We can't afford it!: the devaluation of a usability term

ABSTRACT

When terminology gets people riled up, you know that something lurks beneath the surface. In this Whiteboard, Gerard Torenvliet describes and decries the loss of meaning that the term affordance has suffered over the years, as widely read authors have redefined it and as readers and users have muddied it. Gerard argues that clarity in usability work---and the ability to participate in requirements definition---depend on our using the term's original meaning, and he urges us to reclaim it.

REFERENCES

• 1: Alan Cooper, About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, NY, 1995
• 2: Gibson, James J. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ, 1979/1987.
• 3: McGrenere, Joanna, and Ho, Wayne. Affordances: Clarifying and evolving a concept. In Proceedings of Graphic Interface 2000 (2000), pp. 179-186.
• 4: Norman, Donald A. The Psychology of Everyday Things. Basic Books, New York, 1988.
• 5: Donald A. Norman, Affordance, conventions, and design, interactions, v.6 n.3, p.38-43, May/June 1999 [doi>10.1145/301153.301168]

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.2 Design Tools and Techniques

  H. Information Systems
  H.1 MODELS AND PRINCIPLES
      H.1.2 User/Machine Systems