Speaker A: I respond to either. No worries. Okay, first thing I want to address is um one of the points that Florence brought up, which was uh current cost of the competition devices, similar to the ones that Stephanie uh showed us and and they're uh twenty to sixty Euros, depending on uh branding. Some of them that have a higher brand recognition are on the more expensive end. But I think that with the current um price that we're searching for, we're well within, even on the lower end, of the uh of the market. But I'm going to move on to more interesting um more vibrant things. So, I investigated the remote control market in greater detail, and my uh the theme of what I was to work on was uh trend watch. And I know that you all are a distance from cutting edge marketing research, so you know, I'm just gonna try to cloak it in really professional terms here. What's hot, fruit and veg. Spongy. And this is all over the catwalks, Paris, Milan, and I'm talking about clothing, furniture, shoes. This is really interesting change from past years, because it is much more organic, um some would say approachable. And I think if we're to refashion our view of what we want in a remote control, we should perhaps think about incorporating technologically interesting fabrics and some of the bold colours into a simple handset. So. I also did a little research on um what again are the most important priorities in uh decision making about uh purchasing. Fancy. Functional is out. And f the fancy, and that's exactly the term, I'm I'm thinking polished, elegant, you know, kind of innovative, but a cut above. This is twice as important as the next finding, which is technologically innovative. This is interesting, 'cause I think in the last meeting we were talking about technology as being so important, but maybe what's innovative is having it simple with um with uh technologically superior fabrics or uh, you know, designed in interesting substances. Ease of use. Again, pretty low, I mean it's the top three, but each of the uh fancy and technologically innovative are far more important. So I think we should cloak the streamlined remote control device in a series of fruit fruit themed sleeves. Y yeah, you know Exactly. Exactly. I was thinking though that instead of having something uh like patterned, you know, so, you know, something similar to a summer dress. you know, it would have like fruit and veg, is that we actually make these spongy. They could be ini initially I thought we could start with kind of um fruit that would suit kind of uh a long uh hand-held, so banana, pineapple and pear. Um it could actually the sleeve could take up a lot of the development and the remote control, we'd just need to get reductionist on it. They could be interchangeable, they're spongy, that goes back to ergonomic, and the youngsters love 'em, fun for the whole family, everyone can have their own. So what we're talking about is changing. this concept. Everyone has a T_V_ remote, but then we add in the fact that they could each have their own individual fruit. That's what's hot on the catwalks. So, this is my This is what I'm thinking. Y yeah, but I think I think what this would allow is perhaps a person in the family who had the most opinion about it we all need a remote, but the person who is really perhaps active in personalising, I'm thinking the teenager, the someone fifteen to thirty five would go out and get this additional thing the same way as you mentioned that people would get the cell phone covers. Yeah. W and plus I think Uh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this is an idea and I I you know, this is exactly what the research has uh has shown. So I really open this up to uh any other feedback. This spongy fruit and veg. Thanks. Alright. I I just have my ear to the market, guys. Is spongiest, yeah. That would add Mm-hmm. They are and they they would fulfil the uh first um priority, which is fancy. I think many of us would associate those with fancy. Something else we could do is uh call it something that's fruit and veg oriented. We could call it uh The name. Well it would be uh a a very simple product that would have a spongy sleeve that would be interchangeable. So That, you know, that might be And then we could keep it titanium. Yeah. Or s or smelly. Scratchy Uh well I was really thinking a lot about the I_ uh the iMac kind of gel gem tone. It's hot on the streets, guys. Mm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Mm. That sounds good. Any idea you you mentioned that there would be a cost difference. Um do you have any idea if if this could if the fancy model could be done in twelve Euros fifty? Hmm. Because, you know what, I'm being quite serious when I say that that um the things I mentioned are hot. But I think the important thing might be to choose one. You know, if if what you're telling me is is um some of these things aren't just f aren't feasible, maybe we could something about naming, we could call it, you know, Blackberry. That's uh Alright, well let's see then. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I'm trying to streamline mine a little bit. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. Mm. Thank you, Kate. Mm. Oh I think um Florence resolved it by F_ eight again. Maybe. Mm. Hmm. It's a duplication. