Ideal Wallet

My Engage and Explain Tasks

John Emerson Dona
6 min readJul 26, 2021

ENGAGE: MY IDEAL WALLET

A thin leather wallet is how I visualize my ideal wallet. I placed the coin purse on the front side for convenience since it is the most accessed object in my wallet. Inside are multiple compartments with unique purposes. Located at the top area of the wallet are the bill compartments that separate smaller bills from high-value bills. On the right side is the debit & credit card holder, which can hold three cards and one business card. While on the opposite side is the ID holder and QR Code. The scannable code contains contact information if the wallet is lost and found. Then, the pen holder sits right in the middle of the two back pockets. A wallet tracker is placed at the right back pocket to locate the wallet in case of theft.ds This wallet suits my preferences in terms of convenience, experience, and security.

My ideal wallet

ENGAGE: THE INTERVIEW

My friend Athena is the one I interviewed for this task. Her wallet and mine have some similar traits. Her wallet also has a coin purse on the outside, bill compartments, ID holder, pen holder, and cardholder. Her writing hobby and scribbling made her include a velcro attached notepad, making hers a three-fold wallet. She specified that her wallet should be nylon with hydrophobic coating for waterproofing and dark yellow glow in the dark threads. Then, a flower on the front side was her final touch. Her wallet caters to all her needs and reflects her personality.

Athena’s Ideal wallet

ENGAGE: DIGGING DEEPER

Athena’s wallet provides her security and organization with an appeal to aesthetics. She likes the color blue; she also wants her wallet to be colored the same. Her wallet also helps her avoid her compulsive spending through the customizable tabs in her wallet. She also avoids inserting things with sentimental value into her wallet for privacy reasons. Together with the bills, cards, and IDs, she also keeps receipts since her mother taught her not to dispose of receipts immediately as it may serve an essential role in the future.

ENGAGE: GOALS

With her ideal wallet, Athena aims to train herself to be financially disciplined by being organized. She wants her money to be organized according to its purpose. On the other hand, she values her thoughts like money and ensures that all her ideas are not wasted and written down on her notepad. All of these boils down to a single goal which is to better her financial management.

ENGAGE: INSIGHTS

I understand her intention behind her ideal wallet since I also can be a compulsive buyer sometimes. Also, the exclusion of sentimental or personal stuff in the wallet is a good choice since relationships and money should not be in the same place. But all in all, her wallet serves the same purpose as the others, but it is made just to fit her needs and preferences.

EXPLAIN: POINT OF VIEW

The post-interview analysis of Athena’s ideal wallet provided information regarding her financial management practice and how she prefers her belongings to be secured. But, she still considers herself compulsive and her belongings unorganized.

EXPLAIN: IDEA GENERATION (RADICAL WAYS)

Problem: Athena’s ideal wallet deals with her needs to organize her belongings and thoughts, improve her financial management practice and safety.

5 Radical Ways to Meet Her Needs

1.Camera Feature (Safety)

Camera security feature

2.Global Positioning System (Safety)

3.Emergency Button (Safety)

4.Ultra Violet lights(Safety)

5. Smart report feature (Safety)

ELABORATE: THE SOLUTION AND FEEDBACK

All of the suggested solutions were approved by Athena. She loved the idea of the UV lights in her wallet. Also, she indicated that the emergency button should be pressed 2times to avoid misclicking it. All in all, the proposed solutions for her ideal wallet were effective and just needed some alterations.

REITERATE (New Solution)

Despite fulfilling the satisfaction of Athena with her wallet already, I understood her feedbacks and adjusted specific functional
features of the wallet.

After adding and changing some features of Phoeboa’s ideal wallet, the prototype is ready.

PROTOTYPE

After a few tweaks and improvements on Athena’s ideal wallet, the prototype is completed.

Ideal wallet prototype (Inside)

FINAL SHARING OF SOLUTION AND FEEDBACK

What worked?

With the information given to me by Athena regarding her wallet, the design process became more manageable. She provided specific preferences thus, all I have to do was create a prototype and add features that are beneficial for her and her valuables. She was impressed with the technological features of her ideal wallet and how it matches her vision of it.

What could be improved?

When I showed her my prototype, Athena was contented about it. The improvement she wished to change was about the emergency button. She suggested increasing the button click to 3 instead of 2 to avoid it being misclicked.

Questions

Since Athena cares about the weight of her wallet, she asked me if it would get heavier with the new features and components of the wallet.

Ideas

To answer the question, the battery of the wallet is a soft-pack lithium-polymer battery. Thus, with the lights, camera, and other components, she can expect that the weight will increase a few grams, but this increase will not be evident in use.

ASSESSMENT OF THE DESIGNING PROCESS

1. How did talking to your interviewee inform/influence your design?

Talking to Athena gave me an idea of the size of the wallet. She highlighted the importance of functionality on her wallet since she does not prefer to include personal things in it. Thus, weight, size, texture, and functional requirements must be met. Her design was simple, including her personal touch to her wallet, which is a daisy. By acquiring my needed information, I easily visualized her ideal wallet and identified parts of it that can be improved.

2. How did testing and getting feedback impact your final design?

With Athena’s trust, it encouraged me to improve my design. Because she gave me the liberty to the creative aspect of her wallet, it made me work at ease. With every redesign, I felt like I could cater to her needs with her wallet that also suits her personal preferences.

3. What was the most challenging part of the process for you?

Designing the prototype was a challenge for me. I was overwhelmed with the liberty of creating her wallet, which resulted in me trying to render a 3D prototype of the wallet. But, my materials for designing were malfunctioning which made me migrate to 2D modeling. Despite the software change, It was still challenging, yet I managed to complete the prototype.

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John Emerson Dona

Visual storyteller supporting local artists, films, and small communities.