Comutta Client Mobile App

Project Overview Role: Founding Product Designer

Client Name: Comutta

Industry: Mobility

Objective: Design a peer-to-peer car rental platform that makes vehicle hire seamless for renters and simple for car owners to list and manage their cars, all while maintaining trust, safety, and operational efficiency.

Scope: Client Mobile App | Fleet Mobile App | Admin Web App | Design System

Duration: 10 weeks [2024]

I was the founding product designer for Comutta, a peer-to-peer car rental platform connecting people who need vehicles with car owners looking to earn from idle cars. I led the design for three platforms: a renter app, an owner app, and an admin web app, all designed from scratch.

In Nigeria, car rentals are expensive and require office visits, while ride-hailing gets costly for full-day trips. Car owners have vehicles sitting idle, but no safe way to monetize them. The market needed a trusted, mobile-first solution that worked for both renters and owners without a physical middleman.

Comutta was designed to directly address these core issues by creating a two-sided marketplace. Instead of traditional rental agencies or expensive ride-hailing, I designed a system that gives renters affordable vehicle access and owners a safe way to earn passive income through mandatory verification, transparent pricing, and user-controlled booking approval.

I interviewed 12 people across Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt, split between renters and car owners, and analyzed competitors like Uber, Bolt, and InDrive.

Comutta's target audience is professionals seeking affordable car access for work or leisure, car owners looking to monetize idle vehicles, and individuals needing temporary transportation for events or trips.

With 10 weeks to design three platforms, I knew I had to be strategic. I focused on building trust through transparent interactions and creating a design system that wouldn't break as the product grew. Features like insurance integration and referral systems got deferred. I needed to nail the fundamentals first: booking, listing, and the admin tools that would keep operations running smoothly.

I designed flows that balanced renter convenience with owner control. Renters could browse freely but needed ID verification before booking. Owners could toggle between instant booking or manual approval based on comfort level. The admin dashboard design handled user verification, dispute resolution, and fraud detection from day one.

The biggest challenge was designing for two opposing mindsets, renters wanted speed, owners wanted control, while keeping operations scalable for the admin team. The 10-week timeline meant ruthless prioritization: I focused on validating core flows through testing and designed flexibility into the architecture for post-launch iteration.

Through usability testing with 15 participants, 80% completed booking and listing flows without assistance. The design is complete and currently in development.

Comutta taught me how to design under constraints. Ten weeks wasn't enough to perfect everything, so I focused on what mattered most, designing trust into every interaction and creating a scalable foundation. The biggest win wasn't the three platforms I designed, it was designing a system that could evolve. In fast-moving startups, adaptability is everything.