Nikola Durkan

Product designer

About

14 years of industry experience with a strong focus on UI design and user-centered design. Nikola is a generalist, able to contribute to projects from the research phase, all the way up to final production. His specialties are UI design for mobile and web, production processes, prototyping, and user testing. He is easy going, organized, and a real team player.

Experience

UX design

14 years

User research

8 years

Workflow & process

8 years

Main skillset

App and web design

App and web design

Design systems

Design systems

Branding

Branding

Illustrations and icons

Illustrations and icons

User research

User research

Animations

Animations

Telia Play

Role

Senior product designer

Years

2023 - 2024

This is Nikola’s second time at Telia’s TV department. He joined the content discovery team which focuses on how users find and decide what to watch in the Telia Play service. During the assignment Nikola helped out on key initiatives to help Telia become a one stop shop for streaming. This included creating a concept for how to combine assets from multiple providers and present them on the same page to push the product to become a content aggregator.

He also took the initiative to modernize the design system at Telia play to take advantage of the latest feature from Figma such as local variables and tokens.

In preparation of the big accessibility legislation in the EU in 2025 he also audited the service and helped create frameworks for how to do better hand overs to developers when it comes to accessibility.

Key achievements

  • Performed audit for Accessibilit

  • Modernized design system

  • Improved Search experience

Telia Play

Role

Senior product designer

Years

2023 - 2024

This is Nikola’s second time at Telia’s TV department. He joined the content discovery team which focuses on how users find and decide what to watch in the Telia Play service. During the assignment Nikola helped out on key initiatives to help Telia become a one stop shop for streaming. This included creating a concept for how to combine assets from multiple providers and present them on the same page to push the product to become a content aggregator.

He also took the initiative to modernize the design system at Telia play to take advantage of the latest feature from Figma such as local variables and tokens.

In preparation of the big accessibility legislation in the EU in 2025 he also audited the service and helped create frameworks for how to do better hand overs to developers when it comes to accessibility.

Key achievements

  • Performed audit for Accessibilit

  • Modernized design system

  • Improved Search experience

Telia Play

Role

Senior product designer

Years

2023 - 2024

This is Nikola’s second time at Telia’s TV department. He joined the content discovery team which focuses on how users find and decide what to watch in the Telia Play service. During the assignment Nikola helped out on key initiatives to help Telia become a one stop shop for streaming. This included creating a concept for how to combine assets from multiple providers and present them on the same page to push the product to become a content aggregator.

He also took the initiative to modernize the design system at Telia play to take advantage of the latest feature from Figma such as local variables and tokens.

In preparation of the big accessibility legislation in the EU in 2025 he also audited the service and helped create frameworks for how to do better hand overs to developers when it comes to accessibility.

Key achievements

  • Performed audit for Accessibilit

  • Modernized design system

  • Improved Search experience

Klarna

Role

Senior product designer

Years

2020 - 2023

Klarna is one of the biggest Fintechs in Europe and as a Product designer Nikola worked in different teams, and on different products.

He started out in with Klarna’s most important payment plan in the US — Pay in 4 — optimizing messaging and flows for the checkout, and improving messaging to reduce the errand rate. He worked on key initiatives in Klarna such as launching the new Payment plan “Pay now”, introduce the option to pay with ACH (a direct bank payment in the US) which were part of their “Get to net” initiative during the economic downturn. This included supporting the design work on the redesign of the main checkout flow for Klarna in order to support the addition of these new payment plans and payment methods.

Nikola also worked on a brand new feature called Purchase power, a way for Klarna to answer a seemingly simple question: how much can I spend with Klarna? One of Klarna’s most common errands was “why is my Purchase rejected?” and this was the question that this feature was developed to answer. The feature resulted in increasing the Average order value by 5-12% (depending on market) and has been since spawned a new way of assessing credit in Klarna in a more centralized way, always with the customer’s financial health in mind. This feature has since expanded from just the US to now being in Klarna’s main markets and is slowly being rolled out to more markets.

The last feature that Nikola worked on was the Payment method settings, re-designing the view based on customer insights, improving the visual design, and flows for the product to bring it up to par with the rest of the app.

