Dear Terry and all

While waiting for those theories related to affordance and perceived to be
enunciated hopefully one day, nonetheless reality remains that both
phenomena are quite obivious everywhere. And not necessary at the same time
and not for the same person/group as you so rightly say.

The way I understand it is that affordances may be more starkly obvious to
an expert or to anyone else, without being perceived by any other person
around, expert or not.  'Not perceived affordances' are there, even when
YOU don't perceive them. Someone else does, and necessary differently than
you if you would.

Where I am here, sometimes dramatically, and some other times very funny,
cases abound of such common misunderstandings related to Western-type
artifacts use by Africans... The issue is both time-based as you say, also
sociological, perhaps more accuaretly meaning here cultural, and
intrinsically psycho-physiological (Ergonomics) and anthropological.

To me, then, the prime role of professional design, ideally informed, as
per your implied wish,  by those awaited theories in these domains above
(identiying affordances not percieved neither by professional designers nor
by  targeted users), is to reduce as much as possible - through rules and
different other kinds of constraining prescriptions in and along the
artifact - the eventuality of such possible misunderstandings related to
affordance. Keeping in mind that, at certain moment, perceived or not,
those misunderstandings  may even be harmful or deleterious to those coming
into functional contact with the artifact into which they are poorly
embedded.

Regards,

Francois, Kigali


On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 3:20 AM, Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Dear Klaus, David and Don - and all,
>
> Thank you for expanding my understanding of affordances.
>
> I have a question...
>
> On the Wikipedia page on affordances (and implicit/explicit in this
> discussion on phd-design) makes a distinction between:
>
> 'Affordances' as the activities that are  made possible by  a
> defined/bounded situation or entity.
>
> And
>
> 'Perceived affordances' as the activities that an observer or participant
> perceives are made possible by  that defined/bounded situation or entity.
>
>  With the set of 'affordances' being greater in number than the set of
> 'perceived affordances'  (excluding those that are erroneously perceived).
>
> If  this assumption is true....
>
> There a set of 'not perceived affordances' that in number and content is
> the
> difference between the set of 'affordances' and the set of 'perceived
> affordances'.
>
> The only evidence is that this set can be perceived....
>
> Q. How does one perceive the set of 'not perceived affordances'?
>
> There seem to be two obvious ways past this problem.
>
> One is time based: that things that are not perceived now might be
> perceived
> at a different time later.  In which case, theories relating to the use of
> affordances would be expected to have a foundational time element in them -
> which I haven't seen to date.
>
> The second is that of different participant groups: perhaps things can be
> perceived individuals in some (expert)  group that are not perceived by
> individuals in a (not so competent) group. In which case, theories relating
> to the use of affordances would be expected to have a foundational
> sociological and expertise element - which I also haven't seen to date.
>
> Are there others   ???
>
> The answer is of  special interest to myself and many others  how to
> readily
> identify  'affordances that cannot be perceived'... :-)
>
> Advice is welcome.
>
> Regards,
> Terry
>
>


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