A Theory of Affordances: From Requests to Refusals

As a concept, affordance is integral to scholarly analysis across multiple fields—including media studies, science and technology studies, communication studies, ecological psychology, and design studies, among others.  However, critics rightly point to the term’s several shortcomings including definitional confusion, a false binary in which artifacts either afford or do not afford, and failure to account for diversity among human users. This paper presents a short history of affordance as a concept and provides a model that adds precision to current formulations and applications of the term. The model asks not just what artifacts afford, but how they afford and for whom? Through case study application, the model demonstrates how affordances request, demand, allow, encourage, discourage, and refuse.