What is Affordance?
Affordance is the noun form of afford (provide, give, undertake). The affordance of an environment refers to the attributes that the environment can provide to animals, whether good or bad, according to "Affordance and Design". Affordability" is an appropriate translation. This article retains Affordance and will not be translated.
△ Square wheel bicycle and round wheel bicycle
The term Affordance was coined by perceptual psychologist James J. Gibson to explain our perception of things in the world. Gibson defines "affordance" as an activity that an animal or person may perform on an object in the world. Donald A. Norman first applied affordance to practical problems in design in The Psychology of Design. For example: square wheels or round wheels (pictured above), which one seems to run faster?
Wikipedia: Affordance refers to what an item is b2b data actually used for, or is thought to be used for. That is to say, in some aspect of the item, there is a characteristic that makes it obvious how to use it. For example, the door provides the function of "opening", and the chair provides the function of "support". People learn how to use objects partly from cognitive psychology and partly from the shape of the object.
Baidu Encyclopedia: Functional affordance is a new concept in the field of perception. Affordance in the psychological sense believes that the content of human perception is the behavioral possibility provided by things, rather than the properties of things, and the content provided by things is the behavioral possibility. This behavior might be called affordance.
Universal Design Law: Some objects or environments will visually feel suitable for certain functions.
How to use Affordance in design?
△ The picture is taken from the
If the Affordance of the item or environment matches the expectations of the human senses, then the design will have a high acceptance rate and usage rate, and it will also be considered easy to operate. Conversely, if the Affordance of the item or environment goes against the expectations of people's senses, the design will not have high acceptance and usage rates, and it will also be considered difficult to operate.
△ iOS6 and iOS7 SMS page comparison
For example: when Apple’s operating system was upgraded from iOS6 to iOS7, Affordance became the focus of everyone’s discussion. Taking the SMS page as an example, other buttons such as “Message” in iOS6 have borders and have a raised feeling, and the buttons look like There is a "clickable" affordance, but in iOS7, other buttons such as "Message" are simply presented on a white interface without any decoration. When I just upgraded to iOS7, many users were not used to this design, and the feedback did not know where to click. For old users, after 7 years of user habit formation, users have formed certain usage habits. From the initial quasi-materialized to flat, users have long been aware of the clickable area. So, even when the word "Message" is seen, the clickable Affordance is already in the user's mind. For new users, learning from scratch does not increase the learning cost.