Affordances: Clarifying and Evolving a Concep.

TLDR

Affordance is a widely used concept in HCI, originally from Gibson and adapted by Norman, but its definition remains ambiguous and poorly understood. The study aims to clarify this ambiguity by reviewing HCI literature, delineating designer roles and the distinction between usefulness and usability, and extending Gibson’s definition into a design framework. The authors analyze varying uses of affordance in the literature and develop a framework that distinguishes usefulness from usability and expands Gibson’s definition for design practice.

Abstract

The concept of affordance is popular in the HCI community but not well understood. Donald Norman appropriated the concept of affordances from James J. Gibson for the design of common objects and both implicitly and explicitly adjusted the meaning given by Gibson. There was, however, ambiguity in Norman’s original definition and use of affordances which he has subsequently made efforts to clarify. His definition germinated quickly and through a review of the HCI literature we show that this ambiguity has lead to widely varying uses of the concept. Norman has recently acknowledged the ambiguity, however, important clarifications remain. Using affordances as a basis, we elucidate the role of the designer and the distinction between usefulness and usability. We expand Gibson’s definition into a framework for design.