With the initial idea of creating tactile currency, we researched the difficulties with the Braille form of currency. Simple Braille stamping on the paper has been proven its inability to hold up over time and eventually smoothes down. This costly event pointed us towards the need to insert something that would not wear away with time. When the idea of adding raised, filled bars was broached, we experimented with the different designs possible. We arrived at three sets of designs for the six denominations of bills. The first design simply involves adding a bar starting with one for the one-dollar bill and increasing by a bar for each bill. Employing this design, the one hundred-dollar denomination would result in two strips of metal containing three raised bars each. The second approach to designing the tactile currency entails the same numerically increasing process with one slight modification. The second design staggers the bars such that the six bars on the one hundred-dollar bill do not line up straight beside each other as they do in the first design. The third and final preliminary design features a double bar design. This involves adding two bars side by side for the twenty, fifty, and one hundred-dollar bills. With these three sets of designs and our prototypes, we approached Yohannes Demoz, a blind student at The George Washington University.
With his help we were assured that are our final design was easily readable and would be very beneficial to the visually impaired community. He praised our prototype and our ability to produce a worthwhile advancement in tactile currency. “I wish they really had something like this because it would save me a lot of time and effort” (Demoz, Personal Interview). His interest in our original design and prototype led him to offer his help in getting professional support via his former boss at the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
Another necessary test that we performed on our prototypes was its compatibility with vending machines. The three prototypes successfully purchased a soda, appropriate change for a one-dollar bill and passed through the farecard machines at the Metro.
