Okay , so Right well  from the last meeting I was trying to send you the minutes , but  it didn't work out too well , so maybe in sort of  quick summary of the last  meeting , I can quickly give you what we what we had . user interface: project manager:  right , so Wishing I hadn't closed the damn Right so we had the fact that we're gonna have the the logo  the company logo in its  colour scheme incorporated onto the the device the remote device . We had  made our decisions about  made our decisions about  the device itself , that it was gonna be simple to make it  enable us to complete the project in time . We're gonna have  effectively two pages , a front page which had the  features that the  the customers most wanted , and then the  the backup features on the second page so that it could  meet the technical requirements . So basically what decisions  have we  made ?  have there been any  changes ? industrial designer: I think we all have a presentation again , project manager: Right . For the components design ,  next step is basically the the way the remote's gonna work is still the same idea as before . There's a kinetic option , which if any of you've seen those new watches which you kind of you power up by waving around ,  it just requires a small amount of movement which would mean the batteries wouldn't have to be replaced . For the buttons , we have  an integrated push button , which is Oh just to say all all these are  supplied by Real Reaction . So I guess for the ease of for quickness and ease we should take them from at least like one of these options . industrial designer:  so for the buttons there's an integrated push button , which I guess is just the same as the standard ones . This says it's  similar to  the button on the mouse for a normal for like  like modern computer .  there's a scroll wheel which is you know the new mouse has just got like the centre section which you can scroll up and down , which may be for the volume . industrial designer:  one issue for the buttons is , depending on which material we use , if we use rubber buttons then it requires a rubber case , so we have to take that into consideration .  moving on to the printed s project manager: What would be the cost do do we know ? industrial designer:  that's on the next project manager: industrial designer: I th I think the there wasn't too much difference in the cost , that that related to the actual buttons , but it does affect the printed circuit board . Basically for the circuit board which is the middle , it's just see it down there the chips like the like the workings of the actual  of the remote . So if we've got the scroll wheel for one of the buttons , that would require a slightly more advanced circuit board than if we just had a standard  push button . There's a small unit available through the company  which obviously would be an extra cost , but it wouldn't affect the size of the remote too much .  and I guess that would require a more advanced circuit board , so there is an extra price in that sense .  going to my personal preferences ,  I thought possibly for power we could use kinetic  which is the idea of the watches  that you move you move the remote around to power it up .  for the buttons , I thought we'd probably get away with just having the standard  push buttons rather than the scroll wheel . So if we wanted the scroll wheel and wanted the voice recognition ,  then we'd have to get a a more costly circuit board . industrial designer:  i it kind of depends  if we're gonna have the speech recognition , we'd have to probably get an advanced one . industrial designer:  but I don't know , so that is something I'll have to look into . project manager: So are we able to make that decision now in a sense that this is the point at which we're discussing that issue , industrial designer: Yeah yeah . project manager: so would it not be best to rather than  one way is to do each of the presentations and then make decisions going back to the various presentations as they were . Maybe w user interface: Yeah , that's probably a better one , to discuss it straight away . project manager: 'Cause at that point then you've got the details up there , so if we wanted to know for instance that the scroll wheel required the regular and what required advance . Then if we were able to see that down then we could make the decision at that point in time industrial designer:  . project manager: industrial designer: As I say it only specified that we need a more advanced circuit board for the scroll wheel , project manager: project manager: No the scroll wheel required the regular , so the industrial designer: Yeah if if you down  . industrial designer: but the scroll wheel requires a mini m minimally a regular chip , project manager: industrial designer: which is in the higher price range . The display requires an advanced chip user interface: I think the scroll wheel  project manager: the display requires an advanced chip which in turn is more expense . industrial designer: And note that the push button just requires a simple chip , so that would keep the price down . user interface: Yeah , and if we're going for sleek and sexy , I think a scroll wheel is maybe a bit kinda bulky ? marketing: user interface: I I've got  pictures well I've seen pictures with it kind of sticking off the side of it , project manager: Right . So is  marketing: So are we going for the w are we going for the simple one , are we ? user interface: Yeah , a simple pushbuttons . industrial designer: Did everyone get this on the speech recognition ? The  it was basically what we said before , the idea that you record in a set message , and then it picks up that message  and replies to you . Maybe we should