An e-bike subscription that had to make swapping a battery feel as simple as tapping a card.

Riders care about one thing: getting home. So the app is one ring of charge, and everything else waits.

The brief

Corso rents e-bikes by the month in Lisbon. Riders swap batteries at street hubs, and the old app split that into three separate flows. Battery questions made up 40% of all support calls.

Five more cities were planned within a year, each with its own engineers. Without a shared system every launch would mean rebuilding the app from scratch.

The idea

The battery is the hero of the interface: one ring showing charge, range and the nearest hub with a free slot. Swapping is a single screen. Billing, plans and settings all wait behind it.

We built the design system in Figma and in code at the same time, so the tokens engineers ship are the ones designers draw with.

What we made

Product strategy and UX
App UI for riders
Design system: 64 components, Figma and code
Identity refresh
Hub signage and bike decals

One ring, one ride

Ride from Cais do Sodré to Belém and swap at the hub. The ring is the only thing on screen that has to be read at speed. Scroll to ride.

Cais do Sodré0.0 km
Santos1.9 km
Alcântara4.1 km
Belém hub6.2 km

From 92% and 74 km of range, the ride arrives at Belém hub on 23% after 18 minutes; the swap takes 41 seconds and leaves 80 km of range.

A rider on a dark e-bike in a concrete underpass

Designed for the handlebar

Thirty-eight riders tested prototypes on their own commutes. Every state was checked in direct sun on a handlebar mount, at arm’s length, with gloves on.

Three Corso app screens: a hub map, a battery ring at 92%, and plan pricing — Hubs, the ring and plans; and the system behind them: 64 components, one set of tokens in Figma and in code.

The Corso design system board: colour tokens, buttons, inputs and a battery ring — Hubs, the ring and plans; and the system behind them: 64 components, one set of tokens in Figma and in code.

A cyclist riding along the river beneath the red steel of a suspension bridge — Riverside hubs, Alcântara. The first city the system launched in.

What changed

launched on one product system
Lisbon, Porto, Madrid, Valencia, Milan and Lyon.
support calls about battery swaps
In the six months after the new app shipped.
average swap, down from three minutes
Timed at the Cais do Sodré hub.

It is the first design system our engineers actually like using. We launched three cities on it without needing to call anyone.

Min-ji ParkHead of Brand, Corso

Who made it

Orvel

Tomás FerreiraProduct designLisbon
Freya LundDiscoveryLondon
Anjali RaoCreative directionLondon

With

Client team: Min-ji Park, Tiago Ramos, Clara Ventura
Engineering: Corso product team
Photography: Ana Sobral
Research participants: 38 Corso riders in Lisbon

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