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About
Rootmate, Service Design at scale
The development of a business idea focused on the production and sale of pots with a high aesthetic and functional level.
- Company
- Kinez
- Role
- UX Researcher Service Designer
- Devices
- Qualitative research Quantitative research Surveys Interviews
- Duration
- 6 months
OVERVIEW
Banamex serves 20 million users.
Their bill payment flow hadn't kept up.
PROBLEMS
Three compounding problems, one broken experience.
SOLUTION
Key features create one coherent experience.
We introduced features built around a single goal: make bill payments faster, clearer, and less error-prone.
One-time payment
QR / Barcode scanning
Biller catalog with smart search
Saved services hub
Due today
Urgent badge state
3 days left
Push notification sent
7+ days left
Upcoming reminder
DESIGN PROCESS
From research to a shipped product
Discovery
Ideation
Definition
Design
Prototype + Testing
Hand-Off
· User research
· Stakeholder interviews
· Benchmarking
· Heuristics
· Stakeholder interviews
· Benchmarking
· Heuristics
· HMW sessions
· Feature mapping
· Concept sketches
· Feature mapping
· Concept sketches
· Low-fi prototype
· Stakeholder validation
· MVP scoping
· Stakeholder validation
· MVP scoping
· IA
· Components
· High-fidelity
· Prototyping
· Components
· High-fidelity
· Prototyping
· Card sorting
· Usability testing
· Iteration
· Usability testing
· Iteration
· Dev follow-up
· QA
· Launch war room
· QA
· Launch war room
Research and analysis
Friends and family interviews
"There's no need to register a service every time —
it feels like the flow restarts itself."Recurring theme from user research sessions.Other insights:- · High error rate when entering reference numbers manually
- · Confusion navigating first-time flows
- · No way to track payment history
- · Inability to locate their reference number on receipts
- · No saved services or quick-access hub for recurring payments
Competitive analysis
A broad competitive analysis was conducted across direct competitors — traditional banks and neobanks — and indirect competitors — non-banking platforms with bill payment functionality — to identify design patterns, best practices, and market opportunities that could add value to users.
DirectBBVAStrongest overall offering, QR scanning, saved services, reminders, and logos.DirectNu BankNo QR scanning or auto-populated amounts. Clean UX, growing catalog.DirectSantanderBasic catalog and no QR scanning, but strong recurring payment support.DirectScotiabankFunctional but limited, no QR scanning, no reminders, no biller logos.DirectBanco AztecaNo QR scanning. Broad catalog but navigation is dense.InDirectRappiSpeed and in-app payment simplicityUser flow analysis
Ideation – How might we...?
Discovery insights were reframed as HMW questions to open up the solution space before any screen was drawn.
H M W
Reduce human error while entering the biller's reference number?
Reduce human error while entering the biller's reference number?
H M W
Restructure the flow for a one-payment experience?
Restructure the flow for a one-payment experience?
H M W
Create a functional and intuitive biller search for 70+ services?
Create a functional and intuitive biller search for 70+ services?
H M W
Help users not forget their payment due dates?
Help users not forget their payment due dates?
H M W
Give users quicker access to saved services?
Give users quicker access to saved services?
H M W
Help users find their reference number on their receipt?
Help users find their reference number on their receipt?
Definition – Information Architecture
Redundant screens were removed and the flow restructured around two clear paths: one-time payment and saved services.
Testing – Card Sorting + Usability
Open and closed card sorting (research tool Maze) established the 9-chip catalog hierarchy.
HAND - OFF
The work doesn't stop at handoff
After several iterations and some last minute (very impactful changes to perfectly align with all stakeholders) I handed-off the project and ran a developer walkthrough, documented every user action in an analytics tagging table, joined engineering standups to resolve edge cases in real time, reviewed demo builds for design fidelity, and joined the launch war room on ship day.
Shipping at Banamex's scale means the designer stays in the loop until the feature is live and working.
