Dec 12, 2024
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Ember Marketplace
CLIENT
Ember
TYPE
App Rebuild
ROLE
Design Lead
COMPANY
Ember
Background
Ember is a discovery app helping friends find what’s hot in London. Originally built in Unity, the product was struggling: it lacked technical scalability, had no clear vision, and users found the experience noisy and overwhelming.
I joined Ember as Lead Product Designer at a pivotal moment — just as the team planned a rebuild. Rather than simply port the product, I challenged us to rethink the foundation entirely. My goal was to bring clarity, consistency, and direction to the design process — not just visually, but strategically.
The Process
🔁 Reframing the Brief
What started as a “Unity to React Native rebuild” quickly evolved into a full product rethink. I led the conversation to shift from execution to strategy — identifying the need for a shared purpose before any design decisions were made.
🎯 Defining the Just Cause
I facilitated a full-team “Just Cause” workshop (25+ people), aligning design, engineering, and leadership around a shared mission:
“We imagine a future where every week you and your friends can find new personalised things to do, wherever you may be.”
This statement became a compass for design decisions — giving every feature, screen, and flow a clear intent.
👥 User Research & Persona Development
I led qualitative research with 8 core users to map motivations, pain points, and behaviours. From this, I developed new personas and surfaced a central insight: users didn’t want more content, they wanted better curation.
This reframed how we approached personalization — moving from volume to relevance.
✏️ UX & Wireframing
I owned the UX across the full app experience, translating our values into early wireframes. These explored new ideas around social planning, shared discovery, and less cognitive load. I worked closely with engineers to balance ambition with feasibility.
🎨 Design System & UI
I created Ember’s first component-based design system for React Native, covering colours, type, spacing, and atomic components. This system allowed developers to move faster, and ensured brand consistency across every screen.
🚀 Design-Led Delivery
I implemented a delivery model where design ran one sprint ahead of development — allowing for early prototyping, continuous iteration, and reduced tech debt. I also supported engineers throughout each feature sprint, providing specs, QA, and micro-interactions.
The Outcome
Led the full UX/UI redesign of Ember’s app — from product vision to execution.
Helped shift the rebuild from a technical task to a strategy-led design process.
Rebuild resulted in an 80% return rate from existing users and 25,000 new users acquired within the first few weeks.
4× faster dev velocity post-rebuild, due to the new design system and refined UX.
Internal reviews and user testing highlighted the app as “more personal, cleaner, and easier to use.”