affordance as context phil turner

8/20/2019 Affordance as Context Phil Turner

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Affordance as context

Phil Turner*

HCI Research Group, School of Computing, Napier University, 10 Colinton Road, Edinburgh EH14 1DJ, UK

Received 11 March 2004; revised 1 April 2005; accepted 23 April 2005

Available online 12 July 2005

Abstract

The concept of affordance is relatively easy to define, but has proved to be remarkably difficult to

engineer. This paradox has sparked numerous debates as to its true nature. The discussion presented

here begins with a review of the use of the term from which emerges evidence for a two-fold

classification—simple affordance and complex affordance. Simple affordance corresponds to

Gibson’s original formulation, while complex affordances embody such things as history and

practice. In trying to account for complex affordance, two contrasting, but complementary

philosophical treatments are considered. The first of these is Ilyenkov’s account of significanceswhich he claims are ‘ideal’ phenomena. Ideal phenomena occupy are objective characteristics of

things and are the product of human purposive activity. This makes them objective, but not

independent (of any particular mind or perception) hence their similarity to affordances.

The second perspective is Heidegger’s phenomenological treatment of ‘familiarity’ and

‘equipment’. As will be seen, Heidegger has argued that familiarity underpins our ability to cope

in the world. A world, in turn, which itself comprises the totality of equipment. We cope by making

use of equipment. Despite the different philosophical traditions both Ilyenkov and Heidegger have

independently concluded that a thing is identified by its use and that use, in turn, is revealed by way

of its affordances/significances. Finally, both authors—Heidegger directly and Ilyenkov indirectly—

equate context and use, leading to the conclusion that affordance and context are one and the same.

q 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Affordance; Familiarity; Phenomenology; Context

Interacting with Computers 17 (2005) 787–800

www.elsevier.com/locate/intcom

0953-5438/$ - see front matter q 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.intcom.2005.04.003

* Address: School of Computing, Napier University, 10 Colinton Rooad, EH9 5DT Edinburgh, UK. Tel.: C44

131 4552721; fax: C44 131 4552727.

E-mail address: [email protected]

http://www.elsevier.com/locate/intcom

http://www.elsevier.com/locate/intcom



1. Introduction

This is a ‘concept paper’ rather than a report of a case study or the presentation of a new

methodology. The concept in question is affordance which is one of the most ubiquitous inhuman computer interaction (HCI).

This paper seeks (a) to review the use of the term affordance and (b) to consider two

contrasting philosophical accounts of how affordance operates. The review concludes that

there is a case for a binary classification of affordance into simple and complex.

Moving beyond Gibson’s psychological account of affordance, two different

philosophical accounts of affordance are considered. The first of these is Ilyenkov’s

treatment of significances which may be thought of as ‘Soviet affordances’. Significances

are described as real and objective, but dependent on us as they are a product of our

purposive, sensuous work. For some, Ilyenkov’s writings offer a philosophicalunderpinning to Activity Theory. Turning from Soviet thought, Heidegger’s phenomen-

ology is then considered. In the past, selected aspects of his work have already been used

in the related fields of HCI1 and cognitive science to elucidate a number of the central

problems of these disciplines (e.g. Winograd and Flores, 1986; Dreyfus, 2001; Coyne,

1997, 1999; Dourish, 2001). For the present discussion Dreyfus’ observation (Dreyfus,

2001; p. 3) that ‘at the foundation of Heidegger’s new approach is a phenomenology of

‘mindless’ everyday coping skills as the basis of all intelligibility’ is particularly relevant.

This everyday coping with technology must be one of the key interests of HCI.

