Different types of affordances

Published in

Shengzhi’s MDes Thesis

3 min readOct 3, 2018

After making several prototypes and collecting some existing AR demos, I synthesis different types of affordances that will help me to research the AR affordances in a more structured manner.

Shape and Position

The shape of a object conveys its functionality, intuitively tells users how to use it. In addition, changing the shape of an object can also convery meanings or highlighting a part of it, like the hover effect in 2D user interface.

Dixon’s research of shading and shadowing in AR

A shape can convey feelings such as fear to tell users back up

Famous example of Norman Door, the shape of objects communicate “push” or “pull”

The shape mimicing a drawer, conveying it can be pulled

Adding AR layers on existing affordances for direct control

Using existing affordances could be powerful and intuitive, and connecting users’ mental model of how a physical object works to trigger a certain digital action.

Color & texture

Color can also communicate many meaning.

fading color makes the apple look un-fresh

The fading color of the button tells user that it cannot be pressed

Motion & physics

Motion of an object can draw users attention, conveying meaning, smoothing transition. On the other hands, physics simulation makes the interaction with virtual content convincing and believable. especially real adding real physics to virtual object can make it align with users’ mental model of physical world, so I think it is more likely that they can transform their experience interacting with physical object into the AR world.

Real collision physics to the AR interface

Real physics with hand gesture interaction

Proximity

Using proximity can show different levels of detail for a given information, which reduce the cognitive load and avoid overwhelming users. Proximity can be used for engagement as well, for example, a character in AR can behave differently when you get closer to him, e.g. frightened, excited etc.