Reimagining retail operations across Africa.

Who is the Customer?

The project centred on a broad range of retail users, from larger retailers to Duka and kiosk owners who play an essential role in local community retail across Africa. Many of these businesses provide everyday goods and services, often run by individuals supporting families and serving regular neighbourhood customers. Understanding their role, pressures and day-to-day needs helped shape a product experience that could support business growth, simplify operations and improve how they manage their stores.

Ethnographic Studies

Working with a research team based in Kenya, we explored how retailers operated in real-world shop environments through observations and interviews. I contributed by developing discussion guides and helping prepare the team for the research activities. The findings highlighted a clear need for a reliable, easy-to-use and affordable system that could streamline transactions, manage stock, surface useful insights and fit naturally into the fast-paced realities of African retail.

Competitor Analysis

To position Uzapoint more competitively, I analysed both leading ePOS products from around the world and direct competitors operating in the same markets. This helped build a clearer picture of user expectations, common product patterns, and the gaps Uzapoint could use to differentiate itself.

I used three complementary tools in this process: the Value Proposition Canvas, the Empathy Map, and the Business Model Canvas. The Value Proposition Canvas helped me understand what competitors offered and where their strengths were most visible. The Empathy Map helped surface the customer perspective by drawing on reviews and observed pain points, shaping a more user-centred view of the market. The Business Model Canvas provided a broader understanding of how competitors operated, delivered value, and positioned themselves commercially.

This analysis sharpened Uzapoint's competitive direction. It strengthened my understanding of the category, aligned the product more closely with user needs, and highlighted clear opportunities for Uzapoint to stand out in the ePOS market.

Methods used

Define

Refining Product Requirements

After the discovery phase, I brought together insights from ethnographic research, competitor analysis and stakeholder workshops to define a clearer product direction for Uzapoint. The research had shown how retailers worked day to day, what they needed from their tools, and where the existing experience could be improved across the eCommerce platform, ePOS software, commercial website and back office.

I worked closely with Product Owners and stakeholders to turn these findings into practical product requirements. The workshops helped us align on user needs, business priorities, platform responsibilities and the behaviours each part of the ecosystem needed to support. This also helped shape early foundations for the design system, creating shared patterns, reusable components and clearer design principles across the different products.

The outcome was a more focused set of requirements that connected user insight with product strategy. Rather than redesigning screens in isolation, the work created a joined-up direction for a platform ecosystem that needed to feel easier to use, more scalable and better suited to the realities of retail businesses in African markets.

Ideate

Moving from requirements to redesign direction.

Brainstorming and prioritisation

With the product requirements defined, the next step was to move from insight into direction. I facilitated brainstorming sessions with Product Owners, designers and key stakeholders to explore how the four platforms could be improved, while keeping the needs of retailers, internal teams and Uzapoint's wider business goals in focus.

Rather than jumping straight into screen design, we used these sessions to generate ideas, challenge assumptions and identify which opportunities could create the biggest improvement across the eCommerce platform, ePOS software, commercial website and back office.

Sketching gave me a quick way to turn prioritised ideas into low-fidelity product thinking before moving into polished UI. At this stage, the focus was not on visual design. It was about solving the core UX problems first, testing structure, layout and flow, and understanding how each platform needed to work for different users.

I used sketching to explore the key journeys across the ePOS software, eCommerce platform and commercial website. For the POS, I focused on simplifying transactions and helping shopkeepers move quickly through common tasks. For the eCommerce platform, I explored how products, baskets and checkout could feel clear and easy to use. For the commercial website, the sketches helped shape how users would navigate, understand the offer and complete key actions.

This gave the team a faster way to review ideas before committing to detailed design. It also helped separate the experience problems from the visual layer, making sure the foundations were clear before creating reusable components, interface patterns and the design system that would support the wider product ecosystem.

With the design foundations established, I created a reusable library of components covering navigation, forms, buttons, cards and interactive elements. Each component was designed with multiple variants, responsive behaviours and interaction states, alongside clear usage guidance to ensure consistent implementation by both designers and developers.

To support long-term adoption, every component was documented with usage guidelines, accessibility considerations and implementation notes, creating a shared understanding of when and how each component should be used. Building the library around reusable components significantly reduced design duplication, accelerated feature delivery and provided a scalable framework that ensured future experiences remained consistent across every touchpoint.

The eCommerce platform was designed to give Uzapoint's retail customers a way to create their own branded online stores and sell products beyond the physical shop counter. Following the discovery, requirements and sketching phases, the focus was to turn the needs of small retailers into a storefront experience that felt simple to manage, easy for customers to browse and flexible enough to support different product types, stock levels and business needs.

This part of the redesign focused on making the shopping journey feel clear from product discovery through to checkout. I applied the shared design system foundations, interaction patterns and UX principles defined earlier in the project, while tailoring the experience to the realities of retailers who needed a practical, low-friction way to manage online sales with their own branding.

Uzapoint's ePOS software sat at the centre of the retail ecosystem. It was the tool shopkeepers used to process transactions, manage stock, track sales and keep day-to-day operations moving. Following the discovery, requirements, sketching and design system work, the goal was to redesign the ePOS experience so it felt faster, clearer and more reliable in busy retail environments.

The design focused on reducing cognitive load during high-frequency tasks. Shopkeepers needed to find products quickly, move through sales without hesitation, understand stock and pricing information at a glance, and trust the system in different store conditions. This meant applying familiar interaction patterns, clearer hierarchy and adaptive visual modes that could support both bright storefronts and dimly lit spaces.

The commercial site was Uzapoint's customer-facing website, designed to explain the product offering, build trust and help potential customers understand how the platform could support their retail business. Following the discovery and requirements work, the redesign needed to move the site away from a dated, text-heavy experience and towards something clearer, more credible and easier to navigate.

The focus was to balance storytelling with practical product information, helping users quickly understand Uzapoint's value across retail automation, ePOS software, eCommerce and back-office management. I applied the same design system foundations used across the wider platform, creating a cleaner visual hierarchy, stronger calls to action and a more engaging responsive experience.

The back office and dashboard gave Uzapoint's retail customers a central place to manage the operational side of their business. While the ePOS supported day-to-day transactions and the eCommerce platform enabled online selling, the back office needed to help business owners understand performance, manage stock, add products, oversee employees and make better decisions from one place.

Following the research, requirements and sketching phases, the redesign focused on turning complex business information into a clearer management experience. I designed the dashboard around the information users needed most at a glance, including sales, stock, top products, account balances and quick actions, while making the wider back-office navigation easier to understand and move through.

Delivery

Validating the redesign in real retail environments.

After the platform designs had been developed, I moved into prototyping, testing and refinement. The aim was to validate the redesigned experiences across the eCommerce platform, ePOS software, commercial site and back office, making sure each product worked as part of a connected ecosystem rather than as separate screens.

Testing took place across a mix of remote sessions and real retail environments. Some users reviewed prototypes online, while members of the research team in Kenya carried out usability studies with retailers in their own stores. This helped us understand how the designs performed in the conditions they were intended for, including busy counters, repeated transactions, stock-management tasks and everyday business workflows.