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. To uh m make it. Oh nice. Um Hmm. Mm. Wow. Do you think with um It seems that that uh you guys are quite keen on the plastic, perhaps the something reminiscent of the child's remote. Do you think we could put it in a in a fruit colour? And have it abstract. You know, we could call like a fruit name, but it would be a little more abstract. Mm-hmm. I'm just just throwing out ideas. Yeah. I'm thinking maybe we need to be a little bit more abstract if the design constraints are so Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Nice. Good point. I've used kinetic in terms of watches and it's very very uh handy, you don't even notice um that it's there. It's Mm-hmm. It could tie in with the fanciful design as uh, you know, throw the banana, you know, just gotta keep it moving. Be Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. But I could market that as a um as a a I was thinking actually a a cost saver down the road, in terms of battery, you know. Mm-hmm. You know, kind of the That's exactly what I was thinking. I'm sold. Mm. Kind of like an internal egg. Yeah. And with sports on television. You know. I su Then I'll just say I support either from a marketing point of view I support either decision that the designers make on that. No we can't, actually. That's why I was looking over your shoulder Mm. Sounds good. That's really all I got, guys.
Speaker B: Just just carry on. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sorry. I'm glad to see the marketing budget is being so well spent on. I think that's a good idea. Don't you? Yeah, I I think we're gonna have some trouble when we get down to the component design on this. Spongy is gonna be difficult, I'm afraid. Yeah, I mean basically we can make these things out of wood, titanium, plastic or rubber. I suppose rubber is the closest to spongy, yeah. I was thinking titanium myself. Yeah. W w would it be helpful if um I described the components a bit, because I think it would give you um maybe bring this discussion back to Earth of what we can actually physically do. Right, well I I I think some of this um you're gonna be a little disappointed with some of the things I have to tell you, but I'm afraid this is the real world. So um I've been looking at the the basics of how these devices actually have to work in order to operate, and I've had some discussions with the ma manufacturing division, who have told me what's actually available, you know, what the current state of the art in components is, and some of the exciting new things they've got, but I'm not sure that it's quite what you want um. Now this isn't a very good overhead, but this is just to show you, this is the innards of a remote control um. I really need a pen or something but uh does my mouse work? No. Um oh yeah, can you see my little mouse pointer? Right. This is this is the a a a remote that's been opened up and that's the the back of the interface. And this is a push-button one, so you see these little little buttons here, they're little rubber rubber buttons that go through onto the the board at the back and they push these buttons here. Um and we that's the basic construction that we've got to got to accommodate. We got to have something that pushes the little buttons that um talk to the chip that encodes the message that sends the the message to the receiver. So um I wan I wanna go through not not just addressing the um uh the the points that you made, Sarah, but um doing my presentation in the order I wrote it. So first of all um I wanna talk about what possibilities we've got for the energy source. Um we can have your bog standard double double A_ batteries in a replaceable um little compartment. We can have a hand sorry a wind-up, yeah, which I think is quite an interesting concept for a sorry for a remote control, but i it maybe is doesn't quite go with the um the fruit and veg. Um one that one that I think is quite interesting is the kinetic energy source, where um you you actually get the energy by moving the device, which is quite a ni a nice and neat one. You have to it means that if it's sitting there for a long time it probably won't work, but you have to sort of throw it between your hands every now and then, it'll work. Or we we had talked about solar power, but I thing that we agreed that that's not so good in the dark. Now I'm afraid this is the options we've got on on the case. It can be made of plastic, rubber, wood o if you like, or titanium. Um and the nearest we've got to st to spongy there I guess is rubber, but um I'm gonna come back to the advantages of titanium, and basically it can have a flat surface, a curved surface or a double curved surface, but I think if we wanna use standard components, we're gonna have difficulty with anything much beyond that. Okay, what does the interface look like? Um well push button, that's that's the one we're all familiar with. Um we can have scroll buttons and the the scroll button can incorporate a push, so you can have it like on a mouse where you can use it to go up and down, change volume or channel or something like that and push to select something. Um you can have multiple scroll buttons, um this is maybe getting a little bit complicated, but um it's it the technology is there. And we can also incorporate an L_C_D_ display in the remote, but this will increase the cost. Um the electronics that actually makes the device work, we've basically got three, simple, regular, advanced, and the price goes up as we choose each of this. If we want the nice cheap one, the simple, then we can only have push buttons. All the other fancy interface designs go out the window, I'm afraid. Um pay a little bit more for a regular chip and you can have scroll buttons. If you want the advanced chip it obviously costs more, but it that's what you need if you want the L_C_D_ display. And the manufacturing devision tell me that they have recently developed um sample sensor sample speaker devices. Now I don't know what that is, but I think they think it's quite important and we might want to incorporate it somewhere. Um ou our real expertise is in push buttons, I have to say, but maybe you think that's old technology. And well I I think