Key achievements

  • Launched the feature "Purchase power" in multiple markets

  • Supported key initiatives such as adding bank accounts for payments

  • Supported on the redesign of the checkout flow

Klarna

Role

Senior product designer

Years

2020 - 2023

Klarna is one of the biggest Fintechs in Europe and as a Product designer Nikola worked in different teams, and on different products.

He started out in with Klarna’s most important payment plan in the US — Pay in 4 — optimizing messaging and flows for the checkout, and improving messaging to reduce the errand rate. He worked on key initiatives in Klarna such as launching the new Payment plan “Pay now”, introduce the option to pay with ACH (a direct bank payment in the US) which were part of their “Get to net” initiative during the economic downturn. This included supporting the design work on the redesign of the main checkout flow for Klarna in order to support the addition of these new payment plans and payment methods.

Nikola also worked on a brand new feature called Purchase power, a way for Klarna to answer a seemingly simple question: how much can I spend with Klarna? One of Klarna’s most common errands was “why is my Purchase rejected?” and this was the question that this feature was developed to answer. The feature resulted in increasing the Average order value by 5-12% (depending on market) and has been since spawned a new way of assessing credit in Klarna in a more centralized way, always with the customer’s financial health in mind. This feature has since expanded from just the US to now being in Klarna’s main markets and is slowly being rolled out to more markets.

The last feature that Nikola worked on was the Payment method settings, re-designing the view based on customer insights, improving the visual design, and flows for the product to bring it up to par with the rest of the app.

Key achievements

  • Launched the feature "Purchase power" in multiple markets

  • Supported key initiatives such as adding bank accounts for payments

  • Supported on the redesign of the checkout flow

Klarna

Role

Senior product designer

Years

2020 - 2023

Klarna is one of the biggest Fintechs in Europe and as a Product designer Nikola worked in different teams, and on different products.

He started out in with Klarna’s most important payment plan in the US — Pay in 4 — optimizing messaging and flows for the checkout, and improving messaging to reduce the errand rate. He worked on key initiatives in Klarna such as launching the new Payment plan “Pay now”, introduce the option to pay with ACH (a direct bank payment in the US) which were part of their “Get to net” initiative during the economic downturn. This included supporting the design work on the redesign of the main checkout flow for Klarna in order to support the addition of these new payment plans and payment methods.

Nikola also worked on a brand new feature called Purchase power, a way for Klarna to answer a seemingly simple question: how much can I spend with Klarna? One of Klarna’s most common errands was “why is my Purchase rejected?” and this was the question that this feature was developed to answer. The feature resulted in increasing the Average order value by 5-12% (depending on market) and has been since spawned a new way of assessing credit in Klarna in a more centralized way, always with the customer’s financial health in mind. This feature has since expanded from just the US to now being in Klarna’s main markets and is slowly being rolled out to more markets.

The last feature that Nikola worked on was the Payment method settings, re-designing the view based on customer insights, improving the visual design, and flows for the product to bring it up to par with the rest of the app.

Key achievements

  • Launched the feature "Purchase power" in multiple markets

  • Supported key initiatives such as adding bank accounts for payments

  • Supported on the redesign of the checkout flow

Telia Play

Role

UX designer

Years

2017 - 2020

As a UX designer in Telia, Nikola was primarily responsible for the user experience in the mobile and tablet apps for Telia’s TV service, but over time he transitioned into more strategic work around the service as a whole. This entailed synthesizing existing user research, conducting user studies, teaching other teams about user-centered design, and helping the product owners expand their toolkit to incorporate more UX tools so that they, as a team, focus more on delivering user value rather than the number of features delivered.

During the fall of 2018, Nikola and a small team started working on the next iteration of the TV services and Nikola, together with the art director, started doing design explorations and initiating the process of creating a component library to make the solution more scalable.

Nikola has also helped with the transition to become more data-driven and to work more with hypothesis and goals. As part of this, he organized workshops to spread the mindset about data-driven development, collected and spread user insights, and has pushed for easier access to tools and data for analysis in order to make it more democratic and usable for other teams.