go on what we're certain of rather than project manager: So if we go for the simple push button , so effectively we're going for the simple printed circuit board are we ? Or are we going for the regular ? industrial designer:  if it's just the push button then it just needs the simple circuit board . But is there any other  okay , that's true for the for for that element , but we have to take all el elements into consideration . And so if there is one element that requires the more expensive one , or say the regular one , or the more advanced , then that would have to be the same for all of them . But marketing: I suppose we need we need to find out what circuit board that requires , maybe before we m make a decision . user interface: But the way that I interpret that  it doesn't seem to send out a signal to the telly , it just it's like a parrot just rep reply replying to your message . industrial designer: Okay , so we'd have a simple circuit board project manager: industrial designer: and that would be an extra that would be in addition to it . user interface: And I don't think you could really perform any of the remote functions with it . user interface: 'Cause the example that they've given there is good morning coffee machine , good morning Jo . project manager: user interface: But I think that's maybe as far as that one could go ? project manager: Okay . industrial designer: Yeah that makes sense , so we'd stick with the simple circuit board and then think of the speech recognition as an extra an extra possibility . user interface: And it says that project manager: You were you were wanting to go for the kinetic power supply . industrial designer:  yeah I I thought so just for just for ease of not having to replace the batteries . project manager: And how does it get  charged up ? industrial designer: It's  I think it works on the basis they have some kind of ball bearings inside . It's  it's some on watches which you you kind of you shake to power it up . industrial designer: So you'd you'd move the remote around a little bit and then that powers it up to use it . project manager: So the speech recognition was Are we going for speech recognition ? No ? 'Cause that required the advanced user interface:  I think it would be helpful to find it , but I don't think it'd  marketing: Just industrial designer:  yeah I think did we decide it didn't affect the circuit board , it just affected user interface: Yeah , I think so . industrial designer: It was just project manager: I had speech recognition requires advanced req require industrial designer: Oh no th that's what that's what I thought , but maybe maybe it doesn't . marketing: 'Cause it's s it's separate isn't it , project manager: Speech recognition you reckon then is s simple . marketing: it's not part of the industrial designer: It's it's just an addition thing it's  yeah . project manager: And so we would want it in as an extra because it doesn't appear to cost too much . industrial designer: 'Kay shall I pass on to you now ? user interface: I think project manager: In fact , it wouldn't really cost anymore , would it ? user interface: I'll just just check what it said . Actually I don't think it really says anything about the cost , but it says that it's already in the coffee machines , so like it's already kind of marketing: Yeah . industrial designer: I assume it would cost extra , but Maybe we maybe we'll find out how much that does cost and have to decide slightly later . From looking at the remotes that are out there at the minute , none of them are particularly  sleek and sexy .  I haven't actually got the examples of the scroll button there ,  but there's some curved cases that you can see ,  a range of sizes  . Does that move it ? project manager: Sorry ? user interface: It just seems to be skipping on without us doing anything .  some of the  remotes that I looked at , one of the models da did actually have voice recognition where you could  where it was connected to the remote control functions . And  it was quite  a swish model , where it can control  four devices , T_V_ , cable , satellite , video , D_V_D_ , audio . So  maybe it's better not to try and compete with that sort of thing and just to market it as a completely different  like different viewpoint as a kind of finding your lost control industrial designer: Yeah , yeah .  the scroll buttons , as you've already mentioned ,  there's examples of those , but they don't look as sleek as other models . And there's no real advantage and because it impacts on other on the materials and the price it's not great . There was children's remote , where  they just had a very limited range of buttons and they were b  bright and colourful and  you you could program them so that they could only look at certain channels . user interface:  but I don't know if that's really in our field ? industrial designer: I guess I guess we're going for the biggest market , maybe not , user interface: But that's something that's out there . industrial designer: but Was it was it specified that we went for the biggest ? project manager: Well we're to go for the international market rather than a local market but that that wouldn't necessarily preclude user interface:  . So you have your basic model which you would sell at whatever , and then you could have additional features in you know like a You'd have model one , model two and model three , and therefore you can sub-divide your market up . project manager: industrial designer: So maybe the children's remote should be like a a next step , but maybe I dunno for ours , maybe we should project manager: Anyway you could add on for an extra package , but on this basic one I'm reckoning that we're going for the basic