we've got two options. We can either go for a really cheap model, keep all of the costs down, um which means a flat plastic case with an ordinary battery and simple push buttons. Or we can have something that looks a bit nicer, I think it, um won't necessarily l uh look like a pineapple, but um that may or may not be a good thing. Sorry. Um but it could have an L_C_D_ screen and it could have multiple scroll buttons, and it could have the the company's new development of the um sample sensor and speaker. So, thank you. Yeah, I'm afraid I don't have that information available. Um manufacturing didn't actually give attach any prices to any of this, I'm afraid. Yeah mm-hmm. Banana? We we could we could do um a double curved rubber one, which would allow um say a banana, but um unfortunately I see from my notes that if we do that, we have to have a push button as the interface, we can't do anything fancier. Yep. I If you do F_ uh F_N_ F_ eight again, it's it'll I think it yeah, you you will do an Hmm. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I'd I'd certainly support that idea. It's difficult to make fancy shapes in it as well, we can't for example have a double curved case in titanium unfortunately. And the the having the the the screen on the television screen I think is a good idea, 'cause um otherwise we're we're putting up the price not only for putting building the L_C_D_ in, but for the electronics as well. There is that. Do you want scroll buttons in that as well? Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. I think I think that's a g nice clean design, it's playing to our strengths which are in push button technology. Yeah. But we can implement it with simple push buttons, which is much cheaper. In fact Oh that's really nice. Hmm. Mm. We we could actually do it in rubber instead of plastic if you'd rather if you feel if you like the spongy Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm. Oh unfortunately I don't have costing information. I i in terms of workability, I I think the the two front-runners are the standard battery or the kinetic, but I'm sorry I don't figures on the difference in cost. And and how much you do have to keep it moving, 'cause I'm conscious that watching T_V_ can be quite a sed sedentary activity. Yeah. True, yeah, m more more environmentally friendly. Oh right, okay, I'd that that's something I maybe should have covered. Um chip on print is just a manufacturing technique um and I would certainly recommend it, I think, because I'm not sure I have an alternative. I i it it's just the way that the the the uh th the way it's ac it's actually built and you you print onto the circuit board like you might print onto paper. Well if if Sarah's keen on a spongy feel, the the rubber that we're talking about is the same as you have in those little stress balls, so it's yeah. Yeah. I'd I'd need to talk to manufacturing again about whether that's actually possible, but I agree, it's uh sounds like a nice idea if it is. I should I should r Which I think technically is just push button and uh I'd certainly support that that that brings the cost down quite a lot and it's something that we're an ex the company's an expert on. You know, I think the the company's s next project should to design a better overhead device that switches immediately.
Speaker C: Yeah. Yes. Yep. Yeah, Right. Yes. So when your dad's sitting there, overriding your decision, going no we're gonna watch this, you can bring out your own remote and be like zap, no we're gonna watch this. Yep. And as for as for um well budgeting as well, if we're gonna have lots of different interchangeable components. Is this to the market? I was thinking titanium, I was thinking it's just I have been influenced by pictures of iPods, and they're also minimalist and shiny. Yeah, but it's kind of pointless, isn't it? Yeah. Let's delegate. Yeah, maybe. Or I think possibly it might be more useful if Kate went next. Um You can even have them in different flavours as well. So that if you just wanna sit there and chew on the remote, it could be like pear flavour, yeah. Scratch and sniff. A wind-up. Bear bear in mind it has to be the colours and styles of the company, so what I had been thinking was something chunky and yellow and plastic with black buttons with a logo on it. But um I I don't know how important that is to keep it exactly the colours of the Real Reaction company. It's just what I'd understood we'd be doing. That's before I heard about all this hot tips about the future, fruit-wise. Shall we wait 'til I've 'til I've showed you what well, my extensive presentation on what sort of interfaces are available. You did seem to include just in more detail what I've got though. So so mine's a bit pointless. Right. F_N_ and F_ eight, did you say? I don't have it on mine though. Should I do it again? Right then. I don't actually have a huge amount of different information then what Kate says, just that my method was to look at the, well, my my inspirations, which was a big collection of lots of different models of remote controls and other things that use a similar sort of thing, including M_P_ three players, uh like you know, hi-fi remotes, not just television and these things. Uh having a think about the feature of ea the features of each ones, um what functions we actually need, and then how to group and arrange these on the actual the actual plastic or rubber hand-held piece. Uh I've been especially interested in the iPod style scroll wheel, which Well, I couldn't find a the picture of the iPod w only linked to a web browser, so I couldn't copy and paste it, but it had a similar thing to this thing on the right. It has uh scroll wheels without without a display, but they they scroll like a computer mouse. So