Week 4: Affordance

In this week class talk about "affordance"

What is affordances?
Affordance is created by JJ Gibson, it means that a quality of an object or an environment which allows an individual to perform an action.

Affordance (perceptual psychology)
Affordance is a term created by the perceptual psychologist J. J. Gibson to refer to the qualities of the physical world that suggest the possibility of interaction relative to the ability of an actor (person or animal) to interact. McGrenere and Ho presented three fundamental properties of an affordance as defined by Gibson:

1. An affordance exists relative to the action capabilities of a particular actor.
2. The existence of an affordance is independent of the actor’s ability to perceive it (emphasis added).
3. An affordance does not change as the needs and goals of the actor change.

For example, the affordance of a branch as ‘a nice place to sit’ are dependent on:

the qualities of the branch: how much weight it supports, how high of the ground it is, and
the capabilities of the actor: how much they weigh, ability to climb, etc.

Elements of perceived affordance :
1. context: the environment or process in which the element is displayed.
2. culture: the influence of societal ‘norms’ on the individual’s understanding and use of a object.
3. instinct: an unconscious association, often linked to phsical characteristics, for example, the size of an object in relation to the human form.
4. mental model: the user’s understanding and expectations of interaction with the object.

Forcing functions :
- Interlock
- Lock-in
- Lock-out

Summary
1. All design is persuasive
2. Profitable to the client = profitable to user
3. Make profit but good for the users
4. The design is understandable easily
5. The user know what to do with it without any pictures, label or instruction.



Warawit Whangpakdi
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