Cognitive Walkthrough

Your constantly-updated definition of Cognitive Walkthrough and collection of videos and articles
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What is Cognitive Walkthrough?

A cognitive walkthrough is a structured approach to evaluating the usability of a product. It involves the tester, who is not a user, asking four simple questions about how a specific user journey is conducted. They will record the outcomes of these questions, in their opinion, and use these observations to improve the product further.

Literature on Cognitive Walkthrough

Here’s the entire UX literature on Cognitive Walkthrough by the Interaction Design Foundation, collated in one place:

Learn more about Cognitive Walkthrough

Take a deep dive into Cognitive Walkthrough with our course Information Visualization .



Information visualization skills are in high demand, partly thanks to the rise in big data. Tech research giant Gartner Inc. observed that digital transformation has put data at the center of every organization. With the ever-increasing amount of information being gathered and analyzed, there’s an increasing need to present data in meaningful and understandable ways.

In fact, even if you are not involved in big data, information visualization will be able to help in your work processes as a designer. This is because many design processes—including conducting user interviews and analyzing user flows and sales funnels—involve the collation and presentation of information. Information visualization turns raw data into meaningful patterns, which will help you find actionable insights. From designing meaningful interfaces, to processing your own UX research, information visualization is an indispensable tool in your UX design kit.

This course is presented by Alan Dix, a former professor at Lancaster University in the UK. A world-renowned authority in the field of human-computer interaction, Alan is the author of the university-level textbook Human-Computer Interaction. “Information Visualization” is full of simple but practical lessons to guide your development in information visualization. We start with the basics of what information visualization is, including its history and necessity, and then walk you through the initial steps in creating your own information visualizations. While there’s plenty of theory here, we’ve got plenty of practice for you, too.

All open-source articles on Cognitive Walkthrough

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Interaction Design Foundation - IxDF. (2016, May 25). What is Cognitive Walkthrough?. Interaction Design Foundation - IxDF.

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