I designed a brand new solution for the Reserve Bank of Australia to help Australians identify counterfeit banknotes and learn more about their design and security features.

As the sole designer on the project, I worked with product owners from the Reserve Bank of Australia to define the design solution and developed the solution into high fidelity visual concepts and prototypes

The deliverable for this project was an experience definition document. Development of the application was carried out by a different vendor.

Almost every facet of smartphone technology was used to simulate counterfeit protection features. For example, when the user rubs the image of the banknote with their finger, haptic feedback simulates the rough texture of a real banknote’s raised printing and using multi-touch, a user can pinch-to-crunch a banknote and see it unfurl again, just like a real banknote.

The security features in Australian banknotes are very tactile. I tried to emulated this tactility in the application to create an experience that was easy to understand but also fun to use.

Everyone uses banknotes so it was important that the app be ridiculously simple to use. Four personas were generated that represented the core types of user the app was to target. These personas were constantly referred to during the design development phase.

Intensive client workshops facilitated the transformation of the design concept from hand drawn sketches to wireframes and user journeys. The outcome of these user journeys was a concept based around an interactive questionnaire.

As the design process continued and more high fidelity artefacts were produced, interactive prototypes were shared internally and with the client to encourage constant user testing. User testing sessions were informal but consistent.

To support the counterfeit prevention questionnaire, assets were created from high resolution banknote imagery and where necessary vector assets were traced. PNG sequences for the various animations were also created.