Affordance 101: From Things to Screens to Things
Affordance is a key to understanding how your users make sense of every interaction you design in a product or service. Whenever your users don’t understand an interaction the way you assumed they would, chances are affordance is part of the underlying problem.
Just understanding what affordance is can be a challenge. The word “affordance” has come to mean different things to different people, causing a bit of confusion. Thankfully, Andrew Hinton can return us to the true meaning of affordance and demonstrate how it differs from signifiers.
In this seminar, Andrew uses everyday examples to explain the concept of affordance, its background, and how it applies to your design work.
Effectively define affordance and its importance
- Determine how people perceive their environment and its affordances
- Examine four important characteristics of affordances
Distinguish between affordance and signifiers
- Compare how affordances rely on physical invariants while signifiers rely on cultural conventions
- Contrast how interpretation affects signifiers compared to affordances
Recognize how technology affects affordances and signifiers
- Determine how our brains cope with technological complications
- See how digital screens provide simulated affordances
Use signifiers to clarify your design for your users
- Ask yourself three questions before you design for any interactive object, device, or system
- Consider the benefits and risks of changing the rules of interaction
Watch this seminar to learn more about affordances, signifiers, and how to provide context to your users so they can more effectively engage with your product.