User Interface: Okay , this is a 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 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 looked at a num 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 . 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 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 what is most likely to get used . Um With uh 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 if you if you are wanting to incorporate uh control of a D_V_ D_V_D_ or uh 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 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 want it to do most . So , something that's uh 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 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 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 going to do or wha or what each function button's going to do . Um , this is actually 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 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: 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 , alright . Click to save in 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: Um , what I've done with it , I'm sorry . Shit . Um  Project Manager: Are you finding it okay or ?
Industrial Designer: I'm just closing it now . where I've saved it .
Marketing: Well like if you go to one , uh whichever one you were working Industrial Designer: that's it there ,
Marketing: yeah ,
Industrial Designer: yeah .
Marketing: and you just click file save as .
Industrial Designer: Oh right . 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 , , 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 , so uh we need to I dunno exactly what 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 . Uh , and the next slide . Oh , yeah Um , if you go to the next slide then .
Project Manager: Oh . Yeah .
Marketing: Industrial Designer: I just used the it was a mess , uh I was just putting adding it together at the end there . Uh Project Manager: Ah , don't worry about it at all mate . 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 is it Industrial Designer: No , it's finished , yeah .
Project Manager: yeah ? Okay . Right . Um , 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 um voice activated control . However I've got a couple of worries about that . 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 . 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 Industrial Designer: L_C_D_ on the remote just telling you what's on , or uh , interactive L_C_D_ or Project Manager: Well literally um if you can imagine the display maybe slightly larger than um those on a 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 User Interface: Mm . I I was thinking that the remote the um sort of default functions for the joystick would be up and down for uh volume , left and right for channels .
Project Manager: We 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 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: 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 . 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 Marketing: Sure but the idea of a remote with a menu or 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 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: 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 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 . 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 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 but then o uh obviously if uh you know if you i if you wanted to access further functions i 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 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 Project Manager: Mm-hmm .
User Interface: integrating the uh the remote with the device it's controlling . Um concern about our market . Um , if we are I mean most of the uh of the replacement remote market is sort of remote control rationalisation . Um , you've got twenty different devices in your living room ,
Marketing: Yeah . Mm-hmm .
User Interface: you want one wo 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 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 User Interface: Does that um would that include um access to say interactive functions on digital or cable ?
Marketing: 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 I would say that the design spec we've been 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 Marketing: So the joystick is just for differentness .
User Interface: Mm .
Project Manager: It would be ease of manipulation of certain functions , yes . Um Marketing: Okay .
User Interface: Just a thought . 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 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 . 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 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 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 . Project Manager: well I was going to say clapping , um Um digital telephones , uh for example , one unit has 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 . 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 power that might be something that we could look into .
Industrial Designer: Yeah 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: I think so , yeah .
Industrial Designer: