AMI ES2004a — remote control design: kick-off

Are we we're not allowed to dim the lights, so if you're gonna see that a bit better.

Yeah. That's fine.

Am I supposed to be standing up there?

So you've got both of these clipped on.

Is she gonna answer me? Yeah. I'll go. Alright. Both of them. Okay.

Yes.

God.

Okay. Hello, everybody. Hi. I'm Sarah, the project manager. And this is our first meeting, surprisingly enough. Okay. This is our agenda. We

will do some stuff, get to know each other a bit better, feel more comfortable with each other. Then we'll go do tool training, talk about the project plan, discuss our own ideas and everything. And we've got twenty five minutes to do that as far as I can understand.

Now, we're developing a remote control, which you probably already know. We want it to be original, something that people haven't thought of. It's not out in the shops, Trendy, appealing to a wide market, but not a hunk of metal and user friendly, grannies to kids, maybe even pooches should be able to use it. Okay. First is the functional design. This is where we all go off and do our individual work. What needs need to be fulfilled by the product? What effect the product has to have

and how it's actually going to do that? Conceptual design, what we're thinking, how it's going to go and then the detailed design, how we're actually going to put it into practice and make it work.

Okay, Right. We're gonna practice with the pens and draw our favorite animal on the whiteboard. I'll go first. And sum up the characteristics of that animal.

Okay, So, I'll leave space for everyone else.

We're running out of blue.

Okay. I'm not gonna ask you to guess. I'm going to tell you that's supposed to be a tiger.

And I see them as majestic

and independent

and

proud.

Now, who would like to go next? Me. K.

We got

where'd this come from?

There you go.

Thank you.

Maybe you can guess what I'm trying to make.

A kind of dog?

Yep.

It's actually sitting. So

Sorry? It's sitting.

It's not Okay. I see it as one thing. It's very supportive. It's your best friend in your you can talk to a dog. It can be a best friend. It doesn't discriminate between you based on what you are. Second, it's loyal. And third thing, it's got intuition.

Means dogs can some sometimes make out between a thief and a person. So basically, these are the three unique features I think belong to a dog.

You. You.

Yeah. Okay.

Sorry. Okay. Please please leave me a space at the bottom. I'm little. Alright. At the top. He's standing on a chair. Well, since you guys have chosen the ones I wanted to do. Okay.

Has to go. It's not a dog. Very random.

And also my drawing skill isn't that great. Well, as you can see, the quality of the work today is I think it's outstandingly good. Yes.

Okay. Now I'm gonna have to change what it was originally gonna be because that looks like a beak now.

Crocodile?

Yeah. Can be a crocodile. Can be a crocodile. It was it was an Can it be a parade? Firstly, it was an attempt at a T Rex. And then it sort of changed into a pelican, but it can be a crocodile.

That's lovely.

And I'll have to think on the spot of things that it is.

Scary,

strong.

Yeah, that's about it, I think.

Okay. I'm very impressed with your artistic skills. Mine's are dreadful. Oops. This is now coming apart. Let me just put the top in.

I hope that clicks in. I'll just I'll hold it on. Okay. Oops. Oh, dear. What happened there? Technical help.

Hopefully, that'll stay on two handed version. Okay. Okay.

Again, this is off the top of my head. I was gonna do a big cat too.

Oh, dear. It doesn't look like what I want it to be.

It's not a vampire bat, honestly. And

somewhere, there's a body behind.

Okay. That's my dreadful that's the worst yet. It's meant to be an eagle. Right. You can tell it's a flying animal. Could have been a seagull. Never thought of a seagull. An eagle. Again, I'm thinking on my feet. Goodness. I suppose they're also independent. I'd put that one down again.

They're good at golf. Independent. Right? Did you say they're good at golf? Yeah. Are they? Yeah. Eagle. Eagle. Right. Okay. I'm not good at golf. I see they're quite free spirited, flying around everywhere,

doing their own thing.

And

birds of prey, aren't they? Oh, dear. Intrepid. Intrepid.

There we go. Hope that pen's gonna be okay.

Okay.

That was fine. Finance

wise, we've got a selling price at €25 which I don't actually know what that is in pounds at all.

Any ideas? It's about

€0.4 something like that. 1.4 would make a pound or something like that. Yes, yes, something like that. Yes,

about £17 £17.

That's expensive.

Should we be making notes of this? We can just refer to this later, can't we? I think so. Yeah. I think so. I'd be able to pull the app or Okay. Put it in the shared folder or something. Having said that, though, if you wanna get one of those, the the ones on the market at the moment, they're they're about £20 anyway.

So Right. Yeah.

We have to buy one.

So I suppose later it depends if we want to undercut the price or is it going to make our product look a cheapy, cheapy option? Yeah.

Production costs at $12.50. So half of the selling prices taken up by building it. And profit aim is EUR 50,000,000, which is In

our first year? Yes.

Yes, I presume so. You've

got market range international, and you did say earlier it's got to be accessible and usable by sort of all age groups. Just we're not focusing on business market, any particular thing. It's everyone, user friendly to everyone.

