Can you afford it? Design Theory for affordance
Just have a look at the picture below. Let's suppose, you have 10 bucks in your pocket and you go to this restaurant. Would you eat here?
Can you afford it? No.
Many times we think about affording in terms of only money. Not only humans but things and objects around us also have affordances.
Psychologist James Gibson coined “affordance” in 1977, referring to all action possibilities with an object based on user's physical capabilities. For instance, a chair affords sitting on, standing on, throwing, etc.
An affordance is what a user can do with an object based on the user’s capabilities.
As such, an affordance is not a “property” of an object (like a physical object or a User Interface). Instead, an affordance is defined in the relation between the user and the object: A door affords opening if you can reach the handle. For a toddler, the door does not afford opening if she cannot reach the handle.
An affordance is, in essence, an action possibility in the relation between a user and an object.
Now these affordances are so intuitive that we don't need to think about use a product. The affordances will make you use those products in the way they have to be used obivuosly.
Again, people or the users tend to find different affordances, as per their capability and intituve power.
