Yardzie.

Mobile App

Overview

Project Manager: Fatima Laraib

Tools: Figma, Photoshop, FigJam, Lottie

Duration: 16 Weeks

Role: UI/UX Designer, Graphic Designer, Wireframing , Prototyping, User flows, Usability testing, Research, Animations

Year: 2025

Problem

Yard sales are a great way for people to declutter, earn extra income, and find affordable secondhand items. However, the process remains outdated and sellers often rely on paper signs outside or Facebook groups, which limit visibility and engagement. Buyers struggle to locate sales, preview items, and get reliable directions and sellers struggle to attract local buyers and lose motivation altogether.

How might we design a mobile app that connects sellers and buyers through a simple and community driven yard sale experience?

Solution

Create a community driven mobile app that makes yard sales easy to find, host, and trust and where buyers can quickly and easily browse local listings and maps, and sellers can effortlessly create and manage their own yards.

User Research

Survey

To find out how people went about garage and yard sales, I conducted user surveys to over 20 people asking more about their experience with attending, hosting, and navigating yard sales and what were some of the paint points and issues they faced.

We asked: "How do you go about hosting or visiting a garage sale and what are key frustrations you encounter with these?"

67% of participants said their biggest frustration was not knowing what items would be available at a sale before arriving.

“I waste time going to sales that don’t have what I’m looking for, or I can’t find the location easily.”
- Home Owner, 46


“I drive around on weekends sometimes, check on Facebook, or sometimes I'll see a post on some other sites like Craigslist.”

- Home Owner, 52

“I've always thought about setting up a garage sale, but I always get scared that maybe people won't visit or know I'm having one.”

- Home Owner, 41

Takeaways

  • Simplify discovery for buyers

  • Make posting a sale easy

  • Encourage community engagement

  • Create a simple and modern alternative

  • Support informed decisions and discoverability

Design Solutions

  • Seamless seller to buyer connection (posting/browsing).

  • Balance usability with community feel (approachable design).

  • Encourage sustainable reuse by making secondhand shopping accessible.

User Personas

Competitive Analysis

User Flow

Design Process

Animations

To create a more engaging and welcoming experience, I designed illustrated animations for Yardzie’s onboarding flow. Inspired by products like Google Meet and other modern apps, these animations explain the app’s value in a clear, friendly way while making the interface more visually appealing. The animations highlight key features such as discovering nearby yard sales, previewing items, and easily hosting your own sale. By pairing illustrations with motion, the onboarding feels lively, approachable, and memorable, helping users quickly understand how Yardzie can make their yard sale experience easier.

Final Designs

Onboarding Screens

Main Screens

Key Features

Create Yard

Create your yard by adding categories. names, location and items to your yard in just a minute

Discover a Sale

Find a yard, navigate through items, and send an offer and discover the many treasures that await to be claimed.

Edit Items

Easily add, remove, and edit items for your sales in just a few taps.

Map away

Find any sales using the map function to easily find, message sellers, and discover items.

Bid and Offer

Be able to accept and reject offers, send counter offers, and receive notifications to make your yard experience better.

Conclusion

Outcome

I created an app which I believe successfully reimagines the yard sale experience by bridging community connection with great digital tools. Through research, I uncovered key frustrations difficulty finding sales, lack of trust, missing filters, and confusing listing methods and addressed them through clearer navigation, simpler dashboard, and guided selling flows. Creating a design and experience that support and leans towards empathy for both buyers and sellers to engage in an app that will promote a healthier selling experience within a community.

From this project, I learned the importance of translating insights into actionable design solutions and how emotional journey mapping can highlight critical pain points. I also learned how to create visuals and animate them and I did this with many portions of the onboarding process to help users absorb the experience of the app more better. It helps give a unique approach to the app itself and gives a welcoming and fun experience for users.

Looing Forward

Things that I could improve on is more refined research as well as more usability testing to further improve the app navigation and feel for both buyers and sellers to make sure both parties can be engaged and attentive. I think most importantly is to establish a consistent solid design system for the project to follow which would help not only myself but people the I’m working with as well so we can all follow a simple and effective workflow that would improve our process and delivery in the future. Most importantly, my prototyping and wireframing skills took a giant leap with this project which I will lead with more confidence and improvement going forward!