Key achievements

  • Initiated move from Sketch to Figma

  • Spread awareness about working data driven

  • Redesigned whole TV platform

  • Created the foundation for the design system

Telia Play

Role

UX designer

Years

2017 - 2020

As a UX designer in Telia, Nikola was primarily responsible for the user experience in the mobile and tablet apps for Telia’s TV service, but over time he transitioned into more strategic work around the service as a whole. This entailed synthesizing existing user research, conducting user studies, teaching other teams about user-centered design, and helping the product owners expand their toolkit to incorporate more UX tools so that they, as a team, focus more on delivering user value rather than the number of features delivered.

During the fall of 2018, Nikola and a small team started working on the next iteration of the TV services and Nikola, together with the art director, started doing design explorations and initiating the process of creating a component library to make the solution more scalable.

Nikola has also helped with the transition to become more data-driven and to work more with hypothesis and goals. As part of this, he organized workshops to spread the mindset about data-driven development, collected and spread user insights, and has pushed for easier access to tools and data for analysis in order to make it more democratic and usable for other teams.

Key achievements

  • Initiated move from Sketch to Figma

  • Spread awareness about working data driven

  • Redesigned whole TV platform

  • Created the foundation for the design system

Telia Play

Role

UX designer

Years

2017 - 2020

As a UX designer in Telia, Nikola was primarily responsible for the user experience in the mobile and tablet apps for Telia’s TV service, but over time he transitioned into more strategic work around the service as a whole. This entailed synthesizing existing user research, conducting user studies, teaching other teams about user-centered design, and helping the product owners expand their toolkit to incorporate more UX tools so that they, as a team, focus more on delivering user value rather than the number of features delivered.

During the fall of 2018, Nikola and a small team started working on the next iteration of the TV services and Nikola, together with the art director, started doing design explorations and initiating the process of creating a component library to make the solution more scalable.

Nikola has also helped with the transition to become more data-driven and to work more with hypothesis and goals. As part of this, he organized workshops to spread the mindset about data-driven development, collected and spread user insights, and has pushed for easier access to tools and data for analysis in order to make it more democratic and usable for other teams.

Key achievements

  • Initiated move from Sketch to Figma

  • Spread awareness about working data driven

  • Redesigned whole TV platform

  • Created the foundation for the design system

Nordea

Role

UX designer

Years

2017

For Nordea, Nikola worked on a card administration tool for business. Nikola was the only UX designer in the team and was responsible for all the deliverables regarding the user experience. He did the research, created flow charts, wireframes, as well as did the design and user testing. The team was rather inexperienced when it came to user experience and Nikola helped teach them about UX methodologies and also pushed for a more iterative process that involved more user testing and prototyping in order to ensure that they built the right solution for their customers.

As a part of the wider UX team inside Nordea, Nikola pushed for more collaboration between sites and a more common toolset. As a part of this effort, he developed the first component library and spread it to the other UX teams within Nordea.

Key achievements

  • Created flows for Card management system for Business and tested them with users (First card)

  • Spread awareness about UX design process

  • Pushed for a joint design system in Nordea and more cross company collaboration

Nordea

Role

UX designer

Years

2017

For Nordea, Nikola worked on a card administration tool for business. Nikola was the only UX designer in the team and was responsible for all the deliverables regarding the user experience. He did the research, created flow charts, wireframes, as well as did the design and user testing. The team was rather inexperienced when it came to user experience and Nikola helped teach them about UX methodologies and also pushed for a more iterative process that involved more user testing and prototyping in order to ensure that they built the right solution for their customers.

As a part of the wider UX team inside Nordea, Nikola pushed for more collaboration between sites and a more common toolset. As a part of this effort, he developed the first component library and spread it to the other UX teams within Nordea.

Key achievements

  • Created flows for Card management system for Business and tested them with users (First card)

  • Spread awareness about UX design process

  • Pushed for a joint design system in Nordea and more cross company collaboration

Nordea

Role

UX designer

Years

2017

For Nordea, Nikola worked on a card administration tool for business. Nikola was the only UX designer in the team and was responsible for all the deliverables regarding the user experience. He did the research, created flow charts, wireframes, as well as did the design and user testing. The team was rather inexperienced when it came to user experience and Nikola helped teach them about UX methodologies and also pushed for a more iterative process that involved more user testing and prototyping in order to ensure that they built the right solution for their customers.

