Protected case study

Document Management System

This project is under NDA. Enter the PIN to view the full case study.

Product Design · UX Research · Enterprise SaaS

Document Management System

One place for every loan document at HIR Casa. I led the design of a role-based system that took documents from scattered tools to a single workflow, from upload to archive.

Client: HIR Casa · Real estate financing, Mexico
Role: Lead Product Designer
Year: 2023
Duration: 14 weeks · Agile Scrum

At a glance

Problem

Loan documents lived in separate tools per department. Files were duplicated, access was unclear and teams lost time searching.

Solution

One system with four roles, three permission layers and five document statuses, each with a clear owner.

Outcome

In an A/B test, the redesign made the core viewing task about twice as fast and cut misclicks by more than half.

Impact · V1 vs. V2

72.7%

Task success rate

Change: +15.6 pts, up from 57.1% in V1
~2×

Faster to complete

Change: 105.3s → 47.7s
−54%

Fewer misclicks

Change: 66.0% → 30.6%
64%

Preferred the redesign

Change: +28 pts

A/B test of the document viewing and download flow on Maze, 28 participants (14 per version). See the full results.

My role

Lead Designer on a cross-functional design team, working with stakeholders from several departments.

Discovery → handoff

Led the end-to-end design process.

Alignment

Kept design, product and engineering aligned across sprints.

Research

Coordinated research and usability testing with the UX and Research team.

Validation

Drove design decisions through A/B testing and iterative prototyping.

Team: UX, UI, Research
Agile Scrum
14 weeks
Maze

The challenge

HIR Casa has granted over US$2.5 B in loans and runs 30 branches across Mexico. Every loan depends on documents, and those documents were spread across tools that didn't talk to each other.

Fragmented tools

Each department used its own platform. Workflows didn't match, files were duplicated and nobody had a single source of truth for a document's status.

Unclear permissions

People either had too much access or couldn't find what they needed. There was no standard way to upload, review or approve.

Time lost searching

Teams hunted for files across systems, slowing down contract processing, legal reviews and client onboarding.

The goal

Design one system that handles a document's full lifecycle, from upload to archive, with clear roles so every person can securely upload, edit and find what they need.

Administrator
Editor
Consultant
Auditor

Research & discovery

We started with an alignment workshop, then structured research around three user groups to understand how each one worked with documents.

3
User groups studied separately
4
User journeys mapped end to end
4
Roles aligned with stakeholders

Alignment workshop with HIR Casa stakeholders: a presentation, sticky notes on a glass wall and teams mapping ideas — Alignment workshop with stakeholders from several departments.

Key tension

Flexibility for admins vs. simplicity for everyone else

Administrators needed fine-grained control over who could see and do what. Most people just needed to find a document and act on it. We prioritised the core flows with MoSCoW, and stakeholder sessions turned that tension into three permission layers:

Modules each role can open
Permissions inside each module
Special permissions on top

Map of the four roles and the modules each can use, plus the three permission layers: modules, permissions and special permissions — Roles and permissions map. Click to enlarge.

User flows

We designed six end-to-end flows. The most important was the document lifecycle, because it decides who does what, and when.

The document lifecycle

Five statuses, each with a clear owner

1UploadedUploaderAdds the file. The control desk is notified.
2ObservedControl desk → UploaderSomething is wrong. A justification note goes back and the file is re-submitted.
3ApprovedControl deskValidated and sent to the archive.
4AcceptedArchiveFinal validation. The document is done.
5ExpiredUploaderPast its validity date and needs an update.

Six end-to-end flows

From signing in to archiving a document

Login and role identification
Checklist management
User and role administration
Document search and viewing
Document status lifecycle
Document updates and expiry

Flowchart of the document status lifecycle: upload, control desk review, observed or approved, archive validation, accepted, with a re-submit loop — Status lifecycle flowchart. Click to enlarge.

Testing with real users

Two rounds of usability testing on the highest-impact tasks, then an A/B test to choose between two versions of the document viewing and download flow.

Usability testing · 2 rounds

Five problems the heatmaps revealed

Hover states didn't make it clear what was clickable.
People expected the whole table row to be clickable.
Expand and collapse states were unclear.
The update flow lacked context.
Icon-only buttons had no tooltips.

Click heatmaps over the document table and upload screens, with clusters on the search bar, the first table row and the upload button — Click heatmaps from the first round of testing.

A/B testing · 28 participants on Maze

V2 performed better on every metric

Document viewing and download flow, 14 participants per version.
Metric	V1	V2	Change
Task success rate higher is better	57.1%	72.7%	+15.6 pts
Avg. completion time lower is better	105.3s	47.7s	−55%
Misclick rate lower is better	66.0%	30.6%	−54%
Preferred version	36%	64%	+28 pts
Avg. difficulty 1 = easy	1.3	1.2	−0.1

What we changed, and why

Every change traces back to something we saw in research or testing.

We sawFewer steps consistently made tasks easier.

We changedDirect access to documents, without detours.
We sawPeople had too much access, or couldn't find what they needed.

We changedPermissions redesigned into three layers.
We sawNo standard upload, review or approval flow.

We changedClear ownership across five statuses, each with a colour and a notification.
We sawUsers expected full-row interactions.

We changedThe whole table row opens the document.
We sawThe update flow lacked context.

We changedUpload and update became clearly separate actions.

Final design

Three features carry most of the daily work: viewing, uploading and managing access.

01 · Viewing

Open any document straight from the client file

A document opens in a viewer with its details alongside. If it can't be shown, a clear error explains what happened instead of a blank screen.

Document table leading to a viewer showing an ID card with its details, and to an error dialog when the document can't be displayed — Success path to the viewer (green) and the error state (red).

02 · Multi-file upload

Build the checklist, then upload against it

Admins define which documents each person in the loan needs, step by step. Uploaders add files with a label and, when it applies, a validity date, so the system knows when a document will expire.

New checklist screen with document categories for each participant, next to the empty and filled document upload screens — Checklist setup, then the upload screen before and after adding a file.

03 · Access permissions

Assign roles in a few guided steps

Admins find a user, assign a role and the checklists they can work on, and review everything before confirming. When a document's status changes, the uploader gets an email saying which document and what happened.