Industrial Designer: Okay . So do I unplug this bit here ?
Project Manager: Oh , right yeah .
Marketing: Gotta plug you in .
Project Manager: Yep . Might have to hit function F_ eight but it looks like it's gonna come up . Yep . Cool .
Industrial Designer: Okay . Right . That's page one of my presentation .
Project Manager: Brilliant .
Marketing: Very nice . For your first PowerPoint it's lovely .
Industrial Designer: So the uh method . We're gonna have to understand how remote controls work and res uh successfully complete this project . Um remote control works as follows . This is all pretty basic stuff you guys . Um sends message to another system , so there's an energy source involved in that like a battery or solar power , something along those lines , there's an integrated circuit , which is the microchip , um and that actually compose the messages and usually the way a a remote control works is it sends infrared bits to another system . A user interface controls the chip , basically that's the casing and the buttons and um accordingly the messages as well . So my findings , um I just did a preliminary study here and uh I found that too much metal in remote design could potentially cause interference with the ability of the remote to send commands . And too much metal can cause remotes to behave unexpectedly by receiving false signals . Um too much metal is used sometimes and people pick up radio signals and the like , and there's also the possibility of the remote catching on fire and injuring the customer , just think of those lawsuits , that'd be really bad .
Marketing: Project Manager: 'Kay .
Industrial Designer: Therefore I suggest primarily plastic construction . Um , components . Just some ideas that I had , um , energy source , it's kinda hip to be eco friendly so I thought maybe we could do something with solar power with an alkaline battery backup . Um the user interface , I was since we can't use metal I was thinking maybe a high grade recycled plastic .
Project Manager: Mm .
Industrial Designer: The chip , um , silicon based chip I don't really see any way around that , we can't really be different in that respect . Um , the sender well I'm thinking infrared 'cause it is the industry standard , multi channel , that's a word I made up , I don't really know what it means .
Project Manager: 'Kay . Fair enough .
Marketing: Industrial Designer: Uh PAL and N_T_S_C_ compatible and uh probably a two hundred foot range .
Project Manager: 'Kay .
Industrial Designer: Uh and the receiver of course is any number of electronic devices . Um but in this case it'll only be T_V_s . Um personal preferences , I really think that we should use plastic as opposed to metal , um , the company simply can't afford this kinds of lawsuits
Marketing: Fine .
Industrial Designer: which adm admittedly is gonna come at the cost of a certain aesthetic value ,
Project Manager: Is is there a way that we can use um modern types of polymers , or mo modern types of plastics
Industrial Designer: 'cause we were thinking Project Manager: that maybe do have some kind of aesthetic value um like if a white like if we talk about like well like on the lapt on these laptops and other ones they use a a pretty nice ,
Industrial Designer: Right .
Marketing: It needs , yeah .
Project Manager: you can do i is there some kind of nice colo der quality plastic that we can work with ?
Industrial Designer: Yeah that shouldn't be a problem . Um for example the plastic they have on your laptop there is something that's perfectly possible for us to do .
Project Manager: Okay , okay .
Industrial Designer: That's the end of my presentation .
Marketing: Cool .
Project Manager: Great . Thank you very much Nathan . Um if next we can have the um User Interface Developer go ahead and make a brief presentation that'd be great as well .
User Interface: Project Manager: S plug yourself in here . Mm . Um hit function F_ eight real quickly , hold down Mm .
Industrial Designer: Marketing: Looks like you're in okay .
Industrial Designer: Is it plugged in well ? There it goes . Computer adjusting .
User Interface: Th
Project Manager: There you go . Sweet .
Marketing: There you go .
User Interface: Well so . Here we have a uh my technical functions design presentation . Um so a few of the requirements we need here . Uh we n basically need to operate an electronic device , it needs to be universal um and possibly uh operate several different types of devices although we now uh find that uh that that's no problem .
Project Manager: Yeah sorry I couldn't get that g to use before .
User Interface: Um so some of my findings . Um basically wanna send messages uh to a television set . Um that would be any number of different things uh such as switch on the television , uh switch to the next channel , that sort of thing , I think we're all quite uh quite uh intelligent and know know what a normal remote control does . Um now some of the other things I found is a a complicated remote control sorry that we can't quite see my red there very well
Project Manager: Oh yeah look at that .
