The Zena Brand is a nonprofit accessories brand that empowers women in Uganda to open their own small businesses through the Zena Launchpad. Zena products are handcrafted by female entrepreneurs in Kamuli, Uganda who were previously living below the poverty line. They create the products from recycled materials and collect 100% of the profit. By the time they graduate from the program, the women have saved enough money to open their own small business. I was fortunate to spend 2 weeks working with them through a Fellowship program with Nest. My teimprove their user experience, product photography, marketing, and social/community outreach.

UX Workshops

During the first week, I held 3 workshops to define The Zena Brands’s user persona, user journey and journey map using Figjam. Figjam is a collaborative white boarding tool.

Through the first workshop we were able to define the prospective customer of The Zena Brand.

During the brainstorm we thought about her:

• age

• income

• qualities

• personality

• needs

• pain points

• goals

• digital behaviors

• etc.

The Zena Brand had no prior research or materials around their customer so a high level user persona was created, as well as a one page summary.

Once Zena’s user persona was identified we looked at Macy’s user journey based on a real life scenario:

Macy saw a photo posted by a girl at University. She noticed her earrings and saw that Zena’s profile was tagged. She clicks on Zena’s profile link, where she looks on their instagram feed to see a variety of photos, a few of which are products so she decides to click the link in their bio. She lands on The Zena Brand homepage…

We identified what she is saying, doing, feeling and thinking to uncover her pain points and frustrations and identify opportunities within her journey

We looked at the 6 stages of a retail consumer journey: 

• Awareness

• Consideration

• Decision

• Delivery/Use

• Returns

• Loyalty & Advocacy

Based on the User Journey feedback gathered from the workshop, I was able to generate a Journey map that highlights key areas of opportunity including integrating a returns and reviews process.