AC3E: from a reporting form to a management intranet
GESTIN, a research center's internal platform, existed to report to ANID, Chile's national research agency. Researchers entered data and got nothing back, while finance, development and technology transfer ran on spreadsheets beside it. I interviewed six groups and reframed the project: from a form redesign into a management intranet, starting with a billing dashboard for the director.
The missing entity. The center works in 7 lines; ANID evaluates 3 areas. The platform had no 'area', so the mapping was done by hand.SHEET 01
Client
AC3E, a Chilean research center
Years
2025 – 2026
Role
UX/UI lead, consultant
Team
Me, with AC3E's direction and development teams
Methods
Interviews, roles and permissions, IA, data viz
7interviews with six user groups, in two weeksDiscovery report
2 → 10user profiles, once interviews showed who really does whatDiscovery report
5tools used beside the platformExcel, Monday, Teams, Redmine, Rex+
7 ≠ 3research lines vs the areas ANID evaluatesDiscovery report
01
Context
A platform built to report upward, not to help the people using it
AC3E is a Chilean research center in electrical and electronic engineering, funded by ANID and by contracts with industry. GESTIN, its internal platform, collects what the center must report to ANID: publications, theses, projects, outreach.
Over time the center grew. Direction now tracks a target for industry billing, operations manages core funding on a financial year that starts in December, development runs projects with monthly costs and income, and technology transfer runs a sales pipeline. None of that lives in GESTIN.
02
Role and team
Discovery lead: research, structure, and the first designs
I lead the UX and UI of the redesign: interviews, the diagnosis, user profiles, the roles and permissions model, and the first designs. Earlier, I redesigned the center's public website, built with AI from my research and specs.
Interviews
Roles and permissions
IA
Data viz
✦ AI-assisted
03
Research
Six groups, one platform, very different jobs
Over two weeks I ran 7 interviews with direction; operations, finance and people; development; technology transfer; communications; and researchers at three levels of seniority.
GESTIN had two researcher profiles: lead and associate. Interviews showed three levels with different jobs: associates who only see their own records; line leads who check their whole line every month; and area coordinators who build the story for ANID across two or three lines.
The diagnosis. The executive summary of my discovery report, written after the first round of interviews (in Spanish).FIG. 01
04
Findings
Four breaks in how the center works
F1 · Reciprocity
Entering data for someone else
Researchers fill in what ANID requires, but get nothing back: they can't see their available funds, their productivity status, or export their CV.
F2 · Structure
Seven lines, three areas, no 'area'
The center is organised in 7 research lines; ANID evaluates 3 areas and cross-line work. GESTIN has no area, so coordinators reconcile it in Excel.
F3 · Fragmentation
Work happens in five other tools
Sales prospects in Monday and Teams, billing and costs in separate spreadsheets, purchases and hours in Redmine, holidays in Rex+.
F4 · Data loss
Forms that lose work
No draft autosave, generic errors shown only at the end, and required fields people don't have at hand, like a student's ID number. People give up, or hand the task to someone else.
05
Reframe
Not one redesign: two products
GESTIN only served researchers and communications. So the project became two fronts at once:
Front 1 · Usability and retentionFor researchers and communications: fix the forms that cause errors, lost work and abandonment, and give people something back for what they enter.
Front 2 · ConsolidationFor direction, operations, development and transfer: bring the spreadsheets and side tools into one place, with indicators they can trust.
That meant going from 2 user profiles to 10, each with its own scope, permissions and outputs:
Role
Sees
Can change
Gets out
Super administrator
Everything, plus logs
Full control; can act on behalf of others
Database, backups, logs
Associate researcher
Own records
Own records; holiday requests
Personal spreadsheet, standard CV
Line lead
Own records + whole line
Own records; signs off the line
Line spreadsheet, annual report
Area coordinator
Own records + 2–3 lines
Own records; assigns work to areas
Cross-line metrics, ANID report
Direction
Whole center: finance, projects, indicators
Read only
Executive reports, billing
Technology transfer
Pipeline, R&D contracts, TRL
Leads and transfer records
Sales funnel, ANID dimension 7
Development
Formal projects, finance, hours
Billing, costing, hours, purchases
Billing calendar, team hours
Operations
Whole center: core finance, people
Budgets, holidays, contracts
Financial balances, payroll
Communications
Outreach, events, press, awards
Press, clippings, asset library
Media coverage, attendance
Guest auditor
Dashboards the admin authorizes
Strictly read only
Official audit reports
Preliminary roles matrix, after the first round of interviews. To be refined with development and direction.
06
Decisions
Where the design is heading
D1 · Give back
Every form returns something
Researchers see their available budget and deadlines, request holidays, and export a standard CV. Entering data starts to pay off for the person doing it.
D2 · Model
Add 'area' to the data model
Lines roll up into areas, so the ANID view and cross-line work are computed, not rebuilt in Excel every year.
D3 · Time
Two calendars, two filters
The financial year starts in December; scientific indicators follow other calendars. Every view says which year it uses, and you can switch.
D4 · Decisions
One billing view for the director
Projected vs actual, the running total against the target, each area's share, and the pipeline: no more reports requested by email.
These directions are being validated with AC3E's development and direction teams before detailed design.
✦ Built with AII specified the views from the interview findings; Claude built the prototype with made-up areas, projects and amounts. I then had it rebuilt in AC3E's own design system and chart library, so the concept reads as part of their platform.
08
The public site
Before the intranet: a new public site, built with AI
The first phase was the center's public website: new architecture for three audiences (industry, academia and funders), a trilingual site and a documented design system. I did the research, the information architecture, the mood boards and the specs; AI tools did the drafting and the building.
The public site. Home page, desktop.FIG. 03
Home
Research lines
R&D services
The design system. Tokens, components and usage rules, documented so the team can add pages without a designer.FIG. 04
09
Reflection
What I'm learning
✓ What workedInterviewing every group, not only the platform's current users, showed that the real product was bigger than the brief.
↺ What I'd changeThe first round mapped each group's needs; who may see and change what still has to be validated with the developers. Next time I'd bring development into the interviews from the start.