I was thinking that uh um a really simple a really simple interface with just a couple of scroll things on it um and then instead of a display the display could appear on the television screen. Like I guess an existing Sky or cable one does. Like, you know, you press enter and it comes up with what's showing on that channel at the moment, and you can do you can scroll along and it'll show you what's on in the next half hour, and you scroll up and you can see what's on the other channels while you're watching the same channel on the screen. Uh but I'm also equally taken with this chunky plastic kiddie remote, um which is really nice and fun and good to hold and nice, big, easy buttons to press, but still quite simple and quite cost effective. So what seems kind of ideal for me would be to just have a fairly simple, uh not fancy but not totally minimalist, I mean just pretty simple plastic, probably, I was thinking, yellow and black, just because that's the company's colours, with very very few buttons, but that would correspond to a screen that would appear on the television screen, like, you know, just small along the bottom instead of instead of having the iPod style display screen on the actual remotes, which is far too expensive. And when you've got a screen sitting there in front of you, you might as well have it appearing uh on the screen in front of you, it doesn't obscure much of the actual picture you're watching. And so on that you can, just much in the same way as an existing Sky remote, scroll along, scroll up and down. And uh and I definitely support uh the use of plastic and or rubber. I mean titanium would be great, but I think it might be a bit too expensive and too kinda spacey. If we're k trying to keep it colourful and slightly organic, then I think titanium's too futuristic. Yeah. Whereas a plastic's so cheap and easy and mouldable and everything else. Uh then And it's a little bit pointless as well I think. Like when when when you've got when you've got the screen there, it doesn't have to be anything fancy, just a little menu showing yeah, a menu, you go into one menu and then it can have your different options, whether you wanna change the settings or the you know, your information about programme that's on at the moment. I don't think that's to taxing to uh s engineer. Um. But as for actually arranging them let me go back to the to the picture of the kiddie one. And I quite like it, 'cause it's just smooth and hand-held and it's got these easily reachable buttons that quite nicely uh spaced out, so something a bit like that with buttons arranged in a kind of circle. Up, down, left, right. I I was thinking not actually scroll, like a like mouse scroll, but you know, a I can't quite d uh describe it. you see on the one on the right, down at the bottom, is the mouse. Yeah, see where the mouse is, like this s style thing where you c have up, down, left and right. And enter in the middle, so you pick your menu and then your different options and when when you click on each one, it you can go into a new menu for that. I'm getting a bit uh specific here. Really we'd have to use something to show you, but If I don't think I can get it up on the screen. Ah here we go. Right. Well, the iPod spinning wheel is uh really complicated. It does scroll, but it is hugely complicated. What else have we got? Them, they're terrible. But they all have this this feature of this uh It's not quite a scroll wheel, but it's a kind of selection in this circle, which I think is a really good idea. Yeah, like up, down, left and right. Which is good. And then and then Yeah, so I mean either a channel up and down, volume up and down, next appearing programmes up and down, uh and then also when you get into the different menus on the screen, it's got your things like settings and contrast up and down. So all you really need is these four buttons with the enter in the middle. And that's it. Look at look at this one. Almost impossible to misplace or l or lose. Might take up your whole living room. Possibly. Yeah. That also is possible. Just Uh just something else I need to bring to your attention is have you have you seen these on a remote? This is actually the volume up and down, but they both say V_ on them, which, when you first look at it, you expect that to be the down, because it looks like a downward pointing arrow, but it's actually the V_ to indicate that it's the volume, so uh we do need to avoid little ambiguities like these. But we wouldn't have a specific volume up and down. If we're having the scroll wheel, then it's gonna double up as all the other up and down functions. But then, that's complicated. It sounds great. I've never come across it before, but it sounds fantastic. Sounds like it could be g a really good economical it would make the whole thing a lot lighter, more convenient. Yeah. 'Cause it's really a quite attractive thought, isn't it? It's like yeah, a good selling point. But it does depend how much I mean how much it costs and how much more development and research it needs. Do your exercises while you're watching the T_V_. Yeah, that's what I was thinking as well. Do you not think it might need like a kind of a hard plastic inner shell with the actual delicate workings inside, and then a kind of spongy Yeah, s thick spongy cover, so it feels like the whole thing's spongy, but actually you're not damaging anything by squeezing it. Because I mean you could just get carried away with the with the tac Yeah. Well you do get a bit carried away with things that are tactile, you just wanna stroke them and squeeze them, and Just copy the one on the left. No um a scroll Well, like four buttons, up, down, left and right with enter in the middle, that will correspond to a menu on the screen. Yeah, I'd like push buttons with So push buttons No, it's still it's still plugged in on mine actually. Now it's gone again. Oh yes. Great. I don't think so. Play-Doh.
