Affordances

A debate is/was going on the proper use of affordances. Often it has been misused, and some claim, because of that, affordance needs to be redefined/refined. This essay argues that affordance as a defenition is not at all ill-defined, but people should simply stop misusing it: Cognitive affordances are a misnomer.In 1999 Norman wrote an article pleading for a more deliberate use of the term 'affordance'. According to him this term has often been misused in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) literature and discussions. Especially when considering the typical Graphical User Interface (GUI) interaction using keyboard, mouse and screen. He would regret it when the term affordances was to be dropped for being too ill defined. Several years later, Hartson (2003), in agreement with Normans plead, replies to Norman proposing four types of affordances. In this commentary I will first introduce Hartson's (2003) proposal, compare it with the use of the term afforda…