Designer: Included, yeah. Hmm,
User Interface: Yeah mm.
Industrial Designer: hmm
Project Manager: So to beware of that. You wanna go to this next slide, marketing expert?
Marketing: Uh, well I isn't this my last slide?
Project Manager: I dunno.
Marketing: Maybe.
Project Manager: Yes it is. Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Go ahead. I think that was my last slide, yeah. Um. Mm okay. And I'm supposed to present this scale on the whiteboard. Um and we're supposed to talk about those things as a team now, so if you put my last slide back up there.
Project Manager: Oh.
Marketing: I'm sorry I've um forgot to do that, um.
Project Manager: Why? Wh why you need that up?
Marketing: Hmm? Well because I can't remember what I put on there. {vocalsound} Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Now I'm supposed to see how long my leash is here.
Project Manager: I think you can make it there.
Marketing: Mm'kay. You ready. So now we're all supposed to say what we think. Um okay so on shape I gave it a one. Wait what would you ra uh one being good and seven being the worst.
User Interface: Worse, okay.
Marketing: Um what do you think the shape is?
User Interface: One.
Marketing: One, okay, and Be Betsy?
Project Manager: Yes I think uh shape is one.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, even my {disfmarker} yeah, shape is one.
Marketing: Okay, uh-huh one, okay. And how about on size? On size {disfmarker}
Project Manager: You {disfmarker} you gave it a four.
Marketing: I gave it a four, yeah, I feel it's just average.
Project Manager: Um, I dunno. I think I would give it at least a two.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: One.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, even I think it is one. It's quite small.
Marketing: Okay. Okay {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: you're the designer, of course you wanna give it a one.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um and then how about {disfmarker} how we doing on colour?
Project Manager: Colour uh I {disfmarker}
Marketing: Colour, I gave it a one.
Project Manager: One.
Marketing: I really like all those nice bright, warm colours.
Project Manager: I {disfmarker} I like the colours. One.
User Interface: One. Yes.
Marketing: One.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, one.
Marketing: One, one, one, okay. And how about the feel? Taking into um consideration texture and comfort in the hand.
Project Manager: Uh, I think I would give it a two.
Marketing: Okay, I gave it a three, two,
User Interface: I'll give three.
Marketing: yeah? Three.
Industrial Designer: Uh maybe two,
Marketing: Two, okay.
Industrial Designer: yeah.
Marketing: And the next is functionality where I I admit I was a little hard on our team here, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well it's also you can't really try it out uh the other things you have have more {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} are more tangible so from that point of view
Marketing: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: but um {disfmarker} I'll give it a three.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Two.
Marketing: Two, okay.
Industrial Designer: Uh three, mm-hmm.
Marketing: Three? Okay. Well, um. It looks like we've got got ourselves a pretty good product. Um the functionality's the only place where maybe we have to think about m m maybe, heaven forbid, having another meeting.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} But um otherwise I think we're {disfmarker} we're ready to go to {disfmarker} go with this product. Anybody else have any other comments or any other things that we feel we should evaluate?
Project Manager: Uh. Here is what we looking at uh satisfaction on for example room for creativity. Um. Is there more room for creativity or are we absolutely happy?
User Interface: We can always improve, yes.
Industrial Designer: Maybe we can {disfmarker} yeah, include some more buttons and uh um
User Interface: Yes, features.
Industrial Designer: yeah features. We can make the buttons {disfmarker} few buttons smaller. Uh I think they are quite big, so I think {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean we can just have small buttons and more buttons in that case. If we want to have more features than that.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Well then again if we're gonna um {vocalsound} do the speech recognition thing we're gon there gonna be some buttons that are gonna have to be added for that for the recording of the the speech.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
User Interface: Yes. Voices.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So that that's where we're gonna have to do {disfmarker} maybe we can eliminate one of the mute buttons, instead of having two mute buttons.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, definitely, yeah, two mu mute buttons.
User Interface: Yes. Yes.
Marketing: And um then maybe we can do something with the um the volume control. Maybe we can put that all on one button.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Marketing: Um and a couple of other th maybe comp uh consolidate some of the usage an and see what we can do with that.
Project Manager: Y um al always bearing in mind that right now we are of course well within the budget
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And maybe {disfmarker}
Project Manager: and that we still you know we probably can't, with this particular item, we probably can't just uh add a whole lot of more things.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. No.
Project Manager: Uh um we need uh {disfmarker} you know we need to leave space money-wise for the voice recogniser.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So th the question really is how do we feel with the project process? Uh, um are we happy with the creativity that has passed here or we're not happy with the new product we created or that was created? Uh I think {disfmarker} personally I think uh I'm pretty happy.
Marketing: I'm pretty happy with it too, yeah um,
Project Manager: Um an
Industrial Designer: Even I'm happy.
Marketing: it's something I think I can market. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: and then the next question is are we happy with the leadership of this project? Uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I think you've done a good job, Miss leader. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yes, yes you've done a good job.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah, definitely. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And I think team work I think was very very good, I think we really {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Yeah I d I do too I think we worked well together as a team, yeah. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: And uh I think we {disfmarker} are we happy with the means we used? We used whiteboard, we didn't use digital p well digital pens I guess are these things.
Marketing: Yeah maybe we could've used the whiteboard a little bit more, yeah,
User Interface: Whiteboard more, yes, yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, probably.
Marketing: we didn't use that enough.
Project Manager: Yes, we could. Uh, it's maybe not in the best position in the room um you know like sometimes it's positioned so that it's much better visible for everybody and I think from that point of view we sort of ignored it a little bit.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: And we used the slide because it was better positioned.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes, I think so, I think absolutely,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: No.
Marketing: Mm I think that's true mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and fortunately we all had slides presentation which made it a little easier.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: Um did we new {disfmarker} did we find new ideas?
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: I think we did.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, many.
Marketing: I think we were we were very good, yeah, mm.
Project Manager: I think we we did, uh in more than one respect and uh so I think we did very well here.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Okay.
Project Manager: Are the costs within budget? Yes, yes. Uh is the project evaluated? Yes.
Marketing: Yes, yes.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Um then celebration. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Celebration.
User Interface: Cel celebration {vocalsound} yes, yes. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Ah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Today we have apple juice and after we sell m million of'em we have champagne. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So I {disfmarker} I thank you all very much. Um, I think this was very good and um
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: I think we did come up with a new product that's uh feasible. Feasible from the production point of view and feasible from a marketing point of view.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So, thank you.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Thank you.
Industrial Designer: Thank you very much.
Marketing: Okay. Watch I I have my cord behind you here.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: I always get it on here, but getting it off is {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Do we {disfmarker} do we have some time left? Uh {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker}
User Interface: They say it's forty minutes.
Project Manager: Ah yes we have time later
Marketing: But we we were told we could end the final meeting at any time, whenever we felt we were finished.
Project Manager: but we don't {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Oh, alright.
Marketing: It'll take me the rest of the time to get my microphone out from my necklace. {vocalsound} Oh, there we go. | Project Manager first recapped the previous meeting, concluding that the remote should be compact, user-friendly and could function like speech recognition. Next, the presentation of the bright blue snail shaped prototype was made by Industrial Designer and User Interface, introducing the appearance and features of the remote. Then, feedback was given regarding the prototype, which was mainly positive and speech recognition and cute appearance were decided as its star feature. Afterwards, the team discussed the financing of the remote, which should be within the budget of twelve fifty euros. Finally, the meeting ended with a project evaluation, which everyone was satisfied with the product and dynamic of the team, and team building. | qmsum |
Summarize the meeting
PhD B: OK. We're on.
Grad E: Hello?
Professor A: OK, so uh {vocalsound} had some interesting mail from uh Dan Ellis. Actually, I think he {disfmarker} he {vocalsound} redirected it to everybody also so uh {vocalsound} the PDA mikes uh have a big bunch of energy at {disfmarker} at uh five hertz uh where this came up was that uh I was showing off these wave forms that we have on the web and {disfmarker} and uh {vocalsound} I just sort of hadn't noticed this, but that {disfmarker} the major, major component in the wave {disfmarker} in the second wave form in that pair of wave forms is actually the air conditioner.
Grad C: Huh.
Professor A: So. So. I {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I have to be more careful about using that as a {disfmarker} as a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} as a good illustration, uh, in fact it's not, of uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} of the effects of room reverberation. It is isn't a bad illustration of the effects of uh room noise. {vocalsound} on {disfmarker} on uh some mikes uh but So. And then we had this other discussion about um {vocalsound} whether this affects the dynamic range, cuz I know, although we start off with thirty two bits, you end up with uh sixteen bits and {vocalsound} you know, are we getting hurt there? But uh Dan is pretty confident that we're not, that {disfmarker} that quantization error is not {disfmarker} is still not a significant {vocalsound} factor there. So. So there was a question of whether we should change things here, whether we should {vocalsound} change a capacitor on the input box for that or whether we should
PhD B: Yeah, he suggested a smaller capacitor, right?
Professor A: Right. But then I had some other uh thing discussions with him
PhD B: For the P D
Professor A: and the feeling was {vocalsound} once we start monk monkeying with that, uh, many other problems could ha happen. And additionally we {disfmarker} we already have a lot of data that's been collected with that, so.
PhD B: Yeah.
Professor A: A simple thing to do is he {disfmarker} he {disfmarker} he has a {disfmarker} I forget if it {disfmarker} this was in that mail or in the following mail, but he has a {disfmarker} a simple filter, a digital filter that he suggested. We just run over the data before we deal with it.
PhD B: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: um The other thing that I don't know the answer to, but when people are using Feacalc here, uh whether they're using it with the high - pass filter option or not. And I don't know if anybody knows.
Grad E: Um. {vocalsound} I could go check.
Professor A: But. Yeah. So when we're doing all these things using our software there is {disfmarker} um if it's {disfmarker} if it's based on the RASTA - PLP program, {vocalsound} which does both PLP and RASTA - PLP {vocalsound} um then {vocalsound} uh there is an option there which then comes up through to Feacalc which {vocalsound} um allows you to do high - pass filtering and in general we like to do that, because of things like this and {vocalsound} it's {disfmarker} it's pretty {disfmarker} it's not a very severe filter. Doesn't affect speech frequencies, even pretty low speech frequencies, at all, but it's
PhD B: What's the {pause} cut - off frequency it used?
Professor A: Oh. I don't know I wrote this a while ago
PhD B: Is it like twenty?
Professor A: Something like that.
PhD B: Yeah.
Professor A: Yeah. I mean I think there's some effect above twenty but it's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's mild. So, I mean it probably {disfmarker} there's probably some effect up to a hundred hertz or something but it's {disfmarker} it's pretty mild. I don't know in the {disfmarker} in the STRUT implementation of the stuff is there a high - pass filter or a pre pre - emphasis or something in the {disfmarker}
PhD F: Uh. I think we use a pre - emphasis. Yeah. Yeah.
Professor A: So. We {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} we want to go and check that in i for anything that we're going to use the P D A mike for. {vocalsound} uh He says that there's a pretty good roll off in the PZM mikes so {vocalsound} we don't need {disfmarker} need to worry about them one way or the other but if we do make use of the cheap mikes, {vocalsound} uh we want to be sure to do that {disfmarker} that filtering before we {vocalsound} process it. And then again if it's uh depending on the option that the {disfmarker} our {disfmarker} our software is being run with, it's {disfmarker} it's quite possible that's already being taken care of. uh But I also have to pick a different picture to show the effects of reverberation. uh
PhD B: Did somebody notice it during your talk?
Professor A: uh No.
PhD B: Huh.
Professor A: Well. uh Well. If they made output they were {disfmarker} they were, you know {disfmarker} they were nice.
PhD B: Didn't say anything?
Professor A: But. {vocalsound} I mean the thing is it was since I was talking about reverberation and showing this thing that was noise, it wasn't a good match, but it certainly was still uh an indication of the fact that you get noise with distant mikes. uh It's just not a great example because not only isn't it reverberation but it's a noise that we definitely know what to do.
PhD B: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: So, I mean, it doesn't take deep {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a new {disfmarker} bold new methods to get rid of uh five hertz noise, so.
PhD B: Yeah.
Professor A: um {vocalsound} uh But. So it was {disfmarker} it was a bad example in that way, but it's {disfmarker} it still is {disfmarker} it's the real thing that we did get out of the microphone at distance, so it wasn't {vocalsound} it w it w wasn't wrong it was inappropriate. So. {vocalsound} So uh, but uh, Yeah, someone noticed it later pointed it out to me, and I went" oh, man. Why didn't I notice that?" PhD B: Hmm.
Professor A: um. So. {vocalsound} um So I think we'll change our {disfmarker} our picture on the web, when we're @ @. One of the things I was {disfmarker} I mean, I was trying to think about what {disfmarker} what's the best {vocalsound} way to show the difference an and I had a couple of thoughts one was, {vocalsound} that spectrogram that we show {vocalsound} is O K, but the thing is {vocalsound} the eyes uh and the {vocalsound} the brain behind them are so good at picking out patterns {vocalsound} from {disfmarker} from noise {vocalsound} that in first glance you look at them it doesn't seem like it's that bad uh because there's many features that are still preserved. So one thing to do might be to just take a piece of the spec uh of the spectrogram where you can see {vocalsound} that something looks different, an and blow it up, and have that be the part that's {disfmarker} just to show as well. You know.
PhD B: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
Professor A: i i Some things are going to be hurt. um {vocalsound} Another, I was thinking of was um {vocalsound} taking some spectral slices, like uh {disfmarker} like we look at with the recognizer, and look at the spectrum or cepstrum that you get out of there, and the {disfmarker} the uh, um, {vocalsound} the reverberation uh does make it {disfmarker} does change that. And so maybe {disfmarker} maybe that would be more obvious.
PhD B: Hmm.
Grad C: Spectral slices?
Professor A: Yeah.
Grad C: W w what d what do you mean?
Professor A: Well, I mean um all the recognizers look at frames. So they {disfmarker} they look at {disfmarker}
PhD B: So like one instant in time.
Professor A: Yeah, look at a {disfmarker}
Grad C: OK.
Professor A: So it's, yeah, at one point in time or uh twenty {disfmarker} over twenty milliseconds or something, {vocalsound} you have a spectrum or a cepstrum.
Grad C: OK.
Professor A: That's what I meant by a slice.
Grad C: I see.
Professor A: Yeah. And {vocalsound} if you look at {disfmarker}
PhD B: You could just {disfmarker} you could just throw up, you know, uh {vocalsound} the uh {disfmarker} some MFCC feature vectors. You know, one from one, one from the other, and then, you know, you can look and see how different the numbers are.
Professor A: Right. Well, that's why I saying either {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Well, either spectrum or cepstrum
PhD B: I'm just kidding.
Professor A: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} but I think the thing is you wanna {disfmarker}
PhD B: I don't mean a graph. I mean the actual numbers.
Professor A: Oh. I see. Oh. That would be lovely, yeah.
PhD B: Yeah." See how different these {vocalsound} sequences of numbers are?" Professor A: Yeah. Or I could just add them up and get a different total.
PhD B: Yeah. It's not the square.
Professor A: OK. Uh. What else {disfmarker} wh what's {disfmarker} what else is going on?
PhD F: Uh, yeah. Yeah, at first I had a remark why {disfmarker} I am wondering why the PDA is always so far. I mean we are always meeting at the {vocalsound} beginning of the table and {vocalsound} the PDA's there.
Professor A: Uh. I guess cuz we haven't wanted to move it. We {disfmarker} we could {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we could move us,
PhD F: Yeah?
Professor A: and.
PhD F: OK.
Grad E: That's right.
PhD F: Well, anyway. Um. Yeah, so. Uh. Since the last meeting we've {disfmarker} we've tried to put together um {vocalsound} the clean low - pass um downsampling, upsampling, I mean, Uh the new filter that's replacing the LDA filters, and also {vocalsound} the um delay issue so that {disfmarker} We considered th the {disfmarker} the delay issue on the {disfmarker} for the on - line normalization. Mmm. So we've put together all this and then we have results that are not um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} very impressive. Well, there is no {vocalsound} real improvement.
Professor A: But it's not wer worse and it's better {disfmarker} better latency,
PhD F: It's not {disfmarker}
Professor A: right?
PhD F: Yeah. Yeah. Well. Actually it's better. It seems better when we look at the mismatched case but {vocalsound} I think we are like {disfmarker} like cheated here by the {disfmarker} th this problem that {vocalsound} uh in some cases when you modify slight {disfmarker} slightly modify the initial condition you end up {vocalsound} completely somewhere air somewhere else in the {disfmarker} in the space, {vocalsound} the parameters.
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD F: So. Well. The other system are for instance. For Italian is at seventy - eight {vocalsound} percent recognition rate on the mismatch, and this new system has eighty - nine. But I don't think it indicates something, really. I don't {disfmarker} I don't think it means that the new system is more robust
Professor A: Uh - huh.
PhD F: or {disfmarker} It's simply the fact that {disfmarker} Well.
Professor A: Well, the test would be if you then tried it on one of the other test sets, if {disfmarker} if it was {disfmarker}
PhD F: Y
Professor A: Right. So this was Italian, right?
PhD F: Yeah. Yeah.
Professor A: So then if you take your changes
PhD F: It's similar for other test sets
Professor A: and then {disfmarker}
PhD F: but I mean {vocalsound} from this se seventy - eight um percent recognition rate system, {vocalsound} I could change the transition probabilities for the {disfmarker} the first HMM and {pause} it will end up to eighty - nine also.
Professor A: Uh - huh.
PhD F: By using point five instead of point six, point four {vocalsound} as in the {disfmarker} the HTK script.
Professor A: Uh - huh. Yeah.
PhD F: So. Well. That's {disfmarker}
PhD B: Yeah. Yeah I looked at um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} looked at the results when Stephane did that
PhD F: Well. Eh uh {disfmarker}
PhD B: and it's {disfmarker} it's really wo really happens.
PhD F: This really happens.
PhD B: I mean th the only difference is you change the self - loop transition probability by a tenth of a percent
PhD F: Yeah.
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD B: and it causes ten percent difference in the word error rate.
Professor A: A tenth of a per cent.
PhD B: Yeah. From point {disfmarker}
PhD F: Even tenth of a percent?
PhD B: I {disfmarker} I'm sorry
PhD F: Well, we tried {disfmarker} we tried point one,
PhD B: f for point {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} You change at point one
PhD F: yeah.
Professor A: Oh!
PhD B: and n not tenth of a percent, one tenth,
PhD F: Hmm.
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD B: alright? Um so from point five {disfmarker} so from point six to point five and you get ten percent better.
Professor A: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: And it's {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I think it's what you basically hypothesized in the last meeting {vocalsound} about uh it just being very {disfmarker}
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: and I think you mentioned this in your email too {disfmarker} it's just very um {disfmarker}
PhD F: Mmm, yeah.
PhD B: you know get stuck in some local minimum and this thing throws you out of it I guess.
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: Well, what's {disfmarker} what are {disfmarker} according to the rules what {disfmarker} what are we supposed to do about the transition probabilities? Are they supposed to be point five or point six?
PhD B: I think you're not allowed to {disfmarker} Yeah. That's supposed to be point six, for the self - loop.
PhD F: Yeah.
Professor A: Point {disfmarker} It's supposed to be point six.
PhD B: Yeah. But changing it to point five I think is {disfmarker} which gives you much better results, but that's {vocalsound} not allowed.
Professor A: But not allowed? Yeah. OK.
PhD B: Yeah.
PhD F: Yeah, but even if you use point five, I'm not sure it will always give you the better results
PhD B: Yeah.
PhD F: on other test set or it
PhD B: Right. We only tested it on the {disfmarker} the medium mismatch,
PhD F: on the other training set, I mean.
PhD B: right? You said on the other cases you didn't notice {disfmarker}
PhD F: Yeah. But. I think, yeah. I think the reason is, yeah, I not I {disfmarker} it was in my mail I think also, {vocalsound} is the fact that the mismatch is trained only on the far microphone. Well, in {disfmarker} for the mismatched case everything is um using the far microphone training and testing, whereas for the highly mismatched, training is done on the close microphone so {vocalsound} it's {disfmarker} it's clean speech basically so you don't have this problem of local minima probably and for the well - match, it's a mix of close microphone and distant microphone and {disfmarker} Well.
PhD B: I did notice uh something {disfmarker}
PhD F: So th I think the mismatch is the more difficult for the training part.
PhD B: Somebody, I think it was Morgan, suggested at the last meeting that I actually count to see {vocalsound} how many parameters and how many frames.
Professor A: Mm - hmm.
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: And there are uh almost one point eight million frames of training data and less than forty thousand parameters in the baseline system.
Professor A: Hmm.
PhD F: Yeah.
PhD B: So it's very, very few parameters compared to how much training data.
Professor A: Well. Yes.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: So. And that {disfmarker} that says that we could have lots more parameters actually.
PhD B: Yeah. Yeah.
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: I did one quick experiment just to make sure I had everything worked out and I just {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh f for most of the um {disfmarker} For {disfmarker} for all of the digit models, they end up at three mixtures per state. And so I just did a quick experiment, where I changed it so it went to four and um {vocalsound} it it {disfmarker} it didn't have a r any significant effect at the uh medium mismatch and high mismatch cases and it had {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it was just barely significant for the well - matched better. Uh so I'm r gonna run that again but {vocalsound} um with many more uh mixtures per state.
Professor A: Yeah. Cuz at forty thou I mean you could you could have uh {disfmarker} Yeah, easily four times as many {vocalsound} parameters.
PhD B: Mm - hmm. And I think also {vocalsound} just seeing what we saw {vocalsound} uh in terms of the expected duration of the silence model? when we did this tweaking of the self - loop? The silence model expected duration was really different.
PhD F: Yeah.
PhD B: And so in the case where {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} it had a better score, the silence model expected duration was much longer.
PhD F: Yeah.
PhD B: So it was like {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it was a better match. I think {vocalsound} you know if we make a better silence model I think that will help a lot too um for a lot of these cases so but one one thing I {disfmarker} I wanted to check out before I increased the um {vocalsound} number of mixtures per state was {vocalsound} uh {vocalsound} in their {vocalsound} default training script they do an initial set of three re - estimations and then they built the silence model and then they do seven iterations then the add mixtures and they do another seven then they add mixtures then they do a final set of seven and they quit. Seven seems like a lot to me and it also makes the experiments go take a really long time I mean to do one turn - around of the well matched case takes like a day.
Professor A: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
PhD B: And so {vocalsound} you know in trying to run these experiments I notice, you know, it's difficult to find machines, you know, compute the run on. And so one of the things I did was I compiled HTK for the Linux {vocalsound} machines
Professor A: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: cuz we have this one from IBM that's got like five processors in it?
Professor A: Right.
PhD B: and so now I'm {disfmarker} you can run stuff on that and that really helps a lot because now we've got {vocalsound} you know, extra machines that we can use for compute. And if {disfmarker} I'm do running an experiment right now where I'm changing the number of iterations? {vocalsound} from seven to three?
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD B: just to see how it affects the baseline system. And so if we can get away with just doing three, we can do {vocalsound} many more experiments more quickly. And if it's not a {disfmarker} a huge difference from running with seven iterations, {vocalsound} um, you know, we should be able to get a lot more experiments done.
PhD F: Hmm.
PhD B: And so. I'll let you know what {disfmarker} what happens with that. But if we can {vocalsound} you know, run all of these back - ends f with many fewer iterations and {vocalsound} on Linux boxes we should be able to get a lot more experimenting done.
Professor A: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: So. So I wanted to experiment with cutting down the number of iterations before I {vocalsound} increased the number of Gaussians.
Professor A: Right. Sorry. So um, how's it going on the {disfmarker}
PhD F: Um.
Professor A: So. You {disfmarker} you did some things. They didn't improve things in a way that convinced you you'd substantially improved anything.
PhD F: Yeah.
Professor A: But they're not making things worse and we have reduced latency, right?
PhD F: Yeah. But actually {disfmarker} um actually it seems to do a little bit worse for the well - matched case and we just noticed that {disfmarker} Yeah, actually the way the final score is computed is quite funny. It's not a mean of word error rate. It's not a weighted mean of word error rate, it's a weighted mean of improvements.
Professor A: Uh - huh.
PhD F: So. Which means that {vocalsound} actually the weight on the well - matched is {disfmarker} Well I well what what {disfmarker} What happened is that if you have a small improvement or a small if on the well - matched case {vocalsound} it will have uh huge influence on the improvement compared to the reference because the reference system is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is quite good for {disfmarker} for the well - ma well - matched case also.
PhD B: So it {disfmarker} it weights the improvement on the well - matched case really heavily compared to the improvement on the other cases?
PhD F: No, but it's the weighting of the {disfmarker} of the improvement not of the error rate.
PhD B: Yeah. Yeah, and it's hard to improve on the {disfmarker} on the best case, cuz it's already so good, right?
PhD F: Yeah but {pause} what I mean is that you can have a huge improvement on the H {disfmarker} HMK's, uh like five percent uh absolute, and this will not affect the final score almost {disfmarker} Uh this will almost not affect the final score because {vocalsound} this improvement {disfmarker} because the improvement {vocalsound} uh relative to the {disfmarker} the baseline is small {disfmarker}
Professor A: So they do improvement in terms of uh accuracy? rather than word error rate?
PhD F: Uh. Uh improvement?
Professor A: So {disfmarker}
PhD F: No, it's compared to the word er it's improvement on the word error rate,
Professor A: OK.
PhD F: yeah. Sorry.
Professor A: So if you have uh ten percent error and you get five percent absolute uh {vocalsound} improvement then that's fifty percent.
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: OK. So what you're saying then is that if it's something that has a small word error rate, {vocalsound} then uh a {disfmarker} even a relatively small improvement on it, in absolute terms, {vocalsound} will show up as quite {disfmarker} quite large in this.
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: Is that what you're saying?
PhD F: Yeah.
Professor A: Yes.
PhD F: Yeah.
Professor A: OK. But yeah that's {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} it's the notion of relative improvement. Word error rate.
PhD F: Yeah. Sure, but when we think about the weighting, which is point five, point three, point two, {vocalsound} it's on absolute on {disfmarker} on relative figures,
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD F: not {disfmarker}
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD F: So when we look at this error rate
Professor A: No. That's why I've been saying we should be looking at word error rate uh and {disfmarker} and not {disfmarker} not at {vocalsound} at accuracies.
PhD F: uh {disfmarker} Mmm, yeah. Mmm, yeah.
Professor A: It's {disfmarker}
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: I mean uh we probably should have standardized on that all the way through. It's just {disfmarker}
PhD B: Well.
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: I mean, it's not {disfmarker} it's not that different, right? I mean, just subtract the accuracy.
Professor A: Yeah but you're {disfmarker} but when you look at the numbers, your sense of the relative size of things is quite different.
PhD B: I mean {disfmarker} Oh. Oh, I see. Yeah.
Professor A: If you had ninety percent uh correct {vocalsound} and five percent, five over ninety doesn't look like it's a big difference, but {vocalsound} five over ten is {disfmarker} is big.
PhD B: Mm - hmm.
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: So just when we were looking at a lot of numbers and {vocalsound} getting sense of what was important.
PhD B: I see. I see. Yeah. That makes sense.
Professor A: Um.
PhD F: Mmm.
Professor A: Um.
PhD F: Well anyway uh. So. Yeah. So it hurts a little bit on the well - match and yeah.
Professor A: What's a little bit? Like {disfmarker}
PhD F: Like, it's difficult to say because again um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} I'm not sure I have the um {disfmarker}
PhD B: Hey Morgan? Do you remember that Signif program that we used to use for testing signi? Is that still valid? I {disfmarker} I've been using that.
Professor A: Yeah. Yeah, it was actually updated.
PhD B: OK.
Professor A: Uh. {vocalsound} Jeff updated it some years ago
PhD B: Oh, it was. Oh, I shoul
Professor A: and {disfmarker} and uh cleaned it up made some things better in it. So.
PhD B: OK. I should find that new one. I just use my old one from {vocalsound} ninety - two or whatever
Professor A: Yeah, I'm sure it's not that different but {disfmarker} but he {disfmarker} {vocalsound} he uh {disfmarker} he was a little more rigorous, as I recall.
PhD B: OK.
PhD F: Right. So it's around, like, point five. No, point six {comment} uh percent absolute on Italian {disfmarker}
Professor A: Worse.
PhD F: Worse, yep.
Professor A: Out of what? I mean. s
PhD F: Uh well we start from ninety - four point sixty - four, and we go to ninety - four point O four.
Professor A: Uh - huh. So that's six {disfmarker} six point th
PhD F: Uh.
PhD B: Ninety - three point six four, right? is the baseline.
PhD F: Oh, no, I've ninety - four. Oh, the baseline, you mean.
PhD B: Yeah.
PhD F: Well I don't {disfmarker} I'm not talking about the baseline here.
PhD B: Oh. Oh. I'm sorry.
PhD F: I uh {disfmarker} My baseline is the submitted system.
PhD B: Ah! OK. Ah, ah.
PhD F: Hmm.
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD B: Sorry.
PhD F: Oh yeah. For Finnish, we start to ninety - three point eight - four and we go to ninety - three point seventy - four. And for Spanish we are {disfmarker} we were at ninety - five point O five and we go to ninety - three - s point sixty one.
Professor A: OK, so we are getting hurt somewhat.
PhD F: So.
Professor A: And is that wh what {disfmarker} do you know what piece {disfmarker} you've done several changes here. Uh, do you know what pie
PhD F: Yeah. I guess {disfmarker} I guess it's {disfmarker} it's the filter. Because nnn, well uh we don't have complete result, but the filter {disfmarker} So the filter with the shorter delay hurts on Italian well - matched, which {disfmarker} And, yeah. And the other things, like um {vocalsound} downsampling, upsampling, don't seem to hurt and {vocalsound} the new on - line normalization, neither.
PhD B: I'm {disfmarker}
PhD F: So.
PhD B: I'm really confused about something. If we saw that making a small change like, you know, a tenth, to the self - loop had a huge effect, {vocalsound} can we really make any conclusions about differences in this stuff?
PhD F: Mm - hmm. Yeah that's th Yeah.
PhD B: I mean, especially when they're this small. I mean.
PhD F: I think we can be completely fooled by this thing, but {disfmarker} I don't know.
Professor A: Well, yeah.
PhD F: So. There is first this thing, and then the {disfmarker} yeah, I computed the um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} like, the confidence level on the different test sets. And for the well - matched they are around um {vocalsound} point six uh percent. For the mismatched they are around like let's say one point five percent. And for the well - m uh HM they are also around one point five.
Professor A: But {disfmarker} OK, so you {disfmarker} these {disfmarker} these degradations you were talking about were on the well - matched case
PhD F: So.
Professor A: Uh. Do the {disfmarker} does the new filter make things uh better or worse for the other cases?
PhD F: Yeah. But. Uh. About the same. It doesn't hurt. Yeah.
Professor A: Doesn't hurt, but doesn't get a little better, or something.
PhD F: No.
Professor A: No. OK, so {vocalsound} um I guess the argument one might make is that," Yeah, if you looked at one of these cases {vocalsound} and you jiggle something and it changes {vocalsound} then uh you're not quite sure what to make of it. But when you look across a bunch of these and there's some {disfmarker} some pattern, um {disfmarker} I mean, so eh h here's all the {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if in all these different cases {vocalsound} it never gets better, and there's significant number of cases where it gets worse, {vocalsound} then you're probably {pause} hurting things, {vocalsound} I would say. So um {vocalsound} I mean at the very least that would be a reasonably prediction of what would happen with {disfmarker} with a different test set, that you're not jiggling things with. So I guess the question is if you can do better than this. If you can {disfmarker} if we can approximate {vocalsound} the old numbers while still keeping the latency down.
PhD F: Mmm. Yeah.
Professor A: Uh, so. Um. What I was asking, though, is uh {disfmarker} are {disfmarker} what's {disfmarker} what's the level of communication with uh {vocalsound} the O G I gang now, about this and {disfmarker}
PhD F: Well, we are exchanging mail as soon as we {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we have significant results.
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD F: Um. Yeah. For the moment, they are working on integrating {vocalsound} the um {vocalsound} spectral subtraction apparently from Ericsson.
Professor A: Mm - hmm.
PhD F: Um. Yeah. And so. Yeah. We are working on our side on other things like {vocalsound} uh also trying a sup spectral subtraction but of {disfmarker} of our own, I mean, another {vocalsound} spectral substraction.
Professor A: Mm - hmm.
PhD F: Um. Yeah. So I think it's {disfmarker} it's OK. It's going {disfmarker}
Professor A: Is there any further discussion about this {disfmarker} this idea of {disfmarker} of having some sort of source code control?
PhD F: Yeah. Well. For the moment they're {disfmarker} uh everybody's quite um {disfmarker} There is this Eurospeech deadline, so.
Professor A: I see.
PhD F: Um. And. Yeah. But yeah. As soon as we have something that's significant and that's better than {disfmarker} than what was submitted, we will fix {disfmarker} fix the system and {disfmarker} But we've not discussed it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} this yet, yeah.
Professor A: Yeah. Sounds like a great idea but {disfmarker} but I think that {disfmarker} that um {vocalsound} he's saying people are sort of scrambling for a Eurospeech deadline.
PhD F: Mmm.
Professor A: But that'll be uh, uh done in a week. So, maybe after {vocalsound} this next one.
PhD F: Yeah.
PhD B: Wow! Already a week! Man!
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD B: You're right. That's amazing.
Professor A: Yeah. Anybo - anybody in the {disfmarker} in this group do doing anything for Eurospeech?
PhD F: S
Professor A: Or, is that what {disfmarker} is that {disfmarker}
PhD F: Yeah we are {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We are trying to {disfmarker} to do something with the Meeting Recorder digits,
Professor A: Right.
PhD F: and {disfmarker} But yeah. Yeah. And the good thing is that {pause} there is this first deadline,
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD F: and, well, some people from OGI are working on a paper for this, but there is also the um {vocalsound} special session about th Aurora which is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh which has an extended deadline. So. The deadline is in May.
Professor A: For uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Oh, for Eurospeech?
PhD F: For th Yeah.
Professor A: Oh!
PhD F: So f only for the experiments on Aurora. So it {disfmarker} it's good,
Professor A: Oh, a special dispensation.
PhD F: yeah.
Professor A: That's great.
PhD B: Mm - hmm. Where is Eurospeech this year?
PhD F: It's in Denmark.
Professor A: Aalborg {disfmarker} Aalborg uh
PhD B: Oh.
Professor A: So the deadline {disfmarker} When's the deadline? When's the deadline?
PhD F: Hmm? I think it's the thirteenth of May.
Professor A: That's great! It's great. So we should definitely get something in for that.
PhD F: Yeah.
Professor A: But on meeting digits, maybe there's {disfmarker} Maybe.
PhD F: Yeah.
Professor A: Maybe.
PhD F: So it would be for the first deadline.
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD F: Nnn.
Professor A: Yeah. So, I mean, I {disfmarker} I think that you could certainly start looking at {disfmarker} at the issue uh but {disfmarker} but uh {vocalsound} I think it's probably, on s from what Stephane is saying, it's {disfmarker} it's unlikely to get sort of active participation from the two sides until after they've {disfmarker}
PhD B: Well I could at least {disfmarker} Well, I'm going to be out next week but I could {pause} try to look into like this uh CVS over the web. That seems to be a very popular {vocalsound} way of {pause} people distributing changes and {disfmarker} over, you know, multiple sites and things
Professor A: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: so maybe {vocalsound} if I can figure out how do that easily and then pass the information on to everybody so that it's {vocalsound} you know, as easy to do as possible and {disfmarker} and people don't {disfmarker} it won't interfere with {comment} their regular work, then maybe that would be good. And I think we could use it for other things around here too. So.
Professor A: Good.
Grad C: That's cool. And if you're interested in using CVS, I've set it up here,
PhD B: Oh great.
Grad C: so.
PhD B: OK.
Grad C: um j
PhD B: I used it a long time ago but it's been a while so maybe I can ask you some questions.
Grad C: Oh. So. I'll be away tomorrow and Monday but I'll be back on Tuesday or Wednesday.
PhD B: OK.
Professor A: Yeah. Dave, the other thing, actually, is {disfmarker} is this business about this wave form. Maybe you and I can talk a little bit at some point about {vocalsound} coming up with a better {vocalsound} uh demonstration of the effects of reverberation for our web page, cuz uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker} the uh {vocalsound} um I mean, actually the {disfmarker} the uh It made a good {disfmarker} good audio demonstration because when we could play that clip the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the really {vocalsound} obvious difference is that you can hear two voices and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} in the second one and only hear {disfmarker}
PhD B: Maybe we could just {pause} like, talk into a cup.
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD B: Some good reverb.
Professor A: No, I mean, it sound {disfmarker} it sounds pretty reverberant, but I mean you can't {disfmarker} when you play it back in a room with a {disfmarker} you know a big room, {vocalsound} nobody can hear that difference really.
Grad C: Yeah.
Professor A: They hear that it's lower amplitude and they hear there's a second voice,
Grad C: Uh - huh.
Professor A: um {vocalsound} but uh that {disfmarker} actually that makes for a perfectly good demo because that's a real obvious thing, that you hear two voices.
PhD B: But not of reverberation.
Professor A: Yeah.
Grad C: A boom.
Professor A: Well that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that's OK. But for the {disfmarker} the visual, just, you know, I'd like to have uh {vocalsound} uh, you know, the spectrogram again,
Grad C: Yeah.
Professor A: because you're {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} you're visual {vocalsound} uh abilities as a human being are so good {vocalsound} you can pick out {disfmarker} you know, you {disfmarker} you look at the good one, you look at the cru the screwed up one, and {disfmarker} and you can see the features in it without trying to @ @ {disfmarker}
PhD B: I noticed that in the pictures.
Professor A: yeah.
PhD B: I thought" hey, you know th" I {disfmarker} My initial thought was" this is not too bad!" Professor A: Right. But you have to {disfmarker} you know, if you look at it closely, you see" well, here's a place where this one has a big formant {disfmarker} uh uh formant {disfmarker} maj major formants here are {disfmarker} {vocalsound} are moving quite a bit." And then you look in the other one and they look practically flat.
PhD B: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: So I mean you could {disfmarker} that's why I was thinking, in a section like that, you could take a look {disfmarker} look at just that part of the spectrogram and you could say" Oh yeah. This {disfmarker} this really distorted it quite a bit." PhD B: Yeah. The main thing that struck me in looking at those two spectrograms was the difference in the high frequencies. It looked like {vocalsound} for the one that was farther away, you know, it really {disfmarker} everything was attenuated
Professor A: Right.
PhD B: and {disfmarker} I mean that was the main visual thing that I noticed.
Professor A: Right. But it's {disfmarker} it's uh {disfmarker} So. Yeah. So there are {disfmarker} clearly are spectral effects. Since you're getting all this indirect energy, then a lot of it does have {disfmarker} have uh {vocalsound} reduced high frequencies. But um the other thing is the temporal courses of things really are changed, and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and uh we want to show that, in some obvious way. The reason I put the wave forms in there was because {vocalsound} uh they {disfmarker} they do look quite different. Uh. And so I thought" Oh, this is good." but I {disfmarker} {vocalsound} I just uh {disfmarker} After {disfmarker} after uh they were put in there I didn't really look at them anymore, cuz I just {disfmarker} they were different. So {vocalsound} I want something that has a {disfmarker} is a more interesting explanation for why they're different. Um.
Grad C: Oh. So maybe we can just substitute one of these wave forms and um {vocalsound} then do some kind of zoom in on the spectrogram on an interesting area.
Professor A: Something like that. Yeah.
Grad C: Uh - huh.
Professor A: The other thing that we had in there that I didn't like was that um {vocalsound} the most obvious characteristic of the difference uh when you listen to it is that there's a second voice, and the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the uh {vocalsound} cuts that we have there actually don't correspond to the full wave form. It's just the first {disfmarker} I think there was something where he was having some trouble getting so much in, or. I {disfmarker} I forget the reason behind it. But {vocalsound} it {disfmarker} it's um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's the first six seconds or something {vocalsound} of it and it's in {vocalsound} the seventh or eighth second or something where @ @ the second voice comes in. So we {disfmarker} we would like to actually see {vocalsound} the voice coming in, too, I think, since that's the most obvious thing {pause} when you listen to it.
Grad C: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: So. Um.
PhD F: Uh, yeah. Yeah. I brought some {disfmarker} I don't know if {disfmarker} {vocalsound} some {vocalsound} figures here. Well. I start {disfmarker} we started to work on spectral subtraction. And {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} the preliminary results were very bad.
Professor A: Uh - huh.
PhD F: So the thing that we did is just to add spectral subtraction before this, the Wall uh process, which contains LDA on - line normalization. And it hurts uh a lot.
Professor A: Uh - huh.
PhD F: And so we started to look at {disfmarker} at um things like this, which is, well, it's {disfmarker} Yeah. So you have the C - zero parameters for one uh Italian utterance.
PhD D: You can @ @.
PhD F: And I plotted this for two channels. Channel zero is the close mic microphone, and channel one is the distant microphone. And it's perfectly synchronized, so. And the sentence contain only one word, which is" Due" And it can't clearly be seen. Where {disfmarker} where is it?
Professor A: Uh - huh.
PhD F: Where is the word?
PhD B: This is {disfmarker} this is,
Grad E: Hmm.
PhD B: oh, a plot of C - zero,
PhD F: So.
PhD B: the energy.
PhD F: This is a plot of C - zero, uh when we don't use spectral substraction, and when there is no on - line normalization.
Professor A: Mm - hmm.
PhD F: So. There is just some filtering with the LDA and {vocalsound} and some downsampling, upsampling.
PhD B: C - zero is the close talking? {disfmarker}
PhD F: So.
PhD B: uh the close channel?
PhD F: Yeah. Yeah.
PhD B: and s channel one is the {disfmarker}
PhD F: Yeah. So C - zero is very clean, actually.
PhD B: Yeah.
PhD F: Uh then when we apply mean normalization it looks like the second figure, though it is not. Which is good. Well, the noise part is around zero
Professor A: Mm - hmm.
PhD F: and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} And then the third figure is what happens when we apply mean normalization and variance normalization. So. What we can clearly see is that on the speech portion {vocalsound} the two channel come {disfmarker} becomes very close, but also what happens on the noisy portion is that the variance of the noise is {disfmarker}
Professor A: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: This is still being a plot of C - zero? OK.
PhD F: Yeah. This is still C - zero.
PhD B: Can I ask um what does variance normalization do? w What is the effect of that?
Professor A: Normalizes the variance.
PhD F: So it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} Yeah.
PhD B: I mean
PhD F: It normalized th the standard deviation.
PhD B: y Yeah.
PhD F: So it {disfmarker}
PhD B: No, I understand that,
PhD F: You {disfmarker} you get an estimate of the standard deviation.
PhD B: but I mean {disfmarker}
PhD F: That's
PhD B: No.
PhD F: um {disfmarker}
PhD B: No, I understand what it is, but I mean, what does it {disfmarker} what's {disfmarker} what is
PhD F: Yeah but.
PhD B: uh {disfmarker}
Professor A: What's the rationale?
PhD B: We Yeah. Yeah. Why {disfmarker} why do it?
PhD F: Uh.
Professor A: Well, I mean, because {vocalsound} everything uh {disfmarker} If you have a system based on Gaussians, everything is based on means and variances.
PhD B: Yeah.
Professor A: So if there's an overall {vocalsound} reason {disfmarker} You know, it's like uh if you were doing uh image processing and in some of the pictures you were looking at, uh there was a lot of light uh and {disfmarker} and in some, there was low light,
PhD B: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: you know, you would want to adjust for that in order to compare things.
PhD B: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: And the variance is just sort of like the next moment, you know? So uh {vocalsound} what if um one set of pictures was taken uh so that throughout the course it was {disfmarker} went through daylight and night uh {vocalsound} um um ten times, another time it went thr I mean i is, you know, how {disfmarker} how much {disfmarker} {vocalsound} how much vari
PhD B: Oh, OK.
Professor A: Or no. I guess a better example would be {vocalsound} how much of the light was coming in from outside rather than artificial light. So if it was a lot {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if more was coming from outside, then there'd be the bigger effect of the {disfmarker} of the {disfmarker} of the change in the {disfmarker} So every mean {disfmarker} every {disfmarker} all {disfmarker} all of the {disfmarker} the parameters that you have, especially the variances, are going to be affected by the overall variance.
PhD B: Oh, OK. Uh - huh.
Professor A: And so, in principle, you {disfmarker} if you remove that source, then, you know, you can {disfmarker}
PhD B: I see. OK. So would {disfmarker} the major effect is {disfmarker} that you're gonna get is by normalizing the means,
Professor A: That's the first order but {disfmarker} thing,
PhD B: but it may help {disfmarker} First - order effects.
Professor A: but then the second order is {disfmarker} is the variances
PhD B: And it may help to do the variance. OK.
Professor A: because, again, if you {disfmarker} if you're trying to distinguish between E and B
PhD B: OK.
Professor A: if it just so happens that the E's {vocalsound} were a more {disfmarker} you know, were recorded when {disfmarker} when the energy was {disfmarker} was {disfmarker} was larger or something,
PhD B: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
Professor A: or the variation in it was larger, {vocalsound} uh than with the B's, then this will be {disfmarker} give you some {disfmarker} some bias.
PhD B:
Professor A: So the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it's removing these sources of variability in the data {vocalsound} that have nothing to do with the linguistic component.
PhD B: OK.
PhD F: Mmm.
PhD B: Gotcha. OK. Sorry to interrupt.
Professor A: But the {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} but let me as ask {disfmarker} ask you something.
PhD F: Yep. And it {disfmarker} and this {disfmarker}
Professor A: i is {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} If you have a good voice activity detector, isn't {disfmarker} isn't it gonna pull that out?
PhD F: Yeah. Sure. If they are good. Yeah. Well what it {disfmarker} it shows is that, yeah, perhaps a good voice activity detector is {disfmarker} is good before on - line normalization and that's what uh {vocalsound} we've already observed. But uh, yeah, voice activity detection is not {vocalsound} {vocalsound} an easy thing neither.
PhD B: But after you do this, after you do the variance normalization {disfmarker} I mean.
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: I don't know, it seems like this would be a lot easier than this signal to work with.
PhD F: Yeah. So. What I notice is that, while I prefer to look at the second figure than at the third one, well, because you clearly see where speech is.
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD B: Yeah.
PhD F: But the problem is that on the speech portion, channel zero and channel one are more different than when you use variance normalization where channel zero and channel one become closer.
Professor A: Right.
PhD B: But for the purposes of finding the speech {disfmarker}
PhD F: And {disfmarker} Yeah, but here {disfmarker}
PhD B: You're more interested in the difference between the speech and the nonspeech,
PhD F: Yeah.
PhD B: right?
PhD F: Yeah. So I think, yeah. For I th I think that it {disfmarker} perhaps it shows that {vocalsound} uh the parameters that the voice activity detector should use {disfmarker} uh have to use should be different than the parameter that have to be used for speech recognition.
Professor A: Yeah. So basically you want to reduce this effect.
PhD F: Well, y
Professor A: So you can do that by doing the voi voice activity detection. You also could do it by spect uh spectral subtraction before the {vocalsound} variance normalization, right?
PhD F: Yeah, but it's not clear, yeah.
Professor A: So uh {disfmarker}
PhD F: We So. Well. It's just to
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD F: the {disfmarker} the number that at that are here are recognition experiments on Italian HM and MM {vocalsound} with these two kinds of parameters. And, {pause} well, it's better with variance normalization.
Professor A: Yeah. Yeah. So it does get better even though it looks ugly.
PhD F: Uh {disfmarker}
Professor A: OK. but does this have the voice activity detection in it?
PhD F: Yeah.
Professor A: OK.
PhD F: Um.
Professor A: So.
Grad E: OK.
PhD B: Where's th
PhD F: But the fact is that the voice activity detector doesn't work on channel one. So. Yeah.
Professor A: Uh - huh.
PhD B: Where {disfmarker} at what stage is the voice activity detector applied? Is it applied here or a after the variance normalization?
PhD F: Hmm?
Professor A: Spectral subtraction, I guess.
PhD B: or {disfmarker}
PhD F: It's applied before variance normalization. So it's a good thing,
PhD B: Oh.
PhD F: because I guess voice activity detection on this should {disfmarker} could be worse.
PhD B: Yeah. Is it applied all the way back here?
PhD F: It's applied the um on, yeah, something like this,
PhD B: Maybe that's why it doesn't work for channel one.
PhD F: yeah. Perhaps, yeah.
Professor A: Can I {disfmarker}
PhD F: So we could perhaps do just mean normalization before VAD.
PhD B: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: Mm - hmm. Can I ask a, I mean {disfmarker} a sort of top - level question, which is {vocalsound} um" if {disfmarker} if most of what the OGI folk are working with is trying to {vocalsound} integrate this other {disfmarker} other uh spectral subtraction, {vocalsound} why are we worrying about it?" PhD F: Mm - hmm. About? Spectral subtraction?
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD F: It's just uh {disfmarker} Well it's another {disfmarker} They are trying to u to use the um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the Ericsson and we're trying to use something {disfmarker} something else. And. Yeah, and also to understand what happens because
Professor A: OK.
PhD F: uh fff Well. When we do spectral subtraction, actually, I think {vocalsound} that this is the {disfmarker} the two last figures.
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD F: Um. It seems that after spectral subtraction, speech is more emerging now uh {vocalsound} than {disfmarker} than before.
Professor A: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: Speech is more what?
PhD F: Well, the difference between the energy of the speech and the energy of the n spectral subtrac subtracted noise portion is {disfmarker} is larger.
Professor A: Mm - hmm.
PhD F: Well, if you compare the first figure to this one {disfmarker} Actually the scale is not the same, but if you look at the {disfmarker} the numbers um {vocalsound} you clearly see that the difference between the C - zero of the speech and C - zero of the noise portion is larger. Uh but what happens is that after spectral subtraction, {vocalsound} you also increase the variance of this {disfmarker} of C - zero.
Professor A: Mm - hmm.
PhD F: And so if you apply variance normalization on this, it completely sc screw everything. Well.
Professor A: Mm - hmm.
PhD F: Um. Uh. Yeah. So yeah. And what they did at OGI is just {vocalsound} uh they don't use on - line normalization, for the moment, on spectral subtraction and I think {disfmarker} Yeah. I think as soon as they will try on - line normalization {vocalsound} there will be a problem. So yeah, we're working on the same thing but {vocalsound} I think uh with different {disfmarker} different system and {disfmarker}
Professor A: Right. I mean, i the Intellectually it's interesting to work on things th uh one way or the other
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: but I'm {disfmarker} I'm just wondering if um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} on the list of things that there are to do, if there are things that we won't do because {vocalsound} we've got two groups doing the same thing.
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: Um. That's {disfmarker}
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: Um. Just {disfmarker} just asking. Uh. I mean, it's {disfmarker}
PhD F: Yeah, well,
PhD B: There also could be {disfmarker} I mean. I can maybe see a reason f for both working on it too
PhD F: uh.
PhD B: if {vocalsound} um you know, if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if you work on something else and {disfmarker} and you're waiting for them to give you {vocalsound} spectral subtraction {disfmarker} I mean it's hard to know whether {vocalsound} the effects that you get from the other experiments you do will {vocalsound} carry over once you then bring in their spectral subtraction module. So it's {disfmarker} it's almost like everything's held up waiting for this {vocalsound} one thing. I don't know if that's true or not, but I could see how {disfmarker}
PhD F: Mmm.
Professor A: I don't know.
PhD B: Maybe that's what you were thinking.
Professor A: I don't know. {vocalsound} I mean, we still evidently have a latency reduction plan which {disfmarker} which isn't quite what you'd like it to be. That {disfmarker} that seems like one prominent thing. And then uh weren't issues of {disfmarker} of having a {disfmarker} a second stream or something? That was {disfmarker} Was it {disfmarker} There was this business that, you know, we {disfmarker} we could use up the full forty - eight hundred bits, and {disfmarker}
PhD F: Yeah. But I think they'I think we want to work on this. They also want to work on this, so. Uh. {vocalsound} yeah. We {disfmarker} we will try MSG, but um, yeah. And they are t I think they want to work on the second stream also, but more with {vocalsound} some kind of multi - band or, well, what they call TRAP or generalized TRAP.
Professor A: Mm - hmm.
PhD F: Um. So.
Professor A: OK. Do you remember when the next meeting is supposed to be? the next uh {disfmarker}
PhD F: It's uh in June.
Professor A: In June. OK.
PhD F: Yeah.
Professor A: Yeah. Um. Yeah, the other thing is that you saw that {disfmarker} that mail about uh the VAD {disfmarker} V A Ds performing quite differently? That that uh So um. This {disfmarker} there was this experiment of uh" what if we just take the baseline?" PhD F: Mmm.
Professor A: set uh of features, just mel cepstra, and you inc incorporate the different V A And it looks like the {disfmarker} the French VAD is actually uh better {disfmarker} significantly better.
PhD B: Improves the baseline?
Professor A: Yeah. Yeah.
PhD F: Yeah but I don't know which VAD they use. Uh. If the use the small VAD I th I think it's on {disfmarker} I think it's easy to do better because it doesn't work at all. So. I {disfmarker} I don't know which {disfmarker} which one. It's Pratibha that {disfmarker} that did this experiment.
PhD D: Yeah.
PhD F: Um. We should ask which VAD she used.
PhD D: I don't @ @. He {disfmarker} Actually, I think that he say with the good VAD of {disfmarker} from OGI and with the Alcatel VAD. And the experiment was sometime better, sometime worse.
PhD F: Yeah but I {disfmarker} it's uh {disfmarker} I think you were talking about the other mail that used VAD on the reference features.
Professor A: Yes.
PhD F: Yeah.
Professor A: And on that one, uh the French one is {disfmarker} was better.
PhD D: I don't remember.
Professor A: It was just better.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: I mean it was enough better that {disfmarker} that it would {vocalsound} uh account for a fair amount of the difference between our performance, actually.
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: So. {vocalsound} Uh. So if they have a better one, we should use it. I mean. You know? it's {disfmarker} you can't work on everything.
PhD F: Yeah.
Professor A: Uh. {vocalsound} Uh. Yeah.
PhD F: Yeah, so we should find out if it's really better. I mean if it {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} compared to the small or the big network.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD F: And perhaps we can easily improve if {disfmarker} if we put like mean normalization before the {disfmarker} before the VAD. Because {disfmarker} {vocalsound} as {disfmarker} as you've {pause} mentioned.
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD F: Mmm.
Professor A: H Hynek will be back in town uh the week after next, back {disfmarker} back in the country. So. And start {disfmarker} start organizing uh {vocalsound} more visits and connections and so forth,
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: and {disfmarker} uh working towards June.
PhD F: Yeah.
PhD D: Also is Stephane was thinking that {vocalsound} maybe it was useful to f to think about uh {vocalsound} voiced - unvoiced {disfmarker}
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: to work uh here in voiced - unvoiced detection.
PhD F: Yeah. Yeah.
PhD D: And we are looking {vocalsound} {vocalsound} in the uh signal.
PhD F: Yeah, my feeling is that um actually {vocalsound} when we look at all the proposals, ev everybody is still using some kind of spectral envelope
Professor A: Right.
PhD F: and um it's {disfmarker}
Professor A: No use of pitch uh basically. Yeah.
PhD F: Yeah, well, not pitch, but to look at the um fine {disfmarker} at the {disfmarker} at the high re high resolution spectrum.
Professor A: Yeah. Well, it {disfmarker}
PhD F: So. We don't necessarily want to find the {disfmarker} the pitch of the {disfmarker} of the sound but uh {disfmarker} Cuz I have a feeling that {vocalsound} when we look {disfmarker} when we look at the {disfmarker} just at the envelope there is no way you can tell if it's voiced and unvoiced, if there is some {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} it's easy in clean speech because voiced sound are more low frequency and. So there would be more,
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD F: uh {disfmarker} there is the first formant, which is the larger and then voiced sound are more high frequencies cuz it's frication and {disfmarker}
Professor A: Right.
PhD F: But, yeah. When you have noise there is no um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} if {disfmarker} if you have a low frequency noise it could be taken for {disfmarker} for voiced speech and.
Professor A: Yeah, you can make these mistakes,
PhD F: So.
Professor A: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker}
PhD B: Isn't there some other
PhD F: S
PhD B: uh d
PhD F: So I think that it {disfmarker} it would be good {disfmarker} Yeah, yeah, well, go {disfmarker} go on.
PhD B: Uh, I was just gonna say isn't there {disfmarker} {vocalsound} aren't {disfmarker} aren't there lots of ideas for doing voice activity, or speech - nonspeech rather, {comment} um by looking at {vocalsound} um, you know, uh {vocalsound} I guess harmonics or looking across time {disfmarker}
Professor A: Well, I think he was talking about the voiced - unvoiced, though,
PhD F: Mmm.
Professor A: right? So, not the speech - nonspeech.
PhD B: Yeah. Well even with e
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD B: uh w ah you know, uh even with the voiced - non {pause} voiced - unvoiced
PhD F: Mmm.
PhD B: um {disfmarker} I thought that you or {pause} somebody was talking about {disfmarker}
Professor A: Well. Uh yeah. B We should let him finish what he w he was gonna say,
PhD F: So.
PhD B: OK.
Professor A: and {disfmarker}
PhD B: So go ahead.
PhD F: Um yeah, so yeah, I think if we try to develop a second stream well, there would be one stream that is the envelope and the second, it could be interesting to have that's {disfmarker} something that's more related to the fine structure of the spectrum. And. Yeah, so I don't know. We were thinking about like using ideas from {disfmarker} from Larry Saul, have a good voice detector, have a good, well, voiced - speech detector, that's working on {disfmarker} on the FFT and {vocalsound} uh
Professor A: U
PhD F: Larry Saul could be an idea. We were are thinking about just {vocalsound} kind of uh taking the spectrum and computing the variance of {disfmarker} of the high resolution spectrum {vocalsound} and things like this.
Professor A: So u s u OK. So {disfmarker} So many {vocalsound} tell you something about that. Uh we had a guy here some years ago who did some work on {vocalsound} um {vocalsound} making use of voicing information uh to {vocalsound} help in reducing the noise.
PhD F: Yeah?
Professor A: So what he was doing is basically y you {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you do estimate the pitch.
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: And um you {disfmarker} from that you {disfmarker} you estimate {disfmarker} or you estimate fine harmonic structure, whichev ei either way, it's more or less the same. But {vocalsound} uh the thing is that um you then {vocalsound} can get rid of things that are not {disfmarker} i if there is strong harmonic structure, {vocalsound} you can throw away stuff that's {disfmarker} that's non - harmonic.
PhD F: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
Professor A: And that {disfmarker} that is another way of getting rid of part of the noise
PhD F: Yeah.
Professor A: So um that's something {vocalsound} that is sort of finer,
PhD F: Yeah.
Professor A: brings in a little more information than just spectral subtraction. Um.
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: And he had some {disfmarker} I mean, he did that sort of in combination with RASTA. It was kind of like RASTA was taking care of convolutional stuff
PhD F: Mmm.
Professor A: and he was {disfmarker}
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: and {disfmarker} and got some {disfmarker} some decent results doing that. So that {disfmarker} that's another {disfmarker} another way. But yeah, there's {disfmarker} there's {disfmarker}
PhD F: Yeah. Mmm.
Professor A: Right. There's all these cues. We've actually back when Chuck was here we did some voiced - unvoiced uh {vocalsound} classification using a bunch of these,
PhD F: But {disfmarker}
Professor A: and {disfmarker} and uh works OK. Obviously it's not perfect but um {disfmarker}
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: But the thing is that you can't {disfmarker} given the constraints of this task, we can't, {vocalsound} in a very nice way, feed {pause} forward to the recognizer the information {disfmarker} the probabilistic information that you might get about whether it's voiced or unvoiced, where w we can't you know affect the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the uh distributions or anything.
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: But we {disfmarker} what we uh {disfmarker} I guess we could Yeah.
PhD B: Didn't the head dude send around that message? Yeah, I think you sent us all a copy of the message, where he was saying that {disfmarker} I I'm not sure, exactly, what the gist of what he was saying, but something having to do with the voice {vocalsound} activity detector and that it will {disfmarker} {vocalsound} that people shouldn't put their own in or something. It was gonna be a {disfmarker}
Professor A: That {disfmarker} But {disfmarker} OK. So that's voice activity detector as opposed to voicing detector.
PhD F: They didn't.
Professor A: So we're talking about something a little different.
PhD F: Mmm.
PhD B: Oh, I'm sorry.
Professor A: Right?
PhD B: I {disfmarker} I missed that.
PhD F: Mmm.
Professor A: I guess what you could do, maybe this would be w useful, if {disfmarker} if you have {disfmarker} if you view the second stream, yeah, before you {disfmarker} before you do KLT's and so forth, if you do view it as probabilities, and if it's an independent {disfmarker} So, if it's {disfmarker} if it's uh not so much {vocalsound} envelope - based by fine - structure - based, uh looking at harmonicity or something like that, um if you get a probability from that information and then multiply it by {disfmarker} you know, multiply by all the voiced {vocalsound} outputs and all the unvoiced outputs, you know, then {vocalsound} use that as the
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: uh {disfmarker} take the log of that or {vocalsound} uh pre pre uh {disfmarker} pre - nonlinearity,
PhD F: Yeah. i if {disfmarker}
Professor A: uh and do the KLT on the {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on that,
PhD F: Yeah.
Professor A: then that would {disfmarker} that would I guess be uh a reasonable use of independent information. So maybe that's what you meant. And then that would be {disfmarker}
PhD F: Yeah, well, I was not thinking this {disfmarker} yeah, this could be an yeah So you mean have some kind of probability for the v the voicing
Professor A: R Right. So you have a second neural net.
PhD F: and then use a tandem system
Professor A: It could be pretty small. Yeah. If you have a tandem system and then you have some kind of {disfmarker} it can be pretty small {disfmarker} net {disfmarker}
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: we used {disfmarker} we d did some of this stuff. Uh I {disfmarker} I did, some years ago,
PhD F: Yeah.
Professor A: and the {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you use {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the thing is to use information primarily that's different as you say, it's more fine - structure - based than {disfmarker} than envelope - based
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: uh so then it you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you can pretty much guarantee it's stuff that you're not looking at very well with the other one, and uh then you only use for this one distinction.
PhD F: Alright.
Professor A: And {disfmarker} and so now you've got a probability of the cases, and you've got uh the probability of the finer uh categories on the other side. You multiply them where appropriate and uh {vocalsound} um
PhD F: I see, yeah. Mm - hmm.
Professor A: if they really are from independent {pause} information sources then {vocalsound} they should have different kinds of errors
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: and roughly independent errors, and {vocalsound} it's a good choice for {disfmarker}
PhD F: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Yeah.
Professor A: Uh. Yeah, that's a good idea.
PhD F: Yeah. Because, yeah, well, spectral subtraction is good and we could u we could use the fine structure to {disfmarker} to have a better estimate of the noise but {vocalsound} still there is this issue with spectral subtraction that it seems to increase the variance of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD F: um Well it's this musical noise which is annoying if you d you do some kind of on - line normalization after.
Professor A: Right.
PhD F: So. Um. Yeah. Well. Spectral subtraction and on - line normalization don't seem to {disfmarker} to go together very well. I
Professor A: Or if you do a spectral subtraction {disfmarker} do some spectral subtraction first and then do some on - line normalization then do some more spectral subtraction {disfmarker} I mean, maybe {disfmarker} maybe you can do it layers or something so it doesn't {disfmarker} doesn't hurt too much or something.
PhD F: Ah, yeah.
Professor A: But it {disfmarker} but uh, anyway I think I was sort of arguing against myself there by giving that example
PhD F: Yeah.
Professor A: uh I mean cuz I was already sort of {vocalsound} suggesting that we should be careful about not spending too much time on exactly what they're doing In fact if you get {disfmarker} if you go into uh {disfmarker} a uh harmonics - related thing {vocalsound} it's definitely going to be different than what they're doing and uh uh
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: should have some interesting properties in noise. Um. {vocalsound} I know that when have people have done {pause} um sort of the obvious thing of taking {vocalsound} uh your feature vector and adding {pause} in some variables which are {vocalsound} pitch related or uh that {disfmarker} it hasn't {disfmarker} my impression it hasn't particularly helped. Uh. Has not.
PhD F: It {disfmarker} it i has not,
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD F: yeah.
Professor A: But I think uh {pause} that's {disfmarker} that's a question for this uh you know extending the feature vector versus having different streams.
PhD F: Oh. Was it nois noisy condition? the example that you {disfmarker} you just
Professor A: And {disfmarker} and it may not have been noisy conditions.
PhD F: Yeah.
Professor A: Yeah. I {disfmarker} I don't remember the example but it was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it was on some DARPA data and some years ago and so it probably wasn't, actually
PhD F: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Yeah. But we were thinking, we discussed with Barry about this, and {vocalsound} perhaps {vocalsound} thinking {disfmarker} we were thinking about some kind of sheet cheating experiment where we would use TIMIT
Professor A: Uh - huh.
PhD F: and see if giving the d uh, this voicing bit would help in {disfmarker} in terms of uh frame classification.
Professor A: Why don't you {disfmarker} why don't you just do it with Aurora?
PhD F: Mmm.
Professor A: Just any i in {disfmarker} in each {disfmarker} in each frame
PhD F: Yeah, but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} B but we cannot do the cheating, this cheating thing.
Grad E: We're {disfmarker}
Professor A: uh {disfmarker}
Grad E: We need labels.
Professor A: Why not?
PhD F: Well. Cuz we don't have {disfmarker} Well, for Italian perhaps we have, but we don't have this labeling for Aurora. We just have a labeling with word models
Professor A: I see.
PhD F: but not for phonemes.
PhD D: Not for foreigners.
Grad E: we don't have frame {disfmarker} frame level transcriptions.
Professor A: Um.
PhD D: Right.
PhD F: Um. {vocalsound} Yeah.
Professor A: But you could {disfmarker} I mean you can {disfmarker} you can align so that {disfmarker} It's not perfect, but if you {disfmarker} if you know what was said and {disfmarker}
PhD B: But the problem is that their models are all word level models. So there's no phone models {pause} that you get alignments for.
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: Oh.
PhD B: You {disfmarker} So you could find out where the word boundaries are but that's about it.
Professor A: Yeah. I see.
Grad E: S But we could use uh the {disfmarker} the noisy version that TIMIT, which {vocalsound} you know, is similar to the {disfmarker} the noises found in the TI - digits {vocalsound} um portion of Aurora.
PhD F: Yeah. noise, yeah. Yeah, that's right, yep. Mmm.
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD F: Well, I guess {disfmarker} I guess we can {disfmarker} we can say that it will help, but I don't know. If this voicing bit doesn't help, uh, I think we don't have to {disfmarker} to work more about this because {disfmarker}
Professor A: Uh.
PhD F: Uh. It's just to know if it {disfmarker} how much i it will help
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD F: and to have an idea of how much we can gain.
Professor A: Right. I mean in experiments that we did a long time ago
PhD F: Mmm.
Professor A: and different ta it was probably Resource Management or something, um, I think you were getting {pause} something like still eight or nine percent error on the voicing, as I recall. And um, so um
Grad E: Another person's voice.
Professor A: what that said is that, sort of, left to its own devices, like without the {disfmarker} a strong language model and so forth, that you would {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you would make significant number of errors {vocalsound} just with your uh probabilistic machinery in deciding
PhD B: It also {disfmarker}
Professor A: one oh
PhD B: Yeah, the {disfmarker} though I think uh there was one problem with that in that, you know, we used canonical mapping so {vocalsound} our truth may not have really been {pause} true to the acoustics.
Professor A: Uh - huh.
Grad E: Hmm.
PhD B: So.
PhD F: Mmm.
Professor A: Yeah. Well back twenty years ago when I did this voiced - unvoiced stuff, we were getting more like {vocalsound} ninety - seven or ninety - eight percent correct in voicing. But that was {vocalsound} speaker - dependent {vocalsound} actually. We were doing training {vocalsound} on a particular announcer
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: and {disfmarker} and getting a {vocalsound} very good handle on the features.
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: And we did this complex feature selection thing where we looked at all the different possible features one could have for voicing and {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} and exhaustively searched {vocalsound} all size subsets and {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for that particular speaker and you'd find you know the five or six features which really did well on them.
PhD B: Wow!
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: And then doing {disfmarker} doing all of that we could get down to two or three percent error. But that, again, was speaker - dependent with {vocalsound} lots of feature selection
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: and a very complex sort of thing.
PhD F: Mmm.
Professor A: So I would {disfmarker} I would believe {vocalsound} that uh it was quite likely that um looking at envelope only, that we'd be {vocalsound} significantly worse than that.
PhD F: Mm - hmm.
Professor A: Uh.
PhD F: And the {disfmarker} all the {disfmarker} the SpeechCorders? what's the idea behind? Cuz they {disfmarker} they have to {disfmarker} Oh, they don't even have to detect voiced spe speech?
Professor A: The modern ones don't do a {disfmarker} {vocalsound} a simple switch.
PhD F: They just work on the code book
Professor A: They work on the code book excitation.
PhD F: and find out the best excitation.
Professor A: Yeah they do {vocalsound} analysis - by - synthesis. They try {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they try every {disfmarker} every possible excitation they have in their code book and find the one that matches best.
PhD F: Yeah. Mmm. Alright. Yeah. So it would not help.
Professor A: Yeah.
Grad E: Hmm.
Professor A: Uh. O K.
PhD B: Can I just mention one other interesting thing?
Professor A: Yeah.
PhD B: Um. One of the ideas that we {pause} had come up with last week for things to try to {vocalsound} improve the system {disfmarker} Um. Actually I {disfmarker} I s we didn't {disfmarker} I guess I wrote this in after the meeting b but {vocalsound} the thought I had was um looking at the language model that's used in the HTK recognizer, which is basically just a big {vocalsound} loop,
Grad E: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: right? So you {disfmarker} it goes" digit" PhD D: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: and then that can be {disfmarker} either go to silence or go to another digit, which {disfmarker} That model would allow for the production of {vocalsound} infinitely long sequences of digits, right?
Professor A: Right.
PhD B: So. I thought" well I'm gonna just look at the {disfmarker} what actual digit strings do occur in the training data." Professor A: Right.
PhD B: And the interesting thing was it turns out that there are no sequences of two - long or three - long digit strings {pause} in any of the Aurora training data. So it's either one, four, five, six, uh up to eleven, and then it skips and then there's some at sixteen.
Professor A: But what about the testing data?
PhD B: Um. I don't know. I didn't look at the test data yet.
Professor A: Yeah. I mean if there's some testing data that has {disfmarker} has {disfmarker} {vocalsound} has two or three {disfmarker}
PhD B: So. Yeah. But I just thought that was a little odd, that there were no two or three long {disfmarker} Sorry. So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} just for the heck of it, I made a little grammar which um, you know, had it's separate path {pause} for each length digit string you could get. So there was a one - long path and there was a four - long and a five - long
Professor A: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: and I tried that and it got way worse. There were lots of deletions.
Professor A: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: So it was {disfmarker} {vocalsound} you know, I {disfmarker} I didn't have any weights of these paths or {disfmarker} I didn't have anything like that.
Professor A: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: And I played with tweaking the {vocalsound} word transition penalties a bunch, but I couldn't go anywhere.
Professor A: Hmm.
PhD B: But um. I thought" well if I only allow {disfmarker}" Yeah, I guess I should have looked at {disfmarker} to see how often there was a mistake where a two - long or a three - long path was actually put out as a hypothesis. Um. But.
Professor A: Hmm.
PhD B: So to do that right you'd probably want to have {disfmarker} {vocalsound} allow for them all but then have weightings and things. So. I just thought that was a interesting {vocalsound} thing about the data.
Professor A: OK. So we're gonna read some more digit strings I guess?
PhD B: Yeah. You want to go ahead, Morgan?
Professor A: Sure. | The meeting began with the professor discussing the technical features of their recordings. The interaction between the hardware and the model had to be mediated through different techniques. Some members on the team were working on low-pass down-sampling as a replacement for LDA filters. Low-pass seemed to perform better, but the team was uncertain about its robustness. The professor thought that the team should submit something to Eurospeech and that they should further study reverberation. The professor thought that studying spectrograms would be a good place to start. The team then discussed VAD and line mean normalization as techniques for getting rid of noise. The meeting ended with a brief discussion on feature detection. | qmsum |
Why did the team discuss the merits and demerits of the existing remotes?
Project Manager: Um we are {disfmarker} So the meeting will have about the same format as the last time. So {gap} switching over I've just left uh my first two screens {gap}.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} mailed you the minutes of the last meeting uh just to save time.
User Interface: Okay. Cool.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um and is there any questions you have that arised from last meeting that are particularly bothering you? N
User Interface: Mm um. No, I don't think so.
Project Manager: No? Okay, cool.
Industrial Designer: No.
Project Manager: Then we shall start with a presentation from Raj.
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Hi, me Raj, again. Uh in this meeting I I'm going to discuss about the trend watching, uh how these trends is going to affect our market potential and how important is this. So we have to look on this. First of all methodology. The met methodology to find out the trend was incl uh was done in a way {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We have done a rec not only a recent remote control market survey, but we also considered the latest fre fashion trends of the market, because we think that this is also a factor which will affect our sales and profit. So what are our findings? In our {vocalsound} uh in our findings we have seen that {disfmarker} when we did our remote control market survey we found that uh people l uh people do have preference for tho fancy mobi uh f remote controls which look and feel very good, rather than having a functional look and feel uh good. So this sh this clearly indicates their preference for the design their outlook of the remote controls. So we should take into uh we should consider this factor as the most important factor, because this factor is twice as important, the second factor which is further ti twice the as important as the sec as uh the third factor. So this factor becomes the most important factor in our surv uh uh in our mark uh means in take {disfmarker} in designing our rem uh remote controls.
User Interface: The last one is the most important one, is it?
Marketing: No the first one is the
User Interface: Oh, sorry.
Marketing: uh the outlook of the mobile, the it should have a fancy outlook,
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: the fancy design uh rather than just having a functional look and feel good, it should have a fancy look and foo feel good.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: The second most important aspect is that remote control should be a technologically uh innovative. We must have some technological advancement in the remote control tha rather than just putting it as it is as the other remo uh remote controls are. So it uh should be technologically innovative like glow-in-the-dark or speech recognition, something like that.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So that indicates our technological advancement. And the third most important aspect in the ta to take into consideration is that it should be easy to use,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: like it shouldn't be too much co complicated,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: there shouldn't be too many buttons on this mobi uh remote control, it shouldn't be too complicated uh like this way. And it should be uh {disfmarker} and customers should be provided with manuals that is easy to understand in their local language, something. So that they could know how to use these remote controls. When we did uh f fashions uh, recent fashion uh {disfmarker} our recent fashion update shows that {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Sorry.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Ah yeah? {vocalsound}
User Interface: I was just reading fruit and vegetables.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Hard to know how we are going to incorporate that. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Y yeah uh yeah, we have to, because uh d you can see how people have related their clothes, shoes, {gap} and everything with fruits and vegetables,
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: because the g world is now changing it's trend towards organic, becoming more and more organic,
User Interface: Okay. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: We should make a big sponge lemon,
Marketing: becoming {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: and then it'd be it would be yellow.
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: It's {disfmarker}
Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Th that's very good.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. So something like that we we should do.
User Interface: Glow-in-the-dark. Okay.
Marketing: And people uh the f feel of the material is expected to be spongy rather than just having a plastic look, hard look.
Industrial Designer: Mm. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Well, that's good.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: That's what we kind of predicted anyway.
Marketing: So so that they could play with it while handi uh while handling it. So that should also be taken into consideration.
User Interface: Okay. Okay.
Marketing: So these are my views.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay, the spongy, not real spongy, you can {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Marketing: No it ca {vocalsound} y a {gap} {disfmarker}
User Interface: Do you think like rubber would be good or does it really want to be like gel kind of stuff?
Marketing: The rubber which is good for health and which is quite disposable that we can take into co
User Interface: Okay. Quite disposable.
Marketing: Yeah.'Cause we It shouldn't be have any harm to the environment also,
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: because our company is very well {gap} for taking all these concerns into consideration,
Project Manager: Alright, okay.
User Interface: Oh okay.
Marketing: so we don't want to have any harm to the society,
User Interface: Uh-huh. Okay.
Marketing: so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Fashion.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Mm'kay.
User Interface: Cool.
Marketing: So that's all. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Fruit and veg, well there you go.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Just what I think of when I think of a remote control. {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
User Interface: A remote control? Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap}
User Interface: And were there any factors that weren't important in the survey, that they said we don't want?
Marketing: S uh we didn't find out any such point.
User Interface: Or was it just {disfmarker} Okay. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Uh yes, there could be, but we couldn't find out any, so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm-mm-mm-mm.
User Interface: Cool.
Project Manager: Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm.
User Interface: F_, what is it? Um.
Project Manager: Function F_ eight.
User Interface: {gap} yeah.
Project Manager: Hmm.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Marketing: Yeah. {gap}
Project Manager: {gap}
Marketing: Oh no, {vocalsound} {gap}.
User Interface: No signal. Is that {gap}?
Industrial Designer: No, it's got it's got it.
Marketing: Yeah, uh yeah, uh yeah.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Marketing: {gap} Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Excuse me.
User Interface: Okay, and then F_ five, right?
Project Manager: Uh, yeah {gap}.
User Interface: Okay. Um okay, so the interface concept um. Yeah. The interface specification, what people {disfmarker} um how they interact with it basically, I think. Um so the method, we looked at existing designs, what are the {disfmarker} what's good about them, what's bad about them, um I looked at their flaws, so we're going to look at their flaws, everything. Um and what {vocalsound} the survey told us and what we think would be good, so a bit of imagination.
Project Manager: Mm'kay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Uh the findings, I've got some pictures to show you as well.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} either. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Hmm.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Okay, so most remote controls use graphical interface, where you um have got s buttons and you point it rather than having the output as a a stream of text or something.
Project Manager: Uh okay.
User Interface: Um and we also found that there's inconsistent layout, which makes it confusing. So I think for our remote control {disfmarker} There is some inconsistency already in {disfmarker} ec existing in {disfmarker} between remote controls, but I think standard kind of um shape and uh play and those kind of but buttons like the the top right for on and off or something,
Project Manager: Right, okay. Yeah.
User Interface: I think, people find that important,'cause then it's easy to use.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: And we've got some pictures of some uh new remote controls to show you.
Project Manager: Excellent.
User Interface: Do I press Escape F_ five? Or just {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Uh no just escape should uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Escape, okay. Um, oh I still haven't got my glasses on. Yeah, okay. So these are the {disfmarker} some of the pictures of existing ones.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Wow.
User Interface: I'll just walk you through them. This one is a voice recognition.
Project Manager:'Kay.
User Interface: And that's the kind of idea we're going for.
Project Manager: Looks pretty complicated.
User Interface: There's um an L_C_D_ thing, which we thought could {disfmarker} I thought could get a bit confusing and a bit expensive as well for us.
Project Manager: Right, okay.
User Interface: This one is {disfmarker} got a kind of scroll like a mouse,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm, like the middle button.
User Interface: which {disfmarker} Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Um and {disfmarker} But I'm not exactly sure how you'd use that,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Ah it's kinda like scrolling {disfmarker}
User Interface: like would the computer come {disfmarker}
Project Manager: uh right, well, if I s if I'm thinking of the right one, I've got the same thing in front of my monitor, you scroll it and the when you reach the sort of um {vocalsound} menu item that you require, you press the middle of the scroll.
User Interface: Uh-huh, that's like the L_C_D_ one,
Project Manager: Right, okay.
User Interface: is it? But the one below that has got like {vocalsound} a little scroll function on the side. But I presume that the functions must come up on the T_V_ screen.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, presumably.
User Interface: I think that's what that is. So these are just a few ideas. Again that's just quite boring shape, grey, looks quite space-agey, but too many buttons, I think on that one.
Industrial Designer: Uh it looks threatening.
Project Manager: Yeah, looks like uh looks like something out of a jet. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah, it does look kind of dangerous.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It looks like yeah {gap}.
Marketing: Hmm.
User Interface: Um this one I thought was really cool. It's w it's got the programmability function that we talked about.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: You can put it in there, it's for your kids, and it's quite an organic shape and the little circle around there is pretty cool.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: And that's really easy to use, bright, so I like this one lot for our design. I think something like that would be good.
Industrial Designer: Wow.
Project Manager: Yeah, I m I mean the one thing I think about about these ones is um these kl uh secured areas um {vocalsound}, I've seen a lot of them with the the cover missing.
User Interface: Of course yellow. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So like have it hinge rather than sort of clip on or whatever.
User Interface: Right, yeah. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Um so maybe that could be built into one of the things and it comes up on the T_V_ or something. And this one, the over-sized one, I don't know about you, but I think it's a bit too gimmicky.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I don't think that will sell very well.
Project Manager: I mean is that not sort of to assist the blind or something, is it? {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} I guess so. I don't know.
Industrial Designer: Then d blind don't watch T_V_. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Strange. {vocalsound}
User Interface: I think that's a bit {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah exactly.
Project Manager: No they do, they do.
Industrial Designer: They do? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: They listen to it. Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. And um this one {vocalsound} is just pointing out. I like {vocalsound} some of these things um the the raised symbols and everything, but {gap} pointing out um that this one the volume it is kind of pressing down, but it would actually go up, because of the shape.
Project Manager: Right, okay.
User Interface: So that could {disfmarker} that's a bit confusing. Um but the buttons on this I think are {disfmarker} it's just showing you how you can have different different um buttons. They don't have to be all the same. So that's quite cool. Um.
Project Manager:'Kay but people tend to recognise certain shapes to do certain things anyway, don't they?
User Interface: Yeah, exactly. Um F_ five. Yes. So there are some of the findings. So we need to combine those ones um
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: and I've just got {vocalsound} an e-mail from our technical department saying that they have broken through with some new speech recognition software that you can program in.
Project Manager: Brilliant. That's handy. {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Um yeah it is, just in time, very handy. Um so {vocalsound} I think maybe incorporating that in our design would be good.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: It's {disfmarker} you program it like you say, record, um and then, play, and then, record, play machine, and stuff like that, so that's {disfmarker} And it's much {disfmarker} Yeah. So that's quite cool. Uh personal preferences just some imagination, the raised symbols I thought were good, the L_C_D_, it does look smart, but I think maybe for our budget, do you think that would be a bit too expensive to have the {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: The L_C_D_
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and the other stuff uh, I think.
User Interface: And the speech recognition,'cause I think we're definitely going for the speech recognition,
Marketing: But in our market survey we have seen that people are willing to pay more,
User Interface: are we?
Marketing: but they want the quality, they want f fancy look, they want some new design, something new.
User Interface: Uh-huh.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Uh yeah.
User Interface: Uh-huh. But our budget, we've {disfmarker}
Project Manager: It's still it's still got to get within our twelve fifty, you know.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: So even if we increase our cost little bit, within uh some limits, and we give something new technological advancement as well as new design with fancy outlook, I think we will meet the requirements and we will be able to have a good sales in the market.
User Interface: Uh-huh. Okay.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: I'm not sure if the {disfmarker} if {vocalsound} for twenty five Euros uh per uh twelve Euros fifty m manufacturing cost, {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Ben bana
Project Manager: Yeah. I can't see tha Although, th I mean to be to be sure they have got {disfmarker} I mean they are going crazy with the L_C_D_ technology now,
Industrial Designer: {gap}
User Interface: The L_C_D_.
Project Manager: so that you've got your L_C_D_ T_V_s and everything so maybe the small {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But I mean like I I {disfmarker} the black and white, I guess, it just doesn't look funky enough.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um but, I mean, like even mobile phones or whatever have {disfmarker} now have colour L_C_D_ screens,
User Interface: No.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: w I ju I mean
User Interface: Yeah. S
Project Manager: I wouldn't know about the costs of them.
User Interface: Uh-huh.
Industrial Designer: But uh price price not withstanding um, is it too complicated, is it gonna be too much just overload?
Marketing: And the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Twelve fifty.
Marketing: Uh i it will be easy because there will be, on L_C_D_ s screen, there will be different frent icons, they can just click ok okay, whatever they wa
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Possibly.
User Interface: Yeah, that's the thing, because {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: But but the thing is when you use a remote control, you never look at it, right? You're looking at the T_V_
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and and it's uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: That's true, yeah.
Industrial Designer: It just seems kind of like a a needless th
User Interface: And one of the survey findings was that they want it easy to use, so I think I'm not sure about the L_C_D_.
Project Manager: Right.
User Interface: It's a it's great, it's a good idea, but for our budget and for the thing we're trying to go for eas easy to use, it's not the thing we should go for, I think. Child-friendly, I thought this was good, as you pointed out the um {vocalsound} the bit, it often goes missing especially with children, but it's a good shape and the organic is kind of {disfmarker} we could make a vegetabley kind of round shape, I think.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So which vegetable? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well I mean we could make a {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, I know, carrot {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well, si since we're going for the uh the k the sort of company colours, I think your lemon wasn't that far s {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: The the lemon. Well what are the options?
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: And if it doesn't work you know, we've just made a lemon. {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: But we don't want it to be {disfmarker} Yeah. Um the child-friendly, yeah. Easy to use, it seems quite easy to use. I like the d the different shapes of the buttons and stuff.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. I like I like the colourful buttons as well.
User Interface: I think that's a good idea to go for. Yeah. And the mouse one, I thought it was a good idea, because people use mo mice mouses now with the scrolling thing. Um.
Project Manager: Yeah. I mean we are marketing to sort of twenty five to thirty five,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: so most people will have come in contact with that kind of use.
User Interface: S yeah. So they'd be able to use that um, as I said I think i I'd presume it would come up on the screen.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Um so there you go.
Project Manager: And that means tha that means you get to bump that bit to the T_V_ maker, so {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Oh.
User Interface: So that's um the user interface
Project Manager:'Kay.
User Interface: design.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap}
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: So okay, I'll take this out now then.
Industrial Designer: Um so
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: There you go.
Industrial Designer: I guess there are a lot of options that we're gonna have to choose from among,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, looks like it.
Industrial Designer: and I'll I'll give you the uh, {vocalsound} I guess, technical considerations for those.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {vocalsound}
User Interface: {gap}
Industrial Designer: And I'm gonna use the whiteboard, just'cause we haven't used it {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: Yeah, I was just thinking the self same thing. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Right. So, the way I'm gonna do this {vocalsound} is uh we're gonna take a look at some old remote controls, see how they work, uh reuse the the vital kind of um essential pieces of it,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: and then we'll throw in our new innovations um {vocalsound} and keep it all within budget.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Magic man.
Industrial Designer: So uh yeah, looking inside a a very simple remote control. Um this is what they sent me.'Kay. Here's uh the competition, I suppose.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Um you open it up, there's a circuit board inside,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: um {vocalsound} and there's a a chip, a processor, the T_A_ one one eight three five, which um receives input from the buttons, and ch
Project Manager: So this is a standard off the shelf kind of a chip, is it?
Industrial Designer: Right, it's very {disfmarker} they're very cheap remote. This remote costs nothing, you know. Um so that takes a signals from the buttons and translates it into a sequence of pulses that it then sends to the to the amplifier, which is made of some transistors and amplifiers, op-amps, and then that gets sent to the uh to the L_E_D_ light, which I can kinda see is that little red light bulb at the end,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and that sends out the infrared uh light signal to the television.
Project Manager: Right.
Industrial Designer: Oh here it is. {vocalsound} Um so this is kind of the the bear essentials that we need to have in our remote control, because it it defines the uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay. So can we make them to pretty much any size we like or is there a minimum or?
Industrial Designer: R Um no, I mean this is a very old one, so now with the new technology this is a a minimally small and cheap thing to make.
Project Manager: They gotta be {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Almost a key-ring. {gap}
Industrial Designer: Right. So this is what we need to have for certain.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay.
Industrial Designer: Um. So you know, as we said, we got the outer casing, which we have to decide, you know, what's it gonna be, um the board we have to use basically uh the same set-up, processor, um we'll probably use the more advanced processor than they had, amplifier and transmitter are all standard. Um so for the casing, uh this an e-mail I got from our manufacturing team uh, you know, we have a bunch of options from wood, titanium, rubber, plastic, whatnot, um latex, double-curved, curved. So lots of choices,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager:'Kay.
Industrial Designer: what do we think? Uh or sponge, I guess, isn't on there, right.
Project Manager: Well.
User Interface: Mm. I'm not sure about the sponge.
Industrial Designer: Organic sponge. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well, I mean like la latex has a kinda spongy feeling to it, doesn't it.
Industrial Designer: Uh yeah, it's very elasticy for sure.
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Yeah. And that would k also give it kinda durability
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: and
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um.
Project Manager: and ther that's also f sorta relatively cheap to cast.
Industrial Designer: Yeah so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} so maybe s uh a sort of uh plastic {disfmarker} initial plastic with a a latex kinda sheath?
Industrial Designer: Okay so, here are a a plastic, uh latex {disfmarker}
User Interface: I like the rubber, the stress balls, I think,
Project Manager: Oh right, okay.
User Interface: you know, that could be a bit of a gimmick like it's good to hold and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Oh right.
Project Manager: I don't know what that stuff is. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So something with give to it.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. And
User Interface: And that might be quite durable and easy to chuck around.
Industrial Designer: and the colour is yellow, right?
User Interface: Yeah,
Project Manager: Or at least incorporating, yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: y {vocalsound} yellow incorporated, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yellow {vocalsound}, okay. Um.
Project Manager: I mean I forgot i we're sort of uh {disfmarker} I don't know what other standard silver kind of {disfmarker}
User Interface: I think {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Other parts or uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm. Yeah, the buttons w like,'cause there's gonna be the the cover the the rubber or the plastic casing and then the buttons in probably two different colours
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Mm'kay.
User Interface: or i if we're having buttons actually,
Industrial Designer: So yellow for the body,
User Interface: I don
Project Manager: Um.
Industrial Designer: and then what colour for the buttons?
Project Manager: Um I quite like the multi-coloured buttons myself.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So multi-coloured buttons.
User Interface: You do have ones like um play {vocalsound} could be green or on and off is red, and stuff like that, yeah.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Project Manager: Yeah or yeah a limit uh maybe even just a limited multi-colour so it it doesn't look too childish, perhaps.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Makes it easy to use. Yeah, that's true, because that blue one did look quite hardish.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Although I mean this uh uh also comes to shape as well. I mean if we are gonna make it a novel {disfmarker} I mean double-curved sounds good to me if we're talking about sorta ergonomic and easy use,
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Project Manager: a bit comfier, you know.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm'kay so the shape we wanna go {disfmarker} Um how exactly? Maybe double {disfmarker}
User Interface: Like uh {vocalsound} an hour glass kind of figure, is that what you're thinking of,
Project Manager: Yeah it's uh, yeah, that that'd be {disfmarker} that's sort of comfortable to hold, easy to hold so you don't drop it.
User Interface: or just like a {disfmarker} It's not {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: What about a banana?
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} We could make novelty remote controls.
Industrial Designer: Yeah? Okay, like we could have a big banana shaped remote control,
Project Manager: Well, yeah, I mean like {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer:'cause it's yellow fruit,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: right?
Project Manager: Yeah, yeah. Mm and a lemon might be a little hard to grip. Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. But then how would you point it?
Marketing: Ah
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Marketing: yeah. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: How would you point it?
Industrial Designer: Oh i it doesn't matter which end you point, I guess.
User Interface: What {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: We could have a little L_E_D_s on each end.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, I appreciate this idea,
Project Manager: They only cost pennies.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: because then this {disfmarker} {vocalsound} this will help us in our advertisement also
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: and we can relate with fruits and vegetables, the people's choices. That what our data shows that, so this w this w
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Huh?
User Interface: {gap} y I'm I'm not sure about the banana idea.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um.
Industrial Designer: So a spongy banana re {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I mean that that th {vocalsound}
User Interface: Rubber banana.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: does
User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: it does seem a bit uh again childish maybe. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay, okay.
User Interface: I think maybe just draw on the kind of fruit and vegetable shape. And what else did you say about fashions? What was trendy?
Marketing: Uh the fashion trend shows that fruits and vegetables,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} S
Industrial Designer: See {disfmarker}
Marketing: like people uh now {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And sponginess.
Industrial Designer: So maybe an an unidentifiable fruit or fiable fruit or vegetable
User Interface: And spongy, yeah.
Marketing: Spongy.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: like so it would have a stem perhaps
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and a
User Interface: Maybe, yeah.
Industrial Designer: maybe a {disfmarker} it'd be s axially symmetric.
Project Manager: Huh.
User Interface: Like what's what's that {vocalsound}, I don't even know the name of it, some kind of, you know where it's like {disfmarker} looks like a little snowman kind of thing. I don't know the name of that.
Industrial Designer: So it'd look like this kinda.
User Interface: Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
Industrial Designer: Like a gourd almost, or a squash of some sort?
Project Manager: Uh.
User Interface: Yeah, maybe that's what they are.
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface:'Cause that you can hold it in like the bottom bit
Industrial Designer: Yeah,
User Interface: and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: and it has a a clear top and bottom so y so you could say, you know, it transmits from this end.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, why the hell not. {vocalsound} Let's {vocalsound} that'll make us fifty million Euros.
User Interface: I don't know. What do you guy {disfmarker} What do you think?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um. Well, I guess it's kind of dra uh you don't necessarily have to have it sort of clearly identified as a fruit just to have that kind of fruitish shape,
User Interface: No.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: yeah?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, then only we can relate it with something.
Project Manager: Yeah, we can relate it by advertising or {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah. Exactly.
Industrial Designer: Okay, so double-curved, single-curved, what do we feel?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Or we can do something, we can design two three shapes and we can have a public survey, let the public choose what they want.
User Interface: Uh-huh.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: There's a good man. There's a good idea.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Okay um, I guess, since you're the marketing guy.
Marketing: Yeah, sure. I will be happy to do that.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: We'll uh {disfmarker} Okay, we could do that. Um.
User Interface: Okay. And buttons would, did we say? Uh different shapes of buttons?
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Project Manager: Um I l I su I mean for the specific functions, you know, up and down, uh play, stop.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Okay, so
Project Manager: They've got, I mean, they've got standard sort of intuitive um
Industrial Designer: so buttons.
Project Manager: things that are always used.
Industrial Designer: Okay, just like that.
User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's cool.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I like it.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Um. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: With the scroll-wheel or no?
User Interface: Yeah, what about the scroll wheel and speech recognition? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh speech recognition, I think, so we need a microphone presumably.
Industrial Designer: Okay uh I could put the microphone here. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Okay there's the microphone.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Where should I put the microphone?
Project Manager: I mean ho h h wel are we sure that scroll wheel does give ease of use?
User Interface: Yeah, I'm not sure. Um I mean those ideas I saw were just for inspiration, I think.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Glad, we're not doing this for real.
User Interface: Um yeah, I can {disfmarker} no I'm not sure.
Industrial Designer: Okay, well we can do some user test with scroll-wheels, right?
User Interface: I couldn Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: And uh I think if this this new software for the sound recognition is {gap} the microphone {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So should the microphone be just anywhere on it or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I would put it sort of sub-centrally, so it's {disfmarker} Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer:'Kay there's the mic.
Project Manager: So it can be sort of held and w {gap} {vocalsound}
User Interface: That's cool.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {disfmarker} We really need really gonna need to hold it, if it's gonna be voice recognition.
Industrial Designer: Um n well we can {disfmarker} Whoops. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oops. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Um.
Project Manager: Um.
User Interface: So let's not use the whiteboard any more. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Upsidaisy. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Oops, sorry. Okay.
User Interface: And uh so what else was there? Um the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: What about the glow-in-the-dark thing, the strip around it?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I s I still like it.
User Interface: Are we just gonna leave that?
Project Manager: Um but that's me. {vocalsound}
User Interface: You still like it.'Cause we've got the uh technological innovation with the speech recognition system.
Industrial Designer: Right.
Project Manager: Yes, or maybe it's just going a bit uh too far. I mean we are pushing it probably with funny fruit shapes.
User Interface:'Cause um it could {disfmarker} Yeah.
Project Manager: Um don't wanna sort of overkill.
User Interface: Especially with yellow {vocalsound}. {vocalsound} Mm. I dunno.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager:'Cause I mean like uh if we {disfmarker} I mean how good is the speech recognition thing? Do we want to go for buttons at all, do we want to just have a device that maybe sits and pretends it's a fruit? {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Then you put it in the fruit bowl?
Industrial Designer: {gap} {gap} {vocalsound} They can work from a {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, you know, and then you just tal
Industrial Designer: You don't have to hold it.
Project Manager: I mean like everybody's got fruit bowl in front of the telly.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I it could even encourage healthier habits for television watchers,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: you know they have uh fruits all round them.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. Make them make them think of fruit, yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Now just make sure they don't eat the remote.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: I mean uh {vocalsound} some uh I
User Interface: Yeah, do we need buttons?
Project Manager: l like think of a fruit that could sit sort of independently on its own like uh, I dunno, an apple.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: Then it's just apple so sort of {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh, yellow apples though {disfmarker} Hmm. {vocalsound}
User Interface: I quite like the shape. I quite like the design of that, uh'cause that could sit on its own and it's quite {disfmarker} got a quite steady base.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Project Manager: Yeah. Okay, yeah, that's good.
Industrial Designer: Okay. But yeah {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Groovy.
User Interface: Um
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: and as we say we n we don't wanna be too ridiculous with the fruit things you know.
Project Manager: Yeah, {gap}. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: But yeah, about the speech thing, it doesn't have to be hand held or close.
User Interface: {gap}
Industrial Designer: It can sit at a distance and pick it up still.
Project Manager: Yeah. So {vocalsound} I mean like you could actually {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Or we can {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, gives you the options.
Marketing: we can do one thing, we can just have a remote control and casings of different different shapes, different fruit shapes in such a way that a any casing can be could be fit into this mobile general piece.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So whatever people want, like if somebody want it in banana shape, we will put that casing onto that mobile phone, okay,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So a selection of casings.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: it will look l {vocalsound} Uh yeah. In that w
Project Manager: It kind of fi it fits with f fits with marketing um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah,'cause you said about disposable,
Marketing: S s sorry?
User Interface: didn't you? You said about disposable earli people want disposable things
Marketing: Uh like if this is a like if this is a mobile phone uh we will design casing in such a way like half of, we need not to have a full cover, we will just have a half of cover,
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: so we could do that, like have a choice. Yeah.
Marketing: okay? If somebody wants it i in banana shape, we will fit banana shape casing onto that, so it will give a banana shape look.
Project Manager: Like like mobiles, yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: If somebody wanted in apple shape we will design that, we will put {disfmarker} we will put apple shape casing on that. It will give apple shape look. So in that way you can have any, that means whatever you want,
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: without {disfmarker} uh yeah.
User Interface: We still need the buttons in the same places thought,
Marketing: Yeah, button will be on the upper side, buttons will be the on the upper side.
User Interface: don't we?
Project Manager: You can standardise those, I mean.
User Interface: {gap}
Marketing: Yeah, buttons will be on the upper side, lower side we will just put the casing,
User Interface: Oh, that's the other side. Oh, okay.
Marketing: so half of that will be look the {disfmarker}
User Interface: Oh, half a fruit. Oh, okay, okay.
Marketing: Yeah, not not the upper side. So from lower you can, it means while you are holding of {disfmarker} from this side you c you can have banana look or apple look, whatever.
User Interface: Okay, okay.
Marketing: So in that way we need not to d have different different shape mobiles everything, we will just design casings fruit shape.
Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah.
Marketing: And {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I think tho I think if you're gonna have a facia then you'd want to have it so that it does go over the buttons,
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager:'cause when {disfmarker} if you think about it if they're wanting it,'cause they want to look at it, if they're using it, and what they want to look at is facing away from them. It doesn't really {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm mm.
Project Manager: You know'cause that'd be in the palm of their hand and they wouldn't be able to see it,
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: unless you have sort of {disfmarker} you got the buttons options on one side, and you get the facia on the other side with a microphone so that you can place it face down. And you've got the facia, and you can just talk at the {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Maybe. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {gap} Okay, um so {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} So you've narrowed it down to half a dozen options.
Industrial Designer: Yeah,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: s I guess we decided on material, right? So that that spongy latex rubber everything feel,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and the colours we got down,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and the shape, maybe we'll just make it kinda mix and match type of shape or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. Well, um because {disfmarker} Well, I I'm not sure if we should go so far in the whole fruit thing, because I think we should maybe just take the inspiration from the fruit and uh because {vocalsound} what {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay, so we stick with what we've got there.
User Interface: Yeah, w I think wh wha would {disfmarker} we're trying to get to twenty five, thirty five year olds who want it quite trendy as well they said. They wanted something that looks fancy and I think maybe fruit could be a bit of a {disfmarker} too much of a gimmick, but something ergonomically shaped and organic, like good to hold, based on fruits and natural things like that,
Project Manager: Mm'kay.
User Interface: because al already we're going a bit gaudy with the yellow, you know.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound}
User Interface: I mean we could make it nice pale yellow.
Project Manager: Well, it's kind of gotta be our company's yellow. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: So again I mean like we could have, uh I mean, we could quite easily have the the main body be a different
User Interface: Okay. Yeah.
Project Manager: colour, but have {disfmarker}
User Interface: Maybe we could have that pale yellow and then an outside bit bright yellow with, you said, the logan the slogan.
Project Manager: kinda going round, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Um I mean e even if {disfmarker}
User Interface: Because {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I mean not necessarily that the um the whole body has to be of the company colour, so you know um blue and yellow tend to go to we well together.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: So you have the main body blue with the yellow logo and slogan running up one side of it kind of thing.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: W sort of {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Great. {vocalsound} Um as for the energy source um, you know, almost every remote control uses just batteries, but we don't have to be limited by that. We can use a hand-dynamo. Um I don't know what that means, we crank it? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh It's I think it's basically the more you move i it, it's got a wee thing inside that just kinda {vocalsound} powers it.
Industrial Designer: Right, it's like those watches that you c
Project Manager: Uh yeah.
Industrial Designer: So, this might be an idea for something that people really wanna grab, you can shake it if it's out of power.
User Interface: Oh, a d a dynamo?
Marketing: Yeah, {gap}.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, I like that, yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {gap}
User Interface: Yeah, like with those watches that you kind of twist.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah that's quite cool.
Industrial Designer: Okay. So if it if it's not working, I guess people's natural reaction anyway is to just shake the thing. {vocalsound}
Marketing: But {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay. You shake it and scream at it.
Marketing: But but do you think that it will be a good idea to use dynamo, tha these type of cells?
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah, it is, yeah.
Marketing: Because then people have to, well like if the cell is out of bat
Project Manager: It does leave them with an obligation to {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, to mo Yeah.
Project Manager: Especially if they want to use it uh uh sp uh specifically as um voice activated.
Marketing: Yeah,
Industrial Designer: Right.
Marketing: because most of the people {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Then if it's just sitting on the {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, then they have to pick it up and then activate it and then {disfmarker} Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, okay.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: That's true.
Project Manager: Right um what are the other options?
Industrial Designer: Uh there's solar power. Um.
Marketing: Uh, solar power will w also not be a good idea, because then they have to keep m their mobiles outside in solar energy,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: and the days when there is no sola sunlight {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I'm I'm with uh Raj on that,
Industrial Designer: Okay, so probably just {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: I think, you know,
Marketing: What we w
Project Manager: I've got I've got no I've got a north facing house, there's not really ever sun coming in my window.
User Interface: {gap}
Marketing: yeah. I think we should {disfmarker} a rechargeable {vocalsound} battery will be a good idea.
User Interface: But w {vocalsound} like just normal light?
Project Manager: Oh that's true.
Marketing: They can they can recharge it.
Project Manager: I mean I w I w uh
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: that idea that I thought {vocalsound} um just on the basis of like ridding them of batteries and that kind of bother
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: is having a,
User Interface: And we're a very environmentally friendly company, aren't we as well?
Project Manager: yeah,
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: having a rechargeable stand, so that not only it doubles as a stand, but um for using it as {disfmarker} uh recharging it, but also for using it as sound recognition.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
User Interface: Like like a hand {disfmarker} like one of those portable phones kind of thing.
Marketing: Yeah, that's {disfmarker} Yeah, exactly.
Project Manager: Yeah that kind of thing.
Industrial Designer: Okay. So uh a rechargeable battery {gap}.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Um the user interface, the buttons, I guess we talked about this already.
Project Manager: Rechargeable.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Um.
Project Manager: {gap}. What's chip on print? What's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Hmm?
Project Manager: Sorry, never mind. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh th the uh the electronics um, basically the more features we add um {disfmarker} Oops, this one. So the more features we add the fancier chips we need to buy and put in,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: which adds to the cost as you can expect.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Um. But uh I think we can keep it all under budget. So uh yes, so the speech thing you said our our techno our research and development department came up with some break-through.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So just in time. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, and if we if we're just having buttons and the speech then we're getting our cheapest option of chipping.
User Interface: Just in time.
Industrial Designer: Right, right.
Project Manager: That's good.
Industrial Designer: Yeah,
Project Manager: Uh woah.
Industrial Designer: and keeping the L_C_D_ screen out. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, we're we're kind of uh we're kind of um {vocalsound} Excuse m I've just deleted that whole thing. Um we're kind of running out of time, so if you could {disfmarker} Uh. {vocalsound} Was that you?
Industrial Designer: Huh?
Project Manager: Um that was {disfmarker} your bit's covered,
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah that was that was it.
Project Manager: I just dele I just accidentally deleted what I was supposed to say next.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Marketing: Uh excuse me, Bri
Project Manager: Um, yeah.
Industrial Designer: So control F_ eight, right?
Project Manager: Oh, yeah.
User Interface: Yeah, mine seems to have turned off.
Project Manager: And I just touch the pad.
User Interface: I can't do anything.
Marketing: You just touch the pad, yeah.
User Interface: No.
Marketing: No?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's actually shut down.
User Interface: It's on, but there's nothing on the screen.
Project Manager: Okay, um now what we have {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Try uh flipping the screen down {gap}.
Project Manager: uh our next meeting's in half an hour
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
Project Manager: and what I would like you guys to do is work on giving me a model in clay.
Industrial Designer: Oh,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I get to do it, too.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. It's you guys. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Oh neat.
User Interface: Cool. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So um, you know I mean, luckily we chose a nice simple shape.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. Mm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um and further instructions will be sent by your personal coaches.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Save everything to the shared documents, is that right?
Marketing: {gap} That's great.
Project Manager: Uh yeah, I hope I can recover this,'cause I've accidentally deleted it.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Which doesn't really help me much.
User Interface: I think, I've saved mine already.
Project Manager: Yeah, can you save that {disfmarker} uh send that last one again, please, Raj,
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: as I still can't find it on the {disfmarker}
Marketing: Uh it was under a different name.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I will show you, in shared documents.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Uh working components {gap}. Oh, you didn't get that. I will send new.
Project Manager: No. Okay, thank you.
Marketing: Uh I'll put it in shared documents, again.
Project Manager: Um yeah, Project, Project Documents.
Marketing: Project documents, sorry, I put it in the shared documents.