Speaker D: Hi Kate. Okay, carry on. Alright um this is the beginning of the third meeting, the conceptual design meeting. Um our agenda should be um that we're opening the meeting, I have the minutes from the previous meeting are on the shared f drive at this point. Um and we should each have a presentation to make. Um we have certain decisions to make and we have forty minutes total. It's twenty five after two at the moment, so forty minutes is five after three, um which I'll be keeping an eye on the clock for us. Okay. Um there are the decisions we have to turn to, but we'll come back to them in a minute after I take us to the minutes of the previous meeting. Right um as we remember, I opened the meeting, the four of us were present, the meeting the first meeting's minutes were reviewed and approved. Um Sarah, you presented a marketing research report um which pretty much rep represented that fifteen to thirty five year olds uh it has to be hand-held, power, channel, volume, number keys, possibly a speech recognition. And then Steph did a second presentation um that those functions plus streamlining them with big user-friendly keys that were easy to use. I think all of us agreed with those things. Kate presented a working design of going after going over the basics on the whiteboard um that it should be a simple mass-produced device, because of the twelve and a half Pence cost. Um but we did talk about possibly using rechargeable batteries and having a docking place as a selling point. Um and the new requirements that it for be for T_V_ only um and that it include the l so slogan and colour of the uh corporate design be included. Um the corporate image. So we agreed that the target market would be fifteen to thirty five with more money than sense, that were decision makers. Alternatively it would be a manufacturer to enclose it with the T_V_, but it still should meet those parameters. Um and that the function we agreed was volume, power, numbers, enter, channels, a way to move between channels, easy to use and hand-held. Um at that point we agreed that Sarah would look at the current cost of competition, what what do the current ones sell for. Um and Steph was gonna look at ec ergonomics. Kate was gonna look at cost and feasibility of the various possibilities that we discussed. And I was to type up these minutes and work on the final report. Is this a fair presentation of what our last meeting was? Okay. Right. So we're ready to close that and go back to our That one. Right. We're up to the point of the Go back. Um the three presentations. So we're going to pull the plug on me and turn to Sarah. Is that okay? Is that alright with everybody else? Especially since Kate asked to be last. Sarah, I'm sorry if I misspelled your name, I didn't know whether it was S_A_R_A_ or S_A_R_H_. You respond to whatever you get, huh? Okay. Um, did you do your Hit Ah, there it is. Ta-da. Mm 'kay. 'Kay. Mm. It sounds like the the uh covers that they use for the remote, you know, your t your cell phone. Mm. Hmm. Uh-huh mm. In most families, don't isn't the remote is a remote. Mm. Mm. Well actually some households do have three and four T_V_s and they would have a remote for each one, so. Hmm. Hmm. Are we talking about the device itself or the c or a cover for the device that would be an interchangeable cov cover as a separate product? Perhaps perhaps that desi that particular suggestion needs to go back to management and perhaps go to another group to actually design as a separate product. Wo would that be agreeable? Do you wanna be next or you want Kate to go next? Okay, we'll move the Mm. Mm. Alright. Remember, we only have forty minutes Hmm. Mm. Hmm. Hmm. Thank you, Kate. Yes. There we go. Do it again. Keep doing it until you get it in both you get it there, you get it yours without that one, and then you get it with both. Yeah. This time it should come up both. Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm. Hmm. Mm. Huh. It's a selection wheel. Okay. Okay. Or call it a or call it a banana and have it in yellow. Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Mm 'kay. I wanna thank you all for all your presentations. We have about ten minutes left, in which time we have to make some decisions on the remote control concepts. Um and I think you all have been self-stimulating of working together. Um we need to come up with some specifics of the components, um the materials, things like making the decision on the energy um and the case and the interface type things. So let's Mm. Right. They want us to decide what form of energy are we going to use, which the choices that we've discussed were pretty much battery, kinetic or solar. Um this is where Kate's expertise comes in, and our decision making will be a little bit guided by Kate at this point. The You were saying that the kinetic would be useful, that is you just have to move it some and you'd be able to use it um as opposed to a battery that you have to either put it in a recharger or um keep replacing the batteries. Um or solar that you'd have difficulty with it if it's a dark day, that it'll die on you, and no way to do it. That's the day you wanna use the T_V_. Um so what's our pleasure here, what would be the cost consequences of each of the three? Okay. Mm 'kay. What's the uh feelings of the group on the kinetic? Hmm. Hmm. So the consensus seems to be use the kinetic if it's at all possible. It costs. Mm. Mm. Mm. Hmm. Yeah. Thanks for the reminder for five minutes to finish, thanks. Um the next thing that they wanted us to do was look at chip on print as a decision. Oh. Okay. What