Year round learning for product, design and engineering professionals

Daniel Burka – Changing successfully: Adapting your interface over time

Web Directions South 2008, Sydney Convention Centre, September 26 1.40pm.

Presentation slides

Session description

User interface design is an iterative process — the design of Digg and Pownce have been a study in evolution and adaptation. This talk will inspect the why and how of these iterations by looking at specific case studies from the two projects as well as previous client work Daniel has tackled.

The case studies will examine specific user interface challenges that have arisen and will chop them up into their various bits. How do I identify a challenge? What is the best approach for getting started? How do I solve the problem conceptually and technically? How will I know if I solved the challenge successfully? Case studies have been selected that are especially pertinent outside of their specific contexts to help you in your everyday UI design.

The presentation will focus on design inspiration, decision-making processes, technical solutions, and learning from missteps as part of a designer’s iterative process.

About Daniel Burka

Daniel Burka PortraitDaniel is the creative director at Digg, a founder of Pownce, and a founder of the Canadian web firm silverorange.

At silverorange, Daniel worked with a wide range of clients including Mozilla, Ning, Revision3, and Sloan. He’s since been lured to San Francisco after Kevin Rose dangled the prospect of In ‘N Out burgers and the opportunity to develop the user experience for the social news website Digg. As Digg’s creative director, Daniel has helped the site grow from a niche technology news site into one of the leading media services on the web with a massive and passionate community. Recently, along with Leah Culver and Kevin, Daniel helped found Pownce – a social network that lets you share files, events, messages, and links with your friends. Daniel works on feature development and the user interface of Pownce.

delivering year round learning for front end and full stack professionals

Learn more about us

Thoroughly enjoyed Web Directions — met some great people, heard some inspiring presenters and added a whole bunch of things to my to-do list.

Joel Roberts Web Developer