Project Manager: Uh right,
Marketing: Uh yeah.
Project Manager: that's that's the that {disfmarker} it goes there automatically if you put it in Project Documents. Project Documents is on the um {vocalsound} desktop.
Marketing: Right, that's great. But I cou can't open that, because it w asks uh for some username or password.
Industrial Designer: Oh {gap}.
Project Manager: Really? {gap}
Marketing: {gap} I'll show you.
Industrial Designer: Uh these lapel mics are trouble.
Marketing: Ts
Project Manager: Oh right, I think um {disfmarker}
Marketing: Sorry.
Project Manager: Hold on.
Marketing: Uh.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, I don't know if y it it just ca it just came up on my um on my agenda. S {vocalsound} Um presumably there's clay somewhere. Um. {vocalsound} Four.
Marketing: Yeah, that's great.
Project Manager: Whoops. Light, light, please. Light. {vocalsound} Right, there you go.
Marketing: Yeah, th thank you.
Project Manager: Yeah, quite. And we're using this our basic chip set, so it's all good. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh sorry.
Industrial Designer: Are we done with our meeting?
Marketing: Uh excuse me, Brian.
Project Manager: Um I think we're almost done, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: You have to keep your pen separate, because I used your pen.
Project Manager: Oh oops.
Marketing: S {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Sorry man. Uh okay, still didn't manage to get down all the last bits so we had rechargeable and {disfmarker} Uh. Apples. {vocalsound} Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm.'Kay, so we came up with that, that's okay. What's supplements? Supplements. Uh {vocalsound} uh. {vocalsound} See. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Cool. Fun.
Project Manager: I shoulda {gap} something like that. If I kn see I I knew that. I shoulda sort of engineered it so we k ended up making a diffi difficult shape.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Just for cruelty. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Hmm.
User Interface: Yeah. Star fruit. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I wonder if they mean like literally make it, sort of buttons and everything.
Marketing: So sh should Should we leave now, Brian?
User Interface: No. Oh yeah, we can do buttons.
Marketing: Or we are going to discuss something?
Project Manager: Um. Uh no, I think that's us our discussion over unless anybody's got questions {vocalsound} or confusions,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: No I'm good.
Project Manager:'cause I'm confused.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Huh?
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Excuse me. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um uh we'll probably get questionnaire in a minute, it's a {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Sorry. Thank you. Yeah.
Project Manager: There we go. Warning, finish meeting now.
Marketing: So.
Project Manager: I rounded it up far too fast. {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound}. Where are we going? My Documents, that's not what I want. My Project Documents. {vocalsound} There we go. | In general, the team only collected the flaws of the existing remotes. According to the User Interface, the existing remotes were difficult to use because of the inconsistent layout, too many buttons and shape problems. For each problem, the team tried to give the solution. For example, their new remotes would have a standard layout, limited buttons and organic shapes. It was believed that by solving all these problems, the new remotes would be easy for the customers to use. | qmsum |
Summarize the meeting
PhD A: OK, we're going.
PhD D: Damn.
Professor C: And uh Hans - uh, Hans - Guenter will be here, um, I think by next {disfmarker} next Tuesday or so.
PhD B: Oh, OK.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: So he's {disfmarker} he's going to be here for about three weeks,
PhD B: Oh! That's nice.
PhD A: Just for a visit?
Professor C: and, uh {disfmarker} Uh, we'll see.
PhD A: Huh.
Professor C: We might {disfmarker} might end up with some longer collaboration or something.
PhD A: Cool.
Professor C: So he's gonna look in on everything we're doing
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: and give us his {disfmarker} his thoughts. And so it'll be another {disfmarker} another good person looking at things.
PhD B: Oh. Hmm.
Grad E: Th - that's his spectral subtraction group?
Professor C: Yeah,
Grad E: Is that right?
Professor C: yeah.
Grad E: Oh, OK. So I guess I should probably talk to him a bit too?
Professor C: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, he'll be around for three weeks. He's, uh, um, very, very, easygoing, easy to talk to, and, uh, very interested in everything.
PhD A: Really nice guy.
Professor C: Yeah, yeah.
PhD B: Yeah, we met him in Amsterdam.
Professor C: Yeah, yeah, he's been here before.
PhD B: Oh, OK.
Professor C: I mean, he's {disfmarker} he's {disfmarker} he's {disfmarker} he's {disfmarker}
PhD A: Wh - Back when I was a grad student he was here for a, uh, uh {disfmarker} a year or {comment} n six months.
PhD B: I haven't noticed him.
Professor C: N nine months.
PhD A: Something like that.
Professor C: Something like that.
PhD A: Yeah.
Professor C: Yeah. Yeah. He's {disfmarker} he's done a couple stays here.
PhD B: Hmm.
Professor C: Yeah.
PhD A: So, um, {vocalsound} {comment} I guess we got lots to catch up on. And we haven't met for a couple of weeks. We didn't meet last week, Morgan. Um, I went around and talked to everybody, and it seemed like they {disfmarker} they had some new results but rather than them coming up and telling me I figured we should just wait a week and they can tell both {disfmarker} you know, all of us. So, um, why don't we {disfmarker} why don't we start with you, Dave, and then, um, we can go on.
Grad E: Oh, OK.
PhD A: So.
Grad E: So, um, since we're looking at putting this, um {disfmarker} mean log m magnitude spectral subtraction, um, into the SmartKom system, I I did a test seeing if, um, it would work using past only {comment} and plus the present to calculate the mean. So, I did a test, um, {vocalsound} where I used twelve seconds from the past and the present frame to, um, calculate the mean. And {disfmarker}
PhD A: Twelve seconds {disfmarker} Twelve {disfmarker} twelve seconds back from the current {pause} frame, is that what you mean?
Grad E: Uh {disfmarker} Twelve seconds, um, counting back from the end of the current frame,
PhD A: OK, OK.
Grad E: yeah. So it was, um, twen I think it was twenty - one frames and that worked out to about twelve seconds.
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
Grad E: And compared to, um, do using a twelve second centered window, I think there was a drop in performance but it was just a slight drop.
PhD A: Hmm!
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
Grad E: Is {disfmarker} is that right?
Professor C: Um, yeah, I mean, it was pretty {disfmarker} it was pretty tiny. Yeah.
Grad E: Uh - huh. So that was encouraging. And, um, that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} um, that's encouraging for {disfmarker} for the idea of using it in an interactive system like And, um, another issue I'm {disfmarker} I'm thinking about is in the SmartKom system. So say twe twelve seconds in the earlier test seemed like a good length of time, but what happens if you have less than twelve seconds? And, um {disfmarker} So I w bef before, um {disfmarker} Back in May, I did some experiments using, say, two seconds, or four seconds, or six seconds. In those I trained the models using mean subtraction with the means calculated over two seconds, or four seconds, or six seconds. And, um, here, I was curious, what if I trained the models using twelve seconds but I f I gave it a situation where the test set I was {disfmarker} subtracted using two seconds, or four seconds, or six seconds. And, um {disfmarker} So I did that for about three different conditions. And, um {disfmarker} I mean, I th I think it was, um, four se I think {disfmarker} I think it was, um, something like four seconds and, um, six seconds, and eight seconds. Something like that. And it seems like it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it hurts compared to if you actually train the models {comment} using th that same length of time but it {disfmarker} it doesn't hurt that much. Um, u usually less than point five percent, although I think I did see one where it was a point eight percent or so rise in word error rate. But this is, um, w where, um, even if I train on the, uh, model, and mean subtracted it with the same length of time as in the test, it {disfmarker} the word error rate is around, um, ten percent or nine percent. So it doesn't seem like that big a d a difference.
Professor C: But it {disfmarker} but looking at it the other way, isn't it {disfmarker} what you're saying that it didn't help you to have the longer time for training, if you were going to have a short time for {disfmarker}
Grad E: That {disfmarker} that's true. Um,
Professor C: I mean, why would you do it, if you knew that you were going to have short windows in testing.
Grad E: Wa
PhD A: Yeah, it seems like for your {disfmarker} I mean, in normal situations you would never get twelve seconds of speech, right? I'm not {disfmarker} e u
PhD B: You need twelve seconds in the past to estimate, right? Or l or you're looking at six sec {disfmarker} seconds in future and six in {disfmarker}
Professor C: Yeah.
Grad E: Um, t twelve s
Professor C: No, total.
Grad E: N n uh {disfmarker} For the test it's just twelve seconds in the past.
PhD B: No, it's all {disfmarker} Oh, OK.
PhD A: Is this twelve seconds of {disfmarker} uh, regardless of speech or silence? Or twelve seconds of speech?
Grad E: Of {disfmarker} of speech.
PhD A: OK.
PhD B: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: The other thing, um, which maybe relates a little bit to something else we've talked about in terms of windowing and so on is, that, um, I wonder if you trained with twelve seconds, and then when you were two seconds in you used two seconds, and when you were four seconds in, you used four seconds, and when you were six {disfmarker} and you basically build up to the twelve seconds. So that if you have very long utterances you have the best,
Grad E: Yeah.
Professor C: but if you have shorter utterances you use what you can.
Grad E: Right. And that's actually what we're planning to do in
Professor C: OK. Yeah.
Grad E: But {disfmarker} s so I g So I guess the que the question I was trying to get at with those experiments is," does it matter what models you use? Does it matter how much time y you use to calculate the mean when you were, um, tra doing the training data?" Professor C: Right. But I mean the other thing is that that's {disfmarker} I mean, the other way of looking at this, going back to, uh, mean cepstral subtraction versus RASTA kind of things, is that you could look at mean cepstral subtraction, especially the way you're doing it, uh, as being a kind of filter. And so, the other thing is just to design a filter. You know, basically you're {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} you're doing a high - pass filter or a band - pass filter of some sort and {disfmarker} and just design a filter. And then, you know, a filter will have a certain behavior and you loo can look at the start up behavior when you start up with nothing.
Grad E: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: And {disfmarker} and, you know, it will, uh, if you have an IIR filter for instance, it will, um, uh, not behave in the steady - state way that you would like it to behave until you get a long enough period, but, um, uh, by just constraining yourself to have your filter be only a subtraction of the mean, you're kind of, you know, tying your hands behind your back because there's {disfmarker} filters have all sorts of be temporal and spectral behaviors.
Grad E: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: And the only thing, you know, consistent that we know about is that you want to get rid of the very low frequency component.
Grad E: Hmm.
PhD B: But do you really want to calculate the mean? And you neglect all the silence regions {comment} or you just use everything that's twelve seconds, and {disfmarker}
Grad E: Um, you {disfmarker} do you mean in my tests so far?
PhD B: Ye - yeah.
Grad E: Most of the silence has been cut out.
PhD B: OK.
Grad E: Just {disfmarker} There's just inter - word silences.
PhD B: Mm - hmm. And they are, like, pretty short. Shor
Grad E: Pretty short.
PhD B: Yeah, OK.
Grad E: Yeah.
PhD B: Yeah. Mm - hmm. So you really need a lot of speech to estimate the mean of it.
Grad E: Well, if I only use six seconds, it still works pretty well.
PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Uh - huh.
Grad E: I saw in my test before. I was trying twelve seconds cuz that was the best {pause} in my test before
PhD B: OK.
Grad E: and that increasing past twelve seconds didn't seem to help.
PhD B: Hmm. Huh.
Grad E: th um, yeah, I guess it's something I need to play with more to decide how to set that up for the SmartKom system. Like, may maybe if I trained on six seconds it would work better when I only had two seconds or four seconds, and {disfmarker}
Professor C: Yeah. Yeah. And, um {disfmarker}
Grad E: OK.
Professor C: Yeah, and again, if you take this filtering perspective and if you essentially have it build up over time. I mean, if you computed means over two and then over four, and over six, essentially what you're getting at is a kind of, uh, ramp up of a filter anyway. And so you may {disfmarker} may just want to think of it as a filter. But, uh, if you do that, then, um, in practice somebody using the SmartKom system, one would think {comment} {disfmarker} if they're using it for a while, it means that their first utterance, instead of, you know, getting, uh, a forty percent error rate reduction, they'll get a {disfmarker} uh, over what, uh, you'd get without this, uh, um, policy, uh, you get thirty percent. And then the second utterance that you give, they get the full {disfmarker} you know, uh, full benefit of it if it's this ongoing thing.
PhD A: Oh, so you {disfmarker} you cache the utterances? That's how you get your, uh {disfmarker}
Professor C: Well, I'm saying in practice, yeah,
Grad E: M
PhD A: Ah. OK.
Professor C: that's {disfmarker} If somebody's using a system to ask for directions or something,
PhD A: OK.
Professor C: you know, they'll say something first. And {disfmarker} and to begin with if it doesn't get them quite right, ma m maybe they'll come back and say," excuse me?" PhD A: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: uh, or some {disfmarker} I mean it should have some policy like that anyway.
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: And {disfmarker} and, uh, uh, in any event they might ask a second question. And it's not like what he's doing doesn't, uh, improve things. It does improve things, just not as much as he would like. And so, uh, there's a higher probability of it making an error, uh, in the first utterance.
PhD A: What would be really cool is if you could have {disfmarker} uh, this probably {disfmarker} users would never like this {disfmarker} but if you had {disfmarker} could have a system where, {vocalsound} before they began to use it they had to introduce themselves, verbally.
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD A: You know." Hi, my name is so - and - so,
Professor C: Yeah.
PhD A: I'm from blah - blah - blah." And you could use that initial speech to do all these adaptations and {disfmarker}
Professor C: Right.
Grad E: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: Oh, the other thing I guess which {disfmarker} which, uh, I don't know much about {disfmarker} as much as I should about the rest of the system but {disfmarker} but, um, couldn't you, uh, if you {disfmarker} if you sort of did a first pass I don't know what kind of, uh, uh, capability we have at the moment for {disfmarker} for doing second passes on {disfmarker} on, uh, uh, some kind of little {disfmarker} small lattice, or a graph, or confusion network, or something. But if you did first pass with, um, the {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} either without the mean sub subtraction or with a {disfmarker} a very short time one, and then, um, once you, uh, actually had the whole utterance in, if you did, um, the, uh, uh, longer time version then, based on everything that you had, um, and then at that point only used it to distinguish between, you know, top N, um, possible utterances or something, you {disfmarker} you might {disfmarker} it might not take very much time. I mean, I know in the large vocabulary stu uh, uh, systems, people were evaluating on in the past, some people really pushed everything in to make it in one pass but other people didn't and had multiple passes. And, um, the argument, um, against multiple passes was u u has often been" but we want to this to be r you know {disfmarker} have a nice interactive response" . And the counterargument to that which, say, uh, BBN I think had, {comment} was" yeah, but our second responses are {disfmarker} second, uh, passes and third passes are really, really fast" .
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: So, um, if {disfmarker} if your second pass takes a millisecond who cares? Um.
Grad E: S so, um, the {disfmarker} the idea of the second pass would be waiting till you have more recorded speech? Or {disfmarker}?
Professor C: Yeah, so if it turned out to be a problem, that you didn't have enough speech because you need a longer {disfmarker} longer window to do this processing, then, uh, one tactic is {disfmarker} you know, looking at the larger system and not just at the front - end stuff {comment} {disfmarker} is to take in, um, the speech with some simpler mechanism or shorter time mechanism,
Grad E: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: um, do the best you can, and come up with some al possible alternates of what might have been said. And, uh, either in the form of an N - best list or in the form of a lattice, or {disfmarker} or confusion network, or whatever.
Grad E: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: And then the decoding of that is much, much faster or can be much, much faster if it isn't a big bushy network. And you can decode that now with speech that you've actually processed using this longer time, uh, subtraction.
Grad E: Mmm.
Professor C: So I mean, it's {disfmarker} it's common that people do this sort of thing where they do more things that are more complex or require looking over more time, whatever, in some kind of second pass.
Grad E: Mm - hmm. OK.
Professor C: um, and again, if the second pass is really, really fast {disfmarker} Uh, another one I've heard of is {disfmarker} is in {disfmarker} in connected digit stuff, um, going back and l and through backtrace and finding regions that are considered to be a d a digit, but, uh, which have very low energy.
Grad E: Mm - hmm. OK.
Professor C: So, uh {disfmarker} I mean, there's lots of things you can do in second passes, at all sorts of levels. Anyway, I'm throwing too many things out. But.
PhD A: So is that, uh {disfmarker} that it?
Grad E: I guess that's it.
PhD A: OK, uh, do you wanna go, Sunil?
PhD B: Yep. Um, so, the last two weeks was, like {disfmarker} So I've been working on that Wiener filtering. And, uh, found that, uh, s single {disfmarker} like, I just do a s normal Wiener filtering, like the standard method of Wiener filtering. And that doesn't actually give me any improvement over like {disfmarker} I mean, uh, b it actually improves over the baseline but it's not like {disfmarker} it doesn't meet something like fifty percent or something. So, I've been playing with the v
PhD A: Improves over the base line MFCC system? Yeah.
PhD B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um {disfmarker} So that's {disfmarker} The improvement is somewhere around, like, thirty percent over the baseline.
Professor C: Is that using {disfmarker} in combination with something else?
PhD B: No, just {disfmarker} just one stage Wiener filter
Professor C: With {disfmarker} with a {disfmarker}
PhD B: which is a standard Wiener filter.
Professor C: No, no, but I mean in combination with our on - line normalization or with the LDA?
PhD B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I just plug in the Wiener filtering.
Professor C: Oh, OK.
PhD B: I mean, in the s in our system, where {disfmarker}
PhD A: Oh, OK.
PhD B: So, I di i di
Professor C: So, does it g does that mean it gets worse? Or {disfmarker}?
PhD B: No. It actually improves over the baseline of not having a Wiener filter in the whole system. Like I have an LDA f LDA plus on - line normalization, and then I plug in the Wiener filter in that,
Professor C: Yeah?
PhD B: so it improves over not having the Wiener filter. So it improves but it {disfmarker} it doesn't take it like be beyond like thirty percent over the baseline. So {disfmarker}
Professor C: But that's what I'm confused about, cuz I think {disfmarker} I thought that our system was more like forty percent without the Wiener filtering.
PhD B: No, it's like, uh,
PhD D: Mmm.
PhD A: Is this with the v new VAD?
PhD B: well, these are not {disfmarker} No, it's the old VAD. So my baseline was, {vocalsound} uh, {vocalsound} nine {disfmarker} This is like {disfmarker} w the baseline is ninety - five point six eight, and eighty - nine, and {disfmarker}
Professor C: So I mean, if you can do all these in word errors it's a lot {disfmarker} a lot easier actually.
PhD B: What was that? Sorry?
Professor C: If you do all these in word error rates it's a lot easier, right?
PhD B: Oh, OK, OK, OK. Errors, right, I don't have.
Professor C: OK, cuz then you can figure out the percentages.
PhD B: It's all accuracies.
Professor C: Yeah.
PhD D: The baseline is something similar to a w I mean, the t the {disfmarker} the baseline that you are talking about is the MFCC baseline, right?
PhD B: The t yeah, there are two baselines.
PhD D: Or {disfmarker}?
PhD B: OK. So the baseline {disfmarker} One baseline is MFCC baseline that {disfmarker} When I said thirty percent improvement it's like MFCC baseline.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: So {disfmarker} so {disfmarker} so what's it start on? The MFCC baseline is {disfmarker} is what? Is at what level?
PhD B: It's the {disfmarker} it's just the mel frequency and that's it.
Professor C: No, what's {disfmarker} what's the number?
PhD B: Uh, so I I don't have that number here. OK, OK, OK, I have it here. Uh, it's the VAD plus the baseline actually. I'm talking about the {disfmarker} the MFCC plus I do a frame dropping on it. So that's like {disfmarker} the word error rate is like four point three. Like {disfmarker} Ten point seven.
Professor C: Four point three. What's ten point seven?
PhD B: It's a medium misma OK, sorry. There's a well ma well matched, medium mismatched, and a high matched.
Professor C: Ah.
PhD B: So I don't have the {disfmarker} like the {disfmarker}
Professor C: Yeah.
PhD B: So {disfmarker}
Professor C: OK, four point three, ten point seven,
PhD B: And forty forty.
Professor C: and {disfmarker}
PhD B: Forty percent is the high mismatch.
Professor C: OK.
PhD B: And that becomes like four point three {disfmarker}
Professor C: Not changed.
PhD B: Yeah, it's like ten point one. Still the same. And the high mismatch is like eighteen point five.
Professor C: Eighteen point five.
PhD B: Five.
Professor C: And what were you just describing?
PhD B: Oh, the one is {disfmarker} this one is just the baseline plus the, uh, Wiener filter plugged into it.
Professor C: But where's the, uh, on - line normalization and so on?
PhD B: Oh, OK. So {disfmarker} Sorry. So, with the {disfmarker} with the on - line normalization, the performance was, um, ten {disfmarker} OK, so it's like four point three. Uh, and again, that's the ba the ten point, uh, four and twenty point one. That was with on - line normalization and LDA. So the h well matched has like literally not changed by adding on - line or LDA on it. But the {disfmarker} I mean, even the medium mismatch is pretty much the same. And the high mismatch was improved by twenty percent absolute.
Professor C: OK, and what kind of number {disfmarker} an and what are we talking about here?
PhD B: It's the It - it's Italian.
Professor C: Is this TI - digits
PhD B: I'm talking about Italian,
Professor C: or {disfmarker} Italian?
PhD B: yeah.
Professor C: And what did {disfmarker} So, what was the, um, uh, corresponding number, say, for, um, uh, the Alcatel system for instance?
PhD B: Mmm.
Professor C: Do you know?
PhD D: Yeah, so it looks to be, um {disfmarker}
PhD B: You have it?
PhD D: Yep, it's three point four, uh, eight point, uh, seven, and, uh, thirteen point seven.
PhD B: Yep.
Professor C: OK.
PhD B: So {disfmarker} Thanks.
Professor C: OK.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: OK.
PhD B: So, uh, this is the single stage Wiener filter, with {disfmarker} The noise estimation was based on first ten frames.
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: Actually I started with {disfmarker} using the VAD to estimate the noise and then I found that it works {disfmarker} it doesn't work for Finnish and Spanish because the VAD endpoints are not good to estimate the noise because it cuts into the speech sometimes, so I end up overestimating the noise and getting a worse result. So it works only for Italian by u for {disfmarker} using a VAD to estimate noise.
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: It works for Italian because the VAD was trained on Italian.
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: So, uh {disfmarker} so this was, uh {disfmarker} And so this was giving {disfmarker} um, this {disfmarker} this was like not improving a lot on this baseline of not having the Wiener filter on it. And, so, uh, I ran this stuff with one more stage of Wiener filtering on it but the second time, what I did was I {disfmarker} estimated the new Wiener filter based on the cleaned up speech, and did, uh, smoothing in the frequency to {disfmarker} to reduce the variance {disfmarker}
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: I mean, I have {disfmarker} I've {disfmarker} I've observed there are, like, a lot of bumps in the frequency when I do this Wiener filtering which is more like a musical noise or something. And so by adding another stage of Wiener filtering, the results on the SpeechDat - Car was like, um {disfmarker} So, I still don't have the word error rate. I'm sorry about it. But the overall improvement was like fifty - six point four six. This was again using ten frames of noise estimate and two stage of Wiener filtering. And the rest is like the LDA plu and the on - line normalization all remaining the same. Uh, so this was, like, compared to, uh, uh {disfmarker} Fifty - seven is what you got by using the French Telecom system, right?
PhD D: No, I don't think so.
PhD B: Y i
PhD D: Is it on Italian?
PhD B: No, this is over the whole SpeechDat - Car. So {disfmarker}
PhD D: Oh, yeah, fifty - seven {disfmarker}
PhD B: point {disfmarker}
PhD D: Right.
PhD B: Yeah, so the new {disfmarker} the new Wiener filtering schema is like {disfmarker} some fifty - six point four six which is like one percent still less than what you got using the French Telecom system.
PhD D: Uh - huh. Mm - hmm.
Professor C: But it's a pretty similar number in any event.
PhD B: It's very similar.
Professor C: Yeah. But again, you're {disfmarker} you're more or less doing what they were doing, right?
PhD B: It's {disfmarker} it's different in a sense like I'm actually cleaning up the cleaned up spectrum which they're not doing. They're d what they're doing is, they have two stage {disfmarker} stages of estimating the Wiener filter, but {disfmarker} the final filter, what they do is they {disfmarker} they take it to their time domain by doing an inverse Fourier transform.
Professor C: Yeah.
PhD B: And they filter the original signal using that fil filter,
Professor C: Uh - huh.
PhD B: which is like final filter is acting on the input noisy speech rather than on the cleaned up. So this is more like I'm doing Wiener filter twice, but the only thing is that the second time I'm actually smoothing the filter and then cleaning up the cleaned up spectrum first level. And so that {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} that's what the difference is.
Professor C: OK.
PhD B: And actually I tried it on s the original clean {disfmarker} I mean, the original spectrum where, like, I {disfmarker} the second time I estimate the filter but actually clean up the noisy speech rather the c s first {disfmarker} output of the first stage and that doesn't {disfmarker} seems to be a {disfmarker} giving, I mean, that much improvement. I {disfmarker} I didn didn't run it for the whole case. And {disfmarker} and what I t what I tried was, by using the same thing but {disfmarker} Uh, so we actually found that the VAD is very, like, crucial. I mean, just by changing the VAD itself gives you the {disfmarker} a lot of improvement
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: by instead of using the current VAD, if you just take up the VAD output from the channel zero, {comment} when {disfmarker} instead of using channel zero and channel one, because that was the p that was the reason why I was not getting a lot of improvement for estimating {comment} the noise. So I just used the channel zero VAD to estimate the noise so that it gives me some reliable mar markers for this noise estimation.
Professor C: What's a channel zero VAD?
PhD B: Um,
Professor C: I'm {disfmarker} I'm confused about that.
PhD B: so, it's like {disfmarker}
PhD D: So it's the close - talking microphone.
PhD B: Yeah, the close - talking without {disfmarker}
Professor C: Oh, oh, oh, oh.
PhD B: So because the channel zero and channel one are like the same speech, but only w I mean, the same endpoints.
Professor C:
PhD B: But the only thing is that the speech is very noisy for channel one, so you can actually use the output of the channel zero for channel one for the VAD. I mean, that's like a cheating method.
Professor C: Right. I mean, so a are they going to pro What are they doing to do, do we know yet? about {disfmarker} as far as what they're {disfmarker} what the rules are going to be and what we can use?
PhD D: Yeah, so actually I received a {disfmarker} a new document, describing this.
PhD B: Yeah, that's {disfmarker}
PhD D: And what they did finally is to, mmm, uh, not to align the utterances but to perform recognition, um, only on the close - talking microphone,
PhD B: Which is the channel zero.
PhD D: and to take the result of the recognition to get the boundaries uh, of speech.
Professor C: So it's not like that's being done in one place or one time.
PhD D: And {disfmarker}
Professor C: That's {disfmarker} that's just a rule and we'd {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you were permitted to do that. Is {disfmarker} is that it?
PhD D: Uh, I think they will send, um, files but we {disfmarker} we don't {disfmarker} Well, apparently {disfmarker}
Professor C: Oh, so they will send files so everybody will have the same boundaries to work with?
PhD D: Yeah. Yeah.
PhD B: But actually their alignment actually is not seems to be improving in like on all cases.
Professor C: OK.
PhD D: Oh, i Yeah, so what happened here is that, um, the overall improvement that they have with this method {disfmarker} So {disfmarker} Well, to be more precise, what they have is, they have these alignments and then they drop the beginning silence and {disfmarker} and the end silence but they keep, uh, two hundred milliseconds before speech and two hundred after speech. And they keep the speech pauses also. Um, and the overall improvement over the MFCC baseline So, when they just, uh, add this frame dropping in addition it's r uh, forty percent, right?
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: Fourteen percent, I mean.
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: Yeah, which is {disfmarker}
PhD D: Um, which is, um, t which is the overall improvement. But in some cases it doesn't improve at all. Like, uh, y do you remember which case?
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: It gives like negative {disfmarker} Well, in {disfmarker} in like some Italian and TI - digits,
PhD D: Yeah, some @ @.
PhD B: right?
PhD D: Right.
PhD B: Yeah. So by using the endpointed speech, actually it's worse than the baseline in some instances, which could be due to the word pattern.
PhD D: Mmm. Yeah.
Professor C: Yeah,
PhD D: And {disfmarker} Yeah, the other thing also is that fourteen percent is less than what you obtain using a real VAD.
PhD B: Yeah, our neural net {disfmarker}
PhD D: So with without cheating like this.
PhD B: Yeah, yeah.
PhD D: So {disfmarker} Uh {disfmarker} So I think this shows that there is still work {disfmarker} Uh, well, working on the VAD is still {disfmarker} still important I think.
Professor C: Yeah, c
PhD D: Uh {disfmarker}
PhD A: Can I ask just a {disfmarker} a high level question? Can you just say like one or two sentences about Wiener filtering and why {disfmarker} why are people doing that?
PhD B: Hmm.
PhD A: What's {disfmarker} what's the deal with that?
PhD B: OK, so the Wiener filter, it's {disfmarker} it's like {disfmarker} it's like you try to minimize {disfmarker} I mean, so the basic principle of Wiener filter is like you try to minimize the, uh, d uh, difference between the noisy signal and the clean signal if you have two channels. Like let's say you have a clean t signal and you have an additional channel where you know what is the noisy signal.
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: And then you try to minimize the error between these two.
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: So that's the basic principle. And you get {disfmarker} you can do that {disfmarker} I mean, if {disfmarker} if you have only a c noisy signal, at a level which you, you w try to estimate the noise from the w assuming that the first few frames are noise or if you have a w voice activity detector, uh, you estimate the noise spectrum.
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: And then you {disfmarker}
PhD A: Do you assume the noise is the same?
PhD B: Yeah. in {disfmarker} yeah, after the speech starts.
PhD A: Uh - huh.
PhD B: So {disfmarker} but that's not the case in, uh, many {disfmarker} many of our cases but it works reasonably well.
PhD A: I see.
PhD B: And {disfmarker} and then you What you do is you, uh b fff. So again, I can write down some of these eq Oh, OK. Yeah. And then you do this {disfmarker} uh, this is the transfer function of the Wiener filter, so" SF" is a clean speech spectrum, power spectrum
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: And" N" is the noisy power spectrum. And so this is the transfer function.
Professor C: Right
PhD B: And,
Professor C: actually, I guess {disfmarker}
PhD B: Yeah.
Professor C: Yeah.
PhD B: And then you multiply your noisy power spectrum with this. You get an estimate of the clean power spectrum.
PhD A: I see. OK.
PhD B: So {disfmarker} but the thing is that you have to estimate the SF from the noisy spectrum, what you have. So you estimate the NF from the initial noise portions and then you subtract that from the current noisy spectrum to get an estimate of the SF. So sometimes that becomes zero because you do you don't have a true estimate of the noise. So the f filter will have like sometimes zeros in it
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: because some frequency values will be zeroed out because of that. And that creates a lot of discontinuities across the spectrum because @ @ the filter. So, uh, so {disfmarker} that's what {disfmarker} that was just the first stage of Wiener filtering that I tried.
PhD A: So is this, um, basically s uh, similar to just regular spectral subtraction?
PhD B: It {disfmarker}
Professor C: It's all pretty related,
PhD B: Yeah.
Professor C: yeah. It's {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} there's a di there's a whole class of techniques where you try in some sense to minimize the noise.
PhD A: Uh - huh.
Professor C: And it's typically a mean square sense, uh {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} uh, i in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} in some way. And, uh {disfmarker} uh, spectral subtraction is {disfmarker} is, uh {disfmarker} uh, one approach to it.
PhD A: Do people use the Wiener filtering in combination with the spectral subtraction typically, or is i are they sort of competing techniques?
PhD B: Not seen. They are very s similar techniques.
PhD A: Yeah. O oh, OK.
PhD B: So it's like I haven't seen anybody using s Wiener filter with spectral subtraction.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
PhD A: I see, I see.
Professor C: I mean, in the long run you're doing the same thing
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: Yeah.
Professor C: but y but there you make different approximations, and {disfmarker} in spectral subtraction, for instance, there's a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} an estimation factor.
PhD A: Mmm.
Professor C: You sometimes will figure out what the noise is and you'll multiply that noise spectrum times some constant and subtract that rather than {disfmarker} and sometimes people {disfmarker} even though this really should be in the power domain, sometimes people s work in the magnitude domain because it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} it works better.
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: And, uh, uh, you know.
PhD A: So why did you choose, uh, Wiener filtering over some other {disfmarker} one of these other techniques?
PhD B: Uh, the reason was, like, we had this choice of using spectral subtraction, Wiener filtering, and there was one more thing which I which I'm trying, is this sub space approach. So, Stephane is working on spectral subtraction.
PhD A: Oh, OK.
PhD B: So I picked up {disfmarker}
PhD A: So you're sort of trying @ @ them all.
PhD B: Y Yeah,
PhD A: Ah,
PhD B: we just wanted to have a few noise production {disfmarker} compensation techniques
PhD A: I see. Oh, OK.
PhD B: and then pick some from that {disfmarker}
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: pick one.
Professor C: I m I mean {disfmarker} yeah, I mean, there's Car - Carmen's working on another, on the vector Taylor series.
PhD B: VA Yeah, VAD. w Yeah.
Professor C: So they were just kind of trying to cover a bunch of different things with this task and see, you know, what are {disfmarker} what are the issues for each of them.
PhD A: Ah, OK. That makes sense.
PhD B: Yeah.
PhD A: Yeah. Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
Professor C: Um.
PhD A: Cool, thanks.
PhD B: So {disfmarker} so one of {disfmarker} one of the things that I tried, like I said, was to remove those zeros in the fri filter by doing some smoothing of the filter.
Professor C: Yeah.
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: Like, you estimate the edge of square and then you do a f smoothing across the frequency so that those zeros get, like, flattened out.
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: And that doesn't seems to be improving by trying it on the first time. So what I did was like I p did this and then you {disfmarker} I plugged in the {disfmarker} one more {disfmarker} the same thing but with the smoothed filter the second time.
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: And that seems to be working.
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: So that's where I got like fifty - six point five percent improvement on SpeechDat - Car with that. And {disfmarker} So the other thing what I tried was I used still the ten frames of noise estimate but I used this channel zero VAD to drop the frames. So I'm not {disfmarker} still not estimating. And that has taken the performance to like sixty - seven percent in SpeechDat - Car, which is {disfmarker} which {disfmarker} which like sort of shows that by using a proper VAD you can just take it to further, better levels. And {disfmarker} So.
PhD A: So that's sort of like, you know, best - case performance?
PhD B: Yeah, so far I've seen sixty - seven {disfmarker} I mean, no, I haven't seen s like sixty - seven percent. And, uh, using the channel zero VAD to estimate the noise also seems to be improving but I don't have the results for all the cases with that. So I used channel zero VAD to estimate noise as a lesser 2 x frame, which is like, {vocalsound} everywhere I use the channel zero VAD. And that seems to be the best combination, uh, rather than using a few frames to estimate and then drop a channel.
Professor C: So I'm {disfmarker} I'm still a little confused. Is that channel zero information going to be accessible during this test.
PhD B: Nnn, no. This is just to test whether we can really improve by using a better VAD.
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: So,
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: I mean {disfmarker} So this is like the noise compensation f is fixed
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: but you make a better decision on the endpoints. That's, like {disfmarker} seems to be {disfmarker}
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: so we c so I mean, which {disfmarker} which means, like, by using this technique what we improve just the VAD
Professor C: Yes.
PhD B: we can just take the performance by another ten percent or better.
Professor C: OK.
PhD B: So, that {disfmarker} that was just the, uh, reason for doing that experiment. And, w um {disfmarker} Yeah, but this {disfmarker} all these things, I have to still try it on the TI - digits, which is like I'm just running. And there seems to be not improving a {disfmarker} a lot on the TI - digits, so I'm like investigating that, why it's not. And, um, um {disfmarker} Well after that. So, uh {disfmarker} so the other {disfmarker} the other thing is {disfmarker} like I've been {disfmarker} I'm doing all this stuff on the power spectrum. So {disfmarker} Tried this stuff on the mel as well {disfmarker} mel and the magnitude, and mel magnitude, and all those things. But it seems to be the power spectrum seems to be getting the best result. So, one of {disfmarker} one of reasons I thought like doing the averaging, after the filtering using the mel filter bank, that seems to be maybe helping rather than trying it on the mel filter ba filtered outputs.
Professor C: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
PhD B: So just th
Professor C: Ma Makes sense.
PhD B: Yeah, th that's {disfmarker} that's the only thing that I could think of why {disfmarker} why it's giving improvement on the mel. And, yep. So that's it.
Professor C: Uh, how about the subspace stuff?
PhD B: Subspace, {comment} I'm {disfmarker} I'm like {disfmarker} that's still in {disfmarker} a little bit in the back burner because I've been p putting a lot effort on this to make it work, on tuning things and other stuff.
Professor C: OK.
PhD B: So I was like going parallely but not much of improvement. I'm just {disfmarker} have some skeletons ready, need some more time for it.
Professor C: OK.
PhD B: Mmm.
PhD A: Tha - that it?
PhD B: Yep. Yep.
PhD A: Cool. Do you wanna go, Stephane?
PhD D: Uh, yeah. So, {vocalsound} I've been, uh, working still on the spectral subtraction. Um, So to r to remind you {vocalsound} {vocalsound} a little bit of {disfmarker} of what I did before, is just {vocalsound} to apply some spectral subtraction with an overestimation factor also to get, um, an estimate of the noise, uh, spectrum, and subtract this estimation of the noise spectrum from the, uh, signal spectrum, {comment} but subtracting more when the SNR is {disfmarker} is, uh, low, which is a technique that it's often used.
PhD A:" Subtracting more" , meaning {disfmarker}?
PhD D: So you overestimate the noise spectrum. You multiply the noise spectrum by a factor, uh, which depends on the SNR.
PhD A: Oh, OK. I see.
PhD D: So, above twenty DB, it's one, so you just subtract the noise.
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: And then it's b Generally {disfmarker} Well, I use, actually, a linear, uh, function of the SNR,
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: which is bounded to, like, two or three, {comment} when the SNR is below zero DB.
PhD A: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
PhD D: Um, doing just this, uh, either on the FFT bins or on the mel bands, um, t doesn't yield any improvement
Professor C: Oh! Um, uh, what are you doing with negative, uh, powers?
PhD D: o Yeah. So there is also a threshold, of course, because after subtraction you can have negative energies,
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: and {disfmarker} So what I {disfmarker} I just do is to put, uh {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to add {disfmarker} to put the threshold first and then to add a small amount of noise, which right now is speech - shaped. Um {disfmarker}
PhD A: Speech - shaped?
PhD D: Yeah, so it's {disfmarker} a it has the overall {disfmarker} overall energy, uh {disfmarker} pow it has the overall power spectrum of speech. So with a bump around one kilohertz.
PhD A: So when y when you talk about there being something less than zero after subtracting the noise, is that at a particular frequency bin?
PhD D: i Uh - huh. Yeah.
PhD A: OK.
PhD D: There can be frequency bins with negative values.
PhD A: And so when you say you're adding something that has the overall shape of speech, is that in a {disfmarker} in a particular frequency bin? Or you're adding something across all the frequencies when you get these negatives?
PhD D: For each frequencies I a I'm adding some, uh, noise, but the a the amount of {disfmarker} the amount of noise I add is not the same for all the frequency bins.
PhD A: Ah! OK. I gotcha. Right.
PhD D: Uh. Right now I don't think if it makes sense to add something that's speech - shaped, because then you have silence portion that have some spectra similar to the sp the overall speech spectra.
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: But {disfmarker} Yeah. So this is something I can still work on,
PhD A: So what does that mean?
PhD D: but {disfmarker} Hmm.
PhD A: I'm trying to understand what it means when you do the spectral subtraction and you get a negative. It means that at that particular frequency range you subtracted more energy than there was actually {disfmarker}
PhD D: That means that {disfmarker} Mm - hmm. Yeah. So {disfmarker} so yeah, you have an {disfmarker} an estimation of the noise spectrum, but sometimes, of course, it's {disfmarker} as the noise is not perfectly stationary, sometimes this estimation can be, uh, too small, so you don't subtract enough. But sometimes it can be too large also. If {disfmarker} if the noise, uh, energy in this particular frequency band drops for some reason.
PhD A: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
PhD D: Mmm.
PhD A: So in {disfmarker} in an ideal word i world {comment} if the noise were always the same, then, when you subtracted it the worst that i you would get would be a zero. I mean, the lowest you would get would be a zero, cuz i if there was no other energy there you're just subtracting exactly the noise.
Professor C: Right.
PhD D: Mm - hmm,
Professor C: Yep, there's all {disfmarker} there's all sorts of, uh, deviations from the ideal here.
PhD D: yeah.
Professor C: I mean, for instance, you're {disfmarker} you're talking about the signal and noise, um, at a particular point. And even if something is sort of stationary in ster terms of statistics, there's no guarantee that any particular instantiation or piece of it is exactly a particular number or bounded by a particular range.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: So, you're figuring out from some chunk of {disfmarker} of {disfmarker} of the signal what you think the noise is. Then you're subtracting that from another chunk,
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: and there's absolutely no reason to think that you'd know that it wouldn't, uh, be negative in some places.
PhD D: Mm - hmm. Hmm.
Professor C: Uh, on the other hand that just means that in some sense you've made a mistake because you certainly have stra subtracted a bigger number than is due to the noise.
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: Um {disfmarker} Also, we speak {disfmarker} the whole {disfmarker} where all this stuff comes from is from an assumption that signal and noise are uncorrelated. And that certainly makes sense in s in {disfmarker} in a statistical interpretation, that, you know, over, um, all possible realizations that they're uncorrelated
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: or assuming, uh, ergodicity that i that i um, across time, uh, it's uncorrelated. But if you just look at {disfmarker} a quarter second, uh, and you cross - multiply the two things, uh, you could very well, uh, end up with something that sums to something that's not zero. So in fact, the two signals could have some relation to one another. And so there's all sorts of deviations from ideal in this. And {disfmarker} and given all that, you could definitely end up with something that's negative. But if down the road you're making use of something as if it is a power spectrum, um, then it can be bad to have something negative. Now, the other thing I wonder about actually is, what if you left it negative? What happens?
PhD B: Is that the log?
Professor C: I mean, because {disfmarker} Um, are you taking the log before you add them up to the mel?
PhD B: After that. No, after.
Professor C: Right. So the thing is, I wonder how {disfmarker} if you put your thresholds after that, I wonder how often you would end up with, uh {disfmarker} with negative values.
PhD B: But you will {disfmarker} But you end up reducing some neighboring frequency bins {disfmarker} @ @ in the average, right? When you add the negative to the positive value which is the true estimate.
Professor C: Yeah. But nonetheless, uh, you know, these are {disfmarker} it's another f kind of smoothing, right? that you're doing.
PhD B: Yeah.
Professor C: Right. So, you've done your best shot at figuring out what the noise should be, and now i then you've subtracted it off. And then after that, instead of {disfmarker} instead of, uh, uh, leaving it as is and adding things {disfmarker} adding up some neighbors, you artificially push it up.
PhD B: Hmm.
Professor C: Which is, you know, it's {disfmarker} there's no particular reason that that's the right thing to do either, right?
PhD B: Yeah, yeah.
Professor C: So, um, uh, i in fact, what you'd be doing is saying," well, we're d we're {disfmarker} we're going to definitely diminish the effect of this frequency in this little frequency bin in the {disfmarker} in the overall mel summation" . It's just a thought. I d I don't know if it would be {disfmarker}
PhD A: Sort of the opposite of that would be if {disfmarker} if you find out you're going to get a negative number, you don't do the subtraction for that bin.
PhD B: Yeah. Uh - huh. That is true.
Professor C: Nnn, yeah,
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: although {disfmarker}
PhD A: That would be almost the opposite, right? Instead of leaving it negative, you don't do it. If your {disfmarker} if your subtraction's going to result in a negative number, you {disfmarker} you don't do subtraction in that.
Professor C: Yeah, but that means that in a situation where you thought that {disfmarker} that the bin was almost entirely noise, you left it.
PhD A: Yeah. Yeah, I'm just saying that's like the opposite.
PhD B: We just {disfmarker}
Professor C: Uh.
PhD B: Yeah.
Professor C: Yeah.
PhD A: Yeah.
Professor C: Well, yeah that's {disfmarker} that's the opposite,
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: yeah.
PhD D: And, yeah, some people also {disfmarker} if it's a negative value they, uh, re - compute it using inter interpolation from the edges and bins.
PhD B: For frames, frequency bins.
Professor C: Yeah.
PhD D: Well, there are different things that you can do.
PhD A: Oh.
Professor C: People can also, uh, reflect it back up and essentially do a full wave rectification instead of a {disfmarker} instead of half wave.
PhD A: Oh.
Professor C: But it was just a thought that {disfmarker} that it might be something to try.
PhD D: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Yep. Well, actually I tried, {vocalsound} something else based on this, um, is to {disfmarker} to put some smoothing, um, because it seems to {disfmarker} to help or it seems to help the Wiener filtering
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: and, mmm {disfmarker} So what I did is, uh, some kind of nonlinear smoothing. Actually I have a recursion that computes {disfmarker} Yeah, let me go back a little bit. Actually, when you do spectral subtraction you can, uh, find this {disfmarker} this equivalent in the s in the spectral domain. You can uh compute, y you can say that d your spectral subtraction is a filter, um, and the gain of this filter is the, um, {vocalsound} signal energy minus what you subtract, divided by the signal energy. And this is a gain that varies over time, and, you know, of course, uh, depending on the s on the noise spectrum and on the speech spectrum. And {disfmarker} what happen actually is that during low SNR values, the gain is close to zero but it varies a lot. Mmm, and this {disfmarker} this is the cause of musical noise and all these {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} {comment} the fact you {disfmarker} we go below zero one frame and then you can have an energy that's above zero.
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: And {disfmarker} Mmm. So the smoothing is {disfmarker} I did a smoothing actually on this gain, uh, trajectory. But it's {disfmarker} the smoothing is nonlinear in the sense that I tried to not smooth if the gain is high, because in this case we know that, uh, the estimate of the gain is correct because we {disfmarker} we are not close to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to zero, um, and to do more smoothing if the gain is low. Mmm. Um. Yeah. So, well, basically that's this idea, and it seems to give pretty good results, uh, although I've just {disfmarker} just tested on Italian and Finnish. And on Italian it seems {disfmarker} my result seems to be a little bit better than the Wiener filtering,
PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah, the one you showed yesterday.
PhD D: right?
PhD B: Right?
Professor C: Yeah.
PhD D: Uh, I don't know if you have these improvement the detailed improvements for Italian, Finnish, and Spanish there
PhD B: Fff. No, I don't have, for each,
PhD D: or you have {disfmarker} just have your own.
PhD B: I {disfmarker} I just {disfmarker} just have the final number here.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: So these numbers he was giving before with the four point three, and the ten point one, and so forth, those were Italian, right?
PhD B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So {disfmarker} so, no,
Professor C: Yeah.
PhD D: Uh {disfmarker}
PhD B: I actually didn't give you the number which is the final one,
PhD D: uh, no, we've {disfmarker}
PhD B: which is, after two stages of Wiener filtering. I mean, that was I just {disfmarker} well, like the overall improvement is like fifty - six point five. So,
Professor C: Right.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: I mean, his number is still better than what I got in the two stages of Wiener filtering.
PhD D: Yeah.
Professor C: Right.
PhD D: On Italian. But on Finnish it's a little bit worse, apparently.
PhD B: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: Um {disfmarker}
Professor C: But do you have numbers in terms of word error rates on {disfmarker} on Italian? So just so you have some sense of reference?
PhD D: Yeah. Uh, so, it's, uh, three point, uh, eight.
Professor C: Uh - huh.
PhD D: Am I right?
PhD B: Oh, OK. Yeah, right, OK.
PhD D: And then, uh, d uh, nine point, uh, one.
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: And finally, uh, sixteen point five.
Professor C: And this is, um, spectral subtraction plus what?
PhD D: Plus {disfmarker} plus nonlinear smoothing. Well, it's {disfmarker} the system {disfmarker} it's exactly the sys the same system as Sunil tried,
Professor C: On - line normalization and LDA?
PhD D: but {disfmarker}
Professor C: Yeah. Yeah.
PhD D: Yeah. But instead of double stage Wiener filtering, it's {disfmarker} it's this smoothed spectral subtraction. Um, yeah.
PhD A: What is it the, um, France Telecom system uses
Professor C: Right.
PhD A: for {disfmarker} Do they use spectral subtraction, or Wiener filtering, or {disfmarker}?
PhD B: They use spectral subtraction, right.
PhD D: For what?
PhD B: French Telecom.
PhD D: It {disfmarker} it's Wiener filtering,
PhD B: Oh, it's {disfmarker} it's Wiener filtering.
PhD D: am I right?
PhD A: Oh.
PhD B: Sorry.
PhD D: Well, it's some kind of Wiener filtering {disfmarker}
PhD B: Yeah, filtering. Yeah, it's not exactly Wiener filtering but some variant of Wiener filtering.
PhD D: Yeah.
PhD A: I see.
PhD B: Yeah.
Professor C: Yeah, plus, uh, I guess they have some sort of cepstral normalization, as well.
PhD B: s They have like {disfmarker} yeah, th the {disfmarker} just noise compensation technique is a variant of Wiener filtering,
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: plus they do some {disfmarker} some smoothing techniques on the final filter. The {disfmarker} th they actually do the filtering in the time domain.
PhD A: Mmm.
PhD D: Yeah.
PhD A: Hmm.
PhD B: So they would take this HF squared back, taking inverse Fourier transform. And they convolve the time domain signal with that.
PhD A: Oh, I see.
PhD B: And they do some smoothing on that final filter, impulse response.
PhD A: Hmm.
PhD D: But they also have two {disfmarker} two different smoothing @ @.
PhD B: I mean, I'm {disfmarker} I'm @ @.
PhD D: One in the time domain and one in the frequency domain by just taking the first, um, coefficients of the impulse response.
PhD B: But.
PhD D: So, basically it's similar. I mean, what you did, it's similar
PhD B: It's similar in the smoothing and {disfmarker}
PhD D: because you have also two {disfmarker} two kind of smoothing.
PhD B: Yeah.
PhD D: One in the time domain, and one in the frequency domain,
PhD B: Yeah. The frequency domain.
PhD D: yeah.
PhD A: Does the smoothing in the time domain help {disfmarker}
PhD D: Um {disfmarker}
PhD A: Well, do you get this musical noise stuff with Wiener filtering or is that only with, uh, spectral subtraction?
PhD B: No, you get it with Wiener filtering also.
PhD D: Yeah.
PhD A: Does the smoothing in the time domain help with that? Or some other smoothing?
PhD B: Oh, no, you still end up with zeros in the s spectrum. Sometimes.
PhD D: Yeah.
PhD A: Hmm.
Professor C: I mean, it's not clear that these musical noises hurt us in recognition.
PhD A: Hmm.
Professor C: We don't know if they do.
PhD B: Yeah.
Professor C: I mean, they {disfmarker} they sound bad.
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: Yeah, I know.
Professor C: But we're not listening to it, usually.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
PhD A: Hmm.
PhD D: Uh, actually the {disfmarker} the smoothing that I did {disfmarker} do here reduced the musical noise. Well, it {disfmarker}
PhD B: Mm - hmm. Yeah, yeah,
PhD D: Mmm.
PhD B: the {disfmarker}
PhD D: Well, I cannot {disfmarker} you cannot hear beca well, actually what I d did not say is that this is not in the FFT bins. This is in the mel frequency bands. Um {disfmarker} So, it could be seen as a f a {disfmarker} a smoothing in the frequency domain because I used, in ad mel bands in addition and then the other phase of smoothing in the time domain. Mmm. But, when you look at the spectrogram, if you don't have an any smoothing, you clearly see, like {disfmarker} in silence portions, and at the beginning and end of speech, you see spots of high energy randomly distributed over the {disfmarker} the spectrogram.
PhD A: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
PhD D: Um {disfmarker}
PhD A: That's the musical noise?
PhD D: Which is musical noise,
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: yeah, if {disfmarker} if it {disfmarker} If you listen to it {disfmarker} uh, if you do this in the FFT bins, then you have spots of energy randomly distributing. And if you f if you re - synthesize these spot sounds as, like, sounds,
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: uh {disfmarker}
Professor C: Well, none of these systems, by the way, have {disfmarker} I mean, y you both are {disfmarker} are working with, um, our system that does not have the neural net,
PhD D: And {disfmarker}
PhD B: Yep.
Professor C: right?
PhD B: Yeah.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: OK. So one would hope, presumably, that the neural net part of it would {disfmarker} would improve things further as {disfmarker} as they did before.
PhD D: Yeah. Yeah. Um {disfmarker} Yeah, although if {disfmarker} if we, um, look at the result from the proposals, {comment} one of the reason, uh, the n system with the neural net was, um, more than {disfmarker} well, around five percent better, is that it was much better on highly mismatched condition. I'm thinking, for instance, on the TI - digits trained on clean speech and tested on noisy speech.
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: Uh, for this case, the system with the neural net was much better.
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: But not much on the {disfmarker} in the other cases.
Professor C: Yeah.
PhD D: And if we have no, uh, spectral subtraction or Wiener filtering, um, i the system is {disfmarker} Uh, we thought the neural {disfmarker} neural network is much better than before, even in these cases of high mismatch. So, maybe the neural net will help less but, um {disfmarker}
Professor C: Maybe.
PhD A: Could you train a neural net to do spectral subtraction?
Professor C: Yeah, it could do a nonlinear spectral subtraction
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: but I don't know if it {disfmarker} I mean, you have to figure out what your targets are.
PhD A: Yeah, I was thinking if you had a clean version of the signal and {disfmarker} and a noisy version, and your targets were the M F - uh, you know, whatever, frequency bins {disfmarker}
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: Right.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: Yeah, well, that's not so much spectral subtraction then,
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but it's {disfmarker} but at any rate, yeah, people, uh {disfmarker}
PhD A: People do that?
Professor C: y yeah, in fact, we had visitors here who did that I think when you were here ba way back when.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
PhD A: Hmm.
Professor C: Uh, people {disfmarker} d done lots of experimentation over the years with training neural nets. And it's not a bad thing to do. It's another approach.
PhD A: Hmm.
Professor C: M I mean, it's {disfmarker} it, um {disfmarker}
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: The objection everyone always raises, which has some truth to it is that, um, it's good for mapping from a particular noise to clean but then you get a different noise.
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: And the experiments we saw that visitors did here showed that it {disfmarker} there was at least some, um, {vocalsound} {comment} gentleness to the degradation when you switched to different noises. It did seem to help. So that {disfmarker} you're right, that's another {disfmarker} another way to go.
PhD A: How did it compare on {disfmarker} I mean, for {disfmarker} for good cases where it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} uh, stuff that it was trained on? Did it do pretty well?
Professor C: Oh, yeah, it did very well.
PhD A: Mmm.
Professor C: Yeah.
PhD A: Mmm.
Professor C: Um,
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: but to some extent that's kind of what we're doing. I mean, we're not doing exactly that, we're not trying to generate good examples but by trying to do the best classifier you possibly can, for these little phonetic categories,
PhD A: Mm - hmm. You could say it's sort of built in.
Professor C: It's {disfmarker} Yeah, it's kind of built into that.
PhD A: Hmm.
Professor C: And {disfmarker} and that's why we have found that it {disfmarker} it does help.
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: Um {disfmarker} so, um, yeah, I mean, we'll just have to try it. But I {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would imagine that it will help some. I mean, it {disfmarker} we'll just have to see whether it helps more or less the same, but I would imagine it would help some.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: So in any event, all of this {disfmarker} I was just confirming that all of this was with a simpler system.
PhD D: Yeah,
Professor C: OK?
PhD D: yeah. Um, Yeah, so this is th the, um {disfmarker} Well, actually, this was kind of the first try with this spectral subtraction plus smoothing,
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: and I was kind of excited by the result.
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: Um, then I started to optimize the different parameters. And, uh, the first thing I tried to optimize is the, um, time constant of the smoothing. And it seems that the one that I chose for the first experiment was the optimal one, so {vocalsound} uh,
Professor C: It's amazing how often that happens.
PhD D: Um, so this is the first thing. Um {disfmarker} Yeah, another thing that I {disfmarker} it's important to mention is, um, that this has a this has some additional latency. Um. Because when I do the smoothing, uh, it's a recursion that estimated the means, so {disfmarker} of the g of the gain curve. And this is a filter that has some latency. And I noticed that it's better if we take into account this latency. So, instead o of using the current estimated mean to, uh, subtract the current frame, it's better to use an estimate that's some somewhere in the future. Um {disfmarker}
PhD A: And that's what causes the latency? OK.
PhD B: You mean, the m the mean is computed o based on some frames in the future also?
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: Yeah.
PhD B: Or {disfmarker} or no?
PhD D: It's the recursion, so it's {disfmarker} it's the center recursion, right?
PhD B: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: Um {disfmarker} and the latency of this recursion is around fifty milliseconds.
Professor C: One five?
PhD D:
Professor C: One five? Five zero?
PhD D: Five zero,
Professor C: Five zero.
PhD D: yeah.
Professor C: Yeah.
PhD D: Um,
PhD B: I'm sorry,
PhD D: mmm.
PhD B: why {disfmarker} why is that delay coming? Like, you estimate the mean?
PhD D: Yeah, the mean estimation has some delay, right?
PhD B: Oh, yeah.
PhD D: I mean, the {disfmarker} the filter that {disfmarker} that estimates the mean has a time constant.
PhD B: It isn't {disfmarker} OK, so it's like it looks into the future also. OK.
PhD D: Yeah.
Professor C: What if you just look into the past?
PhD D: It's, uh, not as good. It's not bad.
Professor C: How m by how much?
PhD D: Um, it helps a lot over the ba the baseline but, mmm {disfmarker}
Professor C: By how much?
PhD D: it {disfmarker} It's around three percent, um, relative.
Professor C: Worse.
PhD D: Yeah. Yeah. Um,
Professor C: Hmm.
PhD D: mmm {disfmarker} So, uh {disfmarker}
Professor C: It's depending on how all this stuff comes out we may or may not be able to add any latency.
PhD D: Yeah, but {disfmarker} Yeah. So, yeah, it depends. Uh, y actually, it's {disfmarker} it's l it's three percent. Right. Mmm. Yeah, b but I don't think we have to worry too much on that right now while {disfmarker} you kno. Mm - hmm.
Professor C: Um, s Yeah, I mean, I think the only thing is that {disfmarker}
PhD D: So {disfmarker}
Professor C: I would worry about it a little.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: Because if we completely ignore latency, and then we discover that we really have to do something about it, we're going to be {disfmarker} find ourselves in a bind.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: So, um, you know, maybe you could make it twenty - five. You know what I mean?
PhD D: Yeah.
Professor C: Yeah, just, you know, just be {disfmarker} be a little conservative
PhD D: Oh yes.
Professor C: because we may end up with this crunch where all of a sudden we have to cut the latency in half or something.
PhD D: s Mm - hmm. Yeah.
Professor C: OK.
PhD D: Um. So, yeah, there are other things in the, um, algorithm that I didn't, uh, @ @ a lot yet,
PhD A: Oh!
PhD D: which {disfmarker}
PhD A: Sorry. A quick question just about the latency thing. If {disfmarker} if there's another part of the system that causes a latency of a hundred milliseconds, is this an additive thing? Or c or is yours hidden in that?
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
PhD A: Uh {disfmarker}
PhD D: No, it's {disfmarker} it's added.
PhD A: It's additive. OK.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: We can {disfmarker} OK. We can do something in parallel also, in some like {disfmarker} some cases like, if you wanted to do voice activity detection.
PhD A: Uh - huh.
PhD B: And we can do that in parallel with some other filtering you can do.
PhD D: Mmm.
PhD B: So you can make a decision on that voice activity detection and then you decide whether you want to filter or not.
PhD D: Yeah.
PhD B: But by then you already have the sufficient samples to do the filtering.
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: So {disfmarker} So, sometimes you can do it anyway.
PhD A: I mean, couldn't, uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Couldn't you just also {disfmarker} I mean, i if you know that the l the largest latency in the system is two hundred milliseconds, don't you {disfmarker} couldn't you just buffer up that number of frames and then everything uses that buffer?
PhD B: Yeah.
PhD A: And that way it's not additive?
Professor C: Well, in fact, everything is sent over in buffers cuz of {disfmarker} isn't it the TCP buffer some {disfmarker}?
PhD B: You mean, the {disfmarker} the data, the super frame or something?
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: Yeah, yeah.
PhD D: Yeah.
PhD B: Yeah, but that has a variable latency because the last frame doesn't have any latency
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: and first frame has a twenty framed latency. So you can't r rely on that latency all the time.
Professor C: Yeah.
PhD B: Because {disfmarker} I mean the transmission over {disfmarker} over the air interface is like a buffer.
PhD D: Yeah.
PhD B: Twenty frame {disfmarker}
PhD A: Yeah.
PhD B: twenty four frames.
PhD A: Yeah.
PhD B: So {disfmarker} But the only thing is that the first frame in that twenty - four frame buffer has a twenty - four frame latency. And the last frame doesn't have any latency.
PhD A: Mm - hmm.
PhD B: Because it just goes as {disfmarker}
PhD A: Yeah, I wasn't thinking of that one in particular
PhD B: Yeah.
PhD A: but more of, you know, if {disfmarker} if there is some part of your system that has to buffer twenty frames, uh, can't the other parts of the system draw out of that buffer and therefore not add to the latency?
Professor C: Yeah. Yeah. And {disfmarker} and that's sort of one of the {disfmarker} all of that sort of stuff is things that they're debating in their standards committee.
PhD A: Oh! Hmm.
PhD D: Mm - hmm. Yeah. So, um, there is uh, {comment} these parameters that I still have to {disfmarker} to look at. Like, I played a little bit with this overestimation factor, uh, but I still have to {disfmarker} to look more at this, um, at the level of noise I add after. Uh, I know that adding noise helped, um, the system just using spectral subtraction without smoothing, but I don't know right now if it's still important or not, and if the level I choose before is still the right one. Same thing for the shape of the {disfmarker} the noise. Maybe it would be better to add just white noise instead of speech shaped noise.
Professor C: That'd be more like the JRASTA thing in a sense. Yeah.
PhD D: Mm - hmm. Um, yep. Uh, and another thing is to {disfmarker} Yeah, for this I just use as noise estimate the mean, uh, spectrum of the first twenty frames of each utterance. I don't remember for this experiment what did you use for these two stage {disfmarker}
PhD B: I used ten {disfmarker} just ten frames. Yeah, because {disfmarker}
PhD D: The ten frames?
PhD B: I mean, the reason was like in TI - digits I don't have a lot. I had twenty frames most of the time.
PhD D: Mm - hmm. Um. But, so what's this result you told me about, the fact that if you use more than ten frames you can {disfmarker} improve by t
PhD B: Well, that's {disfmarker} that's using the channel zero. If I use a channel zero VAD to estimate the noise.
PhD D: Oh, OK.
PhD B: Which {disfmarker}
PhD D: But this is ten frames plus {disfmarker} plus
PhD B: Channel zero dropping.
PhD D: channel {disfmarker}
PhD B: Hmm.
PhD D: Uh, no, these results with two stage Wiener filtering is ten frames
PhD B: t Oh, this {disfmarker}
PhD D: but possibly more. I mean, if channel one VAD gives you {disfmarker}
PhD B: f Yeah. Mm - hmm. Yeah.
PhD D: Yeah. OK. Yeah, but in this experiment I did {disfmarker} I didn't use any VAD. I just used the twenty first frame to estimate the noise. And {disfmarker} So I expected it to be a little bit better, {vocalsound} if, uh, I use more {disfmarker} more frames. Um. OK, that's it for spectral subtraction. The second thing I was working on is to, um, try to look at noise estimation, {comment} mmm, and using some technique that doesn't need voice activity detection. Um, and for this I u simply used some code that, uh, {vocalsound} I had from {disfmarker} from Belgium, which is technique that, um, takes a bunch of frame, um, and for each frequency bands of this frame, takes a look at the minima of the energy. And then average these minima and take this as an {disfmarker} an energy estimate of the noise for this particular frequency band. And there is something more to this actually. What is done is that, {vocalsound} uh, these minima are computed, um, based on, um, high resolution spectra. So, I compute an FFT based on the long, uh, signal frame which is sixty - four millisecond {disfmarker}
PhD A: So you have one minimum for each frequency?
PhD D: What {disfmarker} what I {disfmarker} what I d uh, I do actually, is to take a bunch of {disfmarker} to take a tile on the spectrogram and this tile is five hundred milliseconds long and two hundred hertz wide.
PhD A: Mmm.
PhD D: And this tile {disfmarker} Uh, in this tile appears, like, the harmonics if you have a voiced sound, because it's {disfmarker} it's the FTT bins. And when you take the m the minima of {disfmarker} of these {disfmarker} this tile, when you don't have speech, these minima will give you some noise level estimate, If you have voiced speech, these minima will still give you some noise estimate because the minima are between the harmonics. And {disfmarker} If you have other {disfmarker} other kind of speech sounds then it's not the case, but if the time frame is long enough, uh, like s five hundred milliseconds seems to be long enough, {comment} you still have portions which, uh, are very close {disfmarker} whi which minima are very close to the noise energy.
Professor C: I'm confused. You said five hundred milliseconds
PhD D: Mmm?
Professor C: but you said sixty - four milliseconds. Which is which? What?
PhD D: Sixty - four milliseconds is to compute the FFT, uh, bins.
Professor C: Yeah,
PhD D: The {disfmarker} the FFT.
Professor C: yeah.
PhD D: Um, actually it's better to use sixty - four milliseconds because, um, if you use thirty milliseconds, then, uh, because of the {disfmarker} this short windowing and at low pitch, uh, sounds, {vocalsound} the harmonics are not, wha uh, correctly separated.
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: So if you take these minima, it {disfmarker} b {vocalsound} they will overestimate the noise a lot.
Professor C: So you take sixty - four millisecond F F Ts and then you average them {comment} over five hundred? Or {disfmarker}? Uh, what do you do over five hundred?
PhD D: So I take {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} I take a bunch of these sixty - four millisecond frame to cover five hundred milliseconds,
Professor C: Ah. OK.
PhD D: and then I look for the minima,
PhD A: Mmm.
Professor C: I see.
PhD D: on the {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on the bunch of uh fifty frames, right?
Professor C: I see.
PhD D: Mmm. So the interest of this is that, as y with this technique you can estimate u some reasonable noise spectra with only five hundred milliseconds of {disfmarker} of signal, so if the {disfmarker} the n the noise varies a lot, uh, you can track {disfmarker} better track the noise,
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: which is not the case if you rely on the voice activity detector. So even if there are no no speech pauses, you can track the noise level. The only requirement is that you must have, in these five hundred milliseconds segment, {comment} you must have voiced sound at least. Cuz this {disfmarker} these will help you to {disfmarker} to track the {disfmarker} the noise level. Um. So what I did is just to simply replace the VAD - based, uh, noise estimate by this estimate, first on SpeechDat - Car {disfmarker} Well, only on SpeechDat - Car actually. And it's, uh, slightly worse, like one percent relative compared to the VAD - based {pause} estimates. Um, I think the reason why it's not better, is that the SpeechDat - Car noises are all stationary. Um. So, u y y there really is no need to have something that's adaptive
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: and {disfmarker} Uh, well, they are mainly stationary. Um. But, I expect s maybe some improvement on TI - digits because, nnn, in this case the noises are all sometimes very variable. Uh, so I have to test it. Mmm.
Professor C: But are you comparing with something {disfmarker} e I'm {disfmarker} I'm {disfmarker} p s a little confused again, i it {disfmarker} Uh, when you compare it with the V A D - based,
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: VAD - Is this {disfmarker} is this the {disfmarker}?
PhD D: It's {disfmarker} It's the France - Telecom - based spectra, s uh, Wiener filtering and VAD. So it's their system but just I replace their noise estimate by this one.
Professor C: Oh, you're not doing this with our system?
PhD D: In i I'm not {disfmarker} No, no. Yeah, it's our system but with just the Wiener filtering from their system. Right? Mmm.
Professor C: OK.
PhD D: Yeah. Actually, th the best system that we still have is, uh, our system but with their noise compensation scheme, right?
Professor C: Right. But {disfmarker}
PhD D: So I'm trying to improve on this, and {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} by replacing their noise estimate by, uh, something that might be better.
Professor C: OK. But the spectral subtraction scheme that you reported on also re requires a {disfmarker} a noise estimate.
PhD D: Yeah. Yeah.
Professor C: Couldn't you try this for that?
PhD D: But I di
Professor C: Do you think it might help?
PhD D: Not yet, because I did this in parallel,
Professor C: I see,
PhD D: and I was working on one and the other.
Professor C: I see. Yeah.
PhD D: Um,
PhD B: Yeah.
PhD D: Yeah, for {disfmarker} for sure I will. I can try also, mmm, the spectral subtraction.
PhD B: So I'm also using that n new noise estimate technique on this Wiener filtering what I'm trying.
Professor C: OK.
PhD B: So I {disfmarker} I have, like, some experiments running, I don't have the results.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: Yeah.
PhD B: So.
Professor C: Yeah.
PhD B: I don't estimate the f noise on the ten frames but use his estimate.
Professor C: Yeah.
PhD D: Mm - hmm. Um. Yeah. I, um, also implemented a sp um {disfmarker} spectral whitening idea which is in the, um, Ericsson proposal. Uh, the idea is just to {vocalsound} um, flatten the log, uh, spectrum, um, and to flatten it more if the {disfmarker} the probability of silence is higher. So in this way, you can also reduce {disfmarker} somewhat reduce the musical noise and you reduce the variability if you have different noise shapes, because the {disfmarker} the spectrum becomes more flat in the silence portions. Um. Yeah. With this, no improvement, uh, but there are a lot of parameters that we can play with and, um {disfmarker} Actually, this {disfmarker} this could be seen as a soft version of the frame dropping because, um, you could just put the threshold and say that" below the threshold, I will flatten {disfmarker} comp completely flatten the {disfmarker} the spectrum" . And above this threshold, uh, keep the same spectrum. So it would be like frame dropping, because during the silence portions which are below the threshold of voice activity probability, {comment} uh, w you would have some kind of dummy frame which is a perfectly flat spectrum. And this, uh, whitening is something that's more soft because, um, you whiten {disfmarker} you just, uh, have a function {disfmarker} the whitening is a function of the speech probability, so it's not a hard decision.
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: Um, so I think maybe it can be used together with frame dropping and when we are not sure about if it's speech or silence, well, maybe it has something do with this.
Professor C: It's interesting. I mean, um, you know, in {disfmarker} in JRASTA we were essentially adding in, uh, white {disfmarker} uh, white noise dependent on our estimate of the noise.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: On the overall estimate of the noise. Uh, I think it never occurred to us to use a probability in there.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: You could imagine one that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that made use of where {disfmarker} where the amount that you added in was, uh, a function of the probability of it being s speech or noise.
PhD D: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Yeah, w Yeah, right now it's a constant that just depending on the {disfmarker} the noise spectrum.
PhD B: There's {disfmarker}
Professor C: Yeah.
PhD D: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
Professor C: Cuz that {disfmarker} that brings in sort of powers of classifiers that we don't really have in, uh, this other estimate. So it could be {disfmarker} it could be interesting.
PhD D: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
Professor C: What {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} what point does the, uh, system stop recording? How much {disfmarker}
PhD A: It'll keep going till {disfmarker} I guess when they run out of disk space,
Professor C: It went a little long? I mean, disk {disfmarker}
PhD A: but {disfmarker} I think we're OK.
PhD D: So.
Professor C: OK.
PhD D: Yeah. Uh {disfmarker} Yeah, so there are {disfmarker} with this technique there are some {disfmarker} I just did something exactly the same as {disfmarker} as the Ericsson proposal but, um, {vocalsound} the probability of speech is not computed the same way. And I think, i for {disfmarker} yeah, for a lot of things, actually a g a good speech probability is important. Like for frame dropping you improve, like {disfmarker} you can improve from ten percent as Sunil showed, if you use the channel zero speech probabilities.
Professor C: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
PhD D: For this it might help, um {disfmarker}
Professor C: Mm - hmm.
PhD D: S so, yeah. Uh, so yeah, the next thing I started to do is to, {vocalsound} uh, try to develop a better voice activity detector. And, um {disfmarker} I d um {disfmarker} yeah, for this I think we can maybe try to train the neural network for voice activity detection on all the data that we have, including all the SpeechDat - Car data. Um {disfmarker} And so I'm starting to obtain alignments on these databases. Um, and the way I mi I do that is that I just use the HTK system but I train it only on the close - talking microphone. And then I aligned {disfmarker} I obtained the Viterbi alignment of the training utterances. Um {disfmarker} It seems to be, uh i Actually what I observed is that for Italian it doesn't seem {disfmarker} Th - there seems to be a problem.
PhD B: No. So, it doesn't seems to help by their use of channel zero or channel one.
PhD D: Well. Because {disfmarker} What?
PhD B: Uh, you mean their d the frame dropping, right? Yeah, it doesn't {disfmarker}
PhD D: Yeah. Yeah. So, u but actually the VAD was trained on Italian also,
PhD B: Italian.
PhD D: so {disfmarker} Um, the c the current VAD that we have was trained on, uh, t SPINE, right?
PhD B: TI - digits.
PhD D: Italian, and TI - digits with noise and {disfmarker}
PhD B:
PhD D: Uh, yeah. And it seems to work on Italian but not on the Finnish and Spanish data. So, maybe one reason is that s s Finnish and Spanish noise are different. And actually we observed {disfmarker} we listened to some of the utterances and sometimes for Finnish there is music in the recordings and strange things, right?
PhD B: Yeah.
PhD D: Um {disfmarker} Yeah, so the idea was to train all the databases and obtain an alignment to train on these databases, and, um, also to, um, try different kind of features, {vocalsound} uh, as input to the VAD network. And we came up with a bunch of features that we want to try like, um, the spectral slope, the, um, the degree o degree of voicing with the features that, uh, we started to develop with Carmen, um, e with, uh, the correlation between bands and different kind of features,
PhD B: Yeah. Mm - hmm.
PhD D: and {disfmarker} Yeah.
PhD B: The energy also.
PhD D: The energy.
PhD B: Yeah.
Professor C: Yeah, right.
PhD D: Yeah. Of course. Yeah.
Professor C: OK. Well, Hans - Guenter will be here next week so I think he'll be interested in all {disfmarker} all of these things. And, so.
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
Professor C: Mmm.
PhD A: OK, shall we, uh, do digits?
Professor C: Yeah.
PhD A: Want to go ahead, Morgan?
Professor C: Sure.
PhD A: OK. | The meeting began with a short introduction to Hans Guenter, who was arriving soon and would be visiting for a few weeks. The team then discussed integrating mean log magnitude spectral subtraction into the SmartKom system. It seemed, however, that lengthening the time for this task was not very effective. The team also learned more about Wiener filtering which worked well when mixed with other approaches. It was almost as effective as the best systems. The team then delved into spectral subtraction and discussed the various ways in which it could be refined. The meeting ended with comments on the additional latency that was caused by this method. | qmsum |
Summarize the meeting
Grad A: Hey, you're not supposed to be drinking in here dude.
Grad D: OK.
Grad A: Do we have to read them that slowly? OK. Sounded like a robot. Um, this is t
Grad C: OK.
Grad A: When you read the numbers it kind of reminded me of beat poetry.
Grad D: I tried to go for the EE Cummings sort of feeling, but {disfmarker}
Grad A: Three three six zero zero. Four two zero zero one seven. That's what I think of when I think of beat poetry.
Grad C: Beat poetry.
Grad A: You ever seen" So I married an axe murderer" ?
Grad C: Uh parts of it.
Grad D: Mm - hmm.
Grad A: There's a part wh there's parts when he's doing beat poetry.
Grad C: Oh yeah?
Grad A: And he talks like that. That's why I thi That uh probably is why I think of it that way.
Grad D: Hmm. No, I didn't see that movie. Who did {disfmarker} who made that?
Grad A: Mike Meyers is the guy.
Grad D: Oh. OK.
Grad A: It - it's his uh {disfmarker} it's his cute romantic comedy. That's {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} That's his cute romantic comedy, yeah. The other thing that's real funny, I'll spoil it for you. is when he's {disfmarker} he works in a coffee shop, in San Francisco, and uh he's sitting there on this couch and they bring him this massive cup of espresso, and he's like" excuse me I ordered the large espresso?" Grad D: Uh. We're having, {vocalsound} a tiramisu tasting contest this weekend.
Grad A: Wait {disfmarker} do are y So you're trying to decide who's the best taster of tiramisu?
Grad D: No? Um. There was a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a fierce argument that broke out over whose tiramisu might be the best and so we decided to have a contest where those people who claim to make good tiramisu make them,
Grad A: Ah.
Grad D: and then we got a panel of impartial judges that will taste {disfmarker} do a blind taste {vocalsound} and then vote.
Grad A: Hmm.
Grad D: Should be fun.
Grad A: Seems like {disfmarker} Seems like you could put a s magic special ingredient in, so that everyone know which one was yours. Then, if you were to bribe them, you could uh {disfmarker}
Grad D: Mm - hmm. Well, I was thinking if um {disfmarker} y you guys have plans for Sunday? We're {disfmarker} we're not {disfmarker} it's probably going to be this Sunday, but um we're sort of working with the weather here because we also want to combine it with some barbecue activity where we just fire it up and what {disfmarker} whoever brings whatever you know, can throw it on there. So only the tiramisu is free, nothing else.
Grad A: Well, I'm going back to visit my parents this weekend, so, I'll be out of town.
Grad D: So you're going to the west Bay then? No,
Grad A: No, the South Bay,
Grad D: south Bay?
Grad A: yeah.
Grad D: South Bay.
Grad C: Well, I should be free, so.
Grad D: OK, I'll let you know.
Grad C: OK.
Grad A: We are. Is Nancy s uh gonna show up? Mmm. Wonder if these things ever emit a very, like, piercing screech right in your ear?
Grad D: They are gonna get more comfortable headsets. They already ordered them. OK.
Grad C: Uh {disfmarker}
Grad D: Let's get started. The uh {disfmarker} Should I go first, with the uh, um, data. Can I have the remote {vocalsound} control. Thank you. OK. So. On Friday we had our wizard test data test and um {vocalsound} these are some of the results. This was the introduction. I actually uh, even though Liz was uh kind enough to offer to be the first subject, I sort of felt that she knew too much, so I asked uh Litonya. just on the spur of the moment, and she was uh kind enough to uh serve as the first subject.
Professor B: Mm - hmm.
Grad D: So, this is what she saw as part of {disfmarker} as uh for instr introduction, this is what she had to read {pause} aloud. Uh, that was really difficult for her and uh {disfmarker}
Grad C: Because of l all the names, you mean?
Grad D: The names and um this was the uh first three tasks she had to {disfmarker} to master after she called the system, and um then of course the system broke down, and those were the l uh uh I should say the system was supposed to break down and then um these were the remaining three tasks that she was going to solve, with a human {disfmarker} Um. There are {disfmarker} here are uh the results. Mmm. And I will not {disfmarker} We will skip the reading now. D Um. And um. The reading was five minutes, exactly. And now comes the {disfmarker} This is the phone - in phase of {disfmarker}
Grad C: Wait, can I {disfmarker} I have a question. So. So there's no system, right? Like, there was a wizard for both uh {disfmarker} both parts, is this right?
Grad D: Yeah. It was bo it both times the same person.
Grad C: OK.
Grad D: One time, pretending to be a system, one time, to {disfmarker} pretending to be a human, which is actually not pretending.
Grad C: OK. And she didn't {disfmarker}
Grad D: I should {disfmarker}
Grad C: I mean. Well. Isn't this kind of obvious when it says" OK now you're talking to a human" and then the human has the same voice?
Grad D: No no no. We u Wait. OK, good question, but uh you {disfmarker} you just wait and see.
Grad C: OK.
Grad D: It's {disfmarker} You're gonna l learn. And um the wizard sometimes will not be audible, Because she was actually {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} there was some uh lapse in the um wireless, we have to move her closer.
Grad A: Is she mispronouncing" Anlage" ? Is it" Anlaga" or" Anlunga" Grad D: They're mispronouncing everything,
Grad A: OK.
Grad D: but it's {disfmarker} This is the system breaking down, actually." Did I call Europe?" So, this is it. Well, if we {disfmarker} we um
Professor B: So, are {disfmarker} are you trying to record this meeting?
Grad D: There was a strange reflex. I have a headache. I'm really sort of out of it. OK, the uh lessons learned. The reading needs to be shorter. Five minutes is just too long. Um, that was already anticipated by some people suggested that if we just have bullets here, they're gonna not {disfmarker} they're {disfmarker} subjects are probably not gonna {disfmarker} going to follow the order. And uh she did not.
Grad C: Really?
Grad D: She {disfmarker} No.
Grad C: Oh, it's surprising.
Grad D: She {disfmarker} she jumped around quite a bit.
Professor B: S so if you just number them" one" ," two" ," three" it's
Grad D: Yeah, and make it sort of clear in the uh {disfmarker}
Professor B: OK. Right.
Grad D: Um. We need to {disfmarker} So that's one thing. And we need a better introduction for the wizard. That is something that Fey actually thought of a {disfmarker} in the last second that sh the system should introduce itself, when it's called.
Professor B: Mm - hmm. True.
Grad D: And um, um, another suggestion, by Liz, was that we uh, through subjects, switch the tasks. So when {disfmarker} when they have task - one with the computer, the next person should have task - one with a human, and so forth.
Professor B: Mm - hmm.
Grad D: So we get nice um data for that. Um, we have to refine the tasks more and more, which of course we haven't done at all, so far, in order to avoid this rephrasing, so where, even though w we don't tell the person" ask {pause} blah - blah - blah - blah - blah" they still try, or at least Litonya tried to um repeat as much of that text as possible.
Grad C: Say exactly what's on there? Yeah.
Grad D: And uh my suggestion is of course we {disfmarker} we keep the wizard, because I think she did a wonderful job,
Professor B: Great.
Grad D: in the sense that she responded quite nicely to things that were not asked for," How much is a t a bus ticket and a transfer" so this is gonna happen all the time, we d you can never be sure.
Professor B: Mm - hmm.
Grad D: Um. Johno pointed out that uh we have maybe a grammatical gender problem there with wizard.
Grad A: Yes.
Grad D: So um.
Grad A: I wasn't {disfmarker} wasn't sure whether wizard was the correct term for {pause} uh" not a man" .
Grad C: There's no female equivalent of {disfmarker}
Grad D: But uh {disfmarker}
Grad A: Are you sure?
Grad C: No, I don't know.
Professor B: Right.
Grad C: Not that I know of.
Grad D: Well, there is witch and warlock,
Grad A: Yeah, that's so @ @.
Professor B: Right.
Grad C: Yeah, that's what I was thinking, but {disfmarker}
Grad D: and uh {disfmarker}
Professor B: Right. Uh.
Grad D: OK. And um {disfmarker} So, some {disfmarker} some work needs to be done, but I think we can uh {disfmarker} And this, and {disfmarker} in case no {disfmarker} you hadn't seen it, this is what Litonya looked at during the uh {disfmarker} um while taking the {disfmarker} while partaking in the data collection.
Grad C: Ah.
Professor B: OK, great. So {pause} first of all, I agree that um we should hire Fey, and start paying her. Probably pay for the time she's put in as well. Um, do you know exactly how to do that, or is uh Lila {disfmarker} I mean, you know what exactly do we do to {disfmarker} to put her on the payroll in some way?
Grad D: I'm completely clueless, but I'm willing to learn.
Professor B: OK. Well, you'll have to. Right. So anyway, um
Grad D: N
Professor B: So why don't you uh ask Lila and see what she says about you know exactly what we do for someone in th
Grad D: Student - type worker,
Professor B: Well, yeah she's un she's not a {disfmarker} a student,
Grad D: or {disfmarker}?
Professor B: she just graduated but anyway.
Grad D: Hmm.
Professor B: So i if {disfmarker} Yeah, I agree, she sounded fine, she a actually was {pause} uh, more uh, present and stuff than {disfmarker} than she was in conversation, so she did a better job than I would have guessed from just talking to her.
Grad D: Yeah.
Professor B: So I think that's great.
Grad D: This is sort of what I gave her, so this is for example h how to get to the student prison,
Professor B: Yeah.
Grad D: and I didn't even spell it out here and in some cases I {disfmarker} I spelled it out a little bit um more thoroughly,
Professor B: Right.
Grad D: this is the information on {disfmarker} on the low sunken castle, and the amphitheater that never came up, and um, so i if we give her even more um, instruments to work with I think the results are gonna be even better.
Professor B: Oh, yeah, and then of course as she does it she'll {disfmarker} she'll learn @ @. So that's great. Um {pause} And also if she's willing to take on the job of organizing all those subjects and stuff that would be wonderful.
Grad D: Mmm.
Professor B: And, uh she's {disfmarker} actually she's going to graduate school in a kind of an experimental paradigm, so I think this is all just fine in terms of h her learning things she's gonna need to know uh, to do her career.
Grad D: Mmm.
Professor B: So, I {disfmarker} my guess is she'll be r r quite happy to take on that job. And, so {disfmarker}
Grad D: Yep. Yeah she {disfmarker} she didn't explicitly state that so.
Professor B: Great.
Grad D: And um I told her that we gonna um figure out a meeting time in the near future to refine the tasks and s look for the potential sources to find people. She also agrees that you know if it's all just gonna be students the data is gonna be less valuable because of that so.
Professor B: Well, as I say there is this s set of people next door, it's not hard to
Grad D: We're already {disfmarker} Yeah.
Professor B: uh {disfmarker}
Grad D: However, we may run into a problem with a reading task there. And um, we'll see.
Professor B: Yeah. We could talk to the people who run it and um see if they have a way that they could easily uh tell people that there's a task, pays ten bucks or something,
Grad D: Mm - hmm. Yeah.
Professor B: but um you have to be comfortable reading relatively complicated stuff. And {disfmarker} and there'll probably be self - selection to some extent.
Grad D: Mmm. Yep.
Professor B: Uh, so that's good. Um. Now, {pause} I signed us up for the Wednesday slot, and part of what we should do is this.
Grad D: OK.
Professor B: So, my idea on that was {pause} uh, partly we'll talk about system stuff for the computer scientists, but partly I did want it to get the linguists involved in some of this issue about what the task is and all {disfmarker} um you know, what the dialogue is, and what's going on linguistically, because to the extent that we can get them contributing, that will be good. So this issue about you know re - formulating things,
Grad D: Yep.
Professor B: maybe we can get some of the linguists sufficiently interested that they'll help us with it, uh, other linguists, if you're a linguist, but in any case,
Grad D: Yep.
Professor B: um, the linguistics students and stuff. So my idea on {disfmarker} on Wednesday is partly to uh {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} I mean, what you did today would {disfmarker} i is just fine. You just uh do" this is what we did, and here's the {pause} thing, and here's s some of the dialogue and {disfmarker} and so forth." But then, the other thing of course is we should um give the computer scientists some idea of {disfmarker} of what's going on with the system design, and where we think the belief - nets fit in and where the pieces are and stuff like that. Is {disfmarker} is this {pause} make sense to everybody?
Grad D: Yep.
Professor B: Yeah. So, I don't {disfmarker} I don't think it's worth a lot of work, particularly on your part, to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to make a big presentation. I don't think you should {disfmarker} you don't have to make any new {pause} uh PowerPoint or anything. I think we got plenty of stuff to talk about. And, then um just see how a discussion goes.
Grad D: Mm - hmm. Sounds good. The uh other two things is um we've {disfmarker} can have Johno tell us a little about this
Professor B: Great.
Grad D: and we also have a l little bit on the interface, M - three - L enhancement, and then um that was it, I think.
Grad A: So, what I did for this {disfmarker} this is {disfmarker} uh, a pedagogical belief - net because I was {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I took {disfmarker} I tried to conceptually do what you were talking about with the nodes that you could expand out {disfmarker} so what I did was I took {disfmarker} I made these dummy nodes called Trajector - In and Trajector - Out that would isolate the things related to the trajector.
Professor B: Yep.
Grad A: And then there were the things with the source and the path and the goal.
Professor B: Yep.
Grad A: And I separated them out. And then I um did similar things for our {disfmarker} our net to {disfmarker} uh with the context and the discourse and whatnot, um, so we could sort of isolate them or whatever in terms of the {disfmarker} the top layer.
Professor B: Mm - hmm.
Grad A: And then the bottom layer is just the Mode. So.
Professor B: So, let's {disfmarker} let's {disfmarker} Yeah, I don't understand it. Let's go {disfmarker} Slide all the way up so we see what the p the p very bottom looks like, or is that it?
Grad A: Yeah, there's just one more node and it says" Mode" which is the decision between the {disfmarker}
Grad D: Yeah.
Professor B: OK, great. Alright.
Grad A: So basically all I did was I took the last {pause} belief - net
Professor B: So {disfmarker} Mm - hmm.
Grad A: and I grouped things according to what {disfmarker} how I thought they would fit in to uh image schemas that would be related. And the two that I came up with were Trajector - landmark and then Source - path - goal as initial ones.
Professor B: Yep. Mm - hmm.
Grad A: And then I said well, uh the trajector would be the person in this case probably.
Professor B: Right, yep.
Grad A: Um, you know, we have {disfmarker} we have the concept of what their intention was, whether they were trying to tour or do business or whatever,
Professor B: Right.
Grad A: or they were hurried. That's kind of related to that. And then um in terms of the source, the things {disfmarker} uh the only things that we had on there I believe were whether {disfmarker} Oh actually, I kind of, {disfmarker} I might have added these cuz I don't think we talked too much about the source in the old one but uh whether the {disfmarker} where I'm currently at is a landmark might have a bearing on whether {disfmarker}
Grad D: Mm - hmm.
Grad A: or the" landmark - iness" of where I'm currently at. And" usefulness" is basi basically means is that an institutional facility like a town hall or something like that that's not {disfmarker} something that you'd visit for tourist's {disfmarker} tourism's sake or whatever." Travel constraints" would be something like you know, maybe they said they can {disfmarker} they only wanna take a bus or something like that, right? And then those are somewhat related to the path,
Professor B: Mm - hmm.
Grad A: so that would determine whether we'd {disfmarker} could take {disfmarker} we would be telling them to go to the bus stop or versus walking there directly. Um," Goal" . Similar things as the source except they also added whether the entity was closed and whether they have somehow marked that is was the final destination. Um, and then if you go up, Robert, Yeah, so {disfmarker} um, in terms of Context, what we had currently said was whether they were a businessman or a tourist of some other person. Um, Discourse was related to whether they had asked about open hours or whether they asked about where the entrance was or the admission fee, or something along those lines.
Professor B: Mm - hmm.
Grad A: Uh, Prosody I don't really {disfmarker} I'm not really sure what prosody means, in this context, so I just made up you know whether {disfmarker} whether what they say is {disfmarker} or h how they say it is {disfmarker} is that.
Professor B: Right, OK.
Grad A: Um, the Parse would be what verb they chose, and then maybe how they modified it, in the sense of whether they said" I need to get there quickly" or whatever.
Professor B: Mm - hmm.
Grad A: And um, in terms of World Knowledge, this would just basically be like opening and closing times of things, the time of day it is, and whatnot.
Grad D: What's" tourbook" ?
Grad A: Tourbook? That would be, I don't know, the" landmark - iness" of things,
Grad D: Mm - hmm.
Grad A: whether it's in the tourbook or not.
Professor B: Ch - ch - ch - ch. Now. Alright, so I understand what's {disfmarker} what you got. I don't yet understand {pause} how you would use it. So let me see if I can ask
Grad A: Well, this is not a working Bayes - net.
Professor B: a s Right. No, I understand that, but {disfmarker} but um So, what {disfmarker} Let's slide back up again and see {disfmarker} start at the {disfmarker} at the bottom and Oop - bo - doop - boop - boop. Yeah. So, you could imagine w Uh, go ahead, you were about to go up there and point to something.
Grad A: Well I {disfmarker} OK, I just {disfmarker} Say what you were gonna say.
Professor B: Good, do it!
Grad A: OK.
Professor B: No no, go do it.
Grad A: Uh {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I'd {disfmarker} No, I was gonna wait until {disfmarker}
Professor B: Oh, OK. So, so if you {disfmarker} if we made {disfmarker} if we wanted to make it into a {disfmarker} a real uh Bayes - net, that is, you know, with fill {disfmarker} you know, actually f uh, fill it @ @ in, then uh {disfmarker}
Grad A: So we'd have to get rid of this and connect these things directly to the Mode.
Professor B: Well, I don't {disfmarker} That's an issue. So, um {disfmarker}
Grad A: Cuz I don't understand how it would work otherwise.
Professor B: Well, here's the problem. And {disfmarker} and uh {disfmarker} Bhaskara and I was talking about this a little earlier today {disfmarker} is, if we just do this, we could wind up with a huge uh, combinatoric input to the Mode thing. And uh {disfmarker}
Grad A: Well I {disfmarker} oh yeah, I unders I understand that, I just {disfmarker} uh it's hard for me to imagine how he could get around that.
Professor B: Well, i But that's what we have to do.
Grad A: OK.
Professor B: OK, so, so, uh. There {disfmarker} there are a variety of ways of doing it. Uh. Let me just mention something that I don't want to pursue today which is there are technical ways of doing it, uh I I slipped a paper to Bhaskara and {disfmarker} about Noisy - OR's and Noisy - MAXes and there're ways to uh sort of back off on the purity of your Bayes - net - edness.
Grad A: Mmm.
Professor B: Uh, so. If you co you could ima and I now I don't know that any of those actually apply in this case, but there is some technology you could try to apply.
Grad A: So it's possible that we could do something like a summary node of some sort that {disfmarker} OK.
Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. And, um So.
Grad A: So in that case, the sum we'd have {disfmarker} we {disfmarker} I mean, these wouldn't be the summary nodes. We'd have the summary nodes like where the things were {disfmarker} I guess maybe if thi if things were related to business or some other {disfmarker}
Professor B: Yeah.
Grad A: Yeah.
Professor B: So what I was gonna say is {disfmarker} is maybe a good at this point is to try to informally {disfmarker} I mean, not necessarily in th in this meeting, but to try to informally think about what the decision variables are. So, if you have some bottom line uh decision about which mode, you know, what are the most relevant things.
Grad A: Mmm.
Professor B: And the other trick, which is not a technical trick, it's kind of a knowledge engineering trick, is to make the n {pause} each node sufficiently narrow that you don't get this combinatorics. So that if you decided that you could characterize the decision as a trade - off between three factors, whatever they may be, OK? then you could say" Aha, let's have these three factors" , OK? and maybe a binary version f for each, or some relatively compact decision node just above the final one.
Grad A: Mmm.
Professor B: And then the question would be if {disfmarker} if those are the things that you care about, uh can you make a relatively compact way of getting from the various inputs to the things you care about. So that y so that, you know, you can sort of try to do a knowledge engineering thing
Grad A: OK.
Professor B: given that we're not gonna screw with the technology and just always use uh sort of orthodox Bayes - nets, then we have a knowledge engineering little problem of how do we do that. Um and
Grad A: So what I kind of need to do is to take this one and the old one and merge them together?
Professor B:" Eh - eh - eh." Yeah.
Grad A: So that {disfmarker}
Professor B: Well, mmm, something. I mean, so uh, Robert has thought about this problem f for a long time, cuz he's had these examples kicking around, so he may have some good intuition about you know, what are the crucial things.
Grad A: Mmm.
Professor B: and, um, I understand where this {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} this is a way of playing with this abs Source - path - goal trajector exp uh uh abstraction and {disfmarker} and sort of sh displaying it in a particular way.
Grad A: Yeah.
Professor B: Uh, I don't think our friends uh on Wednesday are going to be able to {disfmarker} Well, maybe they will. Well, let me think about whether {disfmarker} whether I think we can present this to them or not. Um, Uh,
Grad D: Well, I think this is still, I mean, ad - hoc. This is sort of th the second {vocalsound} version and I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} look at this maybe just as a, you know, a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} whatever, UML diagram or, you know, as just a uh screen shot, not really as a Bayes - net as John {disfmarker} Johno said.
Grad A: We could actually, y yeah draw it in a different way, in the sense that it would make it more abstract.
Grad D: Yeah. But the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the nice thing is that you know, it just is a {disfmarker} is a visual aid for thinking about these things which has comple clearly have to be specified m more carefully
Professor B: Alright, well, le let me think about this some more,
Grad D: and uh
Professor B: and uh see if we can find a way to present this to this linguists group that {disfmarker} that is helpful to them.
Grad D: I mean, ultimately we {disfmarker} we may w w we regard this as sort of an exercise in {disfmarker} in thinking about the problem and maybe a first version of uh a module, if you wanna call it that, that you can ask, that you can give input and it it'll uh throw the dice for you, uh throw the die for you, because um I integrated this into the existing SmartKom system in {disfmarker} in the same way as much the same way we can um sort of have this uh {disfmarker} this thing. Close this down. So if this is what M - three - L um will look like and what it'll give us, um {disfmarker} And a very simple thing. We have an action that he wants to go from somewhere, which is some type of object, to someplace.
Professor B: Mm - hmm.
Grad D: And this {disfmarker} these uh {disfmarker} this changed now only um, um {disfmarker} It's doing it twice now because it already did it once. Um, we'll add some action type, which in this case is" Approach" and could be, you know, more refined uh in many ways.
Professor B: Mm - hmm. Good.
Grad D: Or we can uh have something where the uh goal is a public place and it will give us then of course an action type of the type" Enter" . So this is just based on this one {disfmarker} um, on this one feature, and that's {disfmarker} that's about all you can do. And so in the f if this pla if the object type um here is {disfmarker} is a m is a landmark, of course it'll be um" Vista" . And um this is about as much as we can do if we don't w if we want to avoid uh uh a huge combinatorial explosion where we specify" OK, if it's this and this but that is not the case" , and so forth, it just gets really really messy.
Professor B: OK, I'm sorry. You're {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker}
Grad D: Hmm?
Professor B: It was much too quick for me. OK, so let me see if I understand what you're saying. So, I {disfmarker} I do understand that uh you can take the M - three - L and add not {disfmarker} and it w and you need to do this, for sure, we have to add, you know, not too much about um object types and stuff, and what I think you did is add some rules of the style that are already there that say" If it's of type" Landmark" , then you take {disfmarker} you're gonna take a picture of it." Grad D: Exactly.
Professor B: F full stop, I mean, that's what you do. Ev - every landmark you take a picture of,
Grad D: Every public place you enter, and statue you want to go as near as possible.
Professor B: you enter {disfmarker} You approach. OK. Uh, and certainly you can add rules like that to the existing SmartKom system. And you just did, right? OK.
Grad D: Yeah. And it {disfmarker} it would do us no good.
Professor B: Ah.
Grad D: That {disfmarker} Ultimately.
Professor B: Well. So, s well, and let's think about this.
Grad D: W
Professor B: Um, that's a {disfmarker} that's another kind of baseline case, that's another sort of thing" OK, here's a {disfmarker} another kind of minimal uh way of tackling this" . Add extra properties, a deterministic rule for every property you have an action," pppt!" You do that. Um, then the question would be Uh Now, if that's all you're doing, then you can get the types from the ontology, OK? because that's all {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} all you're using is this type {disfmarker} the types in the ontology and you're done.
Grad D: Hmm?
Professor B: Right? So we don't {disfmarker} we don't use the discourse, we don't use the context, we don't do any of those things.
Grad D: No.
Professor B: Alright, but that's {disfmarker} but that's OK, and I mean it it's again a kind of one minimal extension of the existing things. And that's something the uh SmartKom people themselves would {disfmarker} they'd say" Sure, that's no problem {disfmarker} you know, no problem to add types to the ont" Right?
Grad D: Yeah. No. And this is {disfmarker} just in order to exemplify what {disfmarker} what we can do very, very easily is, um we have this {disfmarker} this silly uh interface and we have the rules that are as banal as of we just saw, and we have our content.
Professor B: Hmm.
Grad D: Now, the content {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} whi which is sort of what {disfmarker} what we see here, which is sort of the Vista, Schema, Source, Path, Goal, whatever.
Professor B: Yeah. Yeah.
Grad D: This will um be um a job to find ways of writing down Image schema, X - schema, constructions, in some {disfmarker} some form, and have this be in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in the content, loosely called" Constructicon" . And the rules we want to throw away completely. And um {disfmarker} and here is exactly where what's gonna be replaced with our Bayes - net, which is exactly getting the input feeding into here. This decides whether it's an whether action {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Enter, the Vista, or the whatever
Professor B: Uh," approach" , you called it, I think this time.
Grad D: uh Approach um construction should be activated, IE just pasted in.
Professor B: That's what you said {disfmarker} Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, but {disfmarker} Right. But it's not construction there, it's action. Construction is a d is a different story.
Grad D: Yeah.
Grad A: Right. This is uh {disfmarker} so what we'd be generating would be a reference to a semantic uh like parameters for the {disfmarker} for the X - schema?
Professor B: For {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} for {disfmarker} Yes.
Grad A: OK.
Professor B: Yeah. So that {disfmarker} that uh i if you had the generalized" Go" X - schema and you wanted to specialize it to these three ones, then you would have to supply the parameters.
Grad A: Right.
Professor B: And then uh, although we haven't worried about this yet, you might wanna worry about something that would go to the GIS and use that to actually get you know, detailed route planning. So, you know, where do you do take a picture of it and stuff like that.
Grad A: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: But that's not {disfmarker} It's not the immediate problem.
Grad A: Right.
Professor B: But, presumably that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that functionality's there when {disfmarker} when we {disfmarker}
Grad A: So the immediate problem is just deciding w which {disfmarker}
Grad D: Aspects of the X - schema to add.
Professor B: Yeah, so the pro The immediate problem is {disfmarker} is back t t to what you were {disfmarker} what you are doing with the belief - net.
Grad A: Yeah.
Professor B: You know, uh what are we going to use to make this decision {disfmarker}
Grad A: Right and then, once we've made the decision, how do we put that into the content?
Professor B: Yeah. Right. Right. Well, that {disfmarker} that actually is relatively easy in this case.
Grad A: OK.
Professor B: The harder problem is we decide what we want to use, how are we gonna get it? And that the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} that's the hardest problem. So, the hardest problem is how are you going to get this information from some combination of the {disfmarker} what the person says and the context and the ontology. The h So, I think that's the hardest problem at the moment is {disfmarker} is
Grad A: OK.
Professor B: where are you gonna {disfmarker} how are you gonna g get this information. Um, and that's {disfmarker} so, getting back to here, uh, we have a d a technical problem with the belief - nets that we {disfmarker} we don't want all the com
Grad A: There's just too many factors right now.
Professor B: too many factors if we {disfmarker} if we allow them to just go combinatorially.
Grad A: Right.
Professor B: So we wanna think about which ones we really care about and what they really most depend on, and can we c you know, clean this {disfmarker} this up to the point where it {disfmarker}
Grad A: So what we really wanna do i cuz this is really just the three layer net, we wanna b make it {disfmarker} expand it out into more layers basically?
Professor B: Right. We might. Uh, I mean that {disfmarker} that's certainly one thing we can do. Uh, it's true that the way you have this, a lot of the times you have {disfmarker} what you're having is the values rather than the variable. So uh {disfmarker}
Grad A: Right. So instead of in instead it should really be {disfmarker} just be" intention" as a node instead of" intention business" or" intention tour" .
Professor B: OK? So you {disfmarker} Yeah, right, and then it would have values, uh," Tour" ," Business" , or uh" Hurried" .
Grad A: Right.
Professor B: But then {disfmarker} but i it still some knowledge design to do, about i how do you wanna break this up, what really matters.
Grad A: Right.
Professor B: I mean, it's fine. You know, we have to {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it's iterative. We're gonna have to work with it some.
Grad A: I think what was going through my mind when I did it was someone could both have a business intention and a touring intention and the probabilities of both of them happening at the same time {disfmarker}
Professor B: Well, you {disfmarker} you could do that. And it's perfectly OK {pause} to uh insist that {disfmarker} that, you know, th um, they add up to one, but that there's uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that it doesn't have to be one zero zero.
Grad A: Mmm. OK.
Professor B: OK. So you could have the conditional p So the {disfmarker} each of these things is gonna be a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a probability. So whenever there's a choice, uh {disfmarker} so like landmark - ness and usefulness,
Grad A: Well, see I don't think those would be mutually {disfmarker}
Professor B: OK {disfmarker}
Grad A: it seems like something could both be {disfmarker}
Professor B: Absolutely right.
Grad A: OK.
Professor B: And so that you might want to then have those b Th - Then they may have to be separate. They may not be able to be values of the same variable.
Grad D: Object type, mm - hmm.
Professor B: So that's {disfmarker} but again, this is {disfmarker} this is the sort of knowledge design you have to go through. Right. It's {disfmarker} you know, it's great {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} is, you know, as one step toward uh {disfmarker} toward where we wanna go.
Grad D: Also it strikes me that we {disfmarker} we m may want to approach the point where we can sort of try to find a {disfmarker} uh, a specification for some interface, here that um takes the normal M - three - L, looks at it. Then we discussed in our pre - edu {disfmarker} EDU meeting um how to ask the ontology, what to ask the ontology um the fact that we can pretend we have one, make a dummy until we get the real one, and so um we {disfmarker} we may wanna decide we can do this from here, but we also could do it um you know if we have a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a belief - net interface. So the belief - net takes as input, a vector, right? of stuff. And it {disfmarker} Yeah. And um it Output is whatever, as well. But this information is just M - three - L, and then we want to look up some more stuff in the ontology and we want to look up some more stuff in the {disfmarker} maybe we want to ask the real world, maybe you want to look something up in the GRS, but also we definitely want to look up in the dialogue history um some s some stuff. Based on we {disfmarker} we have uh {disfmarker} I was just made some examples from the ontology and so we have for example some information there that the town hall is both a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} a building and it has doors and stuff like this, but it is also an institution, so it has a mayor and so forth and so forth and we get relations out of it and once we have them, we can use that information to look in the dialogue history," were any of these things that {disfmarker} that are part of the town hall as an institution mentioned?" ,
Professor B: Mm - hmm.
Grad D:" were any of these that make the town hall a building mentioned?" ,
Grad C: Right.
Grad D: and so forth, and maybe draw some inferences on that. So this may be a {disfmarker} a sort of a process of two to three steps before we get our vector, that we feed into the belief - net,
Professor B: Yeah. I think that's {disfmarker} I think that's exactly right.
Grad D: and then {disfmarker}
Professor B: There will be rules, but they aren't rules that come to final decisions, they're rules that gather information for a decision process. Yeah,
Grad D: Yeah.
