Primary text on affordances
Dear AIR-ERS - I have some colleagues here who have recently become interested in the concept of affordances (they are working in the field of visual arts). I know the term comes from engineering but if anyone has the primary reference at their fingertips it would be much appreciated. Cheers, Denise (writing from the island of Bali where the the celebrations of the Kite Festival has filled the skies each afternoon with amazing kites) Denise N. Rall, PhD. Special Projects, Faculty of Arts & Science Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW AUSTRALIA Mobile +(61)(0)438 233344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/esm/staff/pages/drall/ Popular Culture Association of Australia & Zealand POPCANNZ Conf. Auckland, New Zealand July 2011
Donald Norman uses the term extensively in his "Design of Everyday Things" (1988) -- Michael Zimmer, PhD Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies (Interim Undergraduate Program Director) Associate, Center for Information Policy Research University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee e: zimmerm@uwm.edu w: www.michaelzimmer.org On Jul 24, 2010, at 9:06 PM, Denise N. Rall wrote:
Dear AIR-ERS -
I have some colleagues here who have recently become interested in the concept of affordances (they are working in the field of visual arts).
I know the term comes from engineering but if anyone has the primary reference at their fingertips it would be much appreciated.
Cheers, Denise
(writing from the island of Bali where the the celebrations of the Kite Festival has filled the skies each afternoon with amazing kites)
Denise N. Rall, PhD. Special Projects, Faculty of Arts & Science Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW AUSTRALIA Mobile +(61)(0)438 233344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/esm/staff/pages/drall/ Popular Culture Association of Australia & Zealand POPCANNZ Conf. Auckland, New Zealand July 2011
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"I know the term comes from engineering"... I thought the term originated in perception psychology? J. J. Gibson's "The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception" (1977) and all that? Best, Jesper. ---------------------------------------------- Jesper Aagaard Petersen Research Fellow, Dept. of Archeology and Religious Studies NTNU, Dragvoll NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway Tlf. 0047-735-98312 email: jesper.petersen@ntnu.no -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Denise N. Rall Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2010 4:06 AM To: air-l@aoir.org Subject: [Air-L] Primary text on affordances Dear AIR-ERS - I have some colleagues here who have recently become interested in the concept of affordances (they are working in the field of visual arts). I know the term comes from engineering but if anyone has the primary reference at their fingertips it would be much appreciated. Cheers, Denise (writing from the island of Bali where the the celebrations of the Kite Festival has filled the skies each afternoon with amazing kites) Denise N. Rall, PhD. Special Projects, Faculty of Arts & Science Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW AUSTRALIA Mobile +(61)(0)438 233344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/esm/staff/pages/drall/ Popular Culture Association of Australia & Zealand POPCANNZ Conf. Auckland, New Zealand July 2011 _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Yeah, that's what the minds at Wikipedia are saying: Psychologist James J. Gibson originally introduced the term in his 1977 article "The Theory of Affordances" and explored it more fully in his book The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception in 1979. He defined affordances as all "action possibilities" latent in the environment, objectively measurable and independent of the individual's ability to recognize them, but always in relation to the actor and therefore dependent on their capabilities. For instance, a set of steps which rises four feet high does not afford the act of climbing if the actor is a crawling infant. Gibson's is the prevalent definition in cognitive psychology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance On Jul 24, 2010, at 9:17 PM, Jesper Aagaard Petersen wrote:
"I know the term comes from engineering"...
I thought the term originated in perception psychology? J. J. Gibson's "The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception" (1977) and all that?
Best,
Jesper.
---------------------------------------------- Jesper Aagaard Petersen Research Fellow, Dept. of Archeology and Religious Studies NTNU, Dragvoll NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway Tlf. 0047-735-98312 email: jesper.petersen@ntnu.no
-----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Denise N. Rall Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2010 4:06 AM To: air-l@aoir.org Subject: [Air-L] Primary text on affordances
Dear AIR-ERS -
I have some colleagues here who have recently become interested in the concept of affordances (they are working in the field of visual arts).
I know the term comes from engineering but if anyone has the primary reference at their fingertips it would be much appreciated.
