Paws & Poise Mobile Grooming App
App design for local pet grooming company, allowing clients to book appointments online and purchase pet care products.
Ux Designer
Role:
Type:
End-to-End App Design
Tools:
Interview, Affinity Mapping, User Flows. Sketching, Wireframing, Prototyping
The Brief:
Paws & Poise is a family-owned mobile grooming business offering at-home grooming services across Melbourne.
Growing demand had outpaced their phone and email booking system, appointments were being missed, and customers had no self-service option.
Alongside the launch of their new website, I was engaged to design a mobile app that would streamline appointment scheduling and give customers a way to browse and purchase at-home pet care products.
The Problem:
Busy dog owners need to understand which grooming service is right for their dog so they can confidently book an appointment online — without needing to call.
I conducted fiveuser interviews with dog owners who regularly use professional grooming services, most based in inner-city Melbourne.
The interview guide covered three areas:
How they choose a groomer
How they book appointments
Their at-home care habits.
The Research:
Two unexpected themes surfaced in every interview:
Pricing felt unpredictable and hard to compare
Interest in at-home products was low, not from disinterest, but from lack of guidance on what they actually needed
Affinity mapping of these sessions revealed seven key themes:
CONNECTION
Owners want groomers who know their dog
CONVENIENCE & LOYALTY
Loyalty depends on convenience
FREQUENCY & TIMELINES
There was no fixed grooming schedule
APPOINTMENT SCHEDULING
Calling was preferred over booking online
PROFESSIONAL ADVICE
Relied on professional advise
PRICING
Costs feel unpredictable
HOME ROUTINES & TRYING NEW PRODUCTS
Minimal at-home routines and low interest in products
The Persona:
Using the research findings, I created the primary user persona “Sophie Taylor, The Busy Dog Mum”.
Sophie is a first time user of the Paws and Poise booking system, booking an appointment for her Cavoodle, Buddy.
Her goals: understand which service is right for Buddy, customise the appointment and manage her bookings online.
Her values: transparency, convenience and trust.
Her frustrations: are unpredictable pricing, not being able to change her appointments online.
Ideation:
With the persona created, I then mapped Sophie's first-time booking flow, her most critical and complex journey through the app.
It needed to cover onboarding, dog profile creation, service selection, optional product add-ons, and account creation, all without overwhelming her.
The key insight driving the design: if Sophie completes this flow once, her information is saved and every future booking becomes significantly faster.
Design & Prototyping:
ITERATION #1 - SKETCHES
The initial onboarding only validated Sophie's postcode. This was too simple — it gave her no guidance and the app no information to personalise her experience.
ITERATION #2 - REVISED SKETCHES
I added a dog profile creation step to onboarding. By capturing details about Buddy upfront — breed, size, coat type — the app could surface relevant services and products rather than presenting every option at once.
ITERATION #3 - WIREFRAMES
During wireframing, I restructured the flow so product selection came before the review screen, then combined review and payment into a single step to reduce friction.
ONBOARDING
Captures Buddy’s details, enabling personalised recommendations and saving time on future bookings
SERVICE SELECTION
Shows only relevant services, with each broken into clear dot-point inclusions for easy comparison
EXTRAS & PRODUCT SELECTION
Extras and product selection are optional and clearly separated from the core service, with minimal but useful information and expandable details if needed
CONFIRMATION & ACCOUNT CREATION
The confirmation screen encourages account creation once the booking is complete, allowing for appointments to be rebooked and products to be repurchased to save time in the future