Professor B: no I think that's {disfmarker} that's just fine. Uh, yeah. So they'll {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} presumably there'll be a thread or process or something that" Agent" , yeah," Agent" , whatever you wan wanna say, yeah, that uh is rule - driven, and can {disfmarker} can uh {disfmarker} can do things like that. And um there's an issue about whether there will be {disfmarker} that'll be the same agent and the one that then goes off and uh carries out the decision, so it probably will. My guess is it'll be the same basic agent that um can go off and get information, run it through a {disfmarker} a c this belief - net that {disfmarker} turn a crank in the belief - net, that'll come out with s uh more {disfmarker} another vector, OK, which can then be uh applied at what we would call the simulation or action end. So you now know what you're gonna do and that may actually involve getting more information. So on once you pull that out, it could be that that says" Ah! Now that we know that we gonna go ask the ontology something else." OK? Now that we know that it's a bus trip, OK? we didn't {disfmarker} We didn't need to know beforehand, uh how long the bus trip takes or whatever, but {disfmarker} but now that we know that's the way it's coming out then we gotta go find out more.
Grad D: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: So I think that's OK.
Grad D: Mm - hmm. So this is actually, s if {disfmarker} if we were to build something that is um, and, uh, I had one more thing, the {disfmarker} it needs to do {disfmarker} Yeah. I think we {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I can come up with a {disfmarker} a code for a module that we call the" cognitive dispatcher" , which does nothing,
Professor B: OK.
Grad D: but it looks of complect object trees and decides how {disfmarker} are there parts missing that need to be filled out, there's {disfmarker} this is maybe something that this module can do, something that this module can do and then collect uh sub - objects and then recombine them and put them together. So maybe this is actually some {disfmarker} some useful tool that we can use to rewrite it, and uh get this part,
Professor B: Oh, OK. Uh.
Grad D: then. Yeah.
Professor B: I confess, I'm still not completely comfortable with the overall story. Um. I i This {disfmarker} this is not a complaint, this is a promise to do more work. So I'm gonna hafta think about it some more. Um. In particular {disfmarker} see what we'd like to do, and {disfmarker} and this has been implicit in the discussion, is to do this in such a way that you get a lot of re - use. So. What you're trying to get out of this deep co cognitive linguistics is the fact that w if you know about source {disfmarker} source, paths and goals, and nnn {comment} all this sort of stuff, that a lot of this is the same, for different tasks. And that {disfmarker} uh there's {disfmarker} there's some {disfmarker} some important generalities that you're getting, so that you don't take each and every one of these tasks and hafta re - do it. And I don't yet see how that goes. Alright.
Grad D: There're no primitives upon which {pause} uh
Professor B: u u What are the primitives, and how do you break this {disfmarker}
Grad D: yeah.
Professor B: So I y I'm just {disfmarker} just there saying eee {comment} well you {disfmarker} I know how to do any individual case, right? but I don't yet {disfmarker} see what's the really interesting question is can you use uh deep uh cognitive linguistics to {pause} get powerful generalizations. And
Grad D: Yep.
Professor B: um
Grad D: Maybe we sho should we a add then the" what's this?" domain? N I mean, we have to" how do I get to X" . Then we also have the" what's this?" domain, where we get some slightly different {disfmarker}
Professor B: Could. Uh.
Grad C: Right.
Grad D: Um Johno, actually, does not allow us to call them" intentions" anymore.
Professor B: Yeah.
Grad D: So he {disfmarker} he dislikes the term.
Professor B: Well, I {disfmarker} I don't like the term either, so I have n i uh i i y w i i It uh {disfmarker}
Grad D: But um, I'm sure the" what's this?" questions also create some interesting X - schema aspects.
Professor B: Could be. I'm not a {disfmarker} I'm not op particularly opposed to adding that or any other task,
Grad D: So.
Professor B: I mean, eventually we're gonna want a whole range of them.
Grad D: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: Uh,
Grad C: That's right.
Professor B: I'm just saying that I'm gonna hafta do some sort of first principles thinking about this. I just at the moment don't know.
Grad D: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: H No. Well, no the Bayes {disfmarker} the Bayes - nets {disfmarker} The Bayes - nets will be dec specific for each decision. But what I'd like to be able to do is to have the way that you extract properties, that will go into different Bayes - nets, be the {disfmarker} uh general. So that if you have sources, you have trajectors and stuff like that, and there's a language for talking about trajectors, you shouldn't have to do that differently for uh uh going to something, than for circling it, for uh telling someone else how to go there,
Grad D: Getting out of {disfmarker}
Professor B: whatever it is. So that {disfmarker} that, the {disfmarker} the decision processes are gonna be different What you'd really like of course is the same thing you'd always like which is that you have um a kind of intermediate representation which looks the same o over a bunch of inputs and a bunch of outputs. So all sorts of different tasks {pause} and all sorts of different ways of expressing them use a lot of the same mechanism for pulling out what are the fundamental things going on. And that's {disfmarker} that would be the really pretty result. And pushing it one step further, when you get to construction grammar and stuff, what you'd like to be able to do is say you have this parser which is much fancier than the parser that comes with uh SmartKom, i that {disfmarker} that actually uses constructions and is able to tell from this construction that there's uh something about the intent {disfmarker} you know, the actual what people wanna do or what they're referring to and stuff, in independent of whether it {disfmarker} about {disfmarker} what is this or where is it or something, that you could tell from the construction, you could pull out deep semantic information which you're gonna use in a general way. So that's the {disfmarker} You might. You might. You might be able to {disfmarker} to uh say that this i this is the kind of construction in which the {disfmarker} there's {disfmarker} Let's say there's a uh cont there {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the land the construction implies the there's a con this thing is being viewed as a container. OK. So just from this local construction you know that you're gonna hafta treat it as a container you might as well go off and get that information. And that may effect the way you process everything else. So if you say" how do I get into the castle" OK, then um {disfmarker} Or, you know," what is there in the castle" or {disfmarker} so there's all sorts of things you might ask that involve the castle as a container and you'd like to have this orthogonal so that anytime the castle's referred to as a container, you crank up the appropriate stuff. Independent of what the goal is, and independent of what the surrounding language is.
Grad D: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: Alright, so that's {disfmarker} that's the {disfmarker} that's the thesis level
Grad D: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: uh {disfmarker}
Grad D: It's unfortunate also that English has sort of got rid of most of its spatial adverbs because they're really fancy then, in {disfmarker} in {disfmarker} for these kinds of analysis. But uh.
Professor B: Well, you have prepositional phrases that {disfmarker}
Grad D: Yeah, but they're {disfmarker} they're easier for parsers.
Professor B: Right.
Grad D: Parsers can pick those up but {disfmarker} but the {disfmarker} with the spatial adverbs, they have a tough time. Because the {disfmarker} mean the semantics are very complex in that.
Professor B: Right.
Grad D: OK, yeah? I had one more {pause} thing. I don't remember. I just forgot it again. No. Oh yeah, b But an architecture like this would also enable us maybe to {disfmarker} to throw this away and {disfmarker} and replace it with something else, or whatever, so that we have {disfmarker} so that this is sort of the representational formats we're {disfmarker} we're {disfmarker} we're talking about that are independent of the problem, that generalize over those problems, and are oh, t of a higher quality than an any actual whatever um belief - net, or" X" that we may use for the decision making, ultimately. Should be decoupled, yeah. OK.
Professor B: Right. So, are we gonna be meeting here from now on? I'm {disfmarker} I'm happy to do that. We {disfmarker} we had talked about it, cuz you have th th the display and everything, that seems fine.
Grad D: Yeah, um, Liz also asks whether we're gonna have presentations every time. I don't think we will need to do that but it's {disfmarker}
Professor B: Right.
Grad D: so far I think it was nice as a visual aid for some things and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker}
Professor B: Oh yeah. No I {disfmarker} I think it's worth it to ass to meet here to bring this, and assume that something may come up that we wanna look at.
Grad D: Yeah.
Professor B: I mean. Why not.
Grad D: And um. Yeah, that was my {disfmarker}
Professor B: She was good. Litonya was good.
Grad D: Yeah? The uh {disfmarker} um, she w she was definitely good in the sense that she {disfmarker} she showed us some of the weaknesses
Professor B: Right.
Grad D: and um also the um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} the fact that she was a real subject you know, is {disfmarker} is {disfmarker}
Professor B: Right. Yeah, and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} yeah and {disfmarker} and she took it seriously and stuff l No, it was great.
Grad D: Yeah.
Professor B: Yeah.
Grad D: So I think that um {disfmarker} I mean, w Looking {disfmarker} just looking at this data, listening to it, what can we get out of it in terms of our problem, for example, is, you know, she actually m said {disfmarker} you know, she never s just spoke about entering, she just wanted to get someplace, and she said for buying stuff. Nuh? So this is definitely interesting, and {disfmarker}
Grad C: Yeah, right.
Grad D: Um, and in the other case, where she wanted to look at the stuff at the graffiti, also, of course, not in the sentence" How do you get there?" was pretty standard. Nuh? except that there was a nice anaphora, you know, for pointing at what she talked about before, and there she was talking about looking at pictures that are painted inside a wall on walls, so
Grad C: Right.
Grad D: Actually, you'd need a lot of world knowledge. This would have been a classical um uh" Tango" , actually. Um, because graffiti is usually found on the outside and not on the inside,
Grad C: Yeah.
Grad D: but OK. So the mistake {comment} would have make a mistake {disfmarker} the system would have made a mistake here.
Grad C: Yep.
Professor B: Click? Alright. | The team began the meeting by discussing the logistics of setting up the interface for data collection. Some members ran a trial of it earlier and found someone who would make a suitable wizard. The team shared concern about how they would recruit non-university student participants. Grad D introduced the team to the second iteration of the bayes-net model and its schemas. Then, the discussion moved onto controlling the size of the bayes-net as it would otherwise be based on too much information. The team ended the meeting by delving into how the method of creating a Bayes-net in different scenarios could itself be abstracted, i. e. narrowing the input and output factors and the intermediate representation. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
Project Manager: Okay, all set? Welcome to the conceptual design meeting.
User Interface: Uh, okay.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Project Manager: The agenda. The opening. I'll again be the secretary and make minutes, take minutes, uh and it will be three presentations, just like the last meeting. So um, {vocalsound} who wants to start off? Technical uh designer again?
User Interface: {vocalsound} Again.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Hmm.
Project Manager: Uh, yeah. Uh, before we begin it, I want to say I've I've put the minutes of the uh second meeting in the shared folder, but they're still not uh quite okay. It uh it uh still some technical difficulties so the the first part of the minutes are very hard to read, because there are two documents that uh were layered over each other.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So {disfmarker}
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: But uh, from now on I won't use my pen anymore, so will be p just {vocalsound} ordinary keyboard.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh, may be better, yeah.
Marketing: Keyboard work. Yeah.
Project Manager: I think it {gap} will will be more uh easy for you to read the minutes.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Alright.
Industrial Designer: Okay, when we talk about uh components design, um it's really about the material and the {disfmarker} and uh uh really the stuff we build uh the remote controls of. Um, a remote control consist of uh components and the components of a remote control consist of uh properties and material. We have to choose th uh these uh wisely and it could affect uh uh a kind of grow of {disfmarker} in uh in buying uh the remote controls. Um, the components of a remote control are of course uh the case. Uh the properties of the case, um it has to be solid uh in hard material like uh hard plastic uh with soft rubber for uh falling and and uh uh {disfmarker} yeah, it feels uh good in your hand.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Mm the buttons has to be uh solid too, and the material is soft rubber. Uh I've got a uh email from the possibilities of Real Reaction. Um uh they're telling me that um when we build uh a remote control of um of plastic or rubber, the uh buttons have to be uh rubber too. Mm {disfmarker} It's okay. Yeah. I when we use a rubbled {disfmarker} a doubled curved case, we must use a rubber push-buttons to {disfmarker} uh the the rubber double-curved case is a is a t uh three-dimensional uh curve in the in the design, which is uh necessary when we want to be trendy. Uh {disfmarker} Um
User Interface: Oh.
Industrial Designer: the energy source, uh I've got a lot of possibilities for that too. Um, uh the basic battery, which I thi prefer because of its uh its non uh non-depending of of of uh um {disfmarker} Uh here you have to have a hand uh {disfmarker} yeah, kinetic uh energy. Also in uh this one, like in the watches, but a remote control can lie on a table for a day, and then you push uh a button and {disfmarker} so you don't have to uh walk with it all the all the time. Mm, solar cells are also uh a bit weird for uh remote controls.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Um uh also the case material, uh I think that plastic is the is the best with rubber, because uh wood or titanium would also be a bit weird.
User Interface: Oh titanium is probably trendy, I think. {gap}.
Marketing: That's true, I guess. Yeah.
User Interface: Well, maybe a little bit expensive.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I don't know.
Industrial Designer: Uh, they don't tell anything about the cost of uh titanium.
Marketing: Huh.
Industrial Designer: Um the chip {disfmarker} uh the chip set uh and the board is uh all off the shelf. Also, the speaker in the remote control, when we want to retrieve it. Um, the base station is also off the shelf, all the materials and the components are uh just available in uh in our uh factory. Mm, I've told about uh the three first points. Mm, the simple electronical chip uh is is available uh with the LED transmitter uh transmitter. Uh, it's all uh off the shelf and even the speaker and the wireless retriever are all uh available in our company. Um, another possibility. I uh yeah, I looked up on was uh the L_C_D_ displays. Could be uh something special to our uh remote control, and it's possible, but it only cost a bit more, but maybe it can be uh within the limits of twenty five Euros.
Project Manager: Twelve and a half. Actually {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Ah yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah, production cost.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I th I got an email with uh some examples and it {disfmarker} these were were the most trendiest one.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: You see uh a covers, which can be {disfmarker}
Project Manager: What are those, t tooth uh brushes, or so
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Um, I don't know. Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But it's actually kind of uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: I {disfmarker}
Project Manager: well, it resembles the design I had in mind for this proj
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Project Manager: You know the the cartoonish {vocalsound} Alessi kind of design.
Marketing: Yep.
Industrial Designer: Yes, maybe we can uh bri uh bring a couple of uh couple of types of uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And we can we can steal their ideas.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: maybe a kind of uh whole uh um a whole set of uh different uh remote controls.
Project Manager: Huh.
Industrial Designer: Maybe we can bring a whole line uh with uh with a {gap} huge variety of uh
Project Manager: Well, it's a possibility, too.
Industrial Designer: uh house uh stuff.
User Interface: Different colours also.
Industrial Designer: Like uh {vocalsound} maybe radios and uh television also uh in this in this {disfmarker} in the same style, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Uh-uh.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, that'll be for the future, I guess.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Next time we're here. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yes, because we have to uh {disfmarker} we have to {disfmarker} {vocalsound} we have to bring the logo and all the stuff uh back into it.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh, okay.
Marketing: Yeah. Definitely.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay.
Industrial Designer: Thank you. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Alright.
User Interface: {gap} uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. That's okay.
User Interface: Ah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Well, I shall go to the next slide. Um
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: um, I still don't have any information about user requirements.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I was thinking about just uh the basic functions and I got uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh, we decided upon that in the last meeting. Didn't we?
User Interface: Yeah, but but then wh I don't know when there are new user requirements.
Project Manager: Oh, okay. Well, tha I didn't receive any new requirements or somethi
User Interface: I ha I ha I have the I have {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Just {disfmarker}
User Interface: nothing.
Project Manager: no, but we decided to use only b basic functions only.
User Interface: Well, I have here a couple of basic functions I could think of.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: I dunno if they're {disfmarker} maybe a little bit more, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well we {disfmarker} maybe we can think of that later. W just {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: these are the ones you already summed up in the {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, I I uh {vocalsound} well, I pointed them out here, just to make it a little bit easier.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Um Another function uh is {disfmarker} of course we already discuss it on the side. Um, I don't know what costs of it. Uh, I've no idea about it. Uh, I was also looking for what you said, for {disfmarker} I got an email uh uh about uh L_C_D_ in in in front of the remote control. I don't know if that's a good idea, or maybe it's a little bit too much for twelve and a half. Production.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: If we got already uh something like a base.
Industrial Designer: Uh-huh.
Project Manager: That might get redundant also maybe. I don't know what kind of information it would {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, I don't know. I d I uh ju I was just thinking about it. Then I got a pop-ups to go to the meeting. But {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah, it's okay.
Industrial Designer: Maybe we can bring t uh uh teletext to the t {vocalsound} to the remote control. {vocalsound}
User Interface: The remote control.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Then you {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} a little uh too {disfmarker} {vocalsound} A little bit {disfmarker}
Marketing: and then you've got a flag s {vocalsound} Very big R_C_. Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. {vocalsound} That's not {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It was not a good idea.
User Interface: A little bit too big, I think. Exactly.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Um, yeah. Well, the functions are are not more to discuss, I think.
Project Manager: No. No.
User Interface: It's it's just the base things we already discussed that the {disfmarker} no V_C_R_ or that kind of {disfmarker}
Marketing: No.
User Interface: uh, so that's very easy. Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: But you do mention the next and previous uh button.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: Well, that's next channel. I mean {gap} next channel.
Marketing: Next channel, previous channel.
Project Manager: Oh, okay, o okay okay.
User Interface: Uh {disfmarker} Um {disfmarker} oh, I I got an email with {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with an uh a remote control with a base.
Project Manager: Huh.
User Interface: So, it's uh just an idea. And I um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} uh thinked of the button sizes and I'm not sure uh if they have to be big or uh just small {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: But you're the expert. {vocalsound}
Marketing: I think it depends on the function.
User Interface: Well, I'm not a e I'm the expert for user-friendly, but not for trendiness.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Maybe it {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Well, if you save uh {disfmarker} Perhaps uh s tiny buttons aren't user-friendly, then we wouldn't im implement that of course.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Well uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: okay, that's your point. Um, yeah. Yeah, okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah, I've nothing to {vocalsound} s
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well, w when we only use basic functions, we have the possibility to make the buttons larger.
Marketing: Oh, that's right.
User Interface: Uh, with a little bit larger, yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: I thought so, but maybe with the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well, I think we already agreed upon the fact that the the the skip buttons and the cha and the volume buttons, th th those two have {disfmarker} yeah, they have to be large.
User Interface: Yeah, that groups.
Project Manager: Uh, I mean th th the the two two basic buttons, you know, the {disfmarker} to skip channels and to uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Large? Yeah.
Marketing: Yep.
Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} yeah, I don't know why, but I think that is {disfmarker} that's t trendy too,
User Interface: Most {disfmarker} the most used uh buttons.
Marketing: Those are probably the the th
Project Manager: because that's the mo it {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} you know, it's uh acc acc um accentu uh, how do you say it? It puts an extra accent on the the on the simplicity of our remotes to j to make these two most basic functions extra big, like t
Marketing: Yes.
User Interface: True. Yeah.
Marketing: Those are probably the b four most most used buttons on the th in the remote control.
Project Manager: Yeah. And you want to acc accentuate that, you know.
Industrial Designer: You did the research.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's from your research. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Sorry? Yeah, sure. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay. Uh, that was all y
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: uh personal preference I didn't have.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: I didn't had any time left.
Project Manager: No uh, that's coo it's cool.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} You don't care. No, {vocalsound} sorry. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Oh. Go away.
User Interface: It's there.
Marketing: Come on.
User Interface: Yeah, click on it.
Marketing: {gap}.
User Interface: Couple time.
Marketing: Oh, great. Well, I've done some research again about trends on the internet. Um I've done some investigation, and uh well I uh got some information from fashion watchers from Paris and uh Milan. {vocalsound} Some uh some findings {disfmarker} the most important thing is fancy look and feel of the remote control. Uh, well, we were going to imply that, so that's nice. The second important thing is uh innovative technology in the R_C_. Uh, our market really likes really likes that. And uh the third point there in this uh order if {disfmarker} of importance, the third point, is a high ease of use. And uh, well, for the idea, I've put some trends uh for the market of elderly people.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Dark colours, simple recognisable shapes. So we probably won't do that.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: The younger market likes uh {disfmarker} Well, {gap} the {gap} themes of of this year are uh surprisingly fruits and vegetables and spongy material.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I found this image, which is uh {disfmarker} Well, it symbolises the idea of fruits and vegetables. I don't see the spongy part in it. But with a little bit of fancy {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well maybe c {vocalsound} then we have to do something with Sponge Bob then. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Exactly. I got some ideas {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Uh well, yeah, pictures isn't really good word, but um
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: some symbols of fruits or vegetables maybe. Uh, catchy colours.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Fruit is uh yellow, green, red, whatever.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So, remote controls in in catchy colours.
Project Manager: It doesn't stroke with the with the dark colours.
Marketing: Uh, no, we don't want dark colours.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not the dark colours? Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} No, I just put them there to uh, yeah, uh for general idea.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: And uh, the docking st
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: uh I think the spongy material is is very irritating for the uh remote control itself. But to {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} To implement some spongy thing, maybe we can do it in the in the docking station. At the bottom of the docking station or whatever. And uh, we could bring one line with a dark colour uh to um uh p uh yeah {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: uh uh v how do you say?
Project Manager: For diversity or something. Uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, also a bit for elderly people who are a little bit crazy and want {vocalsound} maybe want a little younger design but still the dark colour.
User Interface: Well, how uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I mean it it it reaches a different market uh, but it it it doesn't cost really much effort to b to uh bring uh like a black R_C_ on the market or whatever. Yes.
User Interface: But how do we use uh fruits and vegetables in Christ's {vocalsound} sake with {vocalsound} remote control?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No, but I I I think that uh our design already resembles so a piece of fruit.
Marketing: Yeah, there's there's always a
User Interface: Uh, make it a banana?
Project Manager: It's like a pear or something.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Well there there's always empty space of course on a remote control. I mean I think this part of the R_C_ uh well {vocalsound} the upper the upper part or whatever is uh is not not used with buttons, I guess.
Project Manager: No, I don't think you have to do it like {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So you you can put some fruity things {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, but it that doesn't have to remind you, you know, like explicitly of s our f of a of a specific piece of fruit, but just, you know, like the the the the round curves.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: No, of course not.
Project Manager: And so y I I think this {disfmarker} y it already sem resembles uh something like a pear to me or something.
Marketing: Especially i
User Interface: Yeah, but th {vocalsound} yeah, but that {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah, but that's {disfmarker}
Marketing: If we make it little bit greenish.
Project Manager: You do get the idea, eh? The fruity kind of round {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah uh uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager:'Kay.
Marketing: A {vocalsound} and we could use {vocalsound} one of these for the uh w what is it?
Project Manager: Yeah, uh {disfmarker} yeah, I don't know.
Industrial Designer: Grapes.
Marketing: Uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh, this is a b yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Isn't {disfmarker} Wha whatever.
User Interface: But d don't we need a creative artist or something like that to m make it to feel like a a a a vegetable or fruit?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, yeah. Of course we have uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, sure.
Project Manager: we have a very big uh the s
Marketing: Yeah. Well, w we can uh {disfmarker} w we can we can produce multiple uh multiple things.
Industrial Designer: For a big team of artists. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Of d design team, yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: This is then the uh pear. I don't know the English word, so forget it.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, but {disfmarker} {vocalsound} It's pear, I guess.
Marketing: {vocalsound} And um, maybe, yeah, a b a banana is uh is n {vocalsound} not easy for a remote control, but m yeah.
Industrial Designer: But uh but I think we don't have to make
Project Manager: {vocalsound} No.
Industrial Designer: we can't make all uh ten designs. We have to make one design I th I I think.
Project Manager: No, but I think it's it's already what we were were up to.
Marketing: Mayb maybe two or three.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Uh, it's {disfmarker} it doesn't have to resemble uh what I already said, a specific piece of fruit, but just, you know, like a fruity thing going on.
User Interface: {gap}
Marketing: Yeah. No sure, but but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And it's {disfmarker} it looks fruity to me.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: B but that's great, and and and what I was {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And uh, but I do like the {disfmarker}
Marketing: what what I was saying, the catchy colours {disfmarker}
Project Manager: yeah, I do like uh the f uh to {disfmarker} the idea of making a a y uh, a catchy colour design and a d because I do {disfmarker} I think a dark colour would be nice too.
Industrial Designer: But pictures of fruit, vegetables vegetables {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Maybe it's too much, you know.
User Interface: But, we we have to um {disfmarker} There have to be the the the the firm colours, our own uh colours has to be in it.
Marketing: Yeah, uh not really. Pictures was a was a bad word, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay, but what are the {disfmarker} This is yellow.
Marketing: Well we c yeah.
User Interface: Yellow, a Real Reaction.
Industrial Designer: Yes, you can put a logo on top of it.
Project Manager: But I don't think our our company colours are this fashionable.
Marketing: Yeah, sure.
User Interface: Uh, yeah.
Marketing: Maybe we can if if we got our docking station over here.
User Interface: {vocalsound} We uh f
Industrial Designer: Yes, it's really fruity. {vocalsound}
Marketing: I can't draw with this thing, but I'll try.
User Interface: A yellow do
Marketing: If this is our docking station, we can make our logo over here.
User Interface: Uh, yeah.
Marketing: It doesn't work. And then {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, and the button then.
Industrial Designer: With a strawberry on top.
Project Manager: Yeah, on uh n uh on the bottom of the remote you can do {disfmarker}
Marketing: Well, the button button over here or whatever,
User Interface: Okay, yeah.
Marketing: I don't know. On the front, of course, because else you can't find it.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Well, that were my ideas a little bit.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: I'll close'em down. Um, go away.
Project Manager: Okay, you {disfmarker} can you open the conceptual design presentation?
Marketing: Conceptual design, yes.
Project Manager: See what was on the agenda.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Lazy. {vocalsound}
Marketing: The agenda.
Project Manager: This is his own remote. Because um, maybe we can start with the technical uh functions,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: but I don't think it's there {disfmarker} uh, yeah um, do we want to um use an L_C_D_ display, for example?
Marketing: Well, it's nice, of course. But I don't I don't know what to display on it.
Industrial Designer: Only if we {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Me neither.
Industrial Designer: Maybe maybe we can make a T_V_ guide on it, for the channel you're on.
Marketing: I mean {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, but it's so {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, but it should be li like this big, and I don't think {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: No, no, only the T_V_ channel with the {disfmarker} with uh with {vocalsound} uh four programmes.
Project Manager: I don't think we should do it.
Industrial Designer: You can uh zap through them with the page up page down button.
Marketing: Yes sure, but it it has to to show an entire title of a programme or at least a q a quite quite large part of it and then you get a very large L_C_D_ screen, because {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yes, it can {disfmarker} On your {disfmarker} No, on your mobile phone you can y you can read text also. So why not on your remote?
Project Manager: Yeah, but {disfmarker} no. I do I think it's a bit redundant, actually.
Marketing: Yeah, I don't know.
Project Manager: And it's also not {disfmarker} I don't th even think it it looks s like sexy or something,
User Interface: Well well what would you display on it then?
Project Manager: it's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Uh, programme uh information or or or or g or a guide
Marketing: Programme information.
User Interface: But is it {disfmarker} isn't that a already on T_V_, a lot of new T_V_s?
Marketing: But {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: on t on teletext, yes. Also on the internet.
Marketing: Well a lot a lot of T_V_s indeed show uh when you uh zap to a {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: But {disfmarker}
Project Manager: But you're already watching the T_V_, you're not gonna watch your remote control.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yes, but you also want to know what's next.
Marketing: But then we also uh w need to bring out a line of T_V_s which we were planning to,
User Interface: Yeah,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: and we also have to {disfmarker} yeah.
Marketing: but whatever. Because the T_V_ has to send information back to the R_C_, and I don't know if that's possible.
Industrial Designer: Yes, that's uh really possible. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yes, yes, o of course it's possible,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: but you gotta uh implement it in the T_V_s, and I don't think everyone's gonna buy a Real Reaction T_V_ within a month after the release of our uh remote control.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I really understand you want to make your job more exciting {vocalsound} by putting an L_C_D_ in it,
User Interface: And I also {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: but I I really don't think it's a good n goo because it also doesn't stroke with {disfmarker} we wanted uh c When we talk about the materials, uh it's a good idea to use these plastic materials with soft rubber stuff on it. It was our idea, you know, to give it a more sturdy look and that you ca like you can throw with it.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: But I don't think a L_C_D_ display fits in that image. You know, it's like more vulnerable, and it adds nothing really, you know.
Marketing: That's true, that's true, it breaks f yeah, it it it's not very solid, it's uh frag fragile.
Project Manager: Yeah, yeah. You could make it, but it's just {disfmarker} it it doesn't {disfmarker} I don't think it {disfmarker} it's coherent with the design we're after.
Marketing: No. No. I don't think so ei either.
Project Manager: But that's my opinion. Well, you you y Okay, we can vote for it. You want the L_C_D_ display. I don't want to and {vocalsound} he doesn't, so it's up to him.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} No.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} If we wanna {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, I dunno.
Marketing: {vocalsound}. Ah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And I've read somewhere that I've got some kind of veto veto uh rights.
User Interface: {vocalsound}. Oh, okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Bastard. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} So I can also say {disfmarker}
User Interface: We can {gap} you away.
Project Manager: But did we skip the {disfmarker} Yeah, you could do {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: m but what what i so what i but do you think we should {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah, I don't know. Uh, uh I {disfmarker} i if it's it's a simple p
Project Manager: We're not even sure what what information we want to display on it. So {disfmarker}
User Interface: No, that that's right,
Industrial Designer: No uh um {disfmarker}
User Interface: and uh I also have to think about new functions, maybe buttons or something like that to control it. Kind of L_C_D_ or something or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Y yes, you can use uh buttons uh uh w that are already uh on the remote control for double functions.
Marketing: Yeah, I guess.
User Interface: But how does it display then? W when I go to the second channel, what what does it show me?
Industrial Designer: Uh, then you push a button. The title and the information about the programme.
User Interface: About that programme?
Industrial Designer: But but uh {disfmarker} yeah, what he said was right, about the televisions, they have to be uh customised to the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Nah, that's not gonna work.
Industrial Designer: But maybe in future it will be a giant hit, and when you are the first
Marketing: No.
Project Manager: Yeah. Oh, well uh I've seen it done before.
Industrial Designer: you have the biggest uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Do you know th like the the bigger rem uh universal remotes, they have d L_C_D_ displays,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: but then it's very functional to indicate which {disfmarker} what uh uh device you are controlling. So it's {disfmarker} that that's what I've seen.
Industrial Designer: Yes, you can put uh a little L_C_D_ display on it with uh with lots of information.
Marketing: Yeah, that's true, if you uh {disfmarker} Yeah.
Project Manager: But it just {disfmarker} it j it doesn't doesn't match with the {gap} our whole basic concept.
Industrial Designer: But uh I haven't thought about it. But whe but when you put a a a transparent uh plastic uh uh screen on top of it, it i it isn't vulnerable.
Project Manager: Well yeah, yeah, okay. That's maybe not the most important,
Industrial Designer: You can throw with it and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: but it's just {disfmarker}
User Interface: Is it fashion?
Project Manager: I don't think so.
Industrial Designer: When when you put uh maybe a colour L_C_D_ t uh screen on it, it's very special and very trendy to have uh a remote control from {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} I don't know. That's not up to you. That's up to market if i if it's trendy.
Project Manager: Yeah, well do you ha do you have to {disfmarker} {gap} You haven't looked after the trendiness of L_C_D_ displays, have you?
Marketing: {vocalsound} No. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} Because our our motto is we put fashion {disfmarker}
Marketing: Well, I think it's uh I think it's pretty trendy, to be honest, uh but um I don't know if if if {disfmarker} well, I'm coming back to the costs again, but I think uh we gotta build a b pretty cheap design to to stay within our limits. And I think uh especially colour L_C_D_, which is indeed pretty trendy. But I don't think {disfmarker} Uh, I think it will be too expensive.
Industrial Designer: But uh I've got a {disfmarker} the email with uh with the possibilities. {vocalsound} And L_C_D_ was a possibility for the remote control.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah.
Industrial Designer: So why don't we use it.
Project Manager: Yeah, but we're gonna {disfmarker} if it {disfmarker}
Marketing: Uh, did it say a price also uh for for uh monogramme uh L_C_D_ or uh coloured L_C_D_?
User Interface: Yeah, if you want to be trendy you have to be coloured. Coloured {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah really,
User Interface: If you have black and white or something, or grey, that's {disfmarker}
Marketing: if y if you c i
Project Manager: Then uh then you better don't {disfmarker} yeah, d
Marketing: I in in two thousand and four you can't uh put something on the market which is a monogramme.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Really. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: No, but it doesn't sa say anything about a colour or {disfmarker} But, mm, I alf I also got a possibility to put uh a scroll button on it. But {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh uh I really don't feel the whole idea of an L_C_D_ display.
Industrial Designer: I didn't think that {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap}
Project Manager: I'm sorry. It can't co you cannot convince me. I don't know how {disfmarker} well how to {disfmarker} with you guys, but {disfmarker} I don't really feel it. We already {disfmarker} we're uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} It's too much uh maybe uh with with the L_C_D_ and the docking station and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, we already have the the th th th base station gadgets,
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: and want {disfmarker} and it {disfmarker} uh uh, do {disfmarker} it has to be a simple design, which sturdy, which soft {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yes, but o on the {disfmarker}
Marketing: W we've we've gotta find a balance, of course.
User Interface: With one thing special.
Marketing: And I think {disfmarker}
User Interface: Not a whole package of specialty.
Project Manager: I don't think {disfmarker} I j uh, and really, I don't see how the the L_C_D_ display is gonna add anything, you know, on a design level. Uh, I think it's slicker to have no L_ CEDs.
Industrial Designer: No, when y
Project Manager: Y we want to {disfmarker} it's simplicity, w you have two big buttons and you can do whatever you want with these two buttons, so you don't need an L_C_D_.
Industrial Designer: But it look {disfmarker} Yes, but that remote controls are already on the market. The simple {disfmarker}
Project Manager: It doesn't fit in our philosophy uh behind the whole remote.
Industrial Designer: Yes, but but when you want to have something special {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, but we already have the docking station, which is {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yes, but you had a picture of it from another company.
User Interface: And uh the {disfmarker}
Marketing: We have a pear.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} It has to be developed,
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: but {disfmarker} no, but it {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: that's our that's our killer feature.
User Interface: It's just an it's just an idea.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: That's our {disfmarker} what makes it special.
User Interface: It's a it's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yes, it was already made. Tha the remote control on the docking station.
Project Manager: Yeah, we're gonna develop our own r n docking station.
User Interface: True.
Marketing: Is that so? Was it {disfmarker} {vocalsound} it wasn't just a prototype?
User Interface: Well uh I uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yes, he have a picture of it.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah, I dunno.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Exactly, I've never seen it in a store.
Project Manager: Uh, but re we really have to cut this off,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I re I know you {disfmarker} I I I I {vocalsound} I get the idea you really like it, you know, the the L_C_D_ thing, but I I think it's it's not a good idea, and we have already mentioned all the arguments. I don't {disfmarker} uh, do you guys agre How do you guys think? I d
User Interface: No, it's too much.
Marketing: I think it's a little too much, yeah.
User Interface: It's overdone.
Project Manager: Okay, we s skip the {vocalsound} L_C_D_ display.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: I'm sorry, maybe you can do something if we are at your own place, or make it make it make it happen in your basement or something.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Democratically.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} No.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Mayb {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap}. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I will rule the world with it. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Probably so.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. But for the technical part. The m material, I think uh it was a good idea to use the plastic and uh the rubber. Uh
Industrial Designer: Yes, maybe a bit of a cushion is {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah, p Exactly. This is what it w Yeah, but it it was already what we're uh we're after, you know, to give it uh, you know, the soft touch in your hands
Marketing: Yeah, for the spongy uh feel. {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
User Interface: With a spongy Bob feel.
Project Manager: and also to, know, like {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, that is y the b airbag kind of thing.
Industrial Designer: Like a b yes.
Project Manager: You can st throw it at your little brother's head.
User Interface: Yeah, you just can drop it. Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, airbag. If you drop it if you drop it the airbag comes out, yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. No no no, not that comfy.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Maybe it {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: but then we have to look that it uh w uh will not um be too childish to see.
Project Manager: Yeah yeah. Yeah. Okay, that's a that's a good point. And that's why I like the dark t col dark colour bit, you know, because it may be {disfmarker} the design uh, it's uh maybe it is a bit of the {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: But not black I think.
Project Manager: it's a bit nineties maybe, what we're what we're up to rat fun to this point.
Marketing: No.
User Interface: Well if if it's fruit and vegetables, it have to be colourful.
Project Manager: Yeah, that's that's true, but but it has to be a little big solid.
Marketing: Yeah, b yeah, that's what w I I was pointing at.
User Interface: But can we ge uh uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: It mustn't be too, n you know, th too overwhelming, then when you put it on your {gap} just {disfmarker}
User Interface: Can we combine it or something? Uh with uh yellow and black?
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah, maybe so.
User Interface: Make it a bee? {vocalsound} A bee. {vocalsound}
Marketing: What? Oh, a bee. Oh. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No, uh I don't like the yellow and black combination {gap}. But it is our company colours. Apparently. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah, {gap} it's our {disfmarker} yeah. We we have to use yellow.
Industrial Designer: Yes, real real good colours. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Hmm.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: I don't like yellow, and uh maybe {disfmarker} I don't know.
Marketing: Well, we can as as I
Industrial Designer: But that's not really fruity.
Marketing: draw really nicely over there. {vocalsound} We can put the logo on our uh on our base station. Uh, yeah. And maybe very very tiny on the remote control itself.
Project Manager: But {disfmarker}
Marketing: But, i
Project Manager: Okay, but what {disfmarker} uh, what are other tef technical things we have to discuss?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh fronts of the {disfmarker} We can have uh different uh uh fronts of the
Project Manager: Should we do that?
Industrial Designer: telephone.
Project Manager: I don't think you {disfmarker} we should do that. Maybe just bring it out in different colours,
User Interface: Different fronts.
Project Manager: but not af that you can switch fronts afterwards, that's also too much.
Marketing: Yeah. I guess that's that's enough.
Project Manager: People don't wanna spend more money on their remote {vocalsound} control, I guess.
Marketing: That's way too Nokia.
User Interface: Yeah. Uh, you can you can l uh let choose the customer which colour he wants, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Are these designs?
Project Manager: Yeah, yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, definitely. Just bring more designs on the market.
User Interface: Yeah, Three three or four uh four uh colours, or something like that.
Project Manager: But uh, without {disfmarker} gon uh
Marketing: Why not, yeah.
Project Manager: okay. So, are we through the technical part then?
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Project Manager: Okay. So we uh agreed upon uh n uh well, not u unanimously or how you call it, but {disfmarker} Yeah.
User Interface: Well, yeah,
Industrial Designer: It {disfmarker} this a real uh young young and dynamic uh uh styles.
User Interface: the {disfmarker} Three to one. {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: The materials you uh mentioned in your your personal preferences were all {disfmarker} were quite okay.
Industrial Designer: {gap} Yes.
Project Manager: O o only only the last point your {disfmarker}
User Interface: And tita uh titanium, is {disfmarker} uh is is it a no?
Industrial Designer: Yes, {gap} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: no titanium's not not out of question, I guess.
User Interface: Is {disfmarker} It's just like that, th this titanium.
Industrial Designer: But also w Yes, b bu but when we use s soft
Project Manager: But is it possible to use both the the plastic and so uh soft things and t p titanium, as well?
Industrial Designer: mm {disfmarker}
Marketing: Sure.
Project Manager: Makes it in a homogeneous uh design.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: No, not all, not all of them.
Industrial Designer: But it it {disfmarker} then it uh {disfmarker} you can't throw it it. It will uh make a huge noise or break other stuff
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} It will it will break other stuff w {vocalsound} when it's plastic, as well.
Industrial Designer: when you throw with uh titanium {disfmarker} {vocalsound} with your remote control.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: No uh,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: titanium is a bit uh it's a bit harder.
Marketing: Yeah, that's true.
Project Manager: No, but uh uh, you should ma Yeah.
Industrial Designer: But also on the colours, the young {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay, think of the possibilities and make it in {disfmarker} completely titanium. Well would it be more trendy? More chic?
Marketing: Yeah, I think it I think it does.
User Interface: Uh, I think titanium nowadays is way more often used than plastic.
Industrial Designer: Yes, but a titanium remote control, when you're uh watching T_V_ uh or your hands are a little bit sweaty, and the {disfmarker}
User Interface: In trendy things.
Marketing: Yeah, o On the other hand, if you want to make fruit {disfmarker} fruity stuff with uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. It's cold in the winter. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, but I I really like the idea of the the the plastic and the big kind of thing.
Industrial Designer: Yes. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But the question is i then it's, you know, is is {disfmarker} it fits in our s philosophy to make it uh sturdy and simple and uh, know, like uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, that's true, that's true.
Industrial Designer: Sports and gaming. Define
Project Manager: When you make it titanium, it becomes more like some kind of gadget you actually don't need. And when it's big and plastic, it's like some fun stuff you can always have around. It's always fun to have something big and plastic around.
User Interface: You have that uh M_P_ three player of Nike, I saw.
Marketing: Yes. Yeah.
User Interface: Isn't that titanium with a little bit of rubber?
Industrial Designer: Yes, it's w but it is uh plastic.
User Interface: Isn't it {disfmarker} Is plastic? Well, it's titanium looking.
Industrial Designer: Yes, w we can do that on the on the {disfmarker}
Marketing: What?
User Interface: Yeah, he is. Here he is. Uh, the {disfmarker} I don't know if you know the M_P_ three player of Nike.'Kay, uh that that's very uh with rubber, so it's very
Marketing: Oh, yeah. Okay, yeah.
Project Manager: {gap} Yeah, that's beautiful.
Marketing: Yeah, I see.
Industrial Designer: We can make this as a style too.
Marketing: Yeah, but but but {disfmarker}
User Interface: rough.
Industrial Designer: Uh, this is uh just a {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh, maybe th maybe this is an {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, I th I think that's difficult, because uh that's different material, and then you gotta have like uh uh uh two material lines of of of {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: No, we c we can make it from the same kind of plastic.
Marketing: Yeah, if it's just a colour uh which you uh which you change then, I guess it's it's nice to have one of these.
Project Manager: No, I do like the idea of maybe a t titanium kind {disfmarker} type of body w and then with s plastic colouration {gap} around it.
Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: You know, like the the soft stuff,
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: but I don't know if it's possible.
Industrial Designer: I don't have the information. Uh, I I didn't got it {disfmarker}
Project Manager: But you can't make the plastic give uh the ti titanium look.
User Interface: {vocalsound} True.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Project Manager: But make it just like shiny.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah yeah, true.
Project Manager: Maybe we should uh shou
Industrial Designer: Like the M_P_ three player.
User Interface: Yeah, maybe that's good idea, yeah. But if you want to la uh yeah, last longer than two weeks or something like that, you can maybe {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: And uh and
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: maybe we sh should we t {gap} I don't know if we should talk about {disfmarker} uh, how how much time have we got left?
Industrial Designer: Uh, in a lot of other uh
User Interface: I don't know.
Project Manager: Forty minutes.
User Interface: What time does {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: in a lot of other product uh categories like uh even in b in bags industry. Uh, they began with uh t typical uh leather bags, but then they became stylish, with all all si all sort of colours, and w kind of fon {disfmarker} of uh of fronts, like we can use on the telephone and it {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Like Eastpack uh began a revolution with it with all this uh kind of bags and and colours and and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {gap} You putting in different colours.
Industrial Designer: Yes, and and styles.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: They have uh also uh a kind of uh um uh roses on it, a and uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Uh yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. Yeah, but w yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well, it is. It's a possibility. But, let's think about the bas
Industrial Designer: Then we can always uh use the same design for a greater resemblance, but with new uh with new colours, new {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yes. New prints on it. Yep.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: yes.
Project Manager: But wha th our basic idea {disfmarker} y I mean, you gonna {disfmarker} we're probably gonna have like two type of materials, like the d d b the plastic uh enclosure and then the the pads that surround it. And and pro and lights. We have to incorporate the lights too. But, uh do w gonna {gap} gonna {disfmarker} are we going to give it a two-tone colour look, like the the plastic mould is in in one colour and the s the cushion pads around it are in another colour? Is that the idea? Is that a good idea?
Marketing: How do you mean? Th th the uh base in a in another {disfmarker}
Project Manager: How many colours are we {disfmarker} how many colours are we gonna {disfmarker} we're uh uh f uh f
User Interface: The rubber.
Project Manager: Only five minutes left, by the way. How many colours are we gonna give it?
Marketing: Yes.
Project Manager: Like two-tone colour? T
Industrial Designer: There there are three uh components three components type.
User Interface: Yeah. Uh no, not too much I think.
Industrial Designer: You have the buttons, the the case uh itself, and the rubber and th
Marketing: How the buttons {disfmarker} yeah.
Project Manager: I think maybe the case itself should be in one colour and then the rubber of the buttons, {vocalsound} and the cushions as well should be in another colour.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
User Interface: Or you just make uh one colour, uh maybe with a a z a kind of like a big wave or something like uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, but not more than {disfmarker}
User Interface: In in another colour.
Project Manager: Well, yeah, it's {gap} {disfmarker}
User Interface: Not more than two colours I think.
Project Manager: No.
User Interface: It's a g a little bit too flashy.
Marketing: No, definitely not.
Project Manager: Maybe we should talk about it on a l in a later meeting.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, or or when you use the buttons as black, it {disfmarker} you can use two colours as well uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yes, definitely.
Project Manager: Okay. But we have to uh think of some other uh important things.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} oh yeah, the the functionalities of the the buttons.
User Interface: The funct yeah, I was I was thinking about th the st do we still want a joystick idea.
Project Manager: No. {vocalsound}
Marketing: No, I think that's too vulnerable.
Project Manager: I think this is okay,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: the {disfmarker} so we have the basic. Then we have the numbers. We have the power button. We have we have a teletext button.
User Interface: The volume, teletext and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And maybe want to access a a menu or something. Most T_V_s have a menu.
Marketing: Yeah, but that's that's {disfmarker} I was thinking that's gotta be on the television.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, but I think you ha I really need a menu button.
User Interface: Yeah yeah yeah yeah, b
Project Manager: That's just i the only button {disfmarker} only {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, but wha what kind of menu?
Project Manager: You know, I {disfmarker}
User Interface: Is uh {disfmarker} isn't that different from every television?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} No, I think most T_V_s have an uh a menu nowadays to access the uh uh screen settings. And so {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm. {vocalsound} Yeah, if it's c if {disfmarker} Yeah, I think it's okay to to add a menu button for uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But that that covers all the all the other settings. It covers everything then.
Marketing: and if the T_V_ doesn't have a menu, then {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: But then you have to put uh up and down and uh left and right {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: No, you can use the {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, you can put that on the two eight four and six or whatever.
Project Manager: And you al can also use the normal skip buttons for that.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Th in that way we have like only the numbers, the power button, skip and volume, and then uh uh ten uh rem
Marketing: Mm, yeah. A mute and a teletext and a menu.
Project Manager: uh yeah, mute. A teletext and a menu, and then then i that's it.
User Interface: Mute.
Project Manager: It's all we need.
Marketing: That's all.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: Okay, uh another stuf some stuff {vocalsound} about the the the design of the docking station.
Marketing: Great. Yeah.
User Interface: Okay, that's not mu not much functions. So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Something important about a s uh, no, uh which sh uh should remind us of the remote itself, I guess.
Marketing: Yeah, definitely.
Project Manager: Uh, in one colour.
Marketing: Are we gonna do something with the uh spongy thing there?
Project Manager: Just use {disfmarker} I think the spongy thing already um comes forward in the in the in the cushions, pads and things on the s uh side.
Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, that's true, that's true.
Project Manager: And we will make it spongy and {disfmarker} and uh and uh well, the fruity thing is just the shape should be fru i did {disfmarker} I think this is kind of fruity, you know. Just round shapes with uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, it's kinda fruity, and with th with catchy colours uh uh w
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, but we're gonna have to {disfmarker} we really have to think {disfmarker} I think colours is very important, because it has to be flashy, but {disfmarker} and but it d it doesn't have to be annoying, that when you uh, know, some things is just over the top, and when you have it on your table for more than two weeks, you {disfmarker} {gap} it just gets annoying, because it's so big and flashy.
Marketing: Yeah, definitely.
Project Manager: Uh, it has to be some level of subtlety, but we have to {disfmarker} still have to think of how we manage to uh to get to that.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. Guess we're through then.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: I guess so.
Project Manager: But we {disfmarker} I think also we just {disfmarker} so we have to do something with colour but also, I I think we have to keep the dark colour thing in mind. I think that's uh adds to the {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yes.
Project Manager: too much colour maybe m um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Too much colour, i it uh {disfmarker} when you got it in a living room, it's too much maybe
Project Manager: But our des design experts will uh work that out.
Marketing: Yea yeah.
User Interface: . It has to be {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay, well I think the meeting will be over within a minute.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yep.
Project Manager: So we will wrap up.
Marketing: Something like that.
Project Manager: Or is there anything we'd like to discuss? That's right.
Marketing: I guess not.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Do you, guys?
User Interface: No.
Marketing: No?
Project Manager: Okay. Well, you will read the minutes uh in the {disfmarker} you can find them in the {disfmarker}
User Interface: Oh, okay, yeah.
Marketing: In the shared folder.
Project Manager: pro probably. Yeah {disfmarker} uh no, for su for sure because I'm will now type them out.
Industrial Designer: What are we going to do now?
Project Manager: Uh, y yeah.
Marketing: You'll see in you email, I guess.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: I think uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.
User Interface: {vocalsound} I hope so. And the other thing is that you don't have kind of prototype or something like that. You see a kinda prototype you can {disfmarker} a little bit more uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I will make one in the next uh twenty minutes. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Construct one, yeah.
Project Manager: But {gap} toilet paper roll and uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: With you laptop? {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Oh my God.
Marketing: Alright, shall we get back to work?
Project Manager: Yep. I was waiting for the l last message, but {disfmarker}
Marketing: Great.
User Interface: Well you are. We're not.
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Bastard.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Back to the pen.
Project Manager: Mm yeah.
Marketing: You lazy {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} | This meeting talked about the conceptual design of the remote control product. Industrial Designer gave the first presentation, stating the personal preference for components designs. User Interface delivered the second. It led to a following discussion about basic function types as well as the size of their buttons. Next, Marketing's presentation identified the three most important aspects of remote design and expressed the focus on the trend on the elder market. As such, the group started to discuss how to meet the satisfaction of different age markets with the design. After that, Project Manager steered the meeting to further questions, including technical functions, material, color design, buttons functionality, and docking station design. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
Project Manager: Okay. Everybody ready?
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Uh I think the first thing we do is introduce ourselves
Marketing: I think so.
Project Manager: and everybody's name and what your function is?
Marketing: Yeah, that's a good plan.
Project Manager: So maybe we start with you?
User Interface: Okay. Yeah, my name is Francina. And I'm uh an user interface {disfmarker} my role is uh {disfmarker} the main responsibility is user interface.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And my role is to design uh a television remote control.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Okay.
Marketing: And I'm a marketing person. I wanna figure out how to sell them.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. And your name is?
Marketing: My name is Eileen.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Uh I'm Jeanne-Oui. Um uh my role is industrial designer and my responsibilities are uh uh um deal with the {vocalsound} technical-functional designs and specifications of user interface and dealing with user interface design.
Project Manager: Very good. And as you already know I am Betty. I am the project manager for today. So why don't we look at the presentation {vocalsound} to see what we really are supposed to do. {vocalsound} Um.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes y opening, acquaintance, tool training {disfmarker} well, the tools are, I think, we already {disfmarker} I guess the tool is really our {disfmarker} the computer, as far as I can see.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Uh we get ins each of us will get instructions and we'll take it from there. Project plan, that falls under the same heading pretty much. Um, I don't think we have any great discussion at this point.
Marketing: No.
Project Manager: Um. Here is what this thing should be. This thing we are gonna um uh design is a new remote control. Uh should be original {vocalsound}, trendy, and, of course, user friendly.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So maybe you wanna make some notes of that.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Okay?
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: All right. {vocalsound} Here is what the functional design is supposed to achieve. Um. That is it's gonna be individual work and then at the meeting we'll discuss what uh we have come up with. The same goes for the conceptual design, there will be individual work whic and then discussion afterwards. Detailed design, same thing basically.
Marketing: Mm'kay so {disfmarker} Three different types of design that we're gonna be concerned with okay.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Functional, conception and detailed.
Project Manager: I can't write with this thing. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Maybe we should redesign it. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yes. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: After we've finished the remote control we'll get to that.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, okay. All right? Then, tool training try out the white board, participant can draw their favourite animal. Does anybody want to go and see how the white board works? So that in case we have to, in the next meeting, present something on the white board. You wanna go Eileen and {disfmarker}
Marketing: Okay, I'll see what I can do.
Project Manager: Whether you {disfmarker} without hanging yourself. {vocalsound}
Marketing: See if I r See if I remember how to draw a kitty cat or a rabbit or something. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And remember you have to press so it works.
Marketing: So that it will record okay.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Um uh um traditional kitty cat.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Fat, a fat cat. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I've a very fat cat.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} And it likes to sit like that.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: And you're Francine, right? Would you like s like just to see um how it feels, so that you have a little idea?
User Interface: Yes, I'm Francina. Yes, sure. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: In {disfmarker}
Marketing: Am I supposed to wipe off that or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: No, no. No, that's okay.
User Interface: No, Okay.
Marketing: okay.
Project Manager: I don't know, we'll get to that later.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: What should I draw? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Snake.
User Interface: I'm going to draw a snake. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay.
User Interface: How does it look like? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Uh, okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay.
Marketing: I hope the kitty cat is hungry'cause I don't like snakes. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Here's the project finance uh which, of course, we all have to think about when we design this thing. Um selling price is supposed to be twenty five Euro. Uh profit aim for the company is fifty million Euro,
Marketing: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: the market range unlimited meaning international
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: and the production cost should not exceed {disfmarker} hopefully should be less than twelve fifty Euro.
Marketing: Mm'kay that should keep everybody on their toes and challenged.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Profit. Um is fifty mm.
Project Manager: So these are all things, of course, to remember with the budget and when you design {vocalsound} to materials, cost, etcetera. Now, uh the discussion I guess is um does anyone of you have experience with remote control?
Marketing: Oops.
Project Manager: I exp I s'cause we we use'em {disfmarker} we use'em, right, everyday.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, of course, using remote control. Yeah.
User Interface: Yes.
Project Manager: And um now having used a remote control for years does anybody already have like an idea like things you didn't like with it, things you would like to change, things you would like to improve with this thing ye any first ideas? Would you like it to be smaller, bigger,
Industrial Designer: Uh.
Project Manager: have more have more buttons on it or maybe clearly {disfmarker} better marked buttons, you know, things like that?
User Interface: Yeah, I {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yes, I I feel that all the remote should be very compact.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Small, right. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah, those which we get here nowadays it's very long.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And um and it should have multi-purpose. Like uh the remote control which we use for T_V_, it shou uh it should be used f uh for some other purpose also, like controlling the uh temperature inside the house or for air-conditioners, or for heating system.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Audio player. Oh. Okay.
Project Manager: So it should be a multi-functional uh gadget that would um control all your household uh uh machines basically.
User Interface: Yes, exactly Yes.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Divides us {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. Exactly.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} At um twelve fifty Euros per {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well.
Marketing: Well who knows if we get a really good designer maybe we can do that.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} We certainly can try to {disfmarker} I agree with her that to market something successfully it should do some more things.
Project Manager: It should be something new {disfmarker} it should be s it it should do something different than than just what we have.
Marketing: That's right.
Project Manager: Now, of course, the other thing to think there is maybe the design.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, of course.
User Interface: Yeah, design should be, yeah {disfmarker} it should be different. All the {disfmarker} almost all the remotes {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Like trendy no like f for earlier we saw maybe it should be something trendy you know. Maybe it should {disfmarker} different colours or materials or you know.
User Interface: Yes, exactly.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, maybe ten {disfmarker} I do yeah, colours
User Interface: Are different shapes.
Industrial Designer: and al shapes also. Yeah.
User Interface: Yes.
Project Manager: Um so yeah shapes right, you know, like kidney shape feels better in your hand or something, you know.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah of course yeah.
Marketing: Yeah okay, friendly shape, that would help.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: I think another thing that would help is um if it beeps when you clap,
Project Manager: Yes.
Marketing: because I think one of the big things that happens is people lose them. They can't find it.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} That is true,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: because they put a newspaper or they put it behind a plant or, we you know, whatever.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And and they {disfmarker} suddenly the phone rings and they want to turn the T_V_ off and they say, where the hell is my {vocalsound} my remote control yeah?
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well or yeah or if it's really, if it's really in a dark spot that it gives out a a sound or a signal.
Marketing: So some {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, some beep or something like that,
Project Manager: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Or a b
Marketing: Uh so, so it's really the beep or, or a light should blink.
Industrial Designer: so that we can go {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So if lost {disfmarker} If lost uh signal with b throw signal, you know.
User Interface: Should ha
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: A fluorescent signal, yeah.
Marketing: Mm'kay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, maybe it should have a light so that we can, we can just recognise where it is.
Project Manager: Exactly, I mean just {vocalsound} that's what I'm saying.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah. May not be beep.
Project Manager: I'm just saying throw signal meaning just whether it's a beep or whether a light or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Beep or uh it's a light, maybe it's a light.
Marketing: And do you think a good c c um clue for that is that it would respond to a clap or it would respond to your voice or it would respond {disfmarker} what what should you have to do to make it beep or blink?
Project Manager: Okay, my {disfmarker} my idea is maybe that the minute it's really hidden, in in other words if it's like in a dark spot, uh meaning you know like a newspaper is on top, a sweater is on top or it it's behind a plant, at that moment it's it's like, it's like um, what you call it {disfmarker} a light s sensors, you know?
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: In in that moment it has a sensor, i it it gets a certain darkness, it ge has a sensor and it gives out a signal whether that be a light signal or a beep,
Marketing: Okay so {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: I mean, that we can discuss that later, you know.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, probably {disfmarker} yeah, probably it's a {disfmarker} yeah, yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. And uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: So the light sensor would activate the signal.
Project Manager: That's right. You know there would be {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: right you have to have some kind of sensor and I I think uh voice or clapping it's not specific enough. Uh I know there are the lamps and stuff, you know, you can clap on and off,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes.
Project Manager: but I think they only work to certain degree and {disfmarker}
Marketing: But it could be someplace really obvious and you still wouldn't be able to find it.
Project Manager: What with {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, of course, that didn't {disfmarker}
User Interface: Then, in that case {disfmarker}
Marketing: Well, because you're s because you're silly. Because people are silly.
Industrial Designer: I i we can't do it.
Project Manager: Oh yeah well, but then those people {disfmarker} we can't help everybody. {vocalsound}
Marketing: I mean it could be on {disfmarker} well, i if it were like on top of your bookcase and you usually kept it on the coffee table
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: um {vocalsound},
Project Manager: Okay we have uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: you know, well {disfmarker} maybe we have to move along, okay.
Project Manager: yeah, we have to move along, but I think we have some good good points to start with here.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, good point.
Project Manager: Okay, the next meeting will be in thirty minutes. I think you all {disfmarker} did you get uh notices on your computer for this? Okay so well, you got the notice um
Industrial Designer: Me yeah.
User Interface: Yes.
Project Manager: {disfmarker} uh. The working design, I guess that's the function I_D_ {disfmarker} uh who is this? The industrial designer {disfmarker} That's you.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, it's functional de yeah, exactly, technical.
Project Manager: Okay. So, we looking for a working design when we come back.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh working design, yeah, it's it's uh mainly technical-functional design.
Project Manager: Then {disfmarker} And then the technical funct you are the technical function,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, functional design,
Project Manager: so so you are the working design.
Industrial Designer: and you {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So you have a working design and then a functional design.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: And the marketing manager is coming up with some user requirement specification, like friendliness, and what we just discussed in general. That would be your idea. And, of course, price. That it, that it, that the price is a good price. I mean, the price is given, but, that was {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm-hmm. We have to justify that price by having sufficient features to make it sell at that price.
Project Manager: That's right. That's right.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And, you know, specifi you you will get specific um instructions for that. I think that's the end of the show. Yeah. So um {vocalsound} we have {disfmarker} well, we have a twen two two two three minutes. Um any questions at this point? Or uh suggestions?
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: I think {disfmarker} basically basically you will get instructions to work with and if you have any questions uh, uh I guess, you can uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay, I think I have enough to think about'til our next meeting.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, even I have.
Marketing: How about you people?
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, even I have, I think, yeah.
Marketing: Really? Okay.'Kay.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, so let's see.
Marketing: Alright, well uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Then uh we see you in about thirty minutes. And see what we can come up with.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Okay, very good.
Project Manager: Okay?
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. | The meeting kicked off with self-introductions, familiarizing team members and their responsibilities. After stating the scope of the project, which was to design a new remote control, the team tested out the functions of the white board. Then, the team brainstormed about what features they would add to the new remote control, such as being multi-functional and having a light sensor, with the selling price of twenty five euros and production cost of twelve fifty Euros. | qmsum |
Summarize the discussion about possible detailed designings of remote control?
Project Manager: Okay. Oh, that's not gonna work. {vocalsound} Oh, alright. {vocalsound} Okay. Okay. Um alright.
Marketing: Uh, uh, um.
Project Manager: I'll just put that there. Uh as you all know we're here to create a brand new fantastic remote. Uh I'm Nick Debusk, I'm the Project Manager. Uh we'll just get started with everyone kind of letting each other know who they are and what you're doing, what your what your role is um. Go ahead.
Marketing: Okay. {vocalsound} I am Corinne Whiting and I will be the Marketing Expert and in each of the three phases I will have a different role. In the function design phase I will be talking about user requirement specification, and this means what needs and desires are to be fulfilled, and I'll be doing research to figure this out. In the conceptual design phase I will be dealing with trend watching and I'll be doing marketing research on the web. And then finally in the um detailed design phase I will be doing product evaluation and so I will be collecting the requirements and ranking all the requirements to see how we did.
Project Manager:'Kay.
User Interface: Hiya, I'm Ryan. Um I'm the User Interface Designer. Um likewise I've three different roles for each stage of design. Um the functional design is looking at the tex technical functions of a remote control. Um in the concept design, the user interface, how the user reacts with the the product. And the detailed design um {vocalsound} sort of like the user interface design, what they might be looking for, uh things like fashions, what makes wha how we're gonna make it special. That's about it.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Right. {vocalsound} I'm Manuel and I'm the Industrial Designer in in this project um. In the functional design phase I'm {disfmarker} I'll be dealing mostly with the requirements, um we'll discuss what the prog what functions the the product has to fulfil and so and so on. Um I suppose we'll work pretty much together on that one. Um um in the conceptual design um I'll be pro mostly dealing with properties and materials um of our product.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And uh the detailed design {disfmarker} in the detailed design I'll be concerned with the look and feel of the product itself, um so we're pretty much working together obviously on the design front here. Okay. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay. Um so we've got our opening, our our agenda is the opening, uh acquaintance which we've kinda done. Uh tool training, project plan discussion and then closing.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh grand total of twenty five minutes we have here. Um so we are putting together a new remote control. Um we want it to be something original. Um of course we're a {disfmarker} not only a electronics company but a fashion um conscious electronics company, so we want it to be trendy um and we want it to be easy to use. {vocalsound} Um we've got the functional design, conceptual design and detailed design um which basically is is the three of you um. And w uh {vocalsound} well um functional design um. Um do we have {disfmarker} um any ideas of of {disfmarker} {vocalsound} maybe d let's just throw out some ideas of what kind of remote control we want to have, and then we can go into how we're gonna design it and and how we're gonna do the detailing on it.
User Interface: Yeah. Well uh s function of remote control is just just {disfmarker} you know, change channels is its main function.
Project Manager: So we want it to be um a T_V_ remote or {disfmarker} I I mean do we want it to to do other things besides just be a a television remote?
User Interface: Oh right. I suppose you c try make it a universal remote
Project Manager:'Kay.
User Interface: for {disfmarker} could work on all sort of electrical products in in one person's house. But, you know, they all sorta have the same role changing channels, volumes and then programming.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.'Kay.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: I think they all work on the same prin principle as well sorta like {disfmarker} I don't actually know. {gap} But is it just infra-red? Is that standard?
Project Manager: I I think {disfmarker} yeah, yeah, r universal remote.
User Interface: Ye yeah.
Project Manager: Um this is my first uh go-round with creating a remote control,
Marketing: Huh. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: so {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Ours too. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think we're all in the same boat here. {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Um one thing I thought of with the remote control is you always lose'em.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: So if there's a g a way of finding it quite easily, I thought that'd be quite good quite a good feature.
Marketing: Mm. Ch
Project Manager: So we should we should set our remote control up to where it has a uh
Marketing: Like a tracking device? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: like a tracking device or or like a a {disfmarker}
User Interface: Oh you can get those key {disfmarker} well you could whistle or make a noise
Project Manager: It makes a noise,
User Interface: and it'd beep.
Project Manager: there's a button on the T_V_ that you press
Industrial Designer: Mm, mm.
Project Manager: and {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Right.
Project Manager:'Kay.
Marketing: Be good.
Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker}
User Interface: Generally, all remotes are sort of quite similar in their appearance.
Project Manager: Yeah. Do we want {disfmarker}
User Interface: Just long.
Project Manager: so they're kinda like long and rectangular.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Do we want something crazy?
User Interface: Black usually.
Project Manager: You know, we want something new that's gonna stand out.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Lot more modern.
Project Manager: A m a modern {disfmarker} so our remote should be {disfmarker}
User Interface: I think so. Maybe sorta spherical or something. A ball.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Maybe like user-friendly, like a little
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: you know, where you can use both hands, like a little keyboard type thing.
User Interface: People {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: I thought maybe, because people always tend to throw a remote control about the place to one another {disfmarker} if it was in a ball,
Project Manager:'Kay.
User Interface: and maybe the actual controls are inside or something.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Um.
Industrial Designer: Well there are of course certain restrictions, you can't have it be any form and fulfil all functions at the same time,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: so there are always the {disfmarker} some restrictions we have to apply here. Um however um one question is how stable is that thing supposed to be, that refers to the material, pretty much um. What are we gonna build that thing out of?
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: How sturdy is it gonna be? Do we want it to last longer or rather have people whatever, have to buy one every half a year?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay so {disfmarker} yeah, so we want it to be sturdy,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: we want it to to hold up to somebody's child, you know, throwing it across the room or, as you said, people kinda throw it, so ball-shaped, uh you know, if it were ball-shaped maybe,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: then it {disfmarker}
User Interface: It could be cased on the outside and t everything could be inside.
Project Manager:'Kay. Um so we want it to be modern, fun, sturdy, um {disfmarker} So our form and our function. Um we want it to be um easy to find. {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} What else {disfmarker} it {disfmarker} what else do we want it to to do? So we want it to be universal. It's something that we're supposed to sell for about twenty five Euros um and you know, goals for profits are I think somewhere around uh fifty million Euros, what they wanna make on it, so.
Marketing: Mm. Also since we're partners of the International Remote Control Association, maybe we wanna make it something that would globally appeal.
Project Manager:'Kay.
Marketing: That's more on the research end, but {disfmarker} the marketing.
Project Manager: So marketing, you know, how {disfmarker} maybe uh marketing, you could s find out what is the most universally um appealing {vocalsound} remote control out there.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: And maybe as far as design goes, maybe we could have different ones for different target audiences,
Project Manager:'Kay.
Marketing:'cause maybe one won't apply to all of the countries we're targeting.
User Interface: Ye Small.
Industrial Designer: Right.
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Do you guys have any ideas for what it should look like? Maybe we could draw it up on the on the board over there. Some ideas? We want it to be a b a ball,
User Interface: {gap} I'd {disfmarker} I could draw sorta the ball idea.
Project Manager: you know, we'll draw up we'll draw up the ball and maybe th um where the buttons are located.
User Interface: My original idea was just simply sort of a sphere, where maybe you {disfmarker} this is where it's connected together, and then when you open it out, it could fol it could be maybe flip, like a flip phone, and then when you fold it out the middle {disfmarker} Maybe a hinge that'll have to be the strongest part of it. If that {disfmarker} if we did use a hinge, or if it was just two parts,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: and then you'd have just sorta you you you know, your buttons. Thing is inside I think, sometimes remotes have too many buttons, so maybe as simple as possible, um as few buttons inside as possible. Um, I dunno, what's the idea for. Just something {disfmarker} maybe if you ha if it had like if some kind of like light or something or lights around it. It's looking a bit like something out of Star Wars at the moment though, to be fair.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} But yeah.
Marketing: Futuristic. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: That was that was a sorta simple idea I had
Project Manager: Uh-huh.
User Interface: and then you know you could {gap} about {disfmarker} Right, it would almost be like a ball. So that was just just an idea I had. I don't know whether anybody else has other ideas?
Industrial Designer: Right. One problem you'd get with this design is um {disfmarker} the ball is a nice idea because of it's stability really,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: but of course, since it's a ball, it'll roll, so we'd have to have it flat on one side at least, down here somewhere,
User Interface: Yeah. Maybe f yeah.
Industrial Designer: take away that part. That's one of the big issues. Also also you risk the hinges here. That's that's um a problem.
User Interface: Yeah, that's g that's a good idea. Yeah. The idea {disfmarker} it didn't have to necessarily be f a hinge,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} That's that's {vocalsound} interesting of course,
User Interface: that was just one idea though.
Industrial Designer: but that's of course a weak point, yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: How would we go about um making you know {disfmarker} getting rid of our weak points? What {disfmarker} I mean would we just have a flat spot on the bottom of the ball?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not to put you on the spot,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} E No no,
Project Manager: but {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: uh uh {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: What did you say your title was again?
Industrial Designer: N n
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: You're the the Industrial Designer.
Industrial Designer: Uh, I'm your Industrial Designer,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: so i b well,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: the point is that {vocalsound} well maybe {disfmarker} I dunno. The shape is perhaps not the most ideal.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: As as stable as it is, there must be a compromise between um stability and design here, so.
User Interface: Well I I suppose that things become {gap} design. But I mean i
Marketing: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound}
User Interface: I was trying to think of like the design of others. I can't think of anything other than a long rectangle for remote,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah.
User Interface: maybe small, sort of fatter ones, but there's nothing being done sort of out of left field, yeah.
Project Manager: It's not new, it's not innovative, it's {disfmarker} you know, everybody does long remote because it's easy,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: it's it's stable um.
Marketing:'Kay, I'll draw something. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So if {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: What? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: no, go ahead.
Marketing: My idea was just to have it be kind of like a keyboard type shape, you know, like video games
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: l so. But maybe {disfmarker} I mean that would be kinda big and bulky. We could also try to do the hinge thing, so it could like flip out that way. I don't know. {vocalsound} That's my idea.
User Interface: I think definitely doing something different
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: is a good idea.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: I mean maybe design something, that's sort of like {vocalsound} suppose not everybody's everybody's hand's the same, but something that would maybe fit in the hand easier.
Project Manager: Something with a grip.
Marketing: Mm. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah, with a grip.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah. Because even {disfmarker} I suppose even with the ball
User Interface: It still might be hard to {disfmarker}
Project Manager: it's {disfmarker}
User Interface: it still not the ho easiest thing to hold, yeah.
Project Manager: it might not be the easiest to hold onto um.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: So perhaps the the joystick {disfmarker} the the keyboard idea might work better.
User Interface: Like {disfmarker} yeah.
Project Manager: But then again, people like to use one hand to flip and one hand to hold their soda, so maybe maybe we {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} True.
User Interface: It's d yeah. I think it's definitely got to be a a one-handed a one-handed job.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: I feel like I'm just shooting everything down here.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} That's fine.
Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} um {disfmarker}
Marketing: You're the boss, you're {vocalsound} allowed to.
Industrial Designer: Well with the one-handed design you also have the the problem of the size w'cause you know from cell phones, they can be too small. So if the remote is too small it {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: if it's small it probably looks better, but may not be th as functional. So for that there's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay, so
Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: unfortunately we've got about five minutes here {vocalsound} to come up with our um remote control idea and start rolling with it. Um we've talked about our experiences with remote control and um we've got a couple ideas um. Let's see here. What if we had what if we had not only um {disfmarker} say we went with the ball the ball function um, but maybe we give it sort of grips along the side s um to make it easier to hold on to. So you know um s so it's easier to hold onto that way.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Course that'll then remove some of our our ball. Unless this unless this part were raised, so say the cover flips over and covers that part. So the grip is {disfmarker} No, that wouldn't work either um. But if we're gonna make it flat on the bottom, then that eliminates our ball anyways. So if it were flat on the bottom and then had the sorta grips on the side here I guess, um and then {vocalsound} flat uh {disfmarker} And then we have the problem with the hinge. So if we're flat on the bottom, it's not gonna roll away, it'll stay where we want.
Industrial Designer: The question is also, I dunno, d do you really always want to open that thing when you have to use it?
Project Manager: Mm, that's true.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It's probably going to lie around opened all the time anyway, so I don't know if a lid is a good idea. From stabil stability point of view uh it certainly is, but also you have to face it and take into account the more of these things break by accident, uh the more we sell. So it's {disfmarker} don't make it too stable {vocalsound} uh.
Project Manager: So we don't have it flip open. We just have a ball {disfmarker}
User Interface: But then maybe to go back to the to th s something along those things then.
Industrial Designer: To the other design.
Project Manager: Okay, so then we forget the ball.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} It looks cool. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Looks cool though.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} It looks cool, but it's really not {disfmarker} it's not functional um.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Uh {vocalsound} functional.
Project Manager: So we've got our sort of keyboard kind. What if we flipped it around here, so that it were um {disfmarker} Sorry, that doesn't look anything like what you {vocalsound} had there. Um so it's up and down, you hold it this way.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Course then it's it's like the rectangular {vocalsound} again, only with a couple of jutting out points. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Right. Right.
Project Manager: But it's one-handed um.
Industrial Designer: Question is what makes those game pads functional? W I think that's pretty much the form for full hand. So it's a round shape underneath that makes it comfy,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: right,
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: makes it nice, so that's the essential part. Except for that I think we'll not {disfmarker} probably not get a get away from some longer design.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Right.
Industrial Designer:'Cause you also have to know which way around to point this thing.
Project Manager: Yeah,
Industrial Designer: You know, all
Project Manager: because it doesn't have a cord, like joysticks do.
Industrial Designer: that dif batteries {disfmarker} right, and {disfmarker} Batteries go weak as well, so um after a while you have to point it towards the uh towards the equipment you wanna control with it, right? So, have to m show which is the front, which is the back.
Project Manager: Is it possible to have it to where it would work with a like a sensor on either side? So that either way you're pointing it it would work.
Industrial Designer: I suppose you could do that. O of course the more technology you stick in that, the more it'll cost, so.
Project Manager: More expensive and {disfmarker} yeah.
Industrial Designer: Course you can do that.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}'Kay. Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I mean of course it'll be evident after a while or {disfmarker} if you look at it, it'll it'll be evident which way around to point it, since you have the the numbers and the and the {vocalsound} the buttons and stuff,
Project Manager: True.
Industrial Designer: but um it's rather about an instinctual thing,
User Interface: Put it {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: like you just grab it, you don't have to s look at it, you know, which way around to point it. Otherwise the design of {disfmarker} or the the point of putting two sensors on both sides um would probably work.
User Interface: Even if you designed it {disfmarker} in some {disfmarker} in a way that you know, isn't a rectangle, but still pointed in a direction that had definite points. So if that's your thing and you got something like that instead,
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: and there's your s you kn you know which way you're gonna pointing it.
Project Manager:'Kay.
User Interface: Um {disfmarker}
Marketing: Sorry to interrupt, but we have a warning to finish.
Project Manager: Are we out of time?
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, well, just to finish up, should we s go with this plan, start making some {disfmarker} Are good ideas, what are not.
Industrial Designer: Let's.
User Interface: Does it say {disfmarker} what does it say for n
Industrial Designer: Obviously {disfmarker}
User Interface: it says on there what we need to do for the next meeting, I think.
Project Manager: Uh. Must finish now, so.
User Interface: T
Project Manager: And then marketing will look and see what uh what people want.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Marketing: Great.
Project Manager: Okay. And Project Manager will design a better meeting for next {vocalsound} time around, be a little bit more prepared.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And uh alright, good meeting.
Marketing: {vocalsound} | In the design of the sphere remote control, User Interface used a hinge to connect the middle part, and a light sensor was used to avoid too many buttons. Project Manager proposed that the handle could make it more stable, but lost the features of the sphere; in the design of the joystick keyboard, Marketing also wanted to use hinges to make the keyboard remote control more portable. Industrial Designer proposed to add a round shape under the keyboard remote control to make the remote control more user-friendly. Project Designer proposed to add sensors on both sides for users to use more conveniently. | qmsum |
Summarize the group discussion about the turbo button when discussing the scroll wheel.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay? Good afternoon. Hope you have good lunch.
User Interface: Hi.
Industrial Designer: Afternoon. Yeah, we had falafel.
Project Manager: Oh. Nice. And you?
User Interface: Uh, yes, I had something similar but non-vegetarian.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. So today is um our third meeting. It will be about the conceptual design {vocalsound} uh. If I come back to uh the minutes of the last meetings um. We decided not to go for speech recognition technologies because of some reasons and we are not decided about u the use of L_C_D_ screen on on the remote control because of costs. So maybe we cou wi will be able to clarify this this question to today. Uh at the end of the meeting we should take decision on that point. So I hope uh that your respective pr presentations uh will help us. So each of you have some presentatio presentation to perform um who starts?
Marketing: Okay, {gap}.
Project Manager: So marketing.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} So you are {disfmarker} you saved your y your presentation somewhere?
Marketing: Yep.
Project Manager: So you're four?
Marketing: Four, yeah.
Project Manager: Which is trend watch. {vocalsound} Okay. Mr Marketing Experts.
Marketing: Yeah that's me.
Project Manager: So {gap} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh. Well I investigate the preference more d I investigate deeper the preference of the users. Uh so the the current investigation th uh th uh sorry the current the n current trends?
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Yeah? Okay. {vocalsound} {gap} Okay. {vocalsound} Well wha {vocalsound} what I found {disfmarker} um can you {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Next slide? Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. Thank you. What I found in order of importance from less to more important is that people want an easy to use device. After they they want something new technologic technologically speaking, but the most {disfmarker} what they what they find more more interesting, more {disfmarker} or more important it's uh a fancy look and feel instead of uh instead of the current the current trend which was f the functional look and feel.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So now more more cool aspect, ma more {disfmarker} a cooler aspect uh rather than a device with many functions and many buttons with {disfmarker} instead of i instead of ha of a device which can do many things, a device which is pleasant to to watch, to see.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Uh also {disfmarker} Well {vocalsound} in in Euro in in Paris and and {vocalsound} Milan the {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: in Paris and in Paris and Milan the the current trend of {gap} uh of clothes, furniture and all this all this fashion it's {vocalsound} it's fruit and the the the theme is fruit and vegetables.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: And also {vocalsound} in the in the U_S_A_ the the current {disfmarker} the mor the most popular feeling it's it's a spongy. Spongy means eponge?
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So maybe we should we should think in in this direction, so {disfmarker}
User Interface: What what do you mean by {vocalsound} fruit and vegetables and spongy?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: What {disfmarker} you mean clothe
Industrial Designer: Spongy means it it's like sp
Marketing: Fruit vegetables is the the new {disfmarker} have you seen the last exposition of clothes in Milan?
User Interface: No, I missed that one.
Marketing: Yeah, I I didn't miss an {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I didn't miss and I saw that the fruit, there are many fr pictures of fruits and vegetables in the clothes.
User Interface: Oh, they're {disfmarker} okay so they're not like dressed as a carrot they just have like pictures of fruit on, okay.
Marketing: No no, not not yet, not yet.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, yeah.
User Interface: So we're not gonna have a remote control in the shape of of a banana,
Marketing: So te textu textures, yeah.
User Interface: just maybe {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Vegetable textures and all this kind.
Project Manager: Drawings of bananas.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Uh {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay and {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Uh-huh.
Marketing: yeah, yeah.
Industrial Designer: But what's your suggestion how we can have some shape like that on the remote?
Project Manager: Well so this is in the next slide certainly.
Marketing: Uh no no, it's not.
Project Manager: It's not? {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} It's {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: So which fruit are you thinking of?
Marketing: And {disfmarker} Um.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap} I ha I haven't thought of any particular fruit, but the general aspect of the of the remote control may may {disfmarker} could remind some kind of vegetable, some kind of instead of vegetable, some natur mm uh natural object or something.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: But yeah it it depends on the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So maybe you maybe you can display a banana on the L_C_D_. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Oh, so you want the remote control to be the shape of a fruit,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: or you want just some kind of like fruit logo on the {disfmarker} {gap}
Industrial Designer: Means buttons are in the shape of fruits,
Marketing: Yeah maybe the shape the shape {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: buttons are in the frape {disfmarker} shape of fruits or something, apple, banana, something like that.
Marketing: No, not n not not too much focus, not too much focu not n not too s not too similar to a fruit because next year the ten the trend the trend will be different.
Project Manager: Apple for channel one. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So we shouldn't be at re really attached to to the trend
User Interface: So something that looks half like a fruit and half like an elephant. {vocalsound}
Marketing: but {disfmarker} For instance, yeah. African or as an elephant?
Industrial Designer: That we can discuss afterwards {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay.
User Interface: But {disfmarker} okay,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I'm not, I'm not really sure if uh that would really appeal to everyone though, maybe just to fashion gurus, like maybe just like a little bit n a little fruit picture somewhere in the corner, but I don't know about uh I dunno how ergonomic a, an orange is.
Marketing: Well ma maybe we we should further specify what target are we focusing. I think in my opinion we should focus on on young people because they are more open to new devi new devices
User Interface: To fruit?
Marketing: and also yeah according to the marketing report ninety p ninety five percent of young people was {vocalsound} was was able to to buy a a n a cooler remote control.
User Interface: But is it uh is fruit cool?
Marketing: What?
Project Manager: That's a question.
Marketing: What?
User Interface: Is fruit cool?
Marketing: Yeah? Uh {disfmarker} Is the new trend of the {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well I guess, you know, Apple has the iPod so, {vocalsound} imagi {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: just'cause they have an apple on their on their product, doesn't mean fruit is cool. {vocalsound}
Marketing: No I think we we should think about a a shape with it {disfmarker} a device with a shape of some {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay, but it has to be easy to uh to use though and to hold you know, you don't wanna pear or a watermelon. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah. Don don't you think we can find uh the shape of a fruit which is handy to use?
User Interface: Well, probably the only thing is a banana that I can think of,
Industrial Designer: Banana.
User Interface: a cucumber.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Maybe too long.
User Interface: I dunno.
Marketing: Or m
User Interface: Maybe. Too green.
Marketing: Maybe. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: So, but I mean you also have to {disfmarker} you have to also have, fit r all the buttons and {disfmarker} you know.
Project Manager: A banana.
Marketing: Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: It's, it {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: The thing is you have t normally with um with buttons, they have to be at some point attached to a circuit board so if you're gonna have things like {gap} on a cylindrical kind of device it may be difficult to kind of to build.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I don't th it will be rolling a lot.
Marketing: Yeah but I li I like your idea that we shouldn't have a lot of buttons b buttons so
Project Manager: Okay. Yeah and you you you will not have pla enough {disfmarker} a lot of place to put a L_C_D_ on a banana also.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Uh do you want a an L_C_D_ with twenty five Euros? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well, you're the Marketing Expert you should tell us if it is too much or not.
User Interface: Well, this is {disfmarker}
Marketing: I think {disfmarker} Well, according to the to the report people are more interested in in a fa fancy look and feel and in a technological inno in innovation,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: so, I will give more importance to the look and feel than {disfmarker} rather than the
Project Manager: {vocalsound} So {disfmarker} So you you you suggest to go f
Marketing: new inputs and also it's {disfmarker} I'm not convinced about this L_C_D_ because you need uh internet connection, you need more things, it's not just buying a new control re remote, you need {disfmarker} buying control remote, buying uh
Project Manager: Okay. {vocalsound} S so you're simply
Marketing: more things. It's not so simple.
Project Manager: you're simply looking s to a remote control that looks like a banana with few buttons {disfmarker} with only a few buttons.
Marketing: For instance, yeah. Yeah for for for {disfmarker} given an an example yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay good. So maybe you can go ahead?
Marketing: Yeah no, it's what I already said.
Project Manager: Okay. {vocalsound} Thanks. Um. Okay, I'll give the floor. So you are User Interface guy. So you're three?
User Interface: Okay. Yeah.
Project Manager: And it's this one.
User Interface: Yep.
Project Manager: Go for it.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yep. Okay. So. S next uh slide. Okay. So I received an email um around lunchtime letting me know that the brilliant minds at our technology division had developed an integrated programmable sample sensor sample speaker unit, um which is a way for you to have a conversation with your coffee machine and or remote control {vocalsound}.
Industrial Designer: But it's just a speaker right?
User Interface: It's {disfmarker} no, what it is, it's it's very {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It's not a microphone.
User Interface: It has a has a microphone, has a speaker, it's got a little chip and it allows you t
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Actually I'm not reading microphone there, so that's why you can all have conversation, it {gap} just to speak to you.
User Interface: Well, it's a sample sensor sample speaker. Sample sensor sample speaker. It means that it can recognize, it can do like a match on a on a certain phrase that you speak and then can play back a phrase in response to that.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
User Interface: But uh there's no kind of um understanding of the phrase. So, I mean, you know,
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: I guess you could build that in, you could you could link the the recognition of a certain phrase to some function on on the remote control.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
User Interface: But basically the thing is, we have this technology available
Industrial Designer: In-house.
User Interface: in-house. So, um
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: but the thing is obviously there's still gonna be a cost if you decided to integrate that because you still have to pay for the c production of the components,
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
User Interface: so um it it {disfmarker} but it basically means we c we can kind of consider this from uh you know uh a theoretical or usability kind of viewpoint without worrying too much about you know how to develop it because we have this already done.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
User Interface: Whilst you know, some people might get annoyed if we uh if we just dump it, {gap} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I {disfmarker} there's something that I {disfmarker} unclear really understanding. Is this a technology that recognize keywords {disfmarker} speech keywords?
User Interface: It's it it's no, well, it's it'll recognize uh I guess keywords, but you know keywords in a certain order like a phrase. You train it for a certain uh, for a certain phrase, you say {disfmarker} the the example they said that they have uh up and running with their prototype is um {disfmarker} well they've actually integrated into the into the the coffee machine that uh that we're producing is, you can say good morning to the coffee machine and it can recognize that phrase and it'll playback good morning, how would you like your coffee?
Project Manager: And it's just to, it's just to playback something?
User Interface: Yeah. So actually that was a bad example,'cause it doesn't actually ask how do you want your coffee because it can't really understand the response, so.
Project Manager: Yeah yeah. So this is not s really to do to to do control.
User Interface: Only, like, only in the sense that it it can recognize a set a set target kind of word an
Project Manager: Yeah. This is just more like a poi pois yeah.
User Interface: It's designed it's designed as a fun kind of thing,
Project Manager: Yeah yeah.
User Interface: but I guess you could use it as uh as a way to implement uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So it it's c uh it it
Marketing: Yeah but you can u
Project Manager: it is a uh uh easy uh a fancy thing that you you can bring to {disfmarker} we can bring to the remote control that will not have any uh
User Interface: Completely pointless yeah.
Project Manager: {disfmarker} yeah comp {vocalsound} completely pointless {vocalsound} for the inter for {disfmarker} from the interaction point of v point of view {gap}.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. Yeah, unless you know, you like having conversation with your remote control.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah but the {disfmarker} can we use it for saying okay, channel fifty, channel twenty?
User Interface: Well yeah, that's the thing, if {disfmarker} you can but {vocalsound} you have to pro though I think it's a fairly simple design so you would have to record into the device every possible combination, you have to s tr train it to l to learn channel fifteen, that whole thing, not just the word channel and the word fifteen, it doesn't have that kind of logic in it.
Project Manager: Yeah yeah. So this is so this is this is much more than tak taking this technology, bringing it to the remote control and using it.
User Interface: So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah, that would be some development work.
Project Manager: So this is out of discussion. So if if if it is something that you can {disfmarker} we can bring easily and to put it into the banana remote control {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: M Mando.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Banana-mando.
Project Manager: No this is mm banana-bando, yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Banana-man {vocalsound}
Marketing: Banana-mando yeah.
Project Manager: Uh then it could be cool yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah okay, let's go ahead.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: I uh I I I don't think it's worth it though, I think it doesn't really add much to the functional design and it's it's it's not mature enough to use as a speech recognition engine, so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Um, yeah. So if we can just move on to the next slide, I've just done a quick mock-up of uh uh some of the features of our {vocalsound} potential funky-looking uh remote control {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: It doesn't look like a banana at all.
User Interface: Well, you see, I was I was unaware at this point of th of the fruit focus,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: um, so at the moment it's more of a box focus.
Project Manager: But you you can fit i you're saying now you can fit it to {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Looks like a tr look likes a a tro a tropical fruit.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah, well, this is actu this could be a genetically engineered fruit that's designed to be you know square so that it packs tighter in the boxes.
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: But um, I've just indicated here, we could have actually two scroll wheels,'cause I think the scroll wheel is a fairly um key part of, you know,
Industrial Designer: Stable thing, that's right. To have {gap},
User Interface: I think everyone has has agreed that it's {disfmarker} that it could be quite a useful um thing, so.
Industrial Designer: mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
User Interface: {vocalsound} But I think it's important, you know, to have two scroll wheels because, you know, you want one for for the channel, but you also want one for for the volume,
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: because it's it's {disfmarker} the volume i it's, you know it's very handy for it to have uh instant kind of uh feedback uh and response, so.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
User Interface: {vocalsound} But um, I've also included this turbo button because I think, you know, every design should have a turbo button, and {disfmarker} well {vocalsound}
Marketing: What's a turbo button?
User Interface: so this is you know, a unique problem with with televisions is that if you have this scro this scroll wheel for the television, the uh the tuner on the T_V_ is not gonna be able to to switch between stations as fast as you can scroll, so you know, the th the person might want to have a uh {disfmarker} Might want to be able to scroll past television stations without seeing what's on them, in which case it just waits until you stop scrolling and then, you know, displays that station. Or they might want to scroll and and have a quick glimpse of it, even if it lags behind what they're doing {gap}.
Marketing: It con it controls the speed?
User Interface: Yeah, so with this turbo button you can, say, skip over t channels if uh, you know, if I'm if I'm going {disfmarker} if I'm scrolling past them and you know, it's um, you could have a little red light that comes up when they press it so they feel you know it's really going fast or whatever.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: So yeah, that's um, those are the two important uh features I think we need on the remote,
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: but I mean we can discuss about what other kind of buttons we need, um. You know, i it could be, you know, if we if we wanna have like a very cheap kind of device, I mean, we could either consider that maybe we want to sell this as a very, if it's gonna be a banana, you know that's a pretty gimmicky kind of thing that doesn't have that much functionality, it's just you know a couple of scroll wheels and a button cause it's hard to get so many buttons on a banana
Project Manager: It's enough.
User Interface: and it's still very {disfmarker} it may even be for most {disfmarker} for some people more functional than their current remote, but if they have these scroll wheels, so, um {vocalsound} you know, what other buttons do we want?
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: I mean we could have {disfmarker} well, I guess you need an on and off switch,
Project Manager: Switch on. Yeah.
User Interface: but you could you could o you could turn it turn it on by taking the top off the banana maybe, you know, it's kind of like a spy kind of flick thing.
Marketing: Yeah. So sounds crazy. I like crazy ideas.
User Interface: {vocalsound} That's why you're a marketing guru. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Yeah, of course. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So i it looks like we're going completely to forget about the L_C_D_ thing.
User Interface: Well, that's the thing, as {disfmarker} have we decided that we can only spend, uh, twenty five Euro?
Project Manager: I think that {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well not spend, but you know, charge twenty five Euro.
Marketing: I I think we could use somehow the s coffee machine dialogue interface or so.
Project Manager: No we can we can't use that.
Marketing: You {disfmarker} we can? We can't.
Project Manager: We can't use that to to comman co communicate,
Industrial Designer: Communicate.
Project Manager: it's just a thing {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, but we can say channel twenty five.
Industrial Designer: It's one way.
Project Manager: No.
Marketing: No?
User Interface: But then you have to have a template for every channel, for a hundred channels, you have to be able to to recognize {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: It's not a lot one hundred templates,
User Interface: Mm. Well, I f I think it's probably more than, than our {gap} can handle because it's designed for a coffee machine, you know, to say hello in the morning.
Marketing: it's not {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Ah, it's designed for a cof {vocalsound} okay. Is it design for a coffee machine?
User Interface: Well that's its current application, I would presume that it's kind of, they wouldn't design it to handle a hundred things th so.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay. {vocalsound} Yeah. Maybe you could ask your {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} you could ask the engineering department if we can {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. A good good good thing.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: You want to g to move to your slides?
User Interface: But uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's right, yeah.
Project Manager: You're finished?
User Interface: Well I just I just made the point, I don't I don't know if that speech recognition is, you know, even if we can do it, I think it's not really appropriate for uh television environment.
Project Manager: Yeah I think so.
User Interface: But um I did have one thing from a previous meeting, you were talking about um being able to find the remote control
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: and I was talking about extendin being able to extend the remote control by having you know, a base station that can control other things as well.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: It might be useful to have some kind of base station, even if it's just you press on a button on it and uh and the remote control starts beeping, you know, this is a way of finding the remote.
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: Y in that case maybe the maybe the speech recognition {disfmarker} the speech thing could be useful just to say I'm here
Project Manager: Exactly yeah.
User Interface: but uh it's probably a bit of overkill if you could just have a a beeping {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So it's a speech synthesis kind of thing,
User Interface: It's speech {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: something has been uh stored and it's just uh spoken out.
User Interface: It's it's speech synthesis and s it's speech kind of, not really speech recognition, but kind of pattern matching, yeah
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Oh, good idea.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. That's right.
Project Manager: Very good.
User Interface: yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, let's move on. So you're two?
Industrial Designer: That's right.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: So this is going to be about the component design.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So first thing is we need power source for the remote control. So I was of the idea that we can have two kind of power supplies, one is the usual batteries which are there, they could be chargeable batteries if there's a basis station kind of thing and on top of that we can have solar cells, when the lighting conditions are good they can be used so it'll be pretty uh innovative kind. Then uh we need plastic with some elasticity so that if your {disfmarker} if the remote control falls it's not broken directly into pieces, there should be some flexibility in t
User Interface: I guess that fits in with the spongy kind of design philosophy.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. So there should {disfmarker} we should think of something like that and then it should be double curve. The s science for the ease of handling and there are some other issues why we need double curve. Then controls for the traditionals u traditional users we can have the push buttons so that they don't feel that it's an alien thing for them.
User Interface: So, just one second, when you say double curve, what do you actually mean? You reckon you could like draw us a thing on the, on the whiteboard'cause I'm not sure {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Double curve is, you have curves on both the sides if I'm right. So it's symmetrical kind of thing, whatever it is.
User Interface: Okay, but like, kind of convex or concave?
Industrial Designer: So, it could be curve, so it could be convex, conve concave, depending on what what we want.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: So there are flats, there are single curve and there are double curves.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: These are the three things, and there are different materials, with plastic you can have double curve but with uh certain other materials we cannot have double curve. So there there was uh there were many other materials like wood, titanium and all those things, but plastic is I think is the most appropriate one,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: it'll bring the cost down
User Interface: Although, you know, wood could be uh quite a stylish uh option,
Industrial Designer: and anyway it's {disfmarker}
User Interface: if you take like, nice quality kind of wood that's got a nice grain and you kind of put some, some varnish on.
Project Manager: Mm but i but there is no elasticity which could be {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Wooden cases {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Well it depends, I mean, you have the outs the wood itself is not gonna break so you don't have to worry too much about the case being broken,
Project Manager: Yeah but the components inside.
User Interface: it's the inside. Yeah but inside you know you could have {disfmarker} you can still have some kind of cushioning that's not visible to the to the user.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Very {disfmarker} too expensive to do.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: And also uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: And I mean you could also, you can have just a very thin veneer of wood as well.
Project Manager: Yeah but it's more easier to do a banana in plastic than uh in wood.
User Interface: That's true, but are we set on the banana idea?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well it look like {disfmarker}
Marketing: Actually
Project Manager: it looks like you are all targeting that
Marketing: I was thinking that the
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: yeah?
Marketing: the shape of a banana is not it's not really handy.
Project Manager: Yes it is.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh I don't know the name o o in English uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} This {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Is it an e apple which has {disfmarker}
Marketing: it's not a fruit it's a vegetable.
User Interface: It's like a pumpkin or {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah? Pumpkin.
Marketing: Green.
Project Manager: Green.
User Interface: Green.
Project Manager: Um um um, yes I see.
User Interface: What does it taste like?
Marketing: And you put in the salad.
Project Manager: Pep pepperoni.
User Interface: Ah yeah,
Marketing: Um
User Interface: is it {disfmarker} what's it in French?
Project Manager: Poivron.
Marketing: Oui c'est ca
User Interface: Yeah, okay, so capsicum or pepper. Yeah.
Project Manager: Uh pepper.
Marketing: Pepper.
Project Manager: But um they do d
Marketing: And it's al it also suits with the double curve for easy of {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} I don't know, it seems a little bit kind of bulky to me, like
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: No, I mean in a {disfmarker}
Project Manager: It's not re it {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} like with a banana you can have {disfmarker}
Project Manager: you you think it's really fancy and fun? You think that young people that are {disfmarker}
Marketing: I'm sure it's fun. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. More than a banana?
Marketing: But banana is not so handy,
User Interface: {vocalsound} Well {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Banana is more handier as compared to this I think, and to capsicum.
Marketing: I think that's handier.
User Interface: But {gap} like a banana you can you can be holding like this and have the scroll wheel kind of on top
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: and just roll it back and forth like that,
Project Manager: It's kind it's kind of {disfmarker} it's more uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: but with uh {disfmarker} I don't know how you would hold a capsicum and {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: it's really ergonomic, it's fit in the hand and you've a lot of surface to {vocalsound} to put the controls.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay let's move on.
Marketing: Yeah you're right.
Project Manager: So time is running, let's move on.
Industrial Designer: Okay, so push buttons for the traditional users so that they don't feel they are alienated, just {disfmarker} and a scroll button with push technology for channel selection, volume control and teletext browsing. These are the three scroll buttons which are already available with us in the company and we we can go ahead with that.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, we can go to the next slide. Then uh there are different kind of chips, one one is the basic chip and the regular chip and one an adva advanced chip. So we can have regular chip for control. Pricing is a factor for us, that's why we'll go for the regular chip. And uh regular chip supports speaker support, so this functionality could be used for tracing the mobile phone which has been misplaced.
User Interface: So is that, when you say speaker support, you mean it just has some output pinned which which which kind of {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It could be a beep kind of thing.
User Interface: Okay, but the speaker is actually attached to the to the chip in some way, or is just the the signal?
Industrial Designer: Yes, yes, that's right, it's it's onto the chip,
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: most most probably, not not hundred per cent sure about that.
User Interface: Okay. So are there any issues where we place this this chip to make sure you can actually hear the the speaker from the outside of the banana?
Industrial Designer: That will be the volume control I think which which a user shou it it should be already pre-defined. It should be {disfmarker} whatever will be the case, the chip is always going to be sitting inside.
User Interface: Okay. Yeah, but the speaker, if the speaker is actually on the chip, then if it's too far away from the the casing, or if the casing is too thick, then you may not hear the the speaker.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Uh, so we can have it at one of the boundaries so that things are slightly better.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: As {disfmarker} or as hearing is concerned, we can have some gap at some place,
User Interface: Yeah. So that's something we have to keep in mind with the actual physical design is to keep the the speaker close enough to the outside.
Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker} That's right. Okay. Yeah. So these these were the component selection and these things. We can go to the next slide. And uh these were the findings which I I saw with the web web, that user wants to have control more than one device {disfmarker} wants to control more than one device from the same remote control, so our T_V_ remote can have little extra things to support additional devices like V_C_R_ D_V_D_ players which are usually attached with the T_V_, because users are like this and they don't want to have one remote control for everything, so with this additional little, we might be having slightly better market for us.
User Interface: Although, if {disfmarker} It depends, if we like, if we are concentrating on like a fruit design, then maybe maybe we wanna sell a collection of fruit, you know, like a different fruit for each device.
Industrial Designer: Mm. Of fruits.
User Interface: Cause that, you know, that {disfmarker} sometimes people like to collect um you know things that {disfmarker} of a similar type.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: S objects.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Remotes {disfmarker} objects, okay.
Project Manager: Crazy objects.
Marketing: I think that would be funny at the beginning but after one month you will be tired of be surrounded of fruits.
User Interface: Well, {vocalsound} you're the one who wanted to do fruit in the first place.
Marketing: No but I think just one fruit to control everything.
User Interface: Like a power fruit.
Marketing: A power fr a power M a Mando, a Supermando fruit {vocalsound}.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} And uh as well as I could see on the web the scroll button is becoming really uh hot thing s
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and we should have it on the remote.
Project Manager: Okay, good.
User Interface: Well {disfmarker}
Marketing: Actually I I didn't understand very well this trace speaker lost control.
Industrial Designer: So you're having a basis station. Okay. Your {disfmarker} usually your remote sits on that. So you {disfmarker} and it's {disfmarker} that's why it can have chargeable batteries. Now let's say {disfmarker}
Marketing: So you you have to buy two things, the banana and the basis station.
Project Manager: Bu it's it's {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Basis station is with the thing.
Project Manager: You s you you {gap} thing.
Industrial Designer: It's like a telephone handset is there and the basis station for the telephone hand set is there. So now what user gets additionally he doesn't have to buy batteries, they're rechargeable batteries, so over the period of cor time he'll recover the cost. So you're having the basis station and there is a button, if you press that button wherever the remote it'll start beeping so you know where the remote is. Uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} I think that's a pretty handy feature.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: I think it's kind of {disfmarker} people would find that worth it even if it wasn't uh a recharging station, even if they didn't have to buy extra batteries, you know.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
User Interface: So {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah but I'm a bit worried about the budget. {gap}
Industrial Designer: Uh this is {disfmarker} basis station is nothing more, just it's a wire which is coming from the main cable and uh you're having one socket on which the thing sits.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Although you do need to include R_F_ kind of circuitry in the remote.
Industrial Designer: That's right. But all these things are usually in-house so we don't have much problems.
Project Manager: {gap}
Industrial Designer: So component cost is going to be the least. Anyway, we are not using really advanced technology, L_C_D_ has already been ruled out, A_S_R_ has been ruled out. So it's the basic thing but very trendy and very user-friendly.
User Interface: Okay. I'm just wondering actually,'cause, you know, I {disfmarker} this whole fruit thing with the banana, it's um it seemed like {disfmarker} it first seems a bit kind of uh niche, like only a few people would really want a banana,
Industrial Designer: And {disfmarker}
User Interface: but what if it was kind of uh a stylised banana? You know, rather than having it kind of you know yellow and really looking exactly like a banana, you could make it kind of silver. And um, you know to give you kind of the idea of a banana but without it looking you know completely kitsch. {vocalsound} For better {disfmarker} want of a better word
Project Manager: You think that yellow it's kitsch.
User Interface: you know?
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Well, you know, I don I don't know how many peop
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: If you make something that looks like a banana it should have the colour of a banana.
Marketing: Yeah. No, I I {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: A {disfmarker} yeah, otherwise it'll be mis means you don't get b any feeling then.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Well they {disfmarker}
Project Manager: O otherwise {disfmarker}
Marketing: Maybe li like that.
Industrial Designer: It's neither a banana nor a {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, like this colour this colour {disfmarker} Maybe, you know, maybe {disfmarker} like still in the shape of a banana.
Project Manager: Roughly.
User Interface: {vocalsound} No, exactly.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Exactly. Um, but you know, just maybe maybe not exactly the same texture as a banana and just kind of, you know {disfmarker} because the thing is it's gonna be a little bit difficult to make {disfmarker} um to give like the texture of a banana anyway and to k to have the exact shape. I think if you're gonna not be able to do it properly you may as well do it in a stylised way that just looks a bit more kind of, you know, twenty first century rather than sixties or seventies.
Project Manager: Yeah. Okay. Let's move on.
Industrial Designer: And uh going to the last slide.
Project Manager: Uh uh {disfmarker} yeah. Before before st before ending the meeting I'd like to to draw some sketch about the pro future prot prototype.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Go for it.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Well no, not not you, you can finish your slides before {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay. Okay, so. Anyway, users'll be {disfmarker} so the findings is users'll be very interested in our locator device to find their misplaced remotes.
Project Manager: Mm {vocalsound} okay.
Industrial Designer: So that was very {disfmarker} I thought it's a very good suggestion by everybody.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: That's it.
Project Manager: That's all?
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Project Manager: Okay, so mm {vocalsound} so well done for the presentations. So we need to take some de decisions about um {vocalsound} about what we're going to do.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So I I propose that you go to the whiteboard
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: and we're going to report all the ideas we had we had during this these presentations just to draw some sketch about what will be the prod final product
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: and uh where Superman go banana and uh {gap}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: uh extra func functionalities such as wheels, um the speaker unit um well not in order {disfmarker} not to lost the um the device,
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: I do I don't remember you call it?
Industrial Designer: That's right. The basis station. That's right.
Project Manager: Basis station, yeah. Uh so um {vocalsound} so we're going for a stylish banana shape.
User Interface: Yeah, so, I guess you wanna hold {disfmarker} like the way {disfmarker} the end of the banana you wanna kind of hold as ma you maybe wanna kinda hold like a gun rather than {disfmarker}'cause you don't want it to point kind of towards the floor.
Project Manager: Yeah, right.
User Interface: So you know, so if you have like {disfmarker}
Marketing: What about what about this shape? More or less.
Project Manager: We
Industrial Designer: There's less space on this to put with the buttons.
Project Manager: I if it i if it has really the model shape of a bana you could {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, but how many buttons do we need?
Project Manager: the the starting is good but it could {disfmarker} it should have more the shape of a banana if you want to point really a at the thing. If you don't want to to to do that movement which is which is difficult {disfmarker} if you don't have to do it in fact, it's better. So ti time is running,
Industrial Designer: Uh what about a {disfmarker}
Project Manager: we have to we have to we have to to move forward. So let's skip to uh this uh this this this idea. Yeah.
User Interface: Okay, so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So we have this.
User Interface: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: We have a a basis um, how do you call it {gap}?
Industrial Designer: The base station.
Project Manager: A base station.
Industrial Designer: Right.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} We'll have a base station extra uh on the side.
User Interface: {gap} okay, so I guess we need, you know, something that can fit a banana shaped object.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Project Manager: Uh, we have a R_F_ for um for beeping for beeping.
Industrial Designer: That's right, yeah, we need that, yeah.
Project Manager: We need b R_F_ to beep.
User Interface: Okay, so it's uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So we {disfmarker} that means we need a button on th on the on the basis.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Basis station.
Project Manager: Basis station, thank you. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah.
User Interface: Alright, so we need uh {disfmarker} okay.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Can you go quickly please?
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. {vocalsound} So we are going to add uh also um you {disfmarker} as you suggested the whee some wheels to control the volumes and channels and your tur turbo turbo uh button.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah, which {disfmarker} I think it's it's probably best actually on the on the underneath of the the device,
Industrial Designer: Turbo button.
