Cognitive Walkthrough

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Cognitive Walkthrough
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The 3 Questions

• Will the correct action be sufficiently evident
  to the user?
• i.e. Will the user know what to do to achieve
  the task?
• Will the user notice that the correct action is
  available?
• i.e. Will the user know how to do it? Will the
  user be able to connect the correct UI element
  with the intended action?
• Will the user associate and interpret the
  response from the action correctly?
• i.e. Will the user know from the feedback
  provided by the system that they have selected a
  correct or incorrect action?
• As the experts work through the scenario they
  note problems.

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Comments on Cog Walk Exercise

• Not just yes/no!
• Need a short elaboration why yes or why no
• Q1 in CogWalk is about what a user is thinking.
• You, the expert, know the correct steps.
• Will the correct step be evident to a user? In
  the context of what the user is trying to
  achieve, and taking into account what we assume
  about the user knowledge.
• Will the user be able to connect what they want
  with the correct action (step)?
• e.g. select Action movie category
• Q1 is not about physical actions. About being
  able to see what to click. Q2 is about that.

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Task for Cog Walk (DVD rental)

• Goal Find and select one movie for rental
• Steps
• start from main DVD rental main page
• select ACTION movie category
• find movie, e.g. Kill Bill 2
• view description of this movie
• select this movie for rental while viewing its
  description
• go to shopping-cart page to check your selections

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Heuristic Evaluation
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Try Heuristic Evaluation

• www.libraries.rutgers.edu

• Visibility of system status
• Match between system real world
• Consistency and standards
• Recognition rather than recall
• Error prevention
• Aesthetic and minimalist design
• Help
• Ease of use

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Cognitive Walkthrough Review for your project

• To conduct a cognitive walkthrough for your
  projects
• Select tasks/scenarios
• Create specific list of correct steps (i.e.
  sequence of actions) for each task (based on your
  scenarios)
• Ask all 3 questions at each stage for each action
  sequence
• Write-up problems encountered (whenever answer
  no or unclear or maybe)
• Try to suggest ways to resolve problems (design
  solutions)
• Caveats
• Conducting a cognitive review of your own
  creation can be difficult. You will need to
  forget all you know about your design and put an
  independent reviewers hat. This takes some
  practice but can be done.