A car rental experience with no counter and no keys

Nurent set out to take car rental upmarket by removing everything tedious about it: no counter, no queue, no key handover, no risk of turning up to the wrong car. The brief was a state-of-the-art rental experience that balanced autonomy with safety for a cosmopolitan audience that rents quality services without a second thought.

As Lead Product Designer, I worked with a UX designer, a UI designer, a product researcher and a product manager, all of us contracting through Outra Coisa. We grounded the work in research: interviews, competitor benchmarking and a set of personas and journeys mapped across consideration, pickup, in-car, return and post-rental, then distilled into the jobs customers were really hiring a rental for, from freedom and convenience to security and aesthetic pleasure.

The defining design decision was almost literal. The premium promise hinged on unlocking the car from the app, so we made the brand mark itself the lock-and-unlock widget: design the brand to unlock the experience. Around that we defined the “magic moments” that turn a dull errand into something memorable, and a flow spanning onboarding, personalised reservations and the in-car experience.