Testing the Hypothesis

1. Opportunity: The opportunity I would like to pursue is the "need" for a voice operated TV remote.

2. Who: Average American household.
What: People wanting to watch TV.
Why: Someone with a disability who cannot easily get up and down from the couch or walk across the room when they need to use the remote. Also, for people who hate getting comfortable just to immediately get back up when they realize they need to change the channel.

3.Testing the who: I originally thought of this idea solely about those who often find themselves cuddling up on the couch and getting comfortable then finding out they left the remote across the room (I do this often). However, after I started typing up the "who, what, why" I stumbled across the need for people with disabilities who could benefit from this product as well. I tested this in my interviews along with the original thought.

Testing the what: The boundaries of this need are that it will only benefit people who spend a vast majority of time watching television or it will not be worth the money to them.

Testing the why: Many people will think "Oh, I'm not that lazy to get up to grab the remote." However, that's where the disability side of it comes in. For someone who it is difficult to do so, they may really benefit from the voice control feature. Another boundary is that there are voice operated TVs but the technology is so new and they are very expensive.

4. After I interviewed the 5 people, they all looked at me as if I was the lazy one (well sometimes I am, aren't we all?) but I didn't take it to heart! Three of these people agreed that this is something that could happen fairly soon in the future and pointed out that we already utilize features like this such as Google Assistant and Siri. However, they thought that it was a little unnecessary for the average person. Another hated the idea and literally said "who could possibly be that lazy?" Interesting enough, the ones who liked it were young kids whom I work with, around 17-22 years old. My neighbor that I spoke with, who is elderly, pointed out that this would not only benefit those with disabilities but also those of a certain age group and those with arthritis, etc.

5. I thought this idea would be taken positively and with a little excitement. Maybe because things of this nature already exist in other ways, no one was impressed by the thought. I also never thought about targeting the "senior" age group.