Team leader
John Bateson - Corporate Edge
Team members
Hino Motors Ltd (automobile design), Toyota Motor Corporation (automobile design), Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (product design), Toshiba Corporation (product design), TOTO (product design), Toppan Printing Company (packaging).
Lead user
Takayuki Mitsushima, a blind artist and masseur.
The issue
How to make remote controls easier to use for all.
U Control
The standard remote control that we rely on to access so many consumer products presents problems to all - if you have impaired sight there is no sound or tactile feedback with the buttons too small and all the same. If your dexterity is not what it should be, the remote control is difficult to press, the buttons are too close for accurate selection and it slides around. For those with impaired hearing, no visual feedback is given and how do you access the subtitles for your programme?
If you are old, the numbers are too small, there's no contrast and it's all too complex and while children are braver, they are also more destructive and tend to find the channels that their parents would prefer they did not watch. In fact for everyone, remote controls are too complicated and too similar. U-control resolves all these problems by being completely customisable to each user's needs - it can be as simple or as intricate as you want since the functions can be slotted in separately and added or subtracted in the manner of Lego blocks.
