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FULL DIGITAL REBUILD OF CHILE'S NATIONAL POSTAL SERVICE, SAVING $300K
ROLE
UX/UI Designer
COMPANY
CorreosChile
TIMELINE
Sep 2021 - July 2023
STACK
Figma, Miró, Storybook
300K USD
Hardware investment prevented
198
Nationwide branches decongested
40% → 5%
Per-visit abandonment
Problem
A national giant disconnected from its users
When I joined CorreosChile in September 2021, Chile's national postal service faced growing pressure to modernize, despite serving the country for decades as its primary shipping provider.
Three issues stood out from day one:
- INTERNAL VISIBILITY GAP
Process documentation was practically non-existent. No baseline metrics, no user research foundation, no clear insights on what to improve.
- EXTERNAL FRICTION
Users only had access to a Virtual Branch, a basic transactional web where they entered shipping data, but still required physical branch visits to complete every shipment.
- BRAND DISCONNECT
CorreosChile wasn't recognized as a digital solutions provider. Services for entrepreneurs and enterprises were completely unknown to most users.
MY TASK
Rebuild the digital ecosystem end-to-end while establishing foundations to scale across mobile, web, dashboard, and internal tools.
Bussiness perspective
Why this transformation mattered, and where I influenced the biggest strategic calls
CorreosChile serves millions of Chileans across 198 branches nationwide. At national scale, every operational inefficiency, every abandoned shipment, and every misaligned investment compounds into significant business impact.
Three strategic decisions defined my role at CorreosChile:
01
HOW UX RESEARCH SAVED $300K USD
Leadership had a plan:
Install analog digital totems across all 198 physical branches for ticket issuance and post-sale services. Budget approved: $300K USD.
Alongside my UX Lead, I requested a pause on the Physical kiosks rollout to run field research first. Over several weeks, we visited malls and retail locations, observing user behavior in front of similar totems installed by other companies.
Findings
Totems were in decline as a service channel
High learning curve pushed users to look for human help instead
Users preferred solving issues on their own mobile web
We presented these findings directly to leadership and stopped a $300K investment destined to fail. Instead, we proposed QR-code posters across all 198 branches that redirected users to the mobile web help center.
Outcome
$300K USD
Saved in hardware and infrastructure
Strategic pivot to mobile-first user support
Strategic pivot to mobile-first user support
A precedent
for research-driven capital protection
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02
BUILDING MERKÉN AS SYSTEMS FOUNDATION
I championed the decision to build CorreosChile's first design system before scaling product output. Named "Merkén" after the traditional Chilean spice (a nod to the brand's iconic red), the system would serve as the source of truth across the entire ecosystem — mobile, web, enterprise dashboard, and even physical totems.
I led the creation of Merkén in Figma, based on Material Design guidelines, and documented every component in Storybook for the development team.
Strategic Outcome
70+
Components shipped across 4 platforms (desktop, tablet, mobile, totems)
30%
Strategic pivot to mobile-first user support
A single design language for products serving occasional shippers, entrepreneurs, and enterprise clients
The full technical breakdown of Merkén, including the semantic red color accessibility challenge, is detailed in section 03
03
DESIGN TEAM LEADERSHIP
As the project scaled, I led the growth of the UX team from 2 to 3 designers and served as the technical lead for my peers. I conducted 20+ candidate interviews, evaluating:
- Figma expertise and craft
- UX methodologies and process fluency
- Ability to translate abstract ideas into shippable screens
With the team fully staffed, the totem investment redirected, and Merkén established as our foundation, we turned to the core work: building the four products of the ecosystem.
Project Breakdown
Discovery research, ecosystem delivery, and the design system that scaled it all
Once Merkén was established as the foundation and the team was in place, we moved into the core design work: discovery research that shaped user archetypes, four product bets across the ecosystem, and the technical evolution of Merkén itself.