model to be discussed here and that  you would have for future reference the possibility of adding in extra features at extra cost to take care of specialist market segments . project manager: Is that user interface: Right well that's something that we can be aware of . I think because there's already  very good voice recognition technology out there , and because ours might not cover the same functions that the leading brands do , it might be a good idea to market it as a  finder function . industrial designer: So you also said for going for the international market  that some some maybe older people might not like the speech recognition . user interface: Yeah , 'cause I think you program  this one yourself , like to say like whatever you want to your question . marketing: Yeah and ours is quite a cheap device , so I don't know how much we'll be able to put into it . And you were talking about scroll buttons ? user interface:  yeah I think  I think we've decided that it's gonna increase the cost project manager: Okay . project manager: Alright , so we're just gonna have the the rubber buttons , was that right ? industrial designer: Yes yes . user interface:   and just to be aware that there are kind of specialist functions and specialist remotes but we probably don't want to focus on those like such as the children's remote . So it gave the example of say your volume buttons for up and down , they might both have a V_ on for volume ,  let's think how they did this . project manager: Good in in Flip it round in ninety degree a hundred and eighty degrees and have it up and down . So that would show that volume was going up , whereas the one underneath would see the volume going down . What did they say ?  I think the thing was that if you decide to do this , to have triangular buttons ,  somebody might look at this one and say oh well this triangular button is pointing up , and that's the first thing that they see project manager: Right . user interface: Actually that can't be right , can it ? Oh well , no , they might see yeah , they might see this pointing down and think right that's gonna turn the volume down , project manager: user interface: whereas the actual button's pointing up , so the function is to turn the button up . user interface: So , be careful what you put on the buttons industrial designer: So maybe we could have like user interface: and be careful of the shape that you make them , industrial designer: Yeah . So maybe we could have volume written on the side and then up and down on the on the buttons themselves . project manager: And 'cause the idea was to have limited  it was to have sizable amount of information on it . project manager: 'Cause it was sixteen buttons , wasn't it that were industrial designer: Yeah . user interface:  so what was the decision on the  design of the volume button ? industrial designer:  Are we are we gonna go through the design of all the buttons at the moment , or are we gonna t marketing: I've I've got some things to say about possible design things from trend watching . Right ,  I've been looking at some trends in in sort of basically fashion on top of doing the  research into the remote control market the the one that's the one I talked about last time , that we'd sort of asked people about remote controls and what what was good about them , what was bad , what they used . And we've also been looking at sort of fa sort of fashions and what people are wanting out of consumer goods at the moment . marketing: So user interface: marketing: So just to summarise the most important things which came out of the remote control market investigation . And then third and l less important than the other two , there should be an ease of use as well . And apparently , the fashion trends are that people want sort of clothes and shoes and things with a fruit and vegetables theme . user interface: industrial designer: marketing:  but  the feel of the material should be spongy , industrial designer: marketing: which is contrary to last year , apparently . project manager: user interface: marketing: So we need to emphasise the fancy design with on on our remote control above all else . And then also try and add in technological informat innovation which could be our sort of find the thing with a hand clap . And then we need to ma sort of make it easy to use that's as a third priority , so perhaps  fewer fewer buttons and functions as we've as we've discussed . user interface: marketing: And then maybe find a way to incorporate these trends so that we sort of capture people's imaginations . So maybe we could make the buttons shaped like fruit and veg , or the the buttons could be spongy ,  somehow . And then sort of even wackier than that , we could maybe have a fruit or vegetable shaped remote , say in the shape of a banana or something like that . project manager: marketing: How how far we actually want to go along and sort of follow the trends , do we think the trends are particularly important for this type of gadget , or or you know , do they not matter that much ? user interface: I think if you start making the buttons fruit shaped , it might make it more complicated to use . project manager: Well you were just talking about you've got to be careful how you shape your buttons , 'cause you're can mis-direct people . And I would've thought the functionality 'cause the people get cheesed off by things by having to read instructions et cetera , so . user interface: Maybe just one button , say the standby button is quite kinda separate from all the other functions . user interface: And then that wouldn't get in the way of like kinda one to nine , industrial designer: user interface: and it wouldn't confuse the numbers . No th that that