There was an anecdote published in the magazine interactions some years ago which

centred on a claw-hammer inadvertently being left behind in an orang-utan’s enclosure.The orang-utan picked it up, sniffed it, moved it about in its hands and then proceeded to

use the claw of the hammer to scratch the walls of the enclosure; a few minutes later the

animal used the head of the hammer to strike any and all available surfaces. In short, the

orang-utan had seen directly how to use the hammer (Brock, 1996). This anecdote may be

regarded as an example of simple affordance. That is, affordance operating in a classic

Gibsonian perception–action loop. Affordance, however, is not limited to mediating such

relatively simple behaviours: a second, brief anecdote illustrates this. Last year I witnessed

a young American (judging from her accent) failing to open the train door when we arrived

at her station. Opening, closing, pushing and pulling doors are frequently used to illustrateexamples of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ affordance, but in this case another factor operated, namely

familiarity. The American tourist was unfamiliar with the design of (old) British ‘slam-

door’ trains which require a passenger to open a window, reach outside and use the

exterior handle to open the door. Thus the interior side of the door does not offer the simple

affordance of ‘depressing a handle’ and ‘pushing open’, while the exterior of the door

offers the complex affordance of knowing to ‘lean outside’, ‘depress the handle’ and

‘push’. Figs. 1 and 2 illustrate this.

This paper will begin by developing this case for a two-fold classification of affordance.

The familiar territory of simple affordance is considered first.

1 An interesting review of phenomenology is offered by McCarthy and Wright (2004).

P. Turner / Interacting with Computers 17 (2005) 787–800788



2. Simple affordance

Gibson introduced the term ‘affordance’ to denote the relation between the organismand its environment. “The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal,

Fig. 1. The interior view of a ‘slam-door’. Where the handle might reasonably be expected only a steel plate can

be seen.

Fig. 2. The exterior view of a ‘slam-door’.

P. Turner / Interacting with Computers 17 (2005) 787–800 789



what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill.” (Gibson, 1986, 127). Specifically on

tool use, Gibson wrote, “An elongated object, especially, if weighted at one end and

graspable at the other, affords hitting or hammering (a club). A graspable object with a

rigid sharp edge affords cutting and scraping (a knife)”. Further examples of affordancesinclude surfaces that provide support, objects that can be manipulated, substances that can

be eaten and other animals that afford interactions of all kinds. The properties of these

affordances for animals are specified in stimulus information. Even if an animal possesses

the appropriate attributes and senses, it may need to learn to detect this information. An

affordance, once detected, is meaningful and has value for the animal. It is nevertheless

objective, inasmuch as it refers to the physical properties of the animal’s ecological niche

and the constraints of the animal’s body. An affordance thus exists, whether it is perceived

or used or not, furthermore it may be detected and used without explicit awareness of

doing so. This description was revised in 1986 when Gibson wrote, “An affordance cuts

across the dichotomy of subjective–objective and helps us to understand its inadequacy. Itis equally a fact of the environment and a fact of behaviour. It is both physical and

psychical, yet neither. An affordance points both ways, to the environment and to the

observer” (Gibson, 1986, 129). Thus affordances hover uncomfortably in a dualistic

netherland between the world and the observer. Yet this was not how they were originally

conceived. The concept of affordance has its origins with the Gestalt School of

psychology. The Gestaltists working in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s argued that we

perceive the function of a thing as quickly as its colour or shape. Gibson quotes Koffka,

who publishing in 1935, makes the following point, “Each thing says what it is.a fruit

says eat me, water says drink me”, Gibson (1986, 138). Koffka used the term demand

characteristic to describe these (directly perceived) properties of objects, while Lewin,

again quoted by Gibson, preferred the term Aufforderung-scharakter (invitation

character). These properties were seen as being phenomenal in nature and not the

physical properties of objects—that is, we see directly what these objects are for and how

to use them—no one taught us to drink water.

2.1. Beyond the very simple

Fruit and water are a long way from the challenge of designing interactive media, but

plentiful examples of simple affordance can be found in Ergonomics. For example, thework of Murrell in the 1950s included the design of physical knobs and dials for which

‘up’ meant ‘more’ and ‘down’ meant ‘less’, equally, rotating a knob clockwise ‘afforded’

increasing the volume or the amount, likewise an anticlockwise direction signified a

lessening or reduction (Murrell, 1965). These simple affordance which inform such design

principles remain essential to the creation of tangible, ubiquitous and pervasive devices

such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and such things as MP3 players.

This simple account of affordance has, of course, been significantly extended and

complex affordance is reviewed in Section 3. However, Hartson (2003) has also recently

proposed a four-fold division of (simple) affordance for the purposes of designing for

interaction. These four categories are (a) cognitive affordance; (b) physical affordance; (c)sensory affordance and finally, (d) functional affordance. This four-fold classification

maps onto corresponding functions: for example, physical affordance is synonymous with




utility, while sensory affordances include such things as noticeability, colour, contrast and

so forth.

