Pay by cash? Quickly design-inspired studies to gain insights about people financial transactions

In this work we aim to investigate the way people behave and think about transactions in everyday life. In industrial lab research, it is not always possible to conduct full-scale ethnographic studies to understand people’s everyday practices in support of the development of new technologies or to understand the ways in which technology may improve people’s life. We apply a less-time consuming design approach to gather preliminary ideas in preparation for more in-depth field studies. We describe four design-inspired studies to gain insights about user thoughts and behaviors while engaged in financial transactions. We also provide important design considerations for developing mobile payment systems using social networks.