OneCard — a smartcard design casestudy
“Design iteration brings powerful results. So, do it again designer”
Have you ever designed a concept, something, and every time you went back to it, you thought of changing something? Well, guess what, you’re not the only one. In December 2020, I originally designed OneCard, formerly Multic, as an idea I thought would be interesting to have if it existed. So I did some research and came up with the initial concept. I set out to update the case study and give Multic a makeover after some additional research and a fresh pair of eyes.
Introducing OneCard
OneCard, as the name suggests, is a solution for multiple cards/account concerns. If you bank with different financial institutions, it’s a card that connects all of your accounts to — OneCard — so you never have to worry about having too many cards again. The best part is that it’s a smart card with a screen and buttons to interact with on your card, which is pretty cool, right?
Understanding the problem
The dangers of owning a debit card have continued to rise over the last few years. Debit and Credit cards are convenient ways for an individual to make purchases. However, debit cards carry risks especially when you lose them.
- Security issues — Protections offered for debit cards are fewer, and fraudulent activity could cost you a lot of funds until you discover it. There’s no way to find out immediately or stop the fraud from happening until the bank investigates and hopefully puts the money back into your account
- Having Multiple debit cards — This can make your wallet heavy and confusing. Research has also found that quite a number of people have more than one debit card and some carry these around daily? Why? Because there is no better alternative. Other people own more than one because they bank with different financial institutions.
Would Onecard actually solve these issues? Keep reading to find out.
Why a Smart credit card you might ask
- A smart card stores information on a tiny chip embedded in the card — called an integrated circuit chip. Both magnetic-stripe cards and smart cards store information; however, a smart card actually carries data on the card itself.
- Smart cards are important for security purposes in all of their applications. In an age of increasing technology hacks and security challenges, smart cards give users and institutions extra protection for transactions and account information.
Here are some of the benefits of using a smart card
- Smart cards offer more security and confidentiality than any other financial card on the market. They use encryption and authentication technology which is more secure than previous methods associated with payment cards. This makes them a perfect solution for e-commerce transactions.
- Another advantage of smart cards is that they store much more information than can be stored on a magnetic-stripe card — between 10 and 100 times more; they have the capability to remotely process data by relying upon a central processing unit that actually resides on the chip.
- Smart cards offer a variety of benefits to merchants, financial institutions, and other card issuers such as faster transactions, reduced costs, easier book-keeping, and fewer losses.
After the first case study and initial design, I’ll call it V1. I set out to get feedback from people that recognize the current issues with having multiple credit/debit cards and are hopeful for a new and advanced solution to this pending issue.
I carried out a user interview session with potential users of Multic now OneCard. I approached this session by first asking how they felt about the idea of a smart card and if they’d like to use OneCard while introducing them to the card’s features.
Competitive Analysis
I carried out a competitive analysis of other existing Smart credit cards. I analyzed how their processes worked by doing very detailed assessments on their features and proposed solution.
What have other people been able to achieve?
Learning more about how Smart credit/debit cards work helped me understand why the existing solutions exist and how they came about. This enabled me to identify what I did wrong and how I can improve on the current card design.
Research findings and Insights gathered
After receiving user input on some of the issues, I went back to do more research. It was critical to establish the main success metrics for a smart card and how OneCard can meet them all.
Card design — The previous designs did not comply with the ATM card design policy. I followed the stipulated guidelines for designing visa cards before designing the new cards to ensure I was designing with the card policies in mind. OneCard is a metallic card, and in order to achieve a metallic design, the card should have brushed lines, which were not present in the previous design. Yes, indeed. That was incorporated into the new design.
Low power display — An interesting insight from my research on IoT devices centered around screen display and power consumption is that IoT devices with screen display require a particular screen type, one that uses less power to function. The display for IoT devices is bistable display technologies — and e-paper in particular — has the power consumption, and display characteristics, that make it the perfect match for the IoT.
OLED DISPLAYS, on the other hand, would be used by OneCard since they do not require a backlight, are thin, and offer high contrast, true darkness, and extended life (up to 110 000 hours of operation). OLED displays are suitable for the Internet of Things.
Smart Wireless NFC — NFC is a short-range high-frequency wireless communication technology that enables the exchange of data between devices over about a 10 cm distance. It allows users to seamlessly share content between digital devices. The significant advantage of NFC over Bluetooth is the shorter set-up time. Instead of performing manual configurations to identify Bluetooth devices, the connection between two NFC devices is established at once (under a 1/10 second). Read more here
Presenting OneCard
All the features you’d expect
- Sensitive details kept safe — OneCard hides your full card number, expiration, and CVC so you don’t have to worry.
- One-tap card locking — Easily suspend and re-activate any card from the OneCard app at any time.
- Real-time activity notifications — Know when money is moving in or out of your account and cards with real-time notifications.
Conclusion
With the growing number of cashless/mobile payment options, many fear that physical (debit) cards will soon become redundant. Even if more consumers are adopting cashless payment systems for convenience, it is unlikely that physical cards will entirely disappear, at least for the foreseeable future.
Despite how appealing the concept of OneCard is, it has a number of constraints that limit its use and functioning. Limitations, on the other hand, have never stopped humans from iterating until we find the perfect solution.
Onecard Website design