2.2. Breakdown analysis

Rather than the Ergonomic approach of matching the ‘machine to the man’, an alternate

approach to designing for affordance has been adopted by De Souza and her colleagues

who among have modelled the breakdowns in the communication between the user

interface and the user (de Souza 1993; de Souza et al., 1999, 2000; Prates et al., 2000a,b ).

Their analysis uses ‘tags’—which represent an utterance that expresses a user’s reaction to

what happens during interaction such as ‘Where is?’, ‘What now?’ and ‘Where am I’. This

use of tags parallels the taxonomy of potential breakdowns in using a tool as presented by

Dreyfus. It will be recalled that Heidegger famously classified tools as being either ready-

to-hand or present-at-hand (the former implying transparent, un-thought use, the lattersuggesting some measure of uninvolved reflection). Hubert Dreyfus, an important

commentator on Heidegger has extended this treatment to deal with the range of

breakdowns in our day-to-day use of tools. Table 1, which has been adapted from Dreyfus

(2001) holds a description of these breakdowns and their consequences. As with most

philosophers, the hammer is the artefact of choice.

While this is an interesting treatment of Dasein’s ‘relationship’ with hammers it does

leave a number of questions open with respect to our use of more complex and, perhaps,

socially constructed tools such as those outlined early in this essay.

3. Complex affordance

Norman (1988) sought to adapt the original, direct unlearned formulation of affordance

with one which is at one remove, namely perceived affordance. He suggested that an

individual could be said to perceive the intended behaviour of, say, interface widgets such

as the sliders and buttons. The intended and perceived behaviours of such widgets are, of

course, very simple, including sliding, pressing and rotating leaving him to conclude that

‘real affordances are not nearly as important as perceived affordances; it is perceived

affordances that tell the user what actions can be performed on an object and, to someextent, how to do them’ (Norman, 1988). Though like Gibson he subsequently modified

his position on perceived affordances to observe that they are ‘often more about

conventions than about reality’ (Norman, 1999, 124) citing scrollbars as examples of such

a convention. While he has remained resolute that perceived affordances are not real

affordances this discussion opened the door to the wide spread adoption of the term.

Indeed the literature is replete with examples the extended the use of the concept (e.g.

Gaver, 1991, 1992; Robertson, 1991; Hudson and Smith, 1997; Norman, 1999; St Amant,

1999; Silveira et al., 2001; among numerous others). Typical of these, Robertson (1997)

has reported on an ethnographically-informed study of a distributed design team. One of

the themes she considered were the affordances a technical system must have to supportremote cooperation. From the perspective of embodied action she considered the aspects

of a system which should or must be present to afford communication. She identified




a number of generic, embodied actions and their relevant affordances: for example,

pointing at something, emitting signs and monitoring of signs, moving in and out of shared

space. An example of one of these affordances is ‘highlighting some aspect of an object’.

Robertson quotes Goodwin (1994) in defining highlighting as those ‘methods used to

divide a domain of scrutiny into figure and ground, so that events relevant to the activity of

the moment stand out’. Highlighting embodies not only one’s perception, but serves to

direct the attention of others.

A second example of the extended use of the term affordance can be seen in a study

reported by Silveira et al. (2001) entitled, Augmenting the Affordance of Online Help. There

are two things to note from this title alone: firstly, that a high level online interactive system

like the help system mighthave affordances; and secondly, that affordances can be subject to

augmentation, indeed this augmentation is managed by a process of ‘semiotic engineering’.A further example is an extension of the concept of affordance to partition the

evaluation of a collaborative virtual environment—CVE (Turner and Turner, 2002).

Table 1

Modes of being of entities other than Dasein (after Dreyfus, 2001, 124–5)

What happens Dasein’s stance What is encountered

Available-nessa Equipment functioning

smoothly

Transparent coping.

