Simplifying Pet Grooming on the Go
Door-to-door pet grooming is booming in the U.S., and Pawgo Brands elevates it. A fully equipped grooming van pulls up in front of your home, where your Siberian Husky receives a tailored grooming experience.
Behind the scenes, for groomers, Petista (the groomer subset of Pawgo) provides the clients, the van, and the platform, helping them hit the road to their first grooming job with confidence! A mobile system connects the client, the groomer and the van owners who supply the grooming vans.
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My role was dynamic, with interviewing groomers and collaborating with the internal team, the CEO, developers and Pawgo on-site managers to get the full story of Petista. I redesigned the groomer experience to make it more efficient and emotionally engaging, and built a brand-new Fleet Owner Platform to digitize the rental and return workflow.
Understanding the Ecosystem
Pawgo: the client facing app
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Pet Groomers: Freelancers on the move, 90% women, often from lower to middle-income backgrounds.
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Fleet Owners: Individuals or small businesses renting vans to groomers.
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Clients: Pet owners booking grooming appointments.
Petista serves three audiences:
The challenge lay in connecting these three seamlessly
Business structure:
Problem Space
Petista’s system functioned, but the experience was fragmented and impersonal.
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Groomers felt disconnected and unsupported.
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Fleet owners managed van rentals manually, using paper forms.
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Communication between both sides was slow and inefficient.
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The community sense was there from within, but didn't relfect outwardly and within the app's interface
Part I - Groomer Experience Improvement
PROBLEM
Groomers spent most of their day on the road and often worked alone.Interviews revealed that they accidentally met colleagues only when exchanging paperwork — they lacked a sense of belonging and control.
"I love grooming, but its a lonely job"
Research highlights
4 groomer interviews across Texas, Florida, and California
Key insights:
Hectic vehicle assignment process
Groomers desired a sense of community
Wanted to learn from other groomers
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A GROOMER
Solutions
1. Personalized Dashboard
Added a dashboard showing:
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Van health & location status
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Daily appointments
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“Hi Abby!” personalized greeting
2. Van statuses
Van assignment brought to the forefront, client addition CTA.
3. Social Sharing Space
Photo-sharing & community feature for groomers to post work, share tips, and connect informally.
PART II — Fleet Owner Platform (New System Design)
PROBLEM
Fleet owners managed van rentals manually — using spreadsheets, calls, and paper logs.
This caused delays, miscommunication, and poor visibility across operations.
PROCESS
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Requirement Gathering — spoke to fleet owners
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Persona Development — defined their goals and frustrations
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Workflow Mapping — identified daily tasks
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Competitive Analysis — studied Turo (U.S. car-sharing app)
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IA + Wireframes — built from scratch
To better understand how vehicle-sharing systems operate across markets, we conducted a comparative analysis between Turo (U.S.) and Zoomcar (India). Both platforms connect vehicle owners with renters but differ in user expectations and workflow detail. While Turo emphasizes trust, transparency, and seamless digital handovers through a refined owner-to-renter flow, Zoomcar relies more on manual verification and localized coordination.
Studying both helped us identify opportunities for Petista — combining Turo’s automated digital experience with Zoomcar’s contextual, step-by-step communication to create a system that feels reliable yet adaptable to on-ground realities.
Feature comparison between Zoomcar, Turo and Karshare
New sitemap, we thought of how would the groomer and fleet owner connect, we also had overlapping personas of a groomer having a spare van or their own grooming van to rent out when its not in use. Through card sorting exercises we determined ideal fleet owner workflow according to what we had talked to and what their day looked like. Paying attention to documentaion was imp.
A secure van handover
Documentation turned out to be one of the most crucial parts of the experience — it wasn’t just about forms, but about building clarity and trust between both sides. We realized the handover and return moments were high-stress touchpoints, where confusion or missing information could easily lead to conflict. Thinking through the service flow, we focused on making these interactions as transparent and intuitive as possible.
Things like autofilling details when entering a VIN number, setting up van size preferences based on how many pets a groomer usually handles, and defining whether a van is a temporary or permanent assignment all came from mapping real user needs to system behaviors. We also considered eligibility checkpoints like license verification and van availability status.
Each of these decisions tied back to one goal, making the system feel reliable, human, and easy to understand for people who spend most of their day on the road.
A well rounded, universal system for the groomer, feeltowner and customer
What resulted was a well rounded, strong ecosystem of the 3 main stakeholders of Petista, exchanging and collaborating seamlessly through a mobile app, we also made a universal onboarding/sign-up process for new users.
A snippet of feature building for groomers: How the setting up work zone process evolved in the universal signup:
Wireframe
1. We want groomers to set their own working space, using trapezoidal shapes and anchor points to precisely define the area
Preliminary Design
UI Application
3. UI change-Changed status bar from pink to blue to guide attention to key actions.
4. This decision involved evaluating the screen's data density and assigning visual importance to enhance usability and focus.
2. Groomers can name their work zones and set prices, making them in charge of their work!
Impact
Spending time within the Petista ecosystem helped me truly understand its rhythm. Conversations, form responses, edge case screenshots, and live feedback all shaped the design. It felt less like building an app and more like creating a world for pets and the groomers behind them.
​Some of things that my research led to improving were:
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01. Capturing the esence of a groomer's personality.
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We understood who the Petista women really are - sassy, independent women in the grooming profession, who love what they do and take pride in their craft. For them, we designed the platform to be more than just a tool, a social companion that supports them from one grooming appointment to the next.
02. A enhanced experience. By employing creative storytelling and focusing on eliminating clutter, refining icons, and ensuring brand consistency, the application bridged gaps in user satisfaction and usability.
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03. A sustainable and scalable system. By templatizing checkout flows and UI components and introducing reusable UX frameworks, the system became more sustainable, scalable, and developer-friendly.
Measured Outcomes
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Reduced manual fleet management steps from 10 → 4
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Decreased groomers’ daily setup time by ~25%
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Introduced new opportunities for community and engagement, helping mobile workers feel more connected and supported