Yardless

Project Goals

• Design an app that allows everday sellers to create and style their sale to help better sell their items.

• Streamline the selling process by reducing the number of photos a seller must take in order to list their items.

• Give sellers a platorm to have fun creating visually pleasing and creative sales.

Ideation

I first imagined the concept for Yardless as I was moving out of my last apartment and downsizing my belongings. I was having much success selling my items on sites like Craigslist, Nextdoor, Poshmark, and Facebook Marketplace. Oddly enough, I found the most success selling my things on Instagram using their "Stories" feature. I was able to reach my friends and acquaintences quickly by posting item photos, details & prices to a story.

This success led me to imagine an app that could create a sale in which sellers could style an area with multiple items for sale. This would give potential buyers an sense of how these items could be used or styled in their own space. It would also allow the seller to display their items in one single photo if they choose. Each item would be tagged as for sale. When a buyer hovers or clicks on an item, then more details would appear.

Research

When it came to researching this project, I knew I had to look at some of the heavy hitters in the industry I was designing for. I studied the offerings of Instagram, Craigslist, Nextdoor, Facebook Marketplace, and Poshmark to get some better insight into my upcoming project. Through honing in on these apps, I hoped to gail insight into the strongest points of each.

One of my primary influences for this project was an app I frequently use myself, Instagram. The app has come a long way since it first appeared in 2010. It gives users multiple ways to express themselves and connect with their followers. I was particularly inspired by their "stories" section, allowing me to take an attractive, styled photo, and easily and intuitively add text and graphics. I kept this model in mind for Yardless and added a pricing & payment tool to my app to make it more niche for a seller.

Apps like Nextdoor, Facebook Marketplace, and Craigslist are already set up with the intent of selling and buying in mind. While I found success on all of their platforms for selling my own items, I felt that I wanted to give my buyers a more customized experience when online garage sale shopping. I made note of the seller tools available in these apps and sought to incorporate them into Yardless.

Target User Persona

In the process of creating the UX design for Yardless, I imagined the type of user who would be most likely to utilize the app. Keeping this persona in mind helped me think of what the user would expect and need from an app like this.

Creating Prototypes

After some initial experimentation, I settled on a design and color scheme for Yardless. The green is reminiscent of the green space of a yard sale and paired with the white, it brings a clean and high contrast look to the design.

Key Features

In addition to creating an easy to follow onboarding path, I also focused on some of Yardless' unique features when creating the prototype.

Looking Forward

Currently, Yardless is prototyped for sellers on mobile. There is so much room for growth in this project, including really developing the buyer side of the app as well. I also imagined an even simpler buyer side. In this scenario, the seller would export their sale as a unique link in order to share with friends and local connection who don’t have Yardless installed. This allows sellers to connect with a broader audience while the app is still new to the market.

I believe that there is much potential and growth for this project and I am very pleased with the journey is has taken me on in my UX and app design.

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