IMPACT
Real numbers, real money, real people
50%
Reduction in interaction cost,
from 12 clicks to 6
from 12 clicks to 6
410K
Successful transactions
in the first 3 months
in the first 3 months
$295M
MXN processed through
the redesigned flow
the redesigned flow
<30s
Time to pay a saved service,
just three taps
just three taps
LEARNINGS
What I learned building this
🔌
API constraints shaped design decisions
Several features were cut because the APIs weren't ready. The lesson: design ambitiously, but document constraints clearly so deprioritized ideas can ship later — and most of them did.
🧩
Early cross-functional buy-in changes everything
Bringing product, engineering, and legal in from the start — not just at review gates — meant fewer late surprises and faster decisions when priorities shifted.
💬
Feedback culture is a design tool
Creating consistent space for peers and managers to critique openly led to stronger iteration.
📏
The handoff is part of the design
The gap between a polished prototype and a pixel-accurate shipped product is real. Staying involved through standups, demos, and the launch war room is what closes it.
Rootmate, Service Design at scale
The development of a business idea focused on the production and sale of pots with a high aesthetic and functional level.
- Year
- Kinez
- Role
- UX Researcher Service Designer
- Devices
- Qualitative research Quantitative research Surveys Interviews
- Design tools
- 6 months
OVERVIEW
A separation from Citibank.
A chance to rebuild everything.
PROBLEMS
Three problems that had to be solved before design could begin.
SOLUTION
A new design system. A fully rebranded product.
Before & after — the same product, rebuilt
01 · Login
Before
After
The entry point to the new brand — the first screen millions of users see. Redesigned to reflect Banamex's new visual identity from the first interaction.
02 · Dashboard
Before
After
The command centre of BancaNet, rebuilt with the new component library to surface account information clearly and consistently across all user types.
03 · Account Detail
Before
After
A complete reimagining of how users view and manage their accounts — modernised visual hierarchy, updated data display patterns, and full design system compliance.
04 · Transfers & payments
Before
After
One of the highest-traffic flows in BancaNet — redesigned for clarity and speed while navigating the technical constraints of legacy transaction infrastructure.
05 · Investments
Before
After
A data-dense feature requiring careful information hierarchy to remain accessible to non-expert users under the new visual system.
06 · Offers
Before
After
Often overlooked, but critical to brand consistency — every corner of BancaNet needed to reflect the new identity, including configuration and session flows.
DESIGN PROCESS
Eight months of parallel workstreams.
Documentation
Design System
UI Iteration
Screen Recration
Hand-off
Launch
· UX audit
· Feature map
· Prioritisation
· Batch planning
· Feature map
· Prioritisation
· Batch planning
· Token architecture
· Atomic components
· Web library
· Atomic components
· Web library
· Strategic screens
· Templates
· Approval process
· Templates
· Approval process
· 7-designer team
· 200+ screens + Responsiveness
· 200+ screens + Responsiveness
· Staged batches
· Dev follow-up
· QA sessions
· Dev follow-up
· QA sessions
· Pre-prod review
· Fix Inconsistencies
· Ship day
· Fix Inconsistencies
· Ship day
Before designing anything, the product had to be found.
Building the Roseta Design System for web
Screen recreation at scale
Handoff, follow-up & launch
IMPACT
On schedule. At scale. Built to last.
5
Web applications rebranded with the Roseta Design System
40+
User flows redesigned across BancaNet
172+
New components — now the standard for all future web development
40%
Faster screen recreation through structured templates and system
DESIGN PROCESS
What leading this project taught me.
🔌
Invest upfront in stakeholder alignment
The approval process involved four distinct stakeholder groups with different priorities. Time spent aligning them early — through the right channels, with the right people in the room — paid back in faster decisions later.
🧩
Documentation is a design deliverable
Starting from nothing taught me that a living source of truth is as important as the screens themselves. The audit I built from scratch became the foundation the entire project ran on.
💬
Done is better than perfect — with evidence
Not everything could be resolved before launch. Accepting that — while documenting what remained — meant the team shipped on time and the inconsistencies file gave engineering a clear, prioritised path forward.
📏
Constraints are creative inputs
Legacy systems forced closer collaboration with developers than a greenfield project would have. That friction produced a more grounded, technically realistic design system — one that actually shipped.
