The EnAppment Promenade: getting the walkthrough method back on track

The field of app studies has been home to significant methodological creativity in its attempts to better understand the platform society and platform capitalism. Perhaps no approach has been more inspirational than the walkthrough method. However, the walkthrough method’s apparent popularity hides the fact that few studies actually use the method as presented. While many studies cite it, only some make use of its technical walkthrough, and almost none draw on its theoretical proposal called the environment of expected use. This article proposes a new approach, the EnAppment Promenade, that aims to address the walkthrough method’s incoherent aims and theoretical perspective. It combines the walkthrough method’s technical walkthrough with a theoretical perspective that replaces the concept of affordances with enactment. This new approach attempts to deliver on the original promise of the walkthrough method: the rigorous and systemic of apps where the researcher engages directly with an app’s interface.