Articles

Laura Klein

Laura Klein is a former NN/G employee who worked on research, teaching, and design thought leadership. She fell in love with technology when she saw her first user research session, worked as an engineer, user experience designer, and product manager in Silicon Valley for companies of all sizes. She has written two best-selling books for product managers, designers, and entrepreneurs, Build Better Products (Rosenfeld Media ’16) and UX for Lean Startups (O’Reilly Media ’13), and she is a frequent speaker at tech conferences, including SXSW, Lean Startup Conference, Industry, and Mind the Product.

Articles and Videos

  • How to Get Research Recommendations on the Roadmap

    To influence the roadmap: join planning early, learn constraints, tie research to PM metrics, and give clear recommendations at the right time.

  • The Case for Design Disposables

    Design disposables are rough artifacts you make to think, not to deliver. Learn to tell them apart from deliverables and avoid the sunk-cost trap.

  • What Designers Actually Struggle with on Product Teams

    Designers' top struggles aren't about design skills. They're about alignment, influence, and navigating org complexity — the work no one taught them to do.

  • Project Postmortems for UX Teams: Learning from Success and Failure

    Although postmortems are one of the most powerful learning tools in product development, most teams haven't yet discovered how to use them effectively.

  • Your Design System Needs an Enforcer

    Although design systems promise consistency, most still fail without someone actively enforcing the rules and making teams follow them.

  • Why Most Product Teams Aren't Really Empowered

    Although product teams say they're empowered, many still function as feature factories and must follow orders.

  • Stop Making Your Team Figure Out AI on Their Own

    Making everyone figure out AI alone creates chaos and risk. Research and Design Operations teams must step up: analyze workflows, pilot tools, and support adoption systematically.

  • The Edge Cases that Break Hearts (And Products)

    Edge cases aren't rare; they're real life. Design for messy situations like name changes, shared accounts, and bad actors from day one.

  • Why Organizations Don’t Do User Research and How to Change That

    Organizations avoid user research due to excuses like time, cost, and fear of negative feedback, leading to poor product decisions and wasted resources.