Rootmate, Service Design at scale
The development of a business idea focused on the production and sale of pots with a high aesthetic and functional level.
- Company
- Kinez
- Role
- UX Researcher Service Designer
- Devices
- Qualitative research Quantitative research Surveys Interviews
- Duration
- 6 months
OVERVIEW
Millions of transactions.
One broken moment: "I don't recognize this charge."
PROBLEMS
Three compounding problems,
one overloaded support team.
In other words...
77%
of customers struggle to identify their own transactions in the app.
73%
choose to call the CAT when unsure about a charge.
1 in 4
CAT calls about unrecognized charges end in confusion — not actual fraud.
Current state when the project kicked off — no merchant context, no visual anchors, no way to self-resolve.
SOLUTION
Information that turns a mystery charge,
into a recognizable purchase.
1️⃣ Merchant Logo
2️⃣ Clean Merchant Name
3️⃣ Spend Category
4️⃣ Location
5️⃣ Digital Receipt
DESIGN PROCESS
From a confusing processor string to
a recognized purchase — in five steps.
Benchmark — We looked everywhere before drawing anything
We mapped how transaction data was presented across traditional banking apps, international neobanks, and non-banking platforms with strong receipt experiences.
- · Traditional domestic banks provided almost no merchant context.
- · International
digital wallets like Apple Pay were richer — but surfacing precise location introduced a cultural nuance: in our market, it could feel intrusive rather than helpful. - · Apps like Rappi and Amazon showed how a receipt-style view builds confidence without creating anxiety.
Workshop — Five teams. One whiteboard. The first sketches.
We brought together stakeholders from business, acquisition, product, design, and technology teams in a cross-functional Design Thinking oriented workshop. Using sticky notes, iPad sketches, paper wireframes, and dot-voting, teams aligned on which data elements were both technically viable and user-valuable, bringing to the table ideas, concerns, agurments and counter-aguments on how to build an experience that benefits the bank and, of course, the user.
The session produced the first rough sketches of an enriched transaction card — and surfaced critical constraints around what Ethoca's merchant data network could and couldn't provide at launch.
Design explorations
After the workshop we ran multiple design rounds on both the transaction list and tranasction detail screen, exploring different visual hierarchies for the merchant logo, clean name, category, and location.
Use cases — Not all transactions are equal. The design had to handle all of them.
Three distinct use cases shaped the new feature:
User Testing — We put two versions in front of users. The data told us which won.
We ran moderated user testing sessions with three core objectives:
🔀 A/B testing
Baseline (raw string) vs. enriched design, measuring recognition speed and user confidence👁️ Behavioral observation
Understanding what actions users take when they genuinely can't identify a charge📝 Content validation
Testing whether label copy ("Merchant", "Establishment", "Commerce") resonated or created new confusion
MVP
We designed six features. Four made it to launch.
The MVP successfully introduced merchant logos, clean commerce names, merchant contact information, and a redesigned transaction list and detail views — giving users the context to recognize their own purchases without picking up the phone. A real step forward from screens that previously showed nothing but a processor string.
Never the less, the design package was larger, it included three additional features — transaction location, a digital receipt, and spend categories. None of them made it to launch. That's just how shipping works sometimes. The features that didn't make it aren't failures — they're an honest record of how the project evolved and what the team learned along the way.
What didn't ship?
Three features designed.
Three different reasons they didn't launch.
📍 Transaction location
Cut from roadmap
Research surfaced a security concern specific to our market: users worried that location history could expose their movement patterns if their phone was stolen. Unlike international neobanks where this data is standard, it created anxiety rather than confidence. It was removed from the roadmap entirely — the concern wasn't one design iteration could resolve.
🧾 Digital Receipt
Deprioritized — API constraints
During development, the team discovered the Ethoca API had more significant constraints than initially scoped — making itemized receipt data unavailable across all merchant types. With a fixed launch date and limited engineering headcount, a partial solution wasn't viable. The feature was deprioritized with no formal future commitment made at the time.
