Laura Klein

Laura Klein is a UX designer, product manager, user researcher, author, and Principal Experience Specialist at Nielsen Norman Group (NN/G). She has spent decades working in technology and has built a career across engineering, UX design, research, product management, and product strategy.

Laura’s multidisciplinary background allows her to approach product development from both the user and business perspectives. Her work focuses on helping teams understand their customers, validate product ideas, make better design decisions, and build products that solve meaningful problems rather than simply adding more features.

She is the author of Build Better Products: A Modern Approach to Building Successful User-Centered Products and UX for Lean Startups: Faster, Smarter User Experience Research and Design. Both books focus on practical ways for product teams to incorporate user research and design into product development while working within real-world constraints.

A central theme in Laura’s work is Lean UX and the importance of connecting product decisions to evidence. She advocates for learning about customers throughout the product lifecycle, testing assumptions before investing heavily in development, and using research to determine whether teams are building the right thing.

Laura also writes and speaks extensively about the relationship between UX and product management. Her experience across engineering, design, research, and product roles gives her a practical understanding of the challenges teams face when trying to balance user needs, business goals, technical constraints, and delivery speed.

At NN/G, Laura teaches courses including Lean UX and Agile and Product & UX: Building Partnerships for Better Outcomes. She also contributes to NN/G’s research and educational content around UX, product development, design leadership, and research practices.

Laura is currently also a co-host of the NN/G UX Podcast. In February 2026, she appeared on the podcast to discuss the foundations of Lean UX, Agile, MVPs, product vision, and the challenges growing organizations face when balancing speed with consistency. NN/G announced her as the newest co-host of the podcast.

She continues to explore how UX and product practices are changing as technology evolves. Her recent work includes discussions about AI, design processes, research synthesis, and the changing role of designers and researchers as AI becomes increasingly integrated into product development.

Laura’s approach emphasizes practical, evidence-based product development. Rather than treating UX as a separate stage of the development process, she encourages teams to make research, design, experimentation, and customer learning part of how products are built and improved.

Through her writing, teaching, consulting, speaking, and podcasting, Laura has become a prominent voice in UX and product development. Her work helps teams move beyond feature-focused thinking and toward a stronger understanding of users, product strategy, and the business outcomes that successful user-centered products can create.