Camilo Rojas

CASE STUDY

PagoConectado

Designing a payment experience that helps both sides register, verify, and understand a transaction when internet access is unreliable.

Category

Product Design · Fintech · Offline Experience

Role

UX/UI & Product Design

Context

Collaborative product-design case study for low-connectivity payments

Methods

Persona, JTBD, scenario mapping, user flows, state modeling, high-fidelity prototyping

PagoConectado case-study cover presenting an offline fintech payment experience
PagoConectado — two parties, shared evidence, and a payment with certainty.

PROBLEM

The challenge

Digital payments usually assume stable connectivity. In rural stores and other low-signal contexts, that assumption breaks: a transaction can be initiated locally while confirmation, delivery, or synchronization remains uncertain. The design challenge was to preserve continuity without hiding what the system could and could not confirm.

  • Connectivity could disappear during the payment.
  • Sender and recipient needed the same evidence.
  • Pending synchronization could lead to uncertainty or duplicate payment.

EVIDENCE

What the product definition revealed

Connectivity is not a binary moment

Evidence: The user journey could move between online, offline, and reconnecting conditions before the transaction was fully synchronized.

Impact: A generic loading or success message would not explain the actual state of the payment.

Confirmation must be shared

Evidence: Both parties needed to agree on the amount and recognize the same local transaction record.

Impact: One-sided feedback could create disputes or uncertainty at the point of sale.

Pending requires a clear next step

Evidence: A locally registered transaction could still be waiting for network synchronization.

Impact: Users needed to know what was complete, what remained pending, and whether they should act again.

DECISIONS

Design response

The interaction model separates local registration from network synchronization, while keeping both parties aligned through explicit states and shared evidence.

Finding

Connectivity may be lost before the network confirms the transaction.

Design decision

Separate local registration from online synchronization and label each state explicitly.

User value

Users can continue the exchange without mistaking a local record for a fully synchronized payment.

Finding

Sender and recipient need to recognize the same transaction.

Design decision

Introduce a handshake before completion and provide mirrored evidence to both parties.

User value

Both people agree on the amount, counterpart, and status before closing the sale.

Finding

Delayed synchronization can create doubt about whether to repeat the payment.

Design decision

Persist the transaction in history and show pending, synchronized, or action-required status.

User value

Users retain traceability and understand when the payment is complete without creating duplicates.

Buyer and shop owner showing matching PagoConectado transaction evidence on their phones
Shared evidence gives both sides a consistent record while the system communicates whether synchronization is complete.

FINAL INTERACTION FLOW

Enter payment Review details Handshake Register locally Share evidence Synchronize

VALUE

Outcome & learning

The prototype establishes a coherent interaction model for payments that may be registered locally before network reconciliation. Its value is not the promise of invisible offline processing, but the explicit communication of evidence, responsibility, and system status at every stage.

  • Trust depends on understandable states, not only a final success screen.
  • Shared evidence reduces ambiguity between sender and recipient.
  • Offline-first design must explain what happened, what is pending, and what happens next.