Project Manager: Yeah, on the th yeah, maybe here.
User Interface: so you have {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And the and the wheel a a at the level of the thumb for instance.
User Interface: Yes. Yeah, so you have the thumb kind of here.
Project Manager: And and you have two wheels.
User Interface: So yeah, you need one one here and one on on the other side, so you got volume an and channel.
Project Manager: Okay right. Good. So no L_C_D_.
User Interface: And, uh {disfmarker} No L_C_D_.
Project Manager: Okay great. {vocalsound} Um. {vocalsound} Very good.
User Interface: Oh we need a we need a power um on off switch as well.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Uh for the remote?
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Oh, just the switch,
Industrial Designer: Remotes don't have power on off switch.
Project Manager: no f not for the T_V_ for the T_V_. Uh so you {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay. S no, that'll be controlled by the {disfmarker} those buttons'll be there already, yeah.
Marketing: What a
User Interface: Where?
Industrial Designer: Means on the remote.
Project Manager: On the side.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Because remote is going to have both the interfaces, scroll as well as buttons. They are not going to cost you much, everything is in-house and now you don't want the traditional users to be apprehensive of this.
User Interface: Well, I dunno if the traditional user is gonna buy a a banana remote in the first place, you know.
Industrial Designer: Oh, yeah. That's that's another issue which I didn't think of.
User Interface: Y I mean you need to kind of keep it um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: But you know our targets are very high, means fifty million Euros is the profit which we want make.
Marketing: What about {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah, how many of these did we wanna sell? I can't remember,
Industrial Designer: Twenty five.
Project Manager: Twenty five.
Industrial Designer: Twelve point five is the profit on one.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah, but how many units did we need to to sell {gap}?
Industrial Designer: Uh forty th four. Point point four million?
Marketing: Four millions?
User Interface: Four point four million.
Industrial Designer: Point four million.
User Interface: {vocalsound} That's a lot of fruit.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} In the market.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} What about a {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. So. Well. No. Time is running, we have to close the meeting in a few minutes.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: So, okay, the next step, you can come back to your seat.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: The next step is to go for {vocalsound} {disfmarker} to f is to go to uh to building a prototype, based on this, okay?
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: So next meeting you guys have to prepare the followi things. You have to uh work on the look and feel uh design and you have to work on the user interface, in fact you two you have to work together to model the first uh f first prototype.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Uh Marketing Expert uh have to go to product evaluation.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay?
Marketing: I wo what about adding the {disfmarker} this word spotting, keyword spotting recognition saying {gap} volume up volume down?
Project Manager: It's too difficult.
Marketing: It's too difficult but people like innovation and that's really uh innovative and I don't know if it would cost a lot, just a few {disfmarker} five words.
Project Manager: It's not a possi it will not be possible to implement it for the next prototype, so t it's {disfmarker} in the next prototype so let's skip it.
User Interface: Uh.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay.
Industrial Designer: For the future prototypes. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, maybe, for the n if if if it it works well, we'll go for uh an orange one.
User Interface: That can be the t That can be like the turbo banana plus plus commando.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah yeah, honour the fruit.
Marketing: Plus plus, okay. Maybe objective banana? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Thanks very much. We'll see n next meeting. Bye.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: So meeting's over?
User Interface: Yep. We have to go design the prototype.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Project Manager: Thank you.
Marketing: Thank you.
Industrial Designer: The problem is after all this meeting there is {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} | User Interface suggested including the turbo button in scroll wheels and introduced that the turbo button was like a scroll wheel to scroll the past television stations without seeing what's on them. Marketing asked about the speed whether it could be controlled. User Interface explained that users could skip over channels and know it was going fast or whatever. User Interface also suggested switch on and off buttons. Project Manager agreed to add one switch on button. | qmsum |
What did Marketing think about functional requirements about remote control?
Project Manager: Good morning, again.
Industrial Designer: One question.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Send.
User Interface: Choose a number? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Submit. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yep yep yep yep.
Project Manager: All set?
Industrial Designer: Mm. Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Good. Okay. Let's see what we can find here. Okay. A very warm welcome again to everyone.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um here we are already at our uh functional design meeting. Um and this is what we are going to do. The opening, which we are doing now, um and the special note, I'm project manager but on the meetings I'm also the secretary, which means I will make uh minutes as I did of the previous meeting.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And uh I also put these as fast as possible in the uh project folder, so you can see them and review what we have discussed. Um if I'm right, there are three presentations, I guess each one of you has prepared one? Good.
User Interface: Yes.
Project Manager: And um we will also take a look at new project requirements, um if you haven't heard about them yet. And then of course we have to take a decision on the remote control functions and we have some more time, forty minutes. But I think we will need it. Um well I don't know who wants to go first with his presentation.
Industrial Designer: I'll go first. Okay. I'll go first yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: You can go first, okay.
User Interface: Well.
Marketing: Well, shall I go first with the users?
User Interface: Well {vocalsound}
Marketing: I think {disfmarker} well okay no problem. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Is there an order? I haven't {disfmarker}
User Interface: everybody already has his presentation,
Marketing: Ja precies, ja precies, ja precies
User Interface: {vocalsound} so you can adjust it. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So. Huh? Okay, um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And one question, uh your name Denni, is it with a
Marketing: E_I_E_.
Project Manager: I_E_ {disfmarker} E_I_E_, okay. Thank you.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay, um I wanted to explain the working design of the remote control. It's possibly very handy if you want to uh design one of those. Um {vocalsound} well so it basically works uh as I uh uh r wrote down uh in this uh little uh summary. Uh when you press a button, {vocalsound} uh that's when you do pr for example when you uh want to turn up the volume, um a little connection is made uh the the rubber uh {vocalsound} button just presses on a
Project Manager: Sorry. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: on a little print plate uh which uh makes uh uh {vocalsound} a connection that uh gives the chips, uh which is uh mounted beneath those uh that plastic of a rubber button. Uh senses that a connection has been made, and know and knows what button you pressed, becau uh for example the the volume up or volume down button. Um uh the the chip uh makes a Morse code uh like uh signal which uh then is si uh signalled {vocalsound} to uh several transistors which makes uh which sends the signal to a little let. You know what a let is?
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} And that makes uh the the infra-red lights signal which is sent to the television set. Uh which has a sensor in it to uh sense uh the signal of the infra-red. That's basically uh how it works. Um the findings uh uh that I found uh searching up some uh detailed information about the remote controls, are that uh they are very easy to produce, uh it is pis uh it's possible to uh make them in mass production because it is as eas it is as easy as uh printing a page, uh just uh fibreglass plate um is b uh is uh covered with uh some uh coatings and uh uh {vocalsound} and chips.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh and the technology's already available, we don't have to find out how remote controls uh have to work or uh how that how uh to make some chips that are possible to uh to to transmit those uh signals. Uh I made a little uh uh animation of {vocalsound} about how a tran our uh remote controller works.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap}
User Interface: Oh right.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Animation. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} we tel
User Interface: There is something turning.
Industrial Designer: There.
Project Manager: Yeah, it's a little bug it's in the in the smart board. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. Uh well
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: the sub-component, I suppose that you understand what a sub-component is, is f in this example it's the button. Uh when it is pressed down, um, the switch is ter is uh is switched on, so with uh the wire is sent to the to the chip in uh co-operation with the battery of course, because to make uh a a signal possible you have to have some sort of uh li uh a d ad uh electronic uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Infrared light.
Industrial Designer: Yes, uh, okay. Um w after it's being composed by the chip uh the signal uh is transported uh to the infra-red bulb, and from there it signals a Morse code-like signal to the to the b to the bulb in uh in the television set. Okay. S Uh I wrote down some personal preferences about uh the remote control. Of course it is very handy if the remote control is hand held, so you don't have to uh uh wind it up or something, or just is it's it's very light to uh to make uh to use it. Uh I personally uh pref prefer that uh it would be p uh come available in the various colours, and uh easy to use buttons. But I suppose that the one of the other team members uh uh thought of that uh too. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah, I've got it there too. {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: And it is possible for several designs and um easy to use b uh sorry, easy to use buttons. Perhaps soft touch, uh touch screen uh buttons because uh the rubber buttons are always uh uh they uh slightly uh they can be slightly damaged,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: uh so the numbers on the buttons are not possible uh to read anymore. And uh well as I said uh before th uh we can uh make several designs. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay, well, that's my contribution to this meeting, and uh
Marketing: To this meeting. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, thank you.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: two of these this meeting. So.
User Interface: Shall I go uh next?
Project Manager: Yep.
User Interface:'Kay.
Project Manager: Please.
User Interface: So.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Smoking.
User Interface: Well uh, my name's {gap}, and I looked at uh technical functions design of the remote. Uh I did this by uh looking at examples of other remote controls, of how they uh they look, and information from the web that I found. Um well what I found was that uh th the actual use of the remote control is to send messages to television set, how you uh d what you described uh just early. And this can be all sorts of medsa messages, turn it on, turn it off, uh change the channel, adjust volume, that kind of thing. Uh play video, teletext, but also t uh play C_D_ if you use it your C_D_ player the remote control will that one. There are some uh examples of remote controls. You can see they are very different. The one has got all the functions that you could possibly need and an lot of uh buttons etcetera. And the other is uh more user friendly, little with big buttons. And uh not n all the the the the stuff you can do with it, but uh the the essential stuff is there. Um {vocalsound} I guess you could better y you should look at a a user centred uh approach, because the customers have to use them and and if they don't think it's usable they won't uh buy it. A lot of buttons they may think from I don't need s as much as that. Uh, well perf personal preferences is is uh a simple remote, with uh the basic functions that you can need that you could use. But uh keep in mind the new functions of T_V_ what we discussed earlier, split screen and uh is that a function that you should have? Because all the T_V_s will have them. Or because of only a few and isn't really necessary. And then uh make it {disfmarker} I would make so that you can could uh use it on more than one appliance. If you have one that uh uh does with the vi the the video, it could also work with uh with the stereo, because play is play and stop stop and that sort of thing. The shu c you could reuse the buttons so that you don't have to have a lot of buttons for uh anything. And it should be a user friendly, clear buttons, and not too much. And that is my presentation.
Project Manager: Okay, thank you.
Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound}
Marketing:'Kay. Check. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: You must still have it open.
Marketing: Kijke {gap}'Kay, so. {vocalsound} We're going to j discuss the functional requirements of the remote, that m that means that functions user n want to have on the remote control, or just {disfmarker} Yeah, and the users, actually.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: The methods I I prefer is we're going to look which section of the users we are going to focus a l on more. Are the younger people going to buy the remote control or the elderly people? And then {disfmarker} tho that section we're going to focus and adjust the remote more to that section than the whole user section. Okay. Some data. Younger people, from sixteen to thir forty five um years are more interested in fj features like L_C_D_ screens, speech recognition e etcetera. And we possess about two third of the market from in that range of age. The elderly people, from forty five years to sixty five years are not that much interested in features, and we possess less than two third, that's two fifth, of the market share in that area. {gap} Goed so.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Marketing:'Kay. Findings. Fifty percent of the users lose their remote often.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So we don't have to make it very small, like uh like a mobile phone or something, but some somewhat bi bigger than small, so you don't lose it that much anymore. {vocalsound} Seventy five percent of the users also find it ugly,
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: and fif seventy five of the users zap a lot, so the buttons sh should be that small, or shouldn't be that complex because we have to search for the buttons, which one are you going to use. Next. Important issues about the remote. I think it would be better with a personal reference, but okay. Remote control has to have to have a low power usage, because s w seventy five percent of the users only zap one time an hour, so the power usage is also one one time an hour, or so, with a high power usage we would use a lot of but batteries. The volume button and the channel buttons are the two most important buttons on the remote control, so those {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} those have to h be find very easily. And have to be somewhat like bigger etcetera. It has also be {disfmarker} have to find easily when the label is gone. My colleague also announced it that labels should be scratched off
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: Hmm.
Marketing: or would be s uh {gap} senden {gap}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: okay. {vocalsound} So uh if that's k uh if that's the problem, you also have to find it easily on the remote. Buttons. Like what all colleagues said, have to have to be minimalized. or should be covered, or in L_C_D_ screen. L_C_D_ screen is easy because we have the L_C_D_ screen, we have the various options. Put one option and then you have the all the buttons of that options, so the other options would be gone. And you don't see the buttons. So L_C_D_ screens should be easy, but an L_C_D_ screen, the problem with the L_ sc L_C_D_ screen is that elderly people fr from forty five to for sixty five years don't use the L_C_D_ screen a lot. So we have to that keep that in mind that if you're going to implement L_C_D_ screen, you don't have to make it that hard to learn or to use.
Industrial Designer: Uh L_C_D_ screen as in uh touch screen?
Marketing: Yeah, touch screen, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: The last but not least, younger people are more critical about the features. Because they use the remote control often more often, and are more technical than the ol older people. And the older people spend more money, and easily on a remote control.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
Marketing: So we have to keep in mind to to focus not a lot {disfmarker} not that much on the younger pep younger people, but also somewhat on the elderly people. And on my personal preferences, I don't have any mo more time to come with that,
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: but like I said, L_C_D_ screen is easily to use
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: because you have {disfmarker} you can implement a lot of buttons in one remote with not that much buttons. And it should be easy to use. Especially the volume buttons, the channel buttes buttons and the number buttons to zap through the channels. And that is it.
Project Manager: Okay,
Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: thank you.
User Interface: Oh right. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um, well thank you all, huh. {vocalsound} I dunno uh did everyone receive an email with uh the new project requirements?
User Interface: {vocalsound} No. Res I did not.
Project Manager: No? Well,
User Interface: Perhaps the rest?
Industrial Designer: No.
Project Manager: then I think it's a good thing that I made a separate slide of them
Marketing: Ja, {gap}
Project Manager: so you can all read them. Oh, well not in this presentation. Hmm
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Should be in there. Well, I can tell you them uh from my laptop. Um teletext does {disfmarker} has become outdated since the popularity of the internet.
User Interface: Oh. Mm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} So that's uh the first thing we I think we should pay less attention to uh teletext. Uh the remote control should only be used for the television, otherwise the project becomes more complex, which endangers the time to market, and of course would make it more costly, I think. Um our current customers are within the age group of forty plus, and new product should reach a new market with customers that are younger than forty, and you talked about that before. And uh a last point, but also very important, our corporate image should stay recognisable in our products, which means that our uh corporate colour and slogan must be implemented in the new design. So we have to keep that in mind. Um well uh according to our agenda it's then time to take a decision on the remote control functions. So, who has any idea about what should be on it, and what shouldn't?
User Interface: Well you said it should only uh work with one appliance?
Marketing: Be television.
User Interface: Or with one uh d che only the T_V_?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. Only be used for television.
User Interface: And the video also, or not uh? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well it says only for television here, huh.
Marketing: Only the television.
User Interface: Oh. Alright. Okay. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Makes it a lot easier, huh? {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: So yeah, then you can yeah. Requirements, no? Functions.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then it should have uh on, off,
Industrial Designer: Yeah for {disfmarker}
User Interface: and uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Standby options,
Marketing: Yeah, the basics then by a volume, channel, one till two zero numbers on it,
Industrial Designer: yeah? Uh yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. And per perhaps uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: oh teletext doesn't have to be?
User Interface: No.
Marketing: Um other functions.
User Interface: Well uh uh yes yes s sh A button where you can uh change from one number to two numbers.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah I had {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Two s two two digits,
Marketing: Yeah, yeah.
User Interface: Can you {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: oh okay.
User Interface: Don't know if that's got a name,
Industrial Designer: Yeah I understand what you mean. Yeah.
User Interface: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: I think it's I think it's easy to implement a button with a s s what which especially do that, because some T_V_s, if you press the t one and then the two, it be between five secs it make twelve,
Industrial Designer: It makes it twelve, yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. S
Industrial Designer: Indeed. Okay.
Marketing: and that's that's not relaxed
Industrial Designer: Well, not really {vocalsound}
Marketing: to user.
Industrial Designer: And and there are some models that don't uh accommodate that function. So
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: d uh wh the Philip's television makes it possible in that indeed to uh press one and then two to make uh the uh tj to reach channel twelve.
Marketing: So that it {vocalsound} easy and fast.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: But uh all the television makes uh use of those button where you first press that button and then press two digits to uh to get
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah, so you should have that one on.
Industrial Designer: Uh yeah, think so.
Marketing: Our main targets'age are? were? Forty five plus, or?
User Interface: Mute misschien also.
Project Manager: Uh well
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: new product should reach a market with customers that are younger than forty, and now we have current customers uh of forty plus.
Marketing: Forties, okay because {vocalsound} because younger people as Uh younger people have now, sixteen till to twenty five age, are f eighty one percent interested in L_C_D_ screen. From twenty six to thirty five have sixty six percent, and thirty six to forty five, fifty five percent, so I think to um {disfmarker} Because on most recog remote controls um the print plate will be broken how much, two years. You have to press h very hard to go to the next channel.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: With the L_C_D_ screen it's easier because you only have to wipe the screen to uh {disfmarker} for fingerprint,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, we we could yeah. But I think that uh that collides with our mission to make it very cheap.
Marketing: and then you can use it again.
Industrial Designer: Because L_C_D_ screens are very expensive.
Marketing: Yeah, okay.
User Interface: An
Industrial Designer: A touch screen uh probably uh even more.
Marketing: Yeah but a {disfmarker} you don't know {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: So,
Marketing: True.
Industrial Designer: true, true.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: But uh {disfmarker} Well um is it possible to make an L_C_D_ screen uh, how was the information?
Marketing: Yeah, it only says that this perce percentage like L_C_D_ screen. Because, yeah and it says that younger age between sixteen and forty five highly interesting features more critical.
Industrial Designer: So perhaps we should we should focus on that L_C_D_ screen.
Marketing: {vocalsound} And if the only f Yeah, because our target is sixteen to forty five.
User Interface: But, do you {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah but uh will we not uh exceed our uh our uh production uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah you don't know how much it costs. Yeah, you don't know how much it costs, the L_C_D_ screen.
Industrial Designer: Is it possible to find out, anyway?
Marketing: No, I don't have any costs here,
Industrial Designer: You know?
Marketing: I only have percentages.
User Interface: But if you would do an L_C_D_ screen do we have don don't you have any buttons? Or because if it only directs at the T_V_, then you only have uh I don't know what you want to do with the L_C_D_ screen.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: No, an L_C_D_ screen's just like uh like a drawn here. Um just uh displays several buttons,
User Interface: Yeah?
Industrial Designer: for example um if you wanted the minimal uh use b uh buttons, such as channel and volume, you just h uh displays four buttons on the screen
User Interface: Oh right, so you can {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: and it's possible to p uh press them down, just like a touch screen.
User Interface: Oh, yeah alright. So you can adjust which buttons you want on that s screen.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, we can make it possible to do that, yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, if you want to adjust, like for example, adjust the audio settings, you press audio on the touchscreen
Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah.
Marketing: and you get the buttons for audio settings,
User Interface: Yeah alright, oh right.
Marketing: so the other buttons are gone.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: So we're going for an L_C_D_ screen?
User Interface: Yeah. Would be yeah.
Marketing: I think it's the most easier thing,
Industrial Designer: That's my uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And hoping that when we produce a lot it won't be too expensive.
Marketing: yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Well we had twelve fifty, I guess, for uh production?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: No. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Twelve fifty.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um.
User Interface: Any guesses? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Well I suppose wi if the mar if our um {vocalsound} if the i if the young people are interested in L_C_D_ screens, we should make'em.
Marketing: Highly.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And if that is our d uh market share to uh and our goal to uh deliver those uh remote controls {disfmarker}
User Interface: But {disfmarker} But he also said that we should not only focus on the younger people, but also on the older, and will they use it if it only has an L_C_D_ screen?
Marketing: Yeah, but {disfmarker} Um, s forty six to forty five, thirty three percent, and sixty fifty six to sixty five twelve percent.
User Interface: Oh, so still a little bit people {disfmarker}
Marketing: But our our our what's it, project requirements are the new products should be reached for new markets, to customers that are younger than forty.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah that's right. But you don't want to alienate the other uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: No, that not now, but, so {disfmarker}
User Interface: But if they also buy it then it's alright. I guess.
Marketing: Yeah, but market share fro for for forty years and younger is higher than that of sixty five and younger.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. Alright.
Project Manager: Okay, so L_C_D_ it is?
User Interface: An Yes.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Mm. It's treasure.
Project Manager: And what else?
Industrial Designer: I hope we uh h and let's hope to reach those uh those sales.
Marketing: Yeah, i i if it {disfmarker} Yeah, if it costs {disfmarker} gets too much, too expensive, then yeah, we should be sticking to rubber buttons.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, can you um uh s I think that that they will send you some information about uh the cost of L_C_D_ uh screens.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: N nothing, no costs at all.
User Interface: But perhaps later,
Industrial Designer: Uh so if you uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: so uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, so if you uh you receive an email about that, uh can you post it in the {disfmarker} or shouldn't we post that in uh our projects mail uh folder.
Marketing: Yeah, in {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I think that should yeah {disfmarker} I think we all get the costs of everything.
User Interface: I don't {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Because you are the the Marketing uh Expert.
Marketing: Yeah, okay, I'll I'll post it.
Industrial Designer: I uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Well perhaps we should have a backup plan that we would use buttons if it's uh {vocalsound} too expensive.
Industrial Designer: Yeah sure, sure.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, okay. But for now it's L_C_D_. Okay.
Marketing: Okay, L_C_D_, yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Then you have the seventy five percent of users find it r ugly.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: The L_C_D_? Oh that's a bit of a problem. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, and eighty percent of the users would spend more money with a when a remote would look fancy.
User Interface: Oh, that's a bit of a problem.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Tha i l i it'll look fancy with L_C_D_ screen. {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It's looks fancy one yeah, of L_C_D_ screen.
User Interface: Yeah, but they don't they don't like it.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: They think it's ugly. When it has an L_C_D_ screen.
Marketing: Yeah, just a {disfmarker} the plain remotes, not not specific L_C_D_ remotes.
User Interface: Oh, alright, I thought that you said that.
Project Manager: Yeah, and maybe you can make something fancy out of an L_C_D_ remote,
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: because it's new, as far as I know. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Mm yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, of course.
Industrial Designer: And then not {disfmarker} yeah.
Marketing: And then you have the other thing, that seventy five percent zap a lot, but that's not a f question with the L_C_D_ screen.
Industrial Designer: Um. Yeah.
Marketing: Only thing you have to do is wipe the screen off once each time, to get all the fingerprints off it.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm. Okay?
Project Manager: Okay, what else does our remote need?
User Interface: A mute button.
Marketing: Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mute button.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: I think. And {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} The most important things on a f on an on an uh remote control are channel selection, volume con selection,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: and power s power usage.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: And a teletext, but that is not of the question.
User Interface: But {disfmarker} But shouldn't you put a button of {disfmarker} for teletext on the {disfmarker} for the people who want to use it?
Marketing: Other things are {disfmarker} Sorry?
User Interface: Remembering we have got a big remote that you have to fill. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, it could be. Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and we could make an a a separate menu on the L_C_D_ uh screen for teletext.
Marketing: Yeah, teletext.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And there's also a {disfmarker}
Marketing: And other other less important things are screen settings, audio settings, and channel settings,
User Interface: Yeah, they are less important, but I think they should be there,
Marketing: Less important.
User Interface: or not?
Marketing: Yeah, should be there,
Industrial Designer: A sh
Marketing: but not press {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: but in a sub sub-menu or something like that.
Marketing: Yeah, sub-menu, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Uh I think it's also important to uh make it possible to um how do you call it in English, uh, to not use batteries, and use ac uh bat uh {gap} batteries to uh to be {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Like with a with a mouse, you have not, yeah.
Industrial Designer: yeah yeah sure. Indeed. So uh you can mount uh the the the uh
Marketing: Yeah, in a breath it's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: uh the remote control to um
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Charted.
User Interface: We should think of the twelve fifty we have
Industrial Designer: to refill the {disfmarker}
User Interface: but {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah,
User Interface: I don't know how much that's going to uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: but we don't we don't have any costs now,
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Okay,
Marketing: so {disfmarker} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: because i uh when you get an L_C_D_ screen, you run it on batteries,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: the batteries will be uh empty very soon, very fast.
Marketing: Yeah e e power supply is one of the most important things.
User Interface: You should {disfmarker} Perhaps you should be able to to switch the control off.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: If you have an L_C_D_ screen that's burns all the time I dunno.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: You shouldn't on and off because that's ver extra, that you have t first you have to turn the remote on, and then you can uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: I don't know.
Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, I think it's it's not that easy because I don't think people will like it who who uh that you have to turn it on first and then use it,
User Interface: Nee that's that's uh yeah.
Marketing: so I think it's better when th the T_V_ shuts down, the remote shuts down.
User Interface: But then you can't {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: And go to standby mode when you don't use it,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah yeah au automac matically, that it {disfmarker} yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, automatically. After two minutes or three minutes, something like that.
Marketing: Yeah. After two minutes, yeah two three minutes, yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. And maybe a low battery indicator? On the screen.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Sure.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: And then b that uh
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: before an hour when its get again gets empty.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Then you have plenty of time to recharge it,
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: of put it in a recharger. Charger.
Project Manager: So we are going for the for the recharger.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, if it's {gap}. Uh.
User Interface: If it's sensible. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, because when you're watching T_V_, you're zapping and you have to put it in a recharger,
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah, b when the batteries are low {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: No,
Marketing: and I don't think it {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: when you when you're done with s uh w uh watching your television, you have to put it {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, okay, but then we have to be sure that the the the the batteries go {vocalsound} hours, six hours, five, six hours, then.
User Interface: But you'll also forget to put it in,
Industrial Designer: Yeah sure, of course.
User Interface: because you throw it on the couch
Industrial Designer: Yeah,
Marketing: Yeah,
Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker}
Marketing: then you have a problem.
User Interface: and you don't remember.
Industrial Designer: But you also forget to buy batteries,
User Interface: Yeah. That's right.
Industrial Designer: and then you can you can't use it,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: so I {disfmarker}
Marketing: Or we have to be sure that the batteries last couple of days when they're recharged.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Well I think the batteries should should w should work a lot longer than a couple of days,
Marketing: So.
User Interface: or not?
Marketing: Yeah because you have b
User Interface:'Cause {disfmarker}
Marketing: but you have L_C_D_ screen.
User Interface: Yeah, that's right, but {disfmarker}
Marketing: High power usage.
Industrial Designer: High power user cell, i uh it should be uh a standard move to to put your remote control in the charger when you're done watching television,
Marketing: Yes.
Industrial Designer: that's also a a a great advantage because you can't lose it anymore. Because you are obliged to uh put it in the charger and not to uh leave it in a couch uh between some cushions.
Marketing: True. Yeah. Yeah. True.
User Interface: Yeah. Right. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay.
Marketing: Yeah, you made a point there.
User Interface: {vocalsound} But then you also have to s have somewhere where you can put a remo recharger near your couch
Project Manager: Yeah, also.
User Interface: because otherwise you have to walk a long way when you twoft want to turn on the T_V_.
Marketing: Yeah, otherwise all your {disfmarker} yeah. Just a small device {vocalsound}.
User Interface: Yeah. I think everything has it for and {disfmarker} I guess.
Industrial Designer: Yeah it hasn't {disfmarker} It doesn't have to be big.
Marketing: Plug it in, that's it. Yeah, like a {disfmarker} like telephone charger or something.
Industrial Designer: Yeah just just a cable, or a even a a a a a charger where you can mount it on. Something like that,
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: just u
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Alright.
Project Manager: Okay, well I've
Marketing: It has to be easy to use also, or things. Uh market share, speaker re speech recognition.
Project Manager: Yeah, you have some more
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: points.
Industrial Designer: Functional designs uh for the elderly uh you could make it possible to enlarge the screen,
Marketing: I think.
Industrial Designer: so make it possible to not uh display uh a button at ten points
Marketing: Also.
Industrial Designer: uh, or {disfmarker}
Marketing: Well I think that this should be standard. Large button {disfmarker} large buttons.
Industrial Designer: Yeah but it is uh one of the functions you have to uh specify.
Marketing: Yeah? Okay.
Industrial Designer: Because we can look at uh uh perhaps uh forty buttons at a screen, but the elderly only look at two buttons.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay.
Marketing: {gap}.
Project Manager: And you said something about speech recognition?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah,
Industrial Designer: Speech recognition?
Marketing: it says also {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Hello.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah,
Industrial Designer: Twelve Euro
User Interface: twelve fifty, twelve fifty. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: twelve Euro fifty.
Marketing: Twelve. That's an {disfmarker} also ninety one percent sixteen to twenty five, twenty six to thirty five years, seventy six percent, and thirty six to forty five, thirty five percent.
User Interface: So it's pretty big.
Industrial Designer: Well, spread it by a big market.
Marketing: But then I I I {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Even bigger than for L_C_D_. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} W I know let's do a speech. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: let's leave out all the remote controls and just put a {vocalsound} microphone on top of the television to {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. Ninety. Twenty five.
User Interface: You can clap or something. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: {gap} channel.
Industrial Designer: Turn volume up.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Hey, that that's an idea. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Now you shouldn't say the wrong thing, I dunno {vocalsound}.
Industrial Designer: Okay, well
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: that should {disfmarker} it has to be remote control, not {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: {gap} twelve.
User Interface: But they want to talk into the remo remote control, or something,
Industrial Designer: Sure why not why not {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: or? {vocalsound}
Marketing: Is this only would you would you pay more for speech recognition in a remote control. It's the only thing it says.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, mm.
User Interface: Oh, but do we want to implement that, or?
Marketing: {vocalsound} I think an L_C_D_ screen {vocalsound} should be suf sufficient.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: But when you look at the percentages {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, it says a lot, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Speech recognition scores even higher, huh?
Industrial Designer: Perhaps the options should be uh {disfmarker} Why not?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, well,
Industrial Designer: Why not?
Project Manager: maybe because of the cost, but uh nobody knows uh how much uh it will cost uh.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Let's hope uh to have some uh d
User Interface: I know {vocalsound}
Marketing: No I think I think it's better to have L_ L_C_D_ screen, because in the area of tw thirty six to forty five, we have about thirty percent of the market share in in our hands, and fifty five of those people want L_C_D_ screen and thirty five want speech recognition. So I think it's better to keep it with L_C_D_ screen.
Project Manager: But would it be useful to imple implement both?
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: On one remote?
Marketing: Yeah, if the costs al allow it. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Or {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, I dunno.
User Interface: I don't know if that can be done with the cost of twelve fifty.
Marketing: Nee.
User Interface: With that uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: If it should be done, if it could be done, I won't matter. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah,
Industrial Designer: We should do it. Yeah. Sure.
User Interface: but how would you like to implement that, that you say volume up, and then it goes up,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: or?
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Uh.
Industrial Designer: Certain systems already exist, I think.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then you also have to have different languages if we go international. Then uh it's y {vocalsound} it's yours to do a French and Dutch and English
Marketing: {vocalsound} True.
Industrial Designer: True, yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. True.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: But that should also be with f should be also with L_C_D_ screen.
Industrial Designer: This should be uh accommodated with some software, uh, uh. Yeah.
Marketing: Because then I think in Chinese is different written, volume is different written than um Swahili or something.
User Interface: Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Right. Swahili. Swahili.
User Interface: Yeah you can use icons for the
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: a speaker and uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Ja, well possible.
Industrial Designer: Indeed.
User Interface: But if that's better than language for the for the remote.
Marketing: Yeah, yeah yeah yeah {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. So we want to uh yeah it's international uh okay.
User Interface: Then it's {disfmarker} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing:'Kay, what else?
Project Manager: So, no speech recognition? Or {disfmarker} {gap} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Well, if it could be done, we {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah,
Industrial Designer: Y it should be done. If it could be done, should be done.
Marketing: we have to keep {disfmarker} Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, and then we have different languages.
User Interface: Yeah, that should be uh anything matters.
Industrial Designer: That's not so difficult at all,
Project Manager: Okay, just make a separate remote for each uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: because I already use on several voice operated systems, and they are all possible to uh not all, but {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well, you sh you should to adjust the thing.
Marketing: I think it's difficult. Every language of dialects {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I think it's very differen difficult.
User Interface: And you have to speak the {disfmarker} so that it can understand.
Marketing: Yeah. I think it can't be implemented, but maybe {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} You could use that n as an option, if you have money left, or something. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah,'s an option, yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, sure, indeed.
Marketing: Fifty Euro cents.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Let's do speech.
Industrial Designer: For speech recognition.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, so we only do this when we have enough money left.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay. Well I've written down an an on or off button, volume selection, channel selection, uh the digits from one to zero, huh. Um {disfmarker} or from zero to nine. Uh a digits button to switch uh between one and two digits, mute button, a separate menu for teletext, a battery indicator. Um we're going to use a docking station and uh probably L_C_D_ and if there's enough money, speech recognition. And uh the possibility to uh enlarge buttons or to have large buttons
User Interface: Mm. Yeah.
Marketing: Mm, yes.
Project Manager: in general.
User Interface: I {vocalsound} With uh teletext if {disfmarker} it wasn't ver very important, it was but {disfmarker}
Marketing: No, but {disfmarker}
User Interface: You also now have colours. I don't know if we should implement that. Yeah,
Marketing: Curved?
User Interface: when you press the red button, you go to page one hundred two, and when you press the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Uh yeah.
User Interface: I don't know if we should implement that,
Marketing: Um.
User Interface: because it says that teletext not really important,
Industrial Designer: S Shortcuts. Uh.
User Interface: but yeah, the shortcut, and you can't go to sport.
Marketing: I think we should {disfmarker} we could that {disfmarker} we could also implement a audio settings, screen settings and channel settings, but as sub-menus.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: D Mainly if you turn the uh remote control on, you have to u you have to see from one till zero, channel and volume. And if you want to use teletext screen or audio, then you can press it.
Industrial Designer: Sh Yeah, just just sub-menu. Yeah.
Marketing: It should be available but not
User Interface:'Cause it should be there.
Industrial Designer: Not directly uh available.
Marketing: not {disfmarker} Yeah. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Okay, so not too much teletext support, but in a separate menu, and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: So actually it is there but it's just not r ready there.
Marketing: Yeah, but s
Industrial Designer: Directly available.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So does it confuse uh the user?
User Interface: You'll have to search for it. {vocalsound}
Marketing: They'd have to be easy to use.
Industrial Designer: Uh. I'll search um.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: If you want to use teletext, you can push the teletext button and then the options uh become available.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah, that's a {disfmarker}
Marketing: The sign of it.
Project Manager: Okay, but no more buttons or functions, or?
User Interface: I guess not.
Industrial Designer: No.
Marketing: Uh, no. What else can you do with a television?
User Interface: We've got anon
Project Manager: Aren't we forgetting something very important?
User Interface: Have got got two examples here, but I don't think there's anything we're missing.
Marketing: Uh play, pause, doesn't n need to be there.
User Interface: Well, we don't have the video orders {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yes, so this is your presentation. We could check the other remote controls with technical functions.
User Interface: Yeah, you could look here all the the {disfmarker}
Marketing: Which ones were yours?
User Interface: Uh th th th th I don't know, technical functions.
Marketing: Techni
User Interface: {vocalsound} They're a bit small, you can {disfmarker} we should stretch them, because {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Ping.
Marketing: Ja ja ja ja ja. Technical functions. Yeah okay.
User Interface: I guess we've got them all.
Marketing: Uh I think I go to have volume, mute but I {disfmarker} Yeah {gap}. Very slow. Yeah, the zoom buttons.
User Interface: And for a T_V_? Can you zoom in a T_V_?
Marketing: Yeah, b wide screen, high screen, different things you have,
User Interface: Or that you can put'em on uh on on wide and {disfmarker}
Marketing: yeah different uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: But that should also be a sub then, a sub uh menu thing.
Industrial Designer: Menu.
Marketing: Yeah it should be available, but then in separate screen settings or something.
User Interface: Yeah, so we should also implement se screen settings.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Yeah, screen settings, audio settings, teletext settings you have.
User Interface: Oh right. Yeah.
Marketing: Channel settings.
User Interface: Yeah, so you can program the {disfmarker}
Marketing: So those four, and of course the main.
User Interface: Yeah, so the first you see the main, and the other ones you can uh go to uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. Like tap screens or something
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: or, I dunno.
User Interface: {vocalsound} I hope we can do this. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Something {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: There are a lot of options depending uh on what kind of television you got.
Marketing: Yeah, if uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer:'Cause if you don't got a wide screen television you don't need the uh the screen settings
Marketing: No, you don't yu a no you then you don't no ni don't {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: uh for uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: then you don't use it.
Industrial Designer: Yeah and if the television does not support such uh operations
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: We don't have to use that top. Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: So you leave it alone.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. Or it could be possible to have a a standard version of the remote, an expanded version.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. And do we want them in different colours, or {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: And and the buttons, should they have colours?
Marketing: Colours. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Colours I think the main colour of the remote control is uh the colour of the L_C_D_ screen.
User Interface: Oh but we don't have any buttons. Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I Because we don't want a lot a devi yeah a device self s g
Marketing: Yeah, then defines itself. Because uh how many percent? Eighty percent?
User Interface: They think it's ugly, right?
Marketing: Would spend more money if it looks fancy.
Industrial Designer: Okay, so use uh very uh lot of peo {vocalsound}
User Interface: Perhaps you can uh make adjustable fronts, like with the telephones {vocalsound}.
Industrial Designer: Adjust with phones, yes {vocalsound}
User Interface: You can uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But I don't think that uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} Twelve Euro fifty. Well, make it available in different colours, you mean?
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Sure.
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Red, white, blue, black. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And a see-through uh
Marketing: Rasta colours.
Industrial Designer: Grey.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah sea view, yes, Simpson's versions and {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, see through version. Yeah. If you press a button, it turns green.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, well
Industrial Designer: Leave. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: that's the
User Interface: A disco version.
Project Manager: signal for las final five minutes.
User Interface: Five minutes?
Project Manager: Um so I have uh the things I just read. Um then we have uh separate menus for teletext, screen settings, audio settings, and what else?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Channel settings?
User Interface: Oh yeah, right.
Project Manager: Channel settings.
User Interface: So you can program the T_V_.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Perhaps you should you'd throw them on on in one pile. So, options, and then you sub them.
Marketing: Yeah. Could be possible.
User Interface: Otherwise you have all those teletext, perhaps teletext not,
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: but {disfmarker}
Marketing: Or like uh you have a menu button, you press {disfmarker}
Project Manager: No, we said teletext also a separate menu.
User Interface: Yeah, but I {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, or otherwise you have a menu button, press menu then you have uh main uh menu search uh all the all the settings.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, but we can work that out later, I guess.
User Interface: But {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, no problem. Yep.
Project Manager: So we're having a a general menu with the most used functions, uh teletext, screen settings, audio settings, channel settings, and maybe there are options for the remote itself? Like uh large icons or small icons
User Interface: I don't know.
Project Manager: and I don't know what else,
Marketing: Um,
Project Manager: but {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: No.
Marketing: I think b because we don't have a lot of buttons on the one screen,
User Interface: Or do we have any buttons? On the remote.
Marketing: I think the buttons {disfmarker} Yeah, but but or like you have
User Interface: Which one?
Marketing: you only have channel button or volume button. Those buttons you can you can {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, but on the L_C_D_,
User Interface: But that's also in the L_C_D_,
Project Manager: huh?
User Interface: right?
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Right, yeah, okay. {vocalsound}
User Interface: So we don't have any normal buttons
Marketing: Yeah, th
User Interface: that uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: No, no normal buttons, yeah.
User Interface: No, alright.
Marketing: Maybe only the on and o on and off button.
User Interface: Yet on and off is p is perhaps you kno
Project Manager: But we don't need a special {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Uh not button {vocalsound}
Marketing: But I don't think {disfmarker}
Project Manager: we don't need a special options menu for the remote itself.
User Interface: No, no.
Marketing: Mm, no.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Oh well, you should be able to set which T_V_ you have. If you have {disfmarker} if you have uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah sure, of course you need uh a settings button, uh or a settings option for the remote control.
User Interface: Yeah. But isn't idea to use uh uh what you said, uh normal on and off button for the T_V_, that you don't have to use a {disfmarker}
Marketing: No no no, because we we discussed that you could charge it, otherwise is {disfmarker} it it jumps to stand-by mode automatically.
User Interface: Yeah but but not for the remote but for the T_V_, that you use {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, but a T_V_ of course, th that's the {disfmarker} I think that's a best thing is that to implement that one in the menu with the volume and channel.
User Interface: But a not as normal button, in the L_C_D_,
Marketing: No.
Project Manager: Well maybe there should be a separate button apart from the L_C_D_,
User Interface: yeah.
Project Manager: because you can't turn it on when the L_C_D_ is off. So how do you turn the thing on? There has to be a on button on the remote,
User Interface: No you just tap I think.
Project Manager: huh?
Industrial Designer: Just tap it.
Marketing: Yeah, you tap.
Project Manager: Tap the thing. Okay.
Marketing: Touch screen, yeah then it's turn {disfmarker} turn off, turn on.
Project Manager: And then the television is on also, or just the remote?
Marketing: No, just the remote.
User Interface: But {disfmarker}
Marketing: A television don't have to be on, that one you can {vocalsound} press on,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, it should be in standby mode, but {disfmarker}
Marketing: yeah stand-by, then press on remote, press on and then T_V_ should be available. Or not.
User Interface: Yeah a yeah. I don't know whether it's handy to have a n a normal on button, a r just uh rubber uh for for T_V_,
Marketing: Separate.
User Interface: so you can turn it on and then you can choose the channel. Otherwise you {disfmarker} I don't know whether or not that's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: A A A normal button on the remote control,
User Interface: Yeah, yeah. To turn it on.
Industrial Designer: or norm?
User Interface: Of or you should put it in the L_C_D_ screen.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, because uh when you touch the L_C_D_ screen when it is in standby mode, it should pop on.
User Interface: Yeah, I have,
Project Manager: Okay, well {disfmarker}
User Interface: yeah.
Industrial Designer: Wh uh why would it be a a need to have a normal button?
User Interface: Well I I guess if you use the L_C_D_ screen, you first have to search where is the on button, then you uh you you then turn it, and then the T_V_ goes on. But if you have a normal on button on the on the remote, then you do the on, and then you search the channel which you want.
Marketing: Yeah, but I think the re the remote control, if you press tap the screen, it always should jump to the screen which has the volume button, channel button, and of course of also the on and off button.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: Oh right.
Industrial Designer: I think it looks a lot more fancy if you use uh if you don't have any buttons on the s on on remote control.
User Interface: Yeah, I think so too. Otherwise y wet e k Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So actually we're going to create a a button-less uh remote. No buttons at all.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, well that's might be a unique selling point, huh for a remote.
User Interface: {vocalsound} If we can afford it. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay, well I guess we have to
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh, okay {gap}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, if we can afford it. Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: postpone further discussion to uh our next meeting, because we're running out of time. Um for now, we're having a lunch break,
Industrial Designer: Oh.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} and then there will be uh half an hour for the uh next share of individual work. I will uh write uh minutes, if I can create them out of this. And uh put them in the the project documents uh folder.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: And here are the individual actions for the for the other roles. And of course specific instructions will be sent to you again by your uh personal coach.
User Interface: Alright.
Project Manager: Luckily as we are. Okay, well
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: thank you very much, for now,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and uh have a nice lunch, huh? {vocalsound}
User Interface: Lunch. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Food. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Should we put this back in our rooms, or uh?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, think so.
User Interface: Yeah. | According to data, Marketing thought that younger people were more interested in features like LCD screen and speech recognition. However, older people didn't care about features so much and spent more money on remote control than younger people. Findings also showed that fifty percent of users lost remote control so bigger is better than smaller about remote control. Marketing expressed that volume button and channel button were the most important buttons so they should be found easily. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
Project Manager: Good morning, again.
Industrial Designer: One question.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Send.
User Interface: Choose a number? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Submit. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yep yep yep yep.
Project Manager: All set?
Industrial Designer: Mm. Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Good. Okay. Let's see what we can find here. Okay. A very warm welcome again to everyone.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um here we are already at our uh functional design meeting. Um and this is what we are going to do. The opening, which we are doing now, um and the special note, I'm project manager but on the meetings I'm also the secretary, which means I will make uh minutes as I did of the previous meeting.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And uh I also put these as fast as possible in the uh project folder, so you can see them and review what we have discussed. Um if I'm right, there are three presentations, I guess each one of you has prepared one? Good.
User Interface: Yes.
Project Manager: And um we will also take a look at new project requirements, um if you haven't heard about them yet. And then of course we have to take a decision on the remote control functions and we have some more time, forty minutes. But I think we will need it. Um well I don't know who wants to go first with his presentation.
Industrial Designer: I'll go first. Okay. I'll go first yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: You can go first, okay.
User Interface: Well.
Marketing: Well, shall I go first with the users?
User Interface: Well {vocalsound}
Marketing: I think {disfmarker} well okay no problem. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Is there an order? I haven't {disfmarker}
User Interface: everybody already has his presentation,
Marketing: Ja precies, ja precies, ja precies
User Interface: {vocalsound} so you can adjust it. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So. Huh? Okay, um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And one question, uh your name Denni, is it with a
Marketing: E_I_E_.
Project Manager: I_E_ {disfmarker} E_I_E_, okay. Thank you.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay, um I wanted to explain the working design of the remote control. It's possibly very handy if you want to uh design one of those. Um {vocalsound} well so it basically works uh as I uh uh r wrote down uh in this uh little uh summary. Uh when you press a button, {vocalsound} uh that's when you do pr for example when you uh want to turn up the volume, um a little connection is made uh the the rubber uh {vocalsound} button just presses on a
Project Manager: Sorry. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: on a little print plate uh which uh makes uh uh {vocalsound} a connection that uh gives the chips, uh which is uh mounted beneath those uh that plastic of a rubber button. Uh senses that a connection has been made, and know and knows what button you pressed, becau uh for example the the volume up or volume down button. Um uh the the chip uh makes a Morse code uh like uh signal which uh then is si uh signalled {vocalsound} to uh several transistors which makes uh which sends the signal to a little let. You know what a let is?
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} And that makes uh the the infra-red lights signal which is sent to the television set. Uh which has a sensor in it to uh sense uh the signal of the infra-red. That's basically uh how it works. Um the findings uh uh that I found uh searching up some uh detailed information about the remote controls, are that uh they are very easy to produce, uh it is pis uh it's possible to uh make them in mass production because it is as eas it is as easy as uh printing a page, uh just uh fibreglass plate um is b uh is uh covered with uh some uh coatings and uh uh {vocalsound} and chips.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh and the technology's already available, we don't have to find out how remote controls uh have to work or uh how that how uh to make some chips that are possible to uh to to transmit those uh signals. Uh I made a little uh uh animation of {vocalsound} about how a tran our uh remote controller works.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap}
User Interface: Oh right.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Animation. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} we tel
User Interface: There is something turning.
Industrial Designer: There.
Project Manager: Yeah, it's a little bug it's in the in the smart board. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay. Uh well
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: the sub-component, I suppose that you understand what a sub-component is, is f in this example it's the button. Uh when it is pressed down, um, the switch is ter is uh is switched on, so with uh the wire is sent to the to the chip in uh co-operation with the battery of course, because to make uh a a signal possible you have to have some sort of uh li uh a d ad uh electronic uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Infrared light.
Industrial Designer: Yes, uh, okay. Um w after it's being composed by the chip uh the signal uh is transported uh to the infra-red bulb, and from there it signals a Morse code-like signal to the to the b to the bulb in uh in the television set. Okay. S Uh I wrote down some personal preferences about uh the remote control. Of course it is very handy if the remote control is hand held, so you don't have to uh uh wind it up or something, or just is it's it's very light to uh to make uh to use it. Uh I personally uh pref prefer that uh it would be p uh come available in the various colours, and uh easy to use buttons. But I suppose that the one of the other team members uh uh thought of that uh too. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah, I've got it there too. {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: And it is possible for several designs and um easy to use b uh sorry, easy to use buttons. Perhaps soft touch, uh touch screen uh buttons because uh the rubber buttons are always uh uh they uh slightly uh they can be slightly damaged,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: uh so the numbers on the buttons are not possible uh to read anymore. And uh well as I said uh before th uh we can uh make several designs. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay, well, that's my contribution to this meeting, and uh
Marketing: To this meeting. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, thank you.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: two of these this meeting. So.
User Interface: Shall I go uh next?
Project Manager: Yep.
User Interface:'Kay.
Project Manager: Please.
User Interface: So.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Smoking.
User Interface: Well uh, my name's {gap}, and I looked at uh technical functions design of the remote. Uh I did this by uh looking at examples of other remote controls, of how they uh they look, and information from the web that I found. Um well what I found was that uh th the actual use of the remote control is to send messages to television set, how you uh d what you described uh just early. And this can be all sorts of medsa messages, turn it on, turn it off, uh change the channel, adjust volume, that kind of thing. Uh play video, teletext, but also t uh play C_D_ if you use it your C_D_ player the remote control will that one. There are some uh examples of remote controls. You can see they are very different. The one has got all the functions that you could possibly need and an lot of uh buttons etcetera. And the other is uh more user friendly, little with big buttons. And uh not n all the the the the stuff you can do with it, but uh the the essential stuff is there. Um {vocalsound} I guess you could better y you should look at a a user centred uh approach, because the customers have to use them and and if they don't think it's usable they won't uh buy it. A lot of buttons they may think from I don't need s as much as that. Uh, well perf personal preferences is is uh a simple remote, with uh the basic functions that you can need that you could use. But uh keep in mind the new functions of T_V_ what we discussed earlier, split screen and uh is that a function that you should have? Because all the T_V_s will have them. Or because of only a few and isn't really necessary. And then uh make it {disfmarker} I would make so that you can could uh use it on more than one appliance. If you have one that uh uh does with the vi the the video, it could also work with uh with the stereo, because play is play and stop stop and that sort of thing. The shu c you could reuse the buttons so that you don't have to have a lot of buttons for uh anything. And it should be a user friendly, clear buttons, and not too much. And that is my presentation.
Project Manager: Okay, thank you.
Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound}
Marketing:'Kay. Check. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: You must still have it open.
Marketing: Kijke {gap}'Kay, so. {vocalsound} We're going to j discuss the functional requirements of the remote, that m that means that functions user n want to have on the remote control, or just {disfmarker} Yeah, and the users, actually.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: The methods I I prefer is we're going to look which section of the users we are going to focus a l on more. Are the younger people going to buy the remote control or the elderly people? And then {disfmarker} tho that section we're going to focus and adjust the remote more to that section than the whole user section. Okay. Some data. Younger people, from sixteen to thir forty five um years are more interested in fj features like L_C_D_ screens, speech recognition e etcetera. And we possess about two third of the market from in that range of age. The elderly people, from forty five years to sixty five years are not that much interested in features, and we possess less than two third, that's two fifth, of the market share in that area. {gap} Goed so.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Marketing:'Kay. Findings. Fifty percent of the users lose their remote often.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So we don't have to make it very small, like uh like a mobile phone or something, but some somewhat bi bigger than small, so you don't lose it that much anymore. {vocalsound} Seventy five percent of the users also find it ugly,
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: and fif seventy five of the users zap a lot, so the buttons sh should be that small, or shouldn't be that complex because we have to search for the buttons, which one are you going to use. Next. Important issues about the remote. I think it would be better with a personal reference, but okay. Remote control has to have to have a low power usage, because s w seventy five percent of the users only zap one time an hour, so the power usage is also one one time an hour, or so, with a high power usage we would use a lot of but batteries. The volume button and the channel buttons are the two most important buttons on the remote control, so those {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} those have to h be find very easily. And have to be somewhat like bigger etcetera. It has also be {disfmarker} have to find easily when the label is gone. My colleague also announced it that labels should be scratched off
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: Hmm.
Marketing: or would be s uh {gap} senden {gap}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: okay. {vocalsound} So uh if that's k uh if that's the problem, you also have to find it easily on the remote. Buttons. Like what all colleagues said, have to have to be minimalized. or should be covered, or in L_C_D_ screen. L_C_D_ screen is easy because we have the L_C_D_ screen, we have the various options. Put one option and then you have the all the buttons of that options, so the other options would be gone. And you don't see the buttons. So L_C_D_ screens should be easy, but an L_C_D_ screen, the problem with the L_ sc L_C_D_ screen is that elderly people fr from forty five to for sixty five years don't use the L_C_D_ screen a lot. So we have to that keep that in mind that if you're going to implement L_C_D_ screen, you don't have to make it that hard to learn or to use.
Industrial Designer: Uh L_C_D_ screen as in uh touch screen?
Marketing: Yeah, touch screen, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: The last but not least, younger people are more critical about the features. Because they use the remote control often more often, and are more technical than the ol older people. And the older people spend more money, and easily on a remote control.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
Marketing: So we have to keep in mind to to focus not a lot {disfmarker} not that much on the younger pep younger people, but also somewhat on the elderly people. And on my personal preferences, I don't have any mo more time to come with that,
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: but like I said, L_C_D_ screen is easily to use
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: because you have {disfmarker} you can implement a lot of buttons in one remote with not that much buttons. And it should be easy to use. Especially the volume buttons, the channel buttes buttons and the number buttons to zap through the channels. And that is it.
Project Manager: Okay,
Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: thank you.
User Interface: Oh right. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um, well thank you all, huh. {vocalsound} I dunno uh did everyone receive an email with uh the new project requirements?
User Interface: {vocalsound} No. Res I did not.
Project Manager: No? Well,
User Interface: Perhaps the rest?
Industrial Designer: No.
Project Manager: then I think it's a good thing that I made a separate slide of them
Marketing: Ja, {gap}
Project Manager: so you can all read them. Oh, well not in this presentation. Hmm
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Should be in there. Well, I can tell you them uh from my laptop. Um teletext does {disfmarker} has become outdated since the popularity of the internet.
User Interface: Oh. Mm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} So that's uh the first thing we I think we should pay less attention to uh teletext. Uh the remote control should only be used for the television, otherwise the project becomes more complex, which endangers the time to market, and of course would make it more costly, I think. Um our current customers are within the age group of forty plus, and new product should reach a new market with customers that are younger than forty, and you talked about that before. And uh a last point, but also very important, our corporate image should stay recognisable in our products, which means that our uh corporate colour and slogan must be implemented in the new design. So we have to keep that in mind. Um well uh according to our agenda it's then time to take a decision on the remote control functions. So, who has any idea about what should be on it, and what shouldn't?
User Interface: Well you said it should only uh work with one appliance?
Marketing: Be television.
User Interface: Or with one uh d che only the T_V_?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. Only be used for television.
User Interface: And the video also, or not uh? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Well it says only for television here, huh.
Marketing: Only the television.
User Interface: Oh. Alright. Okay. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Makes it a lot easier, huh? {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: So yeah, then you can yeah. Requirements, no? Functions.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then it should have uh on, off,
Industrial Designer: Yeah for {disfmarker}
User Interface: and uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Standby options,
Marketing: Yeah, the basics then by a volume, channel, one till two zero numbers on it,
Industrial Designer: yeah? Uh yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. And per perhaps uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: oh teletext doesn't have to be?
User Interface: No.
Marketing: Um other functions.
User Interface: Well uh uh yes yes s sh A button where you can uh change from one number to two numbers.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah I had {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Two s two two digits,
Marketing: Yeah, yeah.
User Interface: Can you {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: oh okay.
User Interface: Don't know if that's got a name,
Industrial Designer: Yeah I understand what you mean. Yeah.
User Interface: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: I think it's I think it's easy to implement a button with a s s what which especially do that, because some T_V_s, if you press the t one and then the two, it be between five secs it make twelve,
Industrial Designer: It makes it twelve, yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. S
Industrial Designer: Indeed. Okay.
Marketing: and that's that's not relaxed
Industrial Designer: Well, not really {vocalsound}
Marketing: to user.
Industrial Designer: And and there are some models that don't uh accommodate that function. So
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: d uh wh the Philip's television makes it possible in that indeed to uh press one and then two to make uh the uh tj to reach channel twelve.
Marketing: So that it {vocalsound} easy and fast.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: But uh all the television makes uh use of those button where you first press that button and then press two digits to uh to get
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah, so you should have that one on.
Industrial Designer: Uh yeah, think so.
Marketing: Our main targets'age are? were? Forty five plus, or?
User Interface: Mute misschien also.
Project Manager: Uh well
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: new product should reach a market with customers that are younger than forty, and now we have current customers uh of forty plus.
Marketing: Forties, okay because {vocalsound} because younger people as Uh younger people have now, sixteen till to twenty five age, are f eighty one percent interested in L_C_D_ screen. From twenty six to thirty five have sixty six percent, and thirty six to forty five, fifty five percent, so I think to um {disfmarker} Because on most recog remote controls um the print plate will be broken how much, two years. You have to press h very hard to go to the next channel.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: With the L_C_D_ screen it's easier because you only have to wipe the screen to uh {disfmarker} for fingerprint,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, we we could yeah. But I think that uh that collides with our mission to make it very cheap.
Marketing: and then you can use it again.
Industrial Designer: Because L_C_D_ screens are very expensive.
Marketing: Yeah, okay.
User Interface: An
Industrial Designer: A touch screen uh probably uh even more.
Marketing: Yeah but a {disfmarker} you don't know {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: So,
Marketing: True.
Industrial Designer: true, true.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: But uh {disfmarker} Well um is it possible to make an L_C_D_ screen uh, how was the information?
Marketing: Yeah, it only says that this perce percentage like L_C_D_ screen. Because, yeah and it says that younger age between sixteen and forty five highly interesting features more critical.
Industrial Designer: So perhaps we should we should focus on that L_C_D_ screen.
Marketing: {vocalsound} And if the only f Yeah, because our target is sixteen to forty five.
User Interface: But, do you {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah but uh will we not uh exceed our uh our uh production uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah you don't know how much it costs. Yeah, you don't know how much it costs, the L_C_D_ screen.
Industrial Designer: Is it possible to find out, anyway?
Marketing: No, I don't have any costs here,
Industrial Designer: You know?
Marketing: I only have percentages.
User Interface: But if you would do an L_C_D_ screen do we have don don't you have any buttons? Or because if it only directs at the T_V_, then you only have uh I don't know what you want to do with the L_C_D_ screen.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: No, an L_C_D_ screen's just like uh like a drawn here. Um just uh displays several buttons,
User Interface: Yeah?
Industrial Designer: for example um if you wanted the minimal uh use b uh buttons, such as channel and volume, you just h uh displays four buttons on the screen
User Interface: Oh right, so you can {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: and it's possible to p uh press them down, just like a touch screen.
User Interface: Oh, yeah alright. So you can adjust which buttons you want on that s screen.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, we can make it possible to do that, yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, if you want to adjust, like for example, adjust the audio settings, you press audio on the touchscreen
Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah.
Marketing: and you get the buttons for audio settings,
User Interface: Yeah alright, oh right.
Marketing: so the other buttons are gone.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: So we're going for an L_C_D_ screen?
User Interface: Yeah. Would be yeah.
Marketing: I think it's the most easier thing,
Industrial Designer: That's my uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And hoping that when we produce a lot it won't be too expensive.
Marketing: yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Well we had twelve fifty, I guess, for uh production?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: No. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Twelve fifty.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um.
User Interface: Any guesses? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Well I suppose wi if the mar if our um {vocalsound} if the i if the young people are interested in L_C_D_ screens, we should make'em.
Marketing: Highly.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And if that is our d uh market share to uh and our goal to uh deliver those uh remote controls {disfmarker}
User Interface: But {disfmarker} But he also said that we should not only focus on the younger people, but also on the older, and will they use it if it only has an L_C_D_ screen?
Marketing: Yeah, but {disfmarker} Um, s forty six to forty five, thirty three percent, and sixty fifty six to sixty five twelve percent.
User Interface: Oh, so still a little bit people {disfmarker}
Marketing: But our our our what's it, project requirements are the new products should be reached for new markets, to customers that are younger than forty.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah that's right. But you don't want to alienate the other uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: No, that not now, but, so {disfmarker}
User Interface: But if they also buy it then it's alright. I guess.
Marketing: Yeah, but market share fro for for forty years and younger is higher than that of sixty five and younger.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. Alright.
Project Manager: Okay, so L_C_D_ it is?
User Interface: An Yes.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Mm. It's treasure.
Project Manager: And what else?
Industrial Designer: I hope we uh h and let's hope to reach those uh those sales.
Marketing: Yeah, i i if it {disfmarker} Yeah, if it costs {disfmarker} gets too much, too expensive, then yeah, we should be sticking to rubber buttons.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, can you um uh s I think that that they will send you some information about uh the cost of L_C_D_ uh screens.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: N nothing, no costs at all.
User Interface: But perhaps later,
Industrial Designer: Uh so if you uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: so uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah, so if you uh you receive an email about that, uh can you post it in the {disfmarker} or shouldn't we post that in uh our projects mail uh folder.
Marketing: Yeah, in {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I think that should yeah {disfmarker} I think we all get the costs of everything.
User Interface: I don't {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Because you are the the Marketing uh Expert.
Marketing: Yeah, okay, I'll I'll post it.
Industrial Designer: I uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Well perhaps we should have a backup plan that we would use buttons if it's uh {vocalsound} too expensive.
Industrial Designer: Yeah sure, sure.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah, okay. But for now it's L_C_D_. Okay.
Marketing: Okay, L_C_D_, yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Then you have the seventy five percent of users find it r ugly.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: The L_C_D_? Oh that's a bit of a problem. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, and eighty percent of the users would spend more money with a when a remote would look fancy.
User Interface: Oh, that's a bit of a problem.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Tha i l i it'll look fancy with L_C_D_ screen. {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It's looks fancy one yeah, of L_C_D_ screen.
User Interface: Yeah, but they don't they don't like it.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: They think it's ugly. When it has an L_C_D_ screen.
Marketing: Yeah, just a {disfmarker} the plain remotes, not not specific L_C_D_ remotes.
User Interface: Oh, alright, I thought that you said that.
Project Manager: Yeah, and maybe you can make something fancy out of an L_C_D_ remote,
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: because it's new, as far as I know. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Mm yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, of course.
Industrial Designer: And then not {disfmarker} yeah.
Marketing: And then you have the other thing, that seventy five percent zap a lot, but that's not a f question with the L_C_D_ screen.
Industrial Designer: Um. Yeah.
Marketing: Only thing you have to do is wipe the screen off once each time, to get all the fingerprints off it.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm. Okay?
Project Manager: Okay, what else does our remote need?
User Interface: A mute button.
Marketing: Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mute button.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: I think. And {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} The most important things on a f on an on an uh remote control are channel selection, volume con selection,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: and power s power usage.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: And a teletext, but that is not of the question.
User Interface: But {disfmarker} But shouldn't you put a button of {disfmarker} for teletext on the {disfmarker} for the people who want to use it?
Marketing: Other things are {disfmarker} Sorry?
User Interface: Remembering we have got a big remote that you have to fill. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, it could be. Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and we could make an a a separate menu on the L_C_D_ uh screen for teletext.
Marketing: Yeah, teletext.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And there's also a {disfmarker}
Marketing: And other other less important things are screen settings, audio settings, and channel settings,
User Interface: Yeah, they are less important, but I think they should be there,
Marketing: Less important.
User Interface: or not?
Marketing: Yeah, should be there,
Industrial Designer: A sh
Marketing: but not press {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: but in a sub sub-menu or something like that.
Marketing: Yeah, sub-menu, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Uh I think it's also important to uh make it possible to um how do you call it in English, uh, to not use batteries, and use ac uh bat uh {gap} batteries to uh to be {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Like with a with a mouse, you have not, yeah.
Industrial Designer: yeah yeah sure. Indeed. So uh you can mount uh the the the uh
Marketing: Yeah, in a breath it's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: uh the remote control to um
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Charted.
User Interface: We should think of the twelve fifty we have
Industrial Designer: to refill the {disfmarker}
User Interface: but {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah,
User Interface: I don't know how much that's going to uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: but we don't we don't have any costs now,
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Okay,
Marketing: so {disfmarker} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: because i uh when you get an L_C_D_ screen, you run it on batteries,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: the batteries will be uh empty very soon, very fast.
Marketing: Yeah e e power supply is one of the most important things.
User Interface: You should {disfmarker} Perhaps you should be able to to switch the control off.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: If you have an L_C_D_ screen that's burns all the time I dunno.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: You shouldn't on and off because that's ver extra, that you have t first you have to turn the remote on, and then you can uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: I don't know.
Industrial Designer: Uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, I think it's it's not that easy because I don't think people will like it who who uh that you have to turn it on first and then use it,
User Interface: Nee that's that's uh yeah.
Marketing: so I think it's better when th the T_V_ shuts down, the remote shuts down.
User Interface: But then you can't {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: And go to standby mode when you don't use it,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: so that {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah yeah au automac matically, that it {disfmarker} yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, automatically. After two minutes or three minutes, something like that.
Marketing: Yeah. After two minutes, yeah two three minutes, yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. And maybe a low battery indicator? On the screen.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Sure.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: And then b that uh
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: before an hour when its get again gets empty.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Then you have plenty of time to recharge it,
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: of put it in a recharger. Charger.
Project Manager: So we are going for the for the recharger.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, if it's {gap}. Uh.
User Interface: If it's sensible. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, because when you're watching T_V_, you're zapping and you have to put it in a recharger,
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah, b when the batteries are low {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: No,
Marketing: and I don't think it {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: when you when you're done with s uh w uh watching your television, you have to put it {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, okay, but then we have to be sure that the the the the batteries go {vocalsound} hours, six hours, five, six hours, then.
User Interface: But you'll also forget to put it in,
Industrial Designer: Yeah sure, of course.
User Interface: because you throw it on the couch
Industrial Designer: Yeah,
Marketing: Yeah,
Industrial Designer: but {disfmarker}
Marketing: then you have a problem.
User Interface: and you don't remember.
Industrial Designer: But you also forget to buy batteries,
User Interface: Yeah. That's right.
Industrial Designer: and then you can you can't use it,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: so I {disfmarker}
Marketing: Or we have to be sure that the batteries last couple of days when they're recharged.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Well I think the batteries should should w should work a lot longer than a couple of days,
Marketing: So.
User Interface: or not?
Marketing: Yeah because you have b
User Interface:'Cause {disfmarker}
Marketing: but you have L_C_D_ screen.
User Interface: Yeah, that's right, but {disfmarker}
Marketing: High power usage.
Industrial Designer: High power user cell, i uh it should be uh a standard move to to put your remote control in the charger when you're done watching television,
Marketing: Yes.
Industrial Designer: that's also a a a great advantage because you can't lose it anymore. Because you are obliged to uh put it in the charger and not to uh leave it in a couch uh between some cushions.
Marketing: True. Yeah. Yeah. True.
User Interface: Yeah. Right. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay.
Marketing: Yeah, you made a point there.
User Interface: {vocalsound} But then you also have to s have somewhere where you can put a remo recharger near your couch
Project Manager: Yeah, also.
User Interface: because otherwise you have to walk a long way when you twoft want to turn on the T_V_.
Marketing: Yeah, otherwise all your {disfmarker} yeah. Just a small device {vocalsound}.
User Interface: Yeah. I think everything has it for and {disfmarker} I guess.
Industrial Designer: Yeah it hasn't {disfmarker} It doesn't have to be big.
Marketing: Plug it in, that's it. Yeah, like a {disfmarker} like telephone charger or something.
Industrial Designer: Yeah just just a cable, or a even a a a a a charger where you can mount it on. Something like that,
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: just u
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Alright.
Project Manager: Okay, well I've
Marketing: It has to be easy to use also, or things. Uh market share, speaker re speech recognition.
Project Manager: Yeah, you have some more
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: points.
Industrial Designer: Functional designs uh for the elderly uh you could make it possible to enlarge the screen,
Marketing: I think.
Industrial Designer: so make it possible to not uh display uh a button at ten points
Marketing: Also.
Industrial Designer: uh, or {disfmarker}
Marketing: Well I think that this should be standard. Large button {disfmarker} large buttons.
Industrial Designer: Yeah but it is uh one of the functions you have to uh specify.
Marketing: Yeah? Okay.
Industrial Designer: Because we can look at uh uh perhaps uh forty buttons at a screen, but the elderly only look at two buttons.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay.
Marketing: {gap}.
Project Manager: And you said something about speech recognition?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah,
Industrial Designer: Speech recognition?
Marketing: it says also {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Hello.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah,
Industrial Designer: Twelve Euro
User Interface: twelve fifty, twelve fifty. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: twelve Euro fifty.
Marketing: Twelve. That's an {disfmarker} also ninety one percent sixteen to twenty five, twenty six to thirty five years, seventy six percent, and thirty six to forty five, thirty five percent.
User Interface: So it's pretty big.
Industrial Designer: Well, spread it by a big market.
Marketing: But then I I I {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Even bigger than for L_C_D_. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound} W I know let's do a speech. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: let's leave out all the remote controls and just put a {vocalsound} microphone on top of the television to {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. Ninety. Twenty five.
User Interface: You can clap or something. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: {gap} channel.
Industrial Designer: Turn volume up.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Hey, that that's an idea. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Now you shouldn't say the wrong thing, I dunno {vocalsound}.
Industrial Designer: Okay, well
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: that should {disfmarker} it has to be remote control, not {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: {gap} twelve.
User Interface: But they want to talk into the remo remote control, or something,
Industrial Designer: Sure why not why not {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: or? {vocalsound}
Marketing: Is this only would you would you pay more for speech recognition in a remote control. It's the only thing it says.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, mm.
User Interface: Oh, but do we want to implement that, or?
Marketing: {vocalsound} I think an L_C_D_ screen {vocalsound} should be suf sufficient.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: But when you look at the percentages {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, it says a lot, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Speech recognition scores even higher, huh?
Industrial Designer: Perhaps the options should be uh {disfmarker} Why not?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, well,
Industrial Designer: Why not?
Project Manager: maybe because of the cost, but uh nobody knows uh how much uh it will cost uh.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Let's hope uh to have some uh d
User Interface: I know {vocalsound}
Marketing: No I think I think it's better to have L_ L_C_D_ screen, because in the area of tw thirty six to forty five, we have about thirty percent of the market share in in our hands, and fifty five of those people want L_C_D_ screen and thirty five want speech recognition. So I think it's better to keep it with L_C_D_ screen.
Project Manager: But would it be useful to imple implement both?
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: On one remote?
Marketing: Yeah, if the costs al allow it. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Or {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, I dunno.
User Interface: I don't know if that can be done with the cost of twelve fifty.
Marketing: Nee.
User Interface: With that uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: If it should be done, if it could be done, I won't matter. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah,
Industrial Designer: We should do it. Yeah. Sure.
User Interface: but how would you like to implement that, that you say volume up, and then it goes up,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: or?
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Uh.
Industrial Designer: Certain systems already exist, I think.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then you also have to have different languages if we go international. Then uh it's y {vocalsound} it's yours to do a French and Dutch and English
Marketing: {vocalsound} True.
Industrial Designer: True, yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. True.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: But that should also be with f should be also with L_C_D_ screen.
Industrial Designer: This should be uh accommodated with some software, uh, uh. Yeah.
Marketing: Because then I think in Chinese is different written, volume is different written than um Swahili or something.
User Interface: Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Right. Swahili. Swahili.
User Interface: Yeah you can use icons for the
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: a speaker and uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Ja, well possible.
Industrial Designer: Indeed.
User Interface: But if that's better than language for the for the remote.
Marketing: Yeah, yeah yeah yeah {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. So we want to uh yeah it's international uh okay.
User Interface: Then it's {disfmarker} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing:'Kay, what else?
Project Manager: So, no speech recognition? Or {disfmarker} {gap} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Well, if it could be done, we {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah,
Industrial Designer: Y it should be done. If it could be done, should be done.
Marketing: we have to keep {disfmarker} Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, and then we have different languages.
User Interface: Yeah, that should be uh anything matters.
Industrial Designer: That's not so difficult at all,
Project Manager: Okay, just make a separate remote for each uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: because I already use on several voice operated systems, and they are all possible to uh not all, but {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well, you sh you should to adjust the thing.
Marketing: I think it's difficult. Every language of dialects {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I think it's very differen difficult.
User Interface: And you have to speak the {disfmarker} so that it can understand.
Marketing: Yeah. I think it can't be implemented, but maybe {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} You could use that n as an option, if you have money left, or something. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah,'s an option, yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, sure, indeed.
Marketing: Fifty Euro cents.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Let's do speech.
Industrial Designer: For speech recognition.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, so we only do this when we have enough money left.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay. Well I've written down an an on or off button, volume selection, channel selection, uh the digits from one to zero, huh. Um {disfmarker} or from zero to nine. Uh a digits button to switch uh between one and two digits, mute button, a separate menu for teletext, a battery indicator. Um we're going to use a docking station and uh probably L_C_D_ and if there's enough money, speech recognition. And uh the possibility to uh enlarge buttons or to have large buttons
User Interface: Mm. Yeah.
Marketing: Mm, yes.
Project Manager: in general.
User Interface: I {vocalsound} With uh teletext if {disfmarker} it wasn't ver very important, it was but {disfmarker}
Marketing: No, but {disfmarker}
User Interface: You also now have colours. I don't know if we should implement that. Yeah,
Marketing: Curved?
User Interface: when you press the red button, you go to page one hundred two, and when you press the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Uh yeah.
User Interface: I don't know if we should implement that,
Marketing: Um.
User Interface: because it says that teletext not really important,
Industrial Designer: S Shortcuts. Uh.
User Interface: but yeah, the shortcut, and you can't go to sport.
Marketing: I think we should {disfmarker} we could that {disfmarker} we could also implement a audio settings, screen settings and channel settings, but as sub-menus.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: D Mainly if you turn the uh remote control on, you have to u you have to see from one till zero, channel and volume. And if you want to use teletext screen or audio, then you can press it.
Industrial Designer: Sh Yeah, just just sub-menu. Yeah.
Marketing: It should be available but not
User Interface:'Cause it should be there.
Industrial Designer: Not directly uh available.
Marketing: not {disfmarker} Yeah. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Okay, so not too much teletext support, but in a separate menu, and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: So actually it is there but it's just not r ready there.
Marketing: Yeah, but s
Industrial Designer: Directly available.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So does it confuse uh the user?
User Interface: You'll have to search for it. {vocalsound}
Marketing: They'd have to be easy to use.
Industrial Designer: Uh. I'll search um.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: If you want to use teletext, you can push the teletext button and then the options uh become available.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah, that's a {disfmarker}
Marketing: The sign of it.
Project Manager: Okay, but no more buttons or functions, or?
User Interface: I guess not.
Industrial Designer: No.
Marketing: Uh, no. What else can you do with a television?
User Interface: We've got anon
Project Manager: Aren't we forgetting something very important?
User Interface: Have got got two examples here, but I don't think there's anything we're missing.
Marketing: Uh play, pause, doesn't n need to be there.
User Interface: Well, we don't have the video orders {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yes, so this is your presentation. We could check the other remote controls with technical functions.
User Interface: Yeah, you could look here all the the {disfmarker}
Marketing: Which ones were yours?
User Interface: Uh th th th th I don't know, technical functions.
Marketing: Techni
User Interface: {vocalsound} They're a bit small, you can {disfmarker} we should stretch them, because {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Ping.
Marketing: Ja ja ja ja ja. Technical functions. Yeah okay.
User Interface: I guess we've got them all.
Marketing: Uh I think I go to have volume, mute but I {disfmarker} Yeah {gap}. Very slow. Yeah, the zoom buttons.
User Interface: And for a T_V_? Can you zoom in a T_V_?
Marketing: Yeah, b wide screen, high screen, different things you have,
User Interface: Or that you can put'em on uh on on wide and {disfmarker}
Marketing: yeah different uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: But that should also be a sub then, a sub uh menu thing.
Industrial Designer: Menu.
Marketing: Yeah it should be available, but then in separate screen settings or something.
User Interface: Yeah, so we should also implement se screen settings.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Yeah, screen settings, audio settings, teletext settings you have.
User Interface: Oh right. Yeah.
Marketing: Channel settings.
User Interface: Yeah, so you can program the {disfmarker}
Marketing: So those four, and of course the main.
User Interface: Yeah, so the first you see the main, and the other ones you can uh go to uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah. Yeah. Like tap screens or something
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: or, I dunno.
User Interface: {vocalsound} I hope we can do this. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Something {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: There are a lot of options depending uh on what kind of television you got.
Marketing: Yeah, if uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer:'Cause if you don't got a wide screen television you don't need the uh the screen settings
Marketing: No, you don't yu a no you then you don't no ni don't {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: uh for uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: then you don't use it.
Industrial Designer: Yeah and if the television does not support such uh operations
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: We don't have to use that top. Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: So you leave it alone.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. Or it could be possible to have a a standard version of the remote, an expanded version.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah. And do we want them in different colours, or {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: And and the buttons, should they have colours?
Marketing: Colours. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Colours I think the main colour of the remote control is uh the colour of the L_C_D_ screen.
User Interface: Oh but we don't have any buttons. Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I Because we don't want a lot a devi yeah a device self s g
Marketing: Yeah, then defines itself. Because uh how many percent? Eighty percent?
User Interface: They think it's ugly, right?
Marketing: Would spend more money if it looks fancy.
Industrial Designer: Okay, so use uh very uh lot of peo {vocalsound}
User Interface: Perhaps you can uh make adjustable fronts, like with the telephones {vocalsound}.
Industrial Designer: Adjust with phones, yes {vocalsound}
User Interface: You can uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} But I don't think that uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay. {vocalsound} Twelve Euro fifty. Well, make it available in different colours, you mean?
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Sure.
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Red, white, blue, black. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And a see-through uh
Marketing: Rasta colours.
Industrial Designer: Grey.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah sea view, yes, Simpson's versions and {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, see through version. Yeah. If you press a button, it turns green.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, well
Industrial Designer: Leave. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: that's the
User Interface: A disco version.
Project Manager: signal for las final five minutes.
User Interface: Five minutes?
Project Manager: Um so I have uh the things I just read. Um then we have uh separate menus for teletext, screen settings, audio settings, and what else?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Channel settings?
User Interface: Oh yeah, right.
Project Manager: Channel settings.
User Interface: So you can program the T_V_.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Perhaps you should you'd throw them on on in one pile. So, options, and then you sub them.
Marketing: Yeah. Could be possible.
User Interface: Otherwise you have all those teletext, perhaps teletext not,
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: but {disfmarker}
Marketing: Or like uh you have a menu button, you press {disfmarker}
Project Manager: No, we said teletext also a separate menu.
User Interface: Yeah, but I {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, or otherwise you have a menu button, press menu then you have uh main uh menu search uh all the all the settings.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, but we can work that out later, I guess.
User Interface: But {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, no problem. Yep.
Project Manager: So we're having a a general menu with the most used functions, uh teletext, screen settings, audio settings, channel settings, and maybe there are options for the remote itself? Like uh large icons or small icons
User Interface: I don't know.
Project Manager: and I don't know what else,
Marketing: Um,
Project Manager: but {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: No.
Marketing: I think b because we don't have a lot of buttons on the one screen,
User Interface: Or do we have any buttons? On the remote.
Marketing: I think the buttons {disfmarker} Yeah, but but or like you have
User Interface: Which one?
Marketing: you only have channel button or volume button. Those buttons you can you can {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, but on the L_C_D_,
User Interface: But that's also in the L_C_D_,
Project Manager: huh?
User Interface: right?
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Right, yeah, okay. {vocalsound}
User Interface: So we don't have any normal buttons
Marketing: Yeah, th
User Interface: that uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: No, no normal buttons, yeah.
User Interface: No, alright.
Marketing: Maybe only the on and o on and off button.
User Interface: Yet on and off is p is perhaps you kno
Project Manager: But we don't need a special {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Uh not button {vocalsound}
Marketing: But I don't think {disfmarker}
Project Manager: we don't need a special options menu for the remote itself.
User Interface: No, no.
Marketing: Mm, no.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Oh well, you should be able to set which T_V_ you have. If you have {disfmarker} if you have uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah sure, of course you need uh a settings button, uh or a settings option for the remote control.
User Interface: Yeah. But isn't idea to use uh uh what you said, uh normal on and off button for the T_V_, that you don't have to use a {disfmarker}
Marketing: No no no, because we we discussed that you could charge it, otherwise is {disfmarker} it it jumps to stand-by mode automatically.
User Interface: Yeah but but not for the remote but for the T_V_, that you use {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah, but a T_V_ of course, th that's the {disfmarker} I think that's a best thing is that to implement that one in the menu with the volume and channel.
User Interface: But a not as normal button, in the L_C_D_,
Marketing: No.
Project Manager: Well maybe there should be a separate button apart from the L_C_D_,
User Interface: yeah.
Project Manager: because you can't turn it on when the L_C_D_ is off. So how do you turn the thing on? There has to be a on button on the remote,
User Interface: No you just tap I think.
Project Manager: huh?
Industrial Designer: Just tap it.
Marketing: Yeah, you tap.
Project Manager: Tap the thing. Okay.
Marketing: Touch screen, yeah then it's turn {disfmarker} turn off, turn on.
Project Manager: And then the television is on also, or just the remote?
Marketing: No, just the remote.
User Interface: But {disfmarker}
Marketing: A television don't have to be on, that one you can {vocalsound} press on,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, it should be in standby mode, but {disfmarker}
Marketing: yeah stand-by, then press on remote, press on and then T_V_ should be available. Or not.
User Interface: Yeah a yeah. I don't know whether it's handy to have a n a normal on button, a r just uh rubber uh for for T_V_,
Marketing: Separate.
User Interface: so you can turn it on and then you can choose the channel. Otherwise you {disfmarker} I don't know whether or not that's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: A A A normal button on the remote control,
User Interface: Yeah, yeah. To turn it on.
Industrial Designer: or norm?
User Interface: Of or you should put it in the L_C_D_ screen.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, because uh when you touch the L_C_D_ screen when it is in standby mode, it should pop on.
User Interface: Yeah, I have,
Project Manager: Okay, well {disfmarker}
User Interface: yeah.
Industrial Designer: Wh uh why would it be a a need to have a normal button?
User Interface: Well I I guess if you use the L_C_D_ screen, you first have to search where is the on button, then you uh you you then turn it, and then the T_V_ goes on. But if you have a normal on button on the on the remote, then you do the on, and then you search the channel which you want.
Marketing: Yeah, but I think the re the remote control, if you press tap the screen, it always should jump to the screen which has the volume button, channel button, and of course of also the on and off button.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: Oh right.
Industrial Designer: I think it looks a lot more fancy if you use uh if you don't have any buttons on the s on on remote control.
User Interface: Yeah, I think so too. Otherwise y wet e k Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So actually we're going to create a a button-less uh remote. No buttons at all.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, well that's might be a unique selling point, huh for a remote.
User Interface: {vocalsound} If we can afford it. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay, well I guess we have to
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Oh, okay {gap}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, if we can afford it. Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: postpone further discussion to uh our next meeting, because we're running out of time. Um for now, we're having a lunch break,
Industrial Designer: Oh.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} and then there will be uh half an hour for the uh next share of individual work. I will uh write uh minutes, if I can create them out of this. And uh put them in the the project documents uh folder.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: And here are the individual actions for the for the other roles. And of course specific instructions will be sent to you again by your uh personal coach.
User Interface: Alright.
Project Manager: Luckily as we are. Okay, well
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: thank you very much, for now,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and uh have a nice lunch, huh? {vocalsound}
User Interface: Lunch. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Food. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Should we put this back in our rooms, or uh?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, think so.
User Interface: Yeah. | Project Manager began functional design meeting with reviewed last meeting and looked at new project requirements. The group did a presentation and made discussion about conceptual remote control design. They decided to use the LCD screen in the design as it was popular for the market and hard to damage. Because of the high price of LCD, the group put up a backup design with buttons instead of LCD as a solution. After group discussion, remote control would be designed with buttons shape and functions such as channels selection and speech recognition. | qmsum |
Summarize the group discussion about video demand, teletext demand, and thick keys design.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: So I see all everybody's here,'kay.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Project Manager: And we can start meeting.
User Interface: Okay {vocalsound}.
Marketing: What's the agenda for this meeting?
Project Manager: The {disfmarker} I will uh present here agenda with with with with slides to you.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Um as you can see here.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Perfect.
Project Manager: So first uh just to mention I will take notes uh of this meeting
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and uh I will try to work them out and give them to you. I've also made notes of the previous meeting and um I was about to send them you but {vocalsound} then uh I had to go to this uh meeting so you will get them too uh
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Next.
Project Manager: Um.
Industrial Designer: So y you are the secretary also.
Project Manager: Yes. Indeed.
Industrial Designer: Right? Okay.
Project Manager: Then I hope you all have uh worked out {vocalsound} some some uh {vocalsound} some some presentations about uh about well you the the task given to you in the previous meeting.
Industrial Designer: Perfectly yeah yeah of course uh-huh.
User Interface: {gap}
Project Manager: Um. W We will uh in a minute we will uh {vocalsound} start with them. Um, we will see in which order we will handle them of. Um then I will uh bring in some some some new requirements I I got uh from the uh account manager, I try to work them out, they were quite abstract, and we can have maybe have com some discussion about it. Uh Um about the functions
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and {disfmarker} Well in this meeting we should really {vocalsound} try to reach a decision about the target group and the functionality of the {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: You mean the social target group who we wants to target?
Project Manager: Yes I mean well yes w who are we going to uh to well to sell this,
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: {gap}
Industrial Designer: Oh the customers, okay.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: the customers, indeed yes. Think that's that's important matter.
Marketing: That's the big question yeah.
Project Manager: Uh. {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} And then uh we will close this meeting uh
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and after this meeting we'll uh we'll have a lunch. Good. Um. Maybe um why uh Anna can you c do you have a presentations?
Marketing: No, I don't.
Project Manager: You don't have presentation?
Marketing: I wasn't. No.
Project Manager: Uh you want a table to to uh
Marketing: I c I can talk about it but I have no slides or anything.
Project Manager: Yes yes maybe maybe you can uh can just talk about it or maybe you can use the whiteboard if necessary um.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Well I've just been um presented with some research we've done in a small focus group so, a hundred people, just asked them about their remote control usage habits and what they want in a remote control. Um. It's {disfmarker} probably can't email this to you, I've just got a web page with some data on it. Um basically it's saying that users generally dislike the look and feel of their remote controls. Um seventy five u seventy five percent of users find most remote controls ugly. Um.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Eighty percent of users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy. Um. Current remote controls do not match well the operating behaviour of the user. Uh seventy five percent of users said they zap a lot, so they use their remote control quite frequently while they're watching television. Uh. Fifty percent of users say that they only use ten percent of the buttons, so they've got a remote control with a lot of functionality but really most of the time they only use a small part of that.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: Um.
Project Manager: Do you Do you have this uh information on the web page you said?
Marketing: I have an a web page yes.
Project Manager: Yes, mayb maybe you can can send an email to me later uh. Uh about this.
Marketing: Yep. Yep, sure. Mm-hmm. So basically um there's a breakdown of how much they use the different functions on a rem remote control. Um, power and volume selection are only used a few times within this uh per hour. Um, channel selection is used a hundred and sixty eight times um {vocalsound} and then there's things like channel settings, audio settings, which are only used very infrequently.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: Um. Teletext is used um fourteen times in the hour, so it is used but not nearly as much as the channel selection is used. Um.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: An interesting thing that this report has brought up is that um fifty fifty percent of users report that the remote control gets lost a lot of the time in the room, so some way of some way of locating the remote control would be very useful to a lot of users. Um.
Project Manager: Yes yes, I have {vocalsound} that too {vocalsound}.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Thirty four percent said it takes too long to learn to use a remote control, they want something that's easier to use straight away, more intuitive perhaps.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: Um.
Industrial Designer: It's it's easy to learn or how do you say it's {disfmarker}
Marketing: Thirty four percent said it took too much time to learn to use a new one. Yep.
Industrial Designer: Okay too much time to learn. Okay.
Marketing: Um. And thirty {disfmarker} twenty six percent said remote controls are bad for R_S_I_.
Industrial Designer: Not enough {gap}
Marketing: I don't know how we'd go about combating that.
User Interface: {gap}. What do you mean there?
Marketing: For R_S_I_? Respet Repetitive strain injury.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: So. But {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm. They think that or do their doctor the doctor says?
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} But it's it's the opinion of the uh of the users huh?
Marketing: Yeah. That's what the report says yeah.
Project Manager: So mm.
Marketing: Um and then it's got a demographic breakdown on {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Maybe y y you cannot put this webpage online on the {disfmarker}
Marketing: Uh I should be able to actually, if I email it to you now.
User Interface: You can disconnect it there
Project Manager: {vocalsound} You can maybe just just {disfmarker}
User Interface: no?
Marketing: Oh no, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Ah it's {vocalsound} it okay it's a webpage on the C_ it's a file
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: okay.
Marketing: Um, s hang on.
Industrial Designer: O otherwise you yeah. You can connect this one.
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: Then you can connect this one or this one yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: All to your computer.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Well.
Industrial Designer: So these are important numbers that Matthew and I need to take into account for our functional um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Oh yeah.
Project Manager: {gap}
Marketing: Oh I need to muck around with this. It's probably easier if you put it on yours and then I'll just email it to you. It's just a web link.
Project Manager: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap}
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah these numbers have have to be have to be taken into account for the uh both yeah user interface and functional design.
User Interface: Hmm. {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: One thing it goes on to talk about, which is interesting, is the {disfmarker} hang on a minute.
Industrial Designer: Because if there are many numbers and we need to select to to constraint uh our design based on what is more important.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yep.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Um, one thing is interesting is talking about um speech recognition in a remote control.
Industrial Designer: Speech recognition in {disfmarker}
Marketing: And who would pay more for that and whether people would find it useful.
Project Manager: D do you have numbers o o on that?
Industrial Designer: Ah okay.
Marketing: Yes, I'll just get this up.
Industrial Designer: So that we don't {disfmarker} Do we not need any button on the remote control {vocalsound}
Marketing: Well potentially yeah, um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: it would be all based on speech.
Marketing: I think even for interesti
Industrial Designer: Okay. Interesting idea.
Marketing: yeah I think that would not work so well. You wanna have both options.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Well it would it would be a solution for uh when your remote control is lost,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: I mean when it has speech recognition then uh i then it doesn't matter where it is, my {disfmarker} well it's {disfmarker} we should be in range,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: or maybe it can respond and produce sound, so say where it is. But the these are all quite fancy features
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: I'm not sure whether we will we can make this for {vocalsound} for twelve Euro fi and fifty cents {vocalsound}.
User Interface: Well it would be f
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: No you can't.
Industrial Designer: And we don't know where the state of the art of speech recognition is, maybe you know?
User Interface: Oh. Well, {vocalsound} it depends you know like there is uh it's a very small vocabulary that you want to do the operations like you want to say on, off, one, two, twenty three,
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: But it's quite noisy if there is the T_V_ uh shouting.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yes,
User Interface: It's it's going to be li
Project Manager: that that that that's mm.
User Interface: it's not going to be s so easy but u usually it's going to be more of an isolated case
Project Manager: Do you have some more important facts
User Interface: but it's {disfmarker} but I don't know with twenty fi
Marketing: Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: or can we go to the next presentation?
Industrial Designer: Okay. So
Marketing: Well {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: you had to to to summarise maybe the {disfmarker}
Marketing: This is now talking about um who would pay for speech recognition in a remote control, who would pay more for it, um. Ninety percent of the fifteen to twenty five year old market said that they would pay more, it goes down from there, seventy six percent for twenty five to thirty five, thirty five percent for thirty five to forty five, um twenty two percent for forty five to fifty five and then eight percent for fifty five to sixty five.
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: Okay it's uh decline.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: But we sh
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Decline with age, mm.
Marketing: Yeah, it really depends where we're gonna be targeting this product, um,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm. {vocalsound}
Marketing: which we'll be talking about later I think.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Yes. We will talk about it later. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Did you get the email?
Project Manager: Okay. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yep, that one.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Just follow that link.
Industrial Designer: {gap} I thi {vocalsound} You us
Marketing: It'll be in a different window, yep.
Industrial Designer: yeah yeah.
Marketing: That's {disfmarker} left {disfmarker} that one.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yep.
Industrial Designer: Okay perfect. . . .
Marketing: Mm. So that's the figure that I was just talking about there, with the different demographics.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Another thing it's talking about there is the L_C_D_ screen but there's no figures apparently on that.
Project Manager: Mm. Okay. {vocalsound} um
Industrial Designer: Mm'kay.
Project Manager: Uh maybe uh Mael c c can you give uh uh your presentation uh?
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Mm I okay
Project Manager: Oh,
Industrial Designer: I stay {disfmarker}
Project Manager: this is {disfmarker}
User Interface: Now you can move I think yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm, y y you can move, uh.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I can move as far as {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Maybe I take your chair?
Project Manager: Yes. You can you can sa take my chair.
Industrial Designer: I okay {vocalsound}.
User Interface: It's a channel selection, a module {gap}, this and this function,
Marketing: Sorry? Oh.
User Interface: go to the {gap}. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So I think as everybody knows uh I'm the uh Industrial Designer. And uh in this presentation uh this group presentation um {vocalsound} is gonna focus on the working design of the the remote control. Um I'd like first to give a quick a very simple introduction, how does it work, so that everybody knows even if you don't have a very uh technical background uh what is it because I think in the product it is important.
Marketing: Mm. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So basically um the basic function of a remote control is to send uh messages to another system that is fixed.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And so an energy source feeds an integrated circuit, the chip, that can compose messages, usually uh through a um infrared bit
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and uh the user interface controls the chip and accordingly the the messages, alright. So my method for um designing the yeah the work design uh yeah first {vocalsound} the the main point is that I would wish to to make a really functional product. I would prefer to have very functional um capabilities rather than fancy stuff that in fact is not used and doesn't work.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: So for that yeah as it's important to take into account the user requirements from the Marketing uh Expert uh Anna
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and um w to to we should agree on what are the technical functions uh for this remote control and I show you the the working design. So um basically uh here is a really large view of what we want {vocalsound}. Uh we want an on off button, it can be uh {disfmarker} it's simple but it's it's important, and also uh {gap} the to both channels as well as other buttons that come after,
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: right. So the components I quickly draw here, is that in this part you have the remote control the the sender and on the other part the receiver so that's {disfmarker} my method is um will be to well my aim would be to uh design the and choose the chips and the infrared um components to build the remote control
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: right.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So of course we need energy sources and uh uh the receiver a a receiver. This is {vocalsound} very quick uh design, uh you stop me or interrupt me if uh you don't agree on it on that.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And um so what I have found and {vocalsound} after a lot of work actually I {vocalsound} I draw this I draw for you this uh schema
Marketing: {vocalsound} Well. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh-huh.
Industrial Designer: that can be maybe too technical for you but is very important for me
Marketing: You drew it a long time ago?
Industrial Designer: you know.
Project Manager: Is huh
Marketing: Ninety one. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} And uh that's it so I won't go into details about that
Project Manager: overwhelming {vocalsound}.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No.
Industrial Designer: but uh these are my preferences to use uh that kind of components.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} And and why do you want these kind of component?
Industrial Designer: So. So
Project Manager: I mean, are they cheap, or are they uh reliable? What were your {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: found and yeah th you have always a compromise with uh reliability and uh i if it's expensive,
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: but uh this one was not this one also really uh reliable um so yeah that's it for the working design, uh I hope you get clearer view on uh what what a remote control is uh in terms of uh technical components
Project Manager: Yes. It it it's more clear now I think.
Industrial Designer: but maybe yeah {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: But is it uh can you just buy it on the market and f plug it in or you want to ma
Industrial Designer: No no no no we we will uh {disfmarker} This is a preference but we can always change uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. What I w what I was thinking about uh the the the schema uh about uh the sender and the receiver, I mean can you can you get back to it?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah uh, the receiver is of course already in the television and we are not uh able to change it. So we we must adapt to the to the receiver.
Industrial Designer: Of course yeah.
Project Manager: I I suppose there is a standard uh way of communicating to televisions uh.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. We will use uh {vocalsound} infrared protocol uh using {vocalsound} yeah infrared and uh and of course we need to adapt to that protocol that already exists
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and but we what we can do is uh uh adapting {vocalsound} the the chips inside uh to the best uh chips and uh infrared bubbles.
Project Manager: Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Yes. Okay.
Industrial Designer: Um. Okay. {gap}
Project Manager: Thank you.
User Interface: Well it to du it's just you had to change the frequencies.
Industrial Designer: The frequencies?
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah. Of course yeah
User Interface: {vocalsound} But you should be careful,
Industrial Designer: in the chip you have it yeah.
User Interface: people are sometime becoming problem, like a guy has recently designed a remote uh uh uh which could switch off any other T_V_s {vocalsound}, so basically {gap} through all the things.
Industrial Designer: That can control o other things. Yeah.
Marketing: Ah.
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: So maybe we should think of {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Of course yeah we should take that into account
Marketing: That's handy.
Project Manager: Yeah yes
Marketing: So if the b T_V_ in the next apartment's really loud, you can just turn it off.
Project Manager: I I I {disfmarker}
User Interface: yeah.
Industrial Designer: in the uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah so you can just go on the street and then switch off everyone's T_V_ {vocalsound} and you can just walk away {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: You don't have to be near the T_V_ at all {vocalsound}.
Marketing: Yeah. I like that idea.
Project Manager: I I feel I I I think M Mael will will consider this uh th these things.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Maybe Maybe we can go to to your presentation uh Matthew.
User Interface: Yeah
Project Manager: I I I assume you were finished here.
User Interface: so {vocalsound}.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Project Manager: Uh okay.
User Interface: Okay. {vocalsound} So I can take I think mine now there.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Okay so voila.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Hmm I can take mine it's okay, voila, mm so mm. Okay.
Project Manager: Oh. I {disfmarker} Uh, sorry? I know where it is.
User Interface: It's on the desktop.
Project Manager: It's uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Technical function.
Project Manager: Yes.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: It's uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Like so.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Well. So um I'm going to talk a little bit about the technical function so wha what actually it's about what is the user going to do, I think my last presented what is going inside,
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yep.
User Interface: so what's the user is going to see from the outside and how he is going to use it. So well the approach is that uh basically the idea is to send a message to the T_V_ set, as Mael has pointed, and it will be decoded by the T_V_ and usually we it is easier to have uh keys or buttons with which people can uh press and then um changing a button will basically uh change the message which is being sent to the T_V_ and uh {vocalsound} um
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: a and basically it sends an internal signal and decoded by the receiver. So p as um Anna has said that this ki people are interested in things which are you don't need to k press the keys, people are can have a speech recognition but this is uh s a question which will we have to see later.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: But in the present scenario is that you have certain keys and you press it like your mobile phone, and it sends a message to the T_V_.
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yep.
User Interface: {vocalsound} And um so generally mm I don't have some figures sorry but um so there are two kinds of uh remote if you popularly in the household, actually so you have a standard T_V_ remote where you have just a on, off button and play, uh volume change and uh keys for the number and more than one digit option. And if you see for example righ right now uh uh even the one uh on more than one digit option is for two digit channel which is like ninety nine, but {vocalsound} tomorrow you might have one fifty channels you know to browse or two hundred channels to browse who knows, but uh uh. Then there is uh {vocalsound} this is the standard one with without any fancy thing you know like i it doesn't have teletext option, it can without any, it's a very simple thing, um which which you can vouch {vocalsound}. And then you have uh what's the v video remote file which is like usually it has almost all the keys over there and, but it then it has other options like stop uh and then you play the movie or uh or fo fast forward the movie or something like that so i it has those
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: so these are the standard uh commonly found remote controls in the uh market. And then {disfmarker} whi which is generally used by the people. And then {vocalsound} well personal preferences I would {disfmarker} uh basically think of having a kind of aim for the next generation thing where the {disfmarker} we could have both the uh the f a T_V_ and the remote {disfmarker} video remote control because uh some of the keys in the video's remote control and the T_V_ they could be integrated together so that uh we could um aim for the like in the f coming future um that type of uh applications with {disfmarker}
Marketing: Okay. How would that work? So you've got say maybe a V_C_R_ and a T_V_ which are separate,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: so you {disfmarker} on my one at home I've got a V_C_R_ remote which then changes the channel on the V_C_R_ and doesn't do anything on the T_V_,
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: so is it gonna be like a switch on the remote that says t use the T_V_ or use the V_C_R_?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: or does it know which one you want to use?
User Interface: Um actually um you could you could think of um having s a y you can have a key which could tell y it could go to the video thing
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: but um uh yo you you you still can't um in that case when it you use that the function should be able to take up the V_C_R_ option
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: and you could play it or {disfmarker} You can also think about having like um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I in a few days you will be ha in in few ye coming years you might even have a system where you have a separate uh sitting setup box
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: and uh you have uh um something like uh uh you do you do you suppose you are not able to watch some programme and actually it downloading all the time for you
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm.
User Interface: and uh you can just you know uh when you come back you could just switch on that thing and uh watch a program.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: In that case you want to browse faster, browse slow, you want to have those kind of functionalities {vocalsound}.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Mm mm mm mm mm.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: These are kind of next generation {vocalsound} functionalities.
User Interface: It's the next generation thing,
Project Manager: Mm yes,
User Interface: but it is going to come in couple of years.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: but I think it's i i it's already there,
User Interface: It's goi
Project Manager: I mean the hard disk uh recorders uh I I've seen them in the shop.
User Interface: Yeah it's {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. So
Industrial Designer: Mm'kay.
User Interface: it's going to record your things and you and you you need basically the functionalities what you need in both uh uh video as well as in the standard T_V_ thing.
Marketing: Mm. Yeah. That's fair enough. Mm. But I don't think we're trying to make a universal remote here. That's,
User Interface: No no we are not making a universal remote,
Marketing: yeah.
User Interface: we are just looking at uh giving a scenario, I have a T_V_ and tomorrow I am going to have set up box
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: which is going to sit there and uh it's going to do that job for me.
Marketing: Mm. Because y
Project Manager: W w w w we need to decide on on on on in how far we go to in this.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm.
Project Manager: Mean, you can go {vocalsound} pretty far I f I think with with with functions and possible uh future p uh prospects
Marketing: Mm. Yep.
Project Manager: yes.
User Interface: Yeah. So {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But it's good to keep in mind.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Okay so that p ends my presentation.
Project Manager: Mm. Very well.
User Interface: Well. So we can always discuss about it for example uh the presently the video market actually uh this demand, video over-demand or what we call it as, it's presently {vocalsound} booming up actually
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm. Yeah.
User Interface: so it i like people are providing like uh things like uh uh movies, you can select actually so you want to watch a movie and uh your p your provider gives a list of movies, and then you select those list.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And it
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: basically you go off, it downloads the movie, it gives for you
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: and then when you come you want to loo watch it on your T_V_.
Project Manager: Good.
User Interface: And thi this is going to come.
Industrial Designer: Or even you don't need to download it, it's streamed uh online uh yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah it can be streamed online for you and you can say what time I want to watch the movie
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah
Project Manager: Um, so u um
User Interface: so. Yeah.
Project Manager: I have uh received some some some some well points of of thinking over of my account manager and uh I would like to share them with you. Um
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: first thing is uh teletext is a well known feature of televisions
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: but it's it's getting used less and less.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: That's that's especially because of the internet of course.
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: So we should think about it um. Do we include it, and do we give it a prominent uh prominent uh place on on on the on well huh on the remote mot control itself.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Uh as uh a in any case it's it's not used, well very much, but it's it is still used. Um
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Um.
Project Manager: further yes we must think, uh do we stay uh to to television only, the television as we as we all know it with with broadcasting signals and you can't go back uh huh, or do we uh uh go further as Matthew indicated by supporting uh uh recording uh devices?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So D_V_D_s and V_C_R_s?
Project Manager: Uh indeed indeed.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: And and and the hard disk recorders. Um, furthermore, uh, w we need really need to interest uh {vocalsound} y younger customers and then with younger customers I mean people uh below the age of forty,
Marketing: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and our our current customers are mainly forty plus
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: uh which well
Industrial Designer: Fourteen
Project Manager: {disfmarker} Forty.
Industrial Designer: or for O okay.
Project Manager: So
Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: that's to that's I mean there's a market but uh they will grow older {disfmarker} older
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and you'll al {vocalsound} always need to have the the future with younger people.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um therefore, {vocalsound} younger people like trendy {disfmarker} trendy designs, so that's w we should make our our our R_C_ as trendy as possible but it should also be uh have a reliable image, so when it looks too too spacey or too fancy people will think well does it work at all.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Hmm.
User Interface: Yeah it's uh well you you can follow the ideas how you want to keep the keys, you know right now if you take it you have like zero, one, two, three like a keys separately,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: but suppose if you take the the present trend of mobile phones there are like big thick keys
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: you press on the top, it takes one number, you press on the bottom it takes another number, and uh basically uh uh so the space covered so that you don't see two separate keys there actually
Industrial Designer: {gap} Mm-hmm.
User Interface: so it it is like uh um i i it is like uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Ma Maybe Maybe you can draw it on the on the board uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm. But I think taking the idea of getting inspiration from mobile phones is interesting, especially if we're going after a younger market,
User Interface: Yeah so.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Hmm. Yes yes
Marketing: that's the the the mm the new and the funky things,
Project Manager: mo
Industrial Designer: Because they are already used to that, you know, product.
Marketing: that's,
Project Manager: Yes it's recognisable {gap}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: yeah, there's lot there's lots of pretty mobile phones, not too many pretty remote controls.
Project Manager: Mm mm.
Marketing: That's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And and they are skilled uh by using it.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: So for example uh {disfmarker} Well uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. . . .
User Interface: Okay, it works. Fine. So, for example you have uh presently uh keys like one, two, three like this, actually, and uh uh four five six like that and uh you can have keys like this in form like uh keys like that
Project Manager: Mael can you hand me over this uh?
Industrial Designer: Yes. {gap}
Project Manager: Uh thank you.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Okay. How much longer have we got for the meeting by the way?
Project Manager: Mm well
Marketing:'Cause we haven't talked about demographic at all
Project Manager: I think fi five min
User Interface: Forty minutes?
Marketing: and it's a very important issue.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah so you you you can have uh keys like uh which are which are like so. {vocalsound} too sorry, so we basically don't change the uh original order of them
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: but then the keys are more spacious,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: they don't look uh {disfmarker} so there there is a very sligh thing, so if you press on the top it takes the one, it takes the three, uh four, sorry four here uh five and six,
Marketing: Mm. Mm.
User Interface: so the keys can be it looks you know not very much cluttered but it looks nice
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: for you don't have too many keys
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: but you can have a lot of options t if you press on the to
Project Manager: Okay.'Kay I I think now that the idea's clear.
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Uh we should now uh try to decide um on our target group.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. Which I think is quite tricky.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Um, basically we're trying to get people to buy a remote control {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: wouldn't they already have a remote control with their television when they buy one?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Of course they have already one. So our our our remote control has to be better.