Cheers, Denise
(writing from the island of Bali where the the celebrations of the Kite Festival has filled the skies each afternoon with amazing kites)
Denise N. Rall, PhD. Special Projects, Faculty of Arts & Science Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW AUSTRALIA Mobile +(61)(0)438 233344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/esm/staff/pages/drall/ Popular Culture Association of Australia & Zealand POPCANNZ Conf. Auckland, New Zealand July 2011
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-- Michael Zimmer, PhD Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies (Interim Undergraduate Program Director) Associate, Center for Information Policy Research University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee e: zimmerm@uwm.edu w: www.michaelzimmer.org
Michael, I'm sorry - my post wasn't a question. Jesper. -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Michael Zimmer Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2010 4:20 AM To: aoir list Subject: Re: [Air-L] Primary text on affordances Yeah, that's what the minds at Wikipedia are saying: Psychologist James J. Gibson originally introduced the term in his 1977 article "The Theory of Affordances" and explored it more fully in his book The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception in 1979. He defined affordances as all "action possibilities" latent in the environment, objectively measurable and independent of the individual's ability to recognize them, but always in relation to the actor and therefore dependent on their capabilities. For instance, a set of steps which rises four feet high does not afford the act of climbing if the actor is a crawling infant. Gibson's is the prevalent definition in cognitive psychology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance On Jul 24, 2010, at 9:17 PM, Jesper Aagaard Petersen wrote:
"I know the term comes from engineering"...
I thought the term originated in perception psychology? J. J. Gibson's "The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception" (1977) and all that?
Best,
Jesper.
---------------------------------------------- Jesper Aagaard Petersen Research Fellow, Dept. of Archeology and Religious Studies NTNU, Dragvoll NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway Tlf. 0047-735-98312 email: jesper.petersen@ntnu.no
-----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Denise N. Rall Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2010 4:06 AM To: air-l@aoir.org Subject: [Air-L] Primary text on affordances
Dear AIR-ERS -
I have some colleagues here who have recently become interested in the concept of affordances (they are working in the field of visual arts).
I know the term comes from engineering but if anyone has the primary reference at their fingertips it would be much appreciated.
Cheers, Denise
(writing from the island of Bali where the the celebrations of the Kite Festival has filled the skies each afternoon with amazing kites)
Denise N. Rall, PhD. Special Projects, Faculty of Arts & Science Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW AUSTRALIA Mobile +(61)(0)438 233344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/esm/staff/pages/drall/ Popular Culture Association of Australia & Zealand POPCANNZ Conf. Auckland, New Zealand July 2011
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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-- Michael Zimmer, PhD Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies (Interim Undergraduate Program Director) Associate, Center for Information Policy Research University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee e: zimmerm@uwm.edu w: www.michaelzimmer.org _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Ooops - should be 1979 - sorry -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Jesper Aagaard Petersen Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2010 4:17 AM To: air-l@aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-L] Primary text on affordances "I know the term comes from engineering"... I thought the term originated in perception psychology? J. J. Gibson's "The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception" (1977) and all that? Best, Jesper. ---------------------------------------------- Jesper Aagaard Petersen Research Fellow, Dept. of Archeology and Religious Studies NTNU, Dragvoll NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway Tlf. 0047-735-98312 email: jesper.petersen@ntnu.no -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Denise N. Rall Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2010 4:06 AM To: air-l@aoir.org Subject: [Air-L] Primary text on affordances Dear AIR-ERS - I have some colleagues here who have recently become interested in the concept of affordances (they are working in the field of visual arts). I know the term comes from engineering but if anyone has the primary reference at their fingertips it would be much appreciated. Cheers, Denise (writing from the island of Bali where the the celebrations of the Kite Festival has filled the skies each afternoon with amazing kites) Denise N. Rall, PhD. Special Projects, Faculty of Arts & Science Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW AUSTRALIA Mobile +(61)(0)438 233344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/esm/staff/pages/drall/ Popular Culture Association of Australia & Zealand POPCANNZ Conf. Auckland, New Zealand July 2011 _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
It starts in psychology and moves into design and HCI. Along the way it changes from 'real' affordances to perceived affordances (see the later Norman pieces). Also useful is Bradner et al's idea of social affordances. /Caroline Gibson, J. J. (1979). The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Norman, D. (1988). The Design of Everyday Things. NY: Basic Books. But see also • http://jnd.org/dn.mss/affordances_and_design.html • http://jnd.org/dn.mss/affordance_conventions_and_design_part_2.html Gaver, W. W. (1991). ‘Technology affordances’, in Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Reaching Through Technology. New Orleans, Louisiana. pp. 79-84. Gaver, W. W. (1996). ‘Situating action II: Affordances for interaction: The social is material for design’, Ecological Psychology, 8: 111-129. "Social affordances" Bradner, E., Kellogg, W., and Erickson, T. (1999). ‘The adoption and use of “Babble”: A field study of chat in the workplace’. Proceedings of the 6th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. Copenhagen, Denmark. pp. 139-158. Retrieved April 7, 2010 from http://www.research.ibm.com/SocialComputing/Papers/AdoptionOfBabble.htm ---- Original message ----
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2010 19:06:03 -0700 (PDT) From: "Denise N. Rall" <denrall@yahoo.com> Subject: [Air-L] Primary text on affordances To: air-l@aoir.org
Dear AIR-ERS -
I have some colleagues here who have recently become interested in the concept of affordances (they are working in the field of visual arts).
