it's our conceptual design meeting and it's starting at approximately fourteen twenty five and so we have forty minutes for this one again and so we'll go just after three o'clock .  okay our agenda , we're gonna do an opening , I'm gonna review the minutes of the last meeting , then we'll have your three presentations  and then we'll have to make a decision on the remote control concepts , and finally we'll close . We decided our target group is the focus on who can afford it , because we have international appeal and we said it's for all age groups , different  functions of it . And s  in specific functions are something to keep the remote from getting lost , large buttons for the essential functions , a possibility for extra functions , like a sliding a sliding piece and a long-life battery or a charging station . I'd like to do it in this order , first do the conceptual specification of components , properties and materials  and then the conceptual specification of user interface and finally trend watching . This is where you look at what does it take to make a remote control and what should we make our specific remote control out of . So , we need to examine each element separately , but we're designing a full thing , so you wanna keep it integrated as a whole . The main elements of remote controls in general , and therefore ours as well , are the case , the buttons , the circuit board with the chip and the battery . These are all things that we had sort of addressed before , but I'm gonna take each one a little bit separately here as we figure out what they should be made of and what they should look like . The case ,  the options that I've gotten from headquarters about what we can do ,  there's there's the shape of a case , we could do a flat sh a flat case , a curved case or maybe even a double double-curved case . I haven't seen any pictures of what this exactly looks like yet , just keep that in mind , but these are the options that we have from manufacturing and we can make our case out of plastic , the m the main base will be plastic , but we have all these sort of fashion and technological elements we can add in , wood , latex , titanium , rubber or other coloured types of plastic .  buttons , for buttons we have  pushbuttons , which is what Real Reaction uses the most often , but we also have scror scroll wheels , project manager:  . industrial designer: which can have integrated pushbuttons , or we could go all high-tech and have an L_ L_C_D_ screen .  circuit board and chip we can have a simple one , a regular one or an advanced one , depending on what our other needs are .  we can we can have your sort of basic double A_ batteries , but we also have these options of  using a kinetic battery , like are used in high-tech watches , where you just have to move it a little bit to get it to power up . Or a solar battery , although there are slight  complications with solar batteries as in we can't use a latex case if we have a solar battery . industrial designer: Or  something they only described as the type of battery you find in torches from about fifty years ago , flashlights . Not quite sure what that is , but that's the description that I received , so that's what I'm passing on to you .  personal preferences that I was thinking through here's what we've been talking about all through , fashion and simplicity . So if we're going for fashion in our cases , I think that what we're gonna wanna look at is a curved or a double-curved case , probably with a variety of design elements . We're gonna have to investigate that better when I get specifics of the actual materials , but that's sort of what I have in mind . Probably pushbuttons , but I'm sort of intrigued by the idea of a scroll scroll wheel , if anyone has anything project manager:  . industrial designer: any ideas on that ?  I know the iPods and things right now have touch scroll  buttons which are exactly like what they're describing , so that might be something we wanna look into . Solar I don't think would be such a good idea , because how often are you sure that your remote control will get a certain amount of light . project manager: industrial designer: But this idea of the kinetic , that you don't have to replace , and that a simple just shaking it around will make it work , I think that that m would be a very interesting thing . But I think we'd also wanna go for e a simple chip or regular chip to keep our costs down .  we really only need a regular or advanced chip t if we're gonna start using an L_C_D_ . So I think we want to be aware of not making things overly t technological if they don't need to be , 'cause that'll keep our manufacturing price way down .  I'd appreciate anyone's input , but that's what I'm seeing for the future of the the look of this thing . marketing: Is double-curved like would be like two hands kind of thing ? industrial designer: I'm not sure . marketing: 'Cause I'm imagining like double-curved is like , you know , like two sides that curve industrial designer: This is what I'm sort of marketing: and then like one curve would just be like a single vertical-ish kind of looking thing , industrial designer: Yeah . project manager: Yeah , I wonder industrial designer: I know if we do have a double-curved case , it can't have any titanium in it . But the titanium , they were quite they're marketing quite hard to us as being used in the space programme , so that could be quite interesting . project manager:  just a real quick question  the weight of these different elements , have you industrial designer: Yeah , n project manager: no idea , okay .  