Transformative Transactions

2012

Is it possible for a bank be a mediator of experiences, individual and/or collective, which shares value for the people, companies and the society? Can a bank deliver an experience that is broader than what we understand banking to be today?

The aim of this project was for the students to gain experience with the process of designing a product or system where playfulness and ubiqutous computing are involved. Emphasis in this project was placed upon experience prototyping and systemic thinking as methods for exploring user experience on a conceptual level.

This 10-week design project was sponsored by the Brazilian bank, Itaú, where the students were tasked with creating new, transformative banking experiences. Itaú wanted the students to look at how the bank's role in society can be made more relevant, and how it can build life-long relationships with its clients and inspire new behaviors. The students were asked to examine how the bank-client relationship can be built on a true understanding of its user's lives, and enable them to accomplish their financial goals.

Additionally, the students were asked to promote transparency in the way users understand their finances and financial relations to other people, and to consider how tangible interactions influence the perception of banking systems with reference to the increasing digitization of money. Keeping the project brief open, the students were asked to work not with a specific user group or problem area, but instead within four thematic areas for the experiences they were to create:  Transformation, Transparency, Thoughtfulness and Tangibility. 

The resulting designs provide a wide array of ideas about what our banking experiences could be, both today and in the near future, by challenging the traditional roles of banks in our lives and the ways in which we interact with money. 

Collaboration Partner: 
 Banco Itaú, Brasil

Faculty:
Tara Mullaney, Niklas Andersson

External Tutor:
Ellen Kiss, Itaú Unibanco

Companion by Kilian Kreiser
Winner in the Core77 Design Award 2013 in the category Interaction - Student Runner Up. 

Lost in Transaction by Siri Johansson

Squared by Lynn Biu
Shortlisted in the  IXDA Awards 2014 Disrupting category.

Triia by Miha Feus
Shortlisted in the IXDA Awards 2014 Disrupting category.