Applied Concepts of Affordance Theory, from Psychology to Design Process

The interaction between users and products, is one of the key factors in design process and assessment of products too. Because design for user’s perception, is a specific and technical issue. Designers refer to psychology and psychological theories to understand how on the one hand, form and other physical characteristics, and on the other hand, user intentions and values, affect the interaction between the user and the product, and how a product can transmit functional information to the user. Among these theories, affordance, describes the relationship between user’s actions and understanding the physical characteristics of products well. The aim of this research is to investigate and describe the applied concepts associated with affordance in detail, from the field of psychology which is the cradle of this technical term, to the design process which is the application place of this theory. So in the beginning, the term “Affordance” is defined. Presented definition, is the result of challenges which emerged in connection with the application of this term in recent years. Then it’s appearance and basic concepts in psychology is mentioned. Goes on to talk about affordance entering to the field of industrial design and it’s application to define the user’s interaction with environment and products. Continues to describe concepts of perceived affordance (proposed in 1999), positive and negative affordances (affordance polarity), mapping between the controller and the controlled parts of products, affordance – based errors, and categorized affordances based on complexity. Each section is accompanied with practical examples to clear the issues. In the final section, a complete affordance – based design process is offered which begins with motivation and results in applied products that satisfy the user’s needs. Thus designer’s related duties are fully explained. A general and systematic affordance – based design process, includes identification of different cognitive needs of users, based on research methods and instruments, analyze relevant information, convert needs to affordances, and provide concepts which involve desired affordances. So concepts and their affordances can be analyzed and compared with user’s needs. This way, it is possible to modify them and achieve final design. Such structure is similar to function – based design processes and can be combined with them properly. The theory of affordance was offered in 1960’s, and it’s application in the domain of product design was introduced in late 1980’s. So despite being well known in the realm of industrial design, even in recent years, different kinds of products are designed and produced which are deprived of principles and values of affordance theory, thus cannot satisfy user’s functional and cognitive needs properly. Concur with the development of user centered design (UCD) approach, scholars try to use theoretical and applied principles of affordance in design process and propose achieved models. It is obvious that the improvement of proposed models is dependent on their application in product design and benefit from implementing feedbacks. So, it is recommended to  Industrial designers, to study more about the achievements of this kind of researches and experience and develop affordance – based design process accurately.