I'm assuming that a kinetic battery isn't gonna take up that much weight , project manager: industrial designer: and that a tita titanium is very light , I know , project manager: industrial designer:  but other than project manager: industrial designer: that's really basic , that's all I have gotten so far . industrial designer: I have save this in the  shared projects , if anyone wants to look project manager: Thank you , perfect . industrial designer: and I have c considerable notes on the topic as well , if anyone needs any more information . project manager:  if you made notes yourself you can put those on our  underneath our oh ,  in your book , industrial designer: Just in my notebook , project manager: then don't worry about that . industrial designer: but if anyone has any specific questions , don't hesitate to email me or something . Alright ?  I guess I can project manager: 'Kay now we're  concepts concepts of user interface . user interface: Alright , so I'm gonna describe the the concept of the user interface of this des device .  we want people to be able to use it s as a remote control , so we need to determine what the essential functions of the d of the device are and make sure that we include that we've included all of those and that we actually end up with a device that is going to be useful to people . We have a number of different choices for a design concept  and s that's that's something that that I'll show you some examples of  , but essentially we need to choose how how is this device going to work , industrial designer: user interface: how how what kind of model is there going to be for user interaction with this device .  once we've chosen a a concept for it , we can then design the features around the concept , making sure that we get all the essential functions in the device and  the extra functions and the more advanced features . industrial designer: user interface: So basically , marketing: user interface: that's what we don't want .  you use these four buttons to m to move around a range of settings on the small L_C_D_ screen .  you can just about make out  that the button three buttons are  previous track , next track and play pause . They're the main the main features of the iPod , the things you will use a all the time .  then if you want to do anything more advanced , you go into the little menu on the L_C_D_ screen and you use the buttons just to scroll around and and find the more advanced features that you want . So I think that's that's a good a good kind of model that we could have . The buttons are are different shapes and and you can sort of yeah if you're watching T_V_ in the dark or whatever , you can work out which button's which and basically , yeah it's ith it's fun . So I I like I like this idea of just having buttons for the features that you use most often .  most people , when they watch T_V_ , they have two hundred and fifty channels on their T_V_ and they watch of 'bout four of them at the most . So , you have buttons for your favourite channel , changing the volume , which is something you do all the time when you're watching T_V_ , and the button to switch it off , in case you get bored .  other features , things like adjusting the brightness , tuning the T_V_ ,  I don't know what else you do with a T_V_ .  you can't have a t there's no point having a television that you can't tune or that you can't set the contrast , so we need to find a way of including these somehow .  and one other suggestions I'd make is to in is to include in a menu system , a bit like on the iPod . So we'd either have a small L_C_D_ display on the device itself , or  have a dis a menu display that comes up on your television and can b be controlled through the device . user interface: And that would allow you to access access the advanced features  whilst keeping a very small and simple set of buttons for the features that you use most often . industrial designer: So you'd be advocating an L_C_D_ then ? user interface: I think that's that's one way to go , yes . user interface:   there are there are advantages and disadvantages if you if you have an L_C_D_ display , it's it's nice , because it's it it lets you just sort of sit there and st and control your television from your armchair . user interface: There are disadvantages , an an L_C_D_ display would have to be quite small , 'cause we're we're I industrial designer: Right user interface: well we're I assume we're gonna be making quite a small device .  it would also have to have  a kind of backlighting in it , 'cause you ten you tend to watch T_V_ in the dark , project manager: user interface: but you need to be able to see your L_D_D_ L_C_D_ display . The alternative is to have a an on-screen display on your television that you control through your remote control .  a bit like a bit like how they have these  digital boxes where you you press the buttons and it comes up with your this thing of watch lo what's on each channel . It's it can it does have it's problems as well , if you've got a small T_V_ and you're sitting on the other side of a room , it's hard to read the little text that comes up . project manager: I do think that  one of the important features for a remote is seeing a menu and seeing what's on . project manager: like favourite channels is is applicable , but I think th that you do need to have some kind of function where it's  you have t you can see the title of the show or possibly a description of it . industrial designer: Well Are you are you tak project manager: Like I I know I use that often enough . marketing: Wait , but is that separate from what he was saying ? project manager: Well industrial designer: Yeah . project manager: if it if it was a L_ L_C_D_ on th on the remote , I don't know that you could f that you'd be able to see a industrial designer: No , I think I think we're talking menu like contrast and tuning the V_C_R_ or something if I've understood you correctly , rather than menu as what's on . 