How To Draw A Wallet Step By Step

The Wallet Project is a famous, fast paced exercise from Stanford University d.School that takes the participant through the entire design process in one hour. The project encourages the participant to practice empathy and user research techniques to rapidly design something innovative and meaningful for a partner.

Join me as I work through an abbreviated version of The Wallet Project.

Introduction

Draw: 3 minutes

The project starts with the instruction to draw the IDEAL wallet. Immediately, you recognize how difficult it is to design something without any context, research, or previous thought.

Step 1

Interview: 8 minutes

Spend 4 minutes interviewing a partner, then switch for the second 4 minutes.

Not surprisingly, the first thing my partner, Peter, mentioned was his dislike for bulky wallets. Because of this, he never carries cash and relies almost purely on credit card transactions. I also had Peter walk me through some typical scenarios where he might use his wallet.

He shared a story on how he was given his current wallet as a Christmas gift from his sister.

Step 2

Dig Deeper: 6 minutes

Spend 3 minutes each conducting a second interview of your partner.

In this interview, Peter mentioned that prior to the Christmas gift, he kept his cards in a rubber band as a makeshift "wallet."

When I asked Peter about using the rubber bands, he spoke a lot about the social pressure to be efficient in public. While he liked the minimalist design, he hated the time it took him to unwrap his cards while someone was waiting in line behind him at Starbucks.

Step 3

Capture findings: 3 minutes

Answer the following questions.

What is your partner trying to achieve?

Make transactions quickly
Minimize bulk/unecessary items
Comfortably take out cards/license to use
Keep an active lifestyle

Insights: New learnings about your partner's feelings and motivations. What's something you see about your partner's experience that maybe s/he doesn't see?

standard social norm activities -> "I don't want to make someone else wait because of me"
bare bones -> doesn't want anything "over the top"

Step 4

Take a stand with a point-of-view: 3 minutes

Fill in the blanks.

"Peter needs a way to access his cards because he wants to make transactions quickly.

Step 5

Sketch at least 5 radical ways to meet your user's needs: 5 minutes

In the above designs, I focused on the information and stories that Peter had shared with me. As someone who had once relied on a rubber band as a wallet, I wanted to push his boundaries to see how minimalist he felt comfortable going. Would he be willing to use completely change his mental image of a "wallet" by using poster tack to simply affix his cards to each other? I also wanted to focus on something that would allow him to quickly identify and retrieve the appropriate card. Would a zip-lock bag provide the same low-budget feel of the rubber bands, while allowing him to immediately see and locate each card?

While recognizing that many would consider some of the above solutions absurd, I was looking forward to his feedback on the ideas.

Step 6

Share your solutions & capture feedback: 10 minutes

Spend 5 minutes sharing your solutions, then switch roles and repeat sharing.

My notes:
Peter likes transparent material to choose the right card.
Concerns with cost of production
"what happens if I can't access what I need?"
Likes to feel secure with the items, wants to see and feel that security.

Not surprisingly, Peter was entertained by the zip lock and poster tack ideas, but wouldn't feel comfortable storing his items this way. Of the ideas, he was most interested in the first two designs, although he had concerns about the cost of the technology for the self-sorting wallet in my second design.

Step 7

Reflect & generate a new solution: 3 minutes

With Peter's feedback in mind, I set out to improve my first design idea, which was designed to lay cards flat against each other in a thin wallet, until the user pressed a button pop open the wallet and fan the cards out for easy removal. I thought about ways to personalize the design for Peter, and remembered him mentioning his love for hiking. I added a simple image of mountains to the outside of the wallet, so that the button could form the image of a moon/sun in the corner.

Note: in the original project, the next step involves building a prototype of the solution. Due to time and material requirements, we skipped this step in our workshop.

Step 8

Share your solution and get feedback: 8 minutes

Spend 4 minutes each sharing your solution and noting feedback, then switch.

Conclusion

The feedback step concluded my experience with The Wallet Project. I loved the fast nature of the exercise, because it encouraged you to focus your design on the needs of this one, specific user. Because you had no other context for the design (and no time to find additional information) you had to pay close attention to every detail you managed to gather from your partner. This was a great exercise for carrying human centered design practices throughout the entire design process.

Explore more design research and strategy projects in the links below!