After several meetings last week with potential new customers, I am getting a feeling that "less is more".

What I mean is this, I have several (many) remotes that I use for demo. One T4 controls the main theater area, a T2-C sits near the Plasma wall & a T-3 rests nicely near the Distributed Audio Wall, to show how RTI integrates into distributed situations.

ALL of these remotes have VERY custom graphics, entirely made from scratch, by you know who!

The T4 is obviously the show off, all custom buttons, nice clean icons, faux 2-way, and all the lovely .wav sound bites...

But here is the problem, on my T2-C, I really kept the graphics to a minimum, just really nice .jpg backgrounds and ALL .png text, with really cool fonts and animations with the text.... ALL the customers have requested the "basic" graphics package becuase of how "clean" it looks without little buttons clogging the screen.

So now I must re-do the T4, which is losing in sales now!!!

Since it is much easier to design panels that have basic graphics, do I still charge for my graphic work as a seperate item? Especially now that they are choosing the easier of graphics?

I just dont want customers thinking that I am charging too much for simple "text" based graphics, but the ENTIRE remote is being customized.

It turns out that the several sales last week are all leading to the text based stuff, which I dont want to give away for free, since it does take around 1-2 hours for a fully customized appearance, I just don't know how to charge for it, I guess!!!

What do you guys think? Is LESS, you know, MORE???

Joey

We all know that whether it's a totally off the wall totally custom GUI or a more basic custom GUI it takes time to do. Of course you are going to charge them less then the full blown totally custom one that took you 40+ hrs to do the graphics. You are worried about something that might not be a problem to your clients. Yes charge them a custom GUI fee, just charge them less then the rate for the T4. Almost all my clients prefer having less on their remote. I rarely put any Menu or Setup buttons on a remote. I usually only have three surround modes; Auto, stereo, and 7ch stereo. But I have clients that want more control and I put it on there for them.

Why not just have different levels of pricing for each level of GUI?

This gui package costs $200

This gui package cost $300

etc.

I agree with brandenpro.

Work it like car dealers do.
ex.
Plain white paint on a car costs 1000.00
Red Metallic paint costs 1200.00
Both are still painted but one looks much nicer hence the cost is a little higher as it takes a little more to make and apply.

I've been doing "less is more" for almost 20 years, keeps the service calls down. Usually the only person that gets "wowed" over the super-duper graphics is the people that get invited over. Most people want simple!

But it still takes plenty of time to write, code, and debug a setup, I would take that into account and charge accordingly to make some revenue, then you can put some $4.00/gal gas into your vehicle to go to the next sales call.

What you may want to think about doing is putting multiple styles on your display T4. I would show a simpler design, with text completely done in ID. Then I would show a second, more elaborate design (like the one you described in your post) for the people who like to have all the options for thier equipment.

It would require you to double up the total page count but your home page could be the point where the GUI branches in two completely different directions. I have a Modero 8.4 that I take to client meetings that pretty much has what I described.

Complete blueprints for room / zone select versus a page with simple text buttons arranged in columns grouped by floor etc..

You definitely want to limit it to three different choices.

Stating the obvious, most people buy remotes to make life simpler. The more complex the user interface the less likely they are to use it or as my wife says "I don't want to know how it works or figure out how it works, I just want to use it"

Most people buying these remotes will pay more for better usability not pretty graphics. Depending on the age of your clients (do they need reading glasses?) the fancier graphics may make the interface harder to read without reading glasses. Unfortunately, sometimes it's as simple as that. Not everyone has good depth perception or good low light vision or small digits to push buttons. It sucks from a design perspective, but it's what you're experiencing.

The last item you want to consider is that most people are very comfortable with a remote that has buttons on the bottom of the remote. Fewer people are comfortable with full touch screens. Another perspective is that most people are comfortable using PCs and using short cut commands, via the keyboard, versus the pull down menus. using a T2C is similar to using the short cut keyboard commands versus the user who uses the pull down menus. This is why I think the T2C is one of the best remotes around. It takes a bit of the legacy experience, that we all have, and combines it with the newer touch screen experience.

Have you ever asked your client's why they like the T2C and it's simpler interface?

