How Artifacts Afford: The Power and Politics of Everyday Things (Design Thinking, Design Theory)

A conceptual update of affordance theory that introduces the mechanisms and conditions framework, providing a vocabulary and critical perspective. Technological affordances mediate between the features of a technology and the outcomes of engagement with that technology. The concept of affordances, which migrated from psychology to design with Donald Norman's influential 1988 book, The Design of Everyday Things , offers a useful analytical tool in technology studiesbut, Jenny Davis argues in How Artifacts Afford , it is in need of a conceptual update. Davis provides just such an update, introducing the mechanisms and conditions framework , which offers both a vocabulary and necessary critical perspective for affordance analyses. The mechanisms and conditions framework shifts the question from what objects afford to how objects afford, for whom , and under what circumstances . Davis shows that through this framework, analyses can account for the power and politics of technological artifacts. She situates the framework within a critical approach that views technology as materialized action. She explains how request , demand , encourage , discourage , refuse , and allow are mechanisms of affordance, and shows how these mechanisms take shape through variable conditions perception , dexterity , and cultural and institutional legitimacy . Putting the framework into action, Davis identifies existing methodological approaches that complement it, including critical technocultural discourse analysis (CTDA), app feature analysis, and adversarial design. In today's rapidly changing sociotechnical landscape, the stakes of affordance analyses are high. Davis's mechanisms and conditions framework offers a timely theoretical reboot, providing tools for the crucial tasks of both analysis and design. "The term "affordances," at least in the design literature, was popularized in Don Norman's The Design of Everyday Things. He brought affordances to design studies to address human-machine interactions. In recent years, the concept has picked up considerable steam as the study of computer mediated communication (CMC) and information communication technologies (ICTs) have become firmly entrenched in the academic canon. How ArtIfacts Afford is about the social dynamics of technology. It is about the ways that ethics, values, and interests are built into technological objects and how these objects take shape through interaction with human subjects. More specifically, this book is about technological affordances. Formally, affordances are defined as "the 'multifaceted relational structure' between an object/technology and the use that enables or constrains potential behavioral outcomes in a particular context". That is, affordances mediate between the features of a technology and the outcomes of engagement with that technology. Technologies don't make people do things, but instead, push, pull, enable, and constrain. Affordances are how objects shape behavior for socially situated subjects"-- Provided by publisher. A conceptual update of affordance theory that introduces the mechanisms and conditions framework, providing a vocabulary and critical perspective. Technological affordances mediate between the features of a technology and the outcomes of engagement with that technology. The concept of affordances, which migrated from psychology to design with Donald Norman's influential 1988 book, The Design of Everyday Things, offers a useful analytical tool in technology studies—but, Jenny Davis argues in How Artifacts Afford, it is in need of a conceptual update. Davis provides just such an update, introducing the mechanisms and conditions framework, which offers both a vocabulary and necessary critical perspective for affordance analyses. affordances; affordance; science and technology studies; STS; computer mediated communication; CMC; information communication technologies; ICT; new media; design studies; sociology of technology; politics of design; James Gibson; JJ Gibson; Donald A Norman; mechanisms and conditions framework; actor network theory; ANT; technology as materialized action; social theory; critical technology studies; critical STS