When you want to design pleasurable and effective apps and products, you need to understand the basic interactions between humans and the world. You need to understand the basic interactions between humans and the objects you design. Essentially, that means that you need to understand what affordances are, what are affordances, Affordances define what actions are possible.
The latter affords climbing for people who know how to hold their balance. The latter would not afford climbing for a baby. That's because the term affordances refers to the relationship between a physical object and a person, or for that matter, any interacting agent, whether animal or human or even machines and robots. Don Norman
and affordances is a relationship between the properties of an object and the capabilities of the agent that determine just how the object could possibly be used. What does that mean? The tractor door properties of the object affords opening. If you have arms and hands capabilities of the agent and you know how to operate a handle the properties of the object.
Eight year old Felix knows how a regular tool works. However, this still doesn't afford opening for him because he's not yet learned the proper technique to push quite hard while pressing down. Here, the agent. Felix doesn't have the capabilities to afford the operation of the property door. On the contrary, the door affords opening for Rikke.
Now you know why? That's because affordances are all about the relationship between the object and the agent. The clutch and accelerator pedals are for pushing. But if the person isn't strong enough or doesn't have long enough legs like five year old or a ghost, then the person can't push down the pedals to shift gears or speed up the pedals. Do not afford pushing for him. The pedals are for pushing for Felix and the pedals are for pushing for Rikke.
Affordances represent the possibilities in the world for how the agent, a person animal or machine can interact with something. The presence of an affordances is jointly determined by the qualities of the objects and the abilities of the agent that is interacting. But wait, how on earth are you going to use those insights when you design an app to help people lose weight effectively, or an app
to help kids learn multiplication tables in a fun and effective manner? And how can you use those same insights when you design a microwave? Yes, you can use them in all those cases. And to cut to the chase, here is how you use those insights. When you design, it's your job to ensure that the object you design fits your target group of people and that the object you design affords your target group of people
to use it in a way so they can discover and understand how your product works so it can help them achieve their goal of using that product. Interaction Design Foundation.