Applications can be either device or platform specific, or usable on different platforms and devices, at times with different affordances and limitations. 

The walkthrough method: An approach to the study of apps (2016)

Ben Light b.light@salford.ac.uk, Jean Burgess, and Stefanie DuguayView all authors and affiliations

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1461444816675438?journalCode=nmsa

“This article describes a method, grounded in a combination of science and technology studies with cultural studies, through which researchers can perform a critical analysis of a given app. The method involves establishing an app’s environment of expected use by identifying and describing its vision, operating model and modes of governance.”

Stumbling Blocks and Alternative Paths: Reconsidering the Walkthrough Method for Analyzing Apps (2023)

Stefanie Duguay https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9796-0619 stefanie.duguay@concordia.ca and Hannah Gold-ApelView all authors and affiliations

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/20563051231158822

“This article explores the method’s enduring strengths and emergent weaknesses regarding technological advances and developments in app studies. It engages with adjacent methods for understanding apps’ intensifying structural and economic complexity, datafication, algorithmic logic, and personalization as well as approaches fostering a feminist ethics of care toward users. With TikTok as a central example, examining the walkthrough process demonstrates the method’s incongruence for investigating several aspects of the app, especially its automated personalization.”