Absorbed in practical

activity

Transparent functioning,

readiness-to-hand

Un-available-ness Equipment problem

1. Malfunction (con-

spicuous: hammer too

heavy)

2. Get going again

(picking up another

hammer)

3. Context-dependent

aspects or characteristics

of ‘objects’ (‘hammer’

as ‘too heavy’)

Temporary breakdown

(obstinate: head comes

off hammer)

Practical deliberation.

Eliminating the disturb-

ance

The inter-connectedness

of equipment. The

towards-whichsb

Permanent breakdown(obstructive: unable to

find hammer)

Helpless standingbefore, but still con-

cerned

The worldly character of the workshop, including

the for-the-sake-of-

whichs

Occurrent-ness Everyday practical

activity stops

Detached standing

before, theoretical

reflection. Skilled scien-

tific activity. Obser-

vation and

experimentation

Just occurrent and no

more. Isolable, determi-

nate properties. The

universe as a law-gov-

erned set of elements

Pure Occurrent-ness Rest. getting finished Pure contemplation. Just

looking at something

(curiosity)

Bare facts, sense data

a Heidegger’s use of language is notoriously challenging, for example, Heidegger uses the term Dasein which

means ‘there is’ to indicate a human being. It is the convention to use the term un-translated. To add such

difficulties, commentators have offered a range of different translations of key terms. Dreyfus is no exception. In

the following table readiness-to-hand ( Zuhandenheit ) is translated by Dreyfus as availableness and present-at-

hand (Vorhandenheit ) as occurrentness.b Heidegger also uses the expressions towards-which to mean something like a goal, and for-the-sake-of-which

to indicate purpose.




In their study they create an explicit three layer model of affordance: ‘basic level’

equating with simple usability/ergonomics, a ‘middle layer’ matching user tasks (and/

or) embodiment and finally, a ‘top level’ corresponding to the purpose of the activity

for which ‘cultural affordance’ are appropriate. This extended use of the concept of affordance reaches a fuller flowering in the discipline of computer supported

cooperate work (CSCW), where the social organisation of work is often spoken of in

terms of affordance. Indeed, the use of the term affordance in anthropology is not

unusual (e.g. Cole, 1996; Wenger, 1998; Holland et al., 2001). Cole (1996), for

example, identifies a range of affordance offered by a variety of mediating artefacts

including the life stories of recovering alcoholics in AA meeting (affording

rehabilitation), patients’ charts in a hospital setting (affording access to a patient’s

medical history), poker chips (affording gambling) and ‘sexy’ clothing (affording

gender stereotyping). Cole notes that mediating artefacts embody their own

‘developmental histories’ which is a reflection of their use. That is, these artefactshave been manufactured or produced and continue to be used as part of, and in

relation to, intentional human actions. Holland and her colleagues add to this with a

discussion of how the men of the Naudada (native to Nepal) use of the pronoun ta

(you) to address their wives. This pronoun is the least respectful of all forms of

address and is usually reserved for children, dogs and other ‘inferiors’. As Holland

notes, “.pronouns, through their collective use in common practice, have come to

embody for, and so impose on, people [.] in Naudada a conception of the tasks to

which they are put, and a conception of the person(s) who will use them and be the

object(s) of them” (Holland, 2001; p. 62). Thus the use of the least respectful form of

the pronoun places women as inferior to men, that is, their use affords the

maintenance of social structure in their society. In a closely related vein, researchers

in the field of CSCW have noted that artefacts mediating cooperation are frequently

socially constructed and their affordances can be seen to differ from one workplace to

another. These so-called boundary objects (Star, 1989) are resources or artefacts

which support the work of separate communities such as different departments within

an organisation or even between very different communities of practice. To be useful

by these different communities they must be sufficiently flexible to be used in

different ways, by different people for different purpose in a range of contexts. The

term ‘boundary object’ is, of course, primarily descriptive rather than a designimperative as they are seen to develop or ‘evolve’ within and between communities

by embodying custom and practice. There are numerous examples of boundary

objects, descriptions of which are frequently couched in terms of affordance. For

example Berg et al. (1997) have described the shared use of patient records by a

range of clinicians and nurses and again more recently Reddy et al. (2001), while

Bødker and Christiansen (1997) describe the use of scenarios as boundary objects

between users and designers. Of further interest is Sellen and Harper’s (2002)

extended study of the affordances of paper. Their analysis of the affordances of paper

include: reading, being easy to navigate through a [paper] document; being able to

read more than one document at once; writing notes upon/annotating; ease of filing;portability; joint viewing and so forth. Examples of complex affordance are clearly

very diverse—the challenge now is to account for them.




