project manager:  and is there any questions you have that arised from last meeting that are particularly bothering you ? N user interface:   .  in this meeting I I'm going to discuss about the trend watching ,  how these trends is going to affect our market potential and how important is this . The met methodology to find out the trend was incl  was done in a way 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  in our findings we have seen that when we did our remote control market survey we found that  people l  people do have preference for tho fancy mobi  f remote controls which look and feel very good , rather than having a functional look and feel  good . So we should take into  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  the third factor . So this factor becomes the most important factor in our surv   in our mark  means in take in designing our rem  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:  the outlook of the mobile , the it should have a fancy outlook , project manager: user interface: Okay . marketing: the fancy design  rather than just having a functional look and feel good , it should have a fancy look and foo feel good . We must have some technological advancement in the remote control tha rather than just putting it as it is as the other remo  remote controls are . So it  should be technologically innovative like glow-in-the-dark or speech recognition , something like that . And the third most important aspect in the ta to take into consideration is that it should be easy to use , user interface: marketing: there shouldn't be too many buttons on this mobi  remote control , it shouldn't be too complicated  like this way . And it should be  and customers should be provided with manuals that is easy to understand in their local language , something . marketing: Y yeah  yeah , we have to , because  d you can see how people have related their clothes , shoes , and everything with fruits and vegetables , project manager: user interface: marketing: because the g world is now changing it's trend towards organic , becoming more and more organic , user interface: Okay . industrial designer: We should make a big sponge lemon , marketing: becoming industrial designer: and then it'd be it would be yellow . marketing: And people  the f feel of the material is expected to be spongy rather than just having a plastic look , hard look . marketing: So user interface: Okay , the spongy , not real spongy , you can marketing: No it ca y a 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 . 'Cause we It shouldn't be have any harm to the environment also , user interface: Okay . marketing: because our company is very well for taking all these concerns into consideration , project manager: Alright , okay . marketing: so we don't want to have any harm to the society , user interface: -huh . marketing: user interface: And were there any factors that weren't important in the survey , that they said we don't want ? marketing: S  we didn't find out any such point . marketing:  yes , there could be , but we couldn't find out any , so project manager: --  so the method , we looked at existing designs , what are the what's good about them , what's bad about them ,  I looked at their flaws , so we're going to look at their flaws , everything . Okay , so most remote controls use graphical interface , where you  have got s buttons and you point it rather than having the output as a a stream of text or something . So I think for our remote control There is some inconsistency already in ec existing in between remote controls , but I think standard kind of  shape and  play and those kind of but buttons like the the top right for on and off or something , project manager: Right , okay . user interface: I think , people find that important,'cause then it's easy to use . project manager: user interface: And we've got some pictures of some  new remote controls to show you . user interface: Do I press Escape F_ five ? Or just project manager:  no just escape should  user interface: Escape , okay . user interface: There's  an L_C_D_ thing , which we thought could I thought could get a bit confusing and a bit expensive as well for us . user interface: This one is got a kind of scroll like a mouse , project manager: - , like the middle button . user interface:  and But I'm not exactly sure how you'd use that , industrial designer: project manager: Ah it's kinda like scrolling user interface: like would the computer come project manager:  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  menu item that you require , you press the middle of the scroll . user interface: -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 a little scroll function on the side . Again that's just quite boring shape , grey , looks quite space-agey , but too many buttons , I think on that one . industrial designer: 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 . user interface: And that's really easy to use , bright , so I like this one lot for our design . project manager: Yeah , I m  the one thing I think about about these ones is  these kl  secured areas  , I've seen a lot of them with the the cover missing .  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:  is that not sort of to assist the blind or something , is it ? user interface: I guess so . I like some of these things  the the raised symbols and everything , but pointing out  that this one the volume it is kind of pressing down , but it would actually go up , because of the shape .  