As a part of the wider UX team inside Nordea, Nikola pushed for more collaboration between sites and a more common toolset. As a part of this effort, he developed the first component library and spread it to the other UX teams within Nordea.

Key achievements

  • Created flows for Card management system for Business and tested them with users (First card)

  • Spread awareness about UX design process

  • Pushed for a joint design system in Nordea and more cross company collaboration

Learnifier

Role

UX designer

Years

2017

Learnifier is a web-based, online learning platform. Nikola led the design work which consisted of updating the visual design of the site as well as improving the user experience through updated patterns and user flows. He also established a new UI component library based on Atomic design principles to make the design scale better for the site.

Key achievements

  • Updated the visual design of the platform

  • Created a design system so the client could continue developing their own site

Learnifier

Role

UX designer

Years

2017

Learnifier is a web-based, online learning platform. Nikola led the design work which consisted of updating the visual design of the site as well as improving the user experience through updated patterns and user flows. He also established a new UI component library based on Atomic design principles to make the design scale better for the site.

Key achievements

  • Updated the visual design of the platform

  • Created a design system so the client could continue developing their own site

Learnifier

Role

UX designer

Years

2017

Learnifier is a web-based, online learning platform. Nikola led the design work which consisted of updating the visual design of the site as well as improving the user experience through updated patterns and user flows. He also established a new UI component library based on Atomic design principles to make the design scale better for the site.

Key achievements

  • Updated the visual design of the platform

  • Created a design system so the client could continue developing their own site

Tele2

Role

UX designer

Years

2017

Nikola worked on a new app concept for Tele2 that focused more on simplifying the use of the customer's data and SIM management. He worked with a small team of designers and developers to start building the UI framework for the app project based on the Atomic design principles.

Key achievements

  • Created a concept app for business customers to manage their SIM cards

  • Created a UI design framework based on Atomic Design principles

Tele2

Role

UX designer

Years

2017

Nikola worked on a new app concept for Tele2 that focused more on simplifying the use of the customer's data and SIM management. He worked with a small team of designers and developers to start building the UI framework for the app project based on the Atomic design principles.

Key achievements

  • Created a concept app for business customers to manage their SIM cards

  • Created a UI design framework based on Atomic Design principles

Tele2

Role

UX designer

Years

2017

Nikola worked on a new app concept for Tele2 that focused more on simplifying the use of the customer's data and SIM management. He worked with a small team of designers and developers to start building the UI framework for the app project based on the Atomic design principles.

Key achievements

  • Created a concept app for business customers to manage their SIM cards

  • Created a UI design framework based on Atomic Design principles

Tactel - Com hem

Role

UX designer

Years

2017

Comhem and Bredbandsbolaget’s TV service used an Ericsson developed TV platform and needed to align it with their brands. Nikola lead the design team for the two different brands, from the initial design concept phase, all the way to the final design delivery and production. Nikola also managed the stakeholders and held the demos and presentations for clients.

Key achievements

  • Lead the design team with reskinning a white label to two brands (Com hem, Bredbandsbolaget)

  • Managed stakeholders and held demos

Tactel - Com hem

Role

UX designer

Years

2017

Comhem and Bredbandsbolaget’s TV service used an Ericsson developed TV platform and needed to align it with their brands. Nikola lead the design team for the two different brands, from the initial design concept phase, all the way to the final design delivery and production. Nikola also managed the stakeholders and held the demos and presentations for clients.

Key achievements

  • Lead the design team with reskinning a white label to two brands (Com hem, Bredbandsbolaget)

  • Managed stakeholders and held demos

Tactel - Com hem

Role

UX designer

Years

2017

Comhem and Bredbandsbolaget’s TV service used an Ericsson developed TV platform and needed to align it with their brands. Nikola lead the design team for the two different brands, from the initial design concept phase, all the way to the final design delivery and production. Nikola also managed the stakeholders and held the demos and presentations for clients.

