Ember User Stories: Vincent Pickering

Earlier this year, we shared how the team here at Realmac HQ uses Ember. Since publishing that post, we’ve heard from plenty of other users who also love Ember, and starting today we’re going to be sharing their stories about how Ember fits into their lives. Today we’re starting with Vincent Pickering, a front-end consultant from Leeds, UK.

So, let’s get started with who you are!

My name is Vincent Pickering. I have been designing and building websites, software and mobile apps for the last 13 years. I live in Yorkshire with my beautiful Scottish girlfriend and our cheeky cat.

I’ve worked on a wide range of projects over the years, from helping design a data visualisation tool for the NHS, to designing and building the official social network for the Catholic Church and a multi-lingual, responsive, white label booking system. It’s fair to say I am often called upon to solve complicated design and user-interaction problems.

Your job title is Front-End Consultant. Can you tell me a bit more about what that means? What do you do?

It is mainly a generic way to say “I’m a problem solver”. I don’t put much importance in job titles when it comes to the web, the digital landscape moves so quickly that titles tend to mean different things to different people. It’s more about the quality of work you deliver and the skills you can bring to a project.

I see myself as a problem-solver first and a designer/developer second. Code, design and logical thinking are my tools and I try to use those to solve whatever problem the client has. One day I could be working on a kiosk system for a large retail company, the next for a multi-lingual reservation system, designing a small boutique website or just mapping out the UX flow for a specialist piece of software. Given that my work types are so jumbled, context-switching and not wasting time on a project is very important to me.

How do you use Ember? Any interesting Collection or Smart Collection setup?

I use Ember to store every image I see on the internet but also inspiring pictures taken in real life. This complements the built-in Subscription feature which I use exclusively for image-based feeds such as Dribbble, FFFFound!, Unmatched Style, Pttrns, etc…

I split my workflow in to three areas:

1. Collection
2. Classification
3. Idea Selection

I am always collecting images that inspire me online, and also away from the screen. I use my iPhone to take pictures of things I see, like magazine articles and newspaper layouts. I then transfer them from my Phone to my laptop via Dropbox and then import the images in Ember. Usually on the weekend, or if I have some spare downtime, I grab a coffee and go through classifying my images and my feeds. It doesn’t take too long, because I keep the classifications fairly broad and use the multi-select option to modify many tags at once.

As an example my general tags are things like Website, Mobile, UX Pattern, UI Widget etc. You can add more than one tag to an image, so I often do. I use the Smart Collections for general classification and set up some rules to look for an individual type. This way when I come to work on a project I have a basic pool of imagery in the general area I am looking for. Of course I may want to use more than one Smart Collection type when collecting images, so for each project I create a standard Collection, I then browse my Smart Collections and drag in anything that I feel is relevant to the project.

What does a typical day look like, and how does Ember fit in your daily workflow?

I start Ember up each morning and leave it running in the background: it hardly consumes any CPU so it sits there in the background during the week sucking up all the great images on the web while I work. When I have some downtime or am taking a break, I process a few images from my feeds.

Once I’m ready to think about artistic direction or features to include, I already have a quality controlled pool of images on each topic to look at. It helps me to consider an approach without having to search for something at the last minute. It’s especially helpful if a project has a tight deadline: it can go into making the project quality even better.

Finally I use Ember for mood boards. Sometimes these are just for me. If I can’t decide on a particular direction, I can create many options quickly, spend some time reviewing them, and decide which best fits the brief. I sync Ember to iCloud so my library is always available when I go out to meet clients; sometimes the client wants to see the options and my thought process, and they can give me some feedback on my approach. Ember makes it really easy to classify imagery in a Collection or by colour so the client can give you more informed feedback on what they want.

Having seen some of your work, it looks like you’re as comfortable in programming as you are in design. How do you manage to juggle between both domains? Does your experience in design help you when you work on a development-oriented project?

I love all aspects of the design process: I believe design is about how something “works”. A good designer wants to learn about everything around them, they are always curious and patient, observing the “why” and “how”. A good designer should consider all the inputs to an equation and question the quality of the output they are getting and how to improve that equation.

Because I tend to get involved at every level of the creative process, I am always learning new things and blend my knowledge gleamed from one domain to another. I believe many of the great design ideas are often problems that have been previously solved in another discipline and just not discovered in the area you are tasked to solve.

What are your favourite features in Ember?

The “Cat, Get Off my Keyboard so I can do some Work” feature (that is, a Collection of GIFs that will try and persuade the cat to get off my keyboard) recommended by the Ember support team has recently seen a 100% increase in productivity.

Seriously though, I have tried many different web-based image Collection apps and services, and it’s always been slow as my library grew. One of the biggest draws to Ember for me was the native functionality that keeps it super quick to use, throw in iCloud support and you have all of the benefits of a web app but native. For me, it’s just the perfect solution to my problems.

As you work in both a creative and technical domain, how do you stay inspired? Do you have some tips to share about keeping the creative juices flowing?

I stay creative by getting involved in local events in the industry and trading experiences with my peers: Leeds has a fantastic digital scene. I also read a huge amount but I try to read as much as I can about new thinking, ideas and other creative things happening outside my profession as well as in it. Cross-pollination of ideas from other disciplines can lead you to fun and interesting new places.

Thanks again to Vincent for sharing his story with us. You can learn more about Vincent on his website, or on Twitter. We’ll be sharing more User Stories in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!