The use of the term ‘affordance’ in this investigation is taken from Norman (1998) within the field of design, and refers to the properties of things in relation to how they are used.
In the Design of Everyday Things (Norman 1998), the term ‘affordance’ is defined as the ‘perceived and actual properties of the thing, primarily those fundamental properties that determine how the thing could possibly be used’ (1998, p.9). Norman suggests that a person forms a ‘conceptual model’ of how things are used, and this is comprised of ‘affordances, constraints and mappings’ (1998, p.12). A pair of scissors is provided as an example. The holes in the handles, which are designed to take fingers, are an ‘affordance’. The diameter of the holes is a ‘constraint’ designed to indicate how many fingers can be put in each hole. In regards to the concept of ‘mapping’, the relationships developed between the constraints and affordances—in this case the fingers and the holes—indicate how the scissors are to be operated (Norman 1998).
With computers, Norman (1998) draws attention to the issue of conceptual models being made visible on a device that is not as tangible as (for example) a pair of scissors. Norman outlines that:
The abstract nature of the computer poses a particular challenge for the designer. The computer works electronically, invisibly, with no sign of the actions it is performing. And it is instructed through an abstract language, one that specifies the internal flow of control and movement of information, but one not particularly suited for the needs of the user (1998, p.177–8).
Norman (1998) uses this argument about the abstract characteristics of computers to make a point about the mission of interaction designers who work solely on making the computer usable for users, as opposed to programmers who focus on the operability of computer software. In regards to designing conceptual models for computer users, Norman (1998) suggests interaction designers concentrate on turning the abstract qualities of a computer into perceivable and comprehensible designs that can be used easily like other everyday things. I would suggest, using Norman’s concepts, that a significant part of creating conceptual models for computers, like in the design of a pair of scissors, involves making the relations between the ‘constraints’ and ‘affordances’ perceivable to computer users in the form of ‘mappings’.
Making a connection with working with computer, and the nexus between design and media production, the concept of affordances is also contextualised in Inventing the Digital Medium (Murray 2012). The author states: ‘Looking at the computer as a single new medium we can see its defining representational affordances: The computer is encyclopedic, spatial, procedural and participatory’ (Murray 2012, p.51). The ‘procedural’ affordance of computers is described as having the ‘ability to represent and execute conditional behaviours’ (Murray 2012, p.51). These procedural properties of computers allow fragments of information to be organised into different combinations that are not fixed. Murray’s second ‘participatory affordance’ enables a user to influence the process of how fragments are converted into communicable information, along with altering and adding content. The ‘encyclopedic affordance’ utilises the potential to store large volumes of information in varying types of collections that can be communicated as knowledge. In regards to ‘spatial affordances’, space on a computer becomes virtual and navigable, which sets it apart from more traditional media in regards to how it is represented in an interface.
References:
Norman, D 1998, The design of everyday things, Basic Book, New York. (pp. 1-33)
Norman, D 1999, Affordance, conventions and design (Part 2), Nielsen Norman
Group, viewed April 2012, http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/affordance_conv.html.
Murray, JH 2012, Inventing the medium: principles of interaction design as a cultural
practice, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. pp.51-59)