In this topic you move from learning the cognitive walkthrough to actually running one. You will take three prototypes created by your peers, choose representative tasks for each, step through those tasks as an evaluator, and record where a first-time user would likely hesitate, choose the wrong control, or fail to recognize that progress was made. The walkthrough is done from the user's perspective, not the designer's, so a large part of the work is setting aside what you already know about how the interface is "supposed" to work.
Evaluating peer work also brings practical and ethical considerations. You are commenting on an interface, not on a classmate, so findings should be specific, evidence-based, and tied to the walkthrough's guiding questions rather than to personal taste. Comparing results across three prototypes helps you see patterns: issues that appear everywhere often point to a hard interaction problem, while issues unique to one prototype usually point to a design decision that can be revised.
The videos below come from Nielsen Norman Group, a long-standing usability research and consulting firm. None of them is specifically about cognitive walkthrough, so treat them as transferable craft: how expert inspection methods are organized and consolidated, how to surface a user's reasoning out loud, and when verbalization methods break down. While watching, look for the parts you can carry directly into your own evaluation — independent evaluation before discussion, merging duplicate findings, phrasing issues clearly, and knowing the limits of each technique.
This short video walks through the procedure for running a heuristic evaluation, an expert inspection method closely related to the cognitive walkthrough. Based on its chapter markers, it covers evaluating independently, works through an example, and then explains how to consolidate the issues multiple evaluators find into a single list before summarizing the process.
It models the overall workflow of an inspection-based evaluation — inspect, record, consolidate, report — which maps directly onto conducting walkthroughs on three prototypes and then comparing and reporting findings. NN/g is an authoritative source for usability inspection methods, so the guidance is reliable.
This video explains the think-aloud technique: what it is, why asking people to verbalize their thoughts is useful, and how a facilitator explains it, reinforces the behavior, and prompts without leading. It focuses on practical facilitation moves for keeping a participant talking about what they expect and notice.
A cognitive walkthrough asks you to reason aloud about what a user would be thinking at each step, so the prompting and verbalization habits shown here sharpen how you articulate and document per-step reasoning on each peer prototype.
This video addresses situations where thinking aloud does not work well, particularly with work-domain experts whose knowledge is automatic and hard to verbalize. It points to alternatives such as retrospective testing, expert walkthroughs, and interviews as ways to recover the reasoning behind user actions.
It names expert walkthroughs as a legitimate alternative method and clarifies when evaluator-driven inspection is appropriate, which helps you justify using a cognitive walkthrough on peer prototypes and understand its boundaries.
Together these videos reinforce the module outcomes from complementary angles. The heuristic evaluation video supports MO1 and MO2 by showing the disciplined sequence of an inspection method — evaluating independently, documenting issues, then consolidating them — which is the same rhythm you will follow when running walkthroughs on three peer prototypes and writing the report. The think-aloud video strengthens MO2 by improving how you surface and record step-by-step user reasoning rather than vague impressions. The final video supports MO3 by clarifying when verbalization-based data is unreliable and expert inspection is the better choice, helping you weigh the credibility and impact of findings when prioritizing which design revisions matter most.
These videos were chosen from YouTube on October 3, 2026. Each has captions; the player turns them on. Videos on YouTube can be changed or removed — if one no longer plays, tell your instructor. If a player does not appear, use its Watch on YouTube link.