4. A very soviet view of affordance

Evald Ilyenkov was a Soviet philosopher who is often portrayed as one of the key

thinkers behind Activity Theory. Among his many contributions, Ilyenkov sought toprovide a materialist account of non-material phenomena, significances being one such

non-material phenomenon. Significances, as will be seen, have remarkable similarities to

affordances. Ilyenkov2 begins his argument by identifying two classes of nonmaterial

phenomena namely:

1. mental phenomena such as thoughts, beliefs and feelings and

2. phenomena that are neither material nor mental—meaning and values, such as

goodness.

This second class he calls ideal [ideal’noe]. Ilyenkov then goes on to contrast twoopposing accounts of these ideal phenomena. An objectivist account might argue that such

ideal phenomena are external to us and constrain our actions, e.g. many religions present

these phenomena as ‘god-given’. In contrast, subjectivists would argue that these

phenomena are the product of our human nature and as such are merely projections having

no existence independent of us. Rejecting both of these accounts Ilyenkov proposed a

classic dialectic position arguing that a thing can be objective without being independent

of us. Through human activity we idealise our world (i.e. endow it with meaning) and in so

doing we also endow it with properties that come to exist completely independently of us.

As Ilyenkov puts it:Ideality is a characteristic of things, but not as they are defined by nature, but by

labour, the transforming, form-creating activity of social beings, their aim-mediated,

sensuously objective activity. The ideal form is the form of a thing created by social

human labour. Or conversely, it is the form of labour realized [osushchestvlennyi] in

the substance of nature, ‘embodied’ in it, ‘alienated’ in it and ‘realized’

[realizovannyi] in it, and thereby confronting its very creator as the form of a

thing or as a relation between things, which are placed in this relation (which they

otherwise would not have entered) by human beings, by their labour.

Ilyenkov, 1979: 157 Ideal properties such as significances are thus real, objective but not independent of us

as they are products of meaning-endowing in human activity. This clearly echoes many of

the insights from anthropology and CSCW. However, the most problematic part of this

argument (excepting the obscurity of Ilyenkov’s expression) is the issue of ideality’s

complete independence from the individual mind. The key to understanding this is the

expression ‘individual mind’ rather than mind per se. The ideal exists in the collective not

the individual mind—a concept reminiscent of distributed cognition (e.g. Hutchins, 1995).

Thus while social life is a product of the collective, it is experienced by individuals as a set

of given rules, practices, tools and artefacts. We, individually, grow up among pre-existing

2 The following description of Ilyenkov’s work draws heavily on Bakhurst’s commentary (1991).




and apparently objective phenomena. From this perspective human development can be

seen as the process of becoming enculturated into this objectified, historically developed

world. Ilyenkov offers a specific example of this: ancient mariners saw the stars as a pre-

existing navigational aid, while priests regarded them as pre-existing guides to futureevents (astrology). These interpretations, that is, the need to find one’s way at sea or the

need to predict future events, were subsequently attached to the stars as the result of their

incorporation into human activity.

Ilyenkov (1977) describes the creation of artefacts as a further illustration of how ideal

properties could be held to exist objectively in the world. He uses the example of a table. A

table is part of objective reality and yet can be distinguished from a block of wood because

it has been objectified by the human activity shaping it. This is how we distinguish wood

from tables; and wood from footwear—see Fig. 3.

Wood affords a variety of uses, for example, burning, throwing, shaping, trading and soforth. Through purposive use objects acquire significance. Shaping a block of wood into a

pair of clogs, endows the wood/clogs with the significances of wearing, being purchased as a

souvenir or being thrown into machinery3. Ilyenkov notes that activity is the source of the

world we inhabit and the principal expression of how we inhabit it. This is more than saying

simply that objectificationis the source of the ideal properties of this or that thing—Ilyenkov

was proposing that objectification is the source of human culture. So, for example, we non-

archaeologists are unable to distinguish between a shard of flint and an ancient stone tool

while a student of the discipline who has been successfully enculturated can. Ideality is like

a stamp or inscription on the substance of nature by social human activity:

Fig. 3. Making clogs—or objectifying wood by way of human purposive activity.