but the buttons on this I think are it's just showing you how you can have different different  buttons . project manager: 'Kay but people tend to recognise certain shapes to do certain things anyway , don't they ? user interface: Yeah , exactly . So we need to combine those ones  industrial designer: user interface: and I've just got an e-mail from our technical department saying that they have broken through with some new speech recognition software that you can program in . user interface: It's you program it like you say , record ,  and then , play , and then , record , play machine , and stuff like that , so that's And it's much Yeah .  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 industrial designer: The L_C_D_ user interface: Yeah . 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 . But our budget , we've project manager: It's still it's still got to get within our twelve fifty , you know . marketing: So even if we increase our cost little bit , within  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: I'm not sure if the if for twenty five Euros  per  twelve Euros fifty m manufacturing cost , . I can't see tha Although , th  to be to be sure they have got  they are going crazy with the L_C_D_ technology now , industrial designer: 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 industrial designer: project manager: But  like I I the black and white , I guess , it just doesn't look funky enough . industrial designer: project manager:  but , like even mobile phones or whatever have now have colour L_C_D_ screens , user interface: No . industrial designer: But  price price not withstanding  , is it too complicated , is it gonna be too much just overload ? marketing: And the project manager: Twelve fifty . marketing:  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: Possibly . user interface: Yeah , that's the thing , because 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 . 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_ . 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  the bit , it often goes missing especially with children , but it's a good shape and the organic is kind of we could make a vegetabley kind of round shape , I think . industrial designer: So which vegetable ? project manager: Well  we could make a user interface: Yeah , I know , carrot . project manager: Well , si since we're going for the  the k the sort of company colours , I think your lemon wasn't that far s industrial designer: The the lemon . project manager: And if it doesn't work you know , we've just made a lemon . And the mouse one , I thought it was a good idea , because people use mo mice mouses now with the scrolling thing . So they'd be able to use that  , as I said I think i I'd presume it would come up on the screen . project manager: And that means tha that means you get to bump that bit to the T_V_ maker , so user interface: Yeah . industrial designer: I guess there are a lot of options that we're gonna have to choose from among , project manager: Yeah , looks like it . industrial designer: and I'll I'll give you the  , I guess , technical considerations for those . project manager:  user interface: industrial designer: And I'm gonna use the whiteboard , just 'cause we haven't used it . So , the way I'm gonna do this is  we're gonna take a look at some old remote controls , see how they work ,  reuse the the vital kind of  essential pieces of it , project manager: industrial designer: and then we'll throw in our new innovations  and keep it all within budget . project manager: industrial designer:  you open it up , there's a circuit board inside , project manager: industrial designer:  and there's a a chip , a processor , the T_A_ one one eight three five , which  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 they're very cheap remote .  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  to the L_E_D_ light , which I can kinda see is that little red light bulb at the end , user interface:  so this is kind of the the bear essentials that we need to have in our remote control , because it it defines the  project manager: Okay . So can we make them to pretty much any size we like or is there a minimum or ? industrial designer: R  no ,  this is a very old one , so now with the new technology this is a a minimally small and cheap thing to make . So you know , as we said , we got the outer casing , which we have to decide , you know , what's it gonna be ,  the board we have to use basically  the same set-up , processor ,  we'll probably use the more advanced processor than they had , amplifier and transmitter are all standard .  so for the casing ,  this an e-mail I got from our manufacturing team  , you know , we have a bunch of options from wood , titanium , rubber , plastic , whatnot ,  latex , double-curved , curved . industrial designer: what do we think ?  or sponge , I guess , isn't on there , right . project manager: Well ,  like la latex has a kinda spongy feeling to it , doesn't it . industrial designer: Yeah so project manager:  so maybe s  a sort of  plastic initial plastic with a a latex kinda sheath ? industrial designer: Okay so , here are a a plastic ,  latex 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 industrial designer: Oh right . industrial designer: and the colour is yellow , right ? user interface: Yeah , project manager: Or at least incorporating , yeah . project manager:  I forgot i we're sort of  I don't know what other standard silver kind of user interface: I think project manager: Other parts or  user interface:  . 