📂 Spend categories
Dropped — data partner taxonomy
When the Ethoca team shared their category taxonomy, the labels were either too technical for everyday users or exceeded the chip component's character limit. Remapping them to a simpler set would have required additional coordination with the data partner — scope the team couldn't absorb before launch. The feature was dropped rather than ship a confusing or truncated version.
IMPACT
Fewer calls. More confidence.
Support reserved for real problems.
↓ Fewer confusion-driven CAT calls
Contextual merchant data gave users the information to identify charges on their own — eliminating the most preventable source of support volume.
↑ Higher transaction recognition rate
Significantly improved identification in A/B testing compared to the raw-string baseline — users could match transactions to purchases at a glance.
↑ Greater user confidence
Users reported higher peace of mind when reviewing account activity with logos and clean merchant names visible alongside their charges.
→ Real disputes finally surfaced
With confusion filtered out, support contacts increasingly represent genuine fraud cases — improving resolution quality across the board.
LEARNINGS
What I learned building this
🗺️
Sociocultural context is a design constraint
Features that feel neutral in one market can feel intrusive in another. International benchmarks were valuable references — but not templates. Location data that builds trust for a Revolut user raised security concerns for ours. Design has to account for what "normal" means to the specific user, not the general pattern.
🔀
Design for data variability, not just the ideal state
The most important design decision wasn't the enriched view — it was the fallback. When Ethoca data isn't available, the experience still has to feel intentional. Designing the degraded states with the same care as the hero states is what makes a system feel polished at scale.
🧩
Early cross-functional buy-in changes everything
Bringing product, engineering, and external partners in from the workshop stage — not just at review gates — meant fewer surprises when the Ethoca data coverage constraints emerged. Problems discovered together get solved faster.
⌨️
Content is part of the interaction design
Whether to label a merchant as "Commerce", "Merchant", or "Establishment" wasn't a copywriting detail — it was a usability question. The A/B testing revealed that label choice materially affected how users interpreted and trusted the information on screen.
Rootmate, Service Design at scale
The development of a business idea focused on the production and sale of pots with a high aesthetic and functional level.
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- Company
- Kinez
- Role
- UX Researcher Service Designer
- Methodologies
- Qualitative research Quantitative research Surveys Interviews
- Duration
- 6 months
OVERVIEW
Overview
An interior designer and her team came to Kinéz to develop a new business focused on the production and sale of pots with a high aesthetic and functional level. Due to her experience in decoration and designing spaces, an opportunity was found in the niche of people with a taste for nature and design, but it was necessary to validate its viability.
Challenge
Validate that the business idea for the sale of pots, plants, and services related to ornamentation and plant care can be successful in Mexico.
Process
Our first step was to have a broad understanding of these subjects (plants and pots) so we conducted quantitative and qualitative research to help us find data about who are our users, who are the competitors, what’s trending right now, and what’s to come.
Hypothesis
After discovery meetings with our client, we came up with our main hypothesis around this business concept, and these will be the statements that give us a north throughout the research process.
– People want pots so that their plant has a place to live and at the same time it makes a space look aesthetic.
– People look for a pot because it adapts to the place aesthetically/functionally.
– People seek to have a plant to have a living being to care for.
– People seek to have a plant to decorate their spaces.
– People are looking for services to care for their plants and are willing to pay for it.
Industry analysis
Research was made in different databases to verify the feasibility of the project. The following analysis considers the following sources: national/government statistics, international data (official international sources), national and international trade associations, broker and analyst reports, company annual reports, libraries and databases of business information.
Trends analysis
Based on the previous analysis, a search was made for the main initiatives in the industry that players are implementing to be more competitive. 31 relevant trends were identified for this study, but for this case study, I’ll present the ones that have been more impactful on the project’s development.
– Landscaping: Offer as a service for clients who are not only looking to buy plants but also to design spaces.
– Showrooms / Pop-up Stores: Small showrooms that are temporarily placed at strategic points in the city in order for target customers or users interaction with the brand and its products.
– Plants/pots home delivery: E-commerce with delivery services of plants and pots at home.