DISCOVERY RESEARCH
To understand where we stood, we hit the streets. We conducted field research and guerrilla testing in malls, retail spaces, and physical branches to measure users' actual awareness of CorreosChile's products.
The findings were revealing:
- Brand awareness as a digital solutions provider was extremely low
- Services for entrepreneurs and enterprises were completely unknown to most users
- Even loyal shipping customers didn't understand the full CorreosChile product line
Partnering with the external research agency Soho, I consolidated the field data using Miró for information-architecture mapping, resulting in three user archetypes that drove product design decisions across the ecosystem.
USER ARCHETYPES
ARCHETYPE 01
Occasional Shippers (Mobile App)
Casual customers using CorreosChile shipping services sporadically.
Primary need: fast, simple shipping without physical branch visits.
ARCHETYPE 02
SMB Entrepreneurs (Virtual Branch)
Small-business owners with consistent medium-volume shipments. Primary
need: batch shipping tools and pickup logistics.
ARCHETYPE 03
Enterprise Clients (Corporate portal)
Companies with high-volume monthly shipments. Primary need:
automated dashboard, shipment history intelligence, and self-service portal.
THE ECOSYSTEM: FOUR PRODUCT BETS
0-to-1
8 Month
Mobile App
Problem
Occasional shippers had to visit physical branches for every shipment.
ACTION
I designed the mobile app end-to-end, translating Virtual Branch's transactional flow into a native mobile experience with in-app shipment creation, tracking, and self-service documentation.
Result
Launched on App Store and Play Store. Decongested 198 branches by moving shipping documentation to self-service mobile.
1.5 Years
Rebuild
Virtual Branch Redesign for Entrepreneurs
Problem
Occasional shippers had to visit physical branches for every shipment.
ACTION
I designed the mobile app end-to-end, translating Virtual Branch's transactional flow into a native mobile experience with in-app shipment creation, tracking, and self-service documentation.
Result
10x transaction throughput (1 → 10 packages per user) and per-visit abandonment reduced from 40% to 5
0-to-1
Enterprise Portal
Problem
Enterprise clients lacked a self-service portal to manage high-volume shipments.
ACTION
I designed a SaaS dashboard from scratch based on shipment history intelligence, enabling both automatic and manual shipment creation for corporate accounts.
Result
Supports volumes of 5,000-10,000 weekly shipments per enterprise client.
ECCH App Redesign (Internal ops tool)
Problem
Workers at national voting centers used a legacy internal app for scanning and sealing ballot boxes, a process that still required significant manual paperwork.
ACTION
Applying Merkén's component library, I redesigned the internal workflow to simplify the scan-and-seal process with clearer states, error handling, and reduced tap counts.
Result
Radically simplified a critical national infrastructure workflow.
MERKÉN: TECHNICAL DEEP-DIVE
Merkén was more than a component library, it was the systems foundation that made the four-product ecosystem possible.
Built in Figma with technical documentation in Storybook, Merkén was based on Material Design guidelines but adapted to CorreosChile's brand identity and operational context.
70+ components across 4 platforms (desktop, tablet, mobile, totems)
WCAG-compliant accessibility patterns
Cross-platform design token system supporting both digital and physical touchpoints
Documentation in Storybook accessible to the entire dev team
30% development time saved (~3 days per sprint) — because engineering could pull ready-to-use components instead of rebuilding UI patterns from scratch.
THE SEMANTIC RED PROBLEM
situation
Red is the primary color of CorreosChile's branding. But in accessibility and usability, red universally signals "error" or "alert." A design system that uses red as its primary color would trigger cognitive dissonance for every user, is this brand color, or an error message?