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: user interface: or i if we're having buttons actually , industrial designer: So yellow for the body , user interface: I don project manager:  . industrial designer: and then what colour for the buttons ? project manager:  I quite like the multi-coloured buttons myself . user interface: You do have ones like  play could be green or on and off is red , and stuff like that , yeah . industrial designer: project manager: Yeah or yeah a limit  maybe even just a limited multi-colour so it it doesn't look too childish , perhaps .  if we are gonna make it a novel  double-curved sounds good to me if we're talking about sorta ergonomic and easy use , industrial designer: Okay . industrial designer:  'kay so the shape we wanna go  how exactly ? Maybe double user interface: Like  an hour glass kind of figure , is that what you're thinking of , project manager: Yeah it's  , yeah , that that'd be that's sort of comfortable to hold , easy to hold so you don't drop it . user interface: or just like a It's not industrial designer: What about a banana ? user interface: Yeah . industrial designer: Yeah ? Okay , like we could have a big banana shaped remote control , project manager: Well , yeah ,  like industrial designer: 'cause it's yellow fruit , user interface: industrial designer: right ? project manager: Yeah , yeah . user interface: How would you point it ? industrial designer: Oh i it doesn't matter which end you point , I guess . user interface: What industrial designer: We could have a little L_E_D_s on each end . user interface: industrial designer: marketing: because then this this will help us in our advertisement also project manager: marketing: and we can relate with fruits and vegetables , the people's choices . project manager: Huh ? user interface: y I'm I'm not sure about the banana idea . industrial designer: So a spongy banana re marketing: project manager:  that that th user interface: Rubber banana . And what else did you say about fashions ? What was trendy ? marketing:  the fashion trend shows that fruits and vegetables , project manager: S industrial designer: See marketing: like people  now project manager: And sponginess . industrial designer: So maybe an an unidentifiable fruit or fiable fruit or vegetable user interface: And spongy , yeah . user interface: Like what's what's that , I don't even know the name of it , some kind of , you know where it's like looks like a little snowman kind of thing . industrial designer: Like a gourd almost , or a squash of some sort ? project manager:  . project manager: user interface: 'Cause that you can hold it in like the bottom bit industrial designer: Yeah , user interface: and industrial designer: and it has a a clear top and bottom so y so you could say , you know , it transmits from this end . Well , I guess it's kind of dra  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: Okay , so double-curved , single-curved , what do we feel ? project manager: Yeah . marketing: 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 . And buttons would , did we say ?  different shapes of buttons ? industrial designer: project manager:  I l I su  for the specific functions , you know , up and down ,  play , stop . industrial designer: Okay , so project manager: They've got , they've got standard sort of intuitive  industrial designer: so buttons . industrial designer: With the scroll-wheel or no ? user interface: Yeah , what about the scroll wheel and speech recognition ? project manager:  speech recognition , I think , so we need a microphone presumably . industrial designer: Where should I put the microphone ? project manager:  ho h h wel are we sure that scroll wheel does give ease of use ? user interface: Yeah , 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: And  I think if this this new software for the sound recognition is the microphone industrial designer: Okay . industrial designer: So should the microphone be just anywhere on it or project manager: I would put it sort of sub-centrally , so it's Yeah . industrial designer: project manager: We really need really gonna need to hold it , if it's gonna be voice recognition . user interface: And  so what else was there ?  the industrial designer: project manager: user interface: What about the glow-in-the-dark thing , the strip around it ? project manager: I s I still like it . project manager: 'Cause  like  if we  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 ? user interface: Then you put it in the fruit bowl ? industrial designer: They can work from a project manager: Yeah , you know , and then you just tal industrial designer: You don't have to hold it . project manager:   some  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  , I dunno , an apple . I quite like the design of that ,  'cause that could sit on its own and it's quite got a quite steady base . user interface:  project manager: user interface: and as we say we n we don't wanna be too ridiculous with the fruit things you know . industrial designer: But yeah , about the speech thing , it doesn't have to be hand held or close . 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 . 