'Cause that would be more specifically a digital box , user interface: But it's it's it's something to bear in mind is that if we put a display on the remote control the c  communication is one way , project manager: user interface: so you can't have the televisions and information back to the remote control , at least I don't think you can . marketing: Should I plug that in ? project manager: marketing: user interface: Is that going on ? Okay . marketing: Is it on ? Ri What F_ do you have to press , project manager: Eight . Basically , I was given  an executive summary that was a market investigation on remote controls that was recently conducted , and then also some fashion watchers in Paris and Milan commented on some things that are gonna be going on this year . project manager: marketing: So first  they had people they ranked  the important aspects of r remote controls , and right now i d they're saying that currently there's a functional look and feel preference , but that really , over the next year it it that's gonna be switching to fancy look and feel remotes , so that just goes back to the whole desire of our c Real Reaction company wanting to focus on fashion and so , even though we're stressing , when we're talking , we've all been talking about this like simplicity and easy to use idea , they're sort of wanting us to remember that the number one thing for everyone is that it's fancy look and feel . And as these are ranked , the top one is doubly important to the second one , which is doubly important to the third one , industrial designer: Okay . That would be like if we use something like the space material or the L_C_D_ screen , things like that . And then ease of use was the third most important , whi so really , no matter what , we need to focus the most on fancy look and feel , according to this . And then the fashion watch talks about that this year's top trend for clothes , industrial designer: user interface: marketing: shoes and furniture is fruits and vegetables and tha that there's a preference for spongy , tight material . industrial designer: project manager: marketing: Personally , I don't really think that I want one that's gonna go out of style or go stale , excuse the pun ,  in a year , so user interface: marketing: even though this is coming from us as , you know , trend watch , market research , I don't know how much of it we necessarily wanna take away . industrial designer: marketing: Also , considering that the d research b has been carried out by Real Reaction , I'm a little hesitant as to like , how these questions may have been worded , and if necessarily this whole fashion to technology y edas ease of use is necessarily the right ranking . Personally , like I might reverse it , but if we're working for this company then I guess no matter what , we have to stress fashion the most . user interface: industrial designer: That there's all kinds of scope for imagination in that one though . I don't have a lot of notes to share if you want them , industrial designer: user interface: marketing: that pretty much sums it up . marketing: Yeah , what can I possibly enlighten on ? project manager:  do you have any ideas how to possibly use these ?  how to how to use a fruit or vegetable or  or the spongy material at all ? user interface: project manager: Like could we make a s like could we make a spongy remote ? It would be easier on the hands . industrial designer: If it's latex if it's latexy project manager: It's kind of and then it industrial designer: mean project manager: we would have to find a way to protect like the chip and all that , user interface: A kind of thing that project manager: I dunno . But industrial designer: An  I if th my understanding of a latex case is that it's in fact hard to protect stuff inside , project manager: industrial designer: but that it's covered with the latex , which is spongier and softer on your hands . It's there's something to be said ,  we we got that thing earlier from you about  not wanting it to R_ R_ repetitive stress injuries and things project manager: industrial designer: Yeah , marketing: Yeah , so something , m m instead of a necess industrial designer: something grippable ,  we don't we don't we don't wanna go spongy , maybe . marketing: yeah , grip , I'm thinking grip more than like sinking into your hands , user interface: Yeah . marketing: you know , i and I think I'm envisioning more like , you know , the material that you have when you sit on like a bicycle , industrial designer: Yeah . marketing: so that it doesn't hurt when you're sitting down for a long time , industrial designer: marketing: like I'm imagining that sort of thing , I don't know what th that material's called . industrial designer: Yeah , I think that given the list of materials I w I was forwarded it's that seems doable . could we go in fruit and vegetable colours ? We could colour-co-ordinate them , project manager: F for sure , or maybe like marketing: industrial designer: li project manager:  couple main ones being like , I dunno , lemons or strawberries or something . project manager: Could they be smelly ? user interface: I Is it supposed to be shaped like a vegetable ?  