Week 03: Affordance
Task: Define what an affordance is. Then find a specific affordance and write about it in great detail.
Due to my industrial design background, I’m more interested in the physical and functional aspects of affordance and this is why I fully agreed with Donald Norman’s book. But the wider point of view about affordance from James J. Gibson’s The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception made me expand my concept of affordance to a larger scope.
My Definition: Affordance is a riddle-solving game between subjects (human, animal, nature, object, behavior, or else); one throws a quiz and the other tries to figure out the answer. The answer does not have to be one. If one gives the wrong answer, he/she/it has to pay its cost in various ways; physically, psychologically, mentally, emotionally, or economically. The cost usually does not big enough to even be noticed, but sometimes it’s a lot.
Borrowing examples from Donald Norman, if we failed to turn up a light at once because of the switches’ unrelated design, our cost might be just a bit of annoyance and a small amount of additional electricity fees. Even though our answer is incorrect at the first time, we can receive a right-away feedback from this error, which helps us rapidly find a right answer; pushing another button. However, making an error may cause significant costs in some cases. I saw the news about fire casualties; there was a huge fire in a building and people pushed the door to go out — but the door was only opened in the opposite way, pulling.

In industrial design, products with easy riddles mean good functionality and efficiency. They do not need thick books of instruction manuals to explain functions. Only pieces of paper for introduction will be enough since users can find out the answers of the quiz in an intuitive way while using products.
Behavior Affordance Before Leaving
The affordance that I found is not a physical thing.

I usually stay late at night after other students went home, and while observing others’ behavior before leaving, I found the interesting affordance point. There are several things usually people do before leaving the studio — turn off the laptop, clean up the desk, put a cup in the sink, go to bathroom, organize pieces of paper, pack their bags, zip up their coat or jacket, put on their cap, put personal things in the drawer, and lock the drawer. They mean — whether they are intended or not — “I’m leaving and I’m going to say goodbye to you soon!” These clues let me ready for saying goodbye to them. Of course, when I’m going to leave my seat, I also throw these behavior-clues to others not to surprise them.


In a cultural point of view, most people leave their office or seat after cleaning up all things. Nobody could expect people to leave with a messed-up desk and expensive or personal things left. If so, they are expected to come back soon. But in the opposite, of course, cleaning up their seat does not always mean to leave. We need more information such as time or their usual habits. For example, if people clean up stuff and lock their drawer in the afternoon, it may be reasonable to think they are preparing for taking a class rather than leaving. If people who usually stay until 11:00 pm are doing the leaving-behaviors at 8:00 pm, others may think they are just cleaning up their seats. However, if people who usually leave 8:00 pm are throwing those clues at around that time, others may be ready to say goodbye to them. These riddles are complex and hard to anticipate. I often experience some embarrassing atmosphere when I say goodbye to others who do not intend to leave soon. In this case, my cost for the wrong answer is emotional or mental discomfort.
When friends are cleaning up stuff and when people are not sure about their leaving, they try to get feedback in order to figure out the right answer. Instead of saying good-bye, we pay more attention to friends’ behaviors not only eyes but also ears. In some cases, we try to eye-contact with them raising our eyebrows to throw a sign of our attention. It might be an easy way to get a feedback from them. They will say something about their behaviors such as ‘sorry for making noise~’ or ‘when are you going to leave?’ , which gives us more information about their intent.