I know the term comes from engineering but if anyone has the primary reference at their fingertips it would be much appreciated.
Cheers, Denise
(writing from the island of Bali where the the celebrations of the Kite Festival has filled the skies each afternoon with amazing kites)
Denise N. Rall, PhD. Special Projects, Faculty of Arts & Science Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW AUSTRALIA Mobile +(61)(0)438 233344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/esm/staff/pages/drall/ Popular Culture Association of Australia & Zealand POPCANNZ Conf. Auckland, New Zealand July 2011
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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Caroline Haythornthwaite Leverhulme Visiting Professor, Institute of Education, University of London (2009-10) Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 501 East Daniel St., Champaign IL 61820 (haythorn@illinois.edu)
The sociologist Ian Hutchby has "developed an approach to the social dimensions of communications technologies by combining empirical work in CA with a development of the concept of affordances, and applying it to multiple modes of communication including telephones, computer screens, video links, text-based expert help systems and real-time internet message exchange." (see http://www.le.ac.uk/so/staff/iph2.html) IMHO these two papers are quite seminal: Hutchby, I. (2001) 'Technologies, Texts and Affordances', Sociology, 35(2), pp. 441-456. Hutchby, I. (2003) 'Affordances and the Analysis of Technologically Mediated Interaction', Sociology, 37(3), pp. 581-589. Best wishes, Yuwei -- http://www.ylin.org On 25 Jul 2010, at 03:06, Denise N. Rall wrote:
Dear AIR-ERS -
I have some colleagues here who have recently become interested in the concept of affordances (they are working in the field of visual arts).
I know the term comes from engineering but if anyone has the primary reference at their fingertips it would be much appreciated.
Cheers, Denise
(writing from the island of Bali where the the celebrations of the Kite Festival has filled the skies each afternoon with amazing kites)
Denise N. Rall, PhD. Special Projects, Faculty of Arts & Science Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW AUSTRALIA Mobile +(61)(0)438 233344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/esm/staff/pages/drall/ Popular Culture Association of Australia & Zealand POPCANNZ Conf. Auckland, New Zealand July 2011
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Hi Denise, I reviewed the conceptual development of affordance in Chapter 2 of my dissertation (2004) and proposed an activity-based affordance structure consisting of instrumental affordance and social affordance for mobile text messaging research (see the section of “affordances”). The dissertation can be accessed at this URL: http://www.localisation.ie/resources/Awards/Theses/sun_diss.pdf In that section I studied the origin of the affordance and its uptake in the field of HCI (Gibson, Norman, and Gaver), the development of affordance for social interactions (Bradner and Hutchby), and the view of activity-based affordance (Baerentsen & Trettvik, Albrechtsen, Andersen, Bødker, & Pejtersen), most of which are already recommended by people on this list. I’m adding what are not mentioned yet: Albrechtsen, H., Andersen, H. H. K., Bødker, S., & Pejtersen, A. M. (2001). Affordances in Activity Theory and Cognitive Systems Engineering: Riso National Laboratory, Roskilde. Baerentsen, K., & Trettvik, J. (2002). An Activity Theory Approach to Affordance. In O.W. Bertelsen, S. Bodker & K. Kuuti (Eds.), Proceedings of the Second Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 51-60). New York: ACM Press. Dourish, P. (2001). Whre the action is. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Vyas, D., Chisalita, C., & van de Veer, G. (2006). Affordance in interaction. In Proceedings of the 13th Eurpoean conference on Cognitive ergonomics (pp. 92-99). New York: ACM Press. The last two items were covered in my new book on cross-cultural technology design that will come out next year. The book has a revised discussion of technology affordance and regards affordance as dialogic relation and mediation property. Hope this helps. Best regards, Huatong ============================ Huatong Sun Assistant Professor English Department & Interactive Media Studies Program Miami University, OH On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 10:06 PM, Denise N. Rall <denrall@yahoo.com> wrote:
Dear AIR-ERS -
I have some colleagues here who have recently become interested in the concept of affordances (they are working in the field of visual arts).
I know the term comes from engineering but if anyone has the primary reference at their fingertips it would be much appreciated.
Cheers, Denise
(writing from the island of Bali where the the celebrations of the Kite Festival has filled the skies each afternoon with amazing kites)
Denise N. Rall, PhD. Special Projects, Faculty of Arts & Science Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW AUSTRALIA Mobile +(61)(0)438 233344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/esm/staff/pages/drall/ Popular Culture Association of Australia & Zealand POPCANNZ Conf. Auckland, New Zealand July 2011
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participants (6)
-
Caroline Haythornthwaite -
Denise N. Rall -
Huatong Sun -
Jesper Aagaard Petersen -
Michael Zimmer -
Yuwei Lin