Redesigning the app experience for discovering Chile

The app had two simultaneous problems. On one hand, an information architecture problem: the content taxonomy was too general — without granular-enough categorization by city, attraction, or activity type — which limited search precision and made it harder for users to find what they were looking for. On the other, an interface design problem: the app hadn't been updated in years, with an outdated UI misaligned with the rest of Copec's visual ecosystem.

The problem affected the app's entire user base. Solving it meant not only redefining the content structure, but also redesigning search and indexing criteria at the product level — which required close, sustained collaboration with Copec's development and content teams.

The project was tackled on two complementary fronts:

Information architecture and search engine: Redesigned the category taxonomy (region, city, destination, activity, must-see) to enable more precise searches aligned with users' actual behavior.

Full visual redesign: Complete update of the UI system, aligning Chiletur with Copec's Design System and integrating graphic elements native to the product's local identity.

With the diagnosis validated, the work moved into redesigning the app's information architecture at the taxonomy level. Flow diagrams were developed comparing the existing structure against different proposals for a more granular hierarchy, evaluating how this specificity could be consistently maintained across the different search entry points (by region, by city, by destination). The final proposal — a more detailed and scalable content structure — was validated and adopted as the basis for the product redesign.

The planner has a primary goal — calculate the trip's approximate cost (fuel, tolls, total cost) and suggest a route based on origin, destination, and vehicle variables (fuel efficiency and fuel type) — and a secondary goal: turn the resulting map into an interactive element that would create synergy with the rest of the app's content. Along the suggested route, users can discover gas stations, must-sees, local entrepreneurs, and destinations near the route, connecting the functional utility of trip calculation with the editorial discovery content that had been restructured at the information-architecture level.

The destination page is where detailed content is displayed within the new information architecture, and each destination belongs to a zone (e.g., North, Central, South, Patagonia) that groups together a set of related destinations. Within the page, a single-scroll structure organizes: climate and best time to visit, available activities, things to do, local must-sees, related routes, event calendar, and dining and lodging recommendations. The visual hierarchy and order of these modules were defined so users could move from general exploration — at the zone level — to a concrete decision within a specific destination (where to eat, where to stay, what to do), directly solving the original problem of scattered, unspecific content.