about the ca yeah. Oh, the way we uh-huh. Oh, okay. Um what about the case? I think they're talking there about do we want wood, plastic, titanium or rubber, and I think we've discussed not having titanium. One, it's too expensive, um and second, it won't do this double um curves. Um we've sort of eliminated wood. We said plastic or rubber. What's the pleasure? What about you? Cover. Uh-huh. Plastic inside. Hmm. Okay. Um the next part they want is the user interface concept. I'm sorry to push you, but we only have a couple minutes to finish with. Okay, and it says interface. What type and what supplements? Okay, um that's that. Um this is gonna sound weird, but the next meeting starts in thirty minutes. Whew. And they actually want a look and feel design, user interface design, you can look and see this as well as I can. Marketing they want product evaluation. Oh. Oh my, I'm sorry. Oh, okay. Sorry about that. missed that one. This ought to be fun trying to get this thing to work. Ah, ta-da. Ah. Yes, because I can't even see mine. Next meeting starts in thirty minutes, these are the individual actions. Yeah, right. Um the look and feel design is for Kate, uh Steph gets the user interface design, you get product evaluation. Um the two of you get to play with a Pla modelling clay um to do a prototype. Uh and everybody gets individual instructions in the usual way. Anything else we need to do? Go to it. And that's the end of this meeting. That's for her benefit.
this is the beginning of the third meeting , the conceptual design meeting . Um our agenda should be um that we're opening the meeting , the minutes from the previous meeting are on the shared f drive at this point . Um and we should each have a presentation to make . Um we have certain decisions to make Um there are the decisions we have to turn to , but we'll come back to them in a minute after I take us to the minutes of the previous meeting . Um Sarah , you presented a marketing research report um which pretty much rep represented that fifteen to thirty five year olds uh it has to be hand-held , power , channel , volume , number keys , possibly a speech recognition . And then Steph did a second presentation um that those functions plus streamlining them with big user-friendly keys that were easy to use . Kate presented a working design of going after going over the basics on the whiteboard um that it should be a simple mass-produced device , because of the twelve and a half Pence cost . Um but we did talk about possibly using rechargeable batteries and having a docking place as a selling point . we agreed that the target market would be fifteen to thirty five with more money than sense , that were decision makers . Alternatively it would be a manufacturer to enclose it with the T_V_ , Um and that the function we agreed was volume , power , numbers , enter , channels , a way to move between channels , easy to use and hand-held . Um at that point we agreed that Sarah would look at the current cost of competition , what what do the current ones sell for . Um and Steph was gonna look at ec ergonomics . Kate was gonna look at cost and feasibility of the various possibilities that we discussed . first thing I want to address is um one of the points that Florence brought up , which was uh current cost of the competition devices , and and they're uh twenty to sixty Euros , depending on uh branding . But I think that with the current um price that we're searching for , we're well within , even on the lower end , of the uh of the market . I investigated the remote control market in greater detail , What's hot , fruit and veg . Spongy . And this is all over the catwalks , Paris , Milan , and I'm talking about clothing , furniture , shoes . This is really interesting change from past years , because it is much more organic , And I think if we're to refashion our view of what we want in a remote control , we should perhaps think about incorporating technologically interesting fabrics and some of the bold colours into a simple handset . on um what again are the most important priorities in uh decision making about uh purchasing . Functional is out . Fancy . And f the fancy , and that's exactly the term , I'm I'm thinking polished , elegant , you know , kind of innovative , but a cut above . This is twice as important as the next finding , which is technologically innovative . This is interesting , 'cause I think in the last meeting we were talking about technology as being so important , but maybe what's innovative is having it simple with um with uh technologically superior fabrics or uh , you know , designed in interesting substances . Ease of use . Again , pretty low , I mean it's the top three , but each of the uh fancy and technologically innovative are far more important . I think we should cloak the streamlined remote control device in a series of fruit fruit themed sleeves . It sounds like the the uh covers that they use for the remote , you know , your t your cell phone . I was thinking though that instead of having something uh like patterned , you know , so , you know , something similar to a summer dress . you know , it would have like fruit and veg , is that we actually make these spongy . initially I thought we could start with kind of um fruit that would suit kind of uh a long uh hand-held , so banana , pineapple and pear . They could be interchangeable , they're spongy , So what we're talking about is changing . this concept . Everyone has a T_V_ remote , but the person who is really perhaps active in personalising , I'm thinking the teenager , the someone fifteen to thirty five would go out and get this additional thing the same way as you mentioned that people would get the cell phone covers . So I really open this up to uh any other