like  I dunno , like  carrots or something . marketing: project manager: Or carrot shaped , industrial designer: it's quite easy to s shape thing like carrot project manager:  . industrial designer: isn't it ? user interface: Maybe , project manager: Like large button , industrial designer: Or maybe the buttons could be shaped like different fruits . marketing: What about the idea of like a round remote ? Instead of like a vertical up and down one . project manager: would you think you you do you think you'd be able to hold it ? marketing: Just to tie it in a little . When you when you use a remote , do you press the buttons with your thumb , usually ? Or your fingers ? marketing: Yeah . Maybe industrial designer: I user interface: Or maybe you want something that's shaped like a mobile phone , so you you hold it in one hand , and you press the buttons with your thumb . project manager: Don't you think ? industrial designer: No marketing: Yeah , industrial designer: just thumb-sized . industrial designer: Jus project manager: But  in order to get to all of them , marketing: But I like i project manager: you know . user interface: But if you've only got like four or five buttons anyway , then it's it's not so much a problem , perhaps . I When I'm when I'm pressing buttons on my iPod , that's how I do it , hold it and press the four . user interface: So you hold it in one hand and you press you press the buttons with your thumb project manager: industrial designer: Yeah , or in and use my thumb or my pointer finger on the touch scroll wheel . user interface: and And you find that works quite well ? marketing: I love the idea of the wheel like the iPod . user interface: Is that marketing: 'Cause th user interface: The button on an iPod , is it what is it , is it just four buttons or is it li more like a scroll thing ? marketing: It's like five , project manager: It's a scroll , yeah , it's a wheel . industrial designer: yeah , it would  each version of it has been a little bit different , project manager: The one I have doesn't have the four on i like around it , I don't think . industrial designer: but Oh yeah , you had one of the in-between ones , when they weren't doing that anymore . marketing: I think why it would be good for us is 'cause like you could have the same wheel sort of effect for like channel flipping and then the other one could be like for volume . marketing: Like just the idea of like those industrial designer:   marketing: so few buttons for main things , industrial designer: t marketing: but then how you could go back to the menu and like , I dunno if we would want it on the screen there or on the actual T_V_ . marketing: 'cause if you're changing the brightness , don't you wanna see it happening , kind of ? industrial designer:  . industrial designer: Yeah , I think an L_C_D_ screen might be good in theory , but not as useful in practice . Also z yeah , 'cause you would be z looking down at the L_C_D_ screen , than back up at your T_V_ industrial designer: Right . industrial designer:  project manager: Okay  we have we've about fifteen minutes left , industrial designer: Oh we probably have to get going , don't we ? project manager: so I'm I'm gonna continue with my pres presentation .  I've one more slide before we close , but in that slide is when we need to make decisions about this these kinds of things , so I'll just bring that up and show you all industrial designer: 'Kay .  industrial designer: Could Could we  could we have changeable covers like for your mobile ? In different fruit and vegetable colours , marketing: If I get any more information of fruits and vegetables , I'll let you know . project manager: Yeah , and then like the the covers could be spongy latex industrial designer: Exactly . user interface: I think maybe th the packaging , it should be like a lemon and the the packaging is like the peel . user interface: So instead of opening the box you just kind of peel it , and the remote control's inside . marketing: Lemons ? industrial designer: user interface: project manager: Okay ,  marketing: project manager: components concept . project manager: G industrial designer: Right , I had sort of skipped over that hoping it wouldn't get be necessary but  project manager: That's th th this is the agenda they gave me . So can you just explain what that is real quick ? industrial designer: Alright , so  decisions , what the okay deci decisions on energy I'm thinking is based on the battery . industrial designer:  I dunno , what do people think about this kinetic battery idea ? project manager: I think it's awesome . user interface: Yeah ,  I think it's good , as as long as we consider the the cost and the  how reliable it is , industrial designer: Right , I haven't gotten any user interface: but as far as I know , the technology is good . industrial designer: yeah , any more information on cost other than it's more expensive than a regular battery , but  but if we're using a an i a cheaper chip , then it'll even out , I think . They're they're thin fibreglass with copper wires etched on to them , and di I think they're quite easily printed on by machine , which is chip on print is where the machine prints on the wires and solders it all together for us . project manager: industrial designer: I don't really know what to tell you as far as decisions . I wasn't really given any options , I was just given that this is how they're done . But I don't know any decisions on marketing: project manager: If they're if they're really options . industrial designer: I did f user interface: Al all circuit boards are pretty much the same , I think .  oh bu I guess maybe if we decided on like a simple , a regular , or an advanced chip , maybe . Well okay , here's the here's the thing on the chips that I that I got .  , 'kay , the pushbutton if we're gonna have pushbuttons , they require a simple chip , but a scroll wheel requires a regular chip , and an L_C_D_ requires advanced . Do we want a scroll wheel , or do we just want pushbuttons ? user interface:  I don't think we ne really need the scroll whe wheel . user interface:  but project manager: but I don't know how useful it'd be for changing the channel . 