Where do you live - i.e. what is your climate? Lawns are huge resource grabbers. If you have a small front yard you could do a "garden" like bikebum showed, but most of those looked like desert situations. You may be in a wetter area, and xeriscaping won't be appropriate. But putting in a garden with tough perennials (not annuals, you will spend way too much time on your knees every spring) and then covering it with mulch pebbles, bark, whatever fits your area, will save you a lot of time and effort in the long run, and will look a lot nicer. If you have a generally moist growing season with some dry spells, an irrigation system would be useful, it keeps water use down but also means your garden doesn't die during a drought.
Walk around your neighborhood and see what looks nice that you think you could manage. Talk to the people living there - they would have good suggestions for you.
If you don't want a garden, find out what are good ground covers for your area, and plant them. Be sure to get all the grass out first. Be sure that nothing invasive can escape your yard before you start. Most ground covers can be invasive, that is why they are good ground covers. Google images has lots of good pictures if you search for "ground covers".
By the way, crab grass (true crab grass) is an annual, if you can keep it from setting seeds (hard) and keep its seeds from germinating (less hard) your lawn can improve. However you may have witch grass( tough nasty perennial grass) in which case you have major lawn issues, and setting up anything will be hard.