Usability testing is like orchestrating a haunted house attraction.

You spend weeks designing the layout, meticulously timing the scares, and anticipating how visitors will move through the shadows. On opening night, you don’t lead guests through every hallway or warn them about the scares ahead. Instead, you step back and observe, learning from their unscripted reactions.

This is the essence of usability testing.

In this haunted house metaphor, the designer is the architect who planned the space, the users are the guests experiencing it for the first time, the moderator is the host observing from the shadows (who in many cases is also the designer), and the tasks are the hallways and rooms guests must navigate. The goal isn’t to impress guests with how clever the house is; it's to see whether people actually make it through confidently and enjoyably, without getting lost, confused, or frustrated enough to walk out the emergency exit.

What Is Usability Testing?

At its core, usability testing evaluates whether an interface is usable by the people it was designed for. It allows designers to see how a product performs when real users attempt real tasks, without guidance, explanations, or insider knowledge.

Through usability testing, teams uncover points of friction, identify breakdowns in flow, and make design decisions grounded in actual user behavior rather than assumptions. Usability testing is needed because designers are deeply familiar with their own work. We’ve walked through our haunted house a thousand times with all the lights on. Users have not.

Usability testing is how we step outside our own heads and see the product through someone else’s eyes.

Designing the Haunted House Is Not The Same As Experiencing It

Prior to a haunted house’s debut, designers sketch layouts, plan scares, and predict reactions. They decide where people should walk, where tension should build, and how the experience should flow from start to finish.

UX designers undertake a parallel endeavor: We create flows, define user actions, and anticipate points of confusion. We imagine how users should move through the interface to accomplish their goals.

Here’s the problem: haunted house designers make terrible guests, just as UX designers are poor test subjects for their own work.

We know the exits, the impending surprises, the implicit rules. This gap between what we know and what users experience is called the curse of knowledge: once you understand something, it becomes impossible to see it the way a first-time user does.

What appears intuitive to us may feel confusing or even invisible to someone experiencing the product for the first time. This is why even the most experienced designers need usability testing.

Who Should You Test?

Recognizing that designers can’t reliably test their own work raises a more important question: who can?

Testing with colleagues or industry insiders produces misleading results. They already understand the jargon and recognize patterns. Instead, usability testing is most valuable when you recruit participants who genuinely match your target audience in background, experience, and goals.

There is one important exception. When designing internal tools, the internal team is the target audience, and should be included in testing.

While testing with one or two users can reveal obvious issues, meaningful patterns emerge in small groups. Five users per round surfaces enough problems to guide meaningful improvements because it gives you actionable insights to iterate on. Fix the most critical issues, then test again with another small group. This cycle of small test groups and incremental improvements is far more effective than running one large study with no opportunity to refine the design between sessions.

Give Tasks, Not Instructions

An experienced haunted house host welcomes guests, explains the rules, and keeps everyone safe, but never reveals where the scares are. A skilled usability moderator does the same.

At the start of a testing session, moderators reassure participants that there are no right or wrong answers, that the product is being tested (not them), and that thinking aloud is encouraged. What they don’t do is give step-by-step instructions or hint at the “correct” path.

A spoiled task might read:
“Click the settings icon in the top right corner and change your notification preferences.”

A better task proposes:
“You’re getting too many notifications and want to reduce them.”

The second version is realistic and unbiased. It doesn’t reveal the solution. Instead, it allows the users to show whether the design supports their goal. You learn whether users instinctively look for settings, recognize the icon, and understand the controls once they find them.

Observe, Don’t Rescue

One of the hardest parts of usability testing is resisting the urge to help.

When a user hesitates, clicks the wrong button, or looks confused, every helpful designer instinct wants to step in and explain. However, that moment of confusion is data. If something is confusing during a test, it will be confusing after launch.

This is why usability testing relies on careful observation, often paired with a think aloud protocol where users narrate their thoughts as they go. Recording sessions also allow teams to replay moments of hesitation, count how often confusion occurs, and notice emotional reactions that success metrics alone can’t capture.

The scariest usability problems are rarely dramatic failures. They're the buttons users don't notice. The labels that almost make sense. The flow that technically works but requires three extra clicks.

Just like in a haunted house, if guests don’t know where to go next, the experience falls apart. A guest might technically make it through the haunted house, yet feel lost the entire time, pausing at every intersection, second-guessing every door, and wondering whether they have missed something important. That unease matters. An experience can succeed on paper and still fail emotionally.

Types of Usability Testing

Just as a haunted house might offer different scare levels, usability testing comes in many forms each suited for your goals.

Some tests resemble guided tours, where a moderator observes and asks follow-up questions in real time. Others are self-guided walkthroughs, where users explore independently in unmoderated sessions.

Qualitative testing focuses on understanding why users feel confused or frustrated, often through observation and conversation. Quantitative testing, on the other hand, measures how often issues occur using metrics like success rates, completion times, and error counts.

Remote testing expands reach and flexibility, while in-person testing remains critical for physical or safety-sensitive products.

Refining the Frights: Iteration After Testing

A haunted house is not perfect on opening night. Scares are adjusted. Confusing paths are clarified. The experience evolves based on how guests actually move through the space.

Usability testing works the same way.

After testing sessions conclude, teams analyze patterns, conduct post-test interviews, and translate findings into design improvements. Labels become clearer. Navigation becomes simpler. Assumptions are challenged. Then the cycle begins again.

This cycle of testing, learning, and refining fits naturally within Agile development. Agile teams work in short iterations, releasing small changes, gathering feedback, and improving continuously. Designers can work slightly ahead of development, validating ideas before they are built, while lightweight usability tests run alongside active sprints to evaluate real features as they take shape. Insights from testing sessions flow directly into the next sprint. Issues surface early, adjustments can be made quickly, and the user experience improves with every pass.

Usability testing is not a one-time performance, it's an ongoing conversation with your users.

The Final Door

A haunted house isn’t finished when it’s constructed. It’s finished when people can walk through it as intended. Your product isn’t finished when it’s coded. It’s finished when users can accomplish their goals confidently and without friction.

So next time you plan to conduct usability testing, remember the haunted house:

Don’t spoil the scares.
Let users get lost.
Your designs and your users will thank you!