TermCraft conventionFoundational
Affordance
What something lets you do, whether or not you can tell.
Definition
The action possibilities an object offers to a person, as distinct from the signifier that communicates them.
Craft convention. True because the industry converged on it. Breaking it costs familiarity, not correctness.
In plain language
What something lets you do, whether or not you can tell.
Example
A div with a click handler affords clicking. Nothing about it signals that, which is why the signifier matters more in practice.
Continue from here
Each link says what the connection is, so you can tell a principle from an alternative from a thing people mix this up with.
Deeper reading
The full entry behind this definition.
- Affordances and SignifiersPrinciple
- DiscoverabilityPrinciple
Nearby in the Atlas
Adjacent territory, found through shared tags rather than a stated link.