When I first read affordance and learned more about it, I was confused so I had to go back and read it again to get the idea and theory down. One example that J.J. Gibson wrote about on how he "would argue that regions of a screen can’t be clicked, but mouse buttons can" made affordances clear to me and made me think of many other scenarios. Right away the idea of things we do in everyday life makes many affordances popped into my mind. When you drive a car and push the gas pedal, it is you that is telling your brain to tell your foot to push the gas pedal and then the response from giving it more gas makes use of many affordances throughout the car to make it go faster.
It was also difficult for me to grasp the idea of dualism and with Gibsons theory of affordances trying to provide the reality of meaning.
In most of my readings thus far in classes and all throughout my life, things have been pretty concrete. I can see it it plain view as A goes to B goes to C and usually it ends with something or there is a solution. The readings of J.J. Gibson have made me take the time to analyze things over and over and I still don't believe I totally get it but can see that he worked his whole life on a theory and an idea that did not have a clear solution and still is up for debate today.
Yes - a concept that helps, in my case, with the concept of affordances is to imagine that a technology object has been given some work to do (by a human or a group of humans) that would ordinarily have to be done by a human. We've delegated a task and the accordant responsibility to a thing. By using the object, we enter into a kind of relationship with the humans and the non-human object.
ReplyDeleteWhat Norman and others who have followed Gibson have tried to flesh out more is how affordances or the lack thereof are communicated. Normal famously writes about doors and door knobs/handles that do better or worse jobs of communicating to users how to operate the door. Push or pull? toward or away? turn or pull straight out? etc. The shape, location, orientation, contrast with the door surface and other things contribute to how a user orients to the door's function. We can think of this as a kind of conversation, too, between the door's designers and the doors users. Regardless of the features built in (e.g. a hydraulic assist to be sure the door stays open long enough for a user to enter carrying a heavy load even if it is a heavy door), the user likely needs to know about these features in order to take best advantage of them.
I was talking with someone the other day who recommended that people should just skip reading Gibson and just stick with the Wikipedia article on affordances ;) I take that to mean that a lot of people struggle with Gibson's writings about it and cut myself some slack. I vividly remember the doorknob discussion myself and I think that's where the theory really shines: in thinking through how desired features are communicated to the user. Thanks for the post!
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