This week, we were focused on affordance, and in particular the affordances of Instagram. Prior to this week I had not heard of Donald Norman, but just from the readings in The Design of Everyday Things, my eyes were opened to looking at and analysing affordance in the world around me.
I think in terms of social media and other modern technologies including game controllers (like we watched in the video), it has stuck out to me that the design needs to feel intuitive and develop as users gain and develop knowledge. For example, as was discussed in the class, one can login to a new social media app and automatically know how to use it to a certain extent, based on their prior knowledge of other social media apps and computer literacy. I think of it as there being a universal language of symbols and icons that all users understand, and has become commonplace and essentially second nature in today’s society. In addition to this week’s work, I will definitely make time to check out The Art of Design on Netflix, and the Ian Spalter episode specifically, who is the head designer of Instagram.