The core problem is cost vs perceived value. Having run up that hill many times. I worked on 4 remotes I’ve been proud of and many many more that have been brand slapped “credit card remotes”.
When I’ve been successful at convincing organizations to do something with integrity has been when I’ve made a clear case around these 3 points:
- improved UX leading to higher amazon reviews, critical reviews, and other peer reviews (increased NPS)
- improved industrial design leading to remote being left out (not hidden) and not replaced (not integrated into a third party universal remote)
- increased cost being negligible if tooling can be amortized across portfolio (IE use the same remote for everything, takes a lot of feature planning)
The design principles I’ve used to evaluate the designs themselves are:
- feature prioritization (making most frequently used features most dominant)
- tactile navigation for high priority features (feel your way to key features without looking)
- recognizing remote is the only physical touchpoint for the product so adding both visual and physical mass in a sculptural way
From there you can start concepting, evaluating, user testing, and refining and minimize the whiny complaining and personal bias