Phone cases for the FUTURE!

Being a Designer is all about innovation and creativity; however, it will forever if there isn't any practice or execution. Thus, as a Design student at University of Auckland, we had a chance to practice our skills at the early stage of the study, and it was about creating an ideal wallet, and I have created a prototype of a futuristic phone case.

So what precisely a wallet related to a phone case in my scenario?

It all starts when my partner, Louis, does not want a wallet, but a functional yet light, convenience cards holder as he wants his pocket to be weightless and comfortable to move around quickly.

In this situation, the best thing a designer could do is come up with a spectrum of needs to design, perhaps can find a design that's useful to a large, diverse group (Amy J.Ko). So a step over the Double Diamond Design Process to understand what he has/wants and what I can do. At first, I only modify the ID card into an all in one digital card with a switch on/off at the top right corner; when switching it off, the ID will reveal its original form like a regular ID with the identified identity of the person. But when the switch is on, the card will turn on an options screen just like a phone where the user has a variety of choice from master card, visa card, student card, transportation card with individual electronic wave for each.

Unfortunately, that just satisfied a portion of his need since he will still need to have a cardholder to carry the card around; furthermore, if he were careless from times to times, he could forget the card, so I could not feel happy with just the digital card. I feel frustrated as my change was not completed, but I remembered back to a quote: "If change is what you are after, it requires you to understand the other perspective. It requires you to appeal to him in a way that aligns with his worldview". (Justin Sebastian,2017). A quickly ran over again with principles of interview by Matt Cooper-Wright and figured out Louis always brings his phone with him. From there, I combine the previous design to the phone case design that I thought through, and the result was that he liked it.

Altogether, this activity was a new wind to my mind. I really enjoyed the class as well as talking to my partner Louis in finding a design to help each other.

P/S: Thank Louis for giving me his design.

REFERENCES:

Amy J.Ko. Chapter 3 How to understand problems. Available from: https://faculty.washington.edu/ajko/books/design-methods/how-to-understand-problems.html (Accessed 7 April 2020 )

Matt Cooper-Wright ,2015 How to run a Design Research Interview. Available from: https://medium.com/design-research-methods/how-to-run-a-design-research-interview-576d14806dfd(Accessed 7 April 2020 )

Justin Sebastian Seeing the world through the eyes of someone else. Available from: https://medium.com/@jayseb11/seeing-the-world-through-the-eyes-of-someone-else-b67607842d4c (Accessed 7 April 2020 )