feedback . This spongy fruit and veg . I I think we're gonna have some trouble when we get down to the component design on this . And as for as for um well budgeting as well , if we're gonna have lots of different interchangeable components . we can make these things out of wood , titanium , plastic or rubber . I suppose rubber is the closest to spongy , I was thinking titanium myself . I have been influenced by pictures of iPods , I think many of us would associate those with fancy . it would be uh a a very simple product that would have a spongy sleeve that would be interchangeable . So Perhaps perhaps that desi that particular suggestion needs to go back to management W w would it be helpful if um I described the components a bit , I think possibly it might be more useful if Kate went next . I was really thinking a lot about the I_ uh the iMac kind of gel gem tone . you're gonna be a little disappointed with some of the things I have to tell you , I've been looking at the the basics of how these devices actually have to work in order to operate , and I've had some discussions with the ma manufacturing division , who have told me what's actually available , you know , what the current state of the art in components is , and some of the exciting new things they've got , this is the innards of a remote control um . and that's the the back of the interface . And this is a push-button one , so you see these little little buttons here , they're little rubber rubber buttons that go through onto the the board at the back and they push these buttons here . that's the basic construction that we've got to got to accommodate . We got to have something that pushes the little buttons that um talk to the chip that encodes the message that sends the the message to the receiver . So first of all um I wanna talk about what possibilities we've got for the energy source . Um we can have your bog standard double double A_ batteries in a replaceable um little compartment . We can have a hand a wind-up , yeah , but i it maybe is doesn't quite go with the um the fruit and veg . Um one that one that I think is quite interesting is the kinetic energy source , where um you you actually get the energy by moving the device , Or we we had talked about solar power , but I thing that we agreed that that's not so good in the dark . I'm afraid this is the options we've got on on the case . It can be made of plastic , rubber , wood o if you like , or titanium . Um and the nearest we've got to st to spongy there I guess is rubber , and basically it can have a flat surface , a curved surface or a double curved surface , but I think if we wanna use standard components , we're gonna have difficulty with anything much beyond that . push button , that's that's the one we're all familiar with . what does the interface look like ? Um we can have scroll buttons and the the scroll button can incorporate a push , so you can have it like on a mouse where you can use it to go up and down , change volume or channel or something like that and push to select something . Um you can have multiple scroll buttons , And we can also incorporate an L_C_D_ display in the remote , but this will increase the cost . Um the electronics that actually makes the device work , we've basically got three , simple , regular , advanced , If we want the nice cheap one , the simple , then we can only have push buttons . Um pay a little bit more for a regular chip and you can have scroll buttons . And the manufacturing devision tell me that they have recently developed um sample sensor sample speaker devices . I don't know what that is , but I think they think it's quite important I I think we've got two options . We can either go for a really cheap model , keep all of the costs down , Or we can have something that looks a bit nicer , I think it , um won't necessarily l uh look like a pineapple , Um but it could have an L_C_D_ screen and it could have multiple scroll buttons , Um do you have any idea if if this could if the fancy model could be done in twelve Euros fifty ? and it could have the the company's new development of the um sample sensor and speaker . I'm afraid I don't have that information available . Um manufacturing didn't actually give attach any prices to any of this , I'm afraid . so what I had been thinking was something chunky and yellow and plastic with black buttons with a logo on it . I I don't know how important that is to keep it exactly the colours of the Real Reaction company . That's before I heard about all this hot tips about the future , fruit-wise . We we could we could do um a double curved rubber one , which would allow um say a banana , but um unfortunately I see from my notes that if we do that , we have to have a push button as the interface , I don't actually have a huge amount of different information then what Kate says , just that my method was to look at the , well , my my inspirations , which was a big collection of lots of different models of remote controls and other things that use a similar sort of thing , including M_P_ three players , uh like you know , hi-fi remotes , not just television and these things . Uh having a think about the feature of ea the features of each ones , Uh I've been especially interested in the iPod style scroll wheel , um what functions we actually need , It has uh scroll wheels without without a display , but it had a similar thing to this thing on the right . So I was thinking that uh um a really simple a really simple interface with just a couple of scroll things on it um and then instead of a display the display could appear on the television screen . and it comes up with what's showing on that channel at the moment , you can scroll along and you can see what's on the other channels while