Marketing: But it's not going to have more functionality,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing:'cause it's only a low market, it's a cheap-end remote control, we can't beat modern functionality, we might {disfmarker} we'll be able to {vocalsound} beat them on th the look of it, th the design of it but that's not a big seller, if they're not just going to buy a new remote control just'cause it looks pretty, they have to actually need it as well.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So I'm not sure how we can get people to buy this thing.
Project Manager: Mm. I {disfmarker} well I think {vocalsound} many people said uh in your in in your research uh uh uh the appearance of the uh R_C_ is is important when they are buying one
Marketing: Mm. Yeah. But why are they buying one in the first place?
Project Manager: but {disfmarker} Indeed. So that will be about functionality {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm. But if people are buying a new remote control for functionality they'll buy a universal remote. I've got friends who've got so many things they need a universal remote, otherwise they're using five different remotes for their all their things.
Project Manager: Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm.
Marketing: In that case they wouldn't buy our product, because it doesn't give them what they need in terms of functionality.
Project Manager: So your you think we should go for a more u universal high-performance {disfmarker}
Marketing: Well, we can't, with the price range. We We're not building a universal remote, we're not building a high end product.
Project Manager: What do {disfmarker} What do you think about {disfmarker} What componen
Industrial Designer: Yeah we have yeah twelve point five Euros uh per uh per R_ s R_C_
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: and I think uh with this now you know that chips are very uh cheaps
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and uh we can include it in our control some new new features.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. And um {disfmarker} But yeah
Marketing: But {disfmarker} yeah. If we're getting into universal remote territory, we're getting to L_C_D_ screens and things like that
Industrial Designer: that's {disfmarker}
Marketing: which would drive the cost up a lot.
Project Manager: I don't know. I don't know whether that's necessary.
Industrial Designer: Ye
Project Manager: Is the L_C_D_ screen {disfmarker}
Marketing: For universal remotes {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I don't think L_C_D_ is not necessary {disfmarker} well, th for long term.
Marketing: If you {disfmarker} mm.
Project Manager: I think thi this could be this could be a market because uh universal remote controls uh tend to be uh quite expensive.
Marketing: And quite complicated to use,
Project Manager: S so we can try to go in between,
Marketing: yes.
Project Manager: and offer a product which is not as expensive and not as complicated
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Not as flexible maybe, yeah, but s
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: yeah.
Project Manager: but but still but still people have the idea this is more functional than a normal uh uh R_C_
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Universal.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: because it has more uh it it is in some kind universal.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: But if we're going for the say fifteen to twenty five age group then not many of them would actually own T_V_s to use a remote control on.
Project Manager: Mm yes but w we're targeting I think on more on the on the twenty to forty group.
Marketing: Okay. So they're {disfmarker} yeah.
Project Manager: People {disfmarker} yes. Who just have or already have a job and have the money but may not want to spend that much money on a on a universal universal control.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. I don't know really what the the price range for remote controls is. Are we gonna be at the very bottom of the price range, or are we kind of middle to bottom? I don't know.
Project Manager: Uh well
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think uh when we think it over I thi I think we are trying to offer the a kind of universal control for for less money.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: So d Do you agree?
User Interface: Well {disfmarker} Well I it's fine with me like the price as long as it is uh not too expensive.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah
User Interface: Uh and it d uh {disfmarker} Our provin
Industrial Designer: because we have to take into account that we are gonna b we are gonna sell uh four aro around four million so when we speak about these numbers uh the price of a chip is {vocalsound} uh price of a chip is very cheap.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So I'm okay for designing um a ne uh less {vocalsound} yeah a a kind of universal uh R_C_ yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. You think it's possible for the twelve Euro fifty?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. Um so then we we decide on on on going to this more universal kind of control.
User Interface: Uh yeah, that's that's what we needed basically.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Mm. Mm. Okay.
User Interface: Uh that's needed right now. And uh basically you can look to the standards of other {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah that's needed, yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And if we want to get the market, we really need that.
Marketing: Yeah. So I guess what I'd like from a universal remote is maybe choosing between three devices, being able to switch between them, there may be stereo, V_C_R_ and T_V_.
User Interface: Actu
Industrial Designer: Yes. Exactly. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: And just be able to s use them all from the same remote, but not at the same time.
Project Manager: Yes.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah you can also browse through all the standards you know, where are the limit of standards for all of them and you can just browse through them.
Industrial Designer: Is that okay for you? Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm mm mm mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: So given we are going for this uh uh universal type uh m {vocalsound} maybe it is good when you try to find out which components you therefore need and y you will try to get more specific uh user interface content
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Okay. Okay.
Project Manager: and uh maybe you can look on on what trends are in this uh in this type of market.
Marketing: Mm-hmm yep.
User Interface: Voila {vocalsound}. Hmm.
Project Manager: So anyone uh has a point to bring in
User Interface: So. Well.
Project Manager: or shall we {disfmarker} no.
User Interface: Oh I don't have anything right now. We can we'll we'll go
Industrial Designer: Oh
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: that's that's fine then.
User Interface: and we'll I'm sure we'll up something good
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: W yes,
User Interface: for the {vocalsound}
Project Manager: we uh we can have lunch now.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So um Then th th the next meeting will uh
User Interface: Yeah so we meet in {disfmarker} well {vocalsound} what are our {disfmarker}
Project Manager: after lunch you have uh we have uh thirty minutes of work and then we have the next meeting. But you will be informed via the computer.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Cool. So see you later.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay {vocalsound} perfect. | First of all, Project Manager launched a discussion about video over-demand, during which User Interface and Industrial Designer mentioned some fancy functions like downloading and streamlining. Then, Project Manager announced that according to the account manager, teletext could be included in the discussion, though its obsolescence incurred doubts over its usability and necessity. After that, Project Manager offered a choice question between television and further recording devices represented by DVDs, VCRs, and hard disk recorders. Finally, to cater for the younger people, User Interface devised big thick keys for RC in imitation of mobile phones, which received positive feedback from other team members. | qmsum |
Summarize the group discussion about the target group and corresponding functionalities.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: So I see all everybody's here,'kay.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Project Manager: And we can start meeting.
User Interface: Okay {vocalsound}.
Marketing: What's the agenda for this meeting?
Project Manager: The {disfmarker} I will uh present here agenda with with with with slides to you.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Um as you can see here.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Perfect.
Project Manager: So first uh just to mention I will take notes uh of this meeting
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and uh I will try to work them out and give them to you. I've also made notes of the previous meeting and um I was about to send them you but {vocalsound} then uh I had to go to this uh meeting so you will get them too uh
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Next.
Project Manager: Um.
Industrial Designer: So y you are the secretary also.
Project Manager: Yes. Indeed.
Industrial Designer: Right? Okay.
Project Manager: Then I hope you all have uh worked out {vocalsound} some some uh {vocalsound} some some presentations about uh about well you the the task given to you in the previous meeting.
Industrial Designer: Perfectly yeah yeah of course uh-huh.
User Interface: {gap}
Project Manager: Um. W We will uh in a minute we will uh {vocalsound} start with them. Um, we will see in which order we will handle them of. Um then I will uh bring in some some some new requirements I I got uh from the uh account manager, I try to work them out, they were quite abstract, and we can have maybe have com some discussion about it. Uh Um about the functions
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and {disfmarker} Well in this meeting we should really {vocalsound} try to reach a decision about the target group and the functionality of the {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: You mean the social target group who we wants to target?
Project Manager: Yes I mean well yes w who are we going to uh to well to sell this,
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: {gap}
Industrial Designer: Oh the customers, okay.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: the customers, indeed yes. Think that's that's important matter.
Marketing: That's the big question yeah.
Project Manager: Uh. {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} And then uh we will close this meeting uh
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and after this meeting we'll uh we'll have a lunch. Good. Um. Maybe um why uh Anna can you c do you have a presentations?
Marketing: No, I don't.
Project Manager: You don't have presentation?
Marketing: I wasn't. No.
Project Manager: Uh you want a table to to uh
Marketing: I c I can talk about it but I have no slides or anything.
Project Manager: Yes yes maybe maybe you can uh can just talk about it or maybe you can use the whiteboard if necessary um.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Well I've just been um presented with some research we've done in a small focus group so, a hundred people, just asked them about their remote control usage habits and what they want in a remote control. Um. It's {disfmarker} probably can't email this to you, I've just got a web page with some data on it. Um basically it's saying that users generally dislike the look and feel of their remote controls. Um seventy five u seventy five percent of users find most remote controls ugly. Um.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Eighty percent of users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy. Um. Current remote controls do not match well the operating behaviour of the user. Uh seventy five percent of users said they zap a lot, so they use their remote control quite frequently while they're watching television. Uh. Fifty percent of users say that they only use ten percent of the buttons, so they've got a remote control with a lot of functionality but really most of the time they only use a small part of that.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: Um.
Project Manager: Do you Do you have this uh information on the web page you said?
Marketing: I have an a web page yes.
Project Manager: Yes, mayb maybe you can can send an email to me later uh. Uh about this.
Marketing: Yep. Yep, sure. Mm-hmm. So basically um there's a breakdown of how much they use the different functions on a rem remote control. Um, power and volume selection are only used a few times within this uh per hour. Um, channel selection is used a hundred and sixty eight times um {vocalsound} and then there's things like channel settings, audio settings, which are only used very infrequently.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: Um. Teletext is used um fourteen times in the hour, so it is used but not nearly as much as the channel selection is used. Um.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: An interesting thing that this report has brought up is that um fifty fifty percent of users report that the remote control gets lost a lot of the time in the room, so some way of some way of locating the remote control would be very useful to a lot of users. Um.
Project Manager: Yes yes, I have {vocalsound} that too {vocalsound}.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Thirty four percent said it takes too long to learn to use a remote control, they want something that's easier to use straight away, more intuitive perhaps.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: Um.
Industrial Designer: It's it's easy to learn or how do you say it's {disfmarker}
Marketing: Thirty four percent said it took too much time to learn to use a new one. Yep.
Industrial Designer: Okay too much time to learn. Okay.
Marketing: Um. And thirty {disfmarker} twenty six percent said remote controls are bad for R_S_I_.
Industrial Designer: Not enough {gap}
Marketing: I don't know how we'd go about combating that.
User Interface: {gap}. What do you mean there?
Marketing: For R_S_I_? Respet Repetitive strain injury.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: So. But {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm. They think that or do their doctor the doctor says?
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} But it's it's the opinion of the uh of the users huh?
Marketing: Yeah. That's what the report says yeah.
Project Manager: So mm.
Marketing: Um and then it's got a demographic breakdown on {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Maybe y y you cannot put this webpage online on the {disfmarker}
Marketing: Uh I should be able to actually, if I email it to you now.
User Interface: You can disconnect it there
Project Manager: {vocalsound} You can maybe just just {disfmarker}
User Interface: no?
Marketing: Oh no, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Ah it's {vocalsound} it okay it's a webpage on the C_ it's a file
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: okay.
Marketing: Um, s hang on.
Industrial Designer: O otherwise you yeah. You can connect this one.
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: Then you can connect this one or this one yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: All to your computer.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Well.
Industrial Designer: So these are important numbers that Matthew and I need to take into account for our functional um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Oh yeah.
Project Manager: {gap}
Marketing: Oh I need to muck around with this. It's probably easier if you put it on yours and then I'll just email it to you. It's just a web link.
Project Manager: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap}
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah these numbers have have to be have to be taken into account for the uh both yeah user interface and functional design.
User Interface: Hmm. {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: One thing it goes on to talk about, which is interesting, is the {disfmarker} hang on a minute.
Industrial Designer: Because if there are many numbers and we need to select to to constraint uh our design based on what is more important.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yep.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Um, one thing is interesting is talking about um speech recognition in a remote control.
Industrial Designer: Speech recognition in {disfmarker}
Marketing: And who would pay more for that and whether people would find it useful.
Project Manager: D do you have numbers o o on that?
Industrial Designer: Ah okay.
Marketing: Yes, I'll just get this up.
Industrial Designer: So that we don't {disfmarker} Do we not need any button on the remote control {vocalsound}
Marketing: Well potentially yeah, um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: it would be all based on speech.
Marketing: I think even for interesti
Industrial Designer: Okay. Interesting idea.
Marketing: yeah I think that would not work so well. You wanna have both options.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Well it would it would be a solution for uh when your remote control is lost,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: I mean when it has speech recognition then uh i then it doesn't matter where it is, my {disfmarker} well it's {disfmarker} we should be in range,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: or maybe it can respond and produce sound, so say where it is. But the these are all quite fancy features
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: I'm not sure whether we will we can make this for {vocalsound} for twelve Euro fi and fifty cents {vocalsound}.
User Interface: Well it would be f
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: No you can't.
Industrial Designer: And we don't know where the state of the art of speech recognition is, maybe you know?
User Interface: Oh. Well, {vocalsound} it depends you know like there is uh it's a very small vocabulary that you want to do the operations like you want to say on, off, one, two, twenty three,
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: But it's quite noisy if there is the T_V_ uh shouting.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yes,
User Interface: It's it's going to be li
Project Manager: that that that that's mm.
User Interface: it's not going to be s so easy but u usually it's going to be more of an isolated case
Project Manager: Do you have some more important facts
User Interface: but it's {disfmarker} but I don't know with twenty fi
Marketing: Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: or can we go to the next presentation?
Industrial Designer: Okay. So
Marketing: Well {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: you had to to to summarise maybe the {disfmarker}
Marketing: This is now talking about um who would pay for speech recognition in a remote control, who would pay more for it, um. Ninety percent of the fifteen to twenty five year old market said that they would pay more, it goes down from there, seventy six percent for twenty five to thirty five, thirty five percent for thirty five to forty five, um twenty two percent for forty five to fifty five and then eight percent for fifty five to sixty five.
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: Okay it's uh decline.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: But we sh
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Decline with age, mm.
Marketing: Yeah, it really depends where we're gonna be targeting this product, um,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm. {vocalsound}
Marketing: which we'll be talking about later I think.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Yes. We will talk about it later. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Did you get the email?
Project Manager: Okay. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yep, that one.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Just follow that link.
Industrial Designer: {gap} I thi {vocalsound} You us
Marketing: It'll be in a different window, yep.
Industrial Designer: yeah yeah.
Marketing: That's {disfmarker} left {disfmarker} that one.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yep.
Industrial Designer: Okay perfect. . . .
Marketing: Mm. So that's the figure that I was just talking about there, with the different demographics.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Another thing it's talking about there is the L_C_D_ screen but there's no figures apparently on that.
Project Manager: Mm. Okay. {vocalsound} um
Industrial Designer: Mm'kay.
Project Manager: Uh maybe uh Mael c c can you give uh uh your presentation uh?
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Mm I okay
Project Manager: Oh,
Industrial Designer: I stay {disfmarker}
Project Manager: this is {disfmarker}
User Interface: Now you can move I think yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm, y y you can move, uh.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I can move as far as {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Maybe I take your chair?
Project Manager: Yes. You can you can sa take my chair.
Industrial Designer: I okay {vocalsound}.
User Interface: It's a channel selection, a module {gap}, this and this function,
Marketing: Sorry? Oh.
User Interface: go to the {gap}. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So I think as everybody knows uh I'm the uh Industrial Designer. And uh in this presentation uh this group presentation um {vocalsound} is gonna focus on the working design of the the remote control. Um I'd like first to give a quick a very simple introduction, how does it work, so that everybody knows even if you don't have a very uh technical background uh what is it because I think in the product it is important.
Marketing: Mm. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So basically um the basic function of a remote control is to send uh messages to another system that is fixed.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And so an energy source feeds an integrated circuit, the chip, that can compose messages, usually uh through a um infrared bit
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and uh the user interface controls the chip and accordingly the the messages, alright. So my method for um designing the yeah the work design uh yeah first {vocalsound} the the main point is that I would wish to to make a really functional product. I would prefer to have very functional um capabilities rather than fancy stuff that in fact is not used and doesn't work.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: So for that yeah as it's important to take into account the user requirements from the Marketing uh Expert uh Anna
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and um w to to we should agree on what are the technical functions uh for this remote control and I show you the the working design. So um basically uh here is a really large view of what we want {vocalsound}. Uh we want an on off button, it can be uh {disfmarker} it's simple but it's it's important, and also uh {gap} the to both channels as well as other buttons that come after,
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: right. So the components I quickly draw here, is that in this part you have the remote control the the sender and on the other part the receiver so that's {disfmarker} my method is um will be to well my aim would be to uh design the and choose the chips and the infrared um components to build the remote control
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: right.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So of course we need energy sources and uh uh the receiver a a receiver. This is {vocalsound} very quick uh design, uh you stop me or interrupt me if uh you don't agree on it on that.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And um so what I have found and {vocalsound} after a lot of work actually I {vocalsound} I draw this I draw for you this uh schema
Marketing: {vocalsound} Well. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh-huh.
Industrial Designer: that can be maybe too technical for you but is very important for me
Marketing: You drew it a long time ago?
Industrial Designer: you know.
Project Manager: Is huh
Marketing: Ninety one. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} And uh that's it so I won't go into details about that
Project Manager: overwhelming {vocalsound}.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No.
Industrial Designer: but uh these are my preferences to use uh that kind of components.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} And and why do you want these kind of component?
Industrial Designer: So. So
Project Manager: I mean, are they cheap, or are they uh reliable? What were your {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: found and yeah th you have always a compromise with uh reliability and uh i if it's expensive,
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: but uh this one was not this one also really uh reliable um so yeah that's it for the working design, uh I hope you get clearer view on uh what what a remote control is uh in terms of uh technical components
Project Manager: Yes. It it it's more clear now I think.
Industrial Designer: but maybe yeah {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: But is it uh can you just buy it on the market and f plug it in or you want to ma
Industrial Designer: No no no no we we will uh {disfmarker} This is a preference but we can always change uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. What I w what I was thinking about uh the the the schema uh about uh the sender and the receiver, I mean can you can you get back to it?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah uh, the receiver is of course already in the television and we are not uh able to change it. So we we must adapt to the to the receiver.
Industrial Designer: Of course yeah.
Project Manager: I I suppose there is a standard uh way of communicating to televisions uh.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. We will use uh {vocalsound} infrared protocol uh using {vocalsound} yeah infrared and uh and of course we need to adapt to that protocol that already exists
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and but we what we can do is uh uh adapting {vocalsound} the the chips inside uh to the best uh chips and uh infrared bubbles.
Project Manager: Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Yes. Okay.
Industrial Designer: Um. Okay. {gap}
Project Manager: Thank you.
User Interface: Well it to du it's just you had to change the frequencies.
Industrial Designer: The frequencies?
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah. Of course yeah
User Interface: {vocalsound} But you should be careful,
Industrial Designer: in the chip you have it yeah.
User Interface: people are sometime becoming problem, like a guy has recently designed a remote uh uh uh which could switch off any other T_V_s {vocalsound}, so basically {gap} through all the things.
Industrial Designer: That can control o other things. Yeah.
Marketing: Ah.
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: So maybe we should think of {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Of course yeah we should take that into account
Marketing: That's handy.
Project Manager: Yeah yes
Marketing: So if the b T_V_ in the next apartment's really loud, you can just turn it off.
Project Manager: I I I {disfmarker}
User Interface: yeah.
Industrial Designer: in the uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah so you can just go on the street and then switch off everyone's T_V_ {vocalsound} and you can just walk away {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: You don't have to be near the T_V_ at all {vocalsound}.
Marketing: Yeah. I like that idea.
Project Manager: I I feel I I I think M Mael will will consider this uh th these things.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Maybe Maybe we can go to to your presentation uh Matthew.
User Interface: Yeah
Project Manager: I I I assume you were finished here.
User Interface: so {vocalsound}.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Project Manager: Uh okay.
User Interface: Okay. {vocalsound} So I can take I think mine now there.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Okay so voila.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Hmm I can take mine it's okay, voila, mm so mm. Okay.
Project Manager: Oh. I {disfmarker} Uh, sorry? I know where it is.
User Interface: It's on the desktop.
Project Manager: It's uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Technical function.
Project Manager: Yes.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: It's uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Like so.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Well. So um I'm going to talk a little bit about the technical function so wha what actually it's about what is the user going to do, I think my last presented what is going inside,
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yep.
User Interface: so what's the user is going to see from the outside and how he is going to use it. So well the approach is that uh basically the idea is to send a message to the T_V_ set, as Mael has pointed, and it will be decoded by the T_V_ and usually we it is easier to have uh keys or buttons with which people can uh press and then um changing a button will basically uh change the message which is being sent to the T_V_ and uh {vocalsound} um
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: a and basically it sends an internal signal and decoded by the receiver. So p as um Anna has said that this ki people are interested in things which are you don't need to k press the keys, people are can have a speech recognition but this is uh s a question which will we have to see later.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: But in the present scenario is that you have certain keys and you press it like your mobile phone, and it sends a message to the T_V_.
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yep.
User Interface: {vocalsound} And um so generally mm I don't have some figures sorry but um so there are two kinds of uh remote if you popularly in the household, actually so you have a standard T_V_ remote where you have just a on, off button and play, uh volume change and uh keys for the number and more than one digit option. And if you see for example righ right now uh uh even the one uh on more than one digit option is for two digit channel which is like ninety nine, but {vocalsound} tomorrow you might have one fifty channels you know to browse or two hundred channels to browse who knows, but uh uh. Then there is uh {vocalsound} this is the standard one with without any fancy thing you know like i it doesn't have teletext option, it can without any, it's a very simple thing, um which which you can vouch {vocalsound}. And then you have uh what's the v video remote file which is like usually it has almost all the keys over there and, but it then it has other options like stop uh and then you play the movie or uh or fo fast forward the movie or something like that so i it has those
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: so these are the standard uh commonly found remote controls in the uh market. And then {disfmarker} whi which is generally used by the people. And then {vocalsound} well personal preferences I would {disfmarker} uh basically think of having a kind of aim for the next generation thing where the {disfmarker} we could have both the uh the f a T_V_ and the remote {disfmarker} video remote control because uh some of the keys in the video's remote control and the T_V_ they could be integrated together so that uh we could um aim for the like in the f coming future um that type of uh applications with {disfmarker}
Marketing: Okay. How would that work? So you've got say maybe a V_C_R_ and a T_V_ which are separate,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: so you {disfmarker} on my one at home I've got a V_C_R_ remote which then changes the channel on the V_C_R_ and doesn't do anything on the T_V_,
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: so is it gonna be like a switch on the remote that says t use the T_V_ or use the V_C_R_?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: or does it know which one you want to use?
User Interface: Um actually um you could you could think of um having s a y you can have a key which could tell y it could go to the video thing
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: but um uh yo you you you still can't um in that case when it you use that the function should be able to take up the V_C_R_ option
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: and you could play it or {disfmarker} You can also think about having like um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I in a few days you will be ha in in few ye coming years you might even have a system where you have a separate uh sitting setup box
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: and uh you have uh um something like uh uh you do you do you suppose you are not able to watch some programme and actually it downloading all the time for you
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm.
User Interface: and uh you can just you know uh when you come back you could just switch on that thing and uh watch a program.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: In that case you want to browse faster, browse slow, you want to have those kind of functionalities {vocalsound}.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Mm mm mm mm mm.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: These are kind of next generation {vocalsound} functionalities.
User Interface: It's the next generation thing,
Project Manager: Mm yes,
User Interface: but it is going to come in couple of years.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: but I think it's i i it's already there,
User Interface: It's goi
Project Manager: I mean the hard disk uh recorders uh I I've seen them in the shop.
User Interface: Yeah it's {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. So
Industrial Designer: Mm'kay.
User Interface: it's going to record your things and you and you you need basically the functionalities what you need in both uh uh video as well as in the standard T_V_ thing.
Marketing: Mm. Yeah. That's fair enough. Mm. But I don't think we're trying to make a universal remote here. That's,
User Interface: No no we are not making a universal remote,
Marketing: yeah.
User Interface: we are just looking at uh giving a scenario, I have a T_V_ and tomorrow I am going to have set up box
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: which is going to sit there and uh it's going to do that job for me.
Marketing: Mm. Because y
Project Manager: W w w w we need to decide on on on on in how far we go to in this.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm.
Project Manager: Mean, you can go {vocalsound} pretty far I f I think with with with functions and possible uh future p uh prospects
Marketing: Mm. Yep.
Project Manager: yes.
User Interface: Yeah. So {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But it's good to keep in mind.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Okay so that p ends my presentation.
Project Manager: Mm. Very well.
User Interface: Well. So we can always discuss about it for example uh the presently the video market actually uh this demand, video over-demand or what we call it as, it's presently {vocalsound} booming up actually
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm. Yeah.
User Interface: so it i like people are providing like uh things like uh uh movies, you can select actually so you want to watch a movie and uh your p your provider gives a list of movies, and then you select those list.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And it
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: basically you go off, it downloads the movie, it gives for you
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: and then when you come you want to loo watch it on your T_V_.
Project Manager: Good.
User Interface: And thi this is going to come.
Industrial Designer: Or even you don't need to download it, it's streamed uh online uh yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah it can be streamed online for you and you can say what time I want to watch the movie
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah
Project Manager: Um, so u um
User Interface: so. Yeah.
Project Manager: I have uh received some some some some well points of of thinking over of my account manager and uh I would like to share them with you. Um
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: first thing is uh teletext is a well known feature of televisions
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: but it's it's getting used less and less.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: That's that's especially because of the internet of course.
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: So we should think about it um. Do we include it, and do we give it a prominent uh prominent uh place on on on the on well huh on the remote mot control itself.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Uh as uh a in any case it's it's not used, well very much, but it's it is still used. Um
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Um.
Project Manager: further yes we must think, uh do we stay uh to to television only, the television as we as we all know it with with broadcasting signals and you can't go back uh huh, or do we uh uh go further as Matthew indicated by supporting uh uh recording uh devices?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So D_V_D_s and V_C_R_s?
Project Manager: Uh indeed indeed.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: And and and the hard disk recorders. Um, furthermore, uh, w we need really need to interest uh {vocalsound} y younger customers and then with younger customers I mean people uh below the age of forty,
Marketing: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and our our current customers are mainly forty plus
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: uh which well
Industrial Designer: Fourteen
Project Manager: {disfmarker} Forty.
Industrial Designer: or for O okay.
Project Manager: So
Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: that's to that's I mean there's a market but uh they will grow older {disfmarker} older
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and you'll al {vocalsound} always need to have the the future with younger people.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um therefore, {vocalsound} younger people like trendy {disfmarker} trendy designs, so that's w we should make our our our R_C_ as trendy as possible but it should also be uh have a reliable image, so when it looks too too spacey or too fancy people will think well does it work at all.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Hmm.
User Interface: Yeah it's uh well you you can follow the ideas how you want to keep the keys, you know right now if you take it you have like zero, one, two, three like a keys separately,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: but suppose if you take the the present trend of mobile phones there are like big thick keys
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: you press on the top, it takes one number, you press on the bottom it takes another number, and uh basically uh uh so the space covered so that you don't see two separate keys there actually
Industrial Designer: {gap} Mm-hmm.
User Interface: so it it is like uh um i i it is like uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Ma Maybe Maybe you can draw it on the on the board uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm. But I think taking the idea of getting inspiration from mobile phones is interesting, especially if we're going after a younger market,
User Interface: Yeah so.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Hmm. Yes yes
Marketing: that's the the the mm the new and the funky things,
Project Manager: mo
Industrial Designer: Because they are already used to that, you know, product.
Marketing: that's,
Project Manager: Yes it's recognisable {gap}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: yeah, there's lot there's lots of pretty mobile phones, not too many pretty remote controls.
Project Manager: Mm mm.
Marketing: That's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And and they are skilled uh by using it.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: So for example uh {disfmarker} Well uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. . . .
User Interface: Okay, it works. Fine. So, for example you have uh presently uh keys like one, two, three like this, actually, and uh uh four five six like that and uh you can have keys like this in form like uh keys like that
Project Manager: Mael can you hand me over this uh?
Industrial Designer: Yes. {gap}
Project Manager: Uh thank you.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Okay. How much longer have we got for the meeting by the way?
Project Manager: Mm well
Marketing:'Cause we haven't talked about demographic at all
Project Manager: I think fi five min
User Interface: Forty minutes?
Marketing: and it's a very important issue.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah so you you you can have uh keys like uh which are which are like so. {vocalsound} too sorry, so we basically don't change the uh original order of them
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: but then the keys are more spacious,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: they don't look uh {disfmarker} so there there is a very sligh thing, so if you press on the top it takes the one, it takes the three, uh four, sorry four here uh five and six,
Marketing: Mm. Mm.
User Interface: so the keys can be it looks you know not very much cluttered but it looks nice
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: for you don't have too many keys
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: but you can have a lot of options t if you press on the to
Project Manager: Okay.'Kay I I think now that the idea's clear.
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Uh we should now uh try to decide um on our target group.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. Which I think is quite tricky.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Um, basically we're trying to get people to buy a remote control {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: wouldn't they already have a remote control with their television when they buy one?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Of course they have already one. So our our our remote control has to be better.
Marketing: But it's not going to have more functionality,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing:'cause it's only a low market, it's a cheap-end remote control, we can't beat modern functionality, we might {disfmarker} we'll be able to {vocalsound} beat them on th the look of it, th the design of it but that's not a big seller, if they're not just going to buy a new remote control just'cause it looks pretty, they have to actually need it as well.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So I'm not sure how we can get people to buy this thing.
Project Manager: Mm. I {disfmarker} well I think {vocalsound} many people said uh in your in in your research uh uh uh the appearance of the uh R_C_ is is important when they are buying one
Marketing: Mm. Yeah. But why are they buying one in the first place?
Project Manager: but {disfmarker} Indeed. So that will be about functionality {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm. But if people are buying a new remote control for functionality they'll buy a universal remote. I've got friends who've got so many things they need a universal remote, otherwise they're using five different remotes for their all their things.
Project Manager: Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm.
Marketing: In that case they wouldn't buy our product, because it doesn't give them what they need in terms of functionality.
Project Manager: So your you think we should go for a more u universal high-performance {disfmarker}
Marketing: Well, we can't, with the price range. We We're not building a universal remote, we're not building a high end product.
Project Manager: What do {disfmarker} What do you think about {disfmarker} What componen
Industrial Designer: Yeah we have yeah twelve point five Euros uh per uh per R_ s R_C_
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: and I think uh with this now you know that chips are very uh cheaps
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and uh we can include it in our control some new new features.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. And um {disfmarker} But yeah
Marketing: But {disfmarker} yeah. If we're getting into universal remote territory, we're getting to L_C_D_ screens and things like that
Industrial Designer: that's {disfmarker}
Marketing: which would drive the cost up a lot.
Project Manager: I don't know. I don't know whether that's necessary.
Industrial Designer: Ye
Project Manager: Is the L_C_D_ screen {disfmarker}
Marketing: For universal remotes {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I don't think L_C_D_ is not necessary {disfmarker} well, th for long term.
Marketing: If you {disfmarker} mm.
Project Manager: I think thi this could be this could be a market because uh universal remote controls uh tend to be uh quite expensive.
Marketing: And quite complicated to use,
Project Manager: S so we can try to go in between,
Marketing: yes.
Project Manager: and offer a product which is not as expensive and not as complicated
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Not as flexible maybe, yeah, but s
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: yeah.
Project Manager: but but still but still people have the idea this is more functional than a normal uh uh R_C_
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Universal.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: because it has more uh it it is in some kind universal.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: But if we're going for the say fifteen to twenty five age group then not many of them would actually own T_V_s to use a remote control on.
Project Manager: Mm yes but w we're targeting I think on more on the on the twenty to forty group.
Marketing: Okay. So they're {disfmarker} yeah.
Project Manager: People {disfmarker} yes. Who just have or already have a job and have the money but may not want to spend that much money on a on a universal universal control.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. I don't know really what the the price range for remote controls is. Are we gonna be at the very bottom of the price range, or are we kind of middle to bottom? I don't know.
Project Manager: Uh well
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think uh when we think it over I thi I think we are trying to offer the a kind of universal control for for less money.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: So d Do you agree?
User Interface: Well {disfmarker} Well I it's fine with me like the price as long as it is uh not too expensive.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah
User Interface: Uh and it d uh {disfmarker} Our provin
Industrial Designer: because we have to take into account that we are gonna b we are gonna sell uh four aro around four million so when we speak about these numbers uh the price of a chip is {vocalsound} uh price of a chip is very cheap.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So I'm okay for designing um a ne uh less {vocalsound} yeah a a kind of universal uh R_C_ yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. You think it's possible for the twelve Euro fifty?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. Um so then we we decide on on on going to this more universal kind of control.
User Interface: Uh yeah, that's that's what we needed basically.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Mm. Mm. Okay.
User Interface: Uh that's needed right now. And uh basically you can look to the standards of other {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah that's needed, yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And if we want to get the market, we really need that.
Marketing: Yeah. So I guess what I'd like from a universal remote is maybe choosing between three devices, being able to switch between them, there may be stereo, V_C_R_ and T_V_.
User Interface: Actu
Industrial Designer: Yes. Exactly. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: And just be able to s use them all from the same remote, but not at the same time.
Project Manager: Yes.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah you can also browse through all the standards you know, where are the limit of standards for all of them and you can just browse through them.
Industrial Designer: Is that okay for you? Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm mm mm mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: So given we are going for this uh uh universal type uh m {vocalsound} maybe it is good when you try to find out which components you therefore need and y you will try to get more specific uh user interface content
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Okay. Okay.
Project Manager: and uh maybe you can look on on what trends are in this uh in this type of market.
Marketing: Mm-hmm yep.
User Interface: Voila {vocalsound}. Hmm.
Project Manager: So anyone uh has a point to bring in
User Interface: So. Well.
Project Manager: or shall we {disfmarker} no.
User Interface: Oh I don't have anything right now. We can we'll we'll go
Industrial Designer: Oh
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: that's that's fine then.
User Interface: and we'll I'm sure we'll up something good
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: W yes,
User Interface: for the {vocalsound}
Project Manager: we uh we can have lunch now.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So um Then th th the next meeting will uh
User Interface: Yeah so we meet in {disfmarker} well {vocalsound} what are our {disfmarker}
Project Manager: after lunch you have uh we have uh thirty minutes of work and then we have the next meeting. But you will be informed via the computer.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Cool. So see you later.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay {vocalsound} perfect. | When Projected Manager announced that the group should decide on the target group, Marketing thought that with a tight budget, the functionality of the product would be greatly restricted. Hence, only a low market could be reached. However, after a brief discussion about LCR screen, Project Manager brought back the idea of universal remote control, and the group reached a consensus on the feasibility of designing a basic universal remote control at a low cost. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: So I see all everybody's here,'kay.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Project Manager: And we can start meeting.
User Interface: Okay {vocalsound}.
Marketing: What's the agenda for this meeting?
Project Manager: The {disfmarker} I will uh present here agenda with with with with slides to you.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Um as you can see here.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Perfect.
Project Manager: So first uh just to mention I will take notes uh of this meeting
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and uh I will try to work them out and give them to you. I've also made notes of the previous meeting and um I was about to send them you but {vocalsound} then uh I had to go to this uh meeting so you will get them too uh
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Next.
Project Manager: Um.
Industrial Designer: So y you are the secretary also.
Project Manager: Yes. Indeed.
Industrial Designer: Right? Okay.
Project Manager: Then I hope you all have uh worked out {vocalsound} some some uh {vocalsound} some some presentations about uh about well you the the task given to you in the previous meeting.
Industrial Designer: Perfectly yeah yeah of course uh-huh.
User Interface: {gap}
Project Manager: Um. W We will uh in a minute we will uh {vocalsound} start with them. Um, we will see in which order we will handle them of. Um then I will uh bring in some some some new requirements I I got uh from the uh account manager, I try to work them out, they were quite abstract, and we can have maybe have com some discussion about it. Uh Um about the functions
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and {disfmarker} Well in this meeting we should really {vocalsound} try to reach a decision about the target group and the functionality of the {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: You mean the social target group who we wants to target?
Project Manager: Yes I mean well yes w who are we going to uh to well to sell this,
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: {gap}
Industrial Designer: Oh the customers, okay.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: the customers, indeed yes. Think that's that's important matter.
Marketing: That's the big question yeah.
Project Manager: Uh. {vocalsound} So {vocalsound} And then uh we will close this meeting uh
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and after this meeting we'll uh we'll have a lunch. Good. Um. Maybe um why uh Anna can you c do you have a presentations?
Marketing: No, I don't.
Project Manager: You don't have presentation?
Marketing: I wasn't. No.
Project Manager: Uh you want a table to to uh
Marketing: I c I can talk about it but I have no slides or anything.
Project Manager: Yes yes maybe maybe you can uh can just talk about it or maybe you can use the whiteboard if necessary um.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Well I've just been um presented with some research we've done in a small focus group so, a hundred people, just asked them about their remote control usage habits and what they want in a remote control. Um. It's {disfmarker} probably can't email this to you, I've just got a web page with some data on it. Um basically it's saying that users generally dislike the look and feel of their remote controls. Um seventy five u seventy five percent of users find most remote controls ugly. Um.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Eighty percent of users would spend more money when a remote control would look fancy. Um. Current remote controls do not match well the operating behaviour of the user. Uh seventy five percent of users said they zap a lot, so they use their remote control quite frequently while they're watching television. Uh. Fifty percent of users say that they only use ten percent of the buttons, so they've got a remote control with a lot of functionality but really most of the time they only use a small part of that.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: Um.
Project Manager: Do you Do you have this uh information on the web page you said?
Marketing: I have an a web page yes.
Project Manager: Yes, mayb maybe you can can send an email to me later uh. Uh about this.
Marketing: Yep. Yep, sure. Mm-hmm. So basically um there's a breakdown of how much they use the different functions on a rem remote control. Um, power and volume selection are only used a few times within this uh per hour. Um, channel selection is used a hundred and sixty eight times um {vocalsound} and then there's things like channel settings, audio settings, which are only used very infrequently.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: Um. Teletext is used um fourteen times in the hour, so it is used but not nearly as much as the channel selection is used. Um.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: An interesting thing that this report has brought up is that um fifty fifty percent of users report that the remote control gets lost a lot of the time in the room, so some way of some way of locating the remote control would be very useful to a lot of users. Um.
Project Manager: Yes yes, I have {vocalsound} that too {vocalsound}.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Thirty four percent said it takes too long to learn to use a remote control, they want something that's easier to use straight away, more intuitive perhaps.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: Um.
Industrial Designer: It's it's easy to learn or how do you say it's {disfmarker}
Marketing: Thirty four percent said it took too much time to learn to use a new one. Yep.
Industrial Designer: Okay too much time to learn. Okay.
Marketing: Um. And thirty {disfmarker} twenty six percent said remote controls are bad for R_S_I_.
Industrial Designer: Not enough {gap}
Marketing: I don't know how we'd go about combating that.
User Interface: {gap}. What do you mean there?
Marketing: For R_S_I_? Respet Repetitive strain injury.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: So. But {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm. They think that or do their doctor the doctor says?
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} But it's it's the opinion of the uh of the users huh?
Marketing: Yeah. That's what the report says yeah.
Project Manager: So mm.
Marketing: Um and then it's got a demographic breakdown on {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Maybe y y you cannot put this webpage online on the {disfmarker}
Marketing: Uh I should be able to actually, if I email it to you now.
User Interface: You can disconnect it there
Project Manager: {vocalsound} You can maybe just just {disfmarker}
User Interface: no?
Marketing: Oh no, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Ah it's {vocalsound} it okay it's a webpage on the C_ it's a file
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: okay.
Marketing: Um, s hang on.
Industrial Designer: O otherwise you yeah. You can connect this one.
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: Then you can connect this one or this one yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: All to your computer.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Well.
Industrial Designer: So these are important numbers that Matthew and I need to take into account for our functional um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Oh yeah.
Project Manager: {gap}
Marketing: Oh I need to muck around with this. It's probably easier if you put it on yours and then I'll just email it to you. It's just a web link.
Project Manager: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah {gap}
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah these numbers have have to be have to be taken into account for the uh both yeah user interface and functional design.
User Interface: Hmm. {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: One thing it goes on to talk about, which is interesting, is the {disfmarker} hang on a minute.
Industrial Designer: Because if there are many numbers and we need to select to to constraint uh our design based on what is more important.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yep.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Um, one thing is interesting is talking about um speech recognition in a remote control.
Industrial Designer: Speech recognition in {disfmarker}
Marketing: And who would pay more for that and whether people would find it useful.
Project Manager: D do you have numbers o o on that?
Industrial Designer: Ah okay.
Marketing: Yes, I'll just get this up.
Industrial Designer: So that we don't {disfmarker} Do we not need any button on the remote control {vocalsound}
Marketing: Well potentially yeah, um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: it would be all based on speech.
Marketing: I think even for interesti
Industrial Designer: Okay. Interesting idea.
Marketing: yeah I think that would not work so well. You wanna have both options.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Well it would it would be a solution for uh when your remote control is lost,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: I mean when it has speech recognition then uh i then it doesn't matter where it is, my {disfmarker} well it's {disfmarker} we should be in range,
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: or maybe it can respond and produce sound, so say where it is. But the these are all quite fancy features
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: I'm not sure whether we will we can make this for {vocalsound} for twelve Euro fi and fifty cents {vocalsound}.
User Interface: Well it would be f
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: No you can't.
Industrial Designer: And we don't know where the state of the art of speech recognition is, maybe you know?
User Interface: Oh. Well, {vocalsound} it depends you know like there is uh it's a very small vocabulary that you want to do the operations like you want to say on, off, one, two, twenty three,
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: But it's quite noisy if there is the T_V_ uh shouting.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yes,
User Interface: It's it's going to be li
Project Manager: that that that that's mm.
User Interface: it's not going to be s so easy but u usually it's going to be more of an isolated case
Project Manager: Do you have some more important facts
User Interface: but it's {disfmarker} but I don't know with twenty fi
Marketing: Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: or can we go to the next presentation?
Industrial Designer: Okay. So
Marketing: Well {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: you had to to to summarise maybe the {disfmarker}
Marketing: This is now talking about um who would pay for speech recognition in a remote control, who would pay more for it, um. Ninety percent of the fifteen to twenty five year old market said that they would pay more, it goes down from there, seventy six percent for twenty five to thirty five, thirty five percent for thirty five to forty five, um twenty two percent for forty five to fifty five and then eight percent for fifty five to sixty five.
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: Okay it's uh decline.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: But we sh
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Decline with age, mm.
Marketing: Yeah, it really depends where we're gonna be targeting this product, um,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm. {vocalsound}
Marketing: which we'll be talking about later I think.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Yes. We will talk about it later. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Did you get the email?
Project Manager: Okay. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yep, that one.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Just follow that link.
Industrial Designer: {gap} I thi {vocalsound} You us
Marketing: It'll be in a different window, yep.
Industrial Designer: yeah yeah.
Marketing: That's {disfmarker} left {disfmarker} that one.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yep.
Industrial Designer: Okay perfect. . . .
Marketing: Mm. So that's the figure that I was just talking about there, with the different demographics.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Another thing it's talking about there is the L_C_D_ screen but there's no figures apparently on that.
Project Manager: Mm. Okay. {vocalsound} um
Industrial Designer: Mm'kay.
Project Manager: Uh maybe uh Mael c c can you give uh uh your presentation uh?
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Mm I okay
Project Manager: Oh,
Industrial Designer: I stay {disfmarker}
Project Manager: this is {disfmarker}
User Interface: Now you can move I think yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm, y y you can move, uh.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I can move as far as {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Maybe I take your chair?
Project Manager: Yes. You can you can sa take my chair.
Industrial Designer: I okay {vocalsound}.
User Interface: It's a channel selection, a module {gap}, this and this function,
Marketing: Sorry? Oh.
User Interface: go to the {gap}. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So I think as everybody knows uh I'm the uh Industrial Designer. And uh in this presentation uh this group presentation um {vocalsound} is gonna focus on the working design of the the remote control. Um I'd like first to give a quick a very simple introduction, how does it work, so that everybody knows even if you don't have a very uh technical background uh what is it because I think in the product it is important.
Marketing: Mm. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So basically um the basic function of a remote control is to send uh messages to another system that is fixed.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And so an energy source feeds an integrated circuit, the chip, that can compose messages, usually uh through a um infrared bit
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and uh the user interface controls the chip and accordingly the the messages, alright. So my method for um designing the yeah the work design uh yeah first {vocalsound} the the main point is that I would wish to to make a really functional product. I would prefer to have very functional um capabilities rather than fancy stuff that in fact is not used and doesn't work.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: So for that yeah as it's important to take into account the user requirements from the Marketing uh Expert uh Anna
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and um w to to we should agree on what are the technical functions uh for this remote control and I show you the the working design. So um basically uh here is a really large view of what we want {vocalsound}. Uh we want an on off button, it can be uh {disfmarker} it's simple but it's it's important, and also uh {gap} the to both channels as well as other buttons that come after,
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: right. So the components I quickly draw here, is that in this part you have the remote control the the sender and on the other part the receiver so that's {disfmarker} my method is um will be to well my aim would be to uh design the and choose the chips and the infrared um components to build the remote control
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: right.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So of course we need energy sources and uh uh the receiver a a receiver. This is {vocalsound} very quick uh design, uh you stop me or interrupt me if uh you don't agree on it on that.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And um so what I have found and {vocalsound} after a lot of work actually I {vocalsound} I draw this I draw for you this uh schema
Marketing: {vocalsound} Well. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh-huh.
Industrial Designer: that can be maybe too technical for you but is very important for me
Marketing: You drew it a long time ago?
Industrial Designer: you know.
Project Manager: Is huh
Marketing: Ninety one. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} And uh that's it so I won't go into details about that
Project Manager: overwhelming {vocalsound}.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No.
Industrial Designer: but uh these are my preferences to use uh that kind of components.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} And and why do you want these kind of component?
Industrial Designer: So. So
Project Manager: I mean, are they cheap, or are they uh reliable? What were your {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: found and yeah th you have always a compromise with uh reliability and uh i if it's expensive,
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: but uh this one was not this one also really uh reliable um so yeah that's it for the working design, uh I hope you get clearer view on uh what what a remote control is uh in terms of uh technical components
Project Manager: Yes. It it it's more clear now I think.
Industrial Designer: but maybe yeah {disfmarker}
Project Manager: So {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: But is it uh can you just buy it on the market and f plug it in or you want to ma
Industrial Designer: No no no no we we will uh {disfmarker} This is a preference but we can always change uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. What I w what I was thinking about uh the the the schema uh about uh the sender and the receiver, I mean can you can you get back to it?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah uh, the receiver is of course already in the television and we are not uh able to change it. So we we must adapt to the to the receiver.
Industrial Designer: Of course yeah.
Project Manager: I I suppose there is a standard uh way of communicating to televisions uh.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. We will use uh {vocalsound} infrared protocol uh using {vocalsound} yeah infrared and uh and of course we need to adapt to that protocol that already exists
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and but we what we can do is uh uh adapting {vocalsound} the the chips inside uh to the best uh chips and uh infrared bubbles.
Project Manager: Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Yes. Okay.
Industrial Designer: Um. Okay. {gap}
Project Manager: Thank you.
User Interface: Well it to du it's just you had to change the frequencies.
Industrial Designer: The frequencies?
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah. Of course yeah
User Interface: {vocalsound} But you should be careful,
Industrial Designer: in the chip you have it yeah.
User Interface: people are sometime becoming problem, like a guy has recently designed a remote uh uh uh which could switch off any other T_V_s {vocalsound}, so basically {gap} through all the things.
Industrial Designer: That can control o other things. Yeah.
Marketing: Ah.
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: So maybe we should think of {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Of course yeah we should take that into account
Marketing: That's handy.
Project Manager: Yeah yes
Marketing: So if the b T_V_ in the next apartment's really loud, you can just turn it off.
Project Manager: I I I {disfmarker}
User Interface: yeah.
Industrial Designer: in the uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah so you can just go on the street and then switch off everyone's T_V_ {vocalsound} and you can just walk away {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: You don't have to be near the T_V_ at all {vocalsound}.
Marketing: Yeah. I like that idea.
Project Manager: I I feel I I I think M Mael will will consider this uh th these things.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Maybe Maybe we can go to to your presentation uh Matthew.
User Interface: Yeah
Project Manager: I I I assume you were finished here.
User Interface: so {vocalsound}.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Project Manager: Uh okay.
User Interface: Okay. {vocalsound} So I can take I think mine now there.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Okay so voila.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Hmm I can take mine it's okay, voila, mm so mm. Okay.
Project Manager: Oh. I {disfmarker} Uh, sorry? I know where it is.
User Interface: It's on the desktop.
Project Manager: It's uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Technical function.
Project Manager: Yes.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: It's uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Like so.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Well. So um I'm going to talk a little bit about the technical function so wha what actually it's about what is the user going to do, I think my last presented what is going inside,
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Yep.
User Interface: so what's the user is going to see from the outside and how he is going to use it. So well the approach is that uh basically the idea is to send a message to the T_V_ set, as Mael has pointed, and it will be decoded by the T_V_ and usually we it is easier to have uh keys or buttons with which people can uh press and then um changing a button will basically uh change the message which is being sent to the T_V_ and uh {vocalsound} um
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: a and basically it sends an internal signal and decoded by the receiver. So p as um Anna has said that this ki people are interested in things which are you don't need to k press the keys, people are can have a speech recognition but this is uh s a question which will we have to see later.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: But in the present scenario is that you have certain keys and you press it like your mobile phone, and it sends a message to the T_V_.
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yep.
User Interface: {vocalsound} And um so generally mm I don't have some figures sorry but um so there are two kinds of uh remote if you popularly in the household, actually so you have a standard T_V_ remote where you have just a on, off button and play, uh volume change and uh keys for the number and more than one digit option. And if you see for example righ right now uh uh even the one uh on more than one digit option is for two digit channel which is like ninety nine, but {vocalsound} tomorrow you might have one fifty channels you know to browse or two hundred channels to browse who knows, but uh uh. Then there is uh {vocalsound} this is the standard one with without any fancy thing you know like i it doesn't have teletext option, it can without any, it's a very simple thing, um which which you can vouch {vocalsound}. And then you have uh what's the v video remote file which is like usually it has almost all the keys over there and, but it then it has other options like stop uh and then you play the movie or uh or fo fast forward the movie or something like that so i it has those
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: so these are the standard uh commonly found remote controls in the uh market. And then {disfmarker} whi which is generally used by the people. And then {vocalsound} well personal preferences I would {disfmarker} uh basically think of having a kind of aim for the next generation thing where the {disfmarker} we could have both the uh the f a T_V_ and the remote {disfmarker} video remote control because uh some of the keys in the video's remote control and the T_V_ they could be integrated together so that uh we could um aim for the like in the f coming future um that type of uh applications with {disfmarker}
Marketing: Okay. How would that work? So you've got say maybe a V_C_R_ and a T_V_ which are separate,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: so you {disfmarker} on my one at home I've got a V_C_R_ remote which then changes the channel on the V_C_R_ and doesn't do anything on the T_V_,
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: so is it gonna be like a switch on the remote that says t use the T_V_ or use the V_C_R_?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: or does it know which one you want to use?
User Interface: Um actually um you could you could think of um having s a y you can have a key which could tell y it could go to the video thing
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: but um uh yo you you you still can't um in that case when it you use that the function should be able to take up the V_C_R_ option
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: and you could play it or {disfmarker} You can also think about having like um {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I in a few days you will be ha in in few ye coming years you might even have a system where you have a separate uh sitting setup box
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: and uh you have uh um something like uh uh you do you do you suppose you are not able to watch some programme and actually it downloading all the time for you
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm.
User Interface: and uh you can just you know uh when you come back you could just switch on that thing and uh watch a program.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: In that case you want to browse faster, browse slow, you want to have those kind of functionalities {vocalsound}.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Mm mm mm mm mm.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: These are kind of next generation {vocalsound} functionalities.
User Interface: It's the next generation thing,
Project Manager: Mm yes,
User Interface: but it is going to come in couple of years.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: but I think it's i i it's already there,
User Interface: It's goi
Project Manager: I mean the hard disk uh recorders uh I I've seen them in the shop.
User Interface: Yeah it's {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. So
Industrial Designer: Mm'kay.
User Interface: it's going to record your things and you and you you need basically the functionalities what you need in both uh uh video as well as in the standard T_V_ thing.
Marketing: Mm. Yeah. That's fair enough. Mm. But I don't think we're trying to make a universal remote here. That's,
User Interface: No no we are not making a universal remote,
Marketing: yeah.
User Interface: we are just looking at uh giving a scenario, I have a T_V_ and tomorrow I am going to have set up box
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: which is going to sit there and uh it's going to do that job for me.
Marketing: Mm. Because y
Project Manager: W w w w we need to decide on on on on in how far we go to in this.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm.
Project Manager: Mean, you can go {vocalsound} pretty far I f I think with with with functions and possible uh future p uh prospects
Marketing: Mm. Yep.
Project Manager: yes.
User Interface: Yeah. So {vocalsound}
Project Manager: But it's good to keep in mind.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Okay so that p ends my presentation.
Project Manager: Mm. Very well.
User Interface: Well. So we can always discuss about it for example uh the presently the video market actually uh this demand, video over-demand or what we call it as, it's presently {vocalsound} booming up actually
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm. Yeah.
User Interface: so it i like people are providing like uh things like uh uh movies, you can select actually so you want to watch a movie and uh your p your provider gives a list of movies, and then you select those list.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And it
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: basically you go off, it downloads the movie, it gives for you
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: and then when you come you want to loo watch it on your T_V_.
Project Manager: Good.
User Interface: And thi this is going to come.
Industrial Designer: Or even you don't need to download it, it's streamed uh online uh yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah it can be streamed online for you and you can say what time I want to watch the movie
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah
Project Manager: Um, so u um
User Interface: so. Yeah.
Project Manager: I have uh received some some some some well points of of thinking over of my account manager and uh I would like to share them with you. Um
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: first thing is uh teletext is a well known feature of televisions
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: but it's it's getting used less and less.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: That's that's especially because of the internet of course.
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: So we should think about it um. Do we include it, and do we give it a prominent uh prominent uh place on on on the on well huh on the remote mot control itself.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Uh as uh a in any case it's it's not used, well very much, but it's it is still used. Um
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Um.
Project Manager: further yes we must think, uh do we stay uh to to television only, the television as we as we all know it with with broadcasting signals and you can't go back uh huh, or do we uh uh go further as Matthew indicated by supporting uh uh recording uh devices?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So D_V_D_s and V_C_R_s?
Project Manager: Uh indeed indeed.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: And and and the hard disk recorders. Um, furthermore, uh, w we need really need to interest uh {vocalsound} y younger customers and then with younger customers I mean people uh below the age of forty,
Marketing: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and our our current customers are mainly forty plus
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: uh which well
Industrial Designer: Fourteen
Project Manager: {disfmarker} Forty.
Industrial Designer: or for O okay.
Project Manager: So
Industrial Designer: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: that's to that's I mean there's a market but uh they will grow older {disfmarker} older
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: and you'll al {vocalsound} always need to have the the future with younger people.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um therefore, {vocalsound} younger people like trendy {disfmarker} trendy designs, so that's w we should make our our our R_C_ as trendy as possible but it should also be uh have a reliable image, so when it looks too too spacey or too fancy people will think well does it work at all.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Hmm.
User Interface: Yeah it's uh well you you can follow the ideas how you want to keep the keys, you know right now if you take it you have like zero, one, two, three like a keys separately,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: but suppose if you take the the present trend of mobile phones there are like big thick keys
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: you press on the top, it takes one number, you press on the bottom it takes another number, and uh basically uh uh so the space covered so that you don't see two separate keys there actually
Industrial Designer: {gap} Mm-hmm.
User Interface: so it it is like uh um i i it is like uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Ma Maybe Maybe you can draw it on the on the board uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm. But I think taking the idea of getting inspiration from mobile phones is interesting, especially if we're going after a younger market,
User Interface: Yeah so.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Hmm. Yes yes
Marketing: that's the the the mm the new and the funky things,
Project Manager: mo
Industrial Designer: Because they are already used to that, you know, product.
Marketing: that's,
Project Manager: Yes it's recognisable {gap}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: yeah, there's lot there's lots of pretty mobile phones, not too many pretty remote controls.
Project Manager: Mm mm.
Marketing: That's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And and they are skilled uh by using it.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: So for example uh {disfmarker} Well uh {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. . . .
User Interface: Okay, it works. Fine. So, for example you have uh presently uh keys like one, two, three like this, actually, and uh uh four five six like that and uh you can have keys like this in form like uh keys like that
Project Manager: Mael can you hand me over this uh?
Industrial Designer: Yes. {gap}
Project Manager: Uh thank you.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Okay. How much longer have we got for the meeting by the way?
Project Manager: Mm well
Marketing:'Cause we haven't talked about demographic at all
Project Manager: I think fi five min
User Interface: Forty minutes?
Marketing: and it's a very important issue.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah so you you you can have uh keys like uh which are which are like so. {vocalsound} too sorry, so we basically don't change the uh original order of them
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: but then the keys are more spacious,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: they don't look uh {disfmarker} so there there is a very sligh thing, so if you press on the top it takes the one, it takes the three, uh four, sorry four here uh five and six,
Marketing: Mm. Mm.
User Interface: so the keys can be it looks you know not very much cluttered but it looks nice
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: for you don't have too many keys
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: but you can have a lot of options t if you press on the to
Project Manager: Okay.'Kay I I think now that the idea's clear.
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: Uh we should now uh try to decide um on our target group.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. Which I think is quite tricky.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Um, basically we're trying to get people to buy a remote control {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: wouldn't they already have a remote control with their television when they buy one?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Of course they have already one. So our our our remote control has to be better.
Marketing: But it's not going to have more functionality,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing:'cause it's only a low market, it's a cheap-end remote control, we can't beat modern functionality, we might {disfmarker} we'll be able to {vocalsound} beat them on th the look of it, th the design of it but that's not a big seller, if they're not just going to buy a new remote control just'cause it looks pretty, they have to actually need it as well.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So I'm not sure how we can get people to buy this thing.
Project Manager: Mm. I {disfmarker} well I think {vocalsound} many people said uh in your in in your research uh uh uh the appearance of the uh R_C_ is is important when they are buying one
Marketing: Mm. Yeah. But why are they buying one in the first place?
Project Manager: but {disfmarker} Indeed. So that will be about functionality {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm. But if people are buying a new remote control for functionality they'll buy a universal remote. I've got friends who've got so many things they need a universal remote, otherwise they're using five different remotes for their all their things.
Project Manager: Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm.
Marketing: In that case they wouldn't buy our product, because it doesn't give them what they need in terms of functionality.
Project Manager: So your you think we should go for a more u universal high-performance {disfmarker}
Marketing: Well, we can't, with the price range. We We're not building a universal remote, we're not building a high end product.
Project Manager: What do {disfmarker} What do you think about {disfmarker} What componen
Industrial Designer: Yeah we have yeah twelve point five Euros uh per uh per R_ s R_C_
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: and I think uh with this now you know that chips are very uh cheaps
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and uh we can include it in our control some new new features.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. And um {disfmarker} But yeah
Marketing: But {disfmarker} yeah. If we're getting into universal remote territory, we're getting to L_C_D_ screens and things like that
Industrial Designer: that's {disfmarker}
Marketing: which would drive the cost up a lot.
Project Manager: I don't know. I don't know whether that's necessary.
Industrial Designer: Ye
Project Manager: Is the L_C_D_ screen {disfmarker}
Marketing: For universal remotes {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I don't think L_C_D_ is not necessary {disfmarker} well, th for long term.
Marketing: If you {disfmarker} mm.
Project Manager: I think thi this could be this could be a market because uh universal remote controls uh tend to be uh quite expensive.
Marketing: And quite complicated to use,
Project Manager: S so we can try to go in between,
Marketing: yes.
Project Manager: and offer a product which is not as expensive and not as complicated
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Not as flexible maybe, yeah, but s
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: yeah.
Project Manager: but but still but still people have the idea this is more functional than a normal uh uh R_C_
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Universal.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: because it has more uh it it is in some kind universal.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: But if we're going for the say fifteen to twenty five age group then not many of them would actually own T_V_s to use a remote control on.
Project Manager: Mm yes but w we're targeting I think on more on the on the twenty to forty group.
Marketing: Okay. So they're {disfmarker} yeah.
Project Manager: People {disfmarker} yes. Who just have or already have a job and have the money but may not want to spend that much money on a on a universal universal control.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. I don't know really what the the price range for remote controls is. Are we gonna be at the very bottom of the price range, or are we kind of middle to bottom? I don't know.
Project Manager: Uh well
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I think uh when we think it over I thi I think we are trying to offer the a kind of universal control for for less money.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: So d Do you agree?
User Interface: Well {disfmarker} Well I it's fine with me like the price as long as it is uh not too expensive.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah
User Interface: Uh and it d uh {disfmarker} Our provin
Industrial Designer: because we have to take into account that we are gonna b we are gonna sell uh four aro around four million so when we speak about these numbers uh the price of a chip is {vocalsound} uh price of a chip is very cheap.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So I'm okay for designing um a ne uh less {vocalsound} yeah a a kind of universal uh R_C_ yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. You think it's possible for the twelve Euro fifty?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. Um so then we we decide on on on going to this more universal kind of control.
User Interface: Uh yeah, that's that's what we needed basically.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Mm. Mm. Okay.
User Interface: Uh that's needed right now. And uh basically you can look to the standards of other {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah that's needed, yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And if we want to get the market, we really need that.
Marketing: Yeah. So I guess what I'd like from a universal remote is maybe choosing between three devices, being able to switch between them, there may be stereo, V_C_R_ and T_V_.
User Interface: Actu
Industrial Designer: Yes. Exactly. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: And just be able to s use them all from the same remote, but not at the same time.
Project Manager: Yes.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah you can also browse through all the standards you know, where are the limit of standards for all of them and you can just browse through them.
Industrial Designer: Is that okay for you? Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm mm mm mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: So given we are going for this uh uh universal type uh m {vocalsound} maybe it is good when you try to find out which components you therefore need and y you will try to get more specific uh user interface content
Industrial Designer: Yes.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Okay. Okay.
Project Manager: and uh maybe you can look on on what trends are in this uh in this type of market.
Marketing: Mm-hmm yep.
User Interface: Voila {vocalsound}. Hmm.
Project Manager: So anyone uh has a point to bring in
User Interface: So. Well.
Project Manager: or shall we {disfmarker} no.
User Interface: Oh I don't have anything right now. We can we'll we'll go
Industrial Designer: Oh
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: that's that's fine then.
User Interface: and we'll I'm sure we'll up something good
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: W yes,
User Interface: for the {vocalsound}
Project Manager: we uh we can have lunch now.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: So um Then th th the next meeting will uh
User Interface: Yeah so we meet in {disfmarker} well {vocalsound} what are our {disfmarker}
Project Manager: after lunch you have uh we have uh thirty minutes of work and then we have the next meeting. But you will be informed via the computer.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Cool. So see you later.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay {vocalsound} perfect. | The whole meeting was focused on the target group and the functionality of the new remote control product. After Project Manager briefly reaffirmed the meeting procedure, Marketing, Industrial Designer, and User Interface each gave a presentation about trend-watching, working design, technical function respectively. Then, Project Manager started a group discussion about the demand for teletext and video, for which thick key design was accepted as a feasible solution. Then, the group discussed the target group based on the predetermined budget, and accepted universality as an important feature. | qmsum |
Summarize the recap of the last meeting.
Project Manager: Okay. Hello everyone. {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Hi.
User Interface: Hi.
Marketing: Hi.
Project Manager: Um how uh how we doing?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, good.
Project Manager: Uh first we going uh over the minutes of the last meeting, more or less.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um in the last meeting uh the marketing manager had presented uh her method of working, meaning gathering i suggestions from everyone to see how she best could market uh this this product at the {disfmarker} within the budget uh that was given. Uh in general {vocalsound} the idea is that it should be something that is not difficult to use. Um it's also an item that people lose a lot. So we should address that. And, of course, it should be something s s that is very simple to use. In addition to that to make it sell, of course, uh the marketing manager w wishes that it be very attractive,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: or like she says put some sizzle into it in one way or another so that the people are buying it now because, in particular with smaller items, that's a very important fact,'cause um if they say, well, I go home and think about it, that won't work. Um also mentioned was it should be uh {disfmarker} it should have a very short learning curve. And maybe it could be sold by using a slogan.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Our technical manager has then said that she feels it should have a chip
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: that has infra-red bits and it has an interface controls w interface that controls the chip. Therefore, messages uh will be controlled in the same manner. There should be extra features like lid buttons, maybe a beep. If too many buttons are pressed, mm uh uh child lock um and uh maybe a display clock so that people could um {disfmarker} you could see the time, you know, what show they want to watch. Also mentioned was uh maybe different shapes. So the components of the thing should be button, bulbs, infra infra-red bulbs, battery, chips, wires, and maybe some kind of a holder uh for the for the uh item. Francino who is our um
User Interface: Interface designer.
Project Manager: interface designer um uh has mentioned that the {disfmarker} that it, of course, should have an on-off button, and also has mentioned an interesting feature that it should have maybe a channel lock. Particularly with maybe small children that they couldn't uh watch a channel that is undesirable. It should be compact. Her personal favourite was it should be T-shaped. And maybe have an anar alarm-clock. And the material should possibly be not of non-allergic nature. Uh the different systems uh that exist are infra-red or radio-waves. Uh maybe it should have uh electri electrici electricity saving feature.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And {vocalsound} even possibly a timer to {disfmarker} so that people can program {vocalsound} their favourite uh uh program on th right from the remote.
User Interface: Yes.
Project Manager: Uh are we all in agreement that that's about what we discussed last time? Okay.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, I think that pretty much is it. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay, then we {disfmarker} I'm looking for three presentations. And uh I don't know whether the order matters much uh, I don't I don't think so, so whoever w wants {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay, I can start first.
Project Manager: Yeah, okay.
User Interface: Okay. Now my slide, please. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, your slides. Okay. Oh, come on, close already.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And that's number two, right?
User Interface: Three.
Project Manager: Three.
User Interface: Participant three. Yes. Okay.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Now as an interface designer, I would give more emphasis on the interface, how the remote looks like so that it is sellable, it is attractive to customers. Next, please. Okay. Now the function of a remote is to send messages to the television. This messages could be uh switch on-off message or switch to next channel message or swapping the channels or switching onto a particular channel, like you can have the numbers one, two, three, four, up to nine.
Project Manager: Nine what? Nine channel uh switches?
User Interface: Pardon me?
Project Manager: Nine channel switches? Is {disfmarker} Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes, nine numbers. And then you have swapping of uh button
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: by which {disfmarker} using which you can swap the channels if you don't want to see the third channel you can swap it to the fourth channel or vice versa. Then it should have a next button, and next button channel by which you can keep on uh v uh mm eh scrolling the channels one by one.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Going to the nex next.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Next slide, please.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then you should have a button which should which ca which can be used for increasing or decreasing the volume.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then, there should be a button which can give subtitles for a particular program which is going on a television. For example, if you are watching a French program and you would like to have a subtitles in English, then there should be a channel which can trigger this mechanism in the television so that the user can see uh the {gap} the subtitles on the screen.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then there should d uh there should be some buttons which can control features like the colour, colour of the picture, the contrast, sharpness, brightness of the picture. Now there should be a memory switch. There should be a mute button. Suddenly if if if uh uh viewer he gets a telephone call, and if he want he doesn't want to switch off the uh T_V_, but he he can reduce the sound, he can bring the volume down and he can watch {disfmarker} he can uh {disfmarker} while talking he can watch the T_V_. Now the most important feature I would like to have in my remote would be the speech recognition feature. It's an integrated progra programmable sample sensor speaker unit. So a remote can be th can be uh designed which can have the voice recognisers, you can record your own voice
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: which can be recognised by as voice recogniser in the television, for example, if you want to see {disfmarker} we if you want to see the ninth channel if you say just say ninth channel, uh th now the the {disfmarker} uh yeah, the remote will {disfmarker} automatically it will switch to the ninth channel.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So the T_V_ will have some recogniser which will recognise the user's voice and accordingly it will change its functionalities.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So this is one of the very important feature a remote control can have. So this is one one of the interface which can be created.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: A very simple interface which has all the t uh uh important features.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then, please, next slide.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then, these are some of the remotes which are different in shape and colour, but they have many buttons.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So uh sometimes the user finds it very difficult to recognise which button is for what function and all that. So you can you can design an interface which is very simple, and which is user-friendly. Even a kid can use that.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So can you go on t t uh to the next slide. Yeah, so this is one of the interface or one of the remote which has this vi voice recogniser.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: And this has multi-purpose use, it can be used for T_V_, it can be used for cable-satellite, it can be used for V_C_R_, D_V_D_s and audio. And this has in-built voice recogniser.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Can you go on to the next slide? Yeah, now this is an interface for a chil uh for a remote uh uh which a child can use.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Uh this is user-friendly, it's very attractive and uh children can use it as well as they can play with it. And this comes with different colours, different shapes.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And this this uh child uh interface has minimum buttons
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: and all the important uh buttons are there in this small, compact, attractive child interface. Next slide, please. Now this is a big over-sized remote which cannot be misplaced or it's impossible to misplace.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: You don't know me.
User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} this. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I could lose that in a minute. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: So this is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No this is a very big, you cannot {vocalsound} misplace it anywhere.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} So this is a jumbo universal remote control and it's impossible to im misplace or lose. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: This i this is one such interface which can be created. {vocalsound} And the personal preference {vocalsound} uh would be a spe uh uh to incorporate speech recognisers uh which will respond to user's voice for a particular uh function.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Right.
User Interface: Thank you, that's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Okay, thank you very much. Uh any comments on uh her presentation?
Marketing: Well, um looks like we still have quite a choice of things out there.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Um what uh {vocalsound} I'm {disfmarker} No suggestion's bad.
User Interface: Mm yes.
Marketing: But uh we're gonna have to narrow it down a little more. I don't think that we can get uh {disfmarker} The T-shape is good, the child one is good, the too big to misplace, I think it's just funny.
User Interface: Okay. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um I don't think that's gonna be our impulse purchase at the checkout counter.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, I I th I think {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay. {gap} {vocalsound}
Marketing: It's it's gonna be a little bit too unwieldy.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No, I think the these are her presentations, but uh as far as the decision making we getting to that after after
Marketing: Yeah mm. Mm-hmm. Have to come back to that later. Okay.
User Interface: We can.
Project Manager: but if {disfmarker} I just wanted to know whether anybody had any any anything to add to her presentation.
Marketing: No, I think her presentation was good, and she really explored all the options. Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm right. Mm-hmm. Ho who wants to go next um? Mm-hmm. Okay,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, maybe.
Project Manager: and you {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Participant two.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh okay.
Industrial Designer: Uh the next one, sorry.
Project Manager: Oops.
Industrial Designer: It's it was the old one.
Project Manager: The components design.
Industrial Designer: Components.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Okay.
Industrial Designer: Um this time I'm I'm going to um concentrate more on the components and the technical side of the remote controller design.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh, can you go on to the next slide, please.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: I have just brief {vocalsound} uh down few uh components which we require for the remote control uh construction.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh the first one is case to keep all the components like integrated circuit, battery, etcetera, etcetera, it's like {disfmarker} Uh it can be a plastic one, hard plastic, so that it can be strong, even if you just uh uh, {vocalsound} you know, if you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if it falls down, then it doesn't {vocalsound} break. So it should be strong.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And uh uh there are no harmful materials used in that. And it should be recyclable.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh and uh {vocalsound},
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Good point.
Industrial Designer: yeah, and also uh using of colouring compon components like uh if we want to have different colours, blue, red, green, so uh uh we have to use uh some colouring compone compone components. And uh the second important thing is uh uh uh integrated circuit.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh which uh we can use a highly sophisticated one because it's like the it's like the heart of the remote controller. If it is not efficient then everything wi is going to be uh like um the lef ess less efficient so it {disfmarker} you should {disfmarker} we should have a highly sophisticated one. And it should be resistant to high as well as uh low temperatures. Suppose if it is thirty-eight degrees outside forty degrees outside, it should it should uh {vocalsound} be able to re uh resist the uh temperature uh uh highs and uh high temperatures and low temperatures. And uh it should be with uh {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} equipped with timer and alarm facility. And the uh other component we should {disfmarker} uh we have in the remote controller is a resistor uh which is like uh uh i it is very very much important for the electricity uh flow through {vocalsound} through through the uh remote controller and uh also a capacitor which is a b which is a m I think it's it's like a battery, capacitor. Can you go on to the next slide, please?
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh a diode, a transistor, a resonator, these are all this uh technical uh electri electronic compons uh components which are {disfmarker} which we have to use in a remote controller. A battery uh, I would like to suggest one thing uh if we {disfmarker} uh if we will be able to make a res rechargeable battery then we sh we need not go for a high performance battery, even if it is a low performance battery it ca it can't l it can't charge much.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: It it it's not a high voltage battery. Then also we can {disfmarker} If it is a rechargeable one, then uh people can use it for a long time, so in that way we can cut cut the cost, but w uh uh that we have to make the battery as rechargeable one. And we we have a circuit board uh in a remote controller. Can you go to the next slide, please. And how it works, how the remote controller works.
Project Manager: Go away.
Industrial Designer: Thank you. Uh when you press a button, when you do that, you complete a specific connection that means when you when you press a button there will be a s a small circuit underneath the button, and it will send some signals through the wires,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: and then uh the chip will send start connection and knows that which button is pressed. Suppose you have pressed channel one button, number one you have pressed, then the uh chip will know that the number one button was pressed.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It pros produces a mors morse code line signal specific to that button. Every button, every individual button, has its own morse code. Suppose uh the uh user has pressed butto button one, then it will have a spe the circuit will generate a specific morse code to b {vocalsound} that that button, and the transistor will amplify the signal and send then to the L_E_D_ which translates the signal into infrared light. Like {vocalsound} you have got a signal by pressing a button. That's a d a morse code has been generated by the integrated circuit. Now, that signal, that morse code, has to be amplified by the transistor. That is the use of transist transistor we {disfmarker} which we use in the remote controller. It will amplify the signal and it will send it to the L_E_D_ and which translates the signal into an infra infrared bits. The sensor on the T_V_ can see the infrared light, and seeing the signal seeing the signal re it reacts appropriately, that when it sees the amplified mo morse code signal, then it will uh it will uh know which uh what what action it has to uh do. Then it will do the appropriate action. So uh this is how the remote controller works.
User Interface: It works.
Industrial Designer: Can you go to the next slide, please. Yeah, I have few pictures. When you look at the uh um remote controller uh it's it's {vocalsound} it {disfmarker} this is a normal remote controller. And {gap} to the next slide, please.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And where we had a a few buttons and all. And uh if you open the remote controller you have this circui circuit board and few electronic components,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: like you can see a chip there which is having eighteen pins,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and also a capac uh a capacitor, three resistors and also a resonator uh um mm {disfmarker} yeah, and di and a diode transistor.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: The electronic components {disfmarker} uh all of the electronic components have all those uh things like a chip and d {vocalsound} diode transistors an Yeah, di um can y uh you can see the T_A_ double one eight three five labelled uh chip um.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Mm yes.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Uh you can also see the uh uh the green {disfmarker} two green things are uh these are {disfmarker} they are {disfmarker} they are resistors,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and uh just beside that you can see a transistor, and a uh uh cylinder shape, uh that one is a capacitor. Uh and also there are uh {vocalsound} um resistors {disfmarker} uh sorry, ther there is a diode.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Can you go {disfmarker} go on to the next slide.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So uh this is the circuit board. The green one is a circuit board. Actually, uh building a circuit bo board is pretty pretty uh easy and also it's a it's a l l inexpensive. Uh it's it costs less than what you print on a paper, because uh {vocalsound} uh when you {disfmarker} when you are building uh some circuits {disfmarker} some um uh circuits and also wires, it's it's better to go for printing, because uh you can build these kind of k circuit boards on a on a bulk and it's just printing, nothing like uh, you know, you don't need to use wires and all.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: It's not exactly wires we are using. It's just printing something on a board.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Tha tho those prints will acti act as wires and ci uh circuits. So th that green uh thing is a circuit board, and also you can see uh there are b s like uh um access for buttons, like when you press a button, the circuit under the button will be activated uh th it will it will he get some signals from it and it will uh it will ch its ch se send a signal {disfmarker} signals to the, yeah, um integrated circuit.
User Interface: Transmit.
Industrial Designer: Can you go to the next slide, please. Uh so this is {disfmarker} these are the circuits un underneath the buttons. Uh can you see the black uh, round marks?
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: They they are the circuits.
Marketing: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Next, please. And um like uh we have uh designed uh before we have seen some uh few things like {vocalsound} instead off buttons we have some scrolls. Uh b but a b a push-button requires a simple chip underneath it, but whereas a scroll wheel requires normally a regular chip which is a higher price range. Like for s scrolls we have to go for a sophisticated and and k uh {vocalsound} uh uh full {disfmarker} a complete chip.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Uh and a as energy source we offer a basic battery, a more ingenious uh hard dynamo, um a kinetic provision of energy, more than what is that you shake casually to provide energy. So that also we can have in a battery, uh or we can use solar sells. Uh.
Marketing: Hmm, that's interesting.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Uh yeah uh the product can be de delivered into different cases. Uh usually, the cases and card flat {vocalsound} that w we see usually uh d uh a normal remote controller.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Um.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: And you have more pictures. Uh we have five minutes to the end of the meeting.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, maybe d uh I have just one more slide, I think. Um. Like we can have a ma material such as plastic, rubber, wood, titanium, but titanium we can't use. Um and also for electronics we can use a simple and regular um re {vocalsound} or an advanced chip on the print, um also infra it includes the infrared se sender. Um yeah the uh {disfmarker} for the movie just to j develop uh samples and so spe sample speaker. An Yeah, that's it. It's all for me now,
Project Manager: Okay, well thank you.
Industrial Designer: thank you.
Project Manager: Any particular comments by anybody?
Marketing: Uh yeah, on the scroll and the push-button, um ca you can achieve scrolling by repeatedly pushing a button?
Industrial Designer: No, no, no, th the the the scrolling wheels are different, like you can go for a sw switches like buttons or scrolls, uh {vocalsound} which which we used to do before ten ten years before, I think.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Now, nobody uses that because you need you need a a k sophisticated chip and all.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So I think it's better we go for uh um ordinary buttons.
Marketing: Um. We'll just go for push buttons
Industrial Designer: Yeah uh yeah, push-buttons. Yeah.
User Interface: Push-buttons.
Marketing: for {disfmarker} in the interest of cost.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: We don't have a lot of time left and we will still have to make a decision, and the marketing expert has to present her her thing.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay. Go right to my first {disfmarker} my next slide.
Project Manager: Uh okay.
Marketing: Um alright, my method is uh {disfmarker} I'm interested in what the competition is doing, and wanna see how we can make ourselves different from the competition, so I've really been looking at the press and the ads that are out there for other remote controllers. I s I {vocalsound} spend a lot of time on the internet um surfing around doing the same thing. And then when I'm out um in people's houses or at meetings or anything like that, I try to notice what kind of remote controls people have, and if it's convenient in the conversation I ask about it. And I would encourage you all to do the same. Um and my findings from this is that, you know, small is beautiful. Um people like something that really fits in their hand.
User Interface:'Kay.
Marketing: Simple is beautiful. They don't want to have to squint at small print um, they want buttons whose functions are obvious, and they want um as few buttons as possible, and they don't {vocalsound} care for the mode thing. They want each button to do something. And eye-catching is important. It's gotta look cute, it's gotta look appealing. Go ahead, I'm trying to finish fast for you. Um {vocalsound} and our preference is, as far as I'm concerned, are we got to get to the market before the competition. Ours has to be {disfmarker} look really great and it has to come out before the others, so that we have a leg up on time to sell it and push it before other people get out their Christmas item. And we should develop one or two features we can really dwell on in our ad campaign. If we try to tell people it has too many great features, um the consumer just gets confused and we don't get anywhere. So we've gotta narrow our selection down to {vocalsound} li {vocalsound} two things, I think, that we gonna say are really great about our our our new product. And I've been looking around um at what designs {disfmarker} every year different things are popular. And in my research this year I found out that fruit and vegetable shapes are really popular. And people are tired of hard plastic and hard metal. They are more back into soft feel, spongy feeling things, things with maybe a little cloth on them. So those are things maybe we wanna look at as far as saleability of the item.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh that concludes the presentation of everyone. And what we really have to decide in this meeting is um the concept of the remote.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: And uh so what do we think on the concept
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: of the remote? {vocalsound}
Marketing: You wanna try to come back to yours, and limit yours a bit?
Project Manager: Y {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh yes, I would like to include this feature which is called as voice recogniser.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. Mm-hmm. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So speech recognition is most important as far as you're concerned?
User Interface: This could be uh one feature which could be sellable.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, but w
Marketing: Yeah h that could that could that could be our star feature.
Project Manager: I think that's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: That that {gap} be really good, yeah, I agree with that.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, but but I what I'm uh very very much doubtful how {vocalsound} how uh far it will work, because a speech recogniser like i it it has its own uh uh problems, issues.
Marketing: Distance problem?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, it's not distance problem it it's recognising a person's voice,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: like maybe different people will be having different voices, so it like it's uh {disfmarker} everything so i
Marketing: Uh.
Project Manager: Well, you you teach {disfmarker} You have to teach uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: So to get a good recogni recognising system, it's a costly thing, I think.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: No, it's it's, uh yeah, it it's like your recording of uh all uh um a question already, and then you're expecting an answer from th For example, you have a T_V_ system, I'm the user and my family members are the user,
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: I will already record uh a question like, uh good morning,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, but {disfmarker} Yeah. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: like around eight o'clock I want to see the news in the television.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So I'll say just good morning and the T_V_ will switch on. It will recognise my voice and will switch on.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, before we get too far off here um, the components of the concept is the energy. What kind of energy do we foresee? Battery.
Marketing: I think I think battery,
Project Manager: Battery.
User Interface: Battery.
Marketing: and I think we all agreed on that.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: That that's that's gonna be most cost-effective and the best thing.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay then {vocalsound} chip on print.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yep.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Yes.
Project Manager: And the case. And I think we all agree on the case, we wanna have something uh maybe bright, colourful.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Bright, colourful, trendy trendy design, and strong.
User Interface: And compact.
Industrial Designer: And also strong.
User Interface: Trendy design and compact.
Industrial Designer: Trendy, yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Trendy design, compact and strong.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: User interface concept, uh {vocalsound} interface type, supplements
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: That will be your area I think, right, Jana.
Industrial Designer: Uh. Um like the switches, like we use buttons for user interface.
User Interface: Push-buttons.
Project Manager: Put uh k I guess uh for {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Push-buttons.
Project Manager: yeah. And {vocalsound} Not sure what they mean by supplements.
User Interface: And {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Supplements like different types of features buttons, like can have a f mute button or a swapping button.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Well, I think that {disfmarker} Yeah,
Project Manager: Oh, like {disfmarker}
Marketing: or {vocalsound} or like her speech recognition would also be a supplement.
Project Manager: Oh. A what?
Marketing: Her speech recognition feature would be a supplement.
Project Manager: Right, right, right, mm-hmm.
User Interface: Recogniser. Yes.
Industrial Designer: Mm yeah.
Marketing: Okay, so why don't we put down speech recognition if possible pending some more research from our industrial engineer on how expensive that is.
Industrial Designer: Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Right.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. Uh our next meeting will be in thirty minutes, and the uh I_D_ is to {disfmarker} this is the individual actions to be taken until then, to have the look and feel design, and uh the U_I_D_ is supposed to {vocalsound} uh come up with the user interface design,
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and the marketing expert with the product evaluation.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: In this phase, the two of you, Jana and Francine, have to work together on a prototype using modelling clay, it says here.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} You will receive specific {vocalsound} instructions {vocalsound} will be sent to you by your coaches.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Um if you have any questions, you know, you you can always uh contact me um or uh or your coach, I suppose. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Wherever they're hiding? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} so um I think we conclude the meeting here and we come back in uh uh thirty minutes, according to our timetable here.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Thank you very much.
User Interface: Thank you. | The general idea for the remote was that it should be easy to use, attractive and electricity saving. People might lose it a lot and it could be sold by using a slogan. For the technical aspect, the remote should have a chip with an interface that controls it, infrared bulbs, battery, wires, buttons and holder. There should be extra features such as timer, lid buttons, on-off button, channel lock and display clock. The remote could be in different shapes, preferably compact and T-shaped. The material should be of non-allergic nature. The different systems that exist were infrared and radio-waves. | qmsum |
What would be the interface design of the remote?
Project Manager: Okay. Hello everyone. {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Hi.
User Interface: Hi.
Marketing: Hi.
Project Manager: Um how uh how we doing?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, good.
Project Manager: Uh first we going uh over the minutes of the last meeting, more or less.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um in the last meeting uh the marketing manager had presented uh her method of working, meaning gathering i suggestions from everyone to see how she best could market uh this this product at the {disfmarker} within the budget uh that was given. Uh in general {vocalsound} the idea is that it should be something that is not difficult to use. Um it's also an item that people lose a lot. So we should address that. And, of course, it should be something s s that is very simple to use. In addition to that to make it sell, of course, uh the marketing manager w wishes that it be very attractive,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: or like she says put some sizzle into it in one way or another so that the people are buying it now because, in particular with smaller items, that's a very important fact,'cause um if they say, well, I go home and think about it, that won't work. Um also mentioned was it should be uh {disfmarker} it should have a very short learning curve. And maybe it could be sold by using a slogan.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Our technical manager has then said that she feels it should have a chip
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: that has infra-red bits and it has an interface controls w interface that controls the chip. Therefore, messages uh will be controlled in the same manner. There should be extra features like lid buttons, maybe a beep. If too many buttons are pressed, mm uh uh child lock um and uh maybe a display clock so that people could um {disfmarker} you could see the time, you know, what show they want to watch. Also mentioned was uh maybe different shapes. So the components of the thing should be button, bulbs, infra infra-red bulbs, battery, chips, wires, and maybe some kind of a holder uh for the for the uh item. Francino who is our um
User Interface: Interface designer.
Project Manager: interface designer um uh has mentioned that the {disfmarker} that it, of course, should have an on-off button, and also has mentioned an interesting feature that it should have maybe a channel lock. Particularly with maybe small children that they couldn't uh watch a channel that is undesirable. It should be compact. Her personal favourite was it should be T-shaped. And maybe have an anar alarm-clock. And the material should possibly be not of non-allergic nature. Uh the different systems uh that exist are infra-red or radio-waves. Uh maybe it should have uh electri electrici electricity saving feature.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And {vocalsound} even possibly a timer to {disfmarker} so that people can program {vocalsound} their favourite uh uh program on th right from the remote.
User Interface: Yes.
Project Manager: Uh are we all in agreement that that's about what we discussed last time? Okay.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, I think that pretty much is it. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay, then we {disfmarker} I'm looking for three presentations. And uh I don't know whether the order matters much uh, I don't I don't think so, so whoever w wants {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay, I can start first.
Project Manager: Yeah, okay.
User Interface: Okay. Now my slide, please. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, your slides. Okay. Oh, come on, close already.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And that's number two, right?
User Interface: Three.
Project Manager: Three.
User Interface: Participant three. Yes. Okay.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Now as an interface designer, I would give more emphasis on the interface, how the remote looks like so that it is sellable, it is attractive to customers. Next, please. Okay. Now the function of a remote is to send messages to the television. This messages could be uh switch on-off message or switch to next channel message or swapping the channels or switching onto a particular channel, like you can have the numbers one, two, three, four, up to nine.
Project Manager: Nine what? Nine channel uh switches?
User Interface: Pardon me?
Project Manager: Nine channel switches? Is {disfmarker} Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes, nine numbers. And then you have swapping of uh button
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: by which {disfmarker} using which you can swap the channels if you don't want to see the third channel you can swap it to the fourth channel or vice versa. Then it should have a next button, and next button channel by which you can keep on uh v uh mm eh scrolling the channels one by one.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Going to the nex next.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Next slide, please.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then you should have a button which should which ca which can be used for increasing or decreasing the volume.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then, there should be a button which can give subtitles for a particular program which is going on a television. For example, if you are watching a French program and you would like to have a subtitles in English, then there should be a channel which can trigger this mechanism in the television so that the user can see uh the {gap} the subtitles on the screen.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then there should d uh there should be some buttons which can control features like the colour, colour of the picture, the contrast, sharpness, brightness of the picture. Now there should be a memory switch. There should be a mute button. Suddenly if if if uh uh viewer he gets a telephone call, and if he want he doesn't want to switch off the uh T_V_, but he he can reduce the sound, he can bring the volume down and he can watch {disfmarker} he can uh {disfmarker} while talking he can watch the T_V_. Now the most important feature I would like to have in my remote would be the speech recognition feature. It's an integrated progra programmable sample sensor speaker unit. So a remote can be th can be uh designed which can have the voice recognisers, you can record your own voice
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: which can be recognised by as voice recogniser in the television, for example, if you want to see {disfmarker} we if you want to see the ninth channel if you say just say ninth channel, uh th now the the {disfmarker} uh yeah, the remote will {disfmarker} automatically it will switch to the ninth channel.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So the T_V_ will have some recogniser which will recognise the user's voice and accordingly it will change its functionalities.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So this is one of the very important feature a remote control can have. So this is one one of the interface which can be created.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: A very simple interface which has all the t uh uh important features.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then, please, next slide.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then, these are some of the remotes which are different in shape and colour, but they have many buttons.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So uh sometimes the user finds it very difficult to recognise which button is for what function and all that. So you can you can design an interface which is very simple, and which is user-friendly. Even a kid can use that.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So can you go on t t uh to the next slide. Yeah, so this is one of the interface or one of the remote which has this vi voice recogniser.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: And this has multi-purpose use, it can be used for T_V_, it can be used for cable-satellite, it can be used for V_C_R_, D_V_D_s and audio. And this has in-built voice recogniser.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Can you go on to the next slide? Yeah, now this is an interface for a chil uh for a remote uh uh which a child can use.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Uh this is user-friendly, it's very attractive and uh children can use it as well as they can play with it. And this comes with different colours, different shapes.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And this this uh child uh interface has minimum buttons
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: and all the important uh buttons are there in this small, compact, attractive child interface. Next slide, please. Now this is a big over-sized remote which cannot be misplaced or it's impossible to misplace.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: You don't know me.
User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} this. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I could lose that in a minute. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: So this is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No this is a very big, you cannot {vocalsound} misplace it anywhere.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} So this is a jumbo universal remote control and it's impossible to im misplace or lose. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: This i this is one such interface which can be created. {vocalsound} And the personal preference {vocalsound} uh would be a spe uh uh to incorporate speech recognisers uh which will respond to user's voice for a particular uh function.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Right.
User Interface: Thank you, that's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Okay, thank you very much. Uh any comments on uh her presentation?
Marketing: Well, um looks like we still have quite a choice of things out there.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Um what uh {vocalsound} I'm {disfmarker} No suggestion's bad.
User Interface: Mm yes.
Marketing: But uh we're gonna have to narrow it down a little more. I don't think that we can get uh {disfmarker} The T-shape is good, the child one is good, the too big to misplace, I think it's just funny.
User Interface: Okay. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um I don't think that's gonna be our impulse purchase at the checkout counter.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, I I th I think {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay. {gap} {vocalsound}
Marketing: It's it's gonna be a little bit too unwieldy.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No, I think the these are her presentations, but uh as far as the decision making we getting to that after after
Marketing: Yeah mm. Mm-hmm. Have to come back to that later. Okay.
User Interface: We can.
Project Manager: but if {disfmarker} I just wanted to know whether anybody had any any anything to add to her presentation.
Marketing: No, I think her presentation was good, and she really explored all the options. Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm right. Mm-hmm. Ho who wants to go next um? Mm-hmm. Okay,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, maybe.
Project Manager: and you {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Participant two.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh okay.
Industrial Designer: Uh the next one, sorry.
Project Manager: Oops.
Industrial Designer: It's it was the old one.
Project Manager: The components design.
Industrial Designer: Components.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Okay.
Industrial Designer: Um this time I'm I'm going to um concentrate more on the components and the technical side of the remote controller design.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh, can you go on to the next slide, please.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: I have just brief {vocalsound} uh down few uh components which we require for the remote control uh construction.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh the first one is case to keep all the components like integrated circuit, battery, etcetera, etcetera, it's like {disfmarker} Uh it can be a plastic one, hard plastic, so that it can be strong, even if you just uh uh, {vocalsound} you know, if you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if it falls down, then it doesn't {vocalsound} break. So it should be strong.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And uh uh there are no harmful materials used in that. And it should be recyclable.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh and uh {vocalsound},
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Good point.
Industrial Designer: yeah, and also uh using of colouring compon components like uh if we want to have different colours, blue, red, green, so uh uh we have to use uh some colouring compone compone components. And uh the second important thing is uh uh uh integrated circuit.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh which uh we can use a highly sophisticated one because it's like the it's like the heart of the remote controller. If it is not efficient then everything wi is going to be uh like um the lef ess less efficient so it {disfmarker} you should {disfmarker} we should have a highly sophisticated one. And it should be resistant to high as well as uh low temperatures. Suppose if it is thirty-eight degrees outside forty degrees outside, it should it should uh {vocalsound} be able to re uh resist the uh temperature uh uh highs and uh high temperatures and low temperatures. And uh it should be with uh {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} equipped with timer and alarm facility. And the uh other component we should {disfmarker} uh we have in the remote controller is a resistor uh which is like uh uh i it is very very much important for the electricity uh flow through {vocalsound} through through the uh remote controller and uh also a capacitor which is a b which is a m I think it's it's like a battery, capacitor. Can you go on to the next slide, please?
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh a diode, a transistor, a resonator, these are all this uh technical uh electri electronic compons uh components which are {disfmarker} which we have to use in a remote controller. A battery uh, I would like to suggest one thing uh if we {disfmarker} uh if we will be able to make a res rechargeable battery then we sh we need not go for a high performance battery, even if it is a low performance battery it ca it can't l it can't charge much.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: It it it's not a high voltage battery. Then also we can {disfmarker} If it is a rechargeable one, then uh people can use it for a long time, so in that way we can cut cut the cost, but w uh uh that we have to make the battery as rechargeable one. And we we have a circuit board uh in a remote controller. Can you go to the next slide, please. And how it works, how the remote controller works.
Project Manager: Go away.
Industrial Designer: Thank you. Uh when you press a button, when you do that, you complete a specific connection that means when you when you press a button there will be a s a small circuit underneath the button, and it will send some signals through the wires,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: and then uh the chip will send start connection and knows that which button is pressed. Suppose you have pressed channel one button, number one you have pressed, then the uh chip will know that the number one button was pressed.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It pros produces a mors morse code line signal specific to that button. Every button, every individual button, has its own morse code. Suppose uh the uh user has pressed butto button one, then it will have a spe the circuit will generate a specific morse code to b {vocalsound} that that button, and the transistor will amplify the signal and send then to the L_E_D_ which translates the signal into infrared light. Like {vocalsound} you have got a signal by pressing a button. That's a d a morse code has been generated by the integrated circuit. Now, that signal, that morse code, has to be amplified by the transistor. That is the use of transist transistor we {disfmarker} which we use in the remote controller. It will amplify the signal and it will send it to the L_E_D_ and which translates the signal into an infra infrared bits. The sensor on the T_V_ can see the infrared light, and seeing the signal seeing the signal re it reacts appropriately, that when it sees the amplified mo morse code signal, then it will uh it will uh know which uh what what action it has to uh do. Then it will do the appropriate action. So uh this is how the remote controller works.
User Interface: It works.
Industrial Designer: Can you go to the next slide, please. Yeah, I have few pictures. When you look at the uh um remote controller uh it's it's {vocalsound} it {disfmarker} this is a normal remote controller. And {gap} to the next slide, please.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And where we had a a few buttons and all. And uh if you open the remote controller you have this circui circuit board and few electronic components,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: like you can see a chip there which is having eighteen pins,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and also a capac uh a capacitor, three resistors and also a resonator uh um mm {disfmarker} yeah, and di and a diode transistor.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: The electronic components {disfmarker} uh all of the electronic components have all those uh things like a chip and d {vocalsound} diode transistors an Yeah, di um can y uh you can see the T_A_ double one eight three five labelled uh chip um.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Mm yes.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Uh you can also see the uh uh the green {disfmarker} two green things are uh these are {disfmarker} they are {disfmarker} they are resistors,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and uh just beside that you can see a transistor, and a uh uh cylinder shape, uh that one is a capacitor. Uh and also there are uh {vocalsound} um resistors {disfmarker} uh sorry, ther there is a diode.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Can you go {disfmarker} go on to the next slide.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So uh this is the circuit board. The green one is a circuit board. Actually, uh building a circuit bo board is pretty pretty uh easy and also it's a it's a l l inexpensive. Uh it's it costs less than what you print on a paper, because uh {vocalsound} uh when you {disfmarker} when you are building uh some circuits {disfmarker} some um uh circuits and also wires, it's it's better to go for printing, because uh you can build these kind of k circuit boards on a on a bulk and it's just printing, nothing like uh, you know, you don't need to use wires and all.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: It's not exactly wires we are using. It's just printing something on a board.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Tha tho those prints will acti act as wires and ci uh circuits. So th that green uh thing is a circuit board, and also you can see uh there are b s like uh um access for buttons, like when you press a button, the circuit under the button will be activated uh th it will it will he get some signals from it and it will uh it will ch its ch se send a signal {disfmarker} signals to the, yeah, um integrated circuit.
User Interface: Transmit.
Industrial Designer: Can you go to the next slide, please. Uh so this is {disfmarker} these are the circuits un underneath the buttons. Uh can you see the black uh, round marks?
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: They they are the circuits.
Marketing: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Next, please. And um like uh we have uh designed uh before we have seen some uh few things like {vocalsound} instead off buttons we have some scrolls. Uh b but a b a push-button requires a simple chip underneath it, but whereas a scroll wheel requires normally a regular chip which is a higher price range. Like for s scrolls we have to go for a sophisticated and and k uh {vocalsound} uh uh full {disfmarker} a complete chip.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Uh and a as energy source we offer a basic battery, a more ingenious uh hard dynamo, um a kinetic provision of energy, more than what is that you shake casually to provide energy. So that also we can have in a battery, uh or we can use solar sells. Uh.
Marketing: Hmm, that's interesting.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Uh yeah uh the product can be de delivered into different cases. Uh usually, the cases and card flat {vocalsound} that w we see usually uh d uh a normal remote controller.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Um.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: And you have more pictures. Uh we have five minutes to the end of the meeting.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, maybe d uh I have just one more slide, I think. Um. Like we can have a ma material such as plastic, rubber, wood, titanium, but titanium we can't use. Um and also for electronics we can use a simple and regular um re {vocalsound} or an advanced chip on the print, um also infra it includes the infrared se sender. Um yeah the uh {disfmarker} for the movie just to j develop uh samples and so spe sample speaker. An Yeah, that's it. It's all for me now,
Project Manager: Okay, well thank you.
Industrial Designer: thank you.
Project Manager: Any particular comments by anybody?
Marketing: Uh yeah, on the scroll and the push-button, um ca you can achieve scrolling by repeatedly pushing a button?
Industrial Designer: No, no, no, th the the the scrolling wheels are different, like you can go for a sw switches like buttons or scrolls, uh {vocalsound} which which we used to do before ten ten years before, I think.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Now, nobody uses that because you need you need a a k sophisticated chip and all.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So I think it's better we go for uh um ordinary buttons.
Marketing: Um. We'll just go for push buttons
Industrial Designer: Yeah uh yeah, push-buttons. Yeah.
User Interface: Push-buttons.
Marketing: for {disfmarker} in the interest of cost.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: We don't have a lot of time left and we will still have to make a decision, and the marketing expert has to present her her thing.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay. Go right to my first {disfmarker} my next slide.
Project Manager: Uh okay.
Marketing: Um alright, my method is uh {disfmarker} I'm interested in what the competition is doing, and wanna see how we can make ourselves different from the competition, so I've really been looking at the press and the ads that are out there for other remote controllers. I s I {vocalsound} spend a lot of time on the internet um surfing around doing the same thing. And then when I'm out um in people's houses or at meetings or anything like that, I try to notice what kind of remote controls people have, and if it's convenient in the conversation I ask about it. And I would encourage you all to do the same. Um and my findings from this is that, you know, small is beautiful. Um people like something that really fits in their hand.
User Interface:'Kay.
Marketing: Simple is beautiful. They don't want to have to squint at small print um, they want buttons whose functions are obvious, and they want um as few buttons as possible, and they don't {vocalsound} care for the mode thing. They want each button to do something. And eye-catching is important. It's gotta look cute, it's gotta look appealing. Go ahead, I'm trying to finish fast for you. Um {vocalsound} and our preference is, as far as I'm concerned, are we got to get to the market before the competition. Ours has to be {disfmarker} look really great and it has to come out before the others, so that we have a leg up on time to sell it and push it before other people get out their Christmas item. And we should develop one or two features we can really dwell on in our ad campaign. If we try to tell people it has too many great features, um the consumer just gets confused and we don't get anywhere. So we've gotta narrow our selection down to {vocalsound} li {vocalsound} two things, I think, that we gonna say are really great about our our our new product. And I've been looking around um at what designs {disfmarker} every year different things are popular. And in my research this year I found out that fruit and vegetable shapes are really popular. And people are tired of hard plastic and hard metal. They are more back into soft feel, spongy feeling things, things with maybe a little cloth on them. So those are things maybe we wanna look at as far as saleability of the item.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh that concludes the presentation of everyone. And what we really have to decide in this meeting is um the concept of the remote.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: And uh so what do we think on the concept
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: of the remote? {vocalsound}
Marketing: You wanna try to come back to yours, and limit yours a bit?
Project Manager: Y {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh yes, I would like to include this feature which is called as voice recogniser.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. Mm-hmm. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So speech recognition is most important as far as you're concerned?
User Interface: This could be uh one feature which could be sellable.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, but w
Marketing: Yeah h that could that could that could be our star feature.
Project Manager: I think that's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: That that {gap} be really good, yeah, I agree with that.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, but but I what I'm uh very very much doubtful how {vocalsound} how uh far it will work, because a speech recogniser like i it it has its own uh uh problems, issues.
Marketing: Distance problem?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, it's not distance problem it it's recognising a person's voice,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: like maybe different people will be having different voices, so it like it's uh {disfmarker} everything so i
Marketing: Uh.
Project Manager: Well, you you teach {disfmarker} You have to teach uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: So to get a good recogni recognising system, it's a costly thing, I think.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: No, it's it's, uh yeah, it it's like your recording of uh all uh um a question already, and then you're expecting an answer from th For example, you have a T_V_ system, I'm the user and my family members are the user,
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: I will already record uh a question like, uh good morning,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, but {disfmarker} Yeah. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: like around eight o'clock I want to see the news in the television.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So I'll say just good morning and the T_V_ will switch on. It will recognise my voice and will switch on.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, before we get too far off here um, the components of the concept is the energy. What kind of energy do we foresee? Battery.
Marketing: I think I think battery,
Project Manager: Battery.
User Interface: Battery.
Marketing: and I think we all agreed on that.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: That that's that's gonna be most cost-effective and the best thing.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay then {vocalsound} chip on print.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yep.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Yes.
Project Manager: And the case. And I think we all agree on the case, we wanna have something uh maybe bright, colourful.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Bright, colourful, trendy trendy design, and strong.
User Interface: And compact.
Industrial Designer: And also strong.
User Interface: Trendy design and compact.
Industrial Designer: Trendy, yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Trendy design, compact and strong.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: User interface concept, uh {vocalsound} interface type, supplements
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: That will be your area I think, right, Jana.
Industrial Designer: Uh. Um like the switches, like we use buttons for user interface.
User Interface: Push-buttons.
Project Manager: Put uh k I guess uh for {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Push-buttons.
Project Manager: yeah. And {vocalsound} Not sure what they mean by supplements.
User Interface: And {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Supplements like different types of features buttons, like can have a f mute button or a swapping button.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Well, I think that {disfmarker} Yeah,
Project Manager: Oh, like {disfmarker}
Marketing: or {vocalsound} or like her speech recognition would also be a supplement.
Project Manager: Oh. A what?
Marketing: Her speech recognition feature would be a supplement.
Project Manager: Right, right, right, mm-hmm.
User Interface: Recogniser. Yes.
Industrial Designer: Mm yeah.
Marketing: Okay, so why don't we put down speech recognition if possible pending some more research from our industrial engineer on how expensive that is.
Industrial Designer: Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Right.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. Uh our next meeting will be in thirty minutes, and the uh I_D_ is to {disfmarker} this is the individual actions to be taken until then, to have the look and feel design, and uh the U_I_D_ is supposed to {vocalsound} uh come up with the user interface design,
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and the marketing expert with the product evaluation.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: In this phase, the two of you, Jana and Francine, have to work together on a prototype using modelling clay, it says here.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} You will receive specific {vocalsound} instructions {vocalsound} will be sent to you by your coaches.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Um if you have any questions, you know, you you can always uh contact me um or uh or your coach, I suppose. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Wherever they're hiding? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} so um I think we conclude the meeting here and we come back in uh uh thirty minutes, according to our timetable here.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Thank you very much.
User Interface: Thank you. | There would be nine channel switches and a memory switch. There would be buttons for the next channel, subtitles, increasing and decreasing volume, mute and controlling features like colour, contrast, sharpness, brightness of picture. There also could be a speech recognition feature, which would be an integrated programmable sample sensor speaker unit that had voice recognizers to record the user's voice and change functionalities accordingly. It was agreed that the interface should be simple with important features. | qmsum |
What did Industrial Designer say about the working design of the remote during the discussion of the component design?
Project Manager: Okay. Hello everyone. {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Hi.
User Interface: Hi.
Marketing: Hi.
Project Manager: Um how uh how we doing?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, good.
Project Manager: Uh first we going uh over the minutes of the last meeting, more or less.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um in the last meeting uh the marketing manager had presented uh her method of working, meaning gathering i suggestions from everyone to see how she best could market uh this this product at the {disfmarker} within the budget uh that was given. Uh in general {vocalsound} the idea is that it should be something that is not difficult to use. Um it's also an item that people lose a lot. So we should address that. And, of course, it should be something s s that is very simple to use. In addition to that to make it sell, of course, uh the marketing manager w wishes that it be very attractive,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: or like she says put some sizzle into it in one way or another so that the people are buying it now because, in particular with smaller items, that's a very important fact,'cause um if they say, well, I go home and think about it, that won't work. Um also mentioned was it should be uh {disfmarker} it should have a very short learning curve. And maybe it could be sold by using a slogan.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Our technical manager has then said that she feels it should have a chip
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: that has infra-red bits and it has an interface controls w interface that controls the chip. Therefore, messages uh will be controlled in the same manner. There should be extra features like lid buttons, maybe a beep. If too many buttons are pressed, mm uh uh child lock um and uh maybe a display clock so that people could um {disfmarker} you could see the time, you know, what show they want to watch. Also mentioned was uh maybe different shapes. So the components of the thing should be button, bulbs, infra infra-red bulbs, battery, chips, wires, and maybe some kind of a holder uh for the for the uh item. Francino who is our um
User Interface: Interface designer.
