Painted Door Test: A Method for Validating Product Ideas

Painted door testing enables you to validate product or feature ideas early in the development process without requiring significant upfront investment. This approach helps you identify your target market, gauge interest, and prioritize features based on real user interactions. 

To determine whether this product validation method suits your needs, it’s important to understand how it works, explore its key benefits and limitations, and follow actionable steps to conduct your own painted door test effectively.

What is the painted door test?

The painted door test is a “false feature” usability testing strategy that helps developers and designers gauge interest in their product before investing resources. The name comes from the architectural technique of painting a door on a wall to create an illusion—with no actual functional purpose. 

After coming up with a new idea, you might wonder whether your product or service will have a high demand, and which types of features users might value the most. While prototyping your idea and gathering feedback is one way to validate public interest, this can be costly, especially if you don’t receive the feedback you hoped for. The painted door test, also known as the fake door test, allows you to gather insights and refine your idea before creating a product. 

With this method, you create a simulated version of your product, such as a non-functional feature or a fake link to your product. By presenting the option as available, you can see how interested people are in your idea. 

For example, you might post an advertisement for a new style of ankle weights on a fitness website. When users click on your advertisement, they’ll be directed to a page that says “Available soon” or something similar. If you’re testing a new feature idea, you could add a button with a call to action within your existing website or app, such as “Try new filters” or “Purchase new design layouts!” When users click the button, they’re directed to a message stating the new feature is “Coming soon.” By collecting data on the number of clicks, you can create a rough estimate of the interest in your product or feature without having to actually create it.

What is the painted door test used for?

Product designers and related professionals use the painted door test to validate their ideas and determine feature priorities. By simulating features or products and tracking interactions, you can gain insights into user interest, behavior, and preferences. Some key use cases include:

• Validating interest in the product

• Assessing user demand

• Prioritizing features

• Understanding target demographics

• Collecting user feedback

• Refining product concepts

• Minimizing investment risk

• Building a list of beta testers for new products or features

Who uses this method?

Typically, you’ll use this method as part of a product or user experience (UX) research team. The goal is to gauge interest in ideas without needing a large time or money investment upfront. This method is best for professionals working with low-fidelity or non-functional prototypes, especially when you’re looking for a quick assessment or have limited resources.

Benefits of the painted door test

The painted door test helps you validate your product idea before bringing it to market. By ensuring you have an appropriate market need and are adequately addressing your target audience’s pain points, you can reduce the likelihood of wasting resources or being met with a negative customer response. 

By using the painted door test, you can determine the type of customers who tend to interact with your product or service more, such as highlighting the geographic areas, age ranges, or other demographic characteristics of your target market. This can help you create tailored marketing plans to maximize exposure to interested customers. 

You can also collect behavioral data, which can further characterize your end users. If you’re conducting a fake door test for a new feature within your existing app, tracking the behavior of customers who click on the feature—such as their engagement and loyalty to your current products—can help you leverage behavioral marketing to gather feedback and launch effective products.

Limitations of the painted door test

While convenient for product teams, the painted door test might make users feel deceived or dissatisfied with the fake link or feature. In some cases, this could lead to frustration or distrust with your product. 

Fortunately, you can take steps to proactively limit these feelings by including an apology for any potential disappointment and thanking users for their time. It’s always a good idea to explain the reasoning behind the fake door test, as well as stress the importance of the new feature or product.

Another limitation of a painted door test is you’re not able to validate that all clicks would have led to a purchase. Some clicks might have been accidental, or just out of curiosity. It’s difficult to tell what the conversion rate to a purchase or feature would have been, which might lead to biased results from your data collection. 

When deciding the size of your cohort, it’s important to test with a large enough sample size to try and reduce any bias while limiting potential damage related to feelings of distrust in the fake test.

Best practices for a painted door test

To maximize the benefits while minimizing the limitations, it’s essential to keep a few painted door test best practices in mind. These tips can help keep frustrations at bay while providing you with the feedback you need to make the right decisions:

• Be clear about the purpose of your test to minimize feelings of deception.

• Avoid overusing this method, which can alienate users. 

• Thank users for their time and interest.

• Carefully design your cohort to limit damage while providing sufficient data. 

• Track several types of analytics, such as clicks and page visits.

• Provide a space for feedback.

• Invite users to participate in beta testing.

How to conduct your own painted door test

Conducting your own painted door test can help you ensure your idea is worth pursuing. To gain the most accurate insights from your test, develop a structured painted door plan aligned with your specific product goals. This approach will help you gather the data you need to make informed decisions and increase your chances of success.

1. Define your idea.

When you design a painted door test, it’s a good idea to start with a clear idea of what you’re testing and define the type of answers you’re looking for. Your overarching goal should be to refine your ideas and design in order to bring the most value to your end users.

2. Decide on your testing cohort.

After defining your goal, the next step is deciding on the cohort you’re testing your design on. Depending on your product or service, it might not be relevant to your entire audience. You should define the types of users you want feedback from and launch your test in a way that targets this audience segment. For example, if your product relates to pregnancy, you may focus on females in the 18- to 45-year-old range.

3. Launch your campaign.

Once you’ve defined your goals and audience, the next steps are to design your “painted door” and launch it within your chosen interface. This might be an ad within your existing website, a simulated feature within an app, a pop-up, or any design that helps you see whether users will interact with your idea. 

4. Collect and analyze your data.

Once you’ve launched your campaign, you can monitor interactions with your feature or product, allowing you to collect feedback and analyze the results. This helps you determine your target market, prioritize features, and decide whether you should move your idea to the next stages.

Learn more about product development on Coursera

The painted door test helps product and user experience designers validate ideas, prioritize features, and minimize investment risk when launching a new product or service. By learning about product design strategies, you can create user-centric solutions that optimize the development processes. To advance in your position, explore the IBM Product Manager Professional Certificate on Coursera to build managerial skills in product development, strategies, and best practices.