Key Takeaways
💡 Fake door testing helps validate demand for a feature or product before development, saving time and resources by testing user interest early.
🔍 Quick feedback loops make it an efficient approach—click-through rates and user reactions can quickly indicate whether a concept resonates with users.
📊 Fake door testing increases stakeholder confidence by providing concrete data on user interest, helping teams secure buy-in for new ideas.
🧩 Insights are limited to surface-level engagement, so combining fake door testing with qualitative methods, like interviews, can deepen the understanding of user motivations.
🌱 Ethical considerations are crucial. Being transparent about a feature’s development status helps avoid frustrating users and maintains trust.
Fake door testing is a user research methodology that is used to measure user interest in a new feature or product that has not been fully developed yet. This technique gives businesses and UX researchers a unique opportunity to not only validate ideas but also measure demand before committing to building new functionality.
Let’s take a closer look at the nuances of this method.
What is fake door testing?
Fake door testing involves crafting a facade for a feature or service in order to gauge user interest. This facade can take the form of a CTA button or a link that is meant to take the user to that new feature or service.
During the product life cycle businesses can often face uncertainty when it comes to creating a new feature or service as they are unsure whether it will resonate with their target audience. Fake door testing provides a low-cost, low-risk opportunity to test whether this new feature or service will be successful in real-world conditions.
However, when users click on the link they are shown a message explaining that this new feature is currently under development. In some cases, users are also being asked for feedback.
By analyzing the click-through rates as well as the user reactions to that fake door, businesses can assess whether users are genuinely interested in a new feature and make informed decisions about product development.
As Nir Eyal, author of “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products” explains:
Fake door testing allows you to validate demand for a product or feature before investing significant resources in development. It's a powerful tool to gauge interest and ensure you're building something people actually want.
Benefits of fake door testing
If you are yet to be convinced about the efficiency of the fake door testing we have collected it’s key benefits for you to take note of:
Avoiding unnecessary development costs
One of the critical advantages of fake door testing is that it provides businesses with a unique opportunity to validate new feature ideas without having to commit to costly development. Hence, with fake door testing businesses can quickly pivot to a new concept or feature with minimal investment.
Quick feedback loops
Another great advantage of fake door testing is that it provides quick feedback loops. Due to its straightforward nature once a test is launched the UX researchers working on the project can quickly evaluate how many users have clicked on the fake door CTA or link as well as analyze their responses. This helps teams to iterate fast and pivot based on data.
Increased stakeholder confidence
Gathering concrete data on user interest and demand is a great way to get the stakeholder’s buy-in. Showing data of users interacting with a non-existent feature can be a great way to build your case for a new idea increasing the stakeholder confidence and with that the chances of your idea being heard.
Enhanced understanding of user behavior
Last but not least fake door testing can actually provide insights into how users interact with your product. By taking note of the parts of the interface that generate attention you can optimize your overall UX strategy accordingly.
How to conduct fake door testing
Here is a step-by-step guide on how to conduct a successful fake door testing:
1. Select what you want to test
Start by selecting a feature or a new product idea that you want to validate.
For example, imagine that you want to add a new pricing option to your app. During your fake door testing you can create a CTA button prompting the users to select this particular pricing or subscription plan, even if you haven’t developed this new subscription plan yet.
2. Define your KPIs
Next up is defining the key performance indicators for your study. Those KPIs will effectively show whether your new feature or idea is worth being materialized.
Common metrics when it comes to fake door testing include click-through rates, bounce rates, conversion rates, and time on page. UX researchers performing the fake door testing might also choose to collect email addresses or even gather feedback.
3. Choose a tool for user tracking
Now that you have set the key performance indicators and the key metrics for your fake door testing it is time to select a tool for user tracking. UX research tools are abundant out there and offer a range of features that can help you with this.
When selecting the tool make sure that it offers heatmaps and robust user analytics as well as a way to track more advanced user interactions such as clicks and scrolls.
For example, the UXtweak Session Recording tool is full of smart and useful features that help you analyze user insights on a whole new level.
You can generate heatmaps, watch session replays, track clicks, scrolls, and even the smallest mouse movements. All of the users’ actions are put together in a comprehensive dashboard of advanced analytics that you can use to make decisions about whether or not your fake door test was a success.
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4. Select the timeframe for the test
Now that you have selected your user analytics tool, the next step for your fake door testing is to determine how long the test will run.
