Design Systems
Token-driven Figma libraries and the governance that keeps them coherent as products grow.
User Experience Designer · Boston
I make complex products feel clear and trustworthy.
I'm Matt Gallagher, a User Experience Designer. For a decade I've been untangling complicated flows and building the design systems that keep teams aligned, with research and accessibility behind the work.
Open to Senior UX roles.
About
The person behind the keyboard.
I'm a User Experience Designer at Fidelity, focused on institutional crypto. Since 2016 I've been working in the financial tech industry, always putting the user first while collaborating across multiple teams.
Outside work you'll usually find me at a friends playing a tabletop roleplaying game or tinkering with my gaming PC.
Skills
What I bring to the table.
Figma
Shared libraries and prototypes set up so designers and engineers hand off cleanly.
Accessibility
WCAG 2.2 work that goes past automated audits to meet each user's needs.
UX Personas
Personas grounded in research, always keeping the user's needs and goals at the center.
Usability and User Testing
Moderated and unmoderated studies that settle debates and point to the fixes worth making.
Information Architecture
Structure for complex financial flows, so users always know where they are and how to get where they need to go.
Rapid Prototyping
Working prototypes that test an idea with real interaction before anyone writes production code.
UX of AI Features
AI features that stay transparent and keep a person in control of the decisions that matter.
Where I've worked
What I've been up to.
2022 to now
Fidelity
Principal UX Designer
I own the design for Fidelity's institutional custody crypto products and its design system. I've shipped new products and features built around trust and clarity, so clients can seamlessly manage their funds while building confidence in their interacitons.
- Built the Figma design system from scratch, with design tokens keeping it consistent across multiple products, internal and client-facing.
- Led early UX accessibility work, rebuilding core components to WCAG 2.2 AA alongside the engineers who shipped them.
- Ran usability studies that settled crucial design debates, then saw the fixes through to the live site.
2015 to 2022
Sallie Mae Bank
User Experience Developer
Led prototyping in an agile environment, building in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to enable user testing at each step of the UX process.
- Founded the design system effort, grounded in Brad Frost's atomic design, and grew it into a shared team resource leveraging storybook.
- Applied the Lean UX Canvas and information architecture lenses to structure working sessions with stakeholders around the users needs.
- Hand-built high-fidelity prototypes so the team could test real accessible interactions and iterate fast.
2015
Scratch Marketing and Media
Graphic Designer
Designed and produced online media assets in a fast paced environment. Leveraged the small team to learn multiple skills and take on diverse projects.
Download résumé (PDF)
B.A. Graphic Design, Roger Williams University, 2015
Personal projects
Work I own end to end, from the first sketch to the thing you can hold.
Woodpecker
Woodpecker is my own golf ball and apparel brand. I designed the mark and the wordmark that sits with it, then mocked both up on product to see how they hold at real size.
The mark is a woodpecker head cut down to hard edges. I traced the beak angle off a photo of a pileated woodpecker and let it set everything else: the long taper of the bill, the plane of the head behind it, the sweep of the implied green repeating the beak swoosh, and the flag doubling as the eye in the negative space.
What I made
- The head shape, built outward from the beak angle
- The green and pin held in the negative space
- Ball artwork sized to sit inside the dimple pattern
- A single-color build that survives embroidery and golf club impact
- Product mockups for the ball and the cap
My work
Most of my work itself is under NDA, so instead of case studies, here is this page's design system. If you would like a detailed walk through of my work, please feel free to contact me.
Color
--inkforeground
--papersurface
--cardraised
--accentbrand red
--accent-inkbrand alternate
--lineborder
Type
H1
Page title
The one big headline at the top of a page. Only one per page.
H2
Section heading
Starts each major section, like About or Experience.
H3
Subheading
Titles inside a section, like a company or a card.
Body
The text you read in paragraphs and lists.
Everything that is not a heading.
Headings are set in Fraunces; body is Montserrat, the original brand typeface from the site and resume. Sizes step down on a fixed scale so the hierarchy stays consistent on every screen.
Components
Each of these is defined once and reused across the page.
Get in touch
Let's make something together.
Let's talk.
Tell me a little about the project, the team, or the problem. I read everything that comes through and I will get back to you. I'm happy to discuss senior UX roles, contract work, or advisory projects.