In Cognitive Walkthrough, a usability expert places himself in the position of an imaginary user. The expert analyzes concrete given action sequences and investigates whether the users actually follow these sequences. In doing so, he assumes that the user will follow the path of least cognitive effort. The usability expert therefore attaches importance to good learnability, e.g. of software, and determines the expected cognitive effort for each possible action.

A bad menu description and insufficient feedback from the system can be easily identified by a Cognitive Walkthrough.