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: In that w project manager: It kind of fi it fits with f fits with marketing  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:  like if this is a like if this is a mobile phone  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: user interface: so we could do that , like have a choice . 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 . marketing: If somebody wanted in apple shape we will design that , we will put we will put apple shape casing on that . 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: 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 . So from lower you can , it means while you are holding of from this side you c you can have banana look or apple look , whatever . marketing: So in that way we need not to d have different different shape mobiles everything , we will just design casings fruit shape . marketing: And 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 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 . 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: Yeah . project manager: unless you have sort of 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 user interface: industrial designer: Okay ,  so marketing: project manager: So you've narrowed it down to half a dozen options . industrial designer: Yeah , marketing: 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 shape , maybe we'll just make it kinda mix and match type of shape or project manager: Yeah . Well ,  because 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  because what project manager: Okay , so we stick with what we've got there . user interface: Yeah , w I think wh wha would 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 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:  'kay . user interface: because al already we're going a bit gaudy with the yellow , you know . project manager: So again  like we could have , we could quite easily have the the main body be a different user interface: Okay . project manager: colour , but have 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:   e even if user interface: Because project manager:  not necessarily that the  the whole body has to be of the company colour , so you know  blue and yellow tend to go to we well together . project manager: So you have the main body blue with the yellow logo and slogan running up one side of it kind of thing .  as for the energy source  , you know , almost every remote control uses just batteries , but we don't have to be limited by that .  I don't know what that means , we crank it ? project manager:  It's I think it's basically the more you move i it , it's got a wee thing inside that just kinda powers it . 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 . So if it if it's not working , I guess people's natural reaction anyway is to just shake the thing . marketing: But but do you think that it will be a good idea to use dynamo , tha these type of cells ? project manager: 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 marketing: Yeah , to mo Yeah . marketing: because most of the people project manager: Then if it's just sitting on the user interface: Yeah , then they have to pick it up and then activate it and then Yeah . marketing: 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 . marketing: and the days when there is no sola sunlight project manager: I'm I'm with  Raj on that , industrial designer: Okay , so probably just marketing: 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 . project manager:  I w I w  user interface: project manager: that idea that I thought  just on the basis of like ridding them of batteries and that kind of bother industrial designer:  . 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  for using it as  recharging it , but also for using it as sound recognition . What's chip on print ? What's industrial designer:  ? project manager: Sorry , never mind . So the more features we add the fancier chips we need to buy and put in , user interface: So  yes , so the speech thing you said our our techno our research and development department came up with some break-through . project manager: Yeah , and if we if we're just having buttons and the speech then we're getting our cheapest option of chipping . project manager: Okay , we're we're kind of  we're kind of  Excuse m I've just deleted that whole thing . Was that you ? industrial designer: Huh ? project manager:  that was your bit's covered , industrial designer: Oh yeah that was that was it . project manager: and what I would like you guys to do is work on giving me a model in clay . project manager:  yeah , I hope I can recover this , 'cause I've accidentally deleted it . project manager: Yeah , can you save that  send that last one again , please , Raj , marketing: Yeah . project manager: as I still can't find it on the marketing:  it was under a different name . project manager: that's that's the that it goes there automatically if you put it in Project Documents . But I cou can't open that , because it w asks  for some username or password . project manager: Yeah , I don't know if y it it just ca it just came up on my  on my agenda .  okay , still didn't manage to get down all the last bits so we had rechargeable and  .  no , I think that's us our discussion over unless anybody's got questions or confusions , marketing: user interface: No I'm good . project manager:   we'll probably get questionnaire in a minute , it's a user interface: