Torenvliet, G. L. (2003). We can’t afford it: The devaluation of a usability term. interactions, 10(4 (July/August 2003), 12-17.

Email gerard /at / torenvliet / dot / ca for a PDF.

In 2002 I co-wrote an article for “” called “What’s in a Word: The Semantics of Usability”, in which we argued exactly this. Here’s a quote from our article:

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Word meanings can change over time; that’s all well and good. “Awful” used to mean “full of awe”, and seven centuries ago “nice” meant “foolish” (some might say it still does!). The rich garden of English vocabulary has grown from the endless planting of new words from foreign sources, jostling for their place in our prose and poetry. A living language is always on the move — good thing for us.

There’s a bit of a problem, though, when we want a word to conjure up something more concrete than a poetic image in the reader’s mind. When we want to use a word as terminology. Terminology is to vocabulary as bulldog is to kennel: It demands a certain kind of care. We want a term to hold its value. It has to say the same thing to everyone who needs to read or hear it.
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P.S. I’m hoping that Wordpress’s comment feature accepts the “” tag; it doesn’t let me preview my comment.

Thanks for the thoughtful input, I’m enjoying this discussion immensely.

>There’s also the phrase “better affords”. Does this mean, it does it better,
>or it better communicates?

I think the beauty of the term “affordance” is that it gives us a way to talk about what’s really there: whether it’s helpful or unhelpful, visible or invisible. Accordingly I would use “better affords gripping” for a handle that has better grips in actual use. I would say “better communicates that it affords gripping” for a handle that has more visible grips.

Yes, communication of function is important – an invisible affordance is useless. However I argue that keeping our terms for communication separate from our terms for underlying affordance helps us think more clearly about exactly what is going on. Is the affordance broken, or is it poorly communicated? Is it the wrong affordance? Do we want to highlight one affordance rather than another?

On “feature” for “affordance” – I think they’re different as well. A feature connotes something useful that you want to highlight for users. Something you want to “feature” in the marketing materials. Some affordances may be features. Some constraints (e.g. password protection or parental controls) might also be features. A bad affordance can be a misfeature, as can a bad constraint.

I’m singularly impressed with people such as James who are happy to reconsider a long-held belief when presented with a reasonable counter-argument. I hope that I am as gracious when, inevitably, the same happens to me.

I agree that words can mean whatever we want them to mean. There is no objective truth about what a word should mean. That doesn’t invalidate all value judgements though: we can judge the worth of a definition on whether it makes it easier or harder to communicate.

In this case, the existence of the extra similar-but-crucially-different use is indeed leading to miscommunication. For example, I am studying the effect of place on collaborative creativity. In my research I have found good evidence that the surface appearance of a place is not as important for some kinds of creative work as the affordances of that place. I want to use the term “affordances” because it is far quicker than saying “the things that the environment provides or makes possible for each participant, for good or ill, and dependent on the capabilities of that participant and their relationship with the environment”. However if people think that “affordances” means “surface appearance”, then my point makes no sense to them.

I hope this doesn’t spread the focus of the debate too thinly, but here goes:

So tell me, if you substitute the word “feature” for “affordance”, what happens?

Except there are also “misfeatures”. Which would correspond to your “constraint”, I think, except the original definition of “affordance” would appear to encompass both.

Clearly, I’m using the term “feature” here in the sense it has come to have in the software world.

I’m just wondering if the drift in meaning isn’t a result of a lack of a strong need for the original meaning, to most people.

The distinction may be more useful in its original context, of things in the physical environment.

In the software world, we are more concerned with people getting specified tasks done. We’re less likely to use a wrench as a hammer because somebody borrowed the hammer and didn’t put it back — even though a heavy wrench affords a hammer-like action.

There’s also the phrase “better affords”. Does this mean, it does it better, or it better communicates?

I do NOT like the term cue as a substitute for the (mis)use of affordance. It has the serious problem of blurring the boundary between “telling the user what to do”, and “communicating the existence of an affordance (your usage)”. Both are things that are more commonly in need of discussion than your meaning of affordance — especially the communication aspect.

That’s because, if there’s no communication, the affordance is undiscovered, theoretical, futile. A lot of design activity is around communicating or efficiently presenting the affordances that are there. The affordances are often a given; the design activity neither adds nor removes them.

I think the need to discuss affordances largely centers around FAILED affordances. A lot of Norman’s book is on that, as I recall. The affordance is there, waiting to be used — but nobody uses it. Why?

A truly successful affordance often becomes synonymous with the name of the object. A hammer “hammers” things. Or the object is named for its primary affordance.

My intent here isn’t to argue for one side or the other, actually. I’m not a French lexicographer! I just think these are reasons you’re fighting an uphill battle.

BTW, I like your approach the the kickback-link issue. It clearly provides and communicates the non-kickback affordance, without needing a separate disclaimer, explanation, etc. I’m going to steal the idea. Not that I’ve ever made a dime from such links, but I can dream…

Disclaimer: I used to work with Jared decades ago.

I think it’s very important to only introduce technical terminology when everyday language is insufficient, and to use technical terminology consistently.

Your cue/affordance example is very good, for one thing it made the sentence much easier to understand.