Project Manager: interface designer um uh has mentioned that the {disfmarker} that it, of course, should have an on-off button, and also has mentioned an interesting feature that it should have maybe a channel lock. Particularly with maybe small children that they couldn't uh watch a channel that is undesirable. It should be compact. Her personal favourite was it should be T-shaped. And maybe have an anar alarm-clock. And the material should possibly be not of non-allergic nature. Uh the different systems uh that exist are infra-red or radio-waves. Uh maybe it should have uh electri electrici electricity saving feature.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And {vocalsound} even possibly a timer to {disfmarker} so that people can program {vocalsound} their favourite uh uh program on th right from the remote.
User Interface: Yes.
Project Manager: Uh are we all in agreement that that's about what we discussed last time? Okay.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, I think that pretty much is it. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay, then we {disfmarker} I'm looking for three presentations. And uh I don't know whether the order matters much uh, I don't I don't think so, so whoever w wants {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay, I can start first.
Project Manager: Yeah, okay.
User Interface: Okay. Now my slide, please. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, your slides. Okay. Oh, come on, close already.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And that's number two, right?
User Interface: Three.
Project Manager: Three.
User Interface: Participant three. Yes. Okay.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Now as an interface designer, I would give more emphasis on the interface, how the remote looks like so that it is sellable, it is attractive to customers. Next, please. Okay. Now the function of a remote is to send messages to the television. This messages could be uh switch on-off message or switch to next channel message or swapping the channels or switching onto a particular channel, like you can have the numbers one, two, three, four, up to nine.
Project Manager: Nine what? Nine channel uh switches?
User Interface: Pardon me?
Project Manager: Nine channel switches? Is {disfmarker} Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes, nine numbers. And then you have swapping of uh button
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: by which {disfmarker} using which you can swap the channels if you don't want to see the third channel you can swap it to the fourth channel or vice versa. Then it should have a next button, and next button channel by which you can keep on uh v uh mm eh scrolling the channels one by one.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Going to the nex next.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Next slide, please.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then you should have a button which should which ca which can be used for increasing or decreasing the volume.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then, there should be a button which can give subtitles for a particular program which is going on a television. For example, if you are watching a French program and you would like to have a subtitles in English, then there should be a channel which can trigger this mechanism in the television so that the user can see uh the {gap} the subtitles on the screen.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then there should d uh there should be some buttons which can control features like the colour, colour of the picture, the contrast, sharpness, brightness of the picture. Now there should be a memory switch. There should be a mute button. Suddenly if if if uh uh viewer he gets a telephone call, and if he want he doesn't want to switch off the uh T_V_, but he he can reduce the sound, he can bring the volume down and he can watch {disfmarker} he can uh {disfmarker} while talking he can watch the T_V_. Now the most important feature I would like to have in my remote would be the speech recognition feature. It's an integrated progra programmable sample sensor speaker unit. So a remote can be th can be uh designed which can have the voice recognisers, you can record your own voice
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: which can be recognised by as voice recogniser in the television, for example, if you want to see {disfmarker} we if you want to see the ninth channel if you say just say ninth channel, uh th now the the {disfmarker} uh yeah, the remote will {disfmarker} automatically it will switch to the ninth channel.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So the T_V_ will have some recogniser which will recognise the user's voice and accordingly it will change its functionalities.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So this is one of the very important feature a remote control can have. So this is one one of the interface which can be created.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: A very simple interface which has all the t uh uh important features.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then, please, next slide.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then, these are some of the remotes which are different in shape and colour, but they have many buttons.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So uh sometimes the user finds it very difficult to recognise which button is for what function and all that. So you can you can design an interface which is very simple, and which is user-friendly. Even a kid can use that.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So can you go on t t uh to the next slide. Yeah, so this is one of the interface or one of the remote which has this vi voice recogniser.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: And this has multi-purpose use, it can be used for T_V_, it can be used for cable-satellite, it can be used for V_C_R_, D_V_D_s and audio. And this has in-built voice recogniser.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Can you go on to the next slide? Yeah, now this is an interface for a chil uh for a remote uh uh which a child can use.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Uh this is user-friendly, it's very attractive and uh children can use it as well as they can play with it. And this comes with different colours, different shapes.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And this this uh child uh interface has minimum buttons
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: and all the important uh buttons are there in this small, compact, attractive child interface. Next slide, please. Now this is a big over-sized remote which cannot be misplaced or it's impossible to misplace.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: You don't know me.
User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} this. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I could lose that in a minute. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: So this is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No this is a very big, you cannot {vocalsound} misplace it anywhere.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} So this is a jumbo universal remote control and it's impossible to im misplace or lose. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: This i this is one such interface which can be created. {vocalsound} And the personal preference {vocalsound} uh would be a spe uh uh to incorporate speech recognisers uh which will respond to user's voice for a particular uh function.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Right.
User Interface: Thank you, that's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Okay, thank you very much. Uh any comments on uh her presentation?
Marketing: Well, um looks like we still have quite a choice of things out there.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Um what uh {vocalsound} I'm {disfmarker} No suggestion's bad.
User Interface: Mm yes.
Marketing: But uh we're gonna have to narrow it down a little more. I don't think that we can get uh {disfmarker} The T-shape is good, the child one is good, the too big to misplace, I think it's just funny.
User Interface: Okay. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um I don't think that's gonna be our impulse purchase at the checkout counter.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, I I th I think {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay. {gap} {vocalsound}
Marketing: It's it's gonna be a little bit too unwieldy.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No, I think the these are her presentations, but uh as far as the decision making we getting to that after after
Marketing: Yeah mm. Mm-hmm. Have to come back to that later. Okay.
User Interface: We can.
Project Manager: but if {disfmarker} I just wanted to know whether anybody had any any anything to add to her presentation.
Marketing: No, I think her presentation was good, and she really explored all the options. Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm right. Mm-hmm. Ho who wants to go next um? Mm-hmm. Okay,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, maybe.
Project Manager: and you {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Participant two.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh okay.
Industrial Designer: Uh the next one, sorry.
Project Manager: Oops.
Industrial Designer: It's it was the old one.
Project Manager: The components design.
Industrial Designer: Components.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Okay.
Industrial Designer: Um this time I'm I'm going to um concentrate more on the components and the technical side of the remote controller design.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh, can you go on to the next slide, please.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: I have just brief {vocalsound} uh down few uh components which we require for the remote control uh construction.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh the first one is case to keep all the components like integrated circuit, battery, etcetera, etcetera, it's like {disfmarker} Uh it can be a plastic one, hard plastic, so that it can be strong, even if you just uh uh, {vocalsound} you know, if you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if it falls down, then it doesn't {vocalsound} break. So it should be strong.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And uh uh there are no harmful materials used in that. And it should be recyclable.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh and uh {vocalsound},
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Good point.
Industrial Designer: yeah, and also uh using of colouring compon components like uh if we want to have different colours, blue, red, green, so uh uh we have to use uh some colouring compone compone components. And uh the second important thing is uh uh uh integrated circuit.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh which uh we can use a highly sophisticated one because it's like the it's like the heart of the remote controller. If it is not efficient then everything wi is going to be uh like um the lef ess less efficient so it {disfmarker} you should {disfmarker} we should have a highly sophisticated one. And it should be resistant to high as well as uh low temperatures. Suppose if it is thirty-eight degrees outside forty degrees outside, it should it should uh {vocalsound} be able to re uh resist the uh temperature uh uh highs and uh high temperatures and low temperatures. And uh it should be with uh {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} equipped with timer and alarm facility. And the uh other component we should {disfmarker} uh we have in the remote controller is a resistor uh which is like uh uh i it is very very much important for the electricity uh flow through {vocalsound} through through the uh remote controller and uh also a capacitor which is a b which is a m I think it's it's like a battery, capacitor. Can you go on to the next slide, please?
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh a diode, a transistor, a resonator, these are all this uh technical uh electri electronic compons uh components which are {disfmarker} which we have to use in a remote controller. A battery uh, I would like to suggest one thing uh if we {disfmarker} uh if we will be able to make a res rechargeable battery then we sh we need not go for a high performance battery, even if it is a low performance battery it ca it can't l it can't charge much.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: It it it's not a high voltage battery. Then also we can {disfmarker} If it is a rechargeable one, then uh people can use it for a long time, so in that way we can cut cut the cost, but w uh uh that we have to make the battery as rechargeable one. And we we have a circuit board uh in a remote controller. Can you go to the next slide, please. And how it works, how the remote controller works.
Project Manager: Go away.
Industrial Designer: Thank you. Uh when you press a button, when you do that, you complete a specific connection that means when you when you press a button there will be a s a small circuit underneath the button, and it will send some signals through the wires,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: and then uh the chip will send start connection and knows that which button is pressed. Suppose you have pressed channel one button, number one you have pressed, then the uh chip will know that the number one button was pressed.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It pros produces a mors morse code line signal specific to that button. Every button, every individual button, has its own morse code. Suppose uh the uh user has pressed butto button one, then it will have a spe the circuit will generate a specific morse code to b {vocalsound} that that button, and the transistor will amplify the signal and send then to the L_E_D_ which translates the signal into infrared light. Like {vocalsound} you have got a signal by pressing a button. That's a d a morse code has been generated by the integrated circuit. Now, that signal, that morse code, has to be amplified by the transistor. That is the use of transist transistor we {disfmarker} which we use in the remote controller. It will amplify the signal and it will send it to the L_E_D_ and which translates the signal into an infra infrared bits. The sensor on the T_V_ can see the infrared light, and seeing the signal seeing the signal re it reacts appropriately, that when it sees the amplified mo morse code signal, then it will uh it will uh know which uh what what action it has to uh do. Then it will do the appropriate action. So uh this is how the remote controller works.
User Interface: It works.
Industrial Designer: Can you go to the next slide, please. Yeah, I have few pictures. When you look at the uh um remote controller uh it's it's {vocalsound} it {disfmarker} this is a normal remote controller. And {gap} to the next slide, please.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And where we had a a few buttons and all. And uh if you open the remote controller you have this circui circuit board and few electronic components,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: like you can see a chip there which is having eighteen pins,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and also a capac uh a capacitor, three resistors and also a resonator uh um mm {disfmarker} yeah, and di and a diode transistor.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: The electronic components {disfmarker} uh all of the electronic components have all those uh things like a chip and d {vocalsound} diode transistors an Yeah, di um can y uh you can see the T_A_ double one eight three five labelled uh chip um.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Mm yes.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Uh you can also see the uh uh the green {disfmarker} two green things are uh these are {disfmarker} they are {disfmarker} they are resistors,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and uh just beside that you can see a transistor, and a uh uh cylinder shape, uh that one is a capacitor. Uh and also there are uh {vocalsound} um resistors {disfmarker} uh sorry, ther there is a diode.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Can you go {disfmarker} go on to the next slide.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So uh this is the circuit board. The green one is a circuit board. Actually, uh building a circuit bo board is pretty pretty uh easy and also it's a it's a l l inexpensive. Uh it's it costs less than what you print on a paper, because uh {vocalsound} uh when you {disfmarker} when you are building uh some circuits {disfmarker} some um uh circuits and also wires, it's it's better to go for printing, because uh you can build these kind of k circuit boards on a on a bulk and it's just printing, nothing like uh, you know, you don't need to use wires and all.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: It's not exactly wires we are using. It's just printing something on a board.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Tha tho those prints will acti act as wires and ci uh circuits. So th that green uh thing is a circuit board, and also you can see uh there are b s like uh um access for buttons, like when you press a button, the circuit under the button will be activated uh th it will it will he get some signals from it and it will uh it will ch its ch se send a signal {disfmarker} signals to the, yeah, um integrated circuit.
User Interface: Transmit.
Industrial Designer: Can you go to the next slide, please. Uh so this is {disfmarker} these are the circuits un underneath the buttons. Uh can you see the black uh, round marks?
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: They they are the circuits.
Marketing: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Next, please. And um like uh we have uh designed uh before we have seen some uh few things like {vocalsound} instead off buttons we have some scrolls. Uh b but a b a push-button requires a simple chip underneath it, but whereas a scroll wheel requires normally a regular chip which is a higher price range. Like for s scrolls we have to go for a sophisticated and and k uh {vocalsound} uh uh full {disfmarker} a complete chip.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Uh and a as energy source we offer a basic battery, a more ingenious uh hard dynamo, um a kinetic provision of energy, more than what is that you shake casually to provide energy. So that also we can have in a battery, uh or we can use solar sells. Uh.
Marketing: Hmm, that's interesting.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Uh yeah uh the product can be de delivered into different cases. Uh usually, the cases and card flat {vocalsound} that w we see usually uh d uh a normal remote controller.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Um.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: And you have more pictures. Uh we have five minutes to the end of the meeting.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, maybe d uh I have just one more slide, I think. Um. Like we can have a ma material such as plastic, rubber, wood, titanium, but titanium we can't use. Um and also for electronics we can use a simple and regular um re {vocalsound} or an advanced chip on the print, um also infra it includes the infrared se sender. Um yeah the uh {disfmarker} for the movie just to j develop uh samples and so spe sample speaker. An Yeah, that's it. It's all for me now,
Project Manager: Okay, well thank you.
Industrial Designer: thank you.
Project Manager: Any particular comments by anybody?
Marketing: Uh yeah, on the scroll and the push-button, um ca you can achieve scrolling by repeatedly pushing a button?
Industrial Designer: No, no, no, th the the the scrolling wheels are different, like you can go for a sw switches like buttons or scrolls, uh {vocalsound} which which we used to do before ten ten years before, I think.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Now, nobody uses that because you need you need a a k sophisticated chip and all.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So I think it's better we go for uh um ordinary buttons.
Marketing: Um. We'll just go for push buttons
Industrial Designer: Yeah uh yeah, push-buttons. Yeah.
User Interface: Push-buttons.
Marketing: for {disfmarker} in the interest of cost.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: We don't have a lot of time left and we will still have to make a decision, and the marketing expert has to present her her thing.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay. Go right to my first {disfmarker} my next slide.
Project Manager: Uh okay.
Marketing: Um alright, my method is uh {disfmarker} I'm interested in what the competition is doing, and wanna see how we can make ourselves different from the competition, so I've really been looking at the press and the ads that are out there for other remote controllers. I s I {vocalsound} spend a lot of time on the internet um surfing around doing the same thing. And then when I'm out um in people's houses or at meetings or anything like that, I try to notice what kind of remote controls people have, and if it's convenient in the conversation I ask about it. And I would encourage you all to do the same. Um and my findings from this is that, you know, small is beautiful. Um people like something that really fits in their hand.
User Interface:'Kay.
Marketing: Simple is beautiful. They don't want to have to squint at small print um, they want buttons whose functions are obvious, and they want um as few buttons as possible, and they don't {vocalsound} care for the mode thing. They want each button to do something. And eye-catching is important. It's gotta look cute, it's gotta look appealing. Go ahead, I'm trying to finish fast for you. Um {vocalsound} and our preference is, as far as I'm concerned, are we got to get to the market before the competition. Ours has to be {disfmarker} look really great and it has to come out before the others, so that we have a leg up on time to sell it and push it before other people get out their Christmas item. And we should develop one or two features we can really dwell on in our ad campaign. If we try to tell people it has too many great features, um the consumer just gets confused and we don't get anywhere. So we've gotta narrow our selection down to {vocalsound} li {vocalsound} two things, I think, that we gonna say are really great about our our our new product. And I've been looking around um at what designs {disfmarker} every year different things are popular. And in my research this year I found out that fruit and vegetable shapes are really popular. And people are tired of hard plastic and hard metal. They are more back into soft feel, spongy feeling things, things with maybe a little cloth on them. So those are things maybe we wanna look at as far as saleability of the item.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh that concludes the presentation of everyone. And what we really have to decide in this meeting is um the concept of the remote.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: And uh so what do we think on the concept
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: of the remote? {vocalsound}
Marketing: You wanna try to come back to yours, and limit yours a bit?
Project Manager: Y {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh yes, I would like to include this feature which is called as voice recogniser.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. Mm-hmm. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So speech recognition is most important as far as you're concerned?
User Interface: This could be uh one feature which could be sellable.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, but w
Marketing: Yeah h that could that could that could be our star feature.
Project Manager: I think that's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: That that {gap} be really good, yeah, I agree with that.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, but but I what I'm uh very very much doubtful how {vocalsound} how uh far it will work, because a speech recogniser like i it it has its own uh uh problems, issues.
Marketing: Distance problem?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, it's not distance problem it it's recognising a person's voice,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: like maybe different people will be having different voices, so it like it's uh {disfmarker} everything so i
Marketing: Uh.
Project Manager: Well, you you teach {disfmarker} You have to teach uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: So to get a good recogni recognising system, it's a costly thing, I think.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: No, it's it's, uh yeah, it it's like your recording of uh all uh um a question already, and then you're expecting an answer from th For example, you have a T_V_ system, I'm the user and my family members are the user,
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: I will already record uh a question like, uh good morning,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, but {disfmarker} Yeah. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: like around eight o'clock I want to see the news in the television.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So I'll say just good morning and the T_V_ will switch on. It will recognise my voice and will switch on.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, before we get too far off here um, the components of the concept is the energy. What kind of energy do we foresee? Battery.
Marketing: I think I think battery,
Project Manager: Battery.
User Interface: Battery.
Marketing: and I think we all agreed on that.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: That that's that's gonna be most cost-effective and the best thing.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay then {vocalsound} chip on print.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yep.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Yes.
Project Manager: And the case. And I think we all agree on the case, we wanna have something uh maybe bright, colourful.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Bright, colourful, trendy trendy design, and strong.
User Interface: And compact.
Industrial Designer: And also strong.
User Interface: Trendy design and compact.
Industrial Designer: Trendy, yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Trendy design, compact and strong.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: User interface concept, uh {vocalsound} interface type, supplements
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: That will be your area I think, right, Jana.
Industrial Designer: Uh. Um like the switches, like we use buttons for user interface.
User Interface: Push-buttons.
Project Manager: Put uh k I guess uh for {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Push-buttons.
Project Manager: yeah. And {vocalsound} Not sure what they mean by supplements.
User Interface: And {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Supplements like different types of features buttons, like can have a f mute button or a swapping button.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Well, I think that {disfmarker} Yeah,
Project Manager: Oh, like {disfmarker}
Marketing: or {vocalsound} or like her speech recognition would also be a supplement.
Project Manager: Oh. A what?
Marketing: Her speech recognition feature would be a supplement.
Project Manager: Right, right, right, mm-hmm.
User Interface: Recogniser. Yes.
Industrial Designer: Mm yeah.
Marketing: Okay, so why don't we put down speech recognition if possible pending some more research from our industrial engineer on how expensive that is.
Industrial Designer: Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Right.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. Uh our next meeting will be in thirty minutes, and the uh I_D_ is to {disfmarker} this is the individual actions to be taken until then, to have the look and feel design, and uh the U_I_D_ is supposed to {vocalsound} uh come up with the user interface design,
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and the marketing expert with the product evaluation.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: In this phase, the two of you, Jana and Francine, have to work together on a prototype using modelling clay, it says here.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} You will receive specific {vocalsound} instructions {vocalsound} will be sent to you by your coaches.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Um if you have any questions, you know, you you can always uh contact me um or uh or your coach, I suppose. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Wherever they're hiding? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} so um I think we conclude the meeting here and we come back in uh uh thirty minutes, according to our timetable here.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Thank you very much.
User Interface: Thank you. | When a button was pressed, a small circuit underneath the button would send signals through the wires to the chip. The chip would know which button was pressed and produce a morse code signal specific to that button, which the transistor would amplify the signal. The LED would receive the signal and translate it into infrared light. The sensor on the TV would receive the infrared light which contained the signals and would react accordingly. | qmsum |
Summarize the presentation about findings for marketing.
Project Manager: Okay. Hello everyone. {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Hi.
User Interface: Hi.
Marketing: Hi.
Project Manager: Um how uh how we doing?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, good.
Project Manager: Uh first we going uh over the minutes of the last meeting, more or less.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um in the last meeting uh the marketing manager had presented uh her method of working, meaning gathering i suggestions from everyone to see how she best could market uh this this product at the {disfmarker} within the budget uh that was given. Uh in general {vocalsound} the idea is that it should be something that is not difficult to use. Um it's also an item that people lose a lot. So we should address that. And, of course, it should be something s s that is very simple to use. In addition to that to make it sell, of course, uh the marketing manager w wishes that it be very attractive,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: or like she says put some sizzle into it in one way or another so that the people are buying it now because, in particular with smaller items, that's a very important fact,'cause um if they say, well, I go home and think about it, that won't work. Um also mentioned was it should be uh {disfmarker} it should have a very short learning curve. And maybe it could be sold by using a slogan.
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Our technical manager has then said that she feels it should have a chip
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: that has infra-red bits and it has an interface controls w interface that controls the chip. Therefore, messages uh will be controlled in the same manner. There should be extra features like lid buttons, maybe a beep. If too many buttons are pressed, mm uh uh child lock um and uh maybe a display clock so that people could um {disfmarker} you could see the time, you know, what show they want to watch. Also mentioned was uh maybe different shapes. So the components of the thing should be button, bulbs, infra infra-red bulbs, battery, chips, wires, and maybe some kind of a holder uh for the for the uh item. Francino who is our um
User Interface: Interface designer.
Project Manager: interface designer um uh has mentioned that the {disfmarker} that it, of course, should have an on-off button, and also has mentioned an interesting feature that it should have maybe a channel lock. Particularly with maybe small children that they couldn't uh watch a channel that is undesirable. It should be compact. Her personal favourite was it should be T-shaped. And maybe have an anar alarm-clock. And the material should possibly be not of non-allergic nature. Uh the different systems uh that exist are infra-red or radio-waves. Uh maybe it should have uh electri electrici electricity saving feature.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And {vocalsound} even possibly a timer to {disfmarker} so that people can program {vocalsound} their favourite uh uh program on th right from the remote.
User Interface: Yes.
Project Manager: Uh are we all in agreement that that's about what we discussed last time? Okay.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah, I think that pretty much is it. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay, then we {disfmarker} I'm looking for three presentations. And uh I don't know whether the order matters much uh, I don't I don't think so, so whoever w wants {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay, I can start first.
Project Manager: Yeah, okay.
User Interface: Okay. Now my slide, please. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay, your slides. Okay. Oh, come on, close already.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And that's number two, right?
User Interface: Three.
Project Manager: Three.
User Interface: Participant three. Yes. Okay.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Now as an interface designer, I would give more emphasis on the interface, how the remote looks like so that it is sellable, it is attractive to customers. Next, please. Okay. Now the function of a remote is to send messages to the television. This messages could be uh switch on-off message or switch to next channel message or swapping the channels or switching onto a particular channel, like you can have the numbers one, two, three, four, up to nine.
Project Manager: Nine what? Nine channel uh switches?
User Interface: Pardon me?
Project Manager: Nine channel switches? Is {disfmarker} Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yes, nine numbers. And then you have swapping of uh button
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: by which {disfmarker} using which you can swap the channels if you don't want to see the third channel you can swap it to the fourth channel or vice versa. Then it should have a next button, and next button channel by which you can keep on uh v uh mm eh scrolling the channels one by one.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Going to the nex next.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Next slide, please.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then you should have a button which should which ca which can be used for increasing or decreasing the volume.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then, there should be a button which can give subtitles for a particular program which is going on a television. For example, if you are watching a French program and you would like to have a subtitles in English, then there should be a channel which can trigger this mechanism in the television so that the user can see uh the {gap} the subtitles on the screen.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then there should d uh there should be some buttons which can control features like the colour, colour of the picture, the contrast, sharpness, brightness of the picture. Now there should be a memory switch. There should be a mute button. Suddenly if if if uh uh viewer he gets a telephone call, and if he want he doesn't want to switch off the uh T_V_, but he he can reduce the sound, he can bring the volume down and he can watch {disfmarker} he can uh {disfmarker} while talking he can watch the T_V_. Now the most important feature I would like to have in my remote would be the speech recognition feature. It's an integrated progra programmable sample sensor speaker unit. So a remote can be th can be uh designed which can have the voice recognisers, you can record your own voice
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: which can be recognised by as voice recogniser in the television, for example, if you want to see {disfmarker} we if you want to see the ninth channel if you say just say ninth channel, uh th now the the {disfmarker} uh yeah, the remote will {disfmarker} automatically it will switch to the ninth channel.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So the T_V_ will have some recogniser which will recognise the user's voice and accordingly it will change its functionalities.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So this is one of the very important feature a remote control can have. So this is one one of the interface which can be created.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: A very simple interface which has all the t uh uh important features.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then, please, next slide.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Then, these are some of the remotes which are different in shape and colour, but they have many buttons.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So uh sometimes the user finds it very difficult to recognise which button is for what function and all that. So you can you can design an interface which is very simple, and which is user-friendly. Even a kid can use that.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So can you go on t t uh to the next slide. Yeah, so this is one of the interface or one of the remote which has this vi voice recogniser.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: And this has multi-purpose use, it can be used for T_V_, it can be used for cable-satellite, it can be used for V_C_R_, D_V_D_s and audio. And this has in-built voice recogniser.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Can you go on to the next slide? Yeah, now this is an interface for a chil uh for a remote uh uh which a child can use.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Uh this is user-friendly, it's very attractive and uh children can use it as well as they can play with it. And this comes with different colours, different shapes.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: And this this uh child uh interface has minimum buttons
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: and all the important uh buttons are there in this small, compact, attractive child interface. Next slide, please. Now this is a big over-sized remote which cannot be misplaced or it's impossible to misplace.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: You don't know me.
User Interface: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound} {gap} this. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I could lose that in a minute. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: So this is {disfmarker} {vocalsound} No this is a very big, you cannot {vocalsound} misplace it anywhere.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} So this is a jumbo universal remote control and it's impossible to im misplace or lose. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: This i this is one such interface which can be created. {vocalsound} And the personal preference {vocalsound} uh would be a spe uh uh to incorporate speech recognisers uh which will respond to user's voice for a particular uh function.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Right.
User Interface: Thank you, that's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Okay, thank you very much. Uh any comments on uh her presentation?
Marketing: Well, um looks like we still have quite a choice of things out there.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Um what uh {vocalsound} I'm {disfmarker} No suggestion's bad.
User Interface: Mm yes.
Marketing: But uh we're gonna have to narrow it down a little more. I don't think that we can get uh {disfmarker} The T-shape is good, the child one is good, the too big to misplace, I think it's just funny.
User Interface: Okay. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Um I don't think that's gonna be our impulse purchase at the checkout counter.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, I I th I think {disfmarker}
User Interface: Okay. {gap} {vocalsound}
Marketing: It's it's gonna be a little bit too unwieldy.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No, I think the these are her presentations, but uh as far as the decision making we getting to that after after
Marketing: Yeah mm. Mm-hmm. Have to come back to that later. Okay.
User Interface: We can.
Project Manager: but if {disfmarker} I just wanted to know whether anybody had any any anything to add to her presentation.
Marketing: No, I think her presentation was good, and she really explored all the options. Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm right. Mm-hmm. Ho who wants to go next um? Mm-hmm. Okay,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, maybe.
Project Manager: and you {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Participant two.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh okay.
Industrial Designer: Uh the next one, sorry.
Project Manager: Oops.
Industrial Designer: It's it was the old one.
Project Manager: The components design.
Industrial Designer: Components.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Okay.
Industrial Designer: Um this time I'm I'm going to um concentrate more on the components and the technical side of the remote controller design.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh, can you go on to the next slide, please.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: I have just brief {vocalsound} uh down few uh components which we require for the remote control uh construction.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh the first one is case to keep all the components like integrated circuit, battery, etcetera, etcetera, it's like {disfmarker} Uh it can be a plastic one, hard plastic, so that it can be strong, even if you just uh uh, {vocalsound} you know, if you {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if it falls down, then it doesn't {vocalsound} break. So it should be strong.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And uh uh there are no harmful materials used in that. And it should be recyclable.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh and uh {vocalsound},
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Good point.
Industrial Designer: yeah, and also uh using of colouring compon components like uh if we want to have different colours, blue, red, green, so uh uh we have to use uh some colouring compone compone components. And uh the second important thing is uh uh uh integrated circuit.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh which uh we can use a highly sophisticated one because it's like the it's like the heart of the remote controller. If it is not efficient then everything wi is going to be uh like um the lef ess less efficient so it {disfmarker} you should {disfmarker} we should have a highly sophisticated one. And it should be resistant to high as well as uh low temperatures. Suppose if it is thirty-eight degrees outside forty degrees outside, it should it should uh {vocalsound} be able to re uh resist the uh temperature uh uh highs and uh high temperatures and low temperatures. And uh it should be with uh {vocalsound} um {disfmarker} equipped with timer and alarm facility. And the uh other component we should {disfmarker} uh we have in the remote controller is a resistor uh which is like uh uh i it is very very much important for the electricity uh flow through {vocalsound} through through the uh remote controller and uh also a capacitor which is a b which is a m I think it's it's like a battery, capacitor. Can you go on to the next slide, please?
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Uh a diode, a transistor, a resonator, these are all this uh technical uh electri electronic compons uh components which are {disfmarker} which we have to use in a remote controller. A battery uh, I would like to suggest one thing uh if we {disfmarker} uh if we will be able to make a res rechargeable battery then we sh we need not go for a high performance battery, even if it is a low performance battery it ca it can't l it can't charge much.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: It it it's not a high voltage battery. Then also we can {disfmarker} If it is a rechargeable one, then uh people can use it for a long time, so in that way we can cut cut the cost, but w uh uh that we have to make the battery as rechargeable one. And we we have a circuit board uh in a remote controller. Can you go to the next slide, please. And how it works, how the remote controller works.
Project Manager: Go away.
Industrial Designer: Thank you. Uh when you press a button, when you do that, you complete a specific connection that means when you when you press a button there will be a s a small circuit underneath the button, and it will send some signals through the wires,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: and then uh the chip will send start connection and knows that which button is pressed. Suppose you have pressed channel one button, number one you have pressed, then the uh chip will know that the number one button was pressed.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It pros produces a mors morse code line signal specific to that button. Every button, every individual button, has its own morse code. Suppose uh the uh user has pressed butto button one, then it will have a spe the circuit will generate a specific morse code to b {vocalsound} that that button, and the transistor will amplify the signal and send then to the L_E_D_ which translates the signal into infrared light. Like {vocalsound} you have got a signal by pressing a button. That's a d a morse code has been generated by the integrated circuit. Now, that signal, that morse code, has to be amplified by the transistor. That is the use of transist transistor we {disfmarker} which we use in the remote controller. It will amplify the signal and it will send it to the L_E_D_ and which translates the signal into an infra infrared bits. The sensor on the T_V_ can see the infrared light, and seeing the signal seeing the signal re it reacts appropriately, that when it sees the amplified mo morse code signal, then it will uh it will uh know which uh what what action it has to uh do. Then it will do the appropriate action. So uh this is how the remote controller works.
User Interface: It works.
Industrial Designer: Can you go to the next slide, please. Yeah, I have few pictures. When you look at the uh um remote controller uh it's it's {vocalsound} it {disfmarker} this is a normal remote controller. And {gap} to the next slide, please.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And where we had a a few buttons and all. And uh if you open the remote controller you have this circui circuit board and few electronic components,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: like you can see a chip there which is having eighteen pins,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and also a capac uh a capacitor, three resistors and also a resonator uh um mm {disfmarker} yeah, and di and a diode transistor.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: The electronic components {disfmarker} uh all of the electronic components have all those uh things like a chip and d {vocalsound} diode transistors an Yeah, di um can y uh you can see the T_A_ double one eight three five labelled uh chip um.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Mm yes.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Uh you can also see the uh uh the green {disfmarker} two green things are uh these are {disfmarker} they are {disfmarker} they are resistors,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and uh just beside that you can see a transistor, and a uh uh cylinder shape, uh that one is a capacitor. Uh and also there are uh {vocalsound} um resistors {disfmarker} uh sorry, ther there is a diode.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Can you go {disfmarker} go on to the next slide.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So uh this is the circuit board. The green one is a circuit board. Actually, uh building a circuit bo board is pretty pretty uh easy and also it's a it's a l l inexpensive. Uh it's it costs less than what you print on a paper, because uh {vocalsound} uh when you {disfmarker} when you are building uh some circuits {disfmarker} some um uh circuits and also wires, it's it's better to go for printing, because uh you can build these kind of k circuit boards on a on a bulk and it's just printing, nothing like uh, you know, you don't need to use wires and all.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: It's not exactly wires we are using. It's just printing something on a board.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Tha tho those prints will acti act as wires and ci uh circuits. So th that green uh thing is a circuit board, and also you can see uh there are b s like uh um access for buttons, like when you press a button, the circuit under the button will be activated uh th it will it will he get some signals from it and it will uh it will ch its ch se send a signal {disfmarker} signals to the, yeah, um integrated circuit.
User Interface: Transmit.
Industrial Designer: Can you go to the next slide, please. Uh so this is {disfmarker} these are the circuits un underneath the buttons. Uh can you see the black uh, round marks?
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: They they are the circuits.
Marketing: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Next, please. And um like uh we have uh designed uh before we have seen some uh few things like {vocalsound} instead off buttons we have some scrolls. Uh b but a b a push-button requires a simple chip underneath it, but whereas a scroll wheel requires normally a regular chip which is a higher price range. Like for s scrolls we have to go for a sophisticated and and k uh {vocalsound} uh uh full {disfmarker} a complete chip.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Uh and a as energy source we offer a basic battery, a more ingenious uh hard dynamo, um a kinetic provision of energy, more than what is that you shake casually to provide energy. So that also we can have in a battery, uh or we can use solar sells. Uh.
Marketing: Hmm, that's interesting.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Uh yeah uh the product can be de delivered into different cases. Uh usually, the cases and card flat {vocalsound} that w we see usually uh d uh a normal remote controller.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Um.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: And you have more pictures. Uh we have five minutes to the end of the meeting.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, maybe d uh I have just one more slide, I think. Um. Like we can have a ma material such as plastic, rubber, wood, titanium, but titanium we can't use. Um and also for electronics we can use a simple and regular um re {vocalsound} or an advanced chip on the print, um also infra it includes the infrared se sender. Um yeah the uh {disfmarker} for the movie just to j develop uh samples and so spe sample speaker. An Yeah, that's it. It's all for me now,
Project Manager: Okay, well thank you.
Industrial Designer: thank you.
Project Manager: Any particular comments by anybody?
Marketing: Uh yeah, on the scroll and the push-button, um ca you can achieve scrolling by repeatedly pushing a button?
Industrial Designer: No, no, no, th the the the scrolling wheels are different, like you can go for a sw switches like buttons or scrolls, uh {vocalsound} which which we used to do before ten ten years before, I think.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Now, nobody uses that because you need you need a a k sophisticated chip and all.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: So I think it's better we go for uh um ordinary buttons.
Marketing: Um. We'll just go for push buttons
Industrial Designer: Yeah uh yeah, push-buttons. Yeah.
User Interface: Push-buttons.
Marketing: for {disfmarker} in the interest of cost.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: We don't have a lot of time left and we will still have to make a decision, and the marketing expert has to present her her thing.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay. Go right to my first {disfmarker} my next slide.
Project Manager: Uh okay.
Marketing: Um alright, my method is uh {disfmarker} I'm interested in what the competition is doing, and wanna see how we can make ourselves different from the competition, so I've really been looking at the press and the ads that are out there for other remote controllers. I s I {vocalsound} spend a lot of time on the internet um surfing around doing the same thing. And then when I'm out um in people's houses or at meetings or anything like that, I try to notice what kind of remote controls people have, and if it's convenient in the conversation I ask about it. And I would encourage you all to do the same. Um and my findings from this is that, you know, small is beautiful. Um people like something that really fits in their hand.
User Interface:'Kay.
Marketing: Simple is beautiful. They don't want to have to squint at small print um, they want buttons whose functions are obvious, and they want um as few buttons as possible, and they don't {vocalsound} care for the mode thing. They want each button to do something. And eye-catching is important. It's gotta look cute, it's gotta look appealing. Go ahead, I'm trying to finish fast for you. Um {vocalsound} and our preference is, as far as I'm concerned, are we got to get to the market before the competition. Ours has to be {disfmarker} look really great and it has to come out before the others, so that we have a leg up on time to sell it and push it before other people get out their Christmas item. And we should develop one or two features we can really dwell on in our ad campaign. If we try to tell people it has too many great features, um the consumer just gets confused and we don't get anywhere. So we've gotta narrow our selection down to {vocalsound} li {vocalsound} two things, I think, that we gonna say are really great about our our our new product. And I've been looking around um at what designs {disfmarker} every year different things are popular. And in my research this year I found out that fruit and vegetable shapes are really popular. And people are tired of hard plastic and hard metal. They are more back into soft feel, spongy feeling things, things with maybe a little cloth on them. So those are things maybe we wanna look at as far as saleability of the item.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh that concludes the presentation of everyone. And what we really have to decide in this meeting is um the concept of the remote.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: And uh so what do we think on the concept
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: of the remote? {vocalsound}
Marketing: You wanna try to come back to yours, and limit yours a bit?
Project Manager: Y {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh yes, I would like to include this feature which is called as voice recogniser.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. Mm-hmm. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So speech recognition is most important as far as you're concerned?
User Interface: This could be uh one feature which could be sellable.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, but w
Marketing: Yeah h that could that could that could be our star feature.
Project Manager: I think that's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: That that {gap} be really good, yeah, I agree with that.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, but but I what I'm uh very very much doubtful how {vocalsound} how uh far it will work, because a speech recogniser like i it it has its own uh uh problems, issues.
Marketing: Distance problem?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, it's not distance problem it it's recognising a person's voice,
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: like maybe different people will be having different voices, so it like it's uh {disfmarker} everything so i
Marketing: Uh.
Project Manager: Well, you you teach {disfmarker} You have to teach uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: So to get a good recogni recognising system, it's a costly thing, I think.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: No, it's it's, uh yeah, it it's like your recording of uh all uh um a question already, and then you're expecting an answer from th For example, you have a T_V_ system, I'm the user and my family members are the user,
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: I will already record uh a question like, uh good morning,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, but {disfmarker} Yeah. Mm-hmm.
User Interface: like around eight o'clock I want to see the news in the television.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: So I'll say just good morning and the T_V_ will switch on. It will recognise my voice and will switch on.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, before we get too far off here um, the components of the concept is the energy. What kind of energy do we foresee? Battery.
Marketing: I think I think battery,
Project Manager: Battery.
User Interface: Battery.
Marketing: and I think we all agreed on that.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: That that's that's gonna be most cost-effective and the best thing.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay then {vocalsound} chip on print.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yep.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Yes.
Project Manager: And the case. And I think we all agree on the case, we wanna have something uh maybe bright, colourful.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Bright, colourful, trendy trendy design, and strong.
User Interface: And compact.
Industrial Designer: And also strong.
User Interface: Trendy design and compact.
Industrial Designer: Trendy, yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Trendy design, compact and strong.
User Interface: Yes.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: User interface concept, uh {vocalsound} interface type, supplements
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: That will be your area I think, right, Jana.
Industrial Designer: Uh. Um like the switches, like we use buttons for user interface.
User Interface: Push-buttons.
Project Manager: Put uh k I guess uh for {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Push-buttons.
Project Manager: yeah. And {vocalsound} Not sure what they mean by supplements.
User Interface: And {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Supplements like different types of features buttons, like can have a f mute button or a swapping button.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Well, I think that {disfmarker} Yeah,
Project Manager: Oh, like {disfmarker}
Marketing: or {vocalsound} or like her speech recognition would also be a supplement.
Project Manager: Oh. A what?
Marketing: Her speech recognition feature would be a supplement.
Project Manager: Right, right, right, mm-hmm.
User Interface: Recogniser. Yes.
Industrial Designer: Mm yeah.
Marketing: Okay, so why don't we put down speech recognition if possible pending some more research from our industrial engineer on how expensive that is.
Industrial Designer: Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Right.
User Interface: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. Uh our next meeting will be in thirty minutes, and the uh I_D_ is to {disfmarker} this is the individual actions to be taken until then, to have the look and feel design, and uh the U_I_D_ is supposed to {vocalsound} uh come up with the user interface design,
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: and the marketing expert with the product evaluation.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: In this phase, the two of you, Jana and Francine, have to work together on a prototype using modelling clay, it says here.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} You will receive specific {vocalsound} instructions {vocalsound} will be sent to you by your coaches.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Um if you have any questions, you know, you you can always uh contact me um or uh or your coach, I suppose. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Wherever they're hiding? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} so um I think we conclude the meeting here and we come back in uh uh thirty minutes, according to our timetable here.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Thank you very much.
User Interface: Thank you. | People liked something that fit their hand and fewer buttons which the functions were obvious. They didn't want to squint at small prints and didn't care for different modes. The appearance of the remote should be eye-catching and appealing. The remote had to be in the market before competition for Christmas. Fruit and vegetable shapes were very popular this year and people were back into a soft and spongy feel with a little cloth. The star features of the remote should be narrowed down to one or two and voice recognizer could be an option. | qmsum |
Summarize the discussion about the cost control.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Okay, almost there.
Project Manager: Okay. We'll sta I'll use the PowerPoint, I guess. How was that, was that fun?
User Interface: Mm. Very fun.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. Uh oh I've forgotten to mail you the minutes, but I will do.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Upsidaisy. {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um we {disfmarker}
Marketing: E excuse me I forgot my
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: copy. {gap}
Project Manager: Alright, okay, yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: He's gonna get his pen.
User Interface: Oh right. Okay.
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} Will you guys first with your prototype um before we get to the good news?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, there's good news?
Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Oh.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: we have budget problems.
Industrial Designer: Oh. Cutbacks.
Project Manager: I'm afraid you're all sacked. Oops.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I don't even have this on. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay, have you got a presentation to make?
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: No, not mine yet.
Project Manager: No. Okay
Industrial Designer: Oh.
Project Manager: so it's just your your show.
Industrial Designer: Um maybe we should bring {gap} so that the camera can see {gap}. Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay. Sure.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: We made three for you.
Project Manager: Three? Oh.
User Interface: Um one's based on the banana, one's based on the tomato
Project Manager: Tomato? What tomato? {vocalsound}
User Interface: and the other one is st
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I don't recall a tomato. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Look. Oh yeah, well yeah, we had v some red left over.
Project Manager: Ah I see, okay. {vocalsound}
User Interface: So. Okay, so this is the um non to non uh no buttons one, or as mm few buttons as possible,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: mainly speak recognition. The yellow there is the um
Project Manager: Logo.
User Interface: the slogan, yeah,
Project Manager: Okay, brilliant.
User Interface: that we need to incorporate, it's very simple. If you do need buttons, you can flip it over, and there's some there,
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: um but mainly it's speech recognition.
Project Manager: Okay, so the buttons would be like, you know individual users, or {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah and {vocalsound} yeah they might project things onto the screen which you can do on there.
Project Manager: Alright, okay.
User Interface: Mm I'm not sure about that. Um and this one is the one w more like the one w that we looked at earlier.
Project Manager: Right.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah, you guys can have a look at that if you want.
Project Manager: That's groovy. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Uh can I have {gap}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well I like the feel of it, I like the feel of it.
User Interface: Yeah, sure. Um that one is {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh sorry s {vocalsound}
User Interface: Oh no, it's delicate.
Project Manager: At Oh dear.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: That's that's already got its stand that one. That's it stand.
Project Manager: Alright, okay.
User Interface: It does also lie flat, but that's the that yellow stand there represents the the charging stand.
Project Manager: Okay, brilliant mm.
User Interface: Um the black on the back is the slogan.
Project Manager: Okay, nice and obvious there {vocalsound},
User Interface: Uh yeah, that {gap} {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Well, we did think of that.
Project Manager: if it's standing up, I guess, yeah.
User Interface: Yeah, if it's standing up it's it's on there, but also we're gonna have the company name on the front, which is the little black kind of line in the middle.
Project Manager: Oh right, okay, brilliant. Like that from its centre.
User Interface: So um and that's the um transmit the L_E_D_ thing. These are the s two scroll ones which we thought could be channel up and down and volume up and down. We n were weren't sure about putting them there, because um i it's it kind of could get bashed.
Project Manager: Where you're, yeah, uh were you're holding it kind of {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. Well, if you hold it, you can {disfmarker} you all can hold it, is {disfmarker} it does actually feel quite ergonomic,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: if you've got small hands.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Um, obviously I don't think that's real sized {gap}.
Project Manager: Yeah, okay.
User Interface: It would have to be a bit bigger.
Project Manager: Yeah, scale model, yeah.
User Interface: Okay. Um that's a speaker at the top, so you can speak into it like a little walkie-talkie as well for speak recognition.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Um and {vocalsound} um then the buttons. Yeah kind of self-explanatory, just buttons whenever you need them. Tried to keep it simple. Oh that's the charging base prongs at the bottom.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright, excellent.
User Interface: {vocalsound} We used those {gap}. And um then the big red button in the middle is the on and off one.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: It's not in the traditional place,
Project Manager: No.
User Interface: but um it's quite an obvious place.
Project Manager: It's out of the way as well, I suppose, so. Excellent.
User Interface: So {vocalsound} there we go and and um we have the banana-based one too.
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: Yep. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: This one is uh, I suppose for the younger audiences.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: A a more friendly type of {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay, {vocalsound} so so Barney the banana {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Right, right. It's to uh induce more television watching I suppose or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Ah excellent, just what we need.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Say it for the camera.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Lo Sort of Loch Ness banana. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Right, right.
Project Manager: Cool {gap} yeah. Well, nice to have uh options at least.
Industrial Designer: Yep. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager:'Kay and {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} So are there any um improvements or issues or {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It won't stand.
Project Manager: Oh there are issues, oh there are issues.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Just let it lie down, it wont stand. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um main problem that we have unfortunately being finance.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Oh.
Project Manager: Uh, let's just enter in the um evaluation criteria.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} unfortunately the unit we are currently going to produce minus the extra scroll buttons, uh it's gonna cost us fourteen point six Euros.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Oh.
Project Manager: So we have to
Industrial Designer: What's on the uh on the left? {gap}
Project Manager: rea Sorry, I've accidentally highlighted somehow {disfmarker} Um. {vocalsound} There we go.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Oh god, why is it doing that?
User Interface: Ooh.
Project Manager: There we go. {vocalsound} So basically, um in order to save our two Euros um I was thinking that we could have essentially the same shape, but just have it flattened.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um.
User Interface: More like a traditional remote control.
Project Manager: Yeah, I mean it's already got a kind of cool shape, so but it wouldn't have to be curved sort of in and out.
User Interface: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: And by doing so {disfmarker} Oh no, hold on. Doesn't save us quite as much. I don't know what's going on with this again.
Industrial Designer: W why is the uh double curved two of them?
Project Manager: Oh, good point.
Marketing: And double curve on both sides?
Project Manager: Um.
Marketing: Curve {vocalsound}. Yeah, this is double-curve,
Project Manager: That's {vocalsound} sort of curve in and out.
Marketing: no?
Industrial Designer: Is i
Marketing: This is double-curve. It {disfmarker} This one is single curve.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing:'Cause this is single curve, this is curved on both sides. So double-curve.
Project Manager: No, I think it means double curved as in um
User Interface: Like an S_ shape.
Project Manager: like uh {gap} a single curve on that bottom half, and the double curved would be if it was that similar curve upward.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Okay, I might be wrong though.
Marketing: Like this, one curve on this side, one curve on that side.
Project Manager: I don't think that counts as a curve, I think that's just a shape.
Marketing: Hmm. Hmm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: A curvature is like the {disfmarker} this case.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Maybe.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}'Cause that's the uh the biggest expense there, right.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: {gap} got two of them {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, and why why I've got it two, I don't know, I can't seem to select any more however.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Well we can work around that um {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Right. No.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Cut things out. But you think it should be one.
Project Manager: It's meant to be one, yeah, I don't know why I put two in there,
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: but um {disfmarker} Hold on till I find it, I think this shift button might be stuck again. No maybe the shift button's stuck in.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um okay, so that would take away three, which would give us {disfmarker}
Marketing: Should {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh that's fine.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, so we're {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Eleven uh eleven Euros sixty.
User Interface: Cool. Cool.
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound}
User Interface: So we could even add something.
Project Manager: We cou Oh not quite, have the scroll-wheel, unfortunately.
Industrial Designer: We should fire the accountants.
Project Manager: What?
Industrial Designer: Fire the accountants. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Ah yeah, we could add things.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Maybe if you click back in that bottom right cell, where you're starting from, and then use the arrow keys.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Does that work?
Project Manager: Yeah, I know, that just extends it as well.
Industrial Designer: No mm {vocalsound}.
Marketing: Uh you can do one thing {gap}.
Project Manager: I don't know.
Marketing: You just select one box outsi yeah, this box. Then move it with the help of this {disfmarker} Okay.
Project Manager: It {disfmarker} One of the buttons is sticking, I don't know {gap}.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Just uh just uh {disfmarker} Okay, just a minute. Okay. No input, like this. {vocalsound} Shift. No it's not.
Project Manager: No, it's'cause the uh the shift button's stuck, or something.
Marketing: Yeah, it's not working.
Industrial Designer: Is it the other shift button maybe?
Marketing: Should we ask Meli
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Should we ask our technical expert Melissa?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} No that's fine. Um we've worked out what it would be anyway.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Did you try both shift buttons? It could be the other side.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Cancel. Piss off.
Industrial Designer: That's too bad.
Project Manager: Oh well, never mind. Um {vocalsound}. Right, so that's finances and I dunno what we {disfmarker} what could we reckon we could add? Um
User Interface: Well maybe we could add something, but maybe if {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well I suppose that's our that's that's our design that we've got. So {disfmarker}
User Interface: What do you th We're trying to save money, so. Yeah, if we're happy with the design there's no point in spending money, if we don't have to.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: But if there is anything you think we've missed out there, then, you know, feel free to add it. Maybe {disfmarker} I mean obviously it would be bigger so there might be more space for the the slogan on the front,
Project Manager: Yeah yeah.
User Interface: because it's not in an ideal place right now.
Project Manager: Well that's that's uh {disfmarker} Okay, so project evaluation. We have under twelve {vocalsound} Euros fifty. Project process, how do we think that went? Are we happy?
Industrial Designer: Oh.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah I think we have a a winning product.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay. {vocalsound} Evaluation. Oh we've been writing this up for m months.
User Interface: I think it went quite smoothly.
Project Manager: Uh room for creativity, were we happy with that?
User Interface: W I think we were very creative.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No, I mea I think it means sort of individually.
User Interface: Oh right, okay.
Project Manager: Yes, no, maybe?
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay. Groovy. So uh we're just gonna. Uh yeah, okay. Teamwork? Leadership, sorry.
Industrial Designer: Great leadership. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Excellent leadership. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Thank you very much. You're all get you're all getting a raise. Uh teamwork. I thought went well.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah, everyone got enough input, I think.
Project Manager: Uh and well means, yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, we {gap} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: The technical stuff was brilliant.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Let's buy more.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh Right. Um
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} These pens are are neat though.
Project Manager: I don't know what, new ideas found, means, to be honest.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, these are new ideas, like glow-in-the-dark or something like that. We discussed all the new ideas, but of course we couldn't reach any proper goals, we couldn't use these {gap}, but we h we are using these scroll buttons like this. These are new ideas we And new shapes, everything
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: . At le {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm'kay. Groovy.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So just general thumbs up for all of us then.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: That kind of unfortunately is too quick.
Marketing: Hmm.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Well um.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {vocalsound}. I suppose yeah. Um.
Industrial Designer: Uh so let's talk about our bonuses and the raises we're getting for this, right. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's it, um I think another couple of days holiday pay might be well in order for all of you.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Right, right.
Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Let's see if I can get this bloody thing to work.
Industrial Designer: Uh maybe we should start cleaning up the clay.
Project Manager: Whoops. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah, maybe.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Does it go back in, does it? Reusable.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
User Interface: {gap}
Industrial Designer: Something we should get {gap}.
Project Manager: I don't know what this is but it's really really annoying.
Marketing: So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Uh Brian, have you have you finished?
Project Manager: Uh-huh.
Marketing: Uh mine needs also this.
Project Manager: Um I have, yes.
Marketing: At last mine is also the presentation.
Project Manager: Huh? Oh right, okay, you've got more, okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, yeah.
User Interface: Oh, you got a presentation,
Project Manager: Sorry uh.
User Interface: sorry.
Industrial Designer: Oh ok
Project Manager: It didn't bother to tell me that on this
Marketing: S
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: thing. Is it? Okay.
Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} is the project evaluated, that is mine.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Doesn't tell me. {vocalsound} Oh you're doing that. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: We evaluated ourselves, we thought we were great. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh.
User Interface: Mm, love to eat that now.
Industrial Designer: Anybody {vocalsound}
User Interface: Kind of a green banana now.
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Clay covered banana.
User Interface: It's {disfmarker} this as well, sorry, we forgot to mention it'll be made out of kind of a rubbery latex, new material that we've got.
Project Manager: O okay, hold on.
User Interface: {vocalsound} I've got.
Industrial Designer: {gap} blue.
User Interface: {gap}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I wonder w which cell do I want. {gap}
Industrial Designer: It's fun to touch.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} So. Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, I didn't realise you had that bit. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} So.
User Interface: Oh could you pass the tomato please.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Sorry. Thank you.
Marketing: So now is the final evaluation, final evaluation of the uh uh of our product. How we are going to {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: means uh at what standard what standard {disfmarker} whether it meets our standards or not. How mu What rating we will give to these products. So of course this is {disfmarker} will be a team work, w we together have to decide wha what rating we will give to this product and everything. So what methodology I will tell you on what basis we are going to discuss all this.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: We will give the rating to this product based on the user requirements, whether it meets the user requirements or not, this product. Then trends, whether it is as {gap} fashion trends or not? Means {vocalsound} because we have already stated that people do prefer fashionable things nowadays.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So this is also an important factor for our evaluation also. Then marketing strategy of the company. As we have already discussed that our company is quite {gap} in the market, not only in terms of providing quality products, not only in pro providing latest technologies, but also in terms of providing environmental s
User Interface: Sorry {gap}. Sorry,
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: carry on. {vocalsound}
Marketing: So {vocalsound} but also in terms of providing environmental safe products, uh yeah like uh keeping uh keeping in mind all the safety issues. So {disfmarker} Now comes the criteria rating with seven point scale. I'm having this scale this scale,
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: so we have to do it on a board.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: {gap}
Marketing: {gap} the user requirem I think.
Project Manager: Alright, okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: The board working again, is it?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Do we have the uh the marker for the board?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh.
User Interface: Um.
Industrial Designer: There it is.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Thank you.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap}
Marketing: So.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} So these are the three crite criterias for our evaluation of our product. First of all uh comes user requirement.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So we will see whether this product meets all user requirements or not. I I will {disfmarker} first I would like to have your views, what do you think whether it meets all user requirements or not?
User Interface: Um {vocalsound} I think {disfmarker} Yeah, it did.
Marketing: S
User Interface: It had all the basic buttons that they needed as well as the uh new technology that people said they wanted.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Um so.
Project Manager: When the user requirement is essentially just to operate the T_V_,
User Interface: Does it work?
Project Manager: so yeah,
User Interface: Yeah. So.
Marketing: {vocalsound} So what do you think you will personally give.
Project Manager: of course we haven't actually got a working model yet.
User Interface: I would say seven.
Marketing: Seven. Uh.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Seven is good, yeah, isn't it? I can't {disfmarker} True or false? No sorry tr one is true.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: One, yeah.
Marketing: Uh one is {disfmarker} means highest ranking, okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: But I think highest ranking is seven, or one?
Project Manager: No it's it's like true is one end, and false is the oth
Industrial Designer: No that's false.
Marketing: Okay, right right. So it's one for from your point of view.
User Interface: Okay, so one.
Marketing: And what do you say our Industrial Expert?
User Interface: Yep.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh. It's hard to know. I I give it a two. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Uh d you can you can tell on on the like {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I think she has given her views on the basis of design, because she was our i Interface Expert.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: But you can give your views based on technology, whether the technology meets the requirements of the customers or not?
Industrial Designer: Um yeah, I think i it might even exceed it um. But I guess there is a kind of a shortage of buttons.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Um {gap} I'm gonna give it a two.
Marketing: Two.
Industrial Designer: Two.
Marketing: And what about uh you, Brian?
Project Manager: Oh, I'll go for a one. {vocalsound}
Marketing: You will go for one.
Project Manager: Basic requirements but of the pro of the project.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay. Uh for me personally it is everything fine, it may be having good design, it may be uh meeting all the requirements of the customers like technology-wise, price-wise, but there is one thing which limits the customers, like we are having only two, three designs, like we are having one banana design and the other one is orange,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah th {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: and
User Interface: Mm {vocalsound} yellow.
Marketing: {disfmarker} Uh yeah, lower end. And the third one is what you ge uh that is not a f fruit look.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: But if a person doesn't like banana, or orange, you are limiting him.
User Interface: Uh-huh.
Project Manager: Come on that was the tha {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: No, don't buy our product, because we are l we like this only.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}'Kay.
User Interface: Uh-huh.
Marketing: So we are showing our preference for particular fruits,
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Being fruitist. {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: two or three kinds rather, and {disfmarker} Yeah. {vocalsound} So.
User Interface: Is that no is that not trends?
Marketing: Uh no, uh personally as a Marketing Expert I don't believe that,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: because whatever companies {disfmarker} they launch their products in the shape of fruits, they give a range of products, a range of shapes, like if we see, look at the smallest thing, toffee chocolates, they give a variety of different things.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Some children like to buy banana shape, some apple shape, some even pineapple shape, some orange shape.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So you can {gap} {disfmarker} what shape a person will like.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So in this case giving only one or two choices we are lim limiting our customers. And by limiting them, we are limiting our sales, limiting our profit also.
User Interface: Uh-huh. But in electronics, I think, it's not q always quite so um {disfmarker} you don't always have so many choices as with chocolates.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I think, you know, if you're going to buy a T_V_ maybe a company'll have {disfmarker} That you're going to choose from, a company'll have two or three choices, but they're different designs. We were coming up with one product.
Marketing: Uh maybe. Okay but I will I will personally {disfmarker} won't give it {gap} beyond three.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: No, I mean uh {vocalsound} obviously your opinion,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I'm just trying to {disfmarker} Okay.
Marketing: So we can {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} He's a tough cookie.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, on an average we can think three, four sevenths, maybe. Three or four?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Uh, no sorry,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: it should be {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Six. Five or six.
User Interface: What are we doing?
Industrial Designer: What are we doing?
Marketing: No sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, we are doing a very wrong thing.
User Interface: Adding them up?
Industrial Designer: We're gonna average them?
Marketing: Yeah, yeah, we are taking everything,
Industrial Designer: Okay. So seven fourths.
Marketing: and that's {disfmarker} I have taken it very wrongly.
User Interface: Oh.
Marketing: Yeah uh
Industrial Designer: About one point f one point eight.
Marketing: three four four two six seven seven sev Yeah one pe exactly. So we can say one or two.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: {gap} because it is one point eight uh {gap} two, so we will do two.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh I see.
Industrial Designer: Yeah round it up to two.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Okay, yeah.
Industrial Designer: So trends.
Marketing: So where were the trends.
Industrial Designer: Can you explain what you want us to write there?
Marketing: Sorry?
Industrial Designer: How it {disfmarker} how conforms to the current trends?
Marketing: Yeah, again the the fashion trends, this also like whether it it will be fashionable to have these products in the {vocalsound} uh as a fruit shape or something.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Uh.
User Interface: Well um going on uh the specifications that we had, that fruit and vegetables are quite popular, and that people like something that is good to look at and not many buttons, I would give it um, well, because it's hard to make a fruit good to look at, that that looks cool, you know,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: so I would actually give it a three.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Tha three or four, I'm not sure.
Marketing: Okay. Yeah.
User Interface: Three. Go for three. That's fine.
Marketing: Uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer:'Kay. As far as the uh technology it its'got the latest trends in speech technology, but it's missing the screen, as we said, um but it does have the push-buttons, or the scroll-buttons, um but it doesn't have that fancy solar power or the the vibrating energy mechanism. So I give it a a four. I'd give it a kinda middle of the road for
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: for technology.
Project Manager: Yeah, I am sort of pret uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Just the fruit does me in, I mean uh it might
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: it might be trendy to some, but I'm just not swallowing the fruit, so um {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh also uh I would have liked to have seen the L_C_D_ screen in it. Um so yeah I'd say about four as well.
Marketing: Okay. Uh personally I wi uh I think that in terms of trends, these products are quite good, like, these products are in fruit shape, because that wha people now {disfmarker} our fashion trend shows that people like everything {disfmarker} all f everything that is being advertised, like clothes, shoes, and everything is being advertised in the form of fruits and vegetables, or getting them {gap} or showing some association with them.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So and in this way our product is good. And the second thing, now people don't want any complicated or bulky products and ours is quite simple and quite handy.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So that is also ef that also {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Our product meets the f the fashion uh trends of the market. And yes. It is cus spongy also. So they can play with it, it's quite good.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So then I think, maybe I can give it two. So four five ten thirteen thirteen {gap}. So we can {disfmarker} Is it fine? So what about company strategy?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: {gap}
User Interface: Um.
Industrial Designer: Well it was yellow. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah, the company strategy, okay. Um {vocalsound} there was lot of discussing, that was good. Um I feel I got my say. Um so I'd give the company strategy a {vocalsound} two.
Industrial Designer: Well, I think it's the the remote control conforms to the the company strategy.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Is that the question?
Project Manager: Yeah, yeah.
User Interface: Is it? Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um.
User Interface: Okay, so {vocalsound} one or two.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: One. Okay, just leave it, it's fine.
Industrial Designer: I'll go with two.
Marketing: So what about you, Brian?
Project Manager: Um yeah, a three. Pretty much kept to the company strategy, so I would go for a {disfmarker} a one, as we not only kept it, but we were limited by {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: Yeah, and me also, like, this product me uh me uh me uh this meets all company strategy like our product should be as per customers'requirement, as per latest technology, and it should be environmental safe. So since our product meets all these requirements, so I would also prefer to give it rank one. So four six six
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So one and a half.
Marketing: half.
User Interface: Yeah, one.
Marketing: So we can say two or one {gap} {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: A two. {gap}
Marketing: Okay. So th seven seven. Uh overall we are getting two {gap} something, but we can round it as two.
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Marketing: Yeah. So I think overall uh evaluation of our product is quite good.
Project Manager: Cool, groovy. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: S
Marketing: So we can launch it. Yeah.
Project Manager: Cool. Brilliant. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Woo-hoo.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} In which case we are done.'Cause we've evaluated and we are within budget. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay.
User Interface: Cool.
Marketing: So
Project Manager: Champagne lunch anyone? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: yeah. {vocalsound} Great. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh. | According to Project Manager, currently, the new remote controls would cost fourteen point six Euros each. Unfortunately, that was two Euros over the budget. Then the team had a little discussion on how to reduce the cost. Eventually, the cost was reduced to eleven Euros sixty by adjusting two parts of the design. That left them plenty of room to add some other designs to the existing models. The final cost of the new remote controls was set at twelve Euros fifty each. | qmsum |
What did the team eventually come up with to reduce costs?
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Okay, almost there.
Project Manager: Okay. We'll sta I'll use the PowerPoint, I guess. How was that, was that fun?
User Interface: Mm. Very fun.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. Uh oh I've forgotten to mail you the minutes, but I will do.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Upsidaisy. {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um we {disfmarker}
Marketing: E excuse me I forgot my
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: copy. {gap}
Project Manager: Alright, okay, yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: He's gonna get his pen.
User Interface: Oh right. Okay.
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} Will you guys first with your prototype um before we get to the good news?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, there's good news?
Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Oh.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: we have budget problems.
Industrial Designer: Oh. Cutbacks.
Project Manager: I'm afraid you're all sacked. Oops.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I don't even have this on. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay, have you got a presentation to make?
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: No, not mine yet.
Project Manager: No. Okay
Industrial Designer: Oh.
Project Manager: so it's just your your show.
Industrial Designer: Um maybe we should bring {gap} so that the camera can see {gap}. Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay. Sure.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: We made three for you.
Project Manager: Three? Oh.
User Interface: Um one's based on the banana, one's based on the tomato
Project Manager: Tomato? What tomato? {vocalsound}
User Interface: and the other one is st
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I don't recall a tomato. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Look. Oh yeah, well yeah, we had v some red left over.
Project Manager: Ah I see, okay. {vocalsound}
User Interface: So. Okay, so this is the um non to non uh no buttons one, or as mm few buttons as possible,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: mainly speak recognition. The yellow there is the um
Project Manager: Logo.
User Interface: the slogan, yeah,
Project Manager: Okay, brilliant.
User Interface: that we need to incorporate, it's very simple. If you do need buttons, you can flip it over, and there's some there,
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: um but mainly it's speech recognition.
Project Manager: Okay, so the buttons would be like, you know individual users, or {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah and {vocalsound} yeah they might project things onto the screen which you can do on there.
Project Manager: Alright, okay.
User Interface: Mm I'm not sure about that. Um and this one is the one w more like the one w that we looked at earlier.
Project Manager: Right.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah, you guys can have a look at that if you want.
Project Manager: That's groovy. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Uh can I have {gap}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well I like the feel of it, I like the feel of it.
User Interface: Yeah, sure. Um that one is {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh sorry s {vocalsound}
User Interface: Oh no, it's delicate.
Project Manager: At Oh dear.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: That's that's already got its stand that one. That's it stand.
Project Manager: Alright, okay.
User Interface: It does also lie flat, but that's the that yellow stand there represents the the charging stand.
Project Manager: Okay, brilliant mm.
User Interface: Um the black on the back is the slogan.
Project Manager: Okay, nice and obvious there {vocalsound},
User Interface: Uh yeah, that {gap} {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Well, we did think of that.
Project Manager: if it's standing up, I guess, yeah.
User Interface: Yeah, if it's standing up it's it's on there, but also we're gonna have the company name on the front, which is the little black kind of line in the middle.
Project Manager: Oh right, okay, brilliant. Like that from its centre.
User Interface: So um and that's the um transmit the L_E_D_ thing. These are the s two scroll ones which we thought could be channel up and down and volume up and down. We n were weren't sure about putting them there, because um i it's it kind of could get bashed.
Project Manager: Where you're, yeah, uh were you're holding it kind of {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. Well, if you hold it, you can {disfmarker} you all can hold it, is {disfmarker} it does actually feel quite ergonomic,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: if you've got small hands.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Um, obviously I don't think that's real sized {gap}.
Project Manager: Yeah, okay.
User Interface: It would have to be a bit bigger.
Project Manager: Yeah, scale model, yeah.
User Interface: Okay. Um that's a speaker at the top, so you can speak into it like a little walkie-talkie as well for speak recognition.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Um and {vocalsound} um then the buttons. Yeah kind of self-explanatory, just buttons whenever you need them. Tried to keep it simple. Oh that's the charging base prongs at the bottom.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright, excellent.
User Interface: {vocalsound} We used those {gap}. And um then the big red button in the middle is the on and off one.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: It's not in the traditional place,
Project Manager: No.
User Interface: but um it's quite an obvious place.
Project Manager: It's out of the way as well, I suppose, so. Excellent.
User Interface: So {vocalsound} there we go and and um we have the banana-based one too.
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: Yep. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: This one is uh, I suppose for the younger audiences.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: A a more friendly type of {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay, {vocalsound} so so Barney the banana {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Right, right. It's to uh induce more television watching I suppose or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Ah excellent, just what we need.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Say it for the camera.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Lo Sort of Loch Ness banana. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Right, right.
Project Manager: Cool {gap} yeah. Well, nice to have uh options at least.
Industrial Designer: Yep. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager:'Kay and {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} So are there any um improvements or issues or {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It won't stand.
Project Manager: Oh there are issues, oh there are issues.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Just let it lie down, it wont stand. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um main problem that we have unfortunately being finance.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Oh.
Project Manager: Uh, let's just enter in the um evaluation criteria.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} unfortunately the unit we are currently going to produce minus the extra scroll buttons, uh it's gonna cost us fourteen point six Euros.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Oh.
Project Manager: So we have to
Industrial Designer: What's on the uh on the left? {gap}
Project Manager: rea Sorry, I've accidentally highlighted somehow {disfmarker} Um. {vocalsound} There we go.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Oh god, why is it doing that?
User Interface: Ooh.
Project Manager: There we go. {vocalsound} So basically, um in order to save our two Euros um I was thinking that we could have essentially the same shape, but just have it flattened.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um.
User Interface: More like a traditional remote control.
Project Manager: Yeah, I mean it's already got a kind of cool shape, so but it wouldn't have to be curved sort of in and out.
User Interface: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: And by doing so {disfmarker} Oh no, hold on. Doesn't save us quite as much. I don't know what's going on with this again.
Industrial Designer: W why is the uh double curved two of them?
Project Manager: Oh, good point.
Marketing: And double curve on both sides?
Project Manager: Um.
Marketing: Curve {vocalsound}. Yeah, this is double-curve,
Project Manager: That's {vocalsound} sort of curve in and out.
Marketing: no?
Industrial Designer: Is i
Marketing: This is double-curve. It {disfmarker} This one is single curve.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing:'Cause this is single curve, this is curved on both sides. So double-curve.
Project Manager: No, I think it means double curved as in um
User Interface: Like an S_ shape.
Project Manager: like uh {gap} a single curve on that bottom half, and the double curved would be if it was that similar curve upward.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Okay, I might be wrong though.
Marketing: Like this, one curve on this side, one curve on that side.
Project Manager: I don't think that counts as a curve, I think that's just a shape.
Marketing: Hmm. Hmm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: A curvature is like the {disfmarker} this case.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Maybe.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}'Cause that's the uh the biggest expense there, right.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: {gap} got two of them {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, and why why I've got it two, I don't know, I can't seem to select any more however.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Well we can work around that um {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Right. No.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Cut things out. But you think it should be one.
Project Manager: It's meant to be one, yeah, I don't know why I put two in there,
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: but um {disfmarker} Hold on till I find it, I think this shift button might be stuck again. No maybe the shift button's stuck in.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um okay, so that would take away three, which would give us {disfmarker}
Marketing: Should {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh that's fine.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, so we're {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Eleven uh eleven Euros sixty.
User Interface: Cool. Cool.
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound}
User Interface: So we could even add something.
Project Manager: We cou Oh not quite, have the scroll-wheel, unfortunately.
Industrial Designer: We should fire the accountants.
Project Manager: What?
Industrial Designer: Fire the accountants. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Ah yeah, we could add things.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Maybe if you click back in that bottom right cell, where you're starting from, and then use the arrow keys.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Does that work?
Project Manager: Yeah, I know, that just extends it as well.
Industrial Designer: No mm {vocalsound}.
Marketing: Uh you can do one thing {gap}.
Project Manager: I don't know.
Marketing: You just select one box outsi yeah, this box. Then move it with the help of this {disfmarker} Okay.
Project Manager: It {disfmarker} One of the buttons is sticking, I don't know {gap}.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Just uh just uh {disfmarker} Okay, just a minute. Okay. No input, like this. {vocalsound} Shift. No it's not.
Project Manager: No, it's'cause the uh the shift button's stuck, or something.
Marketing: Yeah, it's not working.
Industrial Designer: Is it the other shift button maybe?
Marketing: Should we ask Meli
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Should we ask our technical expert Melissa?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} No that's fine. Um we've worked out what it would be anyway.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Did you try both shift buttons? It could be the other side.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Cancel. Piss off.
Industrial Designer: That's too bad.
Project Manager: Oh well, never mind. Um {vocalsound}. Right, so that's finances and I dunno what we {disfmarker} what could we reckon we could add? Um
User Interface: Well maybe we could add something, but maybe if {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well I suppose that's our that's that's our design that we've got. So {disfmarker}
User Interface: What do you th We're trying to save money, so. Yeah, if we're happy with the design there's no point in spending money, if we don't have to.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: But if there is anything you think we've missed out there, then, you know, feel free to add it. Maybe {disfmarker} I mean obviously it would be bigger so there might be more space for the the slogan on the front,
Project Manager: Yeah yeah.
User Interface: because it's not in an ideal place right now.
Project Manager: Well that's that's uh {disfmarker} Okay, so project evaluation. We have under twelve {vocalsound} Euros fifty. Project process, how do we think that went? Are we happy?
Industrial Designer: Oh.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah I think we have a a winning product.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay. {vocalsound} Evaluation. Oh we've been writing this up for m months.
User Interface: I think it went quite smoothly.
Project Manager: Uh room for creativity, were we happy with that?
User Interface: W I think we were very creative.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No, I mea I think it means sort of individually.
User Interface: Oh right, okay.
Project Manager: Yes, no, maybe?
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay. Groovy. So uh we're just gonna. Uh yeah, okay. Teamwork? Leadership, sorry.
Industrial Designer: Great leadership. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Excellent leadership. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Thank you very much. You're all get you're all getting a raise. Uh teamwork. I thought went well.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah, everyone got enough input, I think.
Project Manager: Uh and well means, yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, we {gap} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: The technical stuff was brilliant.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Let's buy more.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh Right. Um
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} These pens are are neat though.
Project Manager: I don't know what, new ideas found, means, to be honest.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, these are new ideas, like glow-in-the-dark or something like that. We discussed all the new ideas, but of course we couldn't reach any proper goals, we couldn't use these {gap}, but we h we are using these scroll buttons like this. These are new ideas we And new shapes, everything
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: . At le {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm'kay. Groovy.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So just general thumbs up for all of us then.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: That kind of unfortunately is too quick.
Marketing: Hmm.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Well um.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {vocalsound}. I suppose yeah. Um.
Industrial Designer: Uh so let's talk about our bonuses and the raises we're getting for this, right. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's it, um I think another couple of days holiday pay might be well in order for all of you.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Right, right.
Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Let's see if I can get this bloody thing to work.
Industrial Designer: Uh maybe we should start cleaning up the clay.
Project Manager: Whoops. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah, maybe.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Does it go back in, does it? Reusable.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
User Interface: {gap}
Industrial Designer: Something we should get {gap}.
Project Manager: I don't know what this is but it's really really annoying.
Marketing: So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Uh Brian, have you have you finished?
Project Manager: Uh-huh.
Marketing: Uh mine needs also this.
Project Manager: Um I have, yes.
Marketing: At last mine is also the presentation.
Project Manager: Huh? Oh right, okay, you've got more, okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, yeah.
User Interface: Oh, you got a presentation,
Project Manager: Sorry uh.
User Interface: sorry.
Industrial Designer: Oh ok
Project Manager: It didn't bother to tell me that on this
Marketing: S
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: thing. Is it? Okay.
Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} is the project evaluated, that is mine.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Doesn't tell me. {vocalsound} Oh you're doing that. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: We evaluated ourselves, we thought we were great. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh.
User Interface: Mm, love to eat that now.
Industrial Designer: Anybody {vocalsound}
User Interface: Kind of a green banana now.
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Clay covered banana.
User Interface: It's {disfmarker} this as well, sorry, we forgot to mention it'll be made out of kind of a rubbery latex, new material that we've got.
Project Manager: O okay, hold on.
User Interface: {vocalsound} I've got.
Industrial Designer: {gap} blue.
User Interface: {gap}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I wonder w which cell do I want. {gap}
Industrial Designer: It's fun to touch.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} So. Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, I didn't realise you had that bit. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} So.
User Interface: Oh could you pass the tomato please.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Sorry. Thank you.
Marketing: So now is the final evaluation, final evaluation of the uh uh of our product. How we are going to {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: means uh at what standard what standard {disfmarker} whether it meets our standards or not. How mu What rating we will give to these products. So of course this is {disfmarker} will be a team work, w we together have to decide wha what rating we will give to this product and everything. So what methodology I will tell you on what basis we are going to discuss all this.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: We will give the rating to this product based on the user requirements, whether it meets the user requirements or not, this product. Then trends, whether it is as {gap} fashion trends or not? Means {vocalsound} because we have already stated that people do prefer fashionable things nowadays.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So this is also an important factor for our evaluation also. Then marketing strategy of the company. As we have already discussed that our company is quite {gap} in the market, not only in terms of providing quality products, not only in pro providing latest technologies, but also in terms of providing environmental s
User Interface: Sorry {gap}. Sorry,
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: carry on. {vocalsound}
Marketing: So {vocalsound} but also in terms of providing environmental safe products, uh yeah like uh keeping uh keeping in mind all the safety issues. So {disfmarker} Now comes the criteria rating with seven point scale. I'm having this scale this scale,
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: so we have to do it on a board.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: {gap}
Marketing: {gap} the user requirem I think.
Project Manager: Alright, okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: The board working again, is it?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Do we have the uh the marker for the board?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh.
User Interface: Um.
Industrial Designer: There it is.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Thank you.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap}
Marketing: So.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} So these are the three crite criterias for our evaluation of our product. First of all uh comes user requirement.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So we will see whether this product meets all user requirements or not. I I will {disfmarker} first I would like to have your views, what do you think whether it meets all user requirements or not?
User Interface: Um {vocalsound} I think {disfmarker} Yeah, it did.
Marketing: S
User Interface: It had all the basic buttons that they needed as well as the uh new technology that people said they wanted.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Um so.
Project Manager: When the user requirement is essentially just to operate the T_V_,
User Interface: Does it work?
Project Manager: so yeah,
User Interface: Yeah. So.
Marketing: {vocalsound} So what do you think you will personally give.
Project Manager: of course we haven't actually got a working model yet.
User Interface: I would say seven.
Marketing: Seven. Uh.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Seven is good, yeah, isn't it? I can't {disfmarker} True or false? No sorry tr one is true.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: One, yeah.
Marketing: Uh one is {disfmarker} means highest ranking, okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: But I think highest ranking is seven, or one?
Project Manager: No it's it's like true is one end, and false is the oth
Industrial Designer: No that's false.
Marketing: Okay, right right. So it's one for from your point of view.
User Interface: Okay, so one.
Marketing: And what do you say our Industrial Expert?
User Interface: Yep.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh. It's hard to know. I I give it a two. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Uh d you can you can tell on on the like {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I think she has given her views on the basis of design, because she was our i Interface Expert.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: But you can give your views based on technology, whether the technology meets the requirements of the customers or not?
Industrial Designer: Um yeah, I think i it might even exceed it um. But I guess there is a kind of a shortage of buttons.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Um {gap} I'm gonna give it a two.
Marketing: Two.
Industrial Designer: Two.
Marketing: And what about uh you, Brian?
Project Manager: Oh, I'll go for a one. {vocalsound}
Marketing: You will go for one.
Project Manager: Basic requirements but of the pro of the project.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay. Uh for me personally it is everything fine, it may be having good design, it may be uh meeting all the requirements of the customers like technology-wise, price-wise, but there is one thing which limits the customers, like we are having only two, three designs, like we are having one banana design and the other one is orange,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah th {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: and
User Interface: Mm {vocalsound} yellow.
Marketing: {disfmarker} Uh yeah, lower end. And the third one is what you ge uh that is not a f fruit look.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: But if a person doesn't like banana, or orange, you are limiting him.
User Interface: Uh-huh.
Project Manager: Come on that was the tha {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: No, don't buy our product, because we are l we like this only.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}'Kay.
User Interface: Uh-huh.
Marketing: So we are showing our preference for particular fruits,
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Being fruitist. {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: two or three kinds rather, and {disfmarker} Yeah. {vocalsound} So.
User Interface: Is that no is that not trends?
Marketing: Uh no, uh personally as a Marketing Expert I don't believe that,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: because whatever companies {disfmarker} they launch their products in the shape of fruits, they give a range of products, a range of shapes, like if we see, look at the smallest thing, toffee chocolates, they give a variety of different things.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Some children like to buy banana shape, some apple shape, some even pineapple shape, some orange shape.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So you can {gap} {disfmarker} what shape a person will like.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So in this case giving only one or two choices we are lim limiting our customers. And by limiting them, we are limiting our sales, limiting our profit also.
User Interface: Uh-huh. But in electronics, I think, it's not q always quite so um {disfmarker} you don't always have so many choices as with chocolates.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I think, you know, if you're going to buy a T_V_ maybe a company'll have {disfmarker} That you're going to choose from, a company'll have two or three choices, but they're different designs. We were coming up with one product.
Marketing: Uh maybe. Okay but I will I will personally {disfmarker} won't give it {gap} beyond three.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: No, I mean uh {vocalsound} obviously your opinion,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I'm just trying to {disfmarker} Okay.
Marketing: So we can {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} He's a tough cookie.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, on an average we can think three, four sevenths, maybe. Three or four?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Uh, no sorry,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: it should be {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Six. Five or six.
User Interface: What are we doing?
Industrial Designer: What are we doing?
Marketing: No sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, we are doing a very wrong thing.
User Interface: Adding them up?
Industrial Designer: We're gonna average them?
Marketing: Yeah, yeah, we are taking everything,
Industrial Designer: Okay. So seven fourths.
Marketing: and that's {disfmarker} I have taken it very wrongly.
User Interface: Oh.
Marketing: Yeah uh
Industrial Designer: About one point f one point eight.
Marketing: three four four two six seven seven sev Yeah one pe exactly. So we can say one or two.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: {gap} because it is one point eight uh {gap} two, so we will do two.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh I see.
Industrial Designer: Yeah round it up to two.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Okay, yeah.
Industrial Designer: So trends.
Marketing: So where were the trends.
Industrial Designer: Can you explain what you want us to write there?
Marketing: Sorry?
Industrial Designer: How it {disfmarker} how conforms to the current trends?
Marketing: Yeah, again the the fashion trends, this also like whether it it will be fashionable to have these products in the {vocalsound} uh as a fruit shape or something.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Uh.
User Interface: Well um going on uh the specifications that we had, that fruit and vegetables are quite popular, and that people like something that is good to look at and not many buttons, I would give it um, well, because it's hard to make a fruit good to look at, that that looks cool, you know,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: so I would actually give it a three.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Tha three or four, I'm not sure.
Marketing: Okay. Yeah.
User Interface: Three. Go for three. That's fine.
Marketing: Uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer:'Kay. As far as the uh technology it its'got the latest trends in speech technology, but it's missing the screen, as we said, um but it does have the push-buttons, or the scroll-buttons, um but it doesn't have that fancy solar power or the the vibrating energy mechanism. So I give it a a four. I'd give it a kinda middle of the road for
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: for technology.
Project Manager: Yeah, I am sort of pret uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Just the fruit does me in, I mean uh it might
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: it might be trendy to some, but I'm just not swallowing the fruit, so um {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh also uh I would have liked to have seen the L_C_D_ screen in it. Um so yeah I'd say about four as well.
Marketing: Okay. Uh personally I wi uh I think that in terms of trends, these products are quite good, like, these products are in fruit shape, because that wha people now {disfmarker} our fashion trend shows that people like everything {disfmarker} all f everything that is being advertised, like clothes, shoes, and everything is being advertised in the form of fruits and vegetables, or getting them {gap} or showing some association with them.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So and in this way our product is good. And the second thing, now people don't want any complicated or bulky products and ours is quite simple and quite handy.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So that is also ef that also {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Our product meets the f the fashion uh trends of the market. And yes. It is cus spongy also. So they can play with it, it's quite good.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So then I think, maybe I can give it two. So four five ten thirteen thirteen {gap}. So we can {disfmarker} Is it fine? So what about company strategy?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: {gap}
User Interface: Um.
Industrial Designer: Well it was yellow. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah, the company strategy, okay. Um {vocalsound} there was lot of discussing, that was good. Um I feel I got my say. Um so I'd give the company strategy a {vocalsound} two.
Industrial Designer: Well, I think it's the the remote control conforms to the the company strategy.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Is that the question?
Project Manager: Yeah, yeah.
User Interface: Is it? Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um.
User Interface: Okay, so {vocalsound} one or two.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: One. Okay, just leave it, it's fine.
Industrial Designer: I'll go with two.
Marketing: So what about you, Brian?
Project Manager: Um yeah, a three. Pretty much kept to the company strategy, so I would go for a {disfmarker} a one, as we not only kept it, but we were limited by {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: Yeah, and me also, like, this product me uh me uh me uh this meets all company strategy like our product should be as per customers'requirement, as per latest technology, and it should be environmental safe. So since our product meets all these requirements, so I would also prefer to give it rank one. So four six six
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So one and a half.
Marketing: half.
User Interface: Yeah, one.
Marketing: So we can say two or one {gap} {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: A two. {gap}
Marketing: Okay. So th seven seven. Uh overall we are getting two {gap} something, but we can round it as two.
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Marketing: Yeah. So I think overall uh evaluation of our product is quite good.
Project Manager: Cool, groovy. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: S
Marketing: So we can launch it. Yeah.
Project Manager: Cool. Brilliant. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Woo-hoo.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} In which case we are done.'Cause we've evaluated and we are within budget. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay.
User Interface: Cool.
Marketing: So
Project Manager: Champagne lunch anyone? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: yeah. {vocalsound} Great. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh. | In general, the team came up with two ways to reduce the costs. First, they would essentially remain the same shape as the prototypes, but just have it flattened. In User Interface's words, it would be more like a traditional remote control. Second, the team reached a consensus that the design of double curves shall be changed into a single curve since it was the biggest expense there. Luckily, after the discussion, the overall cost of the new remote controls went down to eleven Euros sixty. | qmsum |
What kind of design did the team finally decide to add with the extra budget?
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Okay, almost there.
Project Manager: Okay. We'll sta I'll use the PowerPoint, I guess. How was that, was that fun?
User Interface: Mm. Very fun.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. Uh oh I've forgotten to mail you the minutes, but I will do.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Upsidaisy. {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um we {disfmarker}
Marketing: E excuse me I forgot my
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: copy. {gap}
Project Manager: Alright, okay, yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: He's gonna get his pen.
User Interface: Oh right. Okay.
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} Will you guys first with your prototype um before we get to the good news?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, there's good news?
Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Oh.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: we have budget problems.
Industrial Designer: Oh. Cutbacks.
Project Manager: I'm afraid you're all sacked. Oops.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I don't even have this on. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay, have you got a presentation to make?
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: No, not mine yet.
Project Manager: No. Okay
Industrial Designer: Oh.
Project Manager: so it's just your your show.
Industrial Designer: Um maybe we should bring {gap} so that the camera can see {gap}. Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay. Sure.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: We made three for you.
Project Manager: Three? Oh.
User Interface: Um one's based on the banana, one's based on the tomato
Project Manager: Tomato? What tomato? {vocalsound}
User Interface: and the other one is st
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I don't recall a tomato. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Look. Oh yeah, well yeah, we had v some red left over.
Project Manager: Ah I see, okay. {vocalsound}
User Interface: So. Okay, so this is the um non to non uh no buttons one, or as mm few buttons as possible,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: mainly speak recognition. The yellow there is the um
Project Manager: Logo.
User Interface: the slogan, yeah,
Project Manager: Okay, brilliant.
User Interface: that we need to incorporate, it's very simple. If you do need buttons, you can flip it over, and there's some there,
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: um but mainly it's speech recognition.
Project Manager: Okay, so the buttons would be like, you know individual users, or {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah and {vocalsound} yeah they might project things onto the screen which you can do on there.
Project Manager: Alright, okay.
User Interface: Mm I'm not sure about that. Um and this one is the one w more like the one w that we looked at earlier.
Project Manager: Right.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah, you guys can have a look at that if you want.
Project Manager: That's groovy. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Uh can I have {gap}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well I like the feel of it, I like the feel of it.
User Interface: Yeah, sure. Um that one is {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh sorry s {vocalsound}
User Interface: Oh no, it's delicate.
Project Manager: At Oh dear.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: That's that's already got its stand that one. That's it stand.
Project Manager: Alright, okay.
User Interface: It does also lie flat, but that's the that yellow stand there represents the the charging stand.
Project Manager: Okay, brilliant mm.
User Interface: Um the black on the back is the slogan.
Project Manager: Okay, nice and obvious there {vocalsound},
User Interface: Uh yeah, that {gap} {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Well, we did think of that.
Project Manager: if it's standing up, I guess, yeah.
User Interface: Yeah, if it's standing up it's it's on there, but also we're gonna have the company name on the front, which is the little black kind of line in the middle.
Project Manager: Oh right, okay, brilliant. Like that from its centre.
User Interface: So um and that's the um transmit the L_E_D_ thing. These are the s two scroll ones which we thought could be channel up and down and volume up and down. We n were weren't sure about putting them there, because um i it's it kind of could get bashed.
Project Manager: Where you're, yeah, uh were you're holding it kind of {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. Well, if you hold it, you can {disfmarker} you all can hold it, is {disfmarker} it does actually feel quite ergonomic,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: if you've got small hands.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Um, obviously I don't think that's real sized {gap}.
Project Manager: Yeah, okay.
User Interface: It would have to be a bit bigger.
Project Manager: Yeah, scale model, yeah.
User Interface: Okay. Um that's a speaker at the top, so you can speak into it like a little walkie-talkie as well for speak recognition.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Um and {vocalsound} um then the buttons. Yeah kind of self-explanatory, just buttons whenever you need them. Tried to keep it simple. Oh that's the charging base prongs at the bottom.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright, excellent.
User Interface: {vocalsound} We used those {gap}. And um then the big red button in the middle is the on and off one.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: It's not in the traditional place,
Project Manager: No.
User Interface: but um it's quite an obvious place.
Project Manager: It's out of the way as well, I suppose, so. Excellent.
User Interface: So {vocalsound} there we go and and um we have the banana-based one too.
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: Yep. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: This one is uh, I suppose for the younger audiences.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: A a more friendly type of {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay, {vocalsound} so so Barney the banana {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Right, right. It's to uh induce more television watching I suppose or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Ah excellent, just what we need.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Say it for the camera.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Lo Sort of Loch Ness banana. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Right, right.
Project Manager: Cool {gap} yeah. Well, nice to have uh options at least.
Industrial Designer: Yep. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager:'Kay and {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} So are there any um improvements or issues or {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It won't stand.
Project Manager: Oh there are issues, oh there are issues.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Just let it lie down, it wont stand. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um main problem that we have unfortunately being finance.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Oh.
Project Manager: Uh, let's just enter in the um evaluation criteria.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} unfortunately the unit we are currently going to produce minus the extra scroll buttons, uh it's gonna cost us fourteen point six Euros.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Oh.
Project Manager: So we have to
Industrial Designer: What's on the uh on the left? {gap}
Project Manager: rea Sorry, I've accidentally highlighted somehow {disfmarker} Um. {vocalsound} There we go.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Oh god, why is it doing that?
User Interface: Ooh.
Project Manager: There we go. {vocalsound} So basically, um in order to save our two Euros um I was thinking that we could have essentially the same shape, but just have it flattened.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um.
User Interface: More like a traditional remote control.
Project Manager: Yeah, I mean it's already got a kind of cool shape, so but it wouldn't have to be curved sort of in and out.
User Interface: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: And by doing so {disfmarker} Oh no, hold on. Doesn't save us quite as much. I don't know what's going on with this again.
Industrial Designer: W why is the uh double curved two of them?
Project Manager: Oh, good point.
Marketing: And double curve on both sides?
Project Manager: Um.
Marketing: Curve {vocalsound}. Yeah, this is double-curve,
Project Manager: That's {vocalsound} sort of curve in and out.
Marketing: no?
Industrial Designer: Is i
Marketing: This is double-curve. It {disfmarker} This one is single curve.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing:'Cause this is single curve, this is curved on both sides. So double-curve.
Project Manager: No, I think it means double curved as in um
User Interface: Like an S_ shape.
Project Manager: like uh {gap} a single curve on that bottom half, and the double curved would be if it was that similar curve upward.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Okay, I might be wrong though.
Marketing: Like this, one curve on this side, one curve on that side.
Project Manager: I don't think that counts as a curve, I think that's just a shape.
Marketing: Hmm. Hmm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: A curvature is like the {disfmarker} this case.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Maybe.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}'Cause that's the uh the biggest expense there, right.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: {gap} got two of them {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, and why why I've got it two, I don't know, I can't seem to select any more however.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Well we can work around that um {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Right. No.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Cut things out. But you think it should be one.
Project Manager: It's meant to be one, yeah, I don't know why I put two in there,
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: but um {disfmarker} Hold on till I find it, I think this shift button might be stuck again. No maybe the shift button's stuck in.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um okay, so that would take away three, which would give us {disfmarker}
Marketing: Should {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh that's fine.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, so we're {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Eleven uh eleven Euros sixty.
User Interface: Cool. Cool.
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound}
User Interface: So we could even add something.
Project Manager: We cou Oh not quite, have the scroll-wheel, unfortunately.
Industrial Designer: We should fire the accountants.
Project Manager: What?
Industrial Designer: Fire the accountants. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Ah yeah, we could add things.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Maybe if you click back in that bottom right cell, where you're starting from, and then use the arrow keys.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Does that work?
Project Manager: Yeah, I know, that just extends it as well.
Industrial Designer: No mm {vocalsound}.
Marketing: Uh you can do one thing {gap}.
Project Manager: I don't know.
Marketing: You just select one box outsi yeah, this box. Then move it with the help of this {disfmarker} Okay.
Project Manager: It {disfmarker} One of the buttons is sticking, I don't know {gap}.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Just uh just uh {disfmarker} Okay, just a minute. Okay. No input, like this. {vocalsound} Shift. No it's not.
Project Manager: No, it's'cause the uh the shift button's stuck, or something.
Marketing: Yeah, it's not working.
Industrial Designer: Is it the other shift button maybe?
Marketing: Should we ask Meli
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Should we ask our technical expert Melissa?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} No that's fine. Um we've worked out what it would be anyway.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Did you try both shift buttons? It could be the other side.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Cancel. Piss off.
Industrial Designer: That's too bad.
Project Manager: Oh well, never mind. Um {vocalsound}. Right, so that's finances and I dunno what we {disfmarker} what could we reckon we could add? Um
User Interface: Well maybe we could add something, but maybe if {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well I suppose that's our that's that's our design that we've got. So {disfmarker}
User Interface: What do you th We're trying to save money, so. Yeah, if we're happy with the design there's no point in spending money, if we don't have to.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: But if there is anything you think we've missed out there, then, you know, feel free to add it. Maybe {disfmarker} I mean obviously it would be bigger so there might be more space for the the slogan on the front,
Project Manager: Yeah yeah.
User Interface: because it's not in an ideal place right now.
Project Manager: Well that's that's uh {disfmarker} Okay, so project evaluation. We have under twelve {vocalsound} Euros fifty. Project process, how do we think that went? Are we happy?
Industrial Designer: Oh.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah I think we have a a winning product.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay. {vocalsound} Evaluation. Oh we've been writing this up for m months.
User Interface: I think it went quite smoothly.
Project Manager: Uh room for creativity, were we happy with that?
User Interface: W I think we were very creative.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No, I mea I think it means sort of individually.
User Interface: Oh right, okay.
Project Manager: Yes, no, maybe?
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay. Groovy. So uh we're just gonna. Uh yeah, okay. Teamwork? Leadership, sorry.
Industrial Designer: Great leadership. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Excellent leadership. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Thank you very much. You're all get you're all getting a raise. Uh teamwork. I thought went well.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah, everyone got enough input, I think.
Project Manager: Uh and well means, yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, we {gap} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: The technical stuff was brilliant.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Let's buy more.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh Right. Um
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} These pens are are neat though.
Project Manager: I don't know what, new ideas found, means, to be honest.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, these are new ideas, like glow-in-the-dark or something like that. We discussed all the new ideas, but of course we couldn't reach any proper goals, we couldn't use these {gap}, but we h we are using these scroll buttons like this. These are new ideas we And new shapes, everything
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: . At le {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm'kay. Groovy.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So just general thumbs up for all of us then.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: That kind of unfortunately is too quick.
Marketing: Hmm.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Well um.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {vocalsound}. I suppose yeah. Um.
Industrial Designer: Uh so let's talk about our bonuses and the raises we're getting for this, right. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's it, um I think another couple of days holiday pay might be well in order for all of you.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Right, right.
Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Let's see if I can get this bloody thing to work.
Industrial Designer: Uh maybe we should start cleaning up the clay.
Project Manager: Whoops. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah, maybe.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Does it go back in, does it? Reusable.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
User Interface: {gap}
Industrial Designer: Something we should get {gap}.
Project Manager: I don't know what this is but it's really really annoying.
Marketing: So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Uh Brian, have you have you finished?
Project Manager: Uh-huh.
Marketing: Uh mine needs also this.
Project Manager: Um I have, yes.
Marketing: At last mine is also the presentation.
Project Manager: Huh? Oh right, okay, you've got more, okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, yeah.
User Interface: Oh, you got a presentation,
Project Manager: Sorry uh.
User Interface: sorry.
Industrial Designer: Oh ok
Project Manager: It didn't bother to tell me that on this
Marketing: S
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: thing. Is it? Okay.
Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} is the project evaluated, that is mine.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Doesn't tell me. {vocalsound} Oh you're doing that. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: We evaluated ourselves, we thought we were great. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh.
User Interface: Mm, love to eat that now.
Industrial Designer: Anybody {vocalsound}
User Interface: Kind of a green banana now.
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Clay covered banana.
User Interface: It's {disfmarker} this as well, sorry, we forgot to mention it'll be made out of kind of a rubbery latex, new material that we've got.
Project Manager: O okay, hold on.
User Interface: {vocalsound} I've got.
Industrial Designer: {gap} blue.
User Interface: {gap}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I wonder w which cell do I want. {gap}
Industrial Designer: It's fun to touch.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} So. Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, I didn't realise you had that bit. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} So.
User Interface: Oh could you pass the tomato please.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Sorry. Thank you.
Marketing: So now is the final evaluation, final evaluation of the uh uh of our product. How we are going to {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: means uh at what standard what standard {disfmarker} whether it meets our standards or not. How mu What rating we will give to these products. So of course this is {disfmarker} will be a team work, w we together have to decide wha what rating we will give to this product and everything. So what methodology I will tell you on what basis we are going to discuss all this.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: We will give the rating to this product based on the user requirements, whether it meets the user requirements or not, this product. Then trends, whether it is as {gap} fashion trends or not? Means {vocalsound} because we have already stated that people do prefer fashionable things nowadays.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So this is also an important factor for our evaluation also. Then marketing strategy of the company. As we have already discussed that our company is quite {gap} in the market, not only in terms of providing quality products, not only in pro providing latest technologies, but also in terms of providing environmental s
User Interface: Sorry {gap}. Sorry,
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: carry on. {vocalsound}
Marketing: So {vocalsound} but also in terms of providing environmental safe products, uh yeah like uh keeping uh keeping in mind all the safety issues. So {disfmarker} Now comes the criteria rating with seven point scale. I'm having this scale this scale,
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: so we have to do it on a board.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: {gap}
Marketing: {gap} the user requirem I think.
Project Manager: Alright, okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: The board working again, is it?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Do we have the uh the marker for the board?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh.
User Interface: Um.
Industrial Designer: There it is.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Thank you.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap}
Marketing: So.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} So these are the three crite criterias for our evaluation of our product. First of all uh comes user requirement.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So we will see whether this product meets all user requirements or not. I I will {disfmarker} first I would like to have your views, what do you think whether it meets all user requirements or not?
User Interface: Um {vocalsound} I think {disfmarker} Yeah, it did.
Marketing: S
User Interface: It had all the basic buttons that they needed as well as the uh new technology that people said they wanted.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Um so.
Project Manager: When the user requirement is essentially just to operate the T_V_,
User Interface: Does it work?
Project Manager: so yeah,
User Interface: Yeah. So.
Marketing: {vocalsound} So what do you think you will personally give.
Project Manager: of course we haven't actually got a working model yet.
User Interface: I would say seven.
Marketing: Seven. Uh.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Seven is good, yeah, isn't it? I can't {disfmarker} True or false? No sorry tr one is true.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: One, yeah.
Marketing: Uh one is {disfmarker} means highest ranking, okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: But I think highest ranking is seven, or one?
Project Manager: No it's it's like true is one end, and false is the oth
Industrial Designer: No that's false.
Marketing: Okay, right right. So it's one for from your point of view.
User Interface: Okay, so one.
Marketing: And what do you say our Industrial Expert?
User Interface: Yep.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh. It's hard to know. I I give it a two. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Uh d you can you can tell on on the like {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I think she has given her views on the basis of design, because she was our i Interface Expert.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: But you can give your views based on technology, whether the technology meets the requirements of the customers or not?
Industrial Designer: Um yeah, I think i it might even exceed it um. But I guess there is a kind of a shortage of buttons.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Um {gap} I'm gonna give it a two.
Marketing: Two.
Industrial Designer: Two.
Marketing: And what about uh you, Brian?
Project Manager: Oh, I'll go for a one. {vocalsound}
Marketing: You will go for one.
Project Manager: Basic requirements but of the pro of the project.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay. Uh for me personally it is everything fine, it may be having good design, it may be uh meeting all the requirements of the customers like technology-wise, price-wise, but there is one thing which limits the customers, like we are having only two, three designs, like we are having one banana design and the other one is orange,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah th {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: and
User Interface: Mm {vocalsound} yellow.
Marketing: {disfmarker} Uh yeah, lower end. And the third one is what you ge uh that is not a f fruit look.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: But if a person doesn't like banana, or orange, you are limiting him.
User Interface: Uh-huh.
Project Manager: Come on that was the tha {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: No, don't buy our product, because we are l we like this only.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}'Kay.
User Interface: Uh-huh.
Marketing: So we are showing our preference for particular fruits,
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Being fruitist. {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: two or three kinds rather, and {disfmarker} Yeah. {vocalsound} So.
User Interface: Is that no is that not trends?
Marketing: Uh no, uh personally as a Marketing Expert I don't believe that,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: because whatever companies {disfmarker} they launch their products in the shape of fruits, they give a range of products, a range of shapes, like if we see, look at the smallest thing, toffee chocolates, they give a variety of different things.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Some children like to buy banana shape, some apple shape, some even pineapple shape, some orange shape.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So you can {gap} {disfmarker} what shape a person will like.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So in this case giving only one or two choices we are lim limiting our customers. And by limiting them, we are limiting our sales, limiting our profit also.
User Interface: Uh-huh. But in electronics, I think, it's not q always quite so um {disfmarker} you don't always have so many choices as with chocolates.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I think, you know, if you're going to buy a T_V_ maybe a company'll have {disfmarker} That you're going to choose from, a company'll have two or three choices, but they're different designs. We were coming up with one product.
Marketing: Uh maybe. Okay but I will I will personally {disfmarker} won't give it {gap} beyond three.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: No, I mean uh {vocalsound} obviously your opinion,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I'm just trying to {disfmarker} Okay.
Marketing: So we can {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} He's a tough cookie.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, on an average we can think three, four sevenths, maybe. Three or four?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Uh, no sorry,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: it should be {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Six. Five or six.
User Interface: What are we doing?
Industrial Designer: What are we doing?
Marketing: No sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, we are doing a very wrong thing.
User Interface: Adding them up?
Industrial Designer: We're gonna average them?
Marketing: Yeah, yeah, we are taking everything,
Industrial Designer: Okay. So seven fourths.
Marketing: and that's {disfmarker} I have taken it very wrongly.
User Interface: Oh.
Marketing: Yeah uh
Industrial Designer: About one point f one point eight.
Marketing: three four four two six seven seven sev Yeah one pe exactly. So we can say one or two.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: {gap} because it is one point eight uh {gap} two, so we will do two.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh I see.
Industrial Designer: Yeah round it up to two.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Okay, yeah.
Industrial Designer: So trends.
Marketing: So where were the trends.
Industrial Designer: Can you explain what you want us to write there?
Marketing: Sorry?
Industrial Designer: How it {disfmarker} how conforms to the current trends?
Marketing: Yeah, again the the fashion trends, this also like whether it it will be fashionable to have these products in the {vocalsound} uh as a fruit shape or something.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Uh.
User Interface: Well um going on uh the specifications that we had, that fruit and vegetables are quite popular, and that people like something that is good to look at and not many buttons, I would give it um, well, because it's hard to make a fruit good to look at, that that looks cool, you know,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: so I would actually give it a three.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Tha three or four, I'm not sure.
Marketing: Okay. Yeah.
User Interface: Three. Go for three. That's fine.
Marketing: Uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer:'Kay. As far as the uh technology it its'got the latest trends in speech technology, but it's missing the screen, as we said, um but it does have the push-buttons, or the scroll-buttons, um but it doesn't have that fancy solar power or the the vibrating energy mechanism. So I give it a a four. I'd give it a kinda middle of the road for
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: for technology.
Project Manager: Yeah, I am sort of pret uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Just the fruit does me in, I mean uh it might
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: it might be trendy to some, but I'm just not swallowing the fruit, so um {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh also uh I would have liked to have seen the L_C_D_ screen in it. Um so yeah I'd say about four as well.
Marketing: Okay. Uh personally I wi uh I think that in terms of trends, these products are quite good, like, these products are in fruit shape, because that wha people now {disfmarker} our fashion trend shows that people like everything {disfmarker} all f everything that is being advertised, like clothes, shoes, and everything is being advertised in the form of fruits and vegetables, or getting them {gap} or showing some association with them.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So and in this way our product is good. And the second thing, now people don't want any complicated or bulky products and ours is quite simple and quite handy.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So that is also ef that also {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Our product meets the f the fashion uh trends of the market. And yes. It is cus spongy also. So they can play with it, it's quite good.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So then I think, maybe I can give it two. So four five ten thirteen thirteen {gap}. So we can {disfmarker} Is it fine? So what about company strategy?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: {gap}
User Interface: Um.
Industrial Designer: Well it was yellow. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah, the company strategy, okay. Um {vocalsound} there was lot of discussing, that was good. Um I feel I got my say. Um so I'd give the company strategy a {vocalsound} two.
Industrial Designer: Well, I think it's the the remote control conforms to the the company strategy.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Is that the question?
Project Manager: Yeah, yeah.
User Interface: Is it? Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um.
User Interface: Okay, so {vocalsound} one or two.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: One. Okay, just leave it, it's fine.
Industrial Designer: I'll go with two.
Marketing: So what about you, Brian?
Project Manager: Um yeah, a three. Pretty much kept to the company strategy, so I would go for a {disfmarker} a one, as we not only kept it, but we were limited by {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: Yeah, and me also, like, this product me uh me uh me uh this meets all company strategy like our product should be as per customers'requirement, as per latest technology, and it should be environmental safe. So since our product meets all these requirements, so I would also prefer to give it rank one. So four six six
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So one and a half.
Marketing: half.
User Interface: Yeah, one.
Marketing: So we can say two or one {gap} {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: A two. {gap}
Marketing: Okay. So th seven seven. Uh overall we are getting two {gap} something, but we can round it as two.
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Marketing: Yeah. So I think overall uh evaluation of our product is quite good.
Project Manager: Cool, groovy. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: S
Marketing: So we can launch it. Yeah.
Project Manager: Cool. Brilliant. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Woo-hoo.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} In which case we are done.'Cause we've evaluated and we are within budget. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay.
User Interface: Cool.