Key achievements

  • Lead the design team with reskinning a white label to two brands (Com hem, Bredbandsbolaget)

  • Managed stakeholders and held demos

Tactel - Huawei

Role

UX designer

Years

2017

Huawei approached Tactel to develop concepts for an upcoming phone. They wanted Tactel to develop a series of concepts around the theme “motion”. Nikolas role in the project was to facilitate the exploration and ideation in the design team, helping expand and then refine the ideas into presentable concepts. Nikola also worked on researching new technologies and products within the field and worked on the presentation for the client.

Key achievements

  • Lead ideation and exploration process

  • Researched new technologies and how they could be applied

Tactel - Huawei

Role

UX designer

Years

2017

Huawei approached Tactel to develop concepts for an upcoming phone. They wanted Tactel to develop a series of concepts around the theme “motion”. Nikolas role in the project was to facilitate the exploration and ideation in the design team, helping expand and then refine the ideas into presentable concepts. Nikola also worked on researching new technologies and products within the field and worked on the presentation for the client.

Key achievements

  • Lead ideation and exploration process

  • Researched new technologies and how they could be applied

Tactel - Huawei

Role

UX designer

Years

2017

Huawei approached Tactel to develop concepts for an upcoming phone. They wanted Tactel to develop a series of concepts around the theme “motion”. Nikolas role in the project was to facilitate the exploration and ideation in the design team, helping expand and then refine the ideas into presentable concepts. Nikola also worked on researching new technologies and products within the field and worked on the presentation for the client.

Key achievements

  • Lead ideation and exploration process

  • Researched new technologies and how they could be applied

Tactel - Com hem

Role

UX designer

Years

2017

Ericsson had a white label TV service Multi-screen TV that covered traditional TVs, web, mobile, and tablet. Nikola worked on the project from day one, creating pitch materials and helped to shape the design direction and the overall concept. His primary role in the project was as a UX designer and he delivered wireframes, mockups, and prototypes. He worked closely with the development teams to ensure that the designs were implemented as intended and that issues were dealt with quickly and effectively. Nikola also designed a delivery process to ensure that errors were caught early and resolved, to ensure that the delivery quality remained high and on time. He also introduced prototypes as a new deliverable and communication tool in the project to better handle stakeholder expectations as well as more easily convey the UX designs ideas to the developers.

Key achievements

  • Completed multiple re-skins for clients such as SkyTV in UK

  • Improved internal process for hand over to developers, cutting down the delivery time

  • Introduced teams to prototyping and made it part of the delivery

Tactel - Com hem

Role

UX designer

Years

2017

Ericsson had a white label TV service Multi-screen TV that covered traditional TVs, web, mobile, and tablet. Nikola worked on the project from day one, creating pitch materials and helped to shape the design direction and the overall concept. His primary role in the project was as a UX designer and he delivered wireframes, mockups, and prototypes. He worked closely with the development teams to ensure that the designs were implemented as intended and that issues were dealt with quickly and effectively. Nikola also designed a delivery process to ensure that errors were caught early and resolved, to ensure that the delivery quality remained high and on time. He also introduced prototypes as a new deliverable and communication tool in the project to better handle stakeholder expectations as well as more easily convey the UX designs ideas to the developers.

Key achievements

  • Completed multiple re-skins for clients such as SkyTV in UK

  • Improved internal process for hand over to developers, cutting down the delivery time

  • Introduced teams to prototyping and made it part of the delivery

Tactel - Com hem

Role

UX designer

Years

2017

Ericsson had a white label TV service Multi-screen TV that covered traditional TVs, web, mobile, and tablet. Nikola worked on the project from day one, creating pitch materials and helped to shape the design direction and the overall concept. His primary role in the project was as a UX designer and he delivered wireframes, mockups, and prototypes. He worked closely with the development teams to ensure that the designs were implemented as intended and that issues were dealt with quickly and effectively. Nikola also designed a delivery process to ensure that errors were caught early and resolved, to ensure that the delivery quality remained high and on time. He also introduced prototypes as a new deliverable and communication tool in the project to better handle stakeholder expectations as well as more easily convey the UX designs ideas to the developers.

Key achievements

  • Completed multiple re-skins for clients such as SkyTV in UK

  • Improved internal process for hand over to developers, cutting down the delivery time

  • Introduced teams to prototyping and made it part of the delivery

Nyskogavägen 5
123 63, Farsta
Sweden