'Cause you don't have control over numbers user interface: I don't think it would really work . marketing: Yeah , it's a project manager: or industrial designer: Yeah , user interface: Yeah , you really need buttons for changing a channel . industrial designer: th it'd be it'd be handy for going through if there was an on-screen menu of your channel choices , than you can scroll down on the scroll . marketing: But if you c if you could scroll through the channels , and then the volume would just be user interface: Yeah . marketing: and the volume would just be like the same way , forward and backward as I'm just thinking like it would make it much like sleeker sort of looking . marketing: And otherwise , no matter how may buttons we have , we're gonna have like , you know , black with red sticking out and th no it's gonna inevitably sort of start looking like those group of sort of ugly ones that we saw stacked up . project manager: So , have a scroll for volume ? industrial designer: F or for all those secret functions ? project manager: F industrial designer: When you get on the on-screen menu of all your functions that your remote could do for you without the buttons and you could have a scroll wheel to go through those menus . user interface: I think yeah , I think a scroll wheel would be nice , but it's not necessary . So we could either go with a simple or a regular chip , depending and maybe we could table that decision for later . project manager: I think w well I think when we go on to the une userface , we're gonna have to decide the interface we're gonna have to decide  whether we're gonna have a scroll or not . industrial designer:  I'm kinda liking the idea of latex , if if spongy is the in thing . project manager: I'm a little  I'm a little hesitant about it , because I'm worried about protecting the stuff on the inside . project manager:  marketing: Oh could it be hard , and then something around it ? industrial designer:  yeah , everything I've project manager: Yeah , I would be more okay with like a titanium actual thing and then maybe like a mobile phone kind of thing . industrial designer: N oh wha what I've what I've seen , just not related to this , but of latex cases before , is that there's  like a hard plastic inside , and it's just covered with the latex . industrial designer: Not too thick a layer of latex , just enough to be grippable , like bike handles or or anything that you've seen like that . I don't think we need to worry about protecting the circuit board , project manager: Ge o industrial designer: I think that that's done for us . Okay  let's go to the ufe user interface then we'll come back to the chip I suppose . industrial designer: Oh and we want a curved case , yeah ? Or a double-curved ? project manager: Well , we don't really know what the difference is , right ? marketing: I'm thinking curved of some sort . industrial designer: We don't really know what the difference project manager:  okay , interface , the type and the supplements . So push or scroll , user interface:  project manager: right ? Or both ? user interface: Yep .  And I think if we wanna keep our costs down , we should just go for pushbuttons , 'cause then we can have a a simple chip and it's simpler , it's it's cheaper to make pushbuttons than it is a scroll button . user interface: So in terms of  in terms of  economics it's probably better to have pushbuttons . And if we had a sc an on-screen  kind of thing that you could scroll through , like you can use your buttons to scroll through things . For channel surfing I think a scroll an actual like an iPod's kind of scroll thing would be too fast , I dunno . I say pushbuttons at least unless we get any information but I have no idea how much more expensive a scroll wheel is than than a pushbutton , but it's gotta be some more expensive , so I think it might be better to put our money into the stuff like the kinetic battery and the cool case user interface: Yeah . project manager: Is that okay with you ? industrial designer: because project manager: How you feeling ? marketing: Yeah .  I'm not like hard-sold on the scroll wheel , it's more just to give it a different kind of look , project manager: marketing: but if it's gonna be in a latex type thing and that's gonna look cool , then that's probably gonna have a bigger impact than the scroll wheel . project manager: Okay , so we're gonna go with  type pushbuttons , and then supplements , user interface: Yep . project manager: how are we gonna do that ? user interface:  what do you mean by supplements , exactly ? project manager:  I assume that's what else we're gonna like h ha the  the additional buttons we can use . user interface:  project manager: So we're gonna have like a menu button , industrial designer: Oh . project manager: Okay ,  so we're doing an on-screen menu that we can scroll through . user interface:  in industrial designer: So what are what are our buttons gonna be ? user interface: Yeah . industrial designer: So like one through five , or user interface: Yeah , yeah marketing: Like a radio type sorta situation ? user interface: about yeah like yeah , a bit like radio presets .  project manager: Pre-set channels and then we're gonna need  numbers one through zero , right ? user interface:  we wouldn't even need the numbers . project manager: Well , but in order to pre-set a cha oh I guess you can just hold it down when you get to one when you're scrolling through . user interface: and you need some kind of , I dunno , sort of up down kind of button , industrial designer: Yeah , up down .  our next meeting starts in thirty minutes , industrial designer: project manager:  you each have things to do , look and feel design , user interface design , product evaluation , and you two are going to work together on a prototype using modelling clay . project manager:  did we decide on a chip ? Let's go with a simple chip ? industrial designer: Simple chip