Marketing: So
Project Manager: Champagne lunch anyone? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: yeah. {vocalsound} Great. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh. | Through a series of previous adjustments, the cost of the new remote controls had been effectively reduced. The team then decided to use some of the remaining cost budget to add another design to the new remotes. After discussion, the team thought it might be a good idea to have the slogan on the front because there was obviously more space there and the current slogan was not in an ideal place. With this little change, the overall cost of the new remote each went up to twelve Euros fifty, still under the budget limit. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Okay, almost there.
Project Manager: Okay. We'll sta I'll use the PowerPoint, I guess. How was that, was that fun?
User Interface: Mm. Very fun.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay. Uh oh I've forgotten to mail you the minutes, but I will do.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Upsidaisy. {vocalsound} Um {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Um we {disfmarker}
Marketing: E excuse me I forgot my
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: copy. {gap}
Project Manager: Alright, okay, yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: He's gonna get his pen.
User Interface: Oh right. Okay.
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} Will you guys first with your prototype um before we get to the good news?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, there's good news?
Project Manager: Uh {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Oh.
User Interface: Mm.
Project Manager: we have budget problems.
Industrial Designer: Oh. Cutbacks.
Project Manager: I'm afraid you're all sacked. Oops.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I don't even have this on. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Hmm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay, have you got a presentation to make?
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: No, not mine yet.
Project Manager: No. Okay
Industrial Designer: Oh.
Project Manager: so it's just your your show.
Industrial Designer: Um maybe we should bring {gap} so that the camera can see {gap}. Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay. Sure.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: We made three for you.
Project Manager: Three? Oh.
User Interface: Um one's based on the banana, one's based on the tomato
Project Manager: Tomato? What tomato? {vocalsound}
User Interface: and the other one is st
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I don't recall a tomato. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Look. Oh yeah, well yeah, we had v some red left over.
Project Manager: Ah I see, okay. {vocalsound}
User Interface: So. Okay, so this is the um non to non uh no buttons one, or as mm few buttons as possible,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: mainly speak recognition. The yellow there is the um
Project Manager: Logo.
User Interface: the slogan, yeah,
Project Manager: Okay, brilliant.
User Interface: that we need to incorporate, it's very simple. If you do need buttons, you can flip it over, and there's some there,
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: um but mainly it's speech recognition.
Project Manager: Okay, so the buttons would be like, you know individual users, or {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah and {vocalsound} yeah they might project things onto the screen which you can do on there.
Project Manager: Alright, okay.
User Interface: Mm I'm not sure about that. Um and this one is the one w more like the one w that we looked at earlier.
Project Manager: Right.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah, you guys can have a look at that if you want.
Project Manager: That's groovy. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {gap}
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} Uh can I have {gap}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Well I like the feel of it, I like the feel of it.
User Interface: Yeah, sure. Um that one is {disfmarker}
Marketing: Oh sorry s {vocalsound}
User Interface: Oh no, it's delicate.
Project Manager: At Oh dear.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: That's that's already got its stand that one. That's it stand.
Project Manager: Alright, okay.
User Interface: It does also lie flat, but that's the that yellow stand there represents the the charging stand.
Project Manager: Okay, brilliant mm.
User Interface: Um the black on the back is the slogan.
Project Manager: Okay, nice and obvious there {vocalsound},
User Interface: Uh yeah, that {gap} {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Well, we did think of that.
Project Manager: if it's standing up, I guess, yeah.
User Interface: Yeah, if it's standing up it's it's on there, but also we're gonna have the company name on the front, which is the little black kind of line in the middle.
Project Manager: Oh right, okay, brilliant. Like that from its centre.
User Interface: So um and that's the um transmit the L_E_D_ thing. These are the s two scroll ones which we thought could be channel up and down and volume up and down. We n were weren't sure about putting them there, because um i it's it kind of could get bashed.
Project Manager: Where you're, yeah, uh were you're holding it kind of {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. Well, if you hold it, you can {disfmarker} you all can hold it, is {disfmarker} it does actually feel quite ergonomic,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: if you've got small hands.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Um, obviously I don't think that's real sized {gap}.
Project Manager: Yeah, okay.
User Interface: It would have to be a bit bigger.
Project Manager: Yeah, scale model, yeah.
User Interface: Okay. Um that's a speaker at the top, so you can speak into it like a little walkie-talkie as well for speak recognition.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Um and {vocalsound} um then the buttons. Yeah kind of self-explanatory, just buttons whenever you need them. Tried to keep it simple. Oh that's the charging base prongs at the bottom.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright, excellent.
User Interface: {vocalsound} We used those {gap}. And um then the big red button in the middle is the on and off one.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: It's not in the traditional place,
Project Manager: No.
User Interface: but um it's quite an obvious place.
Project Manager: It's out of the way as well, I suppose, so. Excellent.
User Interface: So {vocalsound} there we go and and um we have the banana-based one too.
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: Yep. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: This one is uh, I suppose for the younger audiences.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: A a more friendly type of {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Okay, {vocalsound} so so Barney the banana {gap}.
Industrial Designer: Right, right. It's to uh induce more television watching I suppose or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Ah excellent, just what we need.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Say it for the camera.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Lo Sort of Loch Ness banana. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Right, right.
Project Manager: Cool {gap} yeah. Well, nice to have uh options at least.
Industrial Designer: Yep. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager:'Kay and {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound} So are there any um improvements or issues or {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: It won't stand.
Project Manager: Oh there are issues, oh there are issues.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Just let it lie down, it wont stand. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um main problem that we have unfortunately being finance.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Oh.
Project Manager: Uh, let's just enter in the um evaluation criteria.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} unfortunately the unit we are currently going to produce minus the extra scroll buttons, uh it's gonna cost us fourteen point six Euros.
Marketing: Mm.
User Interface: Oh.
Project Manager: So we have to
Industrial Designer: What's on the uh on the left? {gap}
Project Manager: rea Sorry, I've accidentally highlighted somehow {disfmarker} Um. {vocalsound} There we go.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Oh god, why is it doing that?
User Interface: Ooh.
Project Manager: There we go. {vocalsound} So basically, um in order to save our two Euros um I was thinking that we could have essentially the same shape, but just have it flattened.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um.
User Interface: More like a traditional remote control.
Project Manager: Yeah, I mean it's already got a kind of cool shape, so but it wouldn't have to be curved sort of in and out.
User Interface: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: And by doing so {disfmarker} Oh no, hold on. Doesn't save us quite as much. I don't know what's going on with this again.
Industrial Designer: W why is the uh double curved two of them?
Project Manager: Oh, good point.
Marketing: And double curve on both sides?
Project Manager: Um.
Marketing: Curve {vocalsound}. Yeah, this is double-curve,
Project Manager: That's {vocalsound} sort of curve in and out.
Marketing: no?
Industrial Designer: Is i
Marketing: This is double-curve. It {disfmarker} This one is single curve.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing:'Cause this is single curve, this is curved on both sides. So double-curve.
Project Manager: No, I think it means double curved as in um
User Interface: Like an S_ shape.
Project Manager: like uh {gap} a single curve on that bottom half, and the double curved would be if it was that similar curve upward.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Okay, I might be wrong though.
Marketing: Like this, one curve on this side, one curve on that side.
Project Manager: I don't think that counts as a curve, I think that's just a shape.
Marketing: Hmm. Hmm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: A curvature is like the {disfmarker} this case.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Maybe.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}'Cause that's the uh the biggest expense there, right.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: {gap} got two of them {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, and why why I've got it two, I don't know, I can't seem to select any more however.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Well we can work around that um {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Right. No.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Cut things out. But you think it should be one.
Project Manager: It's meant to be one, yeah, I don't know why I put two in there,
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: but um {disfmarker} Hold on till I find it, I think this shift button might be stuck again. No maybe the shift button's stuck in.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Um okay, so that would take away three, which would give us {disfmarker}
Marketing: Should {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh that's fine.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, so we're {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Eleven uh eleven Euros sixty.
User Interface: Cool. Cool.
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound}
User Interface: So we could even add something.
Project Manager: We cou Oh not quite, have the scroll-wheel, unfortunately.
Industrial Designer: We should fire the accountants.
Project Manager: What?
Industrial Designer: Fire the accountants. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Ah yeah, we could add things.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Maybe if you click back in that bottom right cell, where you're starting from, and then use the arrow keys.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Does that work?
Project Manager: Yeah, I know, that just extends it as well.
Industrial Designer: No mm {vocalsound}.
Marketing: Uh you can do one thing {gap}.
Project Manager: I don't know.
Marketing: You just select one box outsi yeah, this box. Then move it with the help of this {disfmarker} Okay.
Project Manager: It {disfmarker} One of the buttons is sticking, I don't know {gap}.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Just uh just uh {disfmarker} Okay, just a minute. Okay. No input, like this. {vocalsound} Shift. No it's not.
Project Manager: No, it's'cause the uh the shift button's stuck, or something.
Marketing: Yeah, it's not working.
Industrial Designer: Is it the other shift button maybe?
Marketing: Should we ask Meli
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Should we ask our technical expert Melissa?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} No that's fine. Um we've worked out what it would be anyway.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Did you try both shift buttons? It could be the other side.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Cancel. Piss off.
Industrial Designer: That's too bad.
Project Manager: Oh well, never mind. Um {vocalsound}. Right, so that's finances and I dunno what we {disfmarker} what could we reckon we could add? Um
User Interface: Well maybe we could add something, but maybe if {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well I suppose that's our that's that's our design that we've got. So {disfmarker}
User Interface: What do you th We're trying to save money, so. Yeah, if we're happy with the design there's no point in spending money, if we don't have to.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: But if there is anything you think we've missed out there, then, you know, feel free to add it. Maybe {disfmarker} I mean obviously it would be bigger so there might be more space for the the slogan on the front,
Project Manager: Yeah yeah.
User Interface: because it's not in an ideal place right now.
Project Manager: Well that's that's uh {disfmarker} Okay, so project evaluation. We have under twelve {vocalsound} Euros fifty. Project process, how do we think that went? Are we happy?
Industrial Designer: Oh.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah I think we have a a winning product.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Okay. {vocalsound} Evaluation. Oh we've been writing this up for m months.
User Interface: I think it went quite smoothly.
Project Manager: Uh room for creativity, were we happy with that?
User Interface: W I think we were very creative.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: No, I mea I think it means sort of individually.
User Interface: Oh right, okay.
Project Manager: Yes, no, maybe?
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Okay. Groovy. So uh we're just gonna. Uh yeah, okay. Teamwork? Leadership, sorry.
Industrial Designer: Great leadership. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Excellent leadership. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Thank you very much. You're all get you're all getting a raise. Uh teamwork. I thought went well.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah, everyone got enough input, I think.
Project Manager: Uh and well means, yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, we {gap} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: The technical stuff was brilliant.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Let's buy more.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh Right. Um
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} These pens are are neat though.
Project Manager: I don't know what, new ideas found, means, to be honest.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, these are new ideas, like glow-in-the-dark or something like that. We discussed all the new ideas, but of course we couldn't reach any proper goals, we couldn't use these {gap}, but we h we are using these scroll buttons like this. These are new ideas we And new shapes, everything
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: . At le {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm'kay. Groovy.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So just general thumbs up for all of us then.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Hmm.
Project Manager: That kind of unfortunately is too quick.
Marketing: Hmm.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Well um.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh {vocalsound}. I suppose yeah. Um.
Industrial Designer: Uh so let's talk about our bonuses and the raises we're getting for this, right. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} That's it, um I think another couple of days holiday pay might be well in order for all of you.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Right, right.
Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Let's see if I can get this bloody thing to work.
Industrial Designer: Uh maybe we should start cleaning up the clay.
Project Manager: Whoops. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah, maybe.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Does it go back in, does it? Reusable.
Industrial Designer: {gap}
User Interface: {gap}
Industrial Designer: Something we should get {gap}.
Project Manager: I don't know what this is but it's really really annoying.
Marketing: So {vocalsound} {disfmarker} Uh Brian, have you have you finished?
Project Manager: Uh-huh.
Marketing: Uh mine needs also this.
Project Manager: Um I have, yes.
Marketing: At last mine is also the presentation.
Project Manager: Huh? Oh right, okay, you've got more, okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah, yeah.
User Interface: Oh, you got a presentation,
Project Manager: Sorry uh.
User Interface: sorry.
Industrial Designer: Oh ok
Project Manager: It didn't bother to tell me that on this
Marketing: S
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: thing. Is it? Okay.
Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} is the project evaluated, that is mine.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Doesn't tell me. {vocalsound} Oh you're doing that. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: We evaluated ourselves, we thought we were great. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh.
User Interface: Mm, love to eat that now.
Industrial Designer: Anybody {vocalsound}
User Interface: Kind of a green banana now.
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Clay covered banana.
User Interface: It's {disfmarker} this as well, sorry, we forgot to mention it'll be made out of kind of a rubbery latex, new material that we've got.
Project Manager: O okay, hold on.
User Interface: {vocalsound} I've got.
Industrial Designer: {gap} blue.
User Interface: {gap}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I wonder w which cell do I want. {gap}
Industrial Designer: It's fun to touch.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} So. Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, I didn't realise you had that bit. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} So.
User Interface: Oh could you pass the tomato please.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Sorry. Thank you.
Marketing: So now is the final evaluation, final evaluation of the uh uh of our product. How we are going to {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: means uh at what standard what standard {disfmarker} whether it meets our standards or not. How mu What rating we will give to these products. So of course this is {disfmarker} will be a team work, w we together have to decide wha what rating we will give to this product and everything. So what methodology I will tell you on what basis we are going to discuss all this.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: We will give the rating to this product based on the user requirements, whether it meets the user requirements or not, this product. Then trends, whether it is as {gap} fashion trends or not? Means {vocalsound} because we have already stated that people do prefer fashionable things nowadays.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So this is also an important factor for our evaluation also. Then marketing strategy of the company. As we have already discussed that our company is quite {gap} in the market, not only in terms of providing quality products, not only in pro providing latest technologies, but also in terms of providing environmental s
User Interface: Sorry {gap}. Sorry,
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: carry on. {vocalsound}
Marketing: So {vocalsound} but also in terms of providing environmental safe products, uh yeah like uh keeping uh keeping in mind all the safety issues. So {disfmarker} Now comes the criteria rating with seven point scale. I'm having this scale this scale,
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: so we have to do it on a board.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: {gap}
Marketing: {gap} the user requirem I think.
Project Manager: Alright, okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: The board working again, is it?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Do we have the uh the marker for the board?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {gap}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh.
User Interface: Um.
Industrial Designer: There it is.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Thank you.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap}
Marketing: So.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} So these are the three crite criterias for our evaluation of our product. First of all uh comes user requirement.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So we will see whether this product meets all user requirements or not. I I will {disfmarker} first I would like to have your views, what do you think whether it meets all user requirements or not?
User Interface: Um {vocalsound} I think {disfmarker} Yeah, it did.
Marketing: S
User Interface: It had all the basic buttons that they needed as well as the uh new technology that people said they wanted.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Um so.
Project Manager: When the user requirement is essentially just to operate the T_V_,
User Interface: Does it work?
Project Manager: so yeah,
User Interface: Yeah. So.
Marketing: {vocalsound} So what do you think you will personally give.
Project Manager: of course we haven't actually got a working model yet.
User Interface: I would say seven.
Marketing: Seven. Uh.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Seven is good, yeah, isn't it? I can't {disfmarker} True or false? No sorry tr one is true.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: One, yeah.
Marketing: Uh one is {disfmarker} means highest ranking, okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: But I think highest ranking is seven, or one?
Project Manager: No it's it's like true is one end, and false is the oth
Industrial Designer: No that's false.
Marketing: Okay, right right. So it's one for from your point of view.
User Interface: Okay, so one.
Marketing: And what do you say our Industrial Expert?
User Interface: Yep.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Uh. It's hard to know. I I give it a two. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Uh d you can you can tell on on the like {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I think she has given her views on the basis of design, because she was our i Interface Expert.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Marketing: But you can give your views based on technology, whether the technology meets the requirements of the customers or not?
Industrial Designer: Um yeah, I think i it might even exceed it um. But I guess there is a kind of a shortage of buttons.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Um {gap} I'm gonna give it a two.
Marketing: Two.
Industrial Designer: Two.
Marketing: And what about uh you, Brian?
Project Manager: Oh, I'll go for a one. {vocalsound}
Marketing: You will go for one.
Project Manager: Basic requirements but of the pro of the project.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Okay. Uh for me personally it is everything fine, it may be having good design, it may be uh meeting all the requirements of the customers like technology-wise, price-wise, but there is one thing which limits the customers, like we are having only two, three designs, like we are having one banana design and the other one is orange,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah th {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: and
User Interface: Mm {vocalsound} yellow.
Marketing: {disfmarker} Uh yeah, lower end. And the third one is what you ge uh that is not a f fruit look.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: But if a person doesn't like banana, or orange, you are limiting him.
User Interface: Uh-huh.
Project Manager: Come on that was the tha {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: No, don't buy our product, because we are l we like this only.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}'Kay.
User Interface: Uh-huh.
Marketing: So we are showing our preference for particular fruits,
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Being fruitist. {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: two or three kinds rather, and {disfmarker} Yeah. {vocalsound} So.
User Interface: Is that no is that not trends?
Marketing: Uh no, uh personally as a Marketing Expert I don't believe that,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: because whatever companies {disfmarker} they launch their products in the shape of fruits, they give a range of products, a range of shapes, like if we see, look at the smallest thing, toffee chocolates, they give a variety of different things.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Some children like to buy banana shape, some apple shape, some even pineapple shape, some orange shape.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So you can {gap} {disfmarker} what shape a person will like.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So in this case giving only one or two choices we are lim limiting our customers. And by limiting them, we are limiting our sales, limiting our profit also.
User Interface: Uh-huh. But in electronics, I think, it's not q always quite so um {disfmarker} you don't always have so many choices as with chocolates.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I think, you know, if you're going to buy a T_V_ maybe a company'll have {disfmarker} That you're going to choose from, a company'll have two or three choices, but they're different designs. We were coming up with one product.
Marketing: Uh maybe. Okay but I will I will personally {disfmarker} won't give it {gap} beyond three.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: No, I mean uh {vocalsound} obviously your opinion,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: I'm just trying to {disfmarker} Okay.
Marketing: So we can {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} He's a tough cookie.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah, on an average we can think three, four sevenths, maybe. Three or four?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Uh, no sorry,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: it should be {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Six. Five or six.
User Interface: What are we doing?
Industrial Designer: What are we doing?
Marketing: No sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, we are doing a very wrong thing.
User Interface: Adding them up?
Industrial Designer: We're gonna average them?
Marketing: Yeah, yeah, we are taking everything,
Industrial Designer: Okay. So seven fourths.
Marketing: and that's {disfmarker} I have taken it very wrongly.
User Interface: Oh.
Marketing: Yeah uh
Industrial Designer: About one point f one point eight.
Marketing: three four four two six seven seven sev Yeah one pe exactly. So we can say one or two.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: {gap} because it is one point eight uh {gap} two, so we will do two.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Oh I see.
Industrial Designer: Yeah round it up to two.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Okay, yeah.
Industrial Designer: So trends.
Marketing: So where were the trends.
Industrial Designer: Can you explain what you want us to write there?
Marketing: Sorry?
Industrial Designer: How it {disfmarker} how conforms to the current trends?
Marketing: Yeah, again the the fashion trends, this also like whether it it will be fashionable to have these products in the {vocalsound} uh as a fruit shape or something.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Uh.
User Interface: Well um going on uh the specifications that we had, that fruit and vegetables are quite popular, and that people like something that is good to look at and not many buttons, I would give it um, well, because it's hard to make a fruit good to look at, that that looks cool, you know,
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: so I would actually give it a three.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Tha three or four, I'm not sure.
Marketing: Okay. Yeah.
User Interface: Three. Go for three. That's fine.
Marketing: Uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer:'Kay. As far as the uh technology it its'got the latest trends in speech technology, but it's missing the screen, as we said, um but it does have the push-buttons, or the scroll-buttons, um but it doesn't have that fancy solar power or the the vibrating energy mechanism. So I give it a a four. I'd give it a kinda middle of the road for
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: for technology.
Project Manager: Yeah, I am sort of pret uh {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Just the fruit does me in, I mean uh it might
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: it might be trendy to some, but I'm just not swallowing the fruit, so um {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh also uh I would have liked to have seen the L_C_D_ screen in it. Um so yeah I'd say about four as well.
Marketing: Okay. Uh personally I wi uh I think that in terms of trends, these products are quite good, like, these products are in fruit shape, because that wha people now {disfmarker} our fashion trend shows that people like everything {disfmarker} all f everything that is being advertised, like clothes, shoes, and everything is being advertised in the form of fruits and vegetables, or getting them {gap} or showing some association with them.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: So and in this way our product is good. And the second thing, now people don't want any complicated or bulky products and ours is quite simple and quite handy.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So that is also ef that also {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Our product meets the f the fashion uh trends of the market. And yes. It is cus spongy also. So they can play with it, it's quite good.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: So then I think, maybe I can give it two. So four five ten thirteen thirteen {gap}. So we can {disfmarker} Is it fine? So what about company strategy?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: {gap}
User Interface: Um.
Industrial Designer: Well it was yellow. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah, the company strategy, okay. Um {vocalsound} there was lot of discussing, that was good. Um I feel I got my say. Um so I'd give the company strategy a {vocalsound} two.
Industrial Designer: Well, I think it's the the remote control conforms to the the company strategy.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Is that the question?
Project Manager: Yeah, yeah.
User Interface: Is it? Okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Um.
User Interface: Okay, so {vocalsound} one or two.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: One. Okay, just leave it, it's fine.
Industrial Designer: I'll go with two.
Marketing: So what about you, Brian?
Project Manager: Um yeah, a three. Pretty much kept to the company strategy, so I would go for a {disfmarker} a one, as we not only kept it, but we were limited by {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: Yeah, and me also, like, this product me uh me uh me uh this meets all company strategy like our product should be as per customers'requirement, as per latest technology, and it should be environmental safe. So since our product meets all these requirements, so I would also prefer to give it rank one. So four six six
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} So one and a half.
Marketing: half.
User Interface: Yeah, one.
Marketing: So we can say two or one {gap} {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: A two. {gap}
Marketing: Okay. So th seven seven. Uh overall we are getting two {gap} something, but we can round it as two.
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Marketing: Yeah. So I think overall uh evaluation of our product is quite good.
Project Manager: Cool, groovy. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Okay.
Industrial Designer: S
Marketing: So we can launch it. Yeah.
Project Manager: Cool. Brilliant. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Woo-hoo.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} In which case we are done.'Cause we've evaluated and we are within budget. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay.
User Interface: Cool.
Marketing: So
Project Manager: Champagne lunch anyone? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: yeah. {vocalsound} Great. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh. | In this meeting, the team was very satisfied with the three prototypes presented. However, they had to take the budget limits into consideration. Their current cost per remote control was fourteen point six Euros, while the budget required them to cut two more Euros. Therefore, a series of changes were done in order to meet the criteria, such as making the remotes flattened. In the end, the team was asked to make an evaluation about the project. All of them were very satisfied with the final product. | qmsum |
Summarize the discussion about basic components and the cost.
Project Manager: So we are here to talk about functional design. Now hopefully we've all got a better idea from {vocalsound} {disfmarker} than we did f leaving the last meeting as to what it is we are up to now. So here's an agenda. Uh I'll open. Um you should know that I'll be taking minutes during all the meetings, as I was struggling to our last time uh and that'll be easier for me now because I'm not actually giving the whole presentation. Uh the additional points are just the stuff that we sent and that I forwarded on from upper management having a few bright ideas to make our lives painful.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um {vocalsound} now {vocalsound} you can all give your presentations. We can talk about the requirements and hopefully come to some decisions. {vocalsound} Right, forty minutes for this meeting, so a bit more time than the last one. Here's the additional points I just wanted to put those in there to see if you guys had any comments on them. Uh did you all receive that email?
User Interface: Yep.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: So does anyone have any overall {gap}
Marketing: Well {vocalsound} uh what comes up for me is that if we're gonna if we're gonna be marketing a product that is going to be uh having {vocalsound} no teletext, people are very comfortable {vocalsound} with {vocalsound} the idea of having teletext and using teletext, and so we're not {disfmarker} we're gonna be a new product without something that people are very comfortable having right now.
Project Manager: Mm. Mm. Yep.
Marketing: So that's, from a marketing perspective I I see I see a lack.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: And so we have to go, I think, in the other direction. What are we gonna have that makes this thing better than {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well tha that first point could uh also be an op opportunity because in seeing that teletext is becoming outdated, some sort remote control that can work with the Internet {disfmarker} {vocalsound} there is the opportunity that's presented, I guess.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Right. Yeah. No, I I agree with you.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: So what I'm talking about is I see that one side we're eliminating something so we have to come up with another side which is, what are we gonna be targeting our market uh that {vocalsound} identifies our product as better than {disfmarker} because it doesn't have teletext it has ta-ta-ta-ta-ta.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: So that's that's that was my reactions.
Project Manager: Yeah. but but we are sort of being dictated that this should only be for the television.
Marketing: Yeah yeah.
Project Manager: So we're quite fixed. So we're really probably, in terms of marketing, are looking for that's uh that's a cost winner rather than a fantastic new feature product.
Marketing: Yep.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah bu but we we're designing only the remote,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: we not design the T_V_.
Project Manager: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: So uh we're gonna be removing the teletext out of any T_V_ that we {disfmarker} people use our remote with.
Marketing: Yeah.'Kay.
Project Manager: Hmm.
Marketing: That's right.
Industrial Designer: So it's kind of a stupid decision.
Marketing: I think we take with you.
Project Manager: But there's also the potential for mark there's a market here for our lost teletext.
User Interface: Right.
Project Manager: For example someone that just goes to the shop that wants a replacement {disfmarker} wants it as {vocalsound} cheap as possible. Twenty-five Euros is the selling price, we really have to innovate here I guess.
Marketing: That's what I'm that's what I'm talking about is is that we have to find something that is gonna be very attractive about this product'cause somebody, some people are gonna be hap unhappy'cause it took {disfmarker} they can't ac access their teletext.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: Okay.'Cause we're talking about {vocalsound} eighty percent or ninety percent or ninety-five percent of the televisions out there are are teletext.
Project Manager: K yeah.
Marketing: So so it's it's not that I'm criticizing the product at all. It's just when we eliminate that then what do we bring? What are we bringing in to take the place of this,
Project Manager: Mm'kay.
Marketing: and we have to d {disfmarker} in my opinion we have to double up.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: If we lose one we need to bring two or three.
Project Manager: Okay. Okay I think that the {vocalsound} last point is probably quite uh straightforward. Obviously the the {disfmarker} w it has to be branded.'Kay.
Industrial Designer: So then the double R_ will be our our {disfmarker}
Project Manager: On the product yeah. Can you handle that black and yellow?
User Interface: I think one of {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I tho I tho I thou I think Rol Ro Rolls-Royce might mind, but don't worry.
User Interface: I think w, yeah, one of the things that we should also keep in mind um when we're doing this {disfmarker} I mean our company's slogan is we put the fashion in electronics, right. So I think our kind of {disfmarker} our target here is to {vocalsound} have some kind of very like sleek {vocalsound} nice look remote and we want it to be functional as well, but I think one of the main selling points is that we don't want it to be clunky like like this thing here.
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: You know we don't wanna a big clunker. We want something that looks nice and it's fashionable and so {disfmarker}
Marketing: So you have this?
Project Manager: Nah. So we have three presentations, and I think we'll go in order of participant number here. So we can have a look at the working design first from participant two. That's {disfmarker} {gap} Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yes.
User Interface: That's fine. Okay so
Project Manager: Mm it's enough. But uh click it on off?
User Interface: so you all know me, I'm the Industrial Designer. And we've some basic components that um our remote is gonna need, just basically every remote'll need'em.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: We need some kinda of power d power source. Um we have to decide on our our user interface, which is his department, but the in user interface is also a major component. Um we need a programmable digital signal processor to um to take the input from the user and translate that into uh into electronic signal, which we pass to the infra-red L_E_D_, which you aim at the television uh which {disfmarker} and it receives that signal. You need a on-off switch um I don't know how that got in there. And uh we also need to um have the {vocalsound} {disfmarker} if we want a universal remote we need to have encryption codes for the different makes of T_V_s. So we need to know all the different you know all the different signals and so that'll require some memory as well. Um so here's just a basic layout of how how the remote would work. You ha the v the power source is in the upper right-hand corner there, and you can see that uh we have the user interface here which is connected to the chip which does all our signal processing, and then passes that signal on to the infra-red L_E_D_ and that signal is then emitted and received by the television at the photo-transistor. So {vocalsound} those are the basic components that need to go into this and everything else is pretty much uh open to move around.
Marketing: Now is {disfmarker} would this be {vocalsound} considered just a standard uh um {disfmarker}
User Interface: I think any des
Marketing: This is not this is not cutting edge technology we're talking here.
User Interface: No.
Marketing: We're talking about existing technology.
User Interface: Right I think {disfmarker}
Marketing: Nothing is being modified or upgraded or new discoveries.
User Interface: Yeah this is just {disfmarker} this is just a basic layout of ev {vocalsound} of all the components that w w are gonna be absolutely necessary f to have a working remote. We can add things in like if we wanted some voice recognition, I mean that {vocalsound} I mean {vocalsound} that you can kinda say would {vocalsound} would fall under the user interface and the digital signal processing chip.
Marketing: Okay. Okay.
Project Manager: Do we have an idea of costs of different components?
User Interface: Um well the most the most costly components are gonna be the chip and the uh th it could als basically the user interface and the casing are gonna be expensive as well.
Project Manager:'Kay.
User Interface: Um the L_E_D_ and the the transistors and everything else are you know they're they're pretty cheap. So depending on what we want our functionality to be, um the chip could be expensive or it could be cheap.
Project Manager: Mm'kay.
User Interface: Um depending on the n amount of memory we need in there and stuff like that and h and h {vocalsound} you know how much power.
Project Manager: Do we have any ballpark figures for that yet? No.
User Interface: Uh I don't have any figures right now.
Project Manager:'Kay.
User Interface: We uh we have to wait until we get to a more specific design phase for that.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Um but {disfmarker} and I think a significant part of the cost could be the actual the actual casing itself and and you know the the b the buttons and things like that, I think.
Marketing: N okay. Mm. Mm the shell?
User Interface: Yeah. Basically yeah.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: So yeah. That's all I have really.
Project Manager: Okay. Thanks. And we have participant three, which I believe is Pedro.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I can give you that to click on.
Industrial Designer: Hey mouse.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Open. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And you wanna get {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: When we're fighting over it's also more {disfmarker} lot more fun. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: View a slide show, that's what you wanna do, yeah? Just go up to view.
User Interface: Click, don't {disfmarker} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Uh.
Project Manager: Mm'kay
Industrial Designer: This doesn't work. {vocalsound} So yeah function design. Um you guys know me, Pedro, and um what I found is we want to do fashion and I think, honestly, we should keep technology low and just simple basically and try to aim for design. If basically a case will will cost the same if it looks good or bad so we ma we have to make it look good. Um something cute and small. The big chunky remotes are died in the eighties. So we should just go for something that people will like to actually look at.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: And um although mo most people will buy s televisions and everything for uh {disfmarker} that have loads of loads of little functions and everything and they mostly end up using simple functions and little things and most the people won't won't get too mad of actually having to go the {disfmarker} to the s to the television to, for instance, tune in their {disfmarker} the stations. There's no need to have that in the remote. So um um as for what I would recommend for uh the the interface design, and uh I will change the colours on the on the logo, but {vocalsound} um we should go for the user-oriented device, so simple controls and good ergonomics. Um and uh although I th I th I'm still here recommending the teletext so I'll remove that, I guess, but um we should go for the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: But I t I think what the {vocalsound} the management recommendation was less that there's a worry that teletext will become outdated rather than we shouldn't have it. So I I still think if it's cheap enough functionality-wise to include, it really should be in there.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Because otherwise we're just going to {disfmarker} I mean {vocalsound} even if it's necessary or not, if you {disfmarker} if you're given the choice between a t a remote with teletext or without uh when it really {disfmarker} if it i {vocalsound} if it isn't more expensive for us to k make {disfmarker} because as far as I understand it, {vocalsound} it can be operated with the same set of buttons, yeah? So it should be in there.
User Interface: Right as far as {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah.
User Interface: i it's just uh {vocalsound} the cost of an extra button. I mean software-wise there's really no difference.
Project Manager: Yeah. Okay. Isn't {disfmarker}
User Interface: I think.
Marketing: {vocalsound} I have maybe a silly question. I {disfmarker} in the very beginning it said with the with the advent of computers there's gonna be the {disfmarker} it's gonna be out-moded teletext. I I don't understand how those two things are connected. How does how does computers and teletext {disfmarker} h how {disfmarker} why is one eliminating the need of the other? I don't understand that.
Project Manager: Well maybe what we're getting into here is the the idea of uh Internet through the T_V_ for example. So that might play on what we can do.
Industrial Designer: Yeah the they're basically aiming at saying that {vocalsound} you would use {disfmarker} you know a couple of years ago teletext to be the easiest way to check like for uh uh the scheduling and the next programme and stuff like that
User Interface: Scheduling. Um to find out what what you're watching even if there's commercials you know.
Industrial Designer: and now {disfmarker} Yeah
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: and now you can c look it over Internet. But I still think teletext is way more convenient until until we have the same commodities.
User Interface: I think I ha I agree.
Marketing: Yeah'cause, yeah, I just {disfmarker} I don't see the cross-over between computers and television. I mean I do see the cross-over in some sense,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, but it's not happen yet. Yeah.
Marketing: but but but but with the {disfmarker} the remote is is used for television, okay.
User Interface: Well for me {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well you have digital T_V_ still already.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: So so if we make the cross-over and we're gonna view television on computers then we're then we're losing the the necessity of the remote. S
User Interface: Unless you have a {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well there there is a {disfmarker} for example on digital T_V_ systems you have {disfmarker} you can press a button and you can buy things in adverts,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: and you can uh you can view through a catalogue for example.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: A a family member of mine has got a system where you just um you can {disfmarker} Yeah, and there's other features for example on other systems where you can pause live T_V_ and things like that. They're just features from the Internet uh from computers are are coming into the T_V_ sort of under the covers, but you still use it through a teletext.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: So now the things to think here are that that there's gonna be more functionality, potentially that we can handle.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah but we we don't we're not aiming a command for that. That's the thing. And all of those require the other commands with more complexity and more software and {disfmarker}
User Interface: {gap} I think a lot of that's proprietary anyways. You're not gonna be able to, you, like command a TiVo with our remote. I don't think.
Project Manager: Mm. But still there there's an opportunity. If if it's {vocalsound}, for example, a trainable one then we're {vocalsound} just simply having like an up, down, left, right, an okay button or something like that might might do as well in future proofing it. {gap}
Industrial Designer: Yeah but we would increase the price to try to make it a trainable one, so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm. Okay.
Industrial Designer: Well I dunno. One way the other teletext was there but I guess we can remove it or, you know, make two separate interface designs.
User Interface: I think if it's possible you should try to you know have a talk with management about that. Just you know {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah I don't I don't see the logic.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: I I don't see the logic in elimination of teletext, I just I I {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, and neither do I in fact.
Marketing: but I'm not a tech-mind either. I just don't see the cross-over between computers and and and
Project Manager: Bu uh.
Marketing: {disfmarker}'Cause we are designing something for a television, okay.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I'll communicate that back to those guys there a a and th the message really we wanna be sending to them is that, although teletext may become outdated w there's no l logic in not having it in there anyway i if it doesn't affect the price.
User Interface: Right it's just not
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Um but I I think what they're pushing us towards here is in terms of thinking of ways to future-proof our system for future systems that have something else other than teletext maybe.
User Interface: {disfmarker} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: We are selling it to an existing market.
Project Manager: I dunno I'm {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah but we're not putting some {disfmarker} there's no no putting anything in in the place of teletext.
Marketing: That's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Mm'kay.
Marketing: Yeah,
Industrial Designer: That's the problem.
Marketing: and and, yeah, and and we're also {vocalsound} marketing a product. It's {disfmarker} what I'm seeing is a is a mid-range cost product.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: So so w we can't go and pump a whole bunch of technology into this thing
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: because all of a sudden we are gonna have cost overruns. So if we drop {disfmarker} if we are gonna choose to drop teletext, again what are we adding to the product that makes it marketable?
Project Manager: Hmm. So if we're keeping it basic we're loo loo what we're looking to sell it basically is it's uh just being very easy to use, looking exceptionally good, that sort of thing.'Cause we really don't have anything else there, do we?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: I don't I don't see it, and to me if I'm gonna market a product for b for beauty for for design I'm gonna I'm gonna try to market it at a much higher price. I need to make it special with a high price tag. I don't want to make it economically uh g uh competitive.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: I want I want to market it as exclusive. So I would market this product it {disfmarker} at eighty-nine Euros and come up with some really {vocalsound} beautiful exterior design or something th but but I don't think we have that flexibility.
Project Manager: But i if design if design is cheap and functionality is basic, then twenty-five Euros is probably a high price for a commoner garden {disfmarker} stan standard T_V_ so the place {disfmarker} uh remote the then the place we're going to justify that cost is through through design through making it a a sleek elegant {vocalsound} high-priced basic remote. Does that make sense, huh?
Marketing: No I no I I understand what you say,
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: but what I'm what I'm, okay {disfmarker} we probably need to move along,
Project Manager: Yeah we probably should.
Marketing: but my my concern is trying to find a marketing niche for this product,
Project Manager: We we're doing alright for time.
Marketing: and if I'm coming in with a with with twenty-five Euros, which is mid-market price, um then what am I going to give these people for this?
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: So that's just my question, but we can keep talking.
Project Manager: Okay. Sorry that kinda cut into you there.
Industrial Designer: No just I I would I would advocate for continuing teletext and those would be the basic commands. Um as for, you know, the the case design uh maybe I'll come up with more concrete ideas. Right now it's just the idea of simplicity and slickness, cute and small um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Right. I'm just thinking you know with all these universal remotes that are out there, how many people {vocalsound} how many people actually use every feature that ar you know i like these trainable remotes and things like that, where, you know, it's just so confusing to do {vocalsound} to use all these functions. Where I think the largest portion of the market is just gonna {disfmarker} you know they lost their T_V_ remote, they need another one that'll work with their T_V_. They want something that looks nice, that that that isn't gonna break when they drop it, that you know that maybe it's it's ergonomic, it feels good in your hand, something like that.
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: I think that's gonna be where you're gonna find the biggest, you know, market share.
Project Manager: So we are looking for something that looks good and just works, rather than looking for any special features. Is that {disfmarker}
User Interface: I think the more bells and whistles we add, it's just gonna cut into our into our profits.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah.
User Interface: Because I think as we as we add costs for things like uh {disfmarker} for like if we add the voice recognition and things like that, I think {vocalsound} you know what percentage of the of the um of the market is actually gonna use that?
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: Maybe five percent, you know,
Industrial Designer: Yeah mm.
Project Manager: But we can talk a little bit more potentially in the marketing marketing presentation about this.
User Interface: and how much {disfmarker} Right. Yeah okay.
Project Manager: Be a good idea.
User Interface: I'm sorry.
Project Manager: Uh sorry, I didn't mean to cut in {vocalsound}.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
User Interface: Sorry boss {vocalsound}.
Project Manager: I'm not the boss {vocalsound}. Okay.
Marketing: Oh P Pedro, I just want to say quickly I I would really like it when you can come up with some more bells and whistles, eh.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: You know sell uh {disfmarker} things come to my mind is uh uh something that's uh {vocalsound} um voice-activated. I know we're getting into some, I hope, some big money on this thing, but {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I think that's probably a question more for for this guy here, yeah.
Marketing: Is that for over here?
User Interface: Yeah. Well it's kinda both of us.
Marketing: Okay, alright.
Project Manager: Is it?
User Interface: Us us user interface.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: That's {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing:'Cause uh and I think of voice-activated I think of of {vocalsound} how many times I've I've lost my my remote and I can't find it. So some way that I can I can find my remote by clapping my hands or something
User Interface: Mm-hmm. I was thinking about that. Then your lights would go off, though. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: uh and and so so um {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: But this's just something. I'm trying to find some bells and whistles'cause when they talk about tel taking out teletext, it's like, what are we gonna put in? What makes this thing attractive? And it's only for televisions. So we {disfmarker} everyth our our competition out there has got these these multiple adaptors where they can use'em for their V_C_R_s, their D_V_D_s, their {vocalsound} their televisions and we're coming out with one remote for television only. And so to me we have to make this a really special product
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I I I don't s I really have to say I don't see the market niche for this product. At this price I don't see it yet. I'm {disfmarker} I I go along with this, because this is what we're given to try to market, but I I don't see the market niche for this product without without some really sort of something really special to identify it as as unique in the market.
Project Manager: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: But we th that should be design.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: That should be the design basically.
User Interface: Right.
Industrial Designer: I think technology we'd we {disfmarker} we're not in the price range to do it. We don't have the money to do it towards t f technology so we should we should aim at design.
Marketing: Okay. Have to do {disfmarker} you have to do it in the box?
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah.
Marketing: Okay well, so so that's up to you then to {vocalsound} to make this box in something that's absolutely extraordinary.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Maybe make it in the form of a gun. We can sell it in United States.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I have a question uh for you. Does any of the um the features that Pedro's spoken about here have any implications we might not have thought about on in terms of just pure functionality? In terms of making it work or the cost of that or {disfmarker}
User Interface: I don't {vocalsound} {disfmarker} I think all these things are pretty standard. I think we'll be okay.
Project Manager: Okay.'Kay. Cheers. Onto participant {vocalsound} four. {gap} {vocalsound}
Marketing: Well {vocalsound} you know for marketing f {vocalsound} marketing for me is uh {disfmarker} and uh how do I go here? Okay.
User Interface: Mm you can just click.
Marketing: Go go.
User Interface: No no no
Marketing: Is that right?
User Interface: you just get off that. You just click anywhere.
Marketing: Ah-ha. Yeah, what for me is it um {disfmarker} I d I don't know what I'm marketing right now, okay,'til you spoke and when I wrote this, I don't know what I'm marketing. I just know that I I was identified as a a {disfmarker} we identified ourselves as a as a developer, as a manufacturer, and as a as a um distributor t to other wholesalers. And so the th the twenty-five Euros that we've identified as the sale price is a wholesale price rather than a retail price.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: That's what we decided here. Um so what I did is I I decided that {vocalsound} that this this needs to be a product in a in a sense can market itself. So what we've identified here as our main marketing stratagem is is in design. We're making the most beautiful attractive uh whatever we decide it is. So that means we have about seven more minutes or ten minutes left.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Um {vocalsound} so I would like to have a product that that we can sell easily. So I say inspiration, so having something beauty, something attractive, uh something that in a sense will sell itself.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Uh innovation I think fits into what we're talking about here with design. Uh cutting edge technology, I don't think we're gonna have that, these were ideas I was putting together, um unless we come up with some New Age product a as far as the casing is concerned. I I wanna make this thing something that I can identify as special in some way, so maybe we can have some {disfmarker} I I talked about environmentally sensitive, uh maybe we have a product that can be identified in some way as advantageous in a home. I don't know. These are just thoughts. Uh I wanted to talk about uh who we are as a as a corporation, that we're new, we're aggressive, we're competitive, we're we're trying to provide a product from a new perspective rather than from an old corporate line. So to me it's about selling d uh our identity {disfmarker} our corporate identity along with the product. {vocalsound} Um what I found is that the projected costs are competitive.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Uh we're kind of in the middle of the market, but what I'm seeing is that the market is ready for {disfmarker} I I identified new technology, but again, because what I see is budget restrictions and limitations, I don't know that we can bring any new technology into this thing. If if we could have a technological something {disfmarker}
User Interface: I have an idea.
Marketing: Mm p please.
User Interface: And it's kind of {vocalsound} along the s lines of environmentally sensitive, and it may even fit into ergonomics, and even kind of address the issue of losing losing the remote, what we were saying it's a common issue.
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: Um what we can do is, well you know that batteries {disfmarker} throwing a aw remotes run through batteries like crazy. Right?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Solar. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: And {vocalsound} s for some people {disfmarker} Yeah {vocalsound}. {vocalsound} Well maybe not a solar remote but instead what about if we had like a power cradle?
Marketing: But solar {disfmarker}
User Interface: Like a a cradle that is is there to hold the remote when you're not using it, so you'll always know where the remote is'cause you have to put it back there to charge the remote, and we can, instead of having instead of having, you know, replaceable batteries we'll just have a power cell that stays there for the life of the remote. You never have to get {disfmarker} go through the {disfmarker} go through {vocalsound} uh all these different batteries. And also you can {disfmarker} I I think it's a good opportunity for the user design {disfmarker} or for {disfmarker} not just for the user design, but also for the {disfmarker} just for the look and feel of the remote as as a whole. You know you could have some kind of neat little, you know, {vocalsound} a sexy design for d a cradle and the remote itself.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Blah, I like it. I like the idea, but we're talking about {disfmarker} in cost is gonna probably double.
User Interface: It w it would increase the cost.
Marketing: But boy, we can sell this thing, because there's no batteries, it's environmentally sensitive, i we can identify it as a safer product in some form.
User Interface: And you could page the remote if you lose it. Maybe there's a button on the cradle.
Marketing: Yep, that's right. I really see
Project Manager: Now the the question is can we make this for less than twelve-fifty per?
Marketing: But the cost i No no. No no, we have t we have to change the end cost.
Project Manager: We we well do we necessarily have to change the end cost because uh {vocalsound} Can we dl can we do that without {vocalsound} uh changing it twelve-fifty per product, if we basically can sell more based on this?
Marketing: There's uh {disfmarker} I mean I don't see it anyway. Yeah, that's gonna be up to these guys.
User Interface: Well
Marketing: I {vocalsound} {disfmarker} my reaction is no, but
User Interface: {vocalsound} what I can do is I can d look into ho well Pedro and I can look into how much this might increase our our costs
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: and you can look into what kind of effect an increased cost is gonna have on our on our final numbers.
Project Manager: Yeah we we can certainly push for a more expensive product if that's gonna be {disfmarker}
Marketing: Well, see I I {disfmarker} see I I'm an advocate to make this an exclusive product. You know, let's let's sell this wholesale for for fifty Euros, sixty Euros. Let's make this thing really exclusive, environmentally sensitive, uh high-tech design, uh ergonomics, all of this. Just make this thing uh, yeah, the the the Rolls Royce of of remote controls.
User Interface: I {vocalsound} I {disfmarker}
Marketing: Every home's got to have it. If you don't have one, hey what kind of remote do you have? Oh you've got one of those, oh fantastic, I want one of those too.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I just don't have enough money right now.
User Interface: I just don't know about that, because in order to do that {vocalsound} {disfmarker} in order to price it at that kind of level I think we'd need to have every functionality that all the other competitors are offering like being able to operate, you know, the D_V_D_ player and, you know, the stereo system and all that. Which is a pretty basic function that w we've opted out of. And additionally we're m maybe not supporting teletext um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Nah, I think we can say with certainty now that we are supporting teletext.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: But I do think there are some basic features that we don't have that a lot of other remotes are going to have.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yep, one one thing I don't understand is h they've they've given us this package, okay.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Now uh in my opinion we need to give them a package back, okay. They say they say okay here you go. They gave us a fundament a foundation of of what they want,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: and and w it's our place to kinda analyse and evaluate. I don't think it's our place to create their product for them, maybe it is. I don't know what kind of role we have in this {disfmarker} in the corporate ladder uh, but to me it's like, okay, you have got your {disfmarker} here's our ideas, okay.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: And then let them look at those ideas and they say, yeah well, we can we can raise the price twenty percent, you know we like this idea, this idea no, but {vocalsound} to me it's it's about a choice, do we follow their directives or do we make uh presentations back and and then and then discuss? beca I I do not {disfmarker} I do not see the market niche for the product that they're handing f handing us right now.
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: I don I I d
Marketing: I don't see it.
User Interface: I have to disagree though. I think our market niche is basically people who need {vocalsound} {disfmarker} who have lost their remote or uh who've broken their remote and don't wanna send back to the manufacturer, they just wanna run out to the store and get a remote, and then they're gonna look on the shelf and they're gonna see ours is the nicest looking remote. It does what they need. These aren't {disfmarker} I I think that it {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And and th to get to back to another point, sorry uh uh {vocalsound} for cutting in but, I th I think it's important to remember that that this remote has to work with multiple T_V_s, yeah,'cause it's selling on its own.
User Interface: Right.
Project Manager: It's not going to be specifically for Hitachi T_V_s or or whatever.
Marketing: Right.
User Interface: Right.
Marketing: No I understand that.
Project Manager: So technologically, if I understand it, uh T_V_s {vocalsound} T_V_ remote's working exactly the same way as video remotes and D_V_D_ remotes. All you need to do is train them to the individual one, all you need to do is is know the the f like some four-digit code.
Marketing: {gap}
Project Manager: So saying that it works with all T_V_s is equivalent to saying that it'll work with D_V_D_s and other things.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Nope, they've identified the product as not working for anything but televisions.
Project Manager: Oh okay okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah y y you you wouldn't {disfmarker}
Marketing: They've identified this product limita
Project Manager: We have done this.
Marketing: That's why I say I don't I don't see the market niche for this.
Industrial Designer: The interface will be different.
Project Manager: I see.
Marketing: If we if w if we were going to have a product that worked for D_V_D_s, V_C_R_s and everything, then I can see the market niche,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: but we we're only identified as going for televisions without teletext.
User Interface: Right.
Marketing: And it's like whoa we ha in my opinion we have to go with something that's extremely exclusive to make this thing marketable,
User Interface: Well here's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: And I I'd {disfmarker}
Marketing: because who wants just a television remote?
Project Manager: Mm sorry.
User Interface: Right. We he well here's my thing about that.
Marketing: I don't. {vocalsound}
User Interface: If you're in the market for this ultimate remote, you're not gonna go for just a television remote. If it can't control {disfmarker} if it can't control your your D_V_D_ player and a al if y if you can't get that all-in-one ultimate remote, that just {disfmarker} you can throw all your other remotes away. I'm not gonna buy a d seventy-five Euro remote.
Marketing: That's right. {vocalsound} I I I have a tendency to agree with you. I really do.
Project Manager: So we really can't chase that.
Marketing: That's why I say I quest I q I question the marketability of the product. I really question where we create the demand.
User Interface: So I think what we {disfmarker}
Project Manager: We're really looking for something basic.
User Interface: So that's what I'm saying {disfmarker}
Project Manager: The the one thing that that that you said really struck a chord with me here in that we're we're carrying the corporate identity with the product, but we're actually looking for a large profit at the same time where I'd be inclined to go back to upper-level management and say like let's just cut down our profit expected on this product because we are actually branding our company here. We're selling more than just the product. We're trying to get mind-share about uh Real Reaction to to the people who are gonna buy consumer electronics. We want people to eventually say, oh that's that's Real Reaction that's a good m make. It's reliable. And and we're gonna make it {disfmarker} we're gonna win mind-share by uh either being a fantastic product
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: or for it working, it just being good, reasonable-priced, {vocalsound} and solid. So if we can make {disfmarker} if we can put an emphasis here on it not breaking I think that's in itself an extremely {vocalsound} big thing.
User Interface: Mm-hmm. I think that's big.
Marketing: W {vocalsound} okay if you if you drop the cost, now if you make if you make {disfmarker} go to the other side of the cost scale, and you make it less expensive, then all of a sudden now we're going into an a a new market area. So we can say low-cost uh uh um uh good design, beautiful, wa-da-da-da-da-da.
Industrial Designer: Good design.
Project Manager: We only have a few minutes left.
Marketing: But what I'm saying is right now we're middle market.
Project Manager: Is twenty-five Euros a mid-market price for a remote?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Yeah
User Interface: I think so, yeah.
Marketing: for for multi for a multi-function remote, that's a mid-market price. In a discount right now you can buy'em on sale sometimes for about about uh eighteen, nineteen Euro,
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: and that's for the multi-functions, uh D_V_D_, V_C_R_, uh catch-alls. And and they have'em in a little box in the middle, and and this is the consciousness that most people have about replacement remote controls. So to me {vocalsound}, to market this a t only a television remote control we have to change consciousness. We have to have something that will change people's thinking to identify this as advantageous, and I don't know what that is. It's gotta be low-cost or high-cost with with special design features.
Project Manager: Well I'd be inclined to say, if we can make the design better than any comparable remote while reducing the cost, then that's the way we really should play it. If we can take it down to you know fifteen rather than twenty-five and make a low profit-margin on it,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: but we're really doing that to sell the brand. Yep we have five minutes left. Uh rather th uh to to to sell for Real Reactions.
Marketing: Or my d {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And I can communicate this to to the more senior {vocalsound} uh mm people within the company here to to get a reaction. {vocalsound}
User Interface: What about um the idea that I had with the cradle? How do you feel about that?
Project Manager: Well how does everybody feel?
User Interface: Or how does everybody feel?
Marketing: {vocalsound} I mean I I {vocalsound} well we g we're talking about the other end now.
Project Manager: {gap} I I think {disfmarker}
Marketing: I like it.
User Interface: No, but I {disfmarker} that's the thing I I don't think it's necessarily the other end.
Marketing: I like the idea, but we have t we have to find out {disfmarker}
Project Manager: The other the o the problem with that in my mind I just think off-hand as a as a consumer, would I wanna buy that? And I think maybe not because I've got a remote and I'll take it to different chairs, I'll take it to different {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: I w I don't wanna go over somewhere and put it down. It {disfmarker} i if it is gonna be somewhere that you put it down then it needs to be at the side of your armchair,
User Interface: Right.
Project Manager: and that implies that there's only one T_V_ user. So it's very good for some people but it's not a like {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well it lasts {disfmarker} it would last for several hours on its own power, but when you're done with it you put it back in the cradle.
Project Manager: But it it takes away the ease of use of the remote to a certain extent.
User Interface: Yeah
Project Manager: You have to l sort of remember.
User Interface: well it {disfmarker} Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: You have to d shift down the side of the couch to find it and put it back and {disfmarker}
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Well. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I d I d I d I think it it {disfmarker} in my mind it doesn't seem like something that oh I'd really want uh because of that fact.
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: But I I don't know, that's just my opinion.
Marketing: Well, I think again it's it {disfmarker} we have a cost issue here. You know if we're gonna go in this direction, to me we're going to the other side of the cost range.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: Are we gonna make this {disfmarker} selling selling the cost as a high high-tech uh um environmentally sensitive whatever, or are we gonna go to the lower side of the range? {vocalsound} Again I don't see our market niche in the middle for our product yet.
Project Manager:'Kay.
Marketing: I don't see it yet.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} So what do we think maybe we should {disfmarker} Pedro, do you have any opinion on it?
Industrial Designer: Uh we should keep it simple, mm medium-low cost mar um cost area and uh make it look good.
Marketing: W {vocalsound} a question I have in in a {vocalsound} {disfmarker}'cause I I I think I agree with you on, we gotta make it a box. The box is gonna sell it I think, the outside, the casing.
Project Manager: Really need to wrap up now.
Marketing: Can can can we have multiple designs? Have a modern, have a traditional, have a {disfmarker} you know, and so so instead of them all looking the same, people can have maybe four or five different designs they can choose from. I don't know what that creates cost, or {disfmarker}
User Interface: Well the the problem with that is we may end up with a whole bunch of inventory of a of a poor design you know. So {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yep one over another. Yeah, okay, I hear that.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, complicated but {disfmarker}
User Interface: Um but what we could do is some kind of {vocalsound} well I mean {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Yeah we we need to, I mean, have a few designs to look at and then come up with something that I think we all agree is, you know, the best fit. I think w what's really important is it has to look good, it has to feel {vocalsound} {disfmarker} it has to feel good in your hand,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: it has to be durable, it has to a and I think it's really important that it doesn't look cheap. I think I think we have to make sure people look at it an and feel like it its like a quality remote. Even though the cost may be low.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: What ab what ab {disfmarker} what about a a remote that's {vocalsound} that {vocalsound} doesn't maybe look like a remote? Just an idea.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Just just okay'cause I mean we all know what a remote looks like on the outside. They're selling these things everywhere. Maybe that could be part of our design exclusivity, is we make a remote that doesn't even look like a remote it it opens like a telephone.
User Interface: Or what if it looks like a pen?
Marketing: Doesn't matter, yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I'm just jus I talking about some {disfmarker} something to make this thing unique.
User Interface: A pointer?
Marketing: It {disfmarker} That's the thing, I'm gonna keep thumping on.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I'll sell whatever you guys design.
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: I don't have a problem selling a product, that's not the issue. I give you ideas, you guys create the product. Once you have the finished product I'll find a way to sell it. Don't worry about it. I just give you these things now, because these are my thoughts and feelings.
User Interface: So
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: just {vocalsound} to touch on m my point one last time that I had brought up. Um I really {vocalsound} {disfmarker} un unless you guys are die-hard against the fact that um it's possible like it reduces the usability of the remote b and the fact that you can't lose it on your own, I think it still might be a good idea to investigate having like a power cradle.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay. Yeah.
User Interface: Because I really think i in a certain sense it almost like {disfmarker} for me I would want to have that just, because I know at the end of when I'm done watching T_V_ that when I'm done, oh I better go find the remote and put it back where it belongs. Maybe th th th that's just some people that like that.
Project Manager: I mean there's al there's also remote controls I remember that that worked uh, this hasn't been done in a while I think, but th as a as a watch.
User Interface: A lot of people {disfmarker}
Marketing: No no.
User Interface: As a watch?
Project Manager: Yeah, there is remote control watches um,
User Interface: Mm'kay.
Project Manager: but I think they're a sorta eighties thing, so it might not be easy to market in it {disfmarker} uh but the the technologies came along and it might be cheaper to make now.
Industrial Designer: Yeah they are not simple.
Project Manager: Those things may have been inexpensive for all I know.
User Interface: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: One thing I just thought about when you were saying that, is that the p our target market is gonna be someone who has lost or broken {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: That's what I was saying.
Marketing: We gotta stop?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Gotta cut up.
Marketing: Who's lost or broken their their remote. So {vocalsound} how many remotes do they wanna buy? Can we p can we sell them a remote that can maybe guarantee they will not need to buy another one?
User Interface: Exactly.
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: And so with with with this kind of system or locator or something, to to think about, how have people been been losing or breaking their remote?
User Interface: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Marketing: How does this happen?
Project Manager: The last remote you'll ever buy.
User Interface: And also presumably they've {disfmarker}
Marketing: And and then and then design the product, maybe some component of the product that can identify this as the last one you'll ever need to buy.
Project Manager: Well if if we're going down that then we can {disfmarker} we don't need to go the {disfmarker}
User Interface: Exactly.
Project Manager: it it strikes me that the locator feature might actually be uh quite expensive to make.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Whereas actually just putting it in a power cradle might not be too expensive at all because that's just done with mobile phones
User Interface: True.
Project Manager: you can just n we we have said we have actually similar products that we can take from and potentially cut costs there.
User Interface: Right. Yeah. The locator'll definitely be more expensive. Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um need to look into whether we can do that but uh I think we we have some m mobile phone-based products uh checking quickly our Internet. We really need to finish up here. But uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: {gap} uh {disfmarker} we can make it in the shape of a coffee pot. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah we have the {gap} the power-adaptor products. We sell power-adaptor products. So for example there's nothing stopping us using that technology.
Marketing: It's uh just it's that I think it's telling us to stop our meeting.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} So we have the c we probably have have on-line in our in our system, we have the ability to create this, we're talking about.
Project Manager: Yeah I think so,
Marketing: A charging system.
Project Manager: without it being too {disfmarker} In fact we can cut costs through using the manufacturing that's already gonna be in place here.
User Interface: Right.
Marketing: If if we can create this we have probably five or six or seven really strong marketing characteristics.
User Interface: Right.
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: I think one of the things that we can put right on the box is, never buy another battery.
Project Manager: Yep.
User Interface: You know, something like that.
Project Manager:'Kay. Thanks guys.
Industrial Designer: Yep.
Marketing: No that's not what I want, I want {disfmarker} Oh look it here. | The basic components included power source, user interface, a programmable digital signal processor, on-off switch, encryption codes for the different modes of TVs, and memory system. Then User Interface presented the basic layout of how the remote would work. In terms of the cost, the most costly component was the chip and the casing would be expensive as well. LED, the transistors and everything else were pretty cheap. The price of the chip depended on what functionality the product would have and how much the battery capacity and storage would be. For the moment, they didn't have a ballpark figure. | qmsum |
Summarize the discussion about the options for energy sources.
Project Manager: Is everyone ready to start?
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes.
Project Manager: Okay. Great. Well, welcome to the third meeting of conceptual design. I'll just get the PowerPoint presentation up and running. Okay. Um, on the agenda for this, um, for this particular meeting, we'll have your three presentations on what you've done since our last meeting, after we came up with um some general ideas of our design. And, um, then we have to make some key decisions on, on our remote control concept, and how we're gonna make it, what uh materials we're gonna use, and that sort of thing.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: The meeting will be forty minutes long.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: And um we will once again have Poppy as our first presenter.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: Alright, and I will switch up PowerPoint.
Industrial Designer: Thank you.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Should be just loading. {vocalsound} Okay. Oh, although I can't see it on my screen. That says go here. Okay. I've been doing some research into the different components that we could use, um what's available to us f to actually make the remote control. Um, first of all we have to look at how the remote control is actually made, and what is it happens inside the casing, which is more your field. Um, thes main internal feature is a circuit board, which contains all the elec electronics and also the contacts with the power source.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Which is not necessarily a battery, as we're about to see. Um, there are several components of, um, the circuit board that we need to consider, where we'll be getting them from, what they'll be made of. Um, including the integrated circuit, which is also known as the chip. Which is where all the main information is uh contained. Um, diodes, transistors, resonators, resistors, and capacit capacitors all need to be considered as well. Um, and all their positioning in the circuit.
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Are they all included, like mandatorily, or r are these different options?
Industrial Designer: Uh, these, they're all different options, they're all separate, apart from the chip, which we will probable decide whether we buy a simple, a regular, advanced.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: We can go into that later. Um, all the other things are individual components that we'd have to get in separately, and work out the most, like, effective um circuit, including all the wires and everything like that. And the L_E_D_ of course, that's a light emitting diode. So, we could, so we've got flex flexibility with colours and things, with that as well.
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Okay, there are lots of different possibilities for the energy source. We could use a basic battery, but that brings with it, like they need to be recharged and the bulk, the size of it as well. And they're not so great to dispose of, environmentally. {vocalsound} There's a hand-powered dynamo which is a sort of thing that was used for torches fifty years ago. A bit out of date. Kinetic energy is something that's been recently developed.
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} What is a hand-powered dynamo?
Industrial Designer: Um, where you manually charge up the power.
Project Manager: Just every, every once in a while?
Industrial Designer: Like you wind up something.
Project Manager: Just every once in a while or constantly?
Industrial Designer: Sorry? Yeah. Every once in a while I think
Project Manager: Alright. It'd be kind of strange to always be cranking it I think.
Industrial Designer: . But it's {disfmarker} Yeah. It would be like going a step back in time.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I don't think it would really be with kind of cutting edge technology.
Project Manager: No. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Whereas kinetic energy is a new idea that's being used by some watches and other devices, where you just shake the device and it gives it power. I mean, the kinetic energy is transformed into power to make the circuit work. Um, or there's solar power, which we've been considering inside a building, which is where it's gonna be used, might not be quite so useful.
Project Manager: Right.
Industrial Designer: But, good to look into, renewable energy, always the way. Um, lots of considerations for the case, like what sort of shape it would be, curved or flat. That's got a lot to do with the ergonomics. Like how it's comfortable and s sits in the hand. We don't want something that's huge and you can't pick up. Or too small. Or too slidy. I know I've had a remote control before which you couldn't tell which was the front and the back,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer:'cause it had so many buttons on, and the shape was so symmetrical that I'd be pressing like a volume button instead of the on button.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Because you can't really see which way round it is.
Project Manager: Right.
Industrial Designer: Um, we also can choose what materials {disfmarker} um, the {disfmarker} we could use metal, we could use rubber which might be more um ideal for the anti-R_S_I_. It's like the same sort of rubber that's used in stress balls and things like that, so it's very like soft, not so stressful on your hands.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wood.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Um, again, stepping back in time again there.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I don't think that's quite up to date with what we're looking for here.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um, titanium is not gonna be possible, even though it just it beyond our budget really. But, would've been maybe for future projects. Um right our choice for buttons as well. We've developed some {disfmarker} we've got some good advances in technology, with our research team have found some uh new multiple um option scroll buttons. I think that was brought up for, um, {disfmarker} they're basically quite a flexible design, modern, you don't have to use individual buttons. You can just slide up and down. I'm sure we're all quite familiar with those on mobiles or computer laptop pads.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Um one thing with the scroll buttons though. It, it {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: we would have to have an L_C_D_ um
Industrial Designer: Yeah. That's true.
Project Manager: display, and the glow in the dark thing might be difficult.
Industrial Designer: And that would lead to an advanced {disfmarker} yeah. If we have {disfmarker} yeah. We're going on to that later with the advanc with the L_C_D_ that means we'd need a really advanced chip.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And it's unlikely that that's gonna be in our budget.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Um, also we've got the integrated pushbutton, which is what we're most familiar with. It's the most straightforward. But you can in like incorporate that with a scroll button as well. {gap}. Got decisions to make there. And this is what I was just saying before. Linked in the different {disfmarker} depends on what type of buttons we have and the inputs. Um simple would go with the pushbutton. Um, regular you could link with the scroll button. And the advanced we'd have to go with a L_C_D_ s display.
Project Manager: Right.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} My personal preferences? I think we could go for the kinetic energy source. I don't, I think that's quite um an advanced kind of technology. It's not been seen before, so it could be quite a, a novelty factor, attractive as well. And also energy saving'cause you're producing the energy, you don't need an external sort of battery supply or solar panels. You just give it a shake.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sounds brilliant to me.
Project Manager: Uh.
Industrial Designer: Rubber casing I thing would probably the best, if we're going for the anti-R_S_I_ and like more choice with um aesthetics. Like it could be pretty much any colour we want. Um, and gives you, yeah, more flexibility there. And probably the regular chip as opposed to the simple,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: then we could possibly have the scroll and the push, but no L_C_D_,'cause we probably can't afford that one.
Project Manager: Yeah. Um, one concern with the rubber casing is that it would be rubber encapsulating all of these {vocalsound} chips and diodes and delicate technology as
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: like as the exterior. This is the one thing that's protecting its innards.
Industrial Designer: I think that would, uh there would be an in sort of more internal casing. And the rubber would just be the, what's in contact with the human.
Project Manager: Yeah. Another thing is it might be more difficult {disfmarker} if it's a rubber exterior {gap} talking about putting on interchangeable plates.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Um, is it {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: I don't see how a like a rubber plate going on top it would stay there. Like if it was sort of like a clip-on plastic plate. It would work that way.
Industrial Designer: Maybe if the, um, if it was just kind of a, more of a rubber coating which was on to a case.
User Interface: W
Industrial Designer: So, it was kind of, the whole thing would be removable.
User Interface: Like plastic with rubber, kind of on top
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Like {disfmarker} I can't think of what.
User Interface: Well, there's, there is a certain phone that has like a rubber casing,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Or like an {disfmarker}
User Interface: b like a Nokia it is.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: you can get sort of outer casing for iPods and something, that's just {disfmarker} it's protective as well.
User Interface: It's {disfmarker} yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Like the skin?
Industrial Designer: It, it stops it, I mean,
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: it would reduce the impact if it was dropped or something, as well,'cause it wouldn't damage itself so easily.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Alright. So maybe the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I think i maybe a mixture of both there, maybe.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: So the actual remote would be hard plastic and the casings rubber.
Industrial Designer: And then {disfmarker} yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: And the buttons obviously are rubber.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: That sounds good. I, um, is it possible to put designs onto this type of rubber?
Industrial Designer: As far as I know. It should be.
Project Manager: Okay,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: we'll just say yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yes, just why not.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright. I like the kinetic energy source idea.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Um, I don't know when people will, um, be moving a remote around a lot.
Industrial Designer: I thought that was {disfmarker}
Project Manager: But I think that it's worth it, kinetety, kinetic um
User Interface: Yeah, tha
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: energy source. It could make an we could have any kind of style.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: It wouldn't be as heavy or bulky, and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. Just for environmental reasons.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I guess it's a bit scary'cause it hasn't been done before.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: So it seems {disfmarker} we'd have to do more research on it.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Or I dunno if you could have a battery pack.
Industrial Designer: Like as a backup for something.
User Interface: Backup. Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah so there's there is a one battery, because most remotes use two batteries I believe.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: So, if it was running off of one battery as a {disfmarker}
User Interface: That would be good yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Some alternative just in case something went wrong.
Marketing: Right.
User Interface: Maybe we could {disfmarker} you were saying about um solar power ma maybe not working indoors, but a lot of calculators, yeah, have solar power.
Industrial Designer: That's true. I just thought of that {gap}.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: So maybe that could be incorporated as {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: May maybe that could be the backup.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Instead of a battery.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Like solar backup.
Marketing: Although it needs some light, doesn't it?
Industrial Designer: Yeah. I suppose
Project Manager: Yeah, you can watch a T_V_ in the dark then.
User Interface: Do, do those calculators {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: s but some {disfmarker}
Marketing: So, if we're doing {disfmarker}
User Interface: yeah.
Marketing: yeah. If we're {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: But thing is, it's not {disfmarker} you don't need the solar all the time.
User Interface: I don't know how it works.
Industrial Designer: It can be stored. It can be like {disfmarker} you can have the solar energy and then it can store that energy and use it.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: It just needs to be in light for a certain amount of time per day.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Like a few hours a day. {gap}.
Project Manager: I think that might be a little impractical though.
Marketing: Yeah. I think sometimes it's just shoved under, under a cushion,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: and {disfmarker} yeah.
Industrial Designer: That's true. It could easily {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Like people don't wanna have to worry about that.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I suppose it would be really annoying if you get to think, oh no, I forgot to charge my remote today.
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Like if the kinetic thing, I think what's best about that is that it's instant energy.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: You don't have to, you know, you can shake it a few times, or whatever.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And it works.
Project Manager: Or just like pick it up when you're gonna use it.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Instead of you don't have to like make sure it's in the right place to charge and {gap}.
User Interface: Yeah, I suppose.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Alright. Cool.
Industrial Designer: K okay.
Project Manager:'S that the end of your presentation.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Alright.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Thank you.
Industrial Designer: There we go.
User Interface: Thanks. Oh. {vocalsound} It's not on my screen.
Industrial Designer: {gap} it wasn't on mine either.
User Interface: Why? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I don't know why. I think, I just, I just used the mouse on there.
User Interface: You don't know why? Oh okay. Is it that one?
Project Manager: Yeah. That's um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Um, I'm just gonna go through the interface concept with yous now. Uh, first of all I'll explain what a user interface is. It's the aspects of a computer system which can be seen or otherwise perceived, for example, heard or felt maybe, or {vocalsound} by the human user. And it's also the commands that the user uses to control its operation and to input data. Um, there are two types of user interfaces. There's the graphical user interface, which emphasises the use of pictures for output and a pointing device, for example a mouse for input control. So that's sort of like the scroll thing we were talking about.
Project Manager: Oh. Okay. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. I'm not really sure about the pictures that {disfmarker} maybe that's on an L_C_D_ screen.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: Or maybe it's the the buttons or pictures or something. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Do you think it's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah,'cause {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: So I suppose sometime {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I'm sorry?
Industrial Designer: after you. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um, because command interface requires you to type textual commands and input at a keyboard, so the numbers are sort of like a keyboard. You're pressing the numbers for, um, for what you want.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: So you must, for the graphical user you must need some kind of presentation for the graphics.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I s I suppose where um mm on some buttons you would have {disfmarker} like the power would be s some kind of symbol.
User Interface: Like an L_C_D_ screen.
Industrial Designer: And if you wanted to go onto teletext or,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I know we're not having that, but I mean a similar thing,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: you, they have {disfmarker} there's a like little picture with a screen with lines across it, which {disfmarker} I suppose it's that sort of thing like the, the symbol on the button.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: But if we're having a simplified display anyway, w that, we probably won't have to focus so much on that.
Project Manager: Yeah, we'll be doing {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It'll be more the on the numbers and the volume.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. It'd be more a command interface, and then {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I suppose we need to think of symbols for like the volume, display, and stuff like that.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: So it's just draf graphical for the pointing aspect?
Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker}
Marketing: The infrared is like, that's considered a {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Hmm?
User Interface: No I think it's to do with the actual symbols that are on the, that's on the buttons of the remote control, and per
Marketing: Okay. So when it says pointing device that doesn't include {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: For inp
User Interface: Well it could be a wee scroller thing, and something could come up on the screen.
Project Manager: Yeah. I think they're talking about L_C_D_ type things.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: But um I think we're gonna go with the command interface anyway,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: to make it more simplistic. But the, we could incorporate some of the graphical user um points,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: as in {disfmarker} just to make it m um nicer to look at maybe. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: What do you mean?
User Interface: Like {vocalsound} I can't think of an example, but {disfmarker} Sort of like little pictures rather than {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh yeah, like how the buttons {disfmarker}
User Interface: Like a little sound. Instead of saying volume, like a little speaker or something.
Project Manager: Yeah, as a button though.
User Interface: Yeah, something y
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: So, it's a keyboard in the shape of it, right?
User Interface: Yeah m perha yeah. Yeah. Maybe.
Project Manager: Okay. Yeah. I like that idea.
User Interface: Um, the co uh {disfmarker} we've decided that the command interface would be the most useful for a remote control. As it would be less complicated, and the controls would be more user-friendly. Um, the remote control would be cheaper to design, so that we'd have more money in the budget to, um, target the design area of the interface. You know, make it more trendy and original. We'll have more money if we keep it simple.
Project Manager: Yeah. I'm sure i like kinetic energy would probably dip into the budget. A bit more too, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. Seeing as it's quite a new technology. Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We, we also have to keep in mind when we're designing our, um, more user-friendly remote control, that a lot of interfaces consist of a clutter of buttons, that, um, that their functions, colours and forms aren't always helpful.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. That's true. That's in like the buttons with all the different like colours for different choices and things.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: It can be a bit, yeah, overwhelming. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. And that all interfaces are different. So, um, that doesn't improve the use of the produ product, so we need to come up with something that's easy to understand. And maybe learn from the mistakes of other interfaces that can be too complicated for people to use.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yep.
User Interface: Does anyone have any questions?
Project Manager: Do you think that we should keep all the buttons to one same colour, just to keep it, give it a simplistic look.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: I think if we go with the um design plate thing, we'll have to. Just because of colour clashing,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: and if we wanted to,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: so and, and we might, I mean, depending on what comes out of the design, we might have to stick to just black buttons.
User Interface: But um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: But what about the lighting up effect?
Marketing: You mean different colours for the lighting or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Um, well, um, I thought we had um decided that we would {disfmarker} if you touched one of the buttons they'd all light up. And so if they were black, it wouldn't be possible for them to light up.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Oh I see what you're saying.
Project Manager: If they were white they would glow, probably.
Marketing: Well y
Project Manager: If they were made out of rubber.
Marketing: Oh so you're picturing the light is coming from the back. I kinda pictured it as kind of coming from the sides and lighting it up frontwards.
Industrial Designer: Oh.
Project Manager: Oh.
Marketing: But, but I guess, you mean from the back.
Project Manager: Where would the light come from?
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: I'd assume, like, an internal light, that comes through.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So there would have to, have to be some parts maybe transparent around the buttons, or something.
Project Manager: Yeah,
Marketing: Right.
Project Manager: and well rubber is a more translucent product too,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: so we have that taken care of.
Industrial Designer: It should be able to {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: mm-hmm.
User Interface: In the phone that I was thinking of as well, when you change the um covers of it, the, the little buttons that actually, you know, that contro control stuff, are behind the rubber.
Industrial Designer: Li yeah.
User Interface: So you can change the buttons when you're changing the faces. Do you know what I mean?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh.
Project Manager: Oh.
User Interface:'Cause it's just the wee control,
Marketing: Yeah. They, they insert over.
User Interface: yeah, thing that's behind it.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: So {disfmarker} I mean, we don't have to decide on one colour. Each face could have its own colour of buttons maybe?
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Well, if they're raised up buttons. So that you can feel them.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: We were talking about it being more um, a lot more tangible.
Marketing: T
Project Manager: Um, it might be more difficult to do. If they're, if they're sticking up.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: If it's flat then, like o like on a cellphone or a mobile phone, it's like all very flat, and you just have to sort of press down on these tiny little buttons, but {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I think it would be possible. I don't think it would make that much difference. I mean, the uh the dimensions of it.'Cause if it's just like constructed in the same way as like the front cover of a mobile phone. You can like take off the hard cover and then there's the like say the buttons. And then you get to the circuit. I don't think it would matter that the buttons were bigger through the, the top casing. I'm sure you could f work it out to fit in the casing, without causing too much difficulty.
Project Manager: Yeah. Okay.
Industrial Designer: I'm sure that'd be fine. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Alright. If it's do-able we can do.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, sounds good to me.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: So that's everything, then?
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Alright, thank you.
Marketing: Okay is that my turn then?
Project Manager: That means you're up. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Alright. {vocalsound} I have a shorter report for you today. Um, it took a while to get this, uh {disfmarker} Uh.
Industrial Designer: You're not plugged in yet.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: That's a very good point.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay, so um, this report is about uh trend-watching. Um, basically so we can live up to our, our uh purpose of having a very fashionable remote control. Sorry. There we go. Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So, just so you know, my method was mainly web web-based research this time around. I also spoke with fashion experts in Milan, New York and Paris. And I looked at the design reports from previous years, here at Real Remote. Um, just so c we can work off of them, see how fashions have changed. Um, {vocalsound} so I'll list the three most important aspects that I've come across. Um, and they, they're each more important than the one that comes after it. Uh, the first one is that there should be a fancy look-and-feel, instead of the current functional look-and-feel. Um, this should be our priority, as we've been saying. The second most important aspect is that a remote sh that the remote control should be technologically innovative. So, I think we've done a lot of talking about that, just with lighting and the buttons and the {disfmarker} face-plates. Um, so it looks like we'll be able to keep on track with that. And the third most important aspect is that the remote control should be easy to use. {vocalsound} So, pretty basic there. And the recent fashion update, uh, according to fashion-watchers in Paris and Milan, is that fruit and vegetables will be the most important theme for clothes, shoes and furniture. {vocalsound} Um, also, in contra uh in contrast to last year, the feel of the material is expected to be spongy. Again, we've already discussed that with rubber versus hard plastic buttons. Um {disfmarker} So, my personal preferences here, um of course, as {disfmarker} we, we've already talked about the personal face-plates in this meeting, and I'd like to stick to that. The fruits and vegetable themes, I don't know if that's going to work for us. It sounds something that you'd use on kitchenware.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: I don't know if we wanna do it on remotes.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: It could be one of the options.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Maybe for the television that people have in their kitchen. Um, the temporary light-up idea, sounds like we're gonna stick to that. And then, uh, tying in a trendy look with user-friendliness.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah, it's the fruits and vegetables is the only area that I find rather jarring. Everything else we can really, we can really
Industrial Designer: It is strange.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: um, do, according to our plans already, given the market. But fruits and vegetables seems a very strange idea for a remote control.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} It's, it's a little {gap} but it, it's everywhere.
Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: So maybe we {disfmarker} I've seen a lot of purses with olives on them, you know.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: But I I think, I think if we stick to T_V_ based, you know, maybe T_V_ shows, or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: But they still need to um fit into people's decor though.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Or colour schemes.
Industrial Designer: We {disfmarker} I think we possibly could take a more abstract design.
Marketing: Right.
Industrial Designer: Like look at the basic shapes of different fruits and vegetables. And then just really like strip it down to like really basic shapes. I mean we don't have to make something in the shape of a strawberry, but it could have the curves of a strawberry, or something.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Or a strawberry seed or a leaf.
User Interface: Yeah, yeah.
Marketing: The {disfmarker} The essence of strawberry. Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Or just like you know really make it a quite abstract, if that's fits in more with what we're doing. Instead of fruits and vegetables,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: just {disfmarker} if you look at it straightforward, it's a bit {disfmarker} yeah. It doesn't s quite fit in with the trendy {disfmarker} well, obviously it does, if that's the current theme.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: But {vocalsound} may maybe we could go more directly, I don't know.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: But initially, I dunno. I think if we just sort of tone it down a bit.
Project Manager: Tone it down. Yeah,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah and like not, not {disfmarker}
Marketing: I guess, yeah.
Project Manager: like more like photos of fruit, on, on our product.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: yeah.
User Interface: Or banana-shaped. {vocalsound}
Marketing: One thing I was thinking though is {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I dunno if you all remember from our kickoff meeting, we talked about our favourite animals.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: So maybe there could be animal-based, you know. Because a lot of people have a house cat. Or, or a dog.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Um, that might be getting, you know, too specific, and we should see what the success of the first face-plates are. But it's something to keep in mind.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: {vocalsound} And, did you have any questions? Pretty straightforward?
Project Manager: Yeah um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Alright, given that information, we need to start making some more specific decisions. So I'll need to um hook up the PowerPoint again.
Marketing: There you go. {vocalsound} Have you guys been saving your PowerPoint presentations to the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I didn't for the first one. But I have now.
Marketing: okay.
Project Manager: But it's still around right?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. Uh, hopefully
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Where do you have to save it to?
Industrial Designer: . Project documents I think.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Okay. I'm just trying to make this pop up now. Alright. Here we go. Okay so we have to uh decide now exactly what we are going to do. So energy, we {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: oh. Oh no I can't write it in when it's in this setting.
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
Project Manager: Does anyone know how to take it out of {disfmarker} Um,
User Interface: Just escape I think.
Marketing: The PowerPoint?
Project Manager: yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, so back to decisions. Energy, we've decided on kinetic, right?
Industrial Designer: Kinetic yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, so that's good.
Industrial Designer: Are we going to have a backup?
Project Manager: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: Or do we just {disfmarker}
Project Manager: But would a backup really be necessary? I mean will people just use the battery if there's no, if there's,
Industrial Designer: I think maybe we could just go for the kinetic energy,
Project Manager: if there is backup.
Industrial Designer: and be bold and innovative,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and hope this works, and well hope that it works.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker}
Project Manager: There's like no reason why it wouldn't work, right?
Industrial Designer: yeah. I think {disfmarker} no. I, I think we should just like take uh advantage of like using this to its full potential.
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. It could even be one of our selling points.
Industrial Designer: Go for it. It could be {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: fully kinetic energy.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Environmentally conscious or something.
Industrial Designer: Is everyone happy with that?
Marketing: So if it's not working they just have to shake it a bit and that revitalises it?
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Hope so. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Alright, the next um decision is chip on print. I don't exactly know what that means.
Industrial Designer: Um, it was whether we went for the simple, the regular, or the advanced chip. And that linked in with what buttons we would gonna have, so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Right, and we were going for more simplistic style, right?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, it was {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: so that was without the L_C_D_. So that means we're not doing the advanced.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So it depends on whether we wanted the scroll buttons or just the push buttons.
Project Manager: I think we decided on the pushbuttons, right?
Industrial Designer: Uh, so that's the simple.
User Interface: Yeah. I don
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Would we need a more advanced one for uh the lighting, the interior lighting system?
Industrial Designer: Yeah possibly.
Project Manager: Yeah?
Industrial Designer: So, it's probably gonna be the regular chip that we're going to need.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: So it's a medium.
Project Manager: That's called medium, or regular?
Industrial Designer: So regular chip. Regular sorry. {vocalsound}
Project Manager:'Kay.
Industrial Designer: Regular chip.
Marketing: Oh, is regular not simple?
Industrial Designer: Lighting.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah if we {disfmarker}
User Interface: It's for the lighting, yeah.
Industrial Designer: because of the lighting that we've decided to put in as well.
Marketing: Right right right.
Project Manager: Okay, and cases. Um, does this, is this dependent on shape, or what it's made of, or what?
Industrial Designer: So th I think this is just like gonna be the {disfmarker} a very outer case, which we will decide on rubber.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. Well, I guess plastic and coated in rubber.
Industrial Designer: Rubber.
User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Plastic with rubber
Industrial Designer: Plastic rubber coat.
User Interface: plastic coat.
Project Manager: coating and interchangeable um
Industrial Designer: Interchangeable, yeah. Still going for that.
Project Manager: yeah, interchangeable plates.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. User interface concept. This is your time to shine.
User Interface: We decided on the component. I, I I'm sorry, I've lost my um {vocalsound} PowerPoint thing, so I can't remember what it's ca it's the component {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Your screen?
Marketing: Think it was called command interface.
Industrial Designer: Was it {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Marketing: Command interface, {gap}.
User Interface: The command inter
Project Manager: Command interface.
Industrial Designer: Ouch.
User Interface: The command line interface yeah.
Project Manager: Did you say command line? Okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Line interface.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Alright, and supplements. What's that all about?
User Interface: Um, I think that is {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: well we haven't really made any decisions about what we're gonna do about the cluster of button functions, colours and forms, in the {disfmarker} in consistent use. Like what what are ideas to combat these problems?
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: You know how um different interfaces are very different, and can be confusing because because of their difference, and because of the different clusters of buttons that they have.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: We haven't really decided what to do about that.
Project Manager: Um, what are our choices here?
User Interface: {vocalsound} Well it's just um w where where shall we locate the buttons. What kind of functions wi shall we have?
Project Manager: You mean like we'll have the numbers of the channels, and we'll have the channel-changer, and volume, and power?
Industrial Designer: The power. Volume.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: So pretty {disfmarker} just just the basic button functions.
Project Manager: Yeah. Like I don't know if we should go into like adjusting light levels, things like that, because different televisions will have {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: May yeah.
Project Manager: Um, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Tone, contrast, and things. That's a bit {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} That was on, um one of my presentations. About how often it was used.
Project Manager: Yep.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, it was minima
Marketing: Do you remember that?
Industrial Designer: well, it wasn't the l
Project Manager: Yeah, it was hardly ever used really.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} I w {vocalsound} Should I bring it up?
Project Manager: Yeah. And most televisions will come with a remote.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. That would be good. Yeah, and surely that would be like quite specific to the individual television,
User Interface: Yeah, each television.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker}
Project Manager:'Kay, well we know we want numbers.
Marketing: The ch t Screen settings was used um zero point five times an hour. So tw twice every {disfmarker} once every two hours. Um, and it was considered a one point five relevance, on a scale of ten. That's brightness, colour, tone, all that.
Industrial Designer: Mm. I think most of that comes like on the i individual television set itself,
User Interface: You don't change that often, yeah.
Industrial Designer: doesn't it? I'm sure it has its own buttons, so you don't necessarily need to have it on remote.
Project Manager: Yeah, it does.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Yeah, and different televisions.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Like we, I don't know if we can make a remote that would be universal to all the different kinds of
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: changes like that.
Industrial Designer: So we're just going for power, channels, volume,
Project Manager: Volume.
Marketing: The other one was audio settings. Mono, stereo, pitch. I mean I sometimes use that. Some T_V_s will have the option of like living room style, movie style, um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: and that, they say that's used zero point eight times an hour, which is actually somewhat high. Like almost once an hour.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Um, relevance of two.
Project Manager: Oh. We have five minutes to finish our meeting.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Crap. Okay, um, let's do this fast. Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Well that didn't some up on mine.
Project Manager: Should we have audio? It only comes up on mine usually.
User Interface: It w {vocalsound} it would seem silly if we'd {gap} having anything else, just have an audio button though.
Marketing: Oh.
Project Manager: Yeah,
User Interface: Do you know?
Project Manager: I don't, I {disfmarker} it's, it's a problem with the international uh appeal, I think. Um, if we have audio because we don't know how other televisions work. But we know that everyone has this and it's the same.
User Interface: But we {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I've {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah I guess that it affects the marketing,'cause it, {vocalsound} mm it is a good sales ploy to say, aren't you annoyed with remote controls that have all these buttons.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: This one has channel, volume and your channe and your power.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's it. We can just go for, make it a selling point that it is just the basic.
User Interface: That could be a sales pitch.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Simple and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah uh I {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Alright.
Industrial Designer: brilliant.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Good. And, okay, in closing,'cause we only have five minutes. We'll be meeting again in thirty minutes. Um, you'll be working, Poppy will be working on the look-and-feel design. Wait a minute. Is that right?
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Yep, and um the user interface design, so this is where the trendy stuff comes in. And you'll be evaluating the product. Um, Poppy and Tara will have to work together, using modelling clay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And, um, your personal coach will give you the rest of the information of what needs to happen.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Alright. So, anyone else have something to say?
Industrial Designer: Um, I just have one question about the whole fruit and vegetable aspect.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Are we {disfmarker} seeing as that was the most popular thing that came up out of your market research, I thi I think we should keep to that rather than moving to animals or something, because even if that may not seem obvious to us, if that's what the surveys brought out, I think that we should probably go along with that.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um, so I suppose that'll come out in our dev design development. But you're happy to go ahead with the fruit and veg?
Marketing: Now do you guys need {disfmarker} want an idea of how many uh {disfmarker} are you gonna come up with casing ideas?
Industrial Designer: Y Yeah.
Marketing: Like f five different {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: {gap} five. {gap}.
User Interface: What I {disfmarker} What I was thinking {disfmarker} what do yous think of this? Um, having the numbers kind of like, not a bunch of grapes, but you know like purple and kind of in a triangle.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Like grapes. Like that's kind of fruity or something.
Marketing: Yeah you can have some fun with the buttons, it's true.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: That's just {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: We can have a look at those ideas, yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: I guess what you i ideally you'd kind of think of age markets as well.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: So it's a something that will, you know, appeal to the fifteen to twenty five year olds. Something that your granny would want on her remote control.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Um, and international tastes as well, so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Tricky. {vocalsound} A lot of things to consider. Hm.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Not easy. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. Lots of {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: yeah. Alright.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager:'Kay we'll stick to the fruit and veggie theme then.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Alright. And, um, we'll reconvene in thirty minutes.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager:'Kay.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Bye.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Thank you. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'll see you later. {vocalsound} Oh, what did I just do. Okay. | First, Industrial Designer introduced three optional sources of energy and recommended kinetic energy as they were light, novelty, and environmental-friendly. Project Manager agreed, but Marketing suggested it should be corporated with a battery backup in case something went wrong. After that, the group discussed solar energy, considering it impractical for remote control although it can be stored. With complete confidence by Industrial Designer and Project Manager, the group finally reconciled with the idea of full kinetic energy and treated it as one selling point. | qmsum |
Summarize the whole meeting.
Project Manager: Is everyone ready to start?
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yes.
Project Manager: Okay. Great. Well, welcome to the third meeting of conceptual design. I'll just get the PowerPoint presentation up and running. Okay. Um, on the agenda for this, um, for this particular meeting, we'll have your three presentations on what you've done since our last meeting, after we came up with um some general ideas of our design. And, um, then we have to make some key decisions on, on our remote control concept, and how we're gonna make it, what uh materials we're gonna use, and that sort of thing.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: The meeting will be forty minutes long.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: And um we will once again have Poppy as our first presenter.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: Alright, and I will switch up PowerPoint.
Industrial Designer: Thank you.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Should be just loading. {vocalsound} Okay. Oh, although I can't see it on my screen. That says go here. Okay. I've been doing some research into the different components that we could use, um what's available to us f to actually make the remote control. Um, first of all we have to look at how the remote control is actually made, and what is it happens inside the casing, which is more your field. Um, thes main internal feature is a circuit board, which contains all the elec electronics and also the contacts with the power source.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Which is not necessarily a battery, as we're about to see. Um, there are several components of, um, the circuit board that we need to consider, where we'll be getting them from, what they'll be made of. Um, including the integrated circuit, which is also known as the chip. Which is where all the main information is uh contained. Um, diodes, transistors, resonators, resistors, and capacit capacitors all need to be considered as well. Um, and all their positioning in the circuit.
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} Are they all included, like mandatorily, or r are these different options?
Industrial Designer: Uh, these, they're all different options, they're all separate, apart from the chip, which we will probable decide whether we buy a simple, a regular, advanced.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: We can go into that later. Um, all the other things are individual components that we'd have to get in separately, and work out the most, like, effective um circuit, including all the wires and everything like that. And the L_E_D_ of course, that's a light emitting diode. So, we could, so we've got flex flexibility with colours and things, with that as well.
Project Manager: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Okay, there are lots of different possibilities for the energy source. We could use a basic battery, but that brings with it, like they need to be recharged and the bulk, the size of it as well. And they're not so great to dispose of, environmentally. {vocalsound} There's a hand-powered dynamo which is a sort of thing that was used for torches fifty years ago. A bit out of date. Kinetic energy is something that's been recently developed.
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker} What is a hand-powered dynamo?
Industrial Designer: Um, where you manually charge up the power.
Project Manager: Just every, every once in a while?
Industrial Designer: Like you wind up something.
Project Manager: Just every once in a while or constantly?
Industrial Designer: Sorry? Yeah. Every once in a while I think
Project Manager: Alright. It'd be kind of strange to always be cranking it I think.
Industrial Designer: . But it's {disfmarker} Yeah. It would be like going a step back in time.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I don't think it would really be with kind of cutting edge technology.
Project Manager: No. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Whereas kinetic energy is a new idea that's being used by some watches and other devices, where you just shake the device and it gives it power. I mean, the kinetic energy is transformed into power to make the circuit work. Um, or there's solar power, which we've been considering inside a building, which is where it's gonna be used, might not be quite so useful.
Project Manager: Right.
Industrial Designer: But, good to look into, renewable energy, always the way. Um, lots of considerations for the case, like what sort of shape it would be, curved or flat. That's got a lot to do with the ergonomics. Like how it's comfortable and s sits in the hand. We don't want something that's huge and you can't pick up. Or too small. Or too slidy. I know I've had a remote control before which you couldn't tell which was the front and the back,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer:'cause it had so many buttons on, and the shape was so symmetrical that I'd be pressing like a volume button instead of the on button.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Because you can't really see which way round it is.
Project Manager: Right.
Industrial Designer: Um, we also can choose what materials {disfmarker} um, the {disfmarker} we could use metal, we could use rubber which might be more um ideal for the anti-R_S_I_. It's like the same sort of rubber that's used in stress balls and things like that, so it's very like soft, not so stressful on your hands.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Wood.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Um, again, stepping back in time again there.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I don't think that's quite up to date with what we're looking for here.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um, titanium is not gonna be possible, even though it just it beyond our budget really. But, would've been maybe for future projects. Um right our choice for buttons as well. We've developed some {disfmarker} we've got some good advances in technology, with our research team have found some uh new multiple um option scroll buttons. I think that was brought up for, um, {disfmarker} they're basically quite a flexible design, modern, you don't have to use individual buttons. You can just slide up and down. I'm sure we're all quite familiar with those on mobiles or computer laptop pads.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Um one thing with the scroll buttons though. It, it {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: we would have to have an L_C_D_ um
Industrial Designer: Yeah. That's true.
Project Manager: display, and the glow in the dark thing might be difficult.
Industrial Designer: And that would lead to an advanced {disfmarker} yeah. If we have {disfmarker} yeah. We're going on to that later with the advanc with the L_C_D_ that means we'd need a really advanced chip.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And it's unlikely that that's gonna be in our budget.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Um, also we've got the integrated pushbutton, which is what we're most familiar with. It's the most straightforward. But you can in like incorporate that with a scroll button as well. {gap}. Got decisions to make there. And this is what I was just saying before. Linked in the different {disfmarker} depends on what type of buttons we have and the inputs. Um simple would go with the pushbutton. Um, regular you could link with the scroll button. And the advanced we'd have to go with a L_C_D_ s display.
Project Manager: Right.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} My personal preferences? I think we could go for the kinetic energy source. I don't, I think that's quite um an advanced kind of technology. It's not been seen before, so it could be quite a, a novelty factor, attractive as well. And also energy saving'cause you're producing the energy, you don't need an external sort of battery supply or solar panels. You just give it a shake.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Sounds brilliant to me.
Project Manager: Uh.
Industrial Designer: Rubber casing I thing would probably the best, if we're going for the anti-R_S_I_ and like more choice with um aesthetics. Like it could be pretty much any colour we want. Um, and gives you, yeah, more flexibility there. And probably the regular chip as opposed to the simple,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: then we could possibly have the scroll and the push, but no L_C_D_,'cause we probably can't afford that one.
Project Manager: Yeah. Um, one concern with the rubber casing is that it would be rubber encapsulating all of these {vocalsound} chips and diodes and delicate technology as
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: like as the exterior. This is the one thing that's protecting its innards.
Industrial Designer: I think that would, uh there would be an in sort of more internal casing. And the rubber would just be the, what's in contact with the human.
Project Manager: Yeah. Another thing is it might be more difficult {disfmarker} if it's a rubber exterior {gap} talking about putting on interchangeable plates.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Um, is it {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: I don't see how a like a rubber plate going on top it would stay there. Like if it was sort of like a clip-on plastic plate. It would work that way.
Industrial Designer: Maybe if the, um, if it was just kind of a, more of a rubber coating which was on to a case.
User Interface: W
Industrial Designer: So, it was kind of, the whole thing would be removable.
User Interface: Like plastic with rubber, kind of on top
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Like {disfmarker} I can't think of what.
User Interface: Well, there's, there is a certain phone that has like a rubber casing,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Or like an {disfmarker}
User Interface: b like a Nokia it is.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: you can get sort of outer casing for iPods and something, that's just {disfmarker} it's protective as well.
User Interface: It's {disfmarker} yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Like the skin?
Industrial Designer: It, it stops it, I mean,
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: it would reduce the impact if it was dropped or something, as well,'cause it wouldn't damage itself so easily.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Alright. So maybe the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I think i maybe a mixture of both there, maybe.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: So the actual remote would be hard plastic and the casings rubber.
Industrial Designer: And then {disfmarker} yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: And the buttons obviously are rubber.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: That sounds good. I, um, is it possible to put designs onto this type of rubber?
Industrial Designer: As far as I know. It should be.
Project Manager: Okay,
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: we'll just say yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yes, just why not.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Alright. I like the kinetic energy source idea.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Um, I don't know when people will, um, be moving a remote around a lot.
Industrial Designer: I thought that was {disfmarker}
Project Manager: But I think that it's worth it, kinetety, kinetic um
User Interface: Yeah, tha
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: energy source. It could make an we could have any kind of style.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: It wouldn't be as heavy or bulky, and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. Just for environmental reasons.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I guess it's a bit scary'cause it hasn't been done before.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: So it seems {disfmarker} we'd have to do more research on it.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Or I dunno if you could have a battery pack.
Industrial Designer: Like as a backup for something.
User Interface: Backup. Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah so there's there is a one battery, because most remotes use two batteries I believe.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: So, if it was running off of one battery as a {disfmarker}
User Interface: That would be good yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Some alternative just in case something went wrong.
Marketing: Right.
User Interface: Maybe we could {disfmarker} you were saying about um solar power ma maybe not working indoors, but a lot of calculators, yeah, have solar power.
Industrial Designer: That's true. I just thought of that {gap}.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. Yeah.
User Interface: So maybe that could be incorporated as {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: May maybe that could be the backup.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Instead of a battery.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Like solar backup.
Marketing: Although it needs some light, doesn't it?
Industrial Designer: Yeah. I suppose
Project Manager: Yeah, you can watch a T_V_ in the dark then.
User Interface: Do, do those calculators {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: s but some {disfmarker}
Marketing: So, if we're doing {disfmarker}
User Interface: yeah.
Marketing: yeah. If we're {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: But thing is, it's not {disfmarker} you don't need the solar all the time.
User Interface: I don't know how it works.
Industrial Designer: It can be stored. It can be like {disfmarker} you can have the solar energy and then it can store that energy and use it.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: It just needs to be in light for a certain amount of time per day.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Like a few hours a day. {gap}.
Project Manager: I think that might be a little impractical though.
Marketing: Yeah. I think sometimes it's just shoved under, under a cushion,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: and {disfmarker} yeah.
Industrial Designer: That's true. It could easily {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Like people don't wanna have to worry about that.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I suppose it would be really annoying if you get to think, oh no, I forgot to charge my remote today.
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Like if the kinetic thing, I think what's best about that is that it's instant energy.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: You don't have to, you know, you can shake it a few times, or whatever.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: And it works.
Project Manager: Or just like pick it up when you're gonna use it.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Instead of you don't have to like make sure it's in the right place to charge and {gap}.
User Interface: Yeah, I suppose.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Alright. Cool.
Industrial Designer: K okay.
Project Manager:'S that the end of your presentation.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Alright.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Thank you.
Industrial Designer: There we go.
User Interface: Thanks. Oh. {vocalsound} It's not on my screen.
Industrial Designer: {gap} it wasn't on mine either.
User Interface: Why? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I don't know why. I think, I just, I just used the mouse on there.
User Interface: You don't know why? Oh okay. Is it that one?
Project Manager: Yeah. That's um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Um, I'm just gonna go through the interface concept with yous now. Uh, first of all I'll explain what a user interface is. It's the aspects of a computer system which can be seen or otherwise perceived, for example, heard or felt maybe, or {vocalsound} by the human user. And it's also the commands that the user uses to control its operation and to input data. Um, there are two types of user interfaces. There's the graphical user interface, which emphasises the use of pictures for output and a pointing device, for example a mouse for input control. So that's sort of like the scroll thing we were talking about.
Project Manager: Oh. Okay. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah. I'm not really sure about the pictures that {disfmarker} maybe that's on an L_C_D_ screen.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: Or maybe it's the the buttons or pictures or something. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Do you think it's {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah,'cause {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: So I suppose sometime {disfmarker}
Project Manager: I'm sorry?
Industrial Designer: after you. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Um, because command interface requires you to type textual commands and input at a keyboard, so the numbers are sort of like a keyboard. You're pressing the numbers for, um, for what you want.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
User Interface: So you must, for the graphical user you must need some kind of presentation for the graphics.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I s I suppose where um mm on some buttons you would have {disfmarker} like the power would be s some kind of symbol.
User Interface: Like an L_C_D_ screen.
Industrial Designer: And if you wanted to go onto teletext or,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I know we're not having that, but I mean a similar thing,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: you, they have {disfmarker} there's a like little picture with a screen with lines across it, which {disfmarker} I suppose it's that sort of thing like the, the symbol on the button.
User Interface: Yeah. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: But if we're having a simplified display anyway, w that, we probably won't have to focus so much on that.
Project Manager: Yeah, we'll be doing {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: It'll be more the on the numbers and the volume.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. It'd be more a command interface, and then {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I suppose we need to think of symbols for like the volume, display, and stuff like that.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: So it's just draf graphical for the pointing aspect?
Industrial Designer: I {disfmarker}
Marketing: The infrared is like, that's considered a {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Hmm?
User Interface: No I think it's to do with the actual symbols that are on the, that's on the buttons of the remote control, and per
Marketing: Okay. So when it says pointing device that doesn't include {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: For inp
User Interface: Well it could be a wee scroller thing, and something could come up on the screen.
Project Manager: Yeah. I think they're talking about L_C_D_ type things.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: But um I think we're gonna go with the command interface anyway,
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: to make it more simplistic. But the, we could incorporate some of the graphical user um points,
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: as in {disfmarker} just to make it m um nicer to look at maybe. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: What do you mean?
User Interface: Like {vocalsound} I can't think of an example, but {disfmarker} Sort of like little pictures rather than {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh yeah, like how the buttons {disfmarker}
User Interface: Like a little sound. Instead of saying volume, like a little speaker or something.
Project Manager: Yeah, as a button though.
User Interface: Yeah, something y
Marketing: Mm.
Project Manager: So, it's a keyboard in the shape of it, right?
User Interface: Yeah m perha yeah. Yeah. Maybe.
Project Manager: Okay. Yeah. I like that idea.
User Interface: Um, the co uh {disfmarker} we've decided that the command interface would be the most useful for a remote control. As it would be less complicated, and the controls would be more user-friendly. Um, the remote control would be cheaper to design, so that we'd have more money in the budget to, um, target the design area of the interface. You know, make it more trendy and original. We'll have more money if we keep it simple.
Project Manager: Yeah. I'm sure i like kinetic energy would probably dip into the budget. A bit more too, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. Seeing as it's quite a new technology. Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} We, we also have to keep in mind when we're designing our, um, more user-friendly remote control, that a lot of interfaces consist of a clutter of buttons, that, um, that their functions, colours and forms aren't always helpful.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. That's true. That's in like the buttons with all the different like colours for different choices and things.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: It can be a bit, yeah, overwhelming. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah. And that all interfaces are different. So, um, that doesn't improve the use of the produ product, so we need to come up with something that's easy to understand. And maybe learn from the mistakes of other interfaces that can be too complicated for people to use.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Yep.
User Interface: Does anyone have any questions?
Project Manager: Do you think that we should keep all the buttons to one same colour, just to keep it, give it a simplistic look.
User Interface: Mm.
Marketing: I think if we go with the um design plate thing, we'll have to. Just because of colour clashing,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: and if we wanted to,
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: so and, and we might, I mean, depending on what comes out of the design, we might have to stick to just black buttons.
User Interface: But um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: But what about the lighting up effect?
Marketing: You mean different colours for the lighting or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Um, well, um, I thought we had um decided that we would {disfmarker} if you touched one of the buttons they'd all light up. And so if they were black, it wouldn't be possible for them to light up.
Marketing: Mm-hmm. Oh I see what you're saying.
Project Manager: If they were white they would glow, probably.
Marketing: Well y
Project Manager: If they were made out of rubber.
Marketing: Oh so you're picturing the light is coming from the back. I kinda pictured it as kind of coming from the sides and lighting it up frontwards.
Industrial Designer: Oh.
Project Manager: Oh.
Marketing: But, but I guess, you mean from the back.
Project Manager: Where would the light come from?
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: I'd assume, like, an internal light, that comes through.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So there would have to, have to be some parts maybe transparent around the buttons, or something.
Project Manager: Yeah,
Marketing: Right.
Project Manager: and well rubber is a more translucent product too,
Industrial Designer: Yeah, yeah.
Project Manager: so we have that taken care of.
Industrial Designer: It should be able to {disfmarker}
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: mm-hmm.
User Interface: In the phone that I was thinking of as well, when you change the um covers of it, the, the little buttons that actually, you know, that contro control stuff, are behind the rubber.
Industrial Designer: Li yeah.
User Interface: So you can change the buttons when you're changing the faces. Do you know what I mean?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh.
Project Manager: Oh.
User Interface:'Cause it's just the wee control,
Marketing: Yeah. They, they insert over.
User Interface: yeah, thing that's behind it.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Mm.
User Interface: So {disfmarker} I mean, we don't have to decide on one colour. Each face could have its own colour of buttons maybe?
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Well, if they're raised up buttons. So that you can feel them.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: We were talking about it being more um, a lot more tangible.
Marketing: T
Project Manager: Um, it might be more difficult to do. If they're, if they're sticking up.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: If it's flat then, like o like on a cellphone or a mobile phone, it's like all very flat, and you just have to sort of press down on these tiny little buttons, but {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I think it would be possible. I don't think it would make that much difference. I mean, the uh the dimensions of it.'Cause if it's just like constructed in the same way as like the front cover of a mobile phone. You can like take off the hard cover and then there's the like say the buttons. And then you get to the circuit. I don't think it would matter that the buttons were bigger through the, the top casing. I'm sure you could f work it out to fit in the casing, without causing too much difficulty.
