Understanding the concept of ‘affordances’ is complex due to the different uses of the term in varying contexts.

The wikipedia overview although not necessarily an authoritative reference point provides an insight into the way Norman uses the concept differently in relation to the field of interaction and user experience design.

Gibson’s use of the concept within the field of cognitive psychology and focuses on potential actions. From wikipedia:

He defined affordances as all “action possibilities” latent in the environment, objectively measurable and independent of the individual’s ability to recognize them, but always in relation to agents and therefore dependent on their capabilities. For instance, a set of steps which rises four feet high does not afford the act of climbing if the actor is a crawling infant.

While Norman takes this another step in relation to interaction and user experience design. In Normans use of affordances the person brings to an object prior knowledge and has particular goals. In connection with the notion of design it is about the relationship that the user can have with the object, which is referred to by Norman as ‘perceived affordances’. From wikipedia:

It makes the concept dependent not only on the physical capabilities of an actor, but also the actor’s goals, plans, values, beliefs, and past experiences. If an actor steps into a room with an armchair and a softball, Gibson’s original definition of affordances allows that the actor may throw the chair and sit on the ball, because this is objectively possible. Norman’s definition of (perceived) affordances captures the likelihood that the actor will sit on the armchair and throw the softball. Effectively, Norman’s affordances “suggest” how an object may be interacted with. For example, the size and shape of a softball obviously fit nicely in the average human hand, and its density and texture make it perfect for throwing. The user may also bring past experiences to bear with similar objects (baseballs, perhaps) when evaluating a new affordance.

In our experiments we focus on online video practices and explore what social media services afford the online media practitioner. We bring to that exploration preconceived ideas about how video should be used to create fiction and nonfiction video works. What we are exploring through both the evaluation of theory and a practice-led investigation (producing video in the service being analysed) – is how video can be used to communicate in relation to making the most of what each service has to offer this type of online media practice. In addition to this we are making new discoveries in relation to how the affordances of video, computers and the network may alter a videographic practice.

Bill Gaver in the article ‘Technological Affordances’ in the design field makes a useful point in regards to working with different technologies. Gaver suggests that affordances are examined (quote) “as a way of focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of technologies with respect to the possibilities they offer the people that might use them.” (p.79). This argument can be used within the context of online media practice in regards to media production. How can we work differently with video within the constraints and affordances of the varying services online?

Ultimately we are interested in what we can do with video, computers and the network?

References:

Norman, D 1998, The design of everyday things, Basic Book, New York.

Norman, D 1999, Affordance, conventions and design (Part 2), Nielsen Norman
Group, viewed April 2012, .

Gaver B 1991, ‘Technology Affordances’, Proceeding CHI ’91 Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp 79-84.

Additional text available in the Library:

Gibson, J 1979 The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception Houghton Mifflin, Boston.