Sometimes Less is More and not because of the reason why you think.

I agree with FRR but you also know that people who are going to spend the money on a full touch screen like an AMX 8.4 or Crestron TPMC-8X with processor and programming for full house control costs are usually going to want something more custom as they usually sold as multi-room or whole house controllers.

The T4 lands somewhere in between and the amount of hard buttons makes it easier to eliminate graphics for things like the four way jog control for on-screen menu navigation etc...

I think simpler is better too, but there is no reason simple can't look nice. Another good way to go is to show / hide advanced controls for equipment so the design appears simpler but the options are there for the tweakers. A great example is the typical DVD control page. You can have a page with the transports, four menu / option buttons and jog control for on-screen nav (if needed). Then have a small button or icon that shows the advanced controls like the remaining buttons for setup and the 0-9 keypad. A press and hold button works even better.

Here's a hypothetical situation but this kind of thing happens. Let's say a client with a T4 calls you and says "I need to get into setup on my DVD player but you didn't put the button on my touch screen" Your two replies could be "Well, we didn't think you would ever need it and I didnt want the screen to look cluttered, let's set up a time where you could bring it in or we could come out to the house and add those buttons" or "Mr client, we wanted to keep your touch panel from looking too busy, so we typically hide the advanced and seldom used controls. Press and hold the XXXX button for five seconds to show the additional buttons, if you would like them to be on the panel all the time, we could change it at your convenience."

All of this can be done by copying and pasting a full control page, deleting the "advanced" buttons on the default page and putting a visible or hidden page jump to the new page. It would apper the buttons are showing up out of nowhere even though you are doing a full page flip. You can always put something like a DVD or Blu Ray logo to fill in the negative space on the default page.

It's a nice trade off and doesnt take very much effort to implement.

On a smaller remote like a T2-C it's a simple as putting these on page 2 (as we all know).

Maybe the thing to do with graphics is to figure out how much you would charge for the labor to create a set of graphics, divide that number by how many programs you think you might sell, and then charge that amount for that kind of graphics. That's fair to you and to each client. But this only works, of course, if they are cookie cutter type of pages.


Screw that! When I'm zipping through four and a half minutes of advertisements on my DVR to get to where the show resumes, I want my finger to rest on a real physical button to put the thing back into PLAY. I program remotes and I found for myself that if the PLAY is some tactile-free area on a touchscreen, at least one out of five times I'll miss it. Then the DVR is at the wrong place...do you know what it's like when you're the programmer and you can't run the freakin' remote? That's why I changed to a T2+, then a T2C.

The number buttons could be touchscreen because I have to look at them, no matter what. But when I want to hit a button while looking at the screen, give me a real button!

keep it simple stupid

if the 60 year old grand parants cant use it, you did a bad job
if the 6 year old daughter cant use it, you did a bad job
if the 30 something hotty wife cant use it, you did a bad job
if the 20ish hottie"nanny" cant work it, you did a bad job

if you get fired and i take over the system and i have trouble figuring out how it works, you suck and should find another line of work

i have seen my fair share of Crestron with SIMPLE ASS systems that i needed to operate the components from the front panels.

The progamming needs to be written TO THE END USER. I keep mine very simple with an adjustment tab to aid the power user in tweaking things. Most users never touch it.

This is true.

When, for at least fifteen years, I would pick up a Yamaha receiver remote and hold it upside down, I had no doubt that they sucked at laying out remotes.

It is our job to understand everything, which means everything, about how the client's system works, and do programming as complex as needed, then trim it to as rapid as possible, so the client doesn't have to engage very much brain to use it.

I want to make remotes that require the customer know this:
1.if it's a touch screen, touch it to wake it up
2.go HOME to do something different. (different = on, off, different source)
3.push the buttons.
Another rule for myself:
4.if it's a touchscreen, the background WILL NOT make it necessary to exert ANY effort to understand the buttons. This makes the flames background go down in flames.

This is usually possible with a full touchscreen. I like button type remotes, but you can't ever label them properly as you can a touchscreen. On the other hand, a touchscreen is better for someone who won't be using the remote as much, since you can spell out on the screen just what to do.