incorporates the trend whilst at the same time not confusing people , if you're looking for functionality . industrial designer: Well I dunno I I guess maybe fruit and vegetables may be popular at the moment , but as we know how fickle the fashion markets are , project manager: But what are they gonna be next Yeah . S project manager: But but th but okay but you you can incorporate the tr If y if you change all the buttons then you've got the problem that this year's fruit and veg , next year's  I was gonna say animals or elephants or w whatever . Yeah , project manager: That means you're constantly changing your production schedule , marketing: I'm not project manager: and you've gotta make different moulds and everything else , marketing: Yeah . marketing: I'm not I'm not sure what what what the sort of timescale we're thinking of selling the product over is . industrial designer:  it just seems realistic that the remote control market isn't the kind of thing which takes in those kinds of fashion trends . project manager: Well user interface: But I suppose as long as it's quite a subtle design , marketing: industrial designer: Maybe still with a rubber design we could project manager: Was that in the sort of fashion sense that this Or was the spongy feel was that  sort of fashion ? It was , wasn't it ? marketing: Yeah . project manager: So the user interface: It seems like you're gonna have rubber cases , as well as buttons . user interface: And that you can make them curved or double-curved and that would be the kind of sleek and sexy look . industrial designer: Oh yeah yeah one of the things were if you had rubber buttons then you had to have a rubber case . industrial designer:  oh no no no user interface: Oh right , that fits , doesn't it ? industrial designer: sorry it's if you use the  rubber double curved case then you must use rubber buttons . user interface: And that would fit in with what we want , wouldn't it , for the spongy feel , to have everything rubber . The m the main problem is how f how frequently do the fashions change ? 'Cause in essence in the production you want things to stay you want to basically mint them out marketing: project manager: 'cause if you've got fashion changes and that you're incorporating , then it means that your stock is  is last year's stock marketing: project manager: and therefore you're selling it or having to sell it at a discounted rate which you wouldn't want to do . Whereas if you kept the product the same but you could have a difference from year to year ,  it seems to me that you could incorporate a fashion statement if you like , rather than changing the whole kit and caboodle . project manager: You're just changing one aspect like like the standby button or something like that , industrial designer: Yeah . project manager: and especially 'cause then you could make it something that industrial designer: I suppose we maybe are limited in the fact that we still have to put the logo on the actual marketing: project manager: Well you two are obviously gonna find that out fairly quickly when you move over to your kit modelling stage as to  how much pl how much how much how pliable is Plasticine . user interface: industrial designer: Maybe we could think of the the cases like changing with the fashions project manager: industrial designer: like the Nokia phones where you could take the casing off the outside . industrial designer: Yeah the a the actual the sort of the look from the outside , so where the buttons would stay the same , and the general function of the remote would stay the same , marketing: user interface: Yeah and then you could have Oh but you still would have to have the logo on every new case , industrial designer: Yeah , that's true . project manager: Yeah you you could do a colour change , so therefore you would yeah yeah  that's effectively what they did with the with the mobile phones , was to have some in blue , some in red , some in rather than all in black industrial designer: Yeah . project manager: or , you know , which four do you want , as long as it's black ? user interface:  . user interface: But we are supposed to use the  company colour scheme , aren't we ? project manager: Yes oh that's true user interface: We haven't really seen that yet industrial designer: Oh okay yes project manager:  that might no marketing: Yeah . industrial designer: that is user interface: It might and we might be able to do both but it might clash with certain things . project manager: Well not necessarily , because you could have your company  We're we're meant to be finishing up .  a lot of  computers for instance like like on the one you've got there , it actually has a sort of  stick on badge marketing: project manager: so what you would al all you would really need , whether it , you know , whether the casing be w any colour , could be any colour , but that badge would then have to stick out on top of it so that  in a sense , with a with a logo like that , because it's on a white background , the only colour that it might not stick out so well on would be a white casing . project manager: And in fact a lot of companies get somebody else to make them and literally just badge them themselves with their own  badge over the top . project manager: And in fact the way they've got that there even if you had that on a white , which is the predominant colour of the  the Windows badge , you'd still be able to see it clearly from you know a white casing  product . industrial designer: And whether we'd have a big enough market to have this kind of like secondary market of selling the cases might be something to consider . project manager: user interface: Well if it's for young people ,  like the phone generation , that sort of thing'd probably go down well , marketing: user interface: and the market research has been on that side of things , hasn't it ? marketing: Yeah ,  it's people say that it's the look , they want the fancy looking thing but I'm Yeah . I think with the mobiles , it's the , you know it's a communication device , people see you with it all about and industrial designer: Yeah I suppose , user interface: industrial designer: where you you keep the remote hidden under the sofa most of the time . marketing: i if it project manager: It's  in in the house , isn't it , I suppose . user interface: Okay , so if we just went for one colour of a rubber case marketing: I think project manager: So don't change case . user interface: Did we decide on the rubber case ? The spongy feel , or did we think that that might go as a trend ? marketing: Well , it was different last year . I don't know whether it's one of those things that like sort of having all fruit shaped keys , that that probably would go out of fashion very quickly , project manager: Yeah . marketing: whereas just the fact that it was a rubber case is probably less less of something that y you're gonna end up hating in a year , you know . If you're going for fashion trends like that they'll need t you'd have to have interchangeable cases industrial designer: So then th th that would project manager: so that you could industrial designer: Yeah . project manager: or 'cause otherwise someone's gonna have to buy a complete new remote rather than just a case . industrial designer: it seems to make sense that we we'd just maybe stick with the standard rubber case , marketing:  . There's flat , marketing: user interface: there's single-curved and there's double-curved . industrial designer: Maybe curves give it like the slightly more aesthetic feel ? But the double curve wouldn't require us to perform miracles with the Plasticine . user interface: marketing: project manager: user interface: Well it says that marketing: When you say d when you say double-curved , what what exactly does that mean ? user interface: I'm not exactly sure . See how  the one Oh I'm not plugged in , am I ? marketing: No you're not connected to me anymore . project manager: One one thing to cons user interface: Shall I just turn it round for time ? project manager: one thing to consider is that in some ways you want  by having a fairly standard case it means they can all fit together on top of each other marketing: That should come up . project manager: therefore for storage purposes in shops and the like and it makes it easier that you can if you can store them up on top of each other . project manager: Whereas if you do  fancy things with it , you then gotta put it in a ca a a packaging box that that does that . And the cost of packaging could be quite important vis-a-vis the total cost of the product . industrial designer: So shall we go through quickly and just work out what we've decide on , if we have to kind of project manager: So but marketing: Yeah . user interface: but you can see some of them have got kind of bulges , like the second one and the end one  where there's a curve there . user interface: I'm not exactl I don't know if a double curve is maybe it comes up slightly , or ? marketing: That's what I was trying to work out . S so do you wanna go for curves , more curves ? marketing: Shall we industrial designer: project manager: We're meant to be f we're meant to be finishing this meeting in about a minute or so . user interface: Shall we go for single curve , just to compromise ? industrial designer: We'll go for single curve , yeah . industrial designer: So did we did we decide on the kinetic power supply ? The one you move around ? user interface: Yeah . user interface:  and we don't really know much about the colour scheme or logo yet do we , industrial designer: Oh we ca user interface: but possibly a sticker . industrial designer: Yeah yeah , we'll still have the Are we gonna go for the simple circuit board just to keep the cost down ? I th I think we can by by not having anything too complicated . Yeah and and the voice recognition , we can use that can't we , just to find it . industrial designer: And see we could always decide against it if something comes up that's just something to that we seemed to leave out . user interface: Yeah that sounds like it wouldn't do too much harm in a couple of years .  what sort of shape do we want ? project manager: So we've got spongy feel buttons as well , have we ? marketing: Don't know , maybe just project manager: As well as or w or was that marketing: Yeah . project manager: So it's rubber buttons , industrial designer: Yeah , it was just project manager: so it's not really spongy feel buttons , it's just rubber buttons . marketing: project manager: Okay so what what shape are we making the standby button ? marketing: Yeah . user interface: Shall we vote on it ? industrial designer: We will go for the a a a apples apples . user interface: Anyone got any suggestions ? marketing: Apple apple a a qu Quite a big one , as well . project manager: A red apple ? Is it ? user interface: Yeah 'cause we wanna incorporate a bit of colour if we can , once we find out  industrial designer: Okay . And then we're gonna are you gonna work on keeping the button design quite simple ? Just like the Just working out what we're gonna do for the next time . project manager: Sorry what was that last thing again there ? user interface:  just to keep the shape of the buttons simple . I thought you were going for a single curve and user interface: Ah just the  shape of the buttons . industrial designer: And j yeah , just keeping the sort of the labelling them labelling of them fairly simple as well