Project Manager: Yeah. Okay.
Industrial Designer: I'm sure that'd be fine. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Alright. If it's do-able we can do.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah, sounds good to me.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: So that's everything, then?
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Alright, thank you.
Marketing: Okay is that my turn then?
Project Manager: That means you're up. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Alright. {vocalsound} I have a shorter report for you today. Um, it took a while to get this, uh {disfmarker} Uh.
Industrial Designer: You're not plugged in yet.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: That's a very good point.
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay, so um, this report is about uh trend-watching. Um, basically so we can live up to our, our uh purpose of having a very fashionable remote control. Sorry. There we go. Um {disfmarker} {vocalsound} So, just so you know, my method was mainly web web-based research this time around. I also spoke with fashion experts in Milan, New York and Paris. And I looked at the design reports from previous years, here at Real Remote. Um, just so c we can work off of them, see how fashions have changed. Um, {vocalsound} so I'll list the three most important aspects that I've come across. Um, and they, they're each more important than the one that comes after it. Uh, the first one is that there should be a fancy look-and-feel, instead of the current functional look-and-feel. Um, this should be our priority, as we've been saying. The second most important aspect is that a remote sh that the remote control should be technologically innovative. So, I think we've done a lot of talking about that, just with lighting and the buttons and the {disfmarker} face-plates. Um, so it looks like we'll be able to keep on track with that. And the third most important aspect is that the remote control should be easy to use. {vocalsound} So, pretty basic there. And the recent fashion update, uh, according to fashion-watchers in Paris and Milan, is that fruit and vegetables will be the most important theme for clothes, shoes and furniture. {vocalsound} Um, also, in contra uh in contrast to last year, the feel of the material is expected to be spongy. Again, we've already discussed that with rubber versus hard plastic buttons. Um {disfmarker} So, my personal preferences here, um of course, as {disfmarker} we, we've already talked about the personal face-plates in this meeting, and I'd like to stick to that. The fruits and vegetable themes, I don't know if that's going to work for us. It sounds something that you'd use on kitchenware.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: I don't know if we wanna do it on remotes.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: It could be one of the options.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Maybe for the television that people have in their kitchen. Um, the temporary light-up idea, sounds like we're gonna stick to that. And then, uh, tying in a trendy look with user-friendliness.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah, it's the fruits and vegetables is the only area that I find rather jarring. Everything else we can really, we can really
Industrial Designer: It is strange.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: um, do, according to our plans already, given the market. But fruits and vegetables seems a very strange idea for a remote control.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} It's, it's a little {gap} but it, it's everywhere.
Industrial Designer: Well {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: So maybe we {disfmarker} I've seen a lot of purses with olives on them, you know.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: But I I think, I think if we stick to T_V_ based, you know, maybe T_V_ shows, or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: But they still need to um fit into people's decor though.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Or colour schemes.
Industrial Designer: We {disfmarker} I think we possibly could take a more abstract design.
Marketing: Right.
Industrial Designer: Like look at the basic shapes of different fruits and vegetables. And then just really like strip it down to like really basic shapes. I mean we don't have to make something in the shape of a strawberry, but it could have the curves of a strawberry, or something.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Or a strawberry seed or a leaf.
User Interface: Yeah, yeah.
Marketing: The {disfmarker} The essence of strawberry. Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Or just like you know really make it a quite abstract, if that's fits in more with what we're doing. Instead of fruits and vegetables,
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: just {disfmarker} if you look at it straightforward, it's a bit {disfmarker} yeah. It doesn't s quite fit in with the trendy {disfmarker} well, obviously it does, if that's the current theme.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: But {vocalsound} may maybe we could go more directly, I don't know.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: But initially, I dunno. I think if we just sort of tone it down a bit.
Project Manager: Tone it down. Yeah,
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah and like not, not {disfmarker}
Marketing: I guess, yeah.
Project Manager: like more like photos of fruit, on, on our product.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: yeah.
User Interface: Or banana-shaped. {vocalsound}
Marketing: One thing I was thinking though is {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
Marketing: I dunno if you all remember from our kickoff meeting, we talked about our favourite animals.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: So maybe there could be animal-based, you know. Because a lot of people have a house cat. Or, or a dog.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Marketing: Um, that might be getting, you know, too specific, and we should see what the success of the first face-plates are. But it's something to keep in mind.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: {vocalsound} And, did you have any questions? Pretty straightforward?
Project Manager: Yeah um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Alright, given that information, we need to start making some more specific decisions. So I'll need to um hook up the PowerPoint again.
Marketing: There you go. {vocalsound} Have you guys been saving your PowerPoint presentations to the {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} I didn't for the first one. But I have now.
Marketing: okay.
Project Manager: But it's still around right?
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Yeah. Uh, hopefully
Project Manager: Okay.
User Interface: Where do you have to save it to?
Industrial Designer: . Project documents I think.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Okay. I'm just trying to make this pop up now. Alright. Here we go. Okay so we have to uh decide now exactly what we are going to do. So energy, we {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: oh. Oh no I can't write it in when it's in this setting.
Industrial Designer:'Kay.
Project Manager: Does anyone know how to take it out of {disfmarker} Um,
User Interface: Just escape I think.
Marketing: The PowerPoint?
Project Manager: yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, so back to decisions. Energy, we've decided on kinetic, right?
Industrial Designer: Kinetic yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay, so that's good.
Industrial Designer: Are we going to have a backup?
Project Manager: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: Or do we just {disfmarker}
Project Manager: But would a backup really be necessary? I mean will people just use the battery if there's no, if there's,
Industrial Designer: I think maybe we could just go for the kinetic energy,
Project Manager: if there is backup.
Industrial Designer: and be bold and innovative,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and hope this works, and well hope that it works.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I think {disfmarker}
Project Manager: There's like no reason why it wouldn't work, right?
Industrial Designer: yeah. I think {disfmarker} no. I, I think we should just like take uh advantage of like using this to its full potential.
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. It could even be one of our selling points.
Industrial Designer: Go for it. It could be {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: fully kinetic energy.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Environmentally conscious or something.
Industrial Designer: Is everyone happy with that?
Marketing: So if it's not working they just have to shake it a bit and that revitalises it?
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
User Interface: Hope so. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Alright, the next um decision is chip on print. I don't exactly know what that means.
Industrial Designer: Um, it was whether we went for the simple, the regular, or the advanced chip. And that linked in with what buttons we would gonna have, so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Right, and we were going for more simplistic style, right?
Industrial Designer: Yeah, it was {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: so that was without the L_C_D_. So that means we're not doing the advanced.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: So it depends on whether we wanted the scroll buttons or just the push buttons.
Project Manager: I think we decided on the pushbuttons, right?
Industrial Designer: Uh, so that's the simple.
User Interface: Yeah. I don
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Would we need a more advanced one for uh the lighting, the interior lighting system?
Industrial Designer: Yeah possibly.
Project Manager: Yeah?
Industrial Designer: So, it's probably gonna be the regular chip that we're going to need.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: So it's a medium.
Project Manager: That's called medium, or regular?
Industrial Designer: So regular chip. Regular sorry. {vocalsound}
Project Manager:'Kay.
Industrial Designer: Regular chip.
Marketing: Oh, is regular not simple?
Industrial Designer: Lighting.
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah if we {disfmarker}
User Interface: It's for the lighting, yeah.
Industrial Designer: because of the lighting that we've decided to put in as well.
Marketing: Right right right.
Project Manager: Okay, and cases. Um, does this, is this dependent on shape, or what it's made of, or what?
Industrial Designer: So th I think this is just like gonna be the {disfmarker} a very outer case, which we will decide on rubber.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. Well, I guess plastic and coated in rubber.
Industrial Designer: Rubber.
User Interface: Yeah {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Plastic with rubber
Industrial Designer: Plastic rubber coat.
User Interface: plastic coat.
Project Manager: coating and interchangeable um
Industrial Designer: Interchangeable, yeah. Still going for that.
Project Manager: yeah, interchangeable plates.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. User interface concept. This is your time to shine.
User Interface: We decided on the component. I, I I'm sorry, I've lost my um {vocalsound} PowerPoint thing, so I can't remember what it's ca it's the component {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Your screen?
Marketing: Think it was called command interface.
Industrial Designer: Was it {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Marketing: Command interface, {gap}.
User Interface: The command inter
Project Manager: Command interface.
Industrial Designer: Ouch.
User Interface: The command line interface yeah.
Project Manager: Did you say command line? Okay.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Line interface.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Alright, and supplements. What's that all about?
User Interface: Um, I think that is {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: well we haven't really made any decisions about what we're gonna do about the cluster of button functions, colours and forms, in the {disfmarker} in consistent use. Like what what are ideas to combat these problems?
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: You know how um different interfaces are very different, and can be confusing because because of their difference, and because of the different clusters of buttons that they have.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: We haven't really decided what to do about that.
Project Manager: Um, what are our choices here?
User Interface: {vocalsound} Well it's just um w where where shall we locate the buttons. What kind of functions wi shall we have?
Project Manager: You mean like we'll have the numbers of the channels, and we'll have the channel-changer, and volume, and power?
Industrial Designer: The power. Volume.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um {disfmarker}
User Interface: So pretty {disfmarker} just just the basic button functions.
Project Manager: Yeah. Like I don't know if we should go into like adjusting light levels, things like that, because different televisions will have {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: May yeah.
Project Manager: Um, yeah.
Industrial Designer: Tone, contrast, and things. That's a bit {disfmarker}
Marketing: {vocalsound} That was on, um one of my presentations. About how often it was used.
Project Manager: Yep.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, it was minima
Marketing: Do you remember that?
Industrial Designer: well, it wasn't the l
Project Manager: Yeah, it was hardly ever used really.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: {vocalsound} I w {vocalsound} Should I bring it up?
Project Manager: Yeah. And most televisions will come with a remote.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. That would be good. Yeah, and surely that would be like quite specific to the individual television,
User Interface: Yeah, each television.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: so {disfmarker}
Project Manager:'Kay, well we know we want numbers.
Marketing: The ch t Screen settings was used um zero point five times an hour. So tw twice every {disfmarker} once every two hours. Um, and it was considered a one point five relevance, on a scale of ten. That's brightness, colour, tone, all that.
Industrial Designer: Mm. I think most of that comes like on the i individual television set itself,
User Interface: You don't change that often, yeah.
Industrial Designer: doesn't it? I'm sure it has its own buttons, so you don't necessarily need to have it on remote.
Project Manager: Yeah, it does.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Yeah, and different televisions.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Like we, I don't know if we can make a remote that would be universal to all the different kinds of
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: changes like that.
Industrial Designer: So we're just going for power, channels, volume,
Project Manager: Volume.
Marketing: The other one was audio settings. Mono, stereo, pitch. I mean I sometimes use that. Some T_V_s will have the option of like living room style, movie style, um {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: and that, they say that's used zero point eight times an hour, which is actually somewhat high. Like almost once an hour.
Industrial Designer: Mm.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Um, relevance of two.
Project Manager: Oh. We have five minutes to finish our meeting.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Crap. Okay, um, let's do this fast. Um {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Well that didn't some up on mine.
Project Manager: Should we have audio? It only comes up on mine usually.
User Interface: It w {vocalsound} it would seem silly if we'd {gap} having anything else, just have an audio button though.
Marketing: Oh.
Project Manager: Yeah,
User Interface: Do you know?
Project Manager: I don't, I {disfmarker} it's, it's a problem with the international uh appeal, I think. Um, if we have audio because we don't know how other televisions work. But we know that everyone has this and it's the same.
User Interface: But we {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: I've {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah I guess that it affects the marketing,'cause it, {vocalsound} mm it is a good sales ploy to say, aren't you annoyed with remote controls that have all these buttons.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: This one has channel, volume and your channe and your power.
Industrial Designer: Yeah, that's it. We can just go for, make it a selling point that it is just the basic.
User Interface: That could be a sales pitch.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Simple and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah uh I {vocalsound} {disfmarker}
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: Alright.
Industrial Designer: brilliant.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Good. And, okay, in closing,'cause we only have five minutes. We'll be meeting again in thirty minutes. Um, you'll be working, Poppy will be working on the look-and-feel design. Wait a minute. Is that right?
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Yep, and um the user interface design, so this is where the trendy stuff comes in. And you'll be evaluating the product. Um, Poppy and Tara will have to work together, using modelling clay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And, um, your personal coach will give you the rest of the information of what needs to happen.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Alright. So, anyone else have something to say?
Industrial Designer: Um, I just have one question about the whole fruit and vegetable aspect.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: Are we {disfmarker} seeing as that was the most popular thing that came up out of your market research, I thi I think we should keep to that rather than moving to animals or something, because even if that may not seem obvious to us, if that's what the surveys brought out, I think that we should probably go along with that.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Um, so I suppose that'll come out in our dev design development. But you're happy to go ahead with the fruit and veg?
Marketing: Now do you guys need {disfmarker} want an idea of how many uh {disfmarker} are you gonna come up with casing ideas?
Industrial Designer: Y Yeah.
Marketing: Like f five different {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: {gap} five. {gap}.
User Interface: What I {disfmarker} What I was thinking {disfmarker} what do yous think of this? Um, having the numbers kind of like, not a bunch of grapes, but you know like purple and kind of in a triangle.
Marketing: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: Like grapes. Like that's kind of fruity or something.
Marketing: Yeah you can have some fun with the buttons, it's true.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: That's just {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: We can have a look at those ideas, yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: I guess what you i ideally you'd kind of think of age markets as well.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: So it's a something that will, you know, appeal to the fifteen to twenty five year olds. Something that your granny would want on her remote control.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: Um, and international tastes as well, so {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Tricky. {vocalsound} A lot of things to consider. Hm.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Not easy. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. Lots of {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: yeah. Alright.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager:'Kay we'll stick to the fruit and veggie theme then.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Alright. And, um, we'll reconvene in thirty minutes.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager:'Kay.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Bye.
Marketing: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Thank you. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I'll see you later. {vocalsound} Oh, what did I just do. Okay. | This was the third meeting of conceptual design, including three presentations and a conclusive discussion to make some specific decisions. First, Industrial Designer introduced and led to a discussion about different options for the components of the circuit board, the energy sources, and the materials of casing and button. Next, User Interface gave the second presentation about interface concept and two types of user interfaces: the graphical user interface and the command interface, and strongly recommended the latter. The last presentation by Marketing reported the trend-watching for remote control and the relevant discussion centralized the trendy theme of vegetable and fruit. Given all of the information, the group eventually decided on some special designs, such as the kinetic energy, the regular chip, the plastic rubber coat, the interchangeable plate, the command line interface, and the basic buttons. | qmsum |
What did the group discuss about pricing and individual task assignment?
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm uh.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} We're the first.
User Interface: Mm. We're the first ones. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Marketing Expert, yes.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So you found your spots.
Marketing: Yes.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Move to the meeting room. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Bling bling. {vocalsound} Yeah.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Right. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} where has my screen gone?
Industrial Designer: Hi.
User Interface: Hello, good day. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah, we have to talk in English,
Marketing: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: huh.
User Interface: Yep.
Marketing: Yeah. My screen is gone.
Project Manager: It's called black. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh.
User Interface: Kick-off meeting, wow. It's uh looks uh nice.
Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit slow for this stuff uh.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay.
User Interface: Hmm?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit too slow. {vocalsound} I don't know how much preparation you guys did,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: but not a lot.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: No, it's {disfmarker} it was uh not enough.
Project Manager: You see this beautiful presentation.
Marketing: Yeah. Very nice.
Project Manager: Okay let's get started.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Uh I sort of prepared this.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh opening acquaintance, tool training, uh how to use the things here. Uh project plan discussion, and yeah then the rest of the meeting.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um we're supposed to develop a new remote control, that's both original, trendy and user-friendly. So,
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: hope you have good ideas. I don't. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} I did my best.
Project Manager: Um we're work we're working uh from top to bottom. Uh functional design,
Industrial Designer: Not yet.
Project Manager: then we do some in individual work, then we have a meeting to discuss the results, etcetera etcetera. And at the end of the day we should have a prototype drawn up. Uh we have available the smart board and the whiteboard. Um uh we should take some practice. I have some instructions now to do that.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Uh well you know how to {disfmarker} the documents work. So {disfmarker} Uh this for toolbar. You see it next. Um we have a pen. And we can use this pen to perform. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Operations.
Project Manager: So {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: It doesn't always work. Yes.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay so you can draw.
Marketing: Draw. Alright.
Project Manager: Okay and in the format menu you can select colour and line width, etcetera etcetera. Okay?
Marketing:'Kay.
Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Okay. Each of you can uh take some practice and you should draw an animal. Uh you should explain {disfmarker} Uh with different colours and with different pen widths.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And you should explain why you draw that particular animal.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Don't take up too much space. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So, Julian.
User Interface: Um yeah.
Industrial Designer: Different pen widths, how do you do that?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh with the format menu.
Industrial Designer: Oh okay.
Project Manager: And use different colours etcetera.
User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a giraffe. Yeah.
Project Manager: And {vocalsound} what's that supposed to be? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Are you serious?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Should it be one {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh yeah. {vocalsound} Oh yeah
User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: four legs. Uh-huh. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Giraffe's yellow. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh it needs some uh some yellow uh {disfmarker} Oh format.
Marketing: Can you use one blank sheet per drawing? Or
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: so y you must save it at the end
Project Manager: Yeah
Marketing: and then {disfmarker}
Project Manager: you can press the next button, which is uh {disfmarker} yeah. I'll show you.
User Interface: That's some spots.
Industrial Designer: I in the file option menu.
Project Manager: Yeah. In file menu.
Marketing: Okay,
User Interface: No.
Marketing: then m make a new one.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: How much time do we have to draw anyway? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer:'Cause I can take forever on this.
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: Okay. Do I have to explain uh why I chose this uh this animal?
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: I think it's a it's a great animal.
Project Manager: What is it? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a it's a giraffe.
Project Manager: A giraffe okay. Yeah I see a long neck
User Interface: Yeah, that's a {disfmarker}
Project Manager: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: It's more like a dinosaur. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Okay I'll will give it an uh an eye.
Project Manager: Okay. That's nice of you.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh.
User Interface: Hey. Come on.
Marketing: Some leaf to eat. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay. Yeah pretty good. Uh could you press the next uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: The next? Yes.
Project Manager: Okay. Then uh {disfmarker} {gap}.
User Interface: Here you go. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah. Thanks.
User Interface: Hmm.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Is this part of our a acquai or introduction to each other?
Project Manager: Yeah sorry, introduction and get acquainted
Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Project Manager: That's the idea, so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Uh. Your line broke.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Alright.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah it's a bit slow,
Marketing: It's not that fast.
Project Manager: so {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I see. It misses the spot.
Project Manager: {gap} pressure.
Industrial Designer: I'm guessing a turtle. No. {vocalsound} I'm kidding.
Marketing: {vocalsound} I say good guess. Uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Why a turtle?
Industrial Designer: Because of its shell.
Marketing: Because it's slow. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's slow.
User Interface:'Cause it's so
Project Manager: You were slow too
User Interface:'cause it's green. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: so {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah I was a bit slow too.
Industrial Designer: Dude you're a good drawer.
Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh some other line uh width uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Do you have a turtle pet?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} No. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh okay.
Marketing: I dunno. {vocalsound} Does it have legs? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah sure.
Marketing: Yeah?
Project Manager: Yeah not exactly legs but {disfmarker} More like fins
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Stumpy stuff.
Project Manager: or {disfmarker}
Marketing: It's more like a tank. Yeah that's fins
Industrial Designer: They kind of l look like mole legs. With sharp nails on.
Marketing: but I don't know where. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Some spots. Ah some eye.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: it's l looks very friendly. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah that's a fr {vocalsound} friendly turtle I guess.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah well I think it's uh fair enough.
Project Manager: Yeah okay.
Industrial Designer: A little tail maybe.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Right. {vocalsound} I don't know what the position is. {vocalsound} Does it have ears?
Industrial Designer: Uh no.
Project Manager: No.
User Interface: No.
Marketing: No. Oh okay.
Industrial Designer: The little holes maybe.
Marketing: Can you erase ears
Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: There's a a gum,
Marketing: Yeah? Alright.
Project Manager: gum to {gap}.
Marketing: Eraser.
Industrial Designer: And why did you choose this animal?
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: He said it was slow.
Marketing: I dunno. I it just came into my mind. So there's no particular reason
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Marketing: I {gap} pen.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I like it. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah. Well I'm {disfmarker} guess I'm done.
Project Manager: Okay. {gap}
Marketing: That's my turtle.
Project Manager: Your turn Niels.
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Marketing: How to select the next or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: The next
Marketing: here.
Project Manager: yeah.
Industrial Designer: {gap} Colours were under format
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Makes new paper.
Marketing: Here you go.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: right? Let's see.
Project Manager: Orange.
Industrial Designer: How am I gonna do this? Um {disfmarker} Mm uh.
User Interface: A rabbit I think.
Project Manager: Kangaroo.
User Interface: Kangaroo. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not quite actually.
User Interface: Fox.
Marketing: A fox yeah.
Project Manager: Dog.
Marketing: Firefox.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: No.
Project Manager: Cat.
Industrial Designer: Aye. {vocalsound} It's a cat.
Project Manager: It's a cat.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Not quite yet through.
Marketing: A cat who had an accident or {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Why a cat?
Industrial Designer: Uh yeah I dunno. They're my favourite pets.
Project Manager: You have some uh?
Industrial Designer: Uh I have colour already. Yeah I'm not so good at drawing with this kind of
Project Manager: {vocalsound} The pen,
Industrial Designer: st Oh shit. Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: yeah.
Industrial Designer: Excuse my language.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Sure. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I don't know how to draw its face. But you get the idea.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Alright.
Industrial Designer: It's a cat. It's my favourite uh pet animal,'cause they're cute, they're independent and cuddly, I dunno. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: That's it.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Or do I need to use more colours and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {gap} I think it's okay. You get idea
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Project Manager: right?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay um
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: we have a financial aspect to this project. {vocalsound} Um we can sell them at twenty five Euros. Uh the aim is to reach {disfmarker} uh uh to sell as much as fifty million Euros. Uh that's quite a big amount of money. And the production cost should be the half of the selling price. Okay
Industrial Designer: So we have to s
Project Manager: now it's time for some discussion. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap}
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: What uh what uh do you want to discuss? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: We should get started.
User Interface: Yep.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Uh I'm taking notes. Um
Marketing: Okay. Great.
Project Manager: we each have a specific task, as I saw in my mail. I didn't know if you received the same mail.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah?
Industrial Designer: I guess so. Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay so the um {vocalsound} uh {gap} this industrati Industrial Designer should produce a working design. Am I correct?
Industrial Designer: True.
Project Manager: Okay. Uh the User Interface Designer should specify the technical functions. Right? Yeah?
User Interface: Yep.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} And the Marketing uh Expert should come up with user requirements.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Uh did any of you already do some work on this part or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I started making an overview for myself, um what I had to do,'cause we have three design steps and in every step I have a s specific task to perform or whatever.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So I had to uh, {vocalsound} I dunno, make an overview for myself about what I have to do,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and kind of let it work in to get ideas about well how I have to fill it.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. And do you have any ideas about the product uh so far?
Industrial Designer: Well I started I started with the first phase, I think was the functional.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And uh let's see I had to focus on the working design, which you said.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: How does the apparatus work? And well I basically had two points. Uh {vocalsound} according to the coffee uh machine example, I have batteries to supply energy,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and we ye use button presses to activate or deactivate certain functions on the T_V_.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound} Okay.
Industrial Designer: And that's basically all I have so far.
Project Manager: Yeah I got another point. It uses infrared light to communicate the signal to the T_V_ apparatus or stereo.
User Interface: Yeah. Wireless uh {disfmarker} huh.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: So that's very common.
User Interface: Uh it's uh some buttons for for the on off function. You d you already told that. And for the changing up to the {disfmarker} to all the channels and changing the volume. That are the the basic options for a remote control.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah I kept it global'cause {vocalsound} {disfmarker} that it activates or deactivates specific functions,
User Interface: Okay, yeah.
Industrial Designer:'cause I wasn't thinking yet about that. I mean, you wanna ch ch flip the channel
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: but you might wanna use teletext also.
User Interface: Yep.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I dunno what the word is in English. Uh {gap} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Same I believe {gap}.
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh and what did the Marketing Expert do?
Marketing: Uh well from a marketing uh {vocalsound} perspective, um well the function des design phase uh consists out of the user requirements.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Um what needs and desires are to be fulfilled? So there are a few means to reach that um by by doing research {vocalsound} uh to see what existing products are there out in the market.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: I mean, what functions do they have.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: Um especially what are their shortcomings? Are there any new functions uh which can be added to our product?
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Um therefore we have to to do some internet search. For example for um well what kind of applications do current remote controls support, and what are f featur features of uh current and future televisions?
Project Manager: Yep. Yes.
Marketing: So we can see uh what needs to be supported. Um {vocalsound} and we can interview current users and future users. What w what would they like to see uh on a new remote control? Um especially for future users,
Project Manager: Okay. Okay.
Marketing: uh I'm thinking of early adopters, because they they use new technology first,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: and they play with a lot of tools and stuff so maybe they have some good ideas to uh to add.
Project Manager: Okay. And you can get that information?
Marketing: I think I can get that information, yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. That would be very handy.
Marketing: So {disfmarker} yeah.
Project Manager: Um but have you any idea so far as what uh the user requirements are?
Marketing: No n not specifically.
Project Manager: No?
Marketing: More to how to get them
Project Manager: No okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} I got some uh requirements
Marketing: and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah?
User Interface: it has uh {gap} it has to be user-friendly.
Marketing: Yeah?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Of course.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Obviously.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh really easy to use buttons, not not uh very small buttons, but not the the also the big big buttons, but just normal buttons. It has to be a small unit. It has to be uh {disfmarker} yeah, you can take it with you uh everywhere in in your house. So it has n has not to be l yeah, gigantic uh machine.
Project Manager: Big, mm-hmm.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Uh and a and a good uh zapping range. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh what do you mean by that?
User Interface: Uh the distance uh from your television to your uh remote control has to be, uh yeah um yeah, quite a big distance.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: It has to be capable for zapping uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah. From the other end of the room or something?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay um {disfmarker} Well I don't think I have anything more to add at the moment. Um I think the best is to go to work.
Industrial Designer: Whoa. Is that you
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} alright.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Any more points to discuss?
Project Manager: Yeah. I think we can go ahead with what we have. I will summarise the things we discussed and put it in the project folder. Uh the use of the Industrial Designer can work on the working design, etcetera etcetera. And it seems you get more information by email. So {vocalsound}
Marketing: Alright.
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Project Manager: that was it for me.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing:'Kay. Thanks.
Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Are you going to put the the notes on the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, in the project folder. Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. The pro okay.
User Interface: Okay. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I'm writing very fast. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Alright.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah. Okay.
Project Manager: Hope it's readable.
User Interface: Yep.
Marketing: Uh.
Project Manager: Okay {vocalsound} um anything more you want to add to the discussion?
Marketing: I guess so.
Industrial Designer: Well no I'm just a bit wondering what we're gonna do the next uh session?
User Interface: Yeah. Do we only have to to do uh phase one, the functional design uh?
Project Manager: Yeah. Because then we have a {disfmarker}
User Interface: After that we are going to the conceptual uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Y you do some individual work,
Marketing: We're just working the three phases.
Project Manager: we have meeting, individual work, meeting. And at the end of the day we have a final meeting. And then I have to prepare {disfmarker} uh I have to defend our design,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: so make it good. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah okay. We'll do our best.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: I depend on you.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Better make it {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I am gonna work on the conceptual design already'cause yeah it's fairly important to know what kind of components we want to put in.
Project Manager: Yeah? If you can mix it it's okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Do we {disfmarker} I mean, is it gonna be a multimedia control centre? Do we want to be able to use the video recorder with it? {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} That is my question also
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: because like new new functions {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well I think that is the user requirements part.
Marketing: Requirements. Yeah.
Project Manager: As to what they want. Uh do they want all those functions on that small {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. True.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: But but we need good communication about this stuff,
Marketing: Unit.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer:'cause I have to f put the components into the design.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: I would first m
Industrial Designer: So if I don't know what components to put in, it's kind of hard.
Marketing: Yeah well
Project Manager: Yeah I understand.
Marketing: I I was {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. I I think we have first to start with the basic functions and we can uh expand them.
Marketing: Yeah
Project Manager: You can always add a few {disfmarker}
Marketing: well like l li like some like some some remotes who are out there, which I know, there's one button which is very easy to switch between devices.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: So you can switch to your video
Project Manager: Hmm,
Marketing: and then the same buttons control your video.
Project Manager: the C_D_ player. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: And another function I'll think of switch to your media centre, because that's getting very popular.
Industrial Designer: Yeah so {disfmarker}
Marketing: And then use your Windows media centre {vocalsound} under your T_V_ with the same remote control. So with the switch, one single switch {gap}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah I I know what you mean, but you'll ne need several other buttons for a video player.
Marketing: S
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: You need a play and a forw fast forward and a stop function.
Marketing: Yeah
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: And you you don't need that for a T_V_.
Marketing: records and stuff like that.
Industrial Designer: And and for a t uh teletext you need additional buttons as well,
Marketing: No.
Project Manager: You need additional {disfmarker} yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: so I kind of need to know what we uh need.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Whatever, I'll just put my ideas in uh in here
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and then we can discuss it with the next uh meeting.
Marketing: In the project uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: We could just start with the assumption that's only for T_V_ and video. And um reserve the possibility to add other features.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: So we have a basic starting point
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: and you can always extend that so make sure it's extendible. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah it it has yeah it has to be user-friendly.
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: So it's hasn't {gap} {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Th the least amount of functions possible
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: so it's easier to get to know how it works etcetera.
User Interface: Okay. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. I understand. Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah? Okay and uh I'll see you again uh when the computer tells us to.
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Marketing: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, you're di dismissed.
User Interface: Can we leave now
Marketing: Half an hour.
User Interface: or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} You're fired. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not yet.
Marketing: No.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay.
Marketing: Alright let's move on.
Project Manager: Let's see what we got to do.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} See you later.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Yeah see you later.
User Interface: Good luck. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. Thank you.
Marketing: Well good luck. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: What the {disfmarker} | Project Manager informed the team of the price issue and the financial goal. The unit price was determined to be 25 Euros. The production of each remote control would cost 12. 5 Euros. The team would have to make sales amounting to 50 million Euros. Project Manager assigned individual tasks to the team members. Industrial Designer had worked out a rough plan for the first phase and would produce a working design. User Interface was supposed to specify the technical functions. Marketing would be responsible for market research. | qmsum |
Summarize Industrial Designer's opinions towards individual task assignment.
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: Mm uh.
Marketing: {vocalsound} {gap} We're the first.
User Interface: Mm. We're the first ones. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Marketing Expert, yes.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So you found your spots.
Marketing: Yes.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Move to the meeting room. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Bling bling. {vocalsound} Yeah.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Right. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Uh {vocalsound} where has my screen gone?
Industrial Designer: Hi.
User Interface: Hello, good day. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Oh yeah, we have to talk in English,
Marketing: Hmm.
Industrial Designer: huh.
User Interface: Yep.
Marketing: Yeah. My screen is gone.
Project Manager: It's called black. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} Oh.
User Interface: Kick-off meeting, wow. It's uh looks uh nice.
Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit slow for this stuff uh.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay.
User Interface: Hmm?
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I'm afraid I'm a bit too slow. {vocalsound} I don't know how much preparation you guys did,
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: but not a lot.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: No, it's {disfmarker} it was uh not enough.
Project Manager: You see this beautiful presentation.
Marketing: Yeah. Very nice.
Project Manager: Okay let's get started.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Uh I sort of prepared this.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh opening acquaintance, tool training, uh how to use the things here. Uh project plan discussion, and yeah then the rest of the meeting.
Marketing: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Project Manager: Um we're supposed to develop a new remote control, that's both original, trendy and user-friendly. So,
Marketing: {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: hope you have good ideas. I don't. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} I did my best.
Project Manager: Um we're work we're working uh from top to bottom. Uh functional design,
Industrial Designer: Not yet.
Project Manager: then we do some in individual work, then we have a meeting to discuss the results, etcetera etcetera. And at the end of the day we should have a prototype drawn up. Uh we have available the smart board and the whiteboard. Um uh we should take some practice. I have some instructions now to do that.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Uh well you know how to {disfmarker} the documents work. So {disfmarker} Uh this for toolbar. You see it next. Um we have a pen. And we can use this pen to perform. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Operations.
Project Manager: So {disfmarker}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: It doesn't always work. Yes.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay so you can draw.
Marketing: Draw. Alright.
Project Manager: Okay and in the format menu you can select colour and line width, etcetera etcetera. Okay?
Marketing:'Kay.
Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker} Okay. Each of you can uh take some practice and you should draw an animal. Uh you should explain {disfmarker} Uh with different colours and with different pen widths.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: And you should explain why you draw that particular animal.
User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Don't take up too much space. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: So, Julian.
User Interface: Um yeah.
Industrial Designer: Different pen widths, how do you do that?
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh with the format menu.
Industrial Designer: Oh okay.
Project Manager: And use different colours etcetera.
User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a giraffe. Yeah.
Project Manager: And {vocalsound} what's that supposed to be? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Are you serious?
Marketing: {vocalsound} Should it be one {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Oh yeah. {vocalsound} Oh yeah
User Interface: {vocalsound} Okay.
Project Manager: four legs. Uh-huh. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Giraffe's yellow. {vocalsound}
User Interface: Uh it needs some uh some yellow uh {disfmarker} Oh format.
Marketing: Can you use one blank sheet per drawing? Or
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: so y you must save it at the end
Project Manager: Yeah
Marketing: and then {disfmarker}
Project Manager: you can press the next button, which is uh {disfmarker} yeah. I'll show you.
User Interface: That's some spots.
Industrial Designer: I in the file option menu.
Project Manager: Yeah. In file menu.
Marketing: Okay,
User Interface: No.
Marketing: then m make a new one.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: How much time do we have to draw anyway? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer:'Cause I can take forever on this.
Project Manager: {gap}
User Interface: Okay. Do I have to explain uh why I chose this uh this animal?
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
User Interface: I think it's a it's a great animal.
Project Manager: What is it? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} It's a it's a giraffe.
Project Manager: A giraffe okay. Yeah I see a long neck
User Interface: Yeah, that's a {disfmarker}
Project Manager: but {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Marketing: It's more like a dinosaur. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound} Um {disfmarker} Okay I'll will give it an uh an eye.
Project Manager: Okay. That's nice of you.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh.
User Interface: Hey. Come on.
Marketing: Some leaf to eat. {vocalsound}
User Interface: {gap} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay. Yeah pretty good. Uh could you press the next uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: The next? Yes.
Project Manager: Okay. Then uh {disfmarker} {gap}.
User Interface: Here you go. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah. Thanks.
User Interface: Hmm.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Is this part of our a acquai or introduction to each other?
Project Manager: Yeah sorry, introduction and get acquainted
Marketing: {vocalsound} Uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: and {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Project Manager: That's the idea, so {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Uh. Your line broke.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah. Alright.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah it's a bit slow,
Marketing: It's not that fast.
Project Manager: so {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} I see. It misses the spot.
Project Manager: {gap} pressure.
Industrial Designer: I'm guessing a turtle. No. {vocalsound} I'm kidding.
Marketing: {vocalsound} I say good guess. Uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Why a turtle?
Industrial Designer: Because of its shell.
Marketing: Because it's slow. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} It's slow.
User Interface:'Cause it's so
Project Manager: You were slow too
User Interface:'cause it's green. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: so {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah I was a bit slow too.
Industrial Designer: Dude you're a good drawer.
Marketing: So {disfmarker} {vocalsound} Uh some other line uh width uh {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Do you have a turtle pet?
Project Manager: {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} No. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Uh okay.
Marketing: I dunno. {vocalsound} Does it have legs? {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah yeah yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah sure.
Marketing: Yeah?
Project Manager: Yeah not exactly legs but {disfmarker} More like fins
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Stumpy stuff.
Project Manager: or {disfmarker}
Marketing: It's more like a tank. Yeah that's fins
Industrial Designer: They kind of l look like mole legs. With sharp nails on.
Marketing: but I don't know where. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Some spots. Ah some eye.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: it's l looks very friendly. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah that's a fr {vocalsound} friendly turtle I guess.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah well I think it's uh fair enough.
Project Manager: Yeah okay.
Industrial Designer: A little tail maybe.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} {gap} {vocalsound}
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Marketing: Right. {vocalsound} I don't know what the position is. {vocalsound} Does it have ears?
Industrial Designer: Uh no.
Project Manager: No.
User Interface: No.
Marketing: No. Oh okay.
Industrial Designer: The little holes maybe.
Marketing: Can you erase ears
Project Manager: Yeah yeah yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: There's a a gum,
Marketing: Yeah? Alright.
Project Manager: gum to {gap}.
Marketing: Eraser.
Industrial Designer: And why did you choose this animal?
Marketing: So {disfmarker}
Project Manager: He said it was slow.
Marketing: I dunno. I it just came into my mind. So there's no particular reason
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Marketing: I {gap} pen.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} I like it. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah. Well I'm {disfmarker} guess I'm done.
Project Manager: Okay. {gap}
Marketing: That's my turtle.
Project Manager: Your turn Niels.
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Marketing: How to select the next or {disfmarker}
Project Manager: The next
Marketing: here.
Project Manager: yeah.
Industrial Designer: {gap} Colours were under format
Marketing: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Project Manager: Makes new paper.
Marketing: Here you go.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: right? Let's see.
Project Manager: Orange.
Industrial Designer: How am I gonna do this? Um {disfmarker} Mm uh.
User Interface: A rabbit I think.
Project Manager: Kangaroo.
User Interface: Kangaroo. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Not quite actually.
User Interface: Fox.
Marketing: A fox yeah.
Project Manager: Dog.
Marketing: Firefox.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: No.
Project Manager: Cat.
Industrial Designer: Aye. {vocalsound} It's a cat.
Project Manager: It's a cat.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Not quite yet through.
Marketing: A cat who had an accident or {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Why a cat?
Industrial Designer: Uh yeah I dunno. They're my favourite pets.
Project Manager: You have some uh?
Industrial Designer: Uh I have colour already. Yeah I'm not so good at drawing with this kind of
Project Manager: {vocalsound} The pen,
Industrial Designer: st Oh shit. Um {disfmarker}
Project Manager: yeah.
Industrial Designer: Excuse my language.
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Sure. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I don't know how to draw its face. But you get the idea.
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound} Alright.
Industrial Designer: It's a cat. It's my favourite uh pet animal,'cause they're cute, they're independent and cuddly, I dunno. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: That's it.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Or do I need to use more colours and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: {gap} I think it's okay. You get idea
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Project Manager: right?
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay um
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: we have a financial aspect to this project. {vocalsound} Um we can sell them at twenty five Euros. Uh the aim is to reach {disfmarker} uh uh to sell as much as fifty million Euros. Uh that's quite a big amount of money. And the production cost should be the half of the selling price. Okay
Industrial Designer: So we have to s
Project Manager: now it's time for some discussion. {vocalsound} {vocalsound} {gap}
User Interface: Okay.
Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: What uh what uh do you want to discuss? {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: We should get started.
User Interface: Yep.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Uh I'm taking notes. Um
Marketing: Okay. Great.
Project Manager: we each have a specific task, as I saw in my mail. I didn't know if you received the same mail.
Industrial Designer: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah?
Industrial Designer: I guess so. Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay so the um {vocalsound} uh {gap} this industrati Industrial Designer should produce a working design. Am I correct?
Industrial Designer: True.
Project Manager: Okay. Uh the User Interface Designer should specify the technical functions. Right? Yeah?
User Interface: Yep.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} And the Marketing uh Expert should come up with user requirements.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Uh did any of you already do some work on this part or {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Well I started making an overview for myself, um what I had to do,'cause we have three design steps and in every step I have a s specific task to perform or whatever.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: So I had to uh, {vocalsound} I dunno, make an overview for myself about what I have to do,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: and kind of let it work in to get ideas about well how I have to fill it.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. And do you have any ideas about the product uh so far?
Industrial Designer: Well I started I started with the first phase, I think was the functional.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: And uh let's see I had to focus on the working design, which you said.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: How does the apparatus work? And well I basically had two points. Uh {vocalsound} according to the coffee uh machine example, I have batteries to supply energy,
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and we ye use button presses to activate or deactivate certain functions on the T_V_.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. {vocalsound} Okay.
Industrial Designer: And that's basically all I have so far.
Project Manager: Yeah I got another point. It uses infrared light to communicate the signal to the T_V_ apparatus or stereo.
User Interface: Yeah. Wireless uh {disfmarker} huh.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Marketing: So that's very common.
User Interface: Uh it's uh some buttons for for the on off function. You d you already told that. And for the changing up to the {disfmarker} to all the channels and changing the volume. That are the the basic options for a remote control.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Yeah I kept it global'cause {vocalsound} {disfmarker} that it activates or deactivates specific functions,
User Interface: Okay, yeah.
Industrial Designer:'cause I wasn't thinking yet about that. I mean, you wanna ch ch flip the channel
User Interface: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: but you might wanna use teletext also.
User Interface: Yep.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: I dunno what the word is in English. Uh {gap} {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Same I believe {gap}.
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Uh and what did the Marketing Expert do?
Marketing: Uh well from a marketing uh {vocalsound} perspective, um well the function des design phase uh consists out of the user requirements.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Um what needs and desires are to be fulfilled? So there are a few means to reach that um by by doing research {vocalsound} uh to see what existing products are there out in the market.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: I mean, what functions do they have.
Project Manager: Mm.
Marketing: Um especially what are their shortcomings? Are there any new functions uh which can be added to our product?
Project Manager: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Marketing: Um therefore we have to to do some internet search. For example for um well what kind of applications do current remote controls support, and what are f featur features of uh current and future televisions?
Project Manager: Yep. Yes.
Marketing: So we can see uh what needs to be supported. Um {vocalsound} and we can interview current users and future users. What w what would they like to see uh on a new remote control? Um especially for future users,
Project Manager: Okay. Okay.
Marketing: uh I'm thinking of early adopters, because they they use new technology first,
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Marketing: and they play with a lot of tools and stuff so maybe they have some good ideas to uh to add.
Project Manager: Okay. And you can get that information?
Marketing: I think I can get that information, yeah.
Project Manager: Okay. That would be very handy.
Marketing: So {disfmarker} yeah.
Project Manager: Um but have you any idea so far as what uh the user requirements are?
Marketing: No n not specifically.
Project Manager: No?
Marketing: More to how to get them
Project Manager: No okay.
User Interface: {vocalsound} I got some uh requirements
Marketing: and {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah?
User Interface: it has uh {gap} it has to be user-friendly.
Marketing: Yeah?
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Of course.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. Obviously.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: {vocalsound} {vocalsound} Uh really easy to use buttons, not not uh very small buttons, but not the the also the big big buttons, but just normal buttons. It has to be a small unit. It has to be uh {disfmarker} yeah, you can take it with you uh everywhere in in your house. So it has n has not to be l yeah, gigantic uh machine.
Project Manager: Big, mm-hmm.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: Uh and a and a good uh zapping range. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Uh what do you mean by that?
User Interface: Uh the distance uh from your television to your uh remote control has to be, uh yeah um yeah, quite a big distance.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: It has to be capable for zapping uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah. From the other end of the room or something?
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Okay um {disfmarker} Well I don't think I have anything more to add at the moment. Um I think the best is to go to work.
Industrial Designer: Whoa. Is that you
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: or {disfmarker} alright.
Project Manager: Okay.
Marketing: Any more points to discuss?
Project Manager: Yeah. I think we can go ahead with what we have. I will summarise the things we discussed and put it in the project folder. Uh the use of the Industrial Designer can work on the working design, etcetera etcetera. And it seems you get more information by email. So {vocalsound}
Marketing: Alright.
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Project Manager: that was it for me.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing:'Kay. Thanks.
Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker}
User Interface: Are you going to put the the notes on the {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah, in the project folder. Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah. The pro okay.
User Interface: Okay. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: I'm writing very fast. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Alright.
User Interface: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah. Okay.
Project Manager: Hope it's readable.
User Interface: Yep.
Marketing: Uh.
Project Manager: Okay {vocalsound} um anything more you want to add to the discussion?
Marketing: I guess so.
Industrial Designer: Well no I'm just a bit wondering what we're gonna do the next uh session?
User Interface: Yeah. Do we only have to to do uh phase one, the functional design uh?
Project Manager: Yeah. Because then we have a {disfmarker}
User Interface: After that we are going to the conceptual uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah. {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Y you do some individual work,
Marketing: We're just working the three phases.
Project Manager: we have meeting, individual work, meeting. And at the end of the day we have a final meeting. And then I have to prepare {disfmarker} uh I have to defend our design,
User Interface: {vocalsound}
Project Manager: so make it good. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: Yeah okay. We'll do our best.
Marketing: Okay.
Project Manager: I depend on you.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: {vocalsound} Better make it {disfmarker} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: I am gonna work on the conceptual design already'cause yeah it's fairly important to know what kind of components we want to put in.
Project Manager: Yeah? If you can mix it it's okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Do we {disfmarker} I mean, is it gonna be a multimedia control centre? Do we want to be able to use the video recorder with it? {vocalsound}
Marketing: Yeah. {vocalsound} That is my question also
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: because like new new functions {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Well I think that is the user requirements part.
Marketing: Requirements. Yeah.
Project Manager: As to what they want. Uh do they want all those functions on that small {disfmarker}
Industrial Designer: Yeah. True.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: But but we need good communication about this stuff,
Marketing: Unit.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer:'cause I have to f put the components into the design.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
User Interface: I would first m
Industrial Designer: So if I don't know what components to put in, it's kind of hard.
Marketing: Yeah well
Project Manager: Yeah I understand.
Marketing: I I was {disfmarker}
User Interface: Yeah. I I think we have first to start with the basic functions and we can uh expand them.
Marketing: Yeah
Project Manager: You can always add a few {disfmarker}
Marketing: well like l li like some like some some remotes who are out there, which I know, there's one button which is very easy to switch between devices.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: So you can switch to your video
Project Manager: Hmm,
Marketing: and then the same buttons control your video.
Project Manager: the C_D_ player. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Marketing: And another function I'll think of switch to your media centre, because that's getting very popular.
Industrial Designer: Yeah so {disfmarker}
Marketing: And then use your Windows media centre {vocalsound} under your T_V_ with the same remote control. So with the switch, one single switch {gap}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: Yeah I I know what you mean, but you'll ne need several other buttons for a video player.
Marketing: S
Project Manager: Mm-hmm.
Industrial Designer: You need a play and a forw fast forward and a stop function.
Marketing: Yeah
Project Manager: Okay.
Industrial Designer: And you you don't need that for a T_V_.
Marketing: records and stuff like that.
Industrial Designer: And and for a t uh teletext you need additional buttons as well,
Marketing: No.
Project Manager: You need additional {disfmarker} yeah.
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: so I kind of need to know what we uh need.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Uh {disfmarker}
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Whatever, I'll just put my ideas in uh in here
Project Manager: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: and then we can discuss it with the next uh meeting.
Marketing: In the project uh {disfmarker}
Project Manager: Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: We could just start with the assumption that's only for T_V_ and video. And um reserve the possibility to add other features.
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: So we have a basic starting point
Industrial Designer: Okay.
Project Manager: and you can always extend that so make sure it's extendible. Yeah.
User Interface: Yeah it it has yeah it has to be user-friendly.
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Marketing: Yeah.
User Interface: So it's hasn't {gap} {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Th the least amount of functions possible
User Interface: Yeah.
Project Manager: so it's easier to get to know how it works etcetera.
User Interface: Okay. Yeah.
Industrial Designer: Yeah. I understand. Yeah.
Marketing: Yeah.
Project Manager: Yeah? Okay and uh I'll see you again uh when the computer tells us to.
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Marketing: Yes.
Industrial Designer: Yeah.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Yeah, you're di dismissed.
User Interface: Can we leave now
Marketing: Half an hour.
User Interface: or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} Thanks. {vocalsound}
Marketing: {vocalsound} You're fired. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Not yet.
Marketing: No.
User Interface: Mm.
Industrial Designer: Alright.
Project Manager: {vocalsound} Okay.
Marketing: Alright let's move on.
Project Manager: Let's see what we got to do.
Marketing: Yeah.
Industrial Designer: {vocalsound} See you later.
Project Manager: Yeah.
User Interface: Okay.
Marketing: Yeah see you later.
User Interface: Good luck. {vocalsound}
Project Manager: Yeah. Thank you.
Marketing: Well good luck. {vocalsound}
Industrial Designer: What the {disfmarker} | Industrial Designer had started making an overview of the project's three phases respectively. In the present phase, Industrial Designer focused on the basic function of the remote control. Batteries would be incorporated in the remote control to supply energy. Users would press buttons to activate or deactivate certain functions on the TV. In addition, Project Manager suggested that the remote control would use infrared light to communicate the signal to the TV apparatus or stereo. Industrial Designer agreed. | qmsum |
What did the Professor say about the soldiers?
Professor B: Is it starting now?
PhD E: Yep.
Professor B: So what {disfmarker} what {disfmarker} from {disfmarker} what {disfmarker}
Grad A: Hello?
Professor B: Whatever we say from now on, it can be held against us, right?
PhD E: That's right.
Professor B: and uh
Grad A: It's your right to remain silent.
Professor B: Yeah. So I {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the problem is that I actually don't know how th these held meetings are held, if they are very informal and sort of just people are say what's going on
PhD E: Yeah.
Professor B: and
PhD E: Yeah, that's usually what we do.
Professor B: OK.
PhD E: We just sorta go around and people say what's going on, what's the latest uh {disfmarker}
Professor B: Yeah. OK. So I guess that what may be a {disfmarker} reasonable is if I uh first make a report on what's happening in Aurora in general, at least what from my perspective.
PhD E: Yeah. That would be great.
Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh so, I {disfmarker} I think that Carmen and Stephane reported on uh Amsterdam meeting,
PhD D: Uh o
Professor B: which was kind of interesting because it was for the first time we realized we are not friends really, but we are competitors. Cuz until then it was sort of like everything was like wonderful and {disfmarker}
PhD E: Yeah. It seemed like there were still some issues,
Professor B: Yeah.
PhD E: right? that they were trying to decide?
Professor B: There is a plenty of {disfmarker} there're plenty of issues.
PhD E: Like the voice activity detector,
Professor B: Well and what happened was that they realized that if two leading proposals, which was French Telecom Alcatel, and us both had uh voice activity detector. And I said" well big surprise, I mean we could have told you that {pause} n n n four months ago, except we didn't because nobody else was bringing it up" .
PhD E: Right.
Professor B: Obviously French Telecom didn't volunteer this information either, cuz we were working on {disfmarker} mainly on voice activity detector for past uh several months
PhD E: Right.
Professor B: because that's buying us the most uh thing. And everybody said" Well but this is not fair. We didn't know that." And of course uh the {disfmarker} it's not working on features really. And be I agreed.
PhD E: Right.
Professor B: I said" well yeah, you are absolutely right, I mean if I wish that you provided better end point at speech because uh {disfmarker} or at least that if we could modify the recognizer, uh to account for these long silences, because otherwise uh that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} th that wasn't a correct thing." And so then ev ev everybody else says" well we should {disfmarker} we need to do a new eval evaluation without voice activity detector, or we have to do something about it" .
PhD E: Right.
Professor B: And in principle I {disfmarker} uh I {disfmarker} we agreed.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: We said uh" yeah" . Because uh {disfmarker} but in that case, uh we would like to change the uh {disfmarker} the algorithm because uh if we are working on different data, we probably will use a different set of tricks.
PhD E: Right.
Professor B: But unfortunately nobody ever officially can somehow acknowledge that this can be done, because French Telecom was saying" no, no, no, now everybody has access to our code, so everybody is going to copy what we did." Yeah well our argument was everybody ha has access to our code, and everybody always had access to our code. We never uh {disfmarker} uh denied that. We thought that people are honest, that if you copy something and if it is protected {disfmarker} protected by patent then you negotiate, or something,
PhD E: Yeah. Right.
Professor B: right? I mean, if you find our technique useful, we are very happy.
PhD E: Right.
Professor B: But {disfmarker} And French Telecom was saying" no, no, no,
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: there is a lot of little tricks which uh sort of uh cannot be protected and you guys will take them," which probably is also true. I mean, you know, it might be that people will take uh uh th the algorithms apart and use the blocks from that. But I somehow think that it wouldn't be so bad, as long as people are happy abou uh uh uh honest about it.
PhD E: Yeah.
Professor B: And I think they have to be honest in the long run, because winning proposal again {disfmarker} uh what will be available th is {disfmarker} will be a code. So the uh {disfmarker} the people can go to code and say" well listen this is what you stole from me" PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: you know?
PhD E: Right.
Professor B:" so let's deal with that" .
PhD E: Right.
Professor B: So I don't see the problem. The biggest problem of course is that f that Alcatel French Telecom cl claims" well we fulfilled the conditions. We are the best. Uh. We are the standard." And e and other people don't feel that, because they {disfmarker} so they now decided that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} the whole thing will be done on well - endpointed data, essentially that somebody will endpoint the data based on clean speech, because most of this the SpeechDat - Car has the also close speaking mike and endpoints will be provided.
PhD E: Mm - hmm. Ah.
Professor B: And uh we will run again {disfmarker} still not clear if we are going to run the {disfmarker} if we are allowed to run uh uh new algorithms, but I assume so. Because uh we would fight for that, really. uh but {disfmarker} since uh u u n u {disfmarker} at least our experience is that only endpointing a {disfmarker} a mel cepstrum gets uh {disfmarker} gets you twenty - one percent improvement overall and twenty - seven improvement on SpeechDat - Car
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: then obvious the database {disfmarker} uh I mean the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} uh the baseline will go up. And nobody can then achieve fifty percent improvement.
PhD E: Right.
Professor B: So they agreed that uh there will be a twenty - five percent improvement required on {disfmarker} on uh h u m bad mis badly mismatched {disfmarker}
PhD E: But wait a minute, I thought the endpointing really only helped in the noisy cases.
Professor B: It uh {disfmarker}
PhD E: Oh, but you still have that with the MFCC.
Professor B: Y yeah.
PhD E: OK.
Professor B: Yeah but you have the same prob I mean MFCC basically has an enormous number of uh insertions.
PhD E: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Professor B: And so, so now they want to say" we {disfmarker} we will require fifty percent improvement only for well matched condition, and only twenty - five percent for the serial cases." PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: And uh {disfmarker} and they almost agreed on that except that it wasn't a hundred percent agreed. And so last time uh during the meeting, I just uh brought up the issue, I said" well you know uh quite frankly I'm surprised how lightly you are making these decisions because this is a major decision. For two years we are fighting for fifty percent improvement and suddenly you are saying" oh no we {disfmarker} we will do something less" , but maybe we should discuss that. And everybody said" oh we discussed that and you were not a mee there" and I said" well a lot of other people were not there because not everybody participates at these teleconferencing c things." Then they said" oh no no no because uh everybody is invited." However, there is only ten or fifteen lines, so people can't even con you know participate. So eh they agreed, and so they said" OK, we will discuss that." Immediately Nokia uh raised the question and they said" oh yeah we agree this is not good to to uh dissolve the uh uh {disfmarker} the uh {disfmarker} the criterion." PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: So now officially, Nokia is uh uh complaining and said they {disfmarker} they are looking for support, uh I think QualComm is uh saying, too" we shouldn't abandon the fifty percent yet. We should at least try once again, one more round." PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: So this is where we are.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: I hope that {disfmarker} I hope that this is going to be a adopted.
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: Next Wednesday we are going to have uh another uh teleconferencing call, so we'll see what uh {disfmarker} where it goes.
PhD E: So what about the issue of um the weights on the {disfmarker} for the different systems, the well - matched, and medium - mismatched and {disfmarker}
Professor B: Yeah, that's what {disfmarker} that's a g very good uh point, because David says" well you know we ca we can manipulate this number by choosing the right weights anyways." So while you are right but {disfmarker} uh you know but
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: Uh yeah, if of course if you put a zero {disfmarker} uh weight zero on a mismatched condition, or highly mismatched then {disfmarker} then you are done.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: But weights were also deter already decided uh half a year ago. So {disfmarker}
PhD E: And they're the {disfmarker} staying the same?
Professor B: Well, of course people will not like it. Now {disfmarker} What is happening now is that I th I think that people try to match the criterion to solution.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: They have solution. Now they want to {vocalsound} make sure their criterion is {disfmarker}
PhD E: Right.
Professor B: And I think that this is not the right way.
PhD E: Yeah.
Professor B: Uh it may be that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Eventually it may ha may ha it may have to happen. But it's should happen at a point where everybody feels comfortable that we did all what we could.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: And I don't think we did.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: Basically, I think that {disfmarker} that this test was a little bit bogus because of the data and uh essentially {pause} there were these arbitrary decisions made, and {disfmarker} and everything. So, so {disfmarker} so this is {disfmarker} so this is where it is. So what we are doing at OGI now is uh uh uh working basically on our parts which we I think a little bit neglected, like noise separation. Uh so we are looking in ways is {disfmarker} in uh which {disfmarker} uh with which we can provide better initial estimate of the mel spectrum basically, which would be a l uh, f more robust to noise, and so far not much uh success.
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: We tried uh things which uh a long time ago Bill Byrne suggested, instead of using Fourier spectrum, from Fourier transform, use the spectrum from LPC model. Their argument there was the LPC model fits the peaks of the spectrum, so it may be m naturally more robust in noise. And I thought" well, that makes sense," but so far we can't get much {disfmarker} much out of it.
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: uh we may try some standard techniques like spectral subtraction and {disfmarker}
PhD E: You haven't tried that yet?
Professor B: not {disfmarker} not {disfmarker} not much. Or even I was thinking about uh looking back into these totally ad - hoc techniques
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: like for instance uh Dennis Klatt was suggesting uh the one way to uh deal with noisy speech is to add noise to everything.
PhD E: Hmm!
Professor B: So. {comment} I mean, uh uh add moderate amount of noise to all data.
PhD E: Oh!
Professor B: So that makes uh th any additive noise less addi less a a effective,
PhD E: I see.
Professor B: right? Because you already uh had the noise uh in a {disfmarker}
PhD E: Right.
Professor B: And it was working at the time. It was kind of like one of these things, you know, but if you think about it, it's actually pretty ingenious. So well, you know, just take a {disfmarker} take a spectrum and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and add of the constant, C, to every {disfmarker} every value.
PhD E: Well you're {disfmarker} you're basically y Yeah. So you're making all your training data more uniform.
Professor B: Exactly. And if {disfmarker} if then {disfmarker} if this data becomes noisy, it b it becomes eff effectively becomes less noisy basically.
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: But of course you cannot add too much noise because then you'll s then you're clean recognition goes down, but I mean it's yet to be seen how much, it's a very simple technique.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: Yes indeed it's a very simple technique, you just take your spectrum and {disfmarker} and use whatever is coming from FFT, {pause} add constant,
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: you know? on {disfmarker} onto power spectrum. That {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} Or the other thing is of course if you have a spectrum, what you can s start doing, you can leave {disfmarker} start leaving out the p the parts which are uh uh low in energy and then perhaps uh one could try to find a {disfmarker} a all - pole model to such a spectrum. Because a all - pole model will still try to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to put the {disfmarker} the continuation basically of the {disfmarker} of the model into these parts where the issue set to zero. That's what we want to try. I have a visitor from Brno. He's a {disfmarker} kind of like young faculty. pretty hard - working so he {disfmarker} so he's {disfmarker} so he's looking into that.
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: And then most of the effort is uh now also aimed at this e e TRAP recognition. This uh {disfmarker} this is this recognition from temporal patterns.
PhD E: Hmm! What is that?
Professor B: Ah, you don't know about TRAPS!
Grad A: Hmm.
PhD E: The TRAPS sound familiar, I {disfmarker} but I don't {disfmarker}
Professor B: Yeah I mean tha This is familiar like sort of because we gave you the name, but, what it is, is that normally what you do is that you recognize uh speech based on a shortened spectrum.
PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
Professor B: Essentially L P - LPC, mel cepstrum, uh, everything starts with a spectral slice. Uh so if you s So, given the spectrogram you essentially are sliding {disfmarker} sliding the spectrogram along the uh f frequency axis
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: and you keep shifting this thing, and you have a spectrogram.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: So you can say" well you can also take the time trajectory of the energy at a given frequency" , and what you get is then, that you get a p {pause} vector.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: And this vector can be a {disfmarker} a {disfmarker} s assigned to s some phoneme. Namely you can say i it {disfmarker} I will {disfmarker} I will say that this vector will eh {disfmarker} will {disfmarker} will describe the phoneme which is in the center of the vector. And you can try to classify based on that.
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: And you {disfmarker} so you classi so it's a very different vector, very different properties, we don't know much about it, but the truth is {disfmarker}
PhD E: Hmm. But you have many of those vectors per phoneme,
Professor B: Well, so you get many decisions.
PhD E: right? Uh - huh.
Professor B: And then you can start dec thinking about how to combine these decisions. Exactly, that's what {disfmarker} yeah, that's what it is.
PhD E: Hmm. Hmm.
Professor B: Because if you run this uh recognition, you get {disfmarker} you still get about twenty percent error {disfmarker} uh twenty percent correct. You know,
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: on {disfmarker} on like for the frame by frame basis, so {pause} uh {disfmarker} uh so it's much better than chance.
PhD E: How wide are the uh frequency bands?
Professor B: That's another thing. Well c currently we start {disfmarker} I mean we start always with critical band spectrum. For various reasons. But uh the latest uh observation uh is that you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you are {disfmarker} you can get quite a big advantage of using two critical bands at the same time.
Grad A: Are they adjacent, or are they s
Professor B: Adjacent, adjacent.
Grad A: OK.
Professor B: And the reasons {disfmarker} there are some reasons for that. Because there are some reasons I can {disfmarker} I could talk about, will have to tell you about things like masking experiments which uh uh uh uh yield critical bands, and also experiments with release of masking, which actually tell you that something is happening across critical bands, across bands. And {disfmarker}
PhD E: Well how do you {disfmarker} how do you uh convert this uh energy over time in a particular frequency band into a vector of numbers?
Professor B: It's uh uh uh I mean time T - zero is one number, {pause} time t
PhD E: Yeah but what's the number? Is it just the {disfmarker}
Professor B: It's a spectral energy, logarithmic spectral energy,
PhD E: it's just the amount of energy in that band from f in that time interval.
Professor B: yeah. Yes, yes. Yes, yes.
PhD E: OK.
Professor B: And that's what {disfmarker} that's what I'm saying then, so this is a {disfmarker} this is a starting vector. It's just like shortened f {pause} spectrum, or something. But now we are trying to understand what this vector actually represents,
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: for instance a question is like" how correlated are the elements of this vector?" Turns out they are quite correlated, because I mean, especially the neighboring ones, right? They {disfmarker} they represent the same {disfmarker} almost the same configuration of the vocal tract.
PhD E: Yeah. Yeah. Mm - hmm.
Professor B: So there's a very high correlation. So the classifiers which use the diagonal covariance matrix don't like it. So we're thinking about de - correlating them.
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: Then the question is uh" can you describe elements of this vector by Gaussian distributions" , or to what extent? Because uh {disfmarker} And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and so on and so on. So we are learning quite a lot about that. And then another issue is how many vectors we should be using,
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: I mean the {disfmarker} so the minimum is one.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: But I mean is the {disfmarker} is the critical band the right uh uh dimension? So we somehow made arbitrary decision," yes" . Then {disfmarker} but then now we are thinking a lot how to {disfmarker} uh how to use at least the neighboring band because that seems to be happening {disfmarker} This I somehow start to believe that's what's happening in recognition. Cuz a lot of experiments point to the fact that people can split the signal into critical bands, but then oh uh uh so you can {disfmarker} you are quite capable of processing a signal in uh uh independently in individual critical bands. That's what masking experiments tell you. But at the same time you most likely pay attention to at least neighboring bands when you are making any decisions, you compare what's happening in {disfmarker} in this band to what's happening to the band {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to {disfmarker} to the {disfmarker} to the neighboring bands. And that's how you make uh decisions. That's why the articulatory events, which uh F F Fletcher talks about, they are about two critical bands. You need at least two, basically. You need some relative, relative relation.
Grad A: Hmm.
Professor B: Absolute number doesn't tell you the right thing.
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: You need to {disfmarker} you need to compare it to something else, what's happening but it's what's happening in the {disfmarker} in the close neighborhood. So if you are making decision what's happening at one kilohertz, you want to know what's happening at nine hundred hertz and it {disfmarker} and maybe at eleven hundred hertz, but you don't much care what's happening at three kilohertz.
PhD E: So it's really w It's sort of like saying that what's happening at one kilohertz depends on what's happening around it. It's sort of relative to it.
Professor B: To some extent, it {disfmarker} that is also true. Yeah. But it's {disfmarker} but for {disfmarker} but for instance, {vocalsound} th uh {vocalsound} uh what {disfmarker} what uh humans are very much capable of doing is that if th if they are exactly the same thing happening in two neighboring critical bands, recognition can discard it.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: Is what's happening {disfmarker}
PhD E: Hmm.
Grad A: Hey!
Professor B: Hey! OK, we need us another {disfmarker} another voice here.
PhD E: Hey Stephane.
Professor B: Yeah, I think so. Yeah?
PhD E: Yep. Sure. Go ahead.
Professor B: And so so {disfmarker} so for instance if you d if you a if you add the noise that normally masks {disfmarker} masks the uh {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the signal right?
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: and you can show that in {disfmarker} that if the {disfmarker} if you add the noise outside the critical band, that doesn't affect the {disfmarker} the decisions you're making about a signal within a critical band.
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: Unless this noise is modulated. If the noise is modulated, with the same modulation frequency as the noise in a critical band, the amount of masking is less. The moment you {disfmarker} moment you provide the noise in n neighboring critical bands.
PhD E: Mmm.
Professor B: So the s m masking curve, normally it looks like sort of {disfmarker} I start from {disfmarker} from here, so you {disfmarker} {comment} you have uh no noise then you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you are expanding the critical band, so the amount of maching is increasing. And when you e hit a certain point, which is a critical band, then the amount of masking is the same.
PhD E: Mmm.
Professor B: So that's the famous experiment of Fletcher, a long time ago. Like that's where people started thinking" wow this is interesting!" So.
PhD E: Yeah.
Professor B: But, if you {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if you modulate the noise, the masking goes up and the moment you start hitting the {disfmarker} another critical band, the masking goes down. So essentially {disfmarker} essentially that's a very clear indication that {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that {pause} cognition can take uh uh into consideration what's happening in the neighboring bands. But if you go too far in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} if the noise is very broad, you are not increasing much more, so {disfmarker} so if you {disfmarker} if you are far away from the signal {disfmarker} uh from the signal f uh the frequency at which the signal is, then the m even the {disfmarker} when the noise is co - modulated it {disfmarker} it's not helping you much.
PhD E: Mm - hmm. Yeah. Mm - hmm.
Grad A: Hmm.
Professor B: So. So things like this we are kind of playing with {disfmarker} with {disfmarker} with the hope that perhaps we could eventually u use this in a {disfmarker} in a real recognizer.
Grad A: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: Like uh partially of course we promised to do this under the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Aurora uh program.
PhD E: But you probably won't have anything before the next time we have to evaluate,
Professor B: Probably not.
PhD E: right?
Professor B: Well, maybe, most likely we will not have anything which c would comply with the rules.
PhD E: Yeah. Ah.
Professor B: like because uh uh
PhD E: Latency and things.
Professor B: latency currently chops the require uh significant uh latency amount of processing,
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: because uh we don't know any better, yet, than to use the neural net classifiers, uh and uh {disfmarker} and uh TRAPS.
PhD E: Yeah.
Grad A: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: Though the {disfmarker} the work which uh everybody is looking at now aims at s trying to find out what to do with these vectors, so that a g simple Gaussian classifier would be happier with it.
PhD C: Hmm.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: or to what extent a Gaussian classifier should be unhappy uh that, and how to Gaussian - ize the vectors, and {disfmarker}
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: So this is uh what's happening. Then Sunil is uh uh uh asked me f for one month's vacation and since he did not take any vacation for two years, I had no {disfmarker} I didn't have heart to tell him no. So he's in India.
PhD E: Wow.
Professor B: And uh {disfmarker}
PhD E: Is he getting married or something?
Professor B: Uh well, he may be looking for a girl, for {disfmarker} for I don't {disfmarker} I don't {disfmarker} I don't ask. I know that Naran - when last time Narayanan did that he came back engaged.
PhD E: Right. Well, I mean, I've known other friends who {disfmarker} they {disfmarker} they go to Ind - they go back home to India for a month, they come back married,
Professor B: Yeah. I know. I know, I know,
PhD E: you know, huh.
Professor B: and then of course then what happened with Narayanan was that he start pushing me that he needs to get a PHD because they wouldn't give him his wife. And she's very pretty and he loves her and so {disfmarker} so we had to really {disfmarker}
PhD E: So he finally had some incentive to finish,
Professor B: Oh yeah. We had {disfmarker} well I had a incentive because he {disfmarker} he always had this plan except he never told me.
PhD E: huh?
Professor B: Sort of figured that {disfmarker} That was a uh that he uh he told me the day when we did very well at our NIST evaluations of speaker recognition, the technology, and he was involved there.
PhD E: Oh.
Professor B: We were {disfmarker} after presentation we were driving home and he told me.
PhD E: When he knew you were happy,
Professor B: Yeah. So I {disfmarker} I said" well, yeah, OK" so he took another {disfmarker} another three quarter of the year but uh he was out.
PhD E: huh?
Professor B: So I {disfmarker} wouldn't surprise me if he has a plan like that, though {disfmarker} though uh Pratibha still needs to get out first.
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: Cuz Pratibha is there a {disfmarker} a year earlier.
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: And S and Satya needs to get out very first because he's {disfmarker} he already has uh four years served, though one year he was getting masters. So. So.
PhD C: Hmm.
PhD E: So have the um {disfmarker} when is the next uh evaluation? June or something?
Professor B: Which? Speaker recognition?
PhD E: No, for uh Aurora?
Professor B: Uh there, we don't know about evaluation, next meeting is in June.
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: And uh uh but like getting {disfmarker} get together.
PhD E: Oh, OK. Are people supposed to rerun their systems,
Professor B: Nobody said that yet.
PhD E: or {disfmarker}?
Professor B: I assume so. Uh yes, uh, but nobody even set up yet the {pause} date for uh delivering uh endpointed data.
PhD E: Hmm. Wow.
Professor B: And this uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that sort of stuff. But I uh, yeah, what I think would be of course extremely useful, if we can come to our next meeting and say" well you know we did get fifty percent improvement. If {disfmarker} if you are interested we eventually can tell you how" , but uh we can get fifty percent improvement.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: Because people will s will be saying it's impossible.
PhD E: Hmm. Do you know what the new baseline is? Oh, I guess if you don't have {disfmarker}
Professor B: Twenty - two {disfmarker} t twenty {disfmarker} twenty - two percent better than the old baseline.
PhD E: Using your uh voice activity detector?
Professor B: u Yes. Yes. But I assume that it will be similar, I don't {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I don't see the reason why it shouldn't be.
PhD E: Similar, yeah.
Professor B: I d I don't see reason why it should be worse.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: Cuz if it is worse, then we will raise the objection,
PhD E: Yeah.
Professor B: we say" well you know how come?" Because eh if we just use our voice activity detector, which we don't claim even that it's wonderful, it's just like one of them.
PhD C: Mm - hmm.
PhD E: Yeah.
Professor B: We get this sort of improvement, how come that we don't see it on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on your endpointed data?
PhD C: Yeah. I guess it could be even better,
Professor B: I think so.
PhD C: because the voice activity detector that I choosed is something that cheating, it's using the alignment of the speech recognition system,
Professor B: Yeah. C yeah uh
PhD C: and only the alignment on the clean channel, and then mapped this alignment to the noisy channel.
Professor B: and on clean speech data. Yeah.
PhD E: Oh, OK.
Professor B: Well David told me {disfmarker} David told me yesterday or Harry actually he told Harry from QualComm and Harry uh brought up the suggestion we should still go for fifty percent he says are you aware that your system does only thirty percent uh comparing to {disfmarker} to endpointed baselines? So they must have run already something.
PhD C: Yeah.
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: So. And Harry said" Yeah. But I mean we think that we {disfmarker} we didn't say the last word yet, that we have other {disfmarker} other things which we can try." PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: So. So there's a lot of discussion now about this uh new criterion. Because Nokia was objecting, with uh QualComm's {disfmarker} we basically supported that, we said" yes" .
PhD C: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
Professor B: Now everybody else is saying" well you guys might {disfmarker} must be out of your mind." uh The {disfmarker} Guenter Hirsch who d doesn't speak for Ericsson anymore because he is not with Ericsson and Ericsson may not {disfmarker} may withdraw from the whole Aurora activity because they have so many troubles now.
PhD E: Wow.
Professor B: Ericsson's laying off twenty percent of people.
Grad A: Wow.
PhD E: Where's uh Guenter going?
Professor B: Well Guenter is already {disfmarker} he got the job uh already was working on it for past two years or three years {disfmarker}
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: he got a job uh at some {disfmarker} some Fachschule, the technical college not too far from Aachen.
PhD E: Hmm!
Professor B: So it's like professor {disfmarker} u university professor
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: you know, not quite a university, not quite a sort of {disfmarker} it's not Aachen University, but it's a good school and he {disfmarker} he's happy.
PhD E: Mm - hmm. Hmm!
Professor B: And he {disfmarker} well, he was hoping to work uh with Ericsson like on t uh like consulting basis, but right now he says {disfmarker} says it doesn't look like that anybody is even thinking about speech recognition.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: They think about survival.
PhD E: Wow!
Professor B: Yeah.
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: So. So. But this is being now discussed right now, and it's possible that uh {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that it may get through, that we will still stick to fifty percent.
PhD C: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: But that means that nobody will probably get this im this improvement. yet, wi with the current system. Which event es essentially I think that we should be happy with because that {disfmarker} that would mean that at least people may be forced to look into alternative solutions
PhD C: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: and {disfmarker}
PhD C: Mm - hmm. But maybe {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean we are not too far from {disfmarker} from fifty percent, from the new baseline.
Professor B: Uh, but not {disfmarker}
PhD C: Which would mean like sixty percent over the current baseline, which is {disfmarker}
Professor B: Yeah. Yes. Yes. We {disfmarker} we getting {disfmarker} we getting there, right.
PhD C: Well. We are around fifty, fifty - five.
Professor B: Yeah.
PhD C: So.
Professor B: Yeah.
PhD C: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: Is it like sort of {disfmarker} is {disfmarker} How did you come up with this number? If you improve twenty {disfmarker} by twenty percent the c the f the all baselines, it's just a quick c comp co computation?
PhD C: Yeah. I don't know exactly if it's {disfmarker}
Professor B: Uh - huh. I think it's about right.
PhD C: Yeah, because it de it depends on the weightings
Professor B: Yeah, yeah.
PhD C: and {disfmarker} Yeah. But. Mm - hmm.
PhD E: Hmm. How's your documentation or whatever it w what was it you guys were working on last week?
PhD C: Yeah, finally we {disfmarker} we've not finished with this. We stopped.
PhD D: More or less it's finished.
PhD C: Yeah.
PhD D: Ma - nec to need a little more time to improve the English, and maybe s to fill in something {disfmarker} some small detail, something like that,
PhD C: Mm - hmm.
PhD E: Hmm.
PhD D: but it's more or less ready.
PhD C: Yeah. Well, we have a document that explain a big part of the experiments,
PhD D: Necessary to {disfmarker} to include the bi the bibliography.
PhD C: but
PhD D: Mm - hmm.
PhD C: it's not, yeah, finished yet. Mm - hmm.
PhD E: So have you been running some new experiments? I {disfmarker} I thought I saw some jobs of yours running on some of the machine {disfmarker}
PhD C: Yeah. Right. We've fff {comment} done some strange things like removing C - zero or C - one from the {disfmarker} {vocalsound} {vocalsound} the vector of parameters, and we noticed that C - one is almost not useful at all. You can remove it from the vector, it doesn't hurt.
PhD E: Really? ! That has no effect?
PhD C: Um.
PhD E: Eh {disfmarker} Is this in the baseline? or in uh {disfmarker}
PhD C: In the {disfmarker} No, in the proposal.
PhD E: in {disfmarker} uh - huh, uh - huh.
Professor B: So we were just discussing, since you mentioned that, in {disfmarker} it w
PhD C: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: driving in the car with Morgan this morning, we were discussing a good experiment for b for beginning graduate student who wants to run a lot of {disfmarker} who wants to get a lot of numbers on something
PhD C: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: which is, like," imagine that you will {disfmarker} you will start putting every co any coefficient, which you are using in your vector, in some general power.
PhD E: In some what?
Professor B: General pow power. Like sort of you take a s power of two, or take a square root, or something.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
PhD C: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: So suppose that you are working with a s C - zer C - one.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: So if you put it in a s square root, that effectively makes your model half as efficient. Because uh your uh Gaussian mixture model, right? computes the mean.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: And {disfmarker} and uh i i i but it's {disfmarker} the mean is an exponent of the whatever, the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} this Gaussian function.
PhD E: You're compressing the range,
Professor B: So you're compressing the range of this coefficient, so it's becoming less efficient.
PhD E: right? of that {disfmarker}
Professor B: Right?
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: So. So. Morgan was @ @ and he was {disfmarker} he was saying well this might be the alternative way how to play with a {disfmarker} with a fudge factor, you know, uh in the {disfmarker}
PhD E: Oh.
Professor B: you know, just compress the whole vector.
PhD E: Yeah.
Professor B: And I said" well in that case why don't we just start compressing individual elements, like when {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} because in old days we were doing {disfmarker} when {disfmarker} when people still were doing template matching and Euclidean distances, we were doing this liftering of parameters, right?
PhD E: Uh - huh.
Professor B: because we observed that uh higher parameters were more important than lower for recognition. And basically the {disfmarker} the C - ze C - one contributes mainly slope,
PhD E: Right.
Professor B: and it's highly affected by uh frequency response of the {disfmarker} of the recording equipment and that sort of thing,
PhD C: Mm - hmm.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: so {disfmarker} so we were coming with all these f various lifters.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: uh Bell Labs had he {disfmarker} this uh uh r raised cosine lifter which still I think is built into H {disfmarker} HTK for reasons n unknown to anybody, but {disfmarker} but uh we had exponential lifter, or triangle lifter, basic number of lifters.
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: And. But so they may be a way to {disfmarker} to fiddle with the f with the f
PhD E: Insertions.
Professor B: Insertions, deletions, or the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} giving a relative {disfmarker} uh basically modifying relative importance of the various parameters.
PhD C: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: The only of course problem is that there's an infinite number of combinations and if the {disfmarker} if you s if y
PhD E: Oh. Uh - huh. You need like a {disfmarker} some kind of a {disfmarker}
Professor B: Yeah, you need a lot of graduate students, and a lot of computing power.
PhD E: You need to have a genetic algorithm, that basically tries random permutations of these things.
Professor B: I know. Exactly. Oh. If you were at Bell Labs or {disfmarker} I d d I shouldn't be saying this in {disfmarker} on {disfmarker} on a mike, right? Or I {disfmarker} uh {disfmarker} IBM, that's what {disfmarker} maybe that's what somebody would be doing.
PhD E: Yeah.
Grad A: Hmm.
Professor B: Oh, I mean, I mean the places which have a lot of computing power, so because it is really it's a p it's a {disfmarker} it's {disfmarker} it will be reasonable search
PhD E: Mm - hmm. Yeah.
Professor B: uh but I wonder if there isn't some way of doing this uh search like when we are searching say for best discriminants.
PhD E: You know actually, I don't know that this wouldn't be all that bad. I mean you {disfmarker} you compute the features once,
Professor B: Yeah. Yeah.
PhD E: right? And then these exponents are just applied to that {disfmarker}
Professor B: Absolutely. And hev everything is fixed.
PhD E: So.
Professor B: Everything is fixed. Each {disfmarker} each {disfmarker}
PhD E: And is this something that you would adjust for training? or only recognition?
Professor B: For both, you would have to do. Yeah.
PhD E: You would do it on both.
Professor B: You have to do bo both.
PhD E: So you'd actually {disfmarker}
Professor B: Because essentially you are saying" uh this feature is not important" .
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: Or less important, so that's {disfmarker} th that's a {disfmarker} that's a painful one, yeah.
PhD E: So for each {disfmarker} uh set of exponents that you would try, it would require a training and a recognition?
Professor B: Yeah. But {disfmarker} but wait a minute. You may not need to re uh uh retrain the m model. You just may n may need to c uh give uh less weight to {disfmarker} to uh a mod uh a component of the model which represents this particular feature. You don't have to retrain it.
PhD E: Oh. So if you {disfmarker} Instead of altering the feature vectors themselves, you {disfmarker} you modify the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the Gaussians in the models.
Professor B: You just multiply. Yeah. Yep. You modify the Gaussian in the model, but in the {disfmarker} in the test data you would have to put it in the power, but in a training what you c in a training uh {disfmarker} in trained model, all you would have to do is to multiply a model by appropriate constant.
PhD E: Uh - huh. But why {disfmarker} if you're {disfmarker} if you're multi if you're altering the model, why w in the test data, why would you have to muck with the uh cepstral coefficients?
Professor B: Because in uh test {disfmarker} in uh test data you ca don't have a model. You have uh only data. But in a {disfmarker} in a tr
PhD E: No. But you're running your data through that same model.
Professor B: That is true, but w I mean, so what you want to do {disfmarker} You want to say if uh obs you {disfmarker} if you observe something like Stephane observes, that C - one is not important, you can do two things.
PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
Professor B: If you have a trained {disfmarker} trained recognizer, in the model, you know the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the component which {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} I mean di dimension {vocalsound} wh
PhD E: Mm - hmm. All of the {disfmarker} all of the mean and variances that correspond to C - one, you put them to zero.
Professor B: To the s you {disfmarker} you know it. But what I'm proposing now, if it is important but not as important, you multiply it by point one in a model.
PhD E: Yeah.
Professor B: But {disfmarker} but {disfmarker} but {disfmarker}
PhD E: But what are you multiplying? Cuz those are means, right?
Grad A: You're multiplying the standard deviation?
PhD E: I mean you're {disfmarker}
Grad A: So it's {disfmarker}
Professor B: I think that you multiply the {disfmarker} I would {disfmarker} I would have to look in the {disfmarker} in the math, I mean how {disfmarker} how does the model uh {disfmarker}
PhD E: I think you {disfmarker}
Professor B: Yeah.
PhD E: Yeah, I think you'd have to modify the standard deviation or something, so that you make it {vocalsound} wider or narrower.
Grad A: Cuz {disfmarker} Yeah.
Professor B: Yeah.
PhD C: Yeah.
Professor B: Effectively, that's {disfmarker} that {disfmarker} that's {disfmarker} I {disfmarker} Exactly. That's what you do. That's what you do, you {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} you modify the standard deviation as it was trained.
Grad A: Yeah.
Professor B: Effectively you, you know y in f in front of the {disfmarker} of the model, you put a constant. S yeah effectively what you're doing is you {disfmarker} is you are modifying the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the deviation. Right?
Grad A: The spread,
PhD E: Oop.
Grad A: right.
PhD E: Sorry.
Professor B: Yeah, the spread.
Grad A: It's the same {disfmarker} same mean,
PhD E: So.
Grad A: right?
Professor B: And {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and {disfmarker}
PhD E: So by making th the standard deviation narrower, {comment} uh your scores get worse for {disfmarker}
Professor B: Yeah.
PhD E: unless it's exactly right on the mean.
Professor B: Your als No. By making it narrower,
PhD E: Right?
Professor B: uh y your {disfmarker}
PhD E: I mean there's {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} you're allowing for less variance.
Grad A: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: Yes, so you making this particular dimension less important. Because see what you are fitting is the multidimensional Gaussian, right?
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: It's a {disfmarker} it has {disfmarker} it has uh thirty - nine dimensions, or thirteen dimensions if you g ignore deltas and double - deltas.
PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
Professor B: So in order {disfmarker} if you {disfmarker} in order to make dimension which {disfmarker} which Stephane sees uh less important, uh uh I mean not {disfmarker} not useful, less important, what you do is that this particular component in the model you can multiply by w you can {disfmarker} you can basically de - weight it in the model. But you can't do it in a {disfmarker} in a test data because you don't have a model for th I mean uh when the test comes, but what you can do is that you put this particular component in {disfmarker} and {disfmarker} and you compress it. That becomes uh th gets less variance, subsequently becomes less important.
PhD E: Couldn't you just do that to the test data and not do anything with your training data?
Professor B: That would be very bad, because uh your t your model was trained uh expecting uh, that wouldn't work. Because your model was trained expecting a certain var variance on C - one.
PhD E: Uh - huh.
Professor B: And because the model thinks C - one is important. After you train the model, you sort of {disfmarker} y you could do {disfmarker} you could do still what I was proposing initially, that during the training you {disfmarker} you compress C - one that becomes {disfmarker} then it becomes less important in a training.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: But if you have {disfmarker} if you want to run e ex extensive experiment without retraining the model, you don't have to retrain the model. You train it on the original vector. But after, you {disfmarker} wh when you are doing this parametric study of importance of C - one you will de - weight the C - one component in the model, and you will put in the {disfmarker} you will compress the {disfmarker} this component in a {disfmarker} in the test data. s by the same amount.
PhD E: Could you also if you wanted to {disfmarker} if you wanted to try an experiment uh by {pause} leaving out say, C - one, couldn't you, in your test data, uh modify the {disfmarker} all of the C - one values to be um way outside of the normal range of the Gaussian for C - one that was trained in the model? So that effectively, the C - one never really contributes to the score?
PhD C: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: No, that would be a severe mismatch,
PhD E: Do you know what I'm say
Professor B: right? what you are proposing? N no you don't want that.
PhD E: Yeah, someth
Professor B: Because that would {disfmarker} then your model would be unlikely. Your likelihood would be low, right? Because you would be providing severe mismatch.
PhD E: Mm - hmm. But what if you set if to the mean of the model, then? And it was a cons you set all C - ones coming in through your test data, you {disfmarker} you change whatever value that was there to the mean that your model had.
Professor B: No that would be very good match, right?
PhD E: Yeah.
Professor B: That you would {disfmarker}
PhD C: Which {disfmarker} Well, yeah, but we have several means. So.
Professor B: I see what you are sa {pause} saying,
PhD C: Right?
Grad A: Saying.
Professor B: but uh, {vocalsound} no, no I don't think that it would be the same. I mean, no, the {disfmarker} If you set it to a mean, that would {disfmarker} No, you can't do that. Y you ca you ca Ch - Chuck, you can't do that.
PhD E: Oh, that's true, right, yeah, because you {disfmarker} you have {disfmarker}
PhD C: Wait. Which {disfmarker}
Professor B: Because that would be a really f fiddling with the data,
PhD E: Yeah.
Professor B: you can't do that.
PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
Professor B: But what you can do, I'm confident you ca
PhD E:
Professor B: well, I'm reasonably confident and I putting it on the record, right? I mean y people will listen to it for {disfmarker} for centuries now, is {pause} what you can do, is you train the model uh with the {disfmarker} with the original data.
Grad A: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: Then you decide that you want to see how important C {disfmarker} C - one is. So what you will do is that a component in the model for C - one, you will divide it by {disfmarker} by two. And you will compress your test data by square root.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: Then you will still have a perfect m match. Except that this component of C - one will be half as important in a {disfmarker} in a overall score.
PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
Professor B: Then you divide it by four and you take a square, f fourth root. Then if you think that some component is more {disfmarker} is more important then th th th it then {disfmarker} then uh uh i it is, based on training, then you uh multiply this particular component in the model by {disfmarker} by {disfmarker} by {disfmarker}
PhD E: You're talking about the standard deviation?
Professor B: yeah.
PhD E: Yeah.
Professor B: Yeah, multiply this component uh i it by number b larger than one,
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: and you put your data in power higher than one. Then it becomes more important. In the overall score, I believe.
PhD C: Yeah, but, at the {disfmarker}
PhD E: But {pause} don't you have to do something to the mean, also?
Professor B: No.
PhD C: No.
Grad A: Yeah.
Professor B: No.
PhD C: But I think it's {disfmarker} uh the {disfmarker} The variance is on {disfmarker} on the denominator in the {disfmarker} in the Gaussian equation. So. I think it's maybe it's the contrary. If you want to decrease the importance of a c parameter, you have to increase it's variance.
Professor B: Yes. Right. Yes.
PhD D: Multiply.
Professor B: Exactly. Yeah. So you {disfmarker} so you may want to do it other way around,
PhD C: Hmm. That's right. OK.
Professor B: yeah.
PhD C: Mm - hmm.
Grad A: Right.
PhD E: But if your {disfmarker} If your um original data for C - one had a mean of two.
Professor B: Uh - huh.
PhD E: And now you're {disfmarker} you're {disfmarker} you're changing that by squaring it. Now your mean of your C - one original data has {disfmarker} {comment} is four. But your model still has a mean of two. So even though you've expended the range, your mean doesn't match anymore.
PhD C: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: Let's see.
PhD E: Do you see what I mean?
PhD C: I think {disfmarker} What I see {disfmarker} What could be done is you don't change your features, which are computed once for all,
Professor B: Uh - huh.
PhD C: but you just tune the model. So. You have your features. You train your {disfmarker} your model on these features.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
PhD C: And then if you want to decrease the importance of C - one you just take the variance of the C - one component in the {disfmarker} in the model and increase it if you want to decrease the importance of C - one or decrease it {disfmarker}
PhD E: Yeah.
Professor B: Yeah.
PhD E: Right.
Professor B: Yeah. You would have to modify the mean in the model. I {disfmarker} you {disfmarker} I agree with you. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, but it's {disfmarker} it's i it's do - able,
PhD C: Well.
PhD E: Yeah, so y
Professor B: right? I mean, it's predictable. Uh. Yeah.
PhD E: It's predictable, yeah.
Professor B: Yeah. Yeah, it's predictable.
PhD C: Mmm.
PhD E: Yeah. But as a simple thing, you could just {disfmarker} just muck with the variance.
PhD C: Just adjust the model, yeah.
PhD E: to get uh this {disfmarker} uh this {disfmarker} the effect I think that you're talking about,
Professor B: Mm - hmm.
PhD E: right?
Professor B: It might be.
PhD E: Could increase the variance to decrease the importance.
Professor B: Mm - hmm.
PhD C: Mm - hmm.
PhD E: Yeah, because if you had a huge variance, you're dividing by a large number, {comment} you get a very small contribution.
Grad A: Doesn't matter {disfmarker}
PhD C: Yeah, it becomes more flat
Grad A: Right.
PhD C: and {disfmarker}
Professor B: Yeah.
PhD C: Yeah.
PhD E: Yeah.
Grad A: Yeah, the sharper the variance, the more {disfmarker} more important to get that one right.
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: Mm - hmm.
PhD E: Yeah, you know actually, this reminds me of something that happened uh when I was at BBN. We were playing with putting um pitch into the Mandarin recognizer.
Professor B: Mm - hmm.
PhD E: And this particular pitch algorithm um when it didn't think there was any voicing, was spitting out zeros. So we were getting {disfmarker} uh when we did clustering, we were getting groups uh of features
Professor B: p Pretty new outliers, interesting outliers, right?
PhD E: yeah, with {disfmarker} with a mean of zero and basically zero variance.
Professor B: Variance.
PhD E: So, when ener {comment} when anytime any one of those vectors came in that had a zero in it, we got a great score. I mean it was just, {nonvocalsound} you know, incredibly {nonvocalsound} high score, and so that was throwing everything off.
PhD C: Mm - hmm.
PhD E: So {vocalsound} if you have very small variance you get really good scores when you get something that matches.
Professor B: Yeah.
PhD C: Mm - hmm.
PhD E: So. {vocalsound} So that's a way, yeah, yeah {disfmarker} That's a way to increase the {disfmarker} yeah, n That's interesting. So in fact, that would be {disfmarker} That doesn't require any retraining.
Professor B: Yeah. No. No.
PhD C: No, that's right. So it's
PhD E: So that means it's just
Professor B: Yeah.
PhD C: just tuning the models and testing, actually.
PhD E: recognitions.
Professor B: Yeah.
PhD E: Yeah.
PhD C: It would be quick.
PhD E: You {disfmarker} you have a step where you you modify the models, make a d copy of your models with whatever variance modifications you make, and rerun recognition.
Professor B: Yeah.
PhD C: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
PhD E: And then do a whole bunch of those.
Professor B: Yeah.
PhD C: Mm - hmm.
PhD E: That could be set up fairly easily I think, and you have a whole bunch of you know {disfmarker}
Professor B: Chuck is getting himself in trouble.
PhD E: That's an interesting idea, actually. For testing the {disfmarker} Yeah. Huh!
Grad A: Didn't you say you got these uh HTK's set up on the new Linux boxes?
PhD E: That's right.
Grad A: Yeah.
Professor B: Hey!
PhD E: In fact, and {disfmarker} and they're just t right now they're installing uh {disfmarker} increasing the memory on that uh {disfmarker} the Linux box.
Professor B: And Chuck is sort of really fishing for how to keep his computer busy,
Grad A: Right.
Professor B: right?
PhD E: Yeah. Absinthe.
Professor B: Well, you know, that's {disfmarker}
PhD E: Absinthe. We've got five processors on that.
Grad A: Oh yeah.
Professor B: that's {disfmarker} yeah, that's a good thing
Grad A: That's right.
Professor B: because then y you just write the" do" - loops and then you pretend that you are working while you are sort of {disfmarker} you c you can go fishing.
PhD E: And two gigs of memory.
PhD C: Yeah.
PhD E: Yeah.
Grad A: Pretend, yeah.
PhD E: Exactly. Yeah.
PhD D: Go fishing.
PhD E: See how many cycles we used?
Professor B: Yeah. Then you are sort of in this mode like all of those ARPA people are, right?
PhD E: Yeah.
Professor B: Uh, since it is on the record, I can't say uh which company it was, but it was reported to me that uh somebody visited a company and during a {disfmarker} d during a discussion, there was this guy who was always hitting the carriage returns uh on a computer.
PhD E: Uh - huh.
Professor B: So after two hours uh the visitor said" wh why are you hitting this carriage return?" And he said" well you know, we are being paid by a computer ty I mean we are {disfmarker} we have a government contract. And they pay us by {disfmarker} by amount of computer time we use." It was in old days when there were uh {disfmarker} of PDP - eights and that sort of thing.
PhD E: Oh, my gosh! So he had to make it look like {disfmarker}
Professor B: Because so they had a {disfmarker} they literally had to c monitor at the time {disfmarker} at the time on a computer how much time is being spent I {disfmarker} i i or on {disfmarker} on this particular project.
PhD E: Yeah. How {disfmarker} Idle time.
Grad A: Yeah.
PhD E: Yeah.
Professor B: Nobody was looking even at what was coming out.
PhD E: Have you ever seen those little um {disfmarker} It's {disfmarker} it's this thing that's the shape of a bird and it has a red ball and its beak dips into the water?
Professor B: Yeah, I know, right.
PhD E: So {vocalsound} if you could hook that up so it hit the keyboard {disfmarker}
Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
PhD E: That's an interesting experiment.
Professor B: It would be similar {disfmarker} similar to {disfmarker} I knew some people who were uh that was in old Communist uh Czechoslovakia, right? so we were watching for American airplanes, coming to spy on {disfmarker} on uh {disfmarker} on us at the time,
PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
Professor B: so there were three guys uh uh stationed in the middle of the woods on one l lonely uh watching tower, pretty much spending a year and a half there because there was this service right? And so they {disfmarker} very quickly they made friends with local girls and local people in the village
PhD E: Ugh!
Professor B: and {disfmarker}
PhD E: Yeah.
Professor B: and so but they {disfmarker} there was one plane flying over s always uh uh above, and so that was the only work which they had. They {disfmarker} like four in the afternoon they had to report there was a plane from Prague to Brno Basically f flying there,
PhD E: Yeah.
Professor B: so they f very q f first thing was that they would always run back and {disfmarker} and at four o'clock and {disfmarker} and quickly make a call," this plane is uh uh passing" then a second thing was that they {disfmarker} they took the line from this u u post to uh uh a local pub. And they were calling from the pub. And they {disfmarker} but third thing which they made, and when they screwed up, they {disfmarker} finally they had to p the {disfmarker} the p the pub owner to make these phone calls because they didn't even bother to be there anymore. And one day there was {disfmarker} there was no plane. At least they were sort of smart enough that they looked if the plane is flying there, right? And the pub owner says" oh my {disfmarker} four o'clock, OK, quickly p pick up the phone, call that there's a plane flying." PhD E: Yeah.
Professor B: There was no plane for some reason,
PhD E: And there wasn't?
Professor B: it was downed, or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} and {disfmarker} so they got in trouble. But. {vocalsound} But uh.
PhD E: Huh! Well that's {disfmarker} that's a really i
Professor B: So. So. Yeah.
PhD E: That wouldn't be too difficult to try.
Professor B: Yeah.
PhD E: Maybe I could set that up.
Professor B: Yeah.
PhD E: And we'll just {disfmarker}
Professor B: Well, at least go test the s test the uh assumption about C - C - one I mean to begin with. But then of course one can then think about some predictable result to change all of them.
PhD C: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: It's just like we used to do these uh {disfmarker} these uh {disfmarker} um the {disfmarker} the uh distance measures. It might be that uh {disfmarker}
PhD E: Yeah, so the first set of uh variance weighting vectors would be just you know one {disfmarker} modifying one and leaving the others the same.
Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
PhD C: Yeah. Maybe.
PhD E: And {disfmarker} and do that for each one.
Professor B: Because you see, I mean, what is happening here in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in a {disfmarker} in such a model is that it's {disfmarker} tells you yeah what has a low variance uh is uh {disfmarker} is uh {disfmarker} is more reliable,
PhD E: That would be one set of experiment {disfmarker}
Professor B: right? How do we {disfmarker}
PhD E: Wh - yeah, when the data matches that, then you get really {disfmarker}
Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
PhD E: Yeah. Right.
Professor B: How do we know, especially when it comes to noise?
PhD E: But there could just naturally be low variance.
Professor B: Yeah?
PhD E: Because I {disfmarker} Like, I've noticed in the higher cepstral coefficients, the numbers seem to get smaller, right? So d
PhD C: They {disfmarker} t
PhD E: I mean, just naturally.
PhD C: Yeah.
Professor B: Yeah, th that's {disfmarker}
PhD C: They have smaller means, also. Uh.
PhD E: Yeah. Exactly. And so it seems like they're already sort of compressed.
PhD C: Uh - huh.
PhD E: The range {pause} of values.
Professor B: Yeah that's why uh people used these lifters were inverse variance weighting lifters basically that makes uh uh Euclidean distance more like uh Mahalanobis distance with a diagonal covariance when you knew what all the variances were over the old data.
PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm. Hmm.
Professor B: What they would do is that they would weight each coefficient by inverse of the variance. Turns out that uh the variance decreases at least at fast, I believe, as the index of the cepstral coefficients. I think you can show that uh uh analytically.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: So typically what happens is that you {disfmarker} you need to weight the {disfmarker} uh weight the higher coefficients more than uh the lower coefficients.
PhD E: Hmm. Mm - hmm. Hmm.
Professor B: So.
PhD C: Mmm.
PhD E:
Professor B: When {disfmarker} Yeah. When we talked about Aurora still I wanted to m make a plea {disfmarker} uh encourage for uh more communication between {disfmarker} between uh {pause} uh different uh parts of the distributed uh {pause} uh center. Uh even when there is absolutely nothing to {disfmarker} to s to say but the weather is good in Ore - in {disfmarker} in Berkeley. I'm sure that it's being appreciated in Oregon and maybe it will generate similar responses down here, like, uh {disfmarker}
PhD C: We can set up a webcam maybe.
Professor B: Yeah.
Grad A: Yeah.
Professor B: What {disfmarker} you know, nowadays, yeah. It's actually do - able, almost.
PhD E: Is the um {disfmarker} if we mail to" Aurora - inhouse" , does that go up to you guys also?
Professor B: I don't think so. No.
PhD C: No.
PhD E: OK.
Professor B: So we should do that.
PhD E: So i What is it {disfmarker}
Grad A: Yeah.
Professor B: We should definitely set up {disfmarker}
PhD E: Yeah we sh Do we have a mailing list that includes uh the OGI people?
Professor B: Yeah.
PhD C: Uh no. We don't have.
Professor B: Uh - huh.
PhD E: Oh! Maybe we should set that up. That would make it much easier.
Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that would make it easier.
PhD E: So maybe just call it" Aurora" or something that would {disfmarker}
Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. And then we also can send the {disfmarker} the dis to the same address right, and it goes to everybody
PhD E: Mm - hmm. Mm - hmm.
PhD C: Yeah.
PhD E: OK. Maybe we can set that up.
Professor B: Because what's happening naturally in research, I know, is that people essentially start working on something and they don't want to be much bothered, right? but what the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} then the danger is in a group like this, is that two people are working on the same thing and i c of course both of them come with the s very good solution, but it could have been done somehow in half of the effort or something.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: Oh, there's another thing which I wanted to uh uh report. Lucash, I think, uh wrote the software for this Aurora - two system. reasonably uh good one, because he's doing it for Intel, but I trust that we have uh rights to uh use it uh or distribute it and everything. Cuz Intel's intentions originally was to distribute it free of charge anyways.
PhD E: Hmm!
Professor B: u s And so {disfmarker} so uh we {disfmarker} we will make sure that at least you can see the software and if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if {disfmarker} if it is of any use. Just uh {disfmarker}
PhD C: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: It might be a reasonable point for p perhaps uh start converging.
PhD C: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: Because Morgan's point is that {disfmarker} He is an experienced guy. He says" well you know it's very difficult to collaborate if you are working with supposedly the same thing, in quotes, except which is not s is not the same.
PhD E: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: Which {disfmarker} which uh uh one is using that set of hurdles, another one set {disfmarker} is using another set of hurdles. So. And {disfmarker} And then it's difficult to c compare.
PhD C: What about Harry? Uh. We received a mail last week and you are starting to {disfmarker} to do some experiments.
Professor B: He got the {disfmarker} he got the software. Yeah. They sent the release.
PhD C: And use this Intel version.
Professor B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
PhD C: Hmm.
Professor B: Yeah because Intel paid us uh should I say on a microphone? uh some amount of money, not much. Not much I can say on a microphone. Much less then we should have gotten {vocalsound} for this amount of work. And they wanted uh to {disfmarker} to have software so that they can also play with it, which means that it has to be in a certain environment {disfmarker}
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: they use actu actually some Intel libraries, but in the process, Lucash just rewrote the whole thing because he figured rather than trying to f make sense uh of uh {disfmarker} including ICSI software uh not for training on the nets
PhD E: Hmm.
Grad A: Oh.
Professor B: but I think he rewrote the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} the {disfmarker} or so maybe somehow reused over the parts of the thing so that {disfmarker} so that {disfmarker} the whole thing, including MLP, trained MLP is one piece of uh software.
PhD E: Mm - hmm. Wow!
Professor B: Is it useful?
Grad A: Ye - Yeah.
Professor B: Yeah?
Grad A: I mean, I remember when we were trying to put together all the ICSI software for the submission.
Professor B: Or {disfmarker} That's what he was saying, right. He said that it was like {disfmarker} it was like just so many libraries and nobody knew what was used when, and {disfmarker} and so that's where he started and that's where he realized that it needs to be {disfmarker} needs to be uh uh at least cleaned up,
Grad A: Yeah.
PhD C: Mm - hmm.
Professor B: and so I think it {disfmarker} this is available.
Grad A: Hmm.
Professor B: So {disfmarker}
PhD C: Yeah. Well, the {disfmarker} the only thing I would check is if he {disfmarker} does he use Intel math libraries,
Professor B: uh e ev
PhD C: because if it's the case, it's maybe not so easy to use it on another architecture.
Professor B: n not maybe {disfmarker} Maybe not in a first {disfmarker} maybe not in a first ap approximation because I think he started first just with a plain C {disfmarker} C or C - plus - plus or something before {disfmarker}
PhD C: Ah yeah. Mm - hmm.
Professor B: I {disfmarker} I can check on that. Yeah.
PhD C: Yeah.
PhD E: Hmm.
Professor B: And uh in {disfmarker} otherwise the Intel libraries, I think they are available free of f freely. But they may be running only on {disfmarker} on uh {disfmarker} on uh Windows.
PhD C: Yeah.
Professor B: Or on {disfmarker} on the {disfmarker}
PhD C: On Intel architecture maybe.
Professor B: Yeah, on Intel architecture, may not run in SUN.
PhD C: I'm {disfmarker} Yeah.
Professor B: Yeah.
PhD C: Yeah.
Professor B: That is p that is {disfmarker} that is possible. That's why Intel of course is distributing it,
PhD C: Well.
Professor B: right? Or {disfmarker} {vocalsound} That's {disfmarker}
PhD C: Yeah. Well there are {disfmarker} at least there are optimized version for their architecture.
Professor B: Yeah.
PhD C: I don't know. I never checked carefully these sorts of {disfmarker}
Professor B: I know there was some issues that initially of course we d do all the development on Linux but we use {disfmarker} we don't have {disfmarker} we have only three uh uh uh uh s SUNs and we have them only because they have a SPERT board in. Otherwise {disfmarker} otherwise we t almost exclusively are working with uh PC's now, with Intel. In that way Intel succeeded with us, because they gave us too many good machines for very little money or nothing.
PhD E: Yeah.
Professor B: So. So. So we run everything on Intel.
PhD E: Wow!
Professor B: And {disfmarker}
PhD E: Hmm. Does anybody have anything else? to {disfmarker} Shall we read some digits?
PhD C: Yeah.
Professor B: Yes. I have to take my glasses {disfmarker}
PhD E: So. Hynek, I don't know if you've ever done this.
Professor B: No.
PhD E: The way that it works is each person goes around in turn, {comment} and uh you say the transcript number and then you read the digits, the {disfmarker} the strings of numbers as individual digits.
Professor B: Mm - hmm.
PhD E: So you don't say" eight hundred and fifty" , you say" eight five oh" , and so forth.
Professor B: OK. OK. So can {disfmarker} maybe {disfmarker} can I t maybe start then?
PhD E: Um. Sure. | The professor told the group a story about soldiers assigned to watch out for spy planes. The plane showed up at four each day and the soldiers called it in. Once the pattern was clear, they stopped looking for it and spent time with the locals instead. One day, the plane did not come but the soldiers still reported it, so they got into trouble. The professor used the story to make a point about making an assumption and then seeing if it holds after changing something small. | qmsum |