Designing for Trust and Beautiful Memories- the African Wedding Experience
For the modern couple, the journey to "I do" is often overshadowed by a fragmented, frustrating process marked by runaway budgets, unreliable vendors, and crushing logistical anxiety. The countless moving parts from vendor coordination to guest management create a significant gap between the dream wedding and the stressful reality.
Our goal is simple: to eliminate the friction so our users can focus on the joy. We provide more than a tool; we deliver personalized, intelligent support at every touchpoint. We are not just managing tasks, we are partners in creating a smooth, beautiful journey and a lifetime of cherished memories.
WowsnVows
E-commerce, Wedding Industry
Desktop and Responsive Design
Business founder and developer
2018-2022
Challenge
A West African startup identified a need to design the first-ever comprehensive wedding planning platform to address persistent regional market issues: vendor unreliability, limited financial control, and fragmented planning processes for couples, planners, and vendors.
Results
The WowsnVows is a comprehensive wedding planning platform, purpose-built to support the unique West African experience. It successfully streamlined planning through integrated automation, including To-Do lists, vision boarding, seating arrangements, guest list management, and robust budget management, directly tackling the common problem of overspending and significantly increasing vendor visibility.
The result was a highly successful launch, achieving a 96% System Usability Score (SUS) and driving 30% organic user growth in the first month, with personalized support integrated via advanced automation.
96%
System Usability Score
26
Usability Tests
100%
Liked Guest, Vision and Seating features
Strategy & Data Driven Insights
I defined and executed a rigorous Mixed-Methods research strategy to move beyond anecdotal evidence and provide a quantifiable foundation for product investment.
Strategic Differentiation
Quantitative Validation (Surveys): Deployed surveys to 57+ participants (brides, grooms, and vendors) to quantify the scale of budget and decision-maker pain points.
Qualitative Anchoring (Interviews): Conducted in-depth interviews to capture the critical 'why' behind user frustrations, anchoring the feature development in genuine unmet needs.
Competitive research showed existing offerings were directories only. Our strategy was to become the essential planning tool, which would then drive vendor-side value.
WowsnVows personas (bride, groom and planner)
Leading structural design with Information architecture
Through an in-depth review of design principles and a data-informed closed-card sort with Ghanaian participants (using Optimal Workshop), I defined the MVP sitemap to address platform complexity and future-proof expansion. This resulted in a strategic hybrid navigation model: a stable, hierarchical structure groups complex, goal-oriented tasks under the "My Planning" hub, while "Wedding Shop" and "Community" utilize flat navigation to reduce cognitive load and facilitate a rapid browsing and discovery mindset.
Product Design & Validation
I led design and testing iterations, starting with wireframes evaluated by 6 users. I then coordinated with a graphic designer to ensure that high-fidelity screens aligned with cultural needs, building brand trust and relevance.
Usability Testing & Strategic Iteration
To validate core features globally, I conducted remote moderated usability tests with six international users via Zoom and several unmoderated tests. These tests focused on crucial navigation flows and information clarity.
Usability and adoption of the budget tracking feature.
Vendor booking experience, To-Do list and Vision board.