you're watching the same channel on the screen . Uh but I'm also equally taken with this chunky plastic kiddie remote , um which is really nice and fun and good to hold and nice , big , easy buttons to press , but still quite simple and quite cost effective . what seems kind of ideal for me would be to just have a fairly simple , uh not fancy but not totally minimalist , I mean just pretty simple plastic , probably , I was thinking , yellow and black , just because that's the company's colours , with very very few buttons , but that would correspond to a screen that would appear on the television screen , like , you know , just small along the bottom Yeah , I'd I'd certainly support that idea . And uh and I definitely support uh the use of plastic and or rubber . I mean titanium would be great , but I think it might be a bit too expensive and too kinda spacey . we can't for example have a double curved case in titanium unfortunately . But as for actually arranging them let me go back to the to the picture of the kiddie one . And I quite like it , 'cause it's just smooth and hand-held and it's got these easily reachable buttons so something a bit like that with buttons arranged in a kind of circle . Up , down , left , right . Do you want scroll buttons in that as well ? I I was thinking not actually scroll , like a like mouse scroll , like this s style thing where you c have up , down , left and right . And enter in the middle , and when when you click on each one , it you can go into a new menu for that . It seems that that uh you guys are quite keen on the plastic , Uh just something else I need to bring to your attention Um we need to come up with some specifics of the components , um the materials , things like making the decision on the energy um and the case and the interface type things . If we're k trying to keep it colourful and slightly organic , then I think titanium's too futuristic . Whereas a plastic's so cheap and easy and mouldable and everything else . And the the having the the the screen on the television screen I think is a good idea , I think I think that's a g nice clean design , But they all have this this feature of this uh It's not quite a scroll wheel , but it's a kind of selection in this circle , But we can implement it with simple push buttons , either a channel up and down , volume up and down , next appearing programmes up and down , uh and then also when you get into the different menus on the screen , it's got your things like settings and contrast up and down . So all you really need is these four buttons with the enter in the middle . Do you think we could put it in a in a fruit colour ? And have it abstract . we could call like a fruit name , Mm . We we could actually do it in rubber instead of plastic if you'd rather if you feel if you like the spongy I'm thinking maybe we need to be a little bit more abstract if the design constraints are so This is actually the volume up and down , but they both say V_ on them , so uh we do need to avoid little ambiguities like these . But we wouldn't have a specific volume up and down . If we're having the scroll wheel , then it's gonna double up as all the other up and down functions . They want us to decide what form of energy are we going to use , which the choices that we've discussed were pretty much battery , kinetic or solar . You were saying that the kinetic would be useful , um as opposed to a battery that you have to either put it in a recharger or um keep replacing the batteries . Um or solar that you'd have difficulty with it if it's a dark day , that it'll die on you , and no way to do it . unfortunately I don't have costing information . I i in terms of workability , I I think the the two front-runners are the standard battery or the kinetic , What's the uh feelings of the group on the kinetic ? I've used kinetic in terms of watches you don't even notice um that it's there . I've never come across it before , but it sounds fantastic . it would make the whole thing a lot lighter , more convenient . a good selling point . So the consensus seems to be use the kinetic if it's at all possible . But it does depend how much I mean how much it costs and how much more development and research it needs . Mm . Um the next thing that they wanted us to do was look at chip on print as a decision . Um chip on print is just a manufacturing technique um and I would certainly recommend it , I think , Um what about the case ? I think they're talking there about do we want wood , plastic , titanium or rubber , Do you not think it might need like a kind of a hard plastic inner shell with the actual delicate workings inside , and then a kind of spongy Yeah , s thick spongy cover , and I think we've discussed not having titanium . Um we've sort of eliminated wood . We said plastic or rubber . I'd I'd need to talk to manufacturing again about whether that's actually possible , but I agree , it's uh sounds like a nice idea if it is . Um the next part they want is the user interface concept . Then I'll just say I support either from a marketing point of view I support either decision that the designers make on that . like four buttons , up , down , left and right with enter in the middle , that will correspond to a menu on the screen . I'd like push buttons with but the next meeting starts in thirty minutes . Um this is gonna sound weird , And they actually want a look and feel design , user interface design , Marketing they want product evaluation . Um the look and feel design is for Kate , uh Steph gets the user interface design , Um the two of you get to play with a Pla modelling clay um to do a prototype . you get product evaluation . Uh and everybody gets individual instructions in the usual way . And that's the end of this meeting .