Blog 5 – What is affordance?

This is my fifth blog! I have read Interaction Design Foundation. 2015. Affordances. and watched the video of Don Norman explaining the concept of affordance. I try to explain what is affordance in this blog. And list a lot affordances of iPad.

The affordance looks like a collection of functions, both physically and conceptually. These functions are not specified by an instruction manual, so to the actor they are more likely to conform to the principle that existence is reasonable. In other words, the affordance appears to be given to the object by the actor. In fact, in an environment, the actor and the information in the environment mutually determine the capacity of the affordance of objective things. For example, if the actor’s ability to move decreases, his perception also decreases. The affordance will be less felt and less applied. Different actors, however, have different needs and considerations for affordances. So the ability of the affordance of objective things and the actors to learn and adapt to each other and each other to achieve more effective meaning. In general, the physical, psychological, and social attributes of the actor constrain the direction of such learning and adaptation. These three factors constrain the actor’s perception mode and habit, thus constraining the ability of the actual affordance of objective things. This is a factor designers need to consider when considering the affordance of directly perceived information in the design process, whether it is physical design or conceptual design. And make designs that help different users discover and adapt different affordances without external guidance such as tag prompts. How to make more accurate, more easily understood and accepted by the public interpretation of professional terms? Solving this problem allows the affordance to be more useful in interaction.

A list of iPad’s affordances