3 ClogZsabot, throwing a sabot into machinery, sabotage.




it is the form of the functioning of a physical thing in the process of social human life

activity.[it is] human social culture embodied (objectified or reified) in matter, that

is, [a quality] of the historically formed modes of activity which confront individual

consciousness and will as a special non-natural [sverkhpriroda] objective reality, asa special object, comparable with material reality, and situated in one and the same

space as it and hence often confused with it.

Ilyenkov 1979: 139–140 cited by Bakhurst, 1991, 180

In other words, a significance makes a thing knowable. For Ilyenkov, nothing about the

physical nature of a thing in itself explains how it is possible that it can be knowable.

However, significance is not merely a synonym for affordance. In order to be knowable

some significance has to be attached to the thing through the process of the object’s

incorporation into the sphere of human activity which is not necessarily true of an

affordance—particularly simple affordances. The ideal properties of an artefact representto the individual a reification or embodiment of the practices of the human community that

has historically developed the thing. In other words, objects acquire this ideal content not

as the result of being accessed by an individual mind, but by the historically developing

activities of communities of practice.

5. Familiarity and equipment

Heidegger’s philosophy focuses on the nature of being—human being in particular

(who he describes as Dasein—a term we have already seen in Table 1). In doing so,

he distinguishes and distances himself from those who are concerned with

epistemology which he regarded as disinterested and theoretical knowledge. Dasein

is ‘in-the-world’, a world comprising everyday practices, equipment and common

skills shared by specific communities. Despite the richness and volume of Heidegger’s

work, it has not been widely quoted and applied, for example, Winograd and Flores

(1986) have (only) brought the concepts of readiness-to-hand , present-at-hand and

throwness to our attention. This is now extended to consider Heidegger’s treatment of

familiarity and equipment.

Commercial training courses often specify as a pre-requisite ‘familiarity with MicrosoftWindowse’; the safety briefing on a commercial jet often includes the warning that

passengers may not be familiar with this specific aircraft. Familiarity has a central role in

everyday life. More than 20 years ago Bewley et al. (1983), writing of the four design

goals which were adopted in the design of the legendary Xerox Star’s user interface, noted

that the first of these was, “There should be an explicit user’s model of the system, and it

should be familiar (drawing on objects and activities the user already works with) and

consistent”. User model, familiarity and consistency. Similarly, Raskin (1994) discussing

the rise of intuitive user interfaces concluded that by intuitive we really meant familiar .

While familiarity is generally understood to refer to a knowledge of something, for

Heidegger, it primarily encompasses the ideas of involvement and understanding. Hereinvolvement may be taken as something approaching a synonym for ‘being-in-the-world’

while understanding should be interpreted as the tacit knowledge of our everyday




activities. We daily demonstrate our familiarity by coping with situations, tools and

objects by our understanding of the referential whole. A world, according to Heidegger,

has three key characteristics:

1. A world comprises the totality of inter-related pieces of equipment. Each piece of

equipment being used for a specific task—hammers are for driving nails into wood (it is

not meaningful to consider a hammer without reference to other equipment, for

example, nails); a word processor is used to compose text.

2. The second ‘component’ of a world is the set of purposes to which these tasks are

put. Of course, while we cannot meaningfully separate out purposes from tasks in

these (non-Cartesian) worlds we can recognise that the word processor is used to

write an academic paper for the purpose of publication and dissemination.

Similarly nails are driven into wood to provide illustrations for philosophical

discourse.3. Finally, in performing these tasks we acquire or assume an identity (or identities)

as carpenters, academics and so forth. Thus by worlds we mean cultural worlds. In

using these concepts and viewpoints we are moving away from thinking in terms

of what are the nature of things (and ourselves) to how we manage and cope with

things.

‘My encounter with the room is not such that I first take in one thing after

another and put together a manifold of things in order then to see a room.