Typically the fake door testing period is around a week or so as this has been proven to be a sufficient time frame in which UX researchers can gather reliable insights and meaningful data.
Our tip here is to select the time frame for your fake door testing based on the traffic of your site or app so that you can choose a time frame that captures enough user interactions.
5. Run the fake door tests
Next up is running the fake door test. Start by launching the fake door test on the platform of your choice. Make sure that the ‘fake door’ is positioned in a location where it can easily attract user attention.
At this stage, it is critical to clearly communicate what the new feature is so that users are prompted to click on it.
For instance, on the new subscription/pricing example that we’ve used above you should clearly mention what the new pricing is and what this subscription includes to incentivize the user to click on it.
6. Analyze the results
The last step of this process is to analyze the results once the test is complete and the data have been collected.
To analyze the results simply look at the number of users who clicked on the fake door and compare it to the benchmark and the KPIs that you have set at the beginning of your testing.
Drawbacks of fake door testing
As Cindy Alvarez, Author of “Lean Customer Development” correctly quoted:
The beauty of fake door testing is that it lets you test demand without the heavy lifting of full development. But remember, honesty in communication is key to maintaining customer relationships. Misleading users, even unintentionally, can backfire.
Here are some of the limitations that should be considered if you’re thinking of performing fake door testing on your website or app:
Negative user experience
The first major drawback of fake door testing is the fact that it can lead to a frustrating user experience. Presenting users with a feature or functionality that doesn’t actually exist can lead to disappointment harming the overall user experience with your product.
We have analyzed what UX designers and researchers have to say about fake door testing in the communities. There is a valid concern expressed by some professionals that fake testing can harm the UX. It is true in some cases – however, other designers still consider fake door testing to be a useful testing method if done correctly.
This is why it is critical to treat this with transparency and provide a clear message stating that the feature is indeed in development or provide a small incentive such as a discount for when the new functionality will be live.
Ethical concerns
Another disadvantage of fake door testing is that it raises ethical concerns. Users might feel that they have been misled by fake door tests especially when there is no clear information about why the feature is not available yet.
This risk can be mitigated by crafting honest messages on your fake door landing page along the lines of ‘This feature is in development but please leave us a comment if you like the idea of it!’
Limited insights into users’ motivations
Last but not least another drawback of the fake door testing is the fact that it provides limited insights when it comes to users’ motivations. Users might have clicked on the fake door out of curiosity and not out of genuine interest in the feature.
To gain deeper insights try combining fake fake door tests with other qualitative surveys or user interviews.
Real-life examples of fake door testing
Fake door tests are hard to grasp so here are some real-life examples of fake door testing to get inspired from:
Dropbox’s early signup page
During its early days, Dropbox used the fake door technique to understand whether there was a demand for its product without building any infrastructure for it. They simply created a signup page aka a fake door for it!
The results showed a strong demand for their concept which helped them build the product and get funding for it.
Buffer’s pricing validation
Buffer is another great example of successful fake door testing. Buffer validated its new business idea by crafting a simple landing page with pricing and subscription plans before developing the actual product.
Users who clicked on the ‘fake door’ were redirected to a landing page stating that the product was not available yet. The positive results helped Buffer validate their product idea and proceed with building it.
Amazon’s testing for new categories
Amazon is another example of a company that has used fake door testing to validate new concepts. Amazon frequently uses this technique when considering adding new product categories in an effort to validate the concepts before engaging in costly development.
Tools for fake door testing
There are a range of tools that can be used to measure the results of testing. A/B testing tools allow you to quickly set up fake door tests offering built-in analytics that help you gauge user engagement and understand how different variants perform.
Moving on from A/B testing tools, user interaction tools and session replay tools that generate heatmaps or scroll maps can help you visualize data and show how users interact with your ’fake door’ at a glance.
Finally UX research platforms, like UXtweak, can offer a comprehensive range of features designed specifically for testing fake doors, offering both qualitative and quantitative data collection.
Ready to conduct fake door tests? UXtweak is here for you!
Fake door testing is an invaluable tool for businesses to be able to validate new concepts or ideas about features and services without investing heavily in development.
If you are looking to start experimenting with fake door testing UXtweak is the only UX research platform you will ever need, offering all the tools to not only create and run and easily analyze your fake door tests!
