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.
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.