– Community events: Carrying out events of this type on behalf of the brand or in collaboration with other brands or places reinforces its identity, opens the doors to new clients, and opportunities for the business, and builds loyalty.
Competitors analysis
To identify the advantages that other competitors offer, an investigation was carried out in which 39 companies (19 Mexico, 13 USA, 7 international) were taken into account in order to analyze them strategically and this is the analysis summary.
– Differentiating the brand through products, services, and experiences will make us more competitive.
– It is important to have the materials that are mostly adopted in the catalog but to experiment with others to meet other preferences.
– The market for fake, air-purifying, and pet friendly plants is latent. You can take advantage of the lack of competition to create purchase motivations.
– You can break into the design industry not only through the sale of pots but also complementary products.
– You should take advantage of the fact that few competitors are selling on Amazon, and own branches, and distributors to diversify sales channels.
Survey
Taking into account the initial hypotheses and the analysis of the industry, a survey was carried out which was disseminated among different groups of people. The sample was 502 people.
Interviews
In order to cross-reference the quantitative and qualitative data, 28 interviews were conducted with specific profiles, the following topics were inquired: gains, pains, jobs to be done, perception, buying, and searching habits. Here are some of the most relevant quotes we got:
As you can see the main motivations of the users were identified through quantitative and qualitative research. This allowed us to narrow down the opportunities and have a much clearer picture of what could work to generate a new, highly competitive business model.
Final outcomes
Persona Maps
Customers are the heart of the business model and this venture was designed around them. Based on the research carried out, we decided to group them into different segments, which you can see below.
Lead User
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A brief description: she has plants everywhere and is good at taking care of them. For her, the protagonist must be the plant, the pots come later. She is part of communities passionate about the subject. She gives away plants because she believes that they decorate the space better than material accessories.
Extreme User
A brief description: He likes the aesthetics of plants, but not the care they entail. He uses them purely as an aesthetic element and the less time he has to spend taking care of them, the better. He does not have a connection with plants, so if he has to replace them, he doesn’t hesitate to do so. The pot and its design is the most important thing.
Average User
A brief description: she has plants and although the main reason for her purchase is decoration, she knows that she must take care of them so that they look good. She prefers to ask at the place where she buys them for the care she should have because it is the easiest way to obtain timely information. She does her best to take care of them, although if they die, she has no problem buying new ones.
Business Model
The business model broadly defines all the elements that will make up the organization as well as the way in which income will be generated. For this exercise, we used the Osterwalder Business Model Canvas.
Ideal Customer Journey
After analyzing the expectations of our customer segments, we devised an experience that will manifest itself during the next 2 years of operation in the short, medium and long term. It is important to try to implement each of these solutions in order to create a memorable journey within their business.
Service model
Now that we have the business model and the ideal experience, it is important to define the intangible part of our venture. Each of the elements present will help us to align the operations of our company to always offer the best service to our clients.
The service model is made up of 9 very important elements that will define how the organization performs. Also, it is how our clients will perceive the brand in each of their contact points.
Service Blueprint
This part defines the step-by-step of the internal and external activities that must be carried out, which are aligned with the customer journey and the service model. A service blueprint is included for each customer journey.
Conclusion
Rootmate was a project we worked on during the 4th trimester of 2020, and this type of project always attempts to set the best practices and experiments for the brand’s success based on research but, of course, it’s always up to the client to implement them or not. Now, it’s 2023, and Rootmate is a brand with 36.4k followers on Instagram, and I’ve loved to see how they have grown and implemented many of the suggested experiments as well as have followed the trends we shared with them such as:
– Participating in design fairs.
– National and international shipping.
– Pop-up stores in national locations.
– They’ve built a community and they share tips and hacks with them.
– Launching their small size pot line. This, in particular, was one of the biggest insights we got from users, and from day one we suggested having a small size pot line, but it took them one year to accomplish and it seems their clients are loving them.
In conclusion, this has been one of my favorite projects, because there’s nothing better than to see your work come alive, and Rootmate has done it perfectly.
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