Affordances
The ecological psychologist Gibson was the first to frame affordances as unified relations between the environment and an actor. `The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill' (Gibson, 1979, p.127). Affordances can be explained as action possibilities that actors have in the environment. That is, an affordance exists relative to properties of the environment and the action capabilities of the user (McGrenere and Ho, 2000).
For example, a chair has the affordance of `sitting', because of its shape, height and carrying capacity and humans have the ability to sit, enabling use the chair as prescribed. However the chair also affords standing on, blocking of, and holding of. By studying affordances that we use everyday, designers can use the information to help inform better design. Too often products and systems are designed through the eye of the designer acting as a designer. Through the study of perceptible affordances designers can become facilitators to bridge the gap between humans and design i.e. technology, systems, and objects).
