Cognitive walkthrough requires explicit user and task assumptions
Aliases: user knowledge assumption · task premise · walkthrough scenario
What it is
A cognitive walkthrough depends on explicit user knowledge and task assumptions: domain concepts known, starting state, goals, and available information. Without them, asking whether a user will infer the next step merely projects the evaluator into an invented novice.
Why it happens
The same label cues a domain expert, migrating user, and first-time novice differently. Exploration and urgency change salience, while account state, permission, device, and prior training alter available paths. Vague personas let evaluators silently supply different premises.
Studying it
Build a minimal knowledge model and starting state from target-user evidence, training material, and real tasks. Annotate each judgment with required prior knowledge and walk through multiple defensible profiles. Sensitivity analysis tests whether changing one premise changes the problem.
Where it stops holding
Detailed personas are not necessarily true; unsupported personality stories add false certainty. Knowledge is distributed rather than a point, and assistive technology, language, and role change tasks. Walkthrough cannot replace observing how real users form goals.
Applying it
- List known and unknown concepts, visible resources, permissions, and start state.
- Express tasks as goals and constraints, not interface commands.
- Walk through critical segments separately and record assumption-dependent conclusions.
- Challenge sensitive premises with novice testing and update the profile after failure.