Fake Persona Testing

Most of your product’s worst UX failures won’t show up in analytics.

They’ll show up in support tickets. A user who accidentally backspaced their way out of the signup flow. Someone rage-clicking a modal five times on a cracked phone. Or trying to decipher your beautifully designed pricing page through Safari Reader Mode on an iPad from 2016.

That’s where the Fake Persona Test comes in.

It’s not scientific. It’s not a substitute for research. It’s a fast, dry, slightly ridiculous internal UX exercise — designed to break your team out of its own bias bubble and surface the kind of friction you’re usually too close to see.

What Is the Fake Persona Test?

Fake personas are fictional, exaggerated user types you pretend to be while navigating your own product. They’re not based on demographics. They’re based on cursed device setups, misinformed instincts, and oddly specific habits.

Their job? To highlight all the weird little UI\UX Service cracks your ideal flow quietly steps over.

This isn’t about mocking users. It’s about designing for the chaos of the real world — where people scroll too fast, tap before reading, or flat-out ignore your lovingly crafted modal.

Meet the Personas

👵 Edith, 69, retired librarian

• Uses an iPad Mini with 2% battery
• Double-taps everything
• Doesn’t trust autofill, Google, or QR codes
• Thinks Wi-Fi is “a bit aggressive”

Edith doesn’t explore. She completes tasks. Your clarity bar has never been higher.

🥊 Dennis, 47, Linux loyalist

• Navigates exclusively with keyboard shortcuts
• Refuses cloud storage
• Hates animations, modals, and dropdowns on principle
• Runs Firefox in safe mode

Dennis is smart, stubborn, and allergic to modern UI fluff. If your nav is hidden behind hover or animation, he won’t find it. He’ll just log a bug.

🧶 Joel, 34, multitasking dad

• One hand on a toddler, one on his phone
• On 3G, in a parking lot
• Ignores pop-ups, doesn’t trust modals
• Needs results, fast

Joel has one go. If your form fails on the first try, he’s gone. No second chances. Design like every tap counts.

🤝 Reese, 21, hyper-tapper

• Uses a phone with 67 apps and 0 folders
• Taps everything before reading
• Assumes every UI supports swiping
• Bounces if something feels even slightly "off"

Reese runs on intuition and chaos. If it doesn’t make sense instantly, you won’t see the drop-off. You’ll just see the uninstall.

Why It Works

The Fake Persona Test breaks the “it works for me” illusion.

You start seeing:

1. Assumptions you didn’t know you made
2. Dead ends you didn’t mean to design
3. Just how brittle your ideal flow really is

It’s messy, biased, unscientific — and completely worth doing.

Because when you navigate your product with chaotic energy and cursed devices in mind, you design with more empathy.

How To Run It

1. Pick a live flow (onboarding, pricing, checkout, etc.)
2. Choose a fake persona
3. Narrate the experience aloud *as* that persona
4. Spot where they get confused, frustrated, or lost
5. Fix one thing

Ten minutes, tops. Often reveals more than five rounds of vague internal feedback.

NO, It Does NOT Replace Real UX Research

Obviously, you still need real users, real data, real audits. But if you don’t have the budget, the time, or the alignment, this is a friction-finding shortcut that works surprisingly well.

Think of it as UX stress testing. Fast. Messy. Effective. If your product only works for people like you, it doesn’t work.

The Fake Persona Test won’t give you answers. But it will make you laugh, squirm, and most importantly — notice.

Because the next Edith, Dennis, Reese or Joel who uses your interface isn’t a persona. They’re real. They’re tired. They’re busy. And they’re about to hit the wrong button.

If they still make it through?

You’re doing something right.