Industrial Designer: Mm . User Interface: but uh this remote control has many functions um so it can do a lot of things but it uh it is quite complicated
Project Manager: Mm-hmm .
User Interface: and most users will find it uh find that they won't use most of the functions because they don't know how to use them and don't wanna take the time to learn how to do it . As you also notice it's quite a boring design . Um . Another remote control , slightly different , it's a simpler remote control uh many less buttons but uh has many fewer functions , um m much easier for the user to manipulate and use . Um it also has a bit of a cheap look and it's also quite boring . So
Project Manager: Nice .
Industrial Designer: User Interface: my personal preferences .
Marketing: User Interface: Revolutionise the idea of uh a remote control . Um so attain the functionality of a complicated device but use a simple formatted display uh for the user to to work with . And I was gonna add another uh slide here but I didn't quite have time there .
Project Manager: Okay .
User Interface: Um . Just incorporating some of the ideas that we had previously like uh having multiple face but it's uh .
Project Manager: Great . Thanks for that Ron .
Marketing: Right .
Project Manager: 'Kay
Marketing: Does that mean I'm up ?
Project Manager: yep that's you .
Marketing: I think so . Okay .
User Interface: I can plug you in .
Marketing: Oh that would be perfect . Thank you . Slide show up and running .
Project Manager: Give it a little bit .
Marketing: Or not . Uh . Oh there we go . Perfect . Okay . So this is me . Um basically I was looking through some marketing reports that we've got and we had a usability test where we were actually sort like watching a hundred people use T_V_ remotes and see what it is that they're using and then they filled out a questionnaire about what they like and what they don't about their general T_V_ remote control practices . Um pretty much through testing we were finding out that most of the time , everybody's used to using changing the channel , turning it on , using the volume , m the majority of the time that's all that's going on , the other functions happen , for some people they're important , but the primary uses are really really basic . Um and so big complicated remotes like one we saw in the last presentation are really not the general public's use , they're not using a lot of it , they don't need it , they even find it frustrating when there are all those buttons that they don't know what to do with . And um we also found out that uh fifty percent of our people , their the worst thing about a remote is how often they lose it . And then they can't find it in the room . So I think what we were talking about with a pager or something , will really come into play with a lot of these people . Um there's also a survey about what they liked about remotes ,
Industrial Designer: Marketing: and pretty much they all think they're hideous and not very useful , and the younger demographics are all really interested in voice recognition options . I don't know if that's something we're ready to look into technically , that's up to the design people , but it is s something worth thinking about , especially since the younger demographic's obviously the one that's gonna keep growing , so if that's the direction we're headed in it's something to think about . Um but basically it really is the primary functions and getting it to look nice , which are the standards . So it's a good start for us .
Project Manager: That's great . Thank you Sarah . Right . So um
Marketing: Need to unplug this ?
Project Manager: yep I'll just uh switch that back here .
Marketing: Need it back .
Project Manager: I'll finish up with just a bit of discussion plan on for the next phase .
Marketing: There you go .
Project Manager: Right so I think we've covered most of these important questions through this um through you guys's presentations um we've got uh y the Industrial Designer suggests uh or pretty much emphatically suggested that we need to go with plastic . Um Sarah , she's recommended that we go for simpler functions , so fewer functions um but we need to decide who are we selling this to , you s your stats suggested that seventy five percent of people under thirty five wanted , thought about voice control ,
Marketing: Oh right .
Project Manager: um so do we wanna go for that , or do we want to go for an older demographic , and my thought is um we've got w if we're gonna go for a sleek look I mean we are putting the fashion in electronics um . Marketing: We're not catering to the pensioners of the world I don't think so .
User Interface: Project Manager: Yes . So maybe this we should look into this younger demographic . Um . So
Marketing: Right .

Summary: Except for the Project Manager, the other three members of the group all did a presentation to show their research findings on the television remote. The Industrial Designer suggested not to use too much metal in case they would disturb the signals. After him, the User Interface focused on the functions that he proposed neither to make the remote too confusing nor cheap-looking. The last one is the Marketing and she introduced the consumer preference as well as the existing problem of easily losing the remote.