Big target group. Yes. Yes. I don't think we have to I don't think it's a case of worrying about different languages and things like that. No. Making that a key point. Just that it's going to be in the international market like Mhmm. Australia, America, things like that. Okay.

What are your experiences with remote controls? I mean, I've got we got we had three videos, a TV, and a sort of amp thing all set up. Yeah. So we got one of the universal remote controls Yeah. That you program each of your things into, but that kept losing the signals. So we'd have to reprogram it every now and again. I think it was quite a GP as well. Yeah. So that might have had something to do with it, but that was quite good, the fact that you could Use all the ones that you could Couldn't have six remote controls in You front of wanna integrate everything into one like? Yeah. Mhmm.

Because My experience has only been being given the remote control with the object I buy, not doing any tampering with it and programming, using it to program TV or videos and things. But basically, on off volume up and down, channel one, two, that basic functions, I don't think I could go any further with it than that. So I suppose it's got to be something usable by someone like me as well. Yeah. The main that's the main stuff anyway. I mean,

and you don't want to I hate I hate looking at a control and seeing a million tiny little buttons with tiny little words saying what they all do and just sitting

there searching for the teletext button or something like that you don't necessarily understand. Symbols you're meant to understand that you don't. So you're showing symbols you would think When they're

when you've got the main things on the front of it and a section opens up or something to the other functions when you can do sound or options kind of recording, things like that inside it. Mhmm. Because it doesn't make when you pick it up, it doesn't make it really complicated to look at. It's obvious what you're doing.

Actually, just raises a point. I wonder what our design people think. But you know on a mobile phone, you can press a key and it gives you a menu. It's got a menu display. I wonder if incorporating that into the design

of a remote control might be useful. So you've got a little LCD display. Right. I was thinking on the same lines you, instead of having too many buttons and make it complicated for the user, may have maybe have an LCD display or something like that, like a mobile. With menus. And with menus. Yeah. And if it's somewhat similar to what you have on mobile phone, people might find it easier to browse and navigate also. Yeah. Maybe. What about the older generation? What about granny and granddad's? You can just leave it

My granddad can answer his mobile phone, but he couldn't even dream of texting or something like that.

Can he program his remote control or is he basic with that too?

I don't think they tape things. Yeah. Right. My grandad's actually better than me using teletech, so Right.

So that's a problem regardless of of any design modifications you you come up with. Yeah. That's gonna be a problem anyway with the older generation perhaps.

And that's another issue. We tackle that. Well, it just needs to be as long as it's sort of self intuitive and you can work out why everything's doing. Because I mean, menus on sort of new phones now, they're sort of goldies pictures and stuff, which makes it fairly obvious what you're trying to do. Mhmm. Mhmm. I don't know. I I don't know how.

I don't like the, you know, the new phones that kind of got a Windows based Oh, yeah. Running system. Mhmm. I find it really confusing. I kept getting lost in the phone. I did I have not got a new one, but my friend got a new one. I was trying to do things with it, and I just kept getting lost, but

that's just me. Yeah. I don't I don't know how for 25 or €12.50, how much of a excellent

screen you could get. You'd you'd have to sort of keep it down to a black and white LCD thing anyway. Is it possible that that for the older generation, you could have like an extra button that you press for large print like you do in large print books? Obviously, it displays less on the screen. It displays less on the screen, but as long as they can read it, that's the main thing. Yeah.

Or what about kind of a dual function in that you've got the basic buttons just for your play volume program things Mhmm. And also and then a menu to go into with obvious pictures, obvious symbols, and that's

where you control Mhmm. Recording and things like that. The other thing is just tuck tucking into mobile phone design features again. You can have a flip top remote control, so when you flip over the top, your screen is you can have a bigger screen in the flip over.

I think that's a cost thing. I don't know how much we're gonna know about It might save a bit of space.

Of looking bulky, it might look small. Yeah. But it might have cost implications.

And there's no reason we need to make it look as fashionable and stylish as a mobile phone. It can still be lightweight plastic. You know? Right. Something that's easily molded and produced. Yeah. Sorry. I'm treading on your territory, guys.

Right. Okay. We've got half an hour before the next meeting, so we're all gonna go off and do our individual things.

I think that's probably about it, and then we'll come back and liaise again. Yeah. And I get to do another fantastic PowerPoint presentation. Just

a quick thing about the what you're saying about the doesn't doesn't need to be fashionable. The so I I had a quick look at the company website, and it's like the the we put the fashion into electronics. Oh, right. So I think think the whole design thing might be quite Sure. I mean, you don't you Yeah. You can still have plastic, and it look

quite good, but Yeah. I mean, it doesn't have to be that, but that was my main point. We don't have to use metal. I don't know if using plastic does make it cheaper. Presume it would. Yeah. It would. Yeah. Probably. Yeah.

I mean, the Sky remote controls and everything, they're kind of molded and look a bit different than the Teles remote controls or silver plastic, which Right. Looks a bit smarter.

So, yeah, I guess that's stuff we can think Okay.

Okay. So let's break it up there. Okay. Okay. So see you in half an hour.

Do we go back to our room? Think so. Yeah.