Plotting a path forward for the visually impaired to effortlessly shop everywhere and anytime.
The Ask
Imagine the next generation accessible payment card, serving cardholders with vision impairment.
Synopsis
The Mastercard Touch Card was the first-ever payment card designed to assist the visually impaired with distinctive notches in the physical card, allowing tactile differentiation between credit, debit and prepaid cards.
Mastercard approached Razorfish to define and design the Touch Card’s successor. Our goal was to envision a point of sale experience driven by a consumer ecosystem centered around implementable and emerging technology.
Project Type
Product Strategy
Company
Mastercard
Outputs
Product Design & Technology
Experience
Consumer Ecosystem
Business Ecosystem
Role
SVP, Executive Creative Director, Experience Design
Framing a solution, 360º
Typically, projects address accessibility as a minimum requirement in a vast checklist of business requirements mandated by external parties such as W3C (for WCAG). Mastercard aims to prioritize accessibility of the Touch Card 2 as the core feature, and, as a pathway to fully enable shoppers across multiple shopping and payment journeys — in-person dining, physical retail, and online shopping.
Devising a solution for the next generation card platform required our team to define and detail 3 to unlocking universal accessibility in shopping and payments:
Audience Insights
- Establish a deep empathy for visually impaired shoppers
- Understand that security and privacy are of utmost importance
- Deliver spontaneity and confidence as a core tenet of inclusivity
Accessibility guardrails
- Reduce the potential for outside support to unlock true independence
- Despite a global platform, recognize standards vary across different countries/markets
Technology Landscape
- Meet end users where and how they already live
- Lean into the current technology landscape
Detailed User Journeys
From our framework, we began to construct 3 primary use cases: In-Store Purchases, Online Purchases, Group Settings with Complex Payment requirements:
What we delivered
Our solution and recommendations
After detailing our user journeys, we framed a suite of solutions around a novel Touch Card 2 experience. Core to our solution, was an understanding that the technology landscape around accessibility was mature and expanding and should be leveraged in partnership in order to not segregate users from their suite of adaptive devices and practices:
Mastercard Touch Card 2
No real surprises here, our primary recommendation was for Mastercard to develop the Touch Card 2, essentially the evolution of the original Touch card, but supercharged with built in tech, all feasible with existing technologies. These technologies, all low energy consumers, would work in concert to offer a secure and efficient payment moment for its users.
Biometrics
Probably the largest concern for the end user, entering a PIN or confirming your identity during the payment moment. A simple fingerprint scanner would eliminate the need to manually input any sensitive information.
Haptics
Utilizing in-card haptics to guide users in locating the card area to tap (possibly insert or swipe) offered a great sense of independence, minimizing the need to ask for assistance to complete this action.
NFC
Near field communications (NFC) would ultimately need to work in concert with the card (and/or supporting devices) to inform the haptic engine, or, even better extend the distance any user would require to initiate payment. Pay from your pocket? Why not?
Touch Card Ecosystem
While the Touch Card 2 was the primary ask from our Mastercard client team, because the opportunity to support the visually impaired was so incredibly invested by our team, we did some extra credit, both in hopes of encouraging Mastercard to pursue, but to let them know we strongly believed that 1) the solution we devised with TC2 was so attractive, its benefits could be near universal, and 2) other businesses could potentially be invested in helping them achieve their vision, reducing their risk and ensuring greater adoption. As such we had a number of opportunities they could integrate in their payment ecosystem.
My Methodology
Inputs, exploration, outputs, results. Case studies tell the story of that journey. But, there’s a foundation for my creativity. Methodology, toolkits, motivations, focuses.
Director’s Notes
Reaching across the country and over the ocean
Our Mastercard client team was based in London, and as part of the charter of this specific project (via their location), we worked incredibly closely with the Royal National Institute for the Blind, a London-based non-profit heavily invested in utilizing technology to unlock doors for the visually impaired.
Additionally, a few colleagues and myself called upon friends in our personal and professional circles to provide discovery inputs, and feedback on our solutions for Mastercard. For me, this included an old college friend, April Dawson, Executive Director at the California Commission of Disability Access, a wonderful advocate within the California State Government for accessibility rights, services and organizations within the state.
Personal / professional skin in the game
At Razorfish, I and a group of colleagues had also recently established the Accessibility Council, a Business Operations Group that was tasked with, 1) advocating that all the work the agency delivered either met or exceeded established accessibility standards in their intended market, and 2) explored opportunities to innovate with accessible experiences and communications as a primary goal.