At the beginning of the Wallet exercise, I was jazzed, as I'd *just* bought a new wallet and had thought deeply about the features I wanted in my impending purchase. I was ready to talk about wallets. In my first interview session with Melissa, I asked her about random stuff with zero questions about wallets. During this, Dan was walking around and said "You know this isn't really about wallets, right?"

I didn't know if I was doing it properly.

Melissa was wonderful to work with; she was open, descriptive, and very specific about her likes and dislikes, which helped me immensely. Toward the end, when I made the sketches (5 Radical Ways To Meet Your User's Needs), I felt that I was taking a leap, especially because I hardly know Melissa, yet I'm designing something for her! The final iteration of my product for Melissa came from an 'aha!' moment when she gave me feedback about the sketches.

In the end, I made her an app called Holo-me, which acts like Facetime, except it projects a hologram of the person you're talking with. From our interview process, I heard that she misses her family and hometown (East L.A.!) and wanted to create something for her that would enhance her interactions with family long distance. We talked about modularity; Melissa's current wallet is credit card sized and she loves its modularity, so in my opinion she needed something that wouldn't take up additional space.

I made a lo-fi mock up of an iphone-ish size to show how the app would look on the phone:

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This image shows the back of the phone:

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Once the app is opened, the user facing camera captures you:

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A hologram of the person you're talking with is projected from the rear-facing camera and can be projected into the background (wall, or something solid). Future additions could include the ability to record conversations and perhaps a time travel machine; all credit card size!

Overall, the process was interesting. I didn't expect to come up with this final idea. However, I enjoyed having to find creative solutions on the spot; the pressure really pushed me to actually make something. In real time, I would have scratched and re-scratched any original ideas and gotten stuck overthinking.