Task
Design a color system that could honor the brand's iconic red while maintaining WCAG accessibility standards for interface communication.
action
I recalibrated the color palette to use red tones as primary interface colors without users semantically interpreting them as error messages. This required:
- Designing a distinct error state palette that could visually stand out from the primary red
- Adjusting saturation and brightness to differentiate brand red from alert red
- Testing accessibility contrast ratios across all component states
- Documenting when to use each red tone in the Merkén guidelines
result
Merkén met WCAG accessibility requirements while preserving brand identity, a design decision that unlocked scalable UI without compromising business requirements or user comprehension.
Brand
Error
Results
End-to-end transformation across business, product, systems, and team
STRATEGIC BUSINESS IMPACT
$300K USD PREVENT
Hardware investment stopped through research-driven strategy pivot to mobile-first
198 BRANCHES DECONGESTED
Nationwide operational scale relief via mobile self-service
Precedent set for research-informed capital protection. Established methodology for using UX research to protect company investment before hardware commitments
PRODUCT DELIVERY (4 PRODUCTS ACROSS THE ECOSYSTEM)
MOBILE APP - 0-to-1 IN 8 MONTHS
Available on App Store and Play Store. Occasional shippers empowered with in-app shipment creation and tracking
ENTERPRISE PORTAL - 0-TO-1
SaaS dashboard for automatic and manual shipments. Supports 5,000-10,000 weekly shipments per corporate client
virtual branch redesign - 1.5 year iterative rebuilt
1 → 10 packages per transaction (10x throughput)
40% → 5% per-visit abandonment (87.5% relative reduction)
At-home pickup logistics option added for entrepreneurs
ecch app redesign - internal ops tool
Legacy internal app for national voting center workers modernized with Merkén. Reduced tap counts and simplified critical infrastructure workflow
Precedent set for research-informed capital protection. Established methodology for using UX research to protect company investment before hardware commitments
DESIGN SYSTEM: MERKÉN
70+ COMPONENTS
Shipped across 4 platforms (desktop, tablet, mobile, physical totems)
30% DEVELOPMENT TIME SAVED
~3 days per sprint returned to engineering
WCAG-COMPLIANT COLOR SYSTEM
Semantic red problem solved — brand identity preserved with accessibility standards met
CROSS-PLATFORM DESIGN TOKEN SYSTEM
Single source of truth across digital and physical touchpoints
Precedent set for research-informed capital protection. Established methodology for using UX research to protect company investment before hardware commitments
TEAM LEADERSHIP
30% DEVELOPMENT TIME SAVED
Technical lead role assumed for peers
20+ CANDIDATES INTERVIEWS CONDUCTED
Figma expertise, UX methodologies, and design-to-screen execution established as hiring bar
First design hiring authority. Direct influence on team scale, technical bar, and integration
patterns for new hires
Reflection
Two years, four lessons that shape how I design today
CorreosChile taught me lessons that transcend this project:
01
DESIGN SYSTEMS ARE STRATEGIC INFRASTRUCTURE
01. DESIGN SYSTEMS ARE STRATEGIC INFRASTRUCTURE
Merkén made four products possible in parallel. Systems aren't UI libraries, they're the reason product velocity compounds instead of collapsing at scale.
02
RESEARCH DOESN'T JUST IMPROVE UX, IT PROTECTS CAPITAL
01. DESIGN SYSTEMS ARE STRATEGIC INFRASTRUCTURE
Merkén made four products possible in parallel. Systems aren't UI libraries, they're the reason product velocity compounds instead of collapsing at scale.
03
ACCESSIBILITY IS A CLARITY-FORCING CONSTRAINT
01. DESIGN SYSTEMS ARE STRATEGIC INFRASTRUCTURE
Merkén made four products possible in parallel. Systems aren't UI libraries, they're the reason product velocity compounds instead of collapsing at scale.
04
HIRING IS THE HIGHEST-LEVERAGE DESIGN DECISION
01. DESIGN SYSTEMS ARE STRATEGIC INFRASTRUCTURE
Merkén made four products possible in parallel. Systems aren't UI libraries, they're the reason product velocity compounds instead of collapsing at scale.
