Melo

What is Melo

Melo is a Fintech platform helping SMB's in Latam, automate payments to several stakeholders simultaneously, in just a few clicks.

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My role (2018-2021)

I joined Melo company in 2018 as a UX/UI designer. Back then they were a startup called SpiceWise and I was their first hired designer, to start the MVP's design from scratch. The CEO had in mind the opportunity area and the general goal for the application. But not the how. This is where I had to build the very first user research in order to find insights and design the application. After several service blueprints, stakeholder maps, customer journeys, empathy maps, and context research. UX design was done along with the wireframes. After iterations with the management and technical team, I was able to traduce the wireframes into hi-fidelity mockups and design system from scratch. After two years, and with the pandemic situation, as every other company we had to adapt and rethink our application. This is where a second user research was done in order to re-evaluate the objective of the application.

‍In 2020 MELO was born. An easy-to-use application, that helps SMB's in LATAM to automate their payments to employees and providers.

With Melo, you can pay multiple invoices, select if you want to pay the total amount or a fraction of each of them, and split the total amount to be payed into 2 different payment methods.

Same with employees, you can pay multiple employees, select if you want to pay the total amount of the payroll or a fraction of each of them, and split the total amount to be payed into 2 different payment methods.

This is when the team grew to 5 people (including me) and I was the design leader in charge of the re-design & transformation of the application.

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Massive, but simple and easy to use experience.

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Prototype multiple payments with split payment

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Design process

We followed Design thinking methodology and an agile DesignOps approach. For me as a leader, it was key to for me the teamwork, with high-performance collaboration between designers and management/development/marketing team. It helps unlock the power of design in organizations.

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DesignOps is a human-centered approach to building stronger design teams that support the orchestration of individuals, processes and tools to amplify creativity and impact at scale.

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This is how we got requirements from management/development/marketing team, we analyzed them together and translate the new requirement or feature into UX/UI design user stories. After this, we refined them altogether and size them with Scrum points (2, 3, 5, 8, 13) depending on how much work needs to be done.  If the iteration of the product or new feature, needs user research, it is going to be prioritized at first always.

Before sprint starts, I assign User Stories depending on the team's capacity and skills for the sprint. As part of the design process, we did QA design audit sessions in order to iterate the designs altogether. This sessions were key (applying the DesignOps) because one mind thinking all use cases, error cases, edge cases is almost impossible to catch them all. So having several minds thinking was very helpful. After designs are signed off from the design team, we present the final proposal to the team that raised the requirement. And then they prioritize the iteration or new feature with the dev/marketing team.

I was in charge to review at the end of the development if it meets the expectations in terms of UI, behavior, experience, animations, and interactions.

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As part of the leader responsibilities, roadmap and mid to long term vision skills was a must for this role.