Designing for industrial precision
Building a Design System for Correa CNC industrial milling machines as a native system
Correa S.A. is a leading Spanish company in Europe in the design and manufacture of large industrial milling machines. They use an external software (Heidenhain) combined with native software. This project focuses on designing feature integration trough Design System.
Company
Correa Group
(via Nacar Design)
My role
UX/UI Designer
Project type
CNC Machine Operative System
Time span
Sept 2022 - Early 2023
Tools
Figma
User testing
Understanding a technician work - UX architecture
Field research involved direct collaboration with Correa operators and maintenance staff, observing real workflows, identifying pain points and mapping the gap between what the existing HMI offered and what users actually needed. UX research was conducted on several company viewings to understand context and shape every design decision.
Two users, one system. Defining user needs
CNC milling machines are operated by two very different users: machine operators running production workflows and maintenance technicians diagnosing complex system states. One interface had to serve both without compromise in either direction.
HMI integration into a native OS
The interface had to run natively within the machine's existing operating environment (External OS) — not as an overlay, but as an integrated system. That meant designing within real hardware constraints: screen size, input methods, processing limitations, and the interaction model expected by CNC operators familiar with legacy systems.
Mapping user flows and operator actions
Early ideation phase led to rapid wireframing across user journeys, covering design blueprints, menus, controls, machine management and tool handling. Complex and technical actions required deep-dive understanding of each one to define hierarchies and dependencies the UI must reflect correctly.
Wireflows made it possible to validate navigation logic and layout decisions before any visual design effort was invested.
Correa Native System - Feature breakdown wireframes
Delivering on time
Project was developed following Agile sprint planning, were I worked ensuring features meet scope on time. Sharing with Correa the UI screens and test them remotely with internal employees was key.
Building consistency at scale with a custom Design System
I contributed to the creation of a design system tailored to the specific needs of the Correa HMI — components, states, spacing rules and ad-hoc visual tokens built to ensure coherence across all machine interfaces and future-proof the system for ongoing development. Every component was designed with industrial readability and touch/hardware input in mind.
Prototyping and validation
High-fidelity prototypes were used to validate the HMI with real operators and maintenance staff before development. Testing sessions identified friction points in navigation, layout and interaction density — leading to targeted iterations that measurably improved task flow efficiency.
Embedded native OS designed for Correa
Clickable actions
