Chris Hayden
←Showcase / 2022 Concept

Ukuu

A peer-to-peer rental marketplace. The design problem was trust.

FIG. 1Search, listing, confirm. The whole rental in three screens.
Role
The designer on a small startup team. I took the rough prototype I inherited and overhauled it into a production-ready UI, flows, and an animated prototype.
Team
Founders, a small dev team, me
When
2022
Built with
Figma, After Effects

01Context

Ukuu was a startup marketplace for renting the things people own and rarely use, like a power drill, a pressure washer, or a ladder. I joined as the designer and inherited a prototype that worked but needed a lot of help. My job was to make it feel like something you’d trust with your credit card and your drill.

02The flow

Trust is the design problem, not the layout.

The real question for Ukuu wasn’t about layout. It was whether you’d hand your $200 drill to a stranger because an app told you it was fine. So the screen I cared most about was the moment the drill changes hands. Both people confirm it, with a code only the lender can show.

  1. Drew opens the exchangeHe taps the code prompt in his chat with Mike.
  2. Enters Mike's codeType T2B4 from Mike's screen, or scan the QR code.
  3. Both sides confirmThe deposit is held and the return time is set, in both chats at once.
TRY IT · THE HANDOFF

Mike is standing in his driveway holding the drill. Drew is holding his phone.

03Details

Put the deposit in the price, not the fine print.

A deposit is the only insurance a renter can see. So it sits as its own line in the price breakdown, where people look, and it says when the money comes back.

Makita Power drill with BatteryHialeah, FL · ★ 4.8 (12)
Rental length8 days
$12/day × 8 days$96.00
Tax$0.00
DepositHeld, then refunded when the drill comes back$25.00
Total incl. deposit$121.00
LIVEChange the rental length. The deposit stays put, on purpose.

Reviews on every listing and every person.

You’re not renting a drill. You’re renting Mike’s drill. So people get ratings as well as items, and the owner’s face sits right next to the Request button.

Owner-side screens: a listings table with request status, a listing editor, and the public listing with the owner's photo beside the Request button.
FIG. 2The lender's side: listings with status, the editor, and the public listing with the owner beside the Request button.

Confirm the handoff on both sides.

Ukuu can’t see the driveway. The exchange code turns the in-person moment into a record both people agreed to.

FIG. 3The request and exchange, animated for the founders. Lender on the left, renter on the right.

04Familiar on purpose

New category, familiar shape.

Search, results, listing, request. Ukuu follows marketplace conventions closely, so all the novelty is in the one place it’s needed. I animated the main flow in After Effects so the founders could feel it before a line of it was built.

FIG. 4The main flow, animated.

05What happened

I delivered the full UI, the flows, and an animated prototype of the main experience, taking the product from a rough functional build to something ready to ship. The company wound down before launch.

Ukuu exchange screens: lender's QR code and four-character code, and the renter entering it.
FIG. 5The exchange as designed. The demo above is built from this.