The next time you are about to use the word “affordance”, please stop and check if the word “cue” would work instead.
Because if it would, then:
1. you are using an obscure technical term for something that already has a perfectly good plain English word, and
2. you are using that technical term incorrectly.
Yes, I know that languages are living entities. None other than the eminent Don Norman, despairing in his attempts to correct the misuse of “affordances”, has cited this as a reason to abandon the term to its abusers. Yes, words can change their meanings. Generally, I celebrate this fact. But not this time. Technical terms are different. People can start calling air “Oxygen”, but that does not mean that scientists should change the periodic table.
