From an app that only signed to the complete notarial operation

Executive view

The case at a glance

As UX Lead, for a year I assessed the signing app the Colegio already used and led the reengineering. The previous product only allowed signing. Everything else about the act—who needed to be present, whether identity was proven, which file was being signed, whether the session was still alive—lived outside: paper, phone, and, very often, a visit to the office.

The answer was not a prettier sign button. It was a notarial operations platform: session, work home, meetings, requirements book, participants, search, files, mobile login, OTP, and liveness with AWS Rekognition.

01 — Context

Situation

Notaries in CABA certify acts between private parties: identity, consent, and a record that must hold up afterward. The signer is not a software operator; they are a citizen who needs to complete an act. The Colegio sits in the middle: it sets the professional standard and operates the digital channel notaries should use.

That channel already existed. The Colegio was not starting from scratch. It had an app. The request was something else: a platform that would absorb the bureaucratic signature processes that still depended on physical presence.

The complication

What the assessment made impossible to disguise

The app was outdated, poorly built, and designed around a single job: applying a signature. It offered no flexibility when the act was more than “open, seal, close.”

In practice, signers went to the office because of technology shortcomings, not always because of a legal requirement. The seal was on the screen. The bureaucracy was still in the hallway.

We treated the tool as a product to diagnose, not as an interface to retouch. These were the structural failures — later inverted in the Master.

The question

What we actually had to solve

It wasn’t “how do we make a clearer signature button?”. It was: How do we give the College an operating system for the notarial act so a citizen can complete the procedure without being punished by the stack?

If the solution did not cut forced office visits, it was not reengineering. It was cosmetic.

02 — Process

Double Diamond: diagnose, then rebuild

The framework is the Design Council’s Double Diamond: Discover → Define → Develop → Deliver. We did not start in Figma. We started with an as-is assessment: the notary’s and signer’s jobs, where the flow dropped back to the office, and which legal artifacts had no digital home.

Discover. We mapped the real ritual: schedule, identify, gather parties, attach instruments, sign, produce the minutes. We listed every moment when the app went silent.

Define. The problem was not a prettier stamp. The College needed a notarial meeting system. The product nouns became meeting, party, case file, and minutes.

Develop. Information architecture and flow reengineering in the master: Home, Meetings, Requirements book; login, loading, and expired session states.

Deliver. High-fidelity flows plus an open UI kit so the next type of act does not invent another visual language.

The product’s source of truth lives in the master.
Open the CECABA master prototype in Figma

How we worked

The same cadence as in RUBI and Cannect: sprint files for exploration, a master for what is validated, a kit for components. A notary will not forgive an ambiguous dialog that cancels a meeting. Every destructive action (cancel, expire session, unlink) needed an explicit state—not a silent fail.

03 — Product

The answer, mapped to the pain

Each block flips a pain point from the assessment. The screenshots are real product screens (backoffice and app), not the flow boards from the Figma file.

Reuniones

The unit of work, not the stamp

Create, view, edit, clone, and cancel. Date, start and end time, notes. The calendar of the act—not a leftover form. The list is operable: search and filter without tribal knowledge.

Identidad remota

OTP + liveness check

The signer joins from their phone with a one-time code. If the meeting requires a biometric challenge, AWS Rekognition Liveness is in the flow: who is on the other side is no longer an act of faith—and no longer requires the front desk.

Mobile — join the meeting

A job distinct from the notary’s

The signer does not manage the College’s backlog. They arrive, authenticate, and take part. That is why “Join the meeting” is its own flow, not a shrunk-down desktop.

Participantes

The parties as data, not as rumor

Link people to the file and reorder them. The legal sequence of the parties is a feature: ID, contact, validation type (none, biometrics, RENAPER, or both).

Playbook and live session

From the case file to the act

The requirements book stores the minutes. During the session, the notary manages the signature order, the document, and the video; the signer signs from their phone at the same time.

Files in context

The case file travels with the meeting

Attach instruments so they enter the act, not an email thread. The upload component lives in the kit so it is not reinvented for every type of procedure.

Session and home

Design the failure, not just the login

Explicit loading and expired-session states so the notary is not dropped onto a blank screen mid-act. Home lands on work in progress, not a bare signature control. The menu fits in four items: Home, Meetings, Book, sign out.

Federalization

From CABA to the Nation

The product was not conceived for a single colegio alone. We produced an audiovisual package—an onboarding script plus a spot/demo—to present it to Javier Milei’s National Government at Casa Rosada, with the goal of federalizing CECABA across notary colegios nationwide.

The script (ONB CECABA) defines two tracks: a back office for the notary (creating a meeting, participants, documents, WhatsApp) and an app for the signer (notification, OTP, biometrics, live signature). Institutional tone, a 3–4 minute educational piece; the demo taken to Casa Rosada closes that story in ~2 minutes, original 4K.

Download the ONB CECABA script

04 — Outcomes

Impact modeled from the assessment

Design metrics: as-is baseline versus the reengineered flow. They help read the bet, not as a national production dashboard.

Learnings

What I would repeat — and what would come next

If there were more time

Measure trips avoided and deed-closing time against the as-is in real notary offices. Test liveness with signers, not only the happy path. Close the UI kit enough so development does not improvise components in the next act—and, if federalization advances, adapt onboarding to each colegio without breaking the core.