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UX Director

Hi, I'm Tony Maligno — a design leader passionate about crafting experiences that connect people and purpose

I'm a UX leader who solves design challenges like a detective—with empathy, rigor, and relentless curiosity. With 18+ years of experience building cross-platform experiences for simulation, mobile, gaming, and education, I lead global teams to design elegant, user-centered solutions that balance product strategy with creativity. From shipping first-of-their-kind interfaces to modernizing legacy platforms, I bring clarity to complexity and never stop prototyping until it feels right.

What I Value:

Empathy-Driven Design: Deep user understanding is the foundation of everything I do.
Collaborative Innovation: The best solutions come from inclusive teamwork.
Design Systems Thinking: Scalable, consistent, and future-proof by default.
Continuous Learning: I believe great designers never stop evolving.

My Design Process

One of the first things I do when I work in a new job is to establish a clear User centered design process. I have a fully fleshed out ideal design process that I like to use when possible that is based on my expereince of industry best practices within UX Design. Each company and project requires variations of this process and I work with leadership to fine tune it to fit the needs of teams and projects.

I then organize UX design workshops with teams to explain the process and show them the value of ux and how to
leverage it within their teams in a scrum environment.

I have found it useful for the ux designers to work closely with the PO or the team lead and tackle the research phase together and then engage the teams in regular ux reviews

[ This is a diagram I have made that shows an in depth breakdown of the ideal full user centered design process that I like to try to use when possible. ]

Lean UX

While an ideal process is good to establish there is also a need for LEAN UX for the projects that have tighter deadlines, smaller teams and less budget available for all the research phases of UX design.

Documenting the process

I make thorough documentation of the process to share throughout a company to help promote transparency with the process and have a clear list of expectations for the ux designers.

Team engagement through collaboration

I am a firm believer that good designs come from engaged designers and teams. I often run initial design whiteboarding sessions with teams to think through solutions for the requirements and use cases together. This often elicits trust from the team in the design process and thus in the designer.

This process also allows for rapid iteration and exploration of ideas in the early phases of the design process.

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