Rather, I primarily see a referential whole.from which the individual pieces of furniture and what is in the room stand out. Such an environment of the nature

of a closed referential whole is at the same time distinguished by a specific

familiarity. The.referential whole is grounded precisely in familiarity, and this

familiarity implies the referential relations are well-known.’

History of the Concept of Time (187)

This contradicts the view which assumes that we have to synthesize a ‘manifold’

of things, perspectives and sense data. Instead Heidegger argues that we simply

perceive the room’s Gestalt and in doing so we are able to deal with its contents

through our familiarity with other rooms. Familiarity is then a ‘readiness’ to copewith, say, chairs (e.g. by sitting on them) which has developed from our earliest days.

Heidegger describes this readiness as:

‘the background of .primary familiarity, which itself is not conscious or intended,

but is rather present in [an] unprominent way’

History of the Concept of Time (189)

And in the Basic Problems of Phenomenology he calls it the ‘sight of practical

circumspection [.], our practical everyday orientation’ (163). Assuming that we are

enculturated into the world of modern computing, when we enter our places of work

we see desks, chairs, computers, network points and so forth. We do not perceive a jumble of surfaces, wires and inexplicable beige boxes (unless we have just been

burgled). We demonstrate our familiarity by coping with situations, tools and objects.




6. Discussion

In reviewing the use of the concept of affordance it has been observed that researchers

have moved far beyond Gibson’s original account. He saw affordance as a reciprocalrelationship between object and action and that this could be characterised as part of the

perception–action loop. This mechanism alone cannot account for the very wide range of

affordances which have been discussed.

Instead and in their own very different ways, both Ilyenkov and Heidegger have argued

that we understand the world in terms of use. Ilyenkov has also argued that we understand

our historically constructed world in terms of significances. These significances are ideal

that is, they are subjective and independent of an individual mind existing instead in the

collective—affordances/significances are the visible manifestations of our culture.

Heidegger’s perspective on equipment also forces us to conclude that an affordance

cannot exist in isolation. He has argued that we perceive/experience the world as an inter-connected mesh of things which we can use. The totality of equipment means that each

tool occupies a specific position in the system of forces that makes up the world. The

totality of equipment is the world. Harman illustrates this point well in his discussion of a

bridge.

.in turn, the bridge as a whole is not a self-evident, atomic finality; rather, it

functions in numerous different equipmental ways, swept up into countless larger

systems. Usually, it enacts an official plan of efficiency, shaving ten minutes from

the drive around the bay. But in certain regions of the world, separating hostile

factions, it is monitored by snipers. The bridge can be the unforgettable site of afateful conversation (nostalgia-equipment), the location of a distant relative’s

suicide (memorial-equipment), or perhaps it is simply stalked in a troubling

insomnia. It is an object of study for architectural critics or material for sabotage by

vandals. In the lives of seagulls and insects, it takes on different aspects.

Harman, 2002:23

This is not to suggest that things have different meanings in different contexts. For

Heidegger, equipment is context. So, it would appear that on affordance, Ilyenkov and

Heidegger, despite differences in language, are of one mind. A thing is identified by its

use—that is, we identify it through its affordances or significances—so as equipment iscontext, affordance and context must be synonyms. Interestingly, Brezillon and Pomerol

(2001) also equate context with knowing how which Heidegger regards as the basis of

understanding—to understand something is to know how to use it.

So, what does this mean for the design and evaluation of interactive systems, devices and

media? The difficulty of trying to apply this reasoning to everyday HCI engineering is that it

is necessarily holistic. Use, affordance and context are treated as a Gestalt by both Ilyenkov

and Heidegger and to date no one has managed to create holistic forms of design. The design

of interactive systems requires the designer not to be involved with ‘use’ per se, but to be

engaged with ‘design for use’. Much the same is true for evaluation. This is the difference

between specifying the materials and dimensions of a hammer and the act of hammering.In conclusion, from a holistic or phenomenological perspective, affordance, use and

context are one. From a design perspective affordance is not an intangible, elusive property




of interactive systems, it might better be thought of as a boundary object between ‘use’ and

‘design for use’ recalling Wenger’s (1998) remarks that all designed artefacts are

boundary objects both between and within the communities of practice of designers and

users.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the anonymous reviewers of this paper for their constructive comments.

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affordance as context phil turner

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