Making Life Easy for Couch Potatoes : Technology: Costa Mesa designer Doug Patton said personal need drove him to develop a simple, easy-to-use, 3-button TV remote control.
Simplify.
That was what designer Doug Patton set out to do in developing a new television remote control for Mitsubishi Electronics America Inc. in Cypress.
The result is a design marvel. Called the PRM-1, it is a pen-shaped remote control with only three buttons that can accomplish the most-frequently used functions.
The impetus behind the new device was consumer complaints that VCRs, stereos and televisions--which together make up complete “home entertainment” systems--have burdened them with complicated remote controls with scores of buttons.
Patton himself designed an earlier remote control for Mitsubishi that sported 52 buttons. Later, however, he became fed up with the design headaches and wondered if anyone really learned how to use the controls.
So Patton simplified. And his efforts have earned the recognition of his peers. Last month, the Industrial Design Society of America gave Patton one of its prestigious national gold awards for the PRM-1.
“Most remote controls are multi-key horrors differentiated only by styling exercises (such as rounded corners),” said Peter Edward Lowe, a Menlo Park designer and one of the society’s judges. “Yes, it (the PRM-1) may be hard to find and it might roll off the table, but it’s so easy to use!”
The PRM-1 allows viewers to easily change channels, adjust volume, and turn their television sets on and off.
The buttons do not even feature graphics to identify the buttons. Rather, the consumer can discern the uses with tactile and visual aids. The power button is round and blue, the channel button is long and rests on rockers so it can be used to control forward and backward, and the volume button is similarly designed but is a different size.
“If you can operate a computer with a mouse, why do you need 52 buttons for a television?” Patton said. “It arose from a personal need, not a technology need.”
Before he sold the design to Mitsubishi, he had to sell that design philosophy.
“For me, it is a statement of simplicity,” he said. “It generated a whole new philosophy that human need should drive technology. Everywhere you go, you’re overloaded with technology. I don’t need all these controls in my daily life.”
Starting with the idea in 1988, he worked with engineer Richard Jung and Mitsubishi’s product development department to perfect the device. The concept caught the imagination of Tachi Kuichi, president of Mitsubishi Electronics America, and eventually it received approval from the company’s headquarters in Japan.
The remote hit the market a year ago and sells for $29.95. The company liked the response so much it is crafting a wave of new products based on the simplicity philosophy, said Leo Delaney, vice president of marketing for the company’s consumer electronics group.
“It’s currently confined to designs of Mitsubishi products,” Delaney said. “If we get a positive response to this, we’ll expand it for use with other company’s products.”
The pen-remote is the latest score for Patton, who runs a small industrial design firm--Patton Designs in Costa Mesa--with 14 employees and sales in the “low seven figures.”
Patton, 37, graduated from Cal State Long Beach in 1980 with a degree in industrial design. He worked three years for another design firm before he founded his company in 1983.
The company works with a number of big-name corporations--including Apple Computer Inc., McDonnell Douglas Corp., Nakamichi, and General Motors Corp.--and has designed more than 60 products since its inception.
Patton also played a primary design role in creating computers that Apple will introduce to the consumer market Oct. 15, including work on the showcase product known as the Mac Classic. On most projects, he said he must swear to keep the work confidential.
The pen-remote is his most satisfying design, partly because his 4-year-old daughter, Heather, can use it, Patton said.
“She uses it to turn on the television in the morning,” he said. “That’s one of my greatest rewards.”
