[Air-L] Primary text on affordances

ELIZABETH MAURER emaurer at shaw.ca
Wed Aug 4 11:38:47 PDT 2010


Hi there,
Those who've pointed to Norman and Gibson have already answered your question, but I thought I'd throw my hat in the ring anyway. I recently defended my thesis which looks at affordances as part of a larger examination of genre innovation and evolution. 

https://circle.ubc.ca/bitstream/handle/2429/7719/ubc_2009_spring_maurer_elizabeth.pdf;jsessionid=BE1ED4FF2D6CB5F136ABD4FC07333C48?sequence=1

For those who are interested, chapter four (which looks at e-petitions) is the main place where I discuss this: "Petitioning Canada Online: Genre Adaptation and Local Genre Systems."

A very useful though short article from Norman that I draw upon (Caroline has this in her list) elaborates on an important distinction he makes between "affordances" and "percieved affordances." He reminds us:

Please don’t confuse affordances with perceived affordances. Don’t confuse affordances with conventions. Affordances reflect the possible relationships among actors and objects: they are properties of the world. Conventions, conversely, are arbitrary, artificial, and learned. Once learned, they help us master the intricacies of daily life, whether they be conventions for courtesy, for writing 
style, or for operating a word processor. (1999, 42)
 
The reference for that article is here:
Norman, D. A. (1999). Affordances, conventions, and design. Interactions 6(3), 38-42.
Cheers,
Elizabeth Maurer, PhD
Communications Manager, Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources
BC Public Service

----- Original Message -----
From: "Denise N. Rall" 
Date: Saturday, July 24, 2010 7:06 pm
Subject: [Air-L] Primary text on affordances
To: air-l at aoir.org

> Dear AIR-ERS -
> 
> I have some colleagues here who have recently become interested 
> in the concept of affordances (they are working in the field of 
> visual arts).
> 
> I know the term comes from engineering but if anyone has the 
> primary reference at their fingertips it would be much appreciated.
> 
> Cheers, Denise
> 
> (writing from the island of Bali where the the celebrations of 
> the Kite Festival has filled the skies each afternoon with 
> amazing kites)
> 
> 
> Denise N. Rall, PhD. Special Projects, Faculty of Arts & 
> Science 
> Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW AUSTRALIA Mobile 
> +(61)(0)438 233344 
> http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/esm/staff/pages/drall/Popular 
> Culture Association of Australia & Zealand POPCANNZ Conf. 
> Auckland, New Zealand July 2011
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: 
> http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
> 
> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> http://www.aoir.org/
> 



More information about the Air-L mailing list