A Case Study of Affordance and Affordance Feature Identification through User Observation

This paper investigates the relationships between affordances and affordance features, which are very critical to conveniently allow human activities or behaviors under given tasks. Affordance features are structural elements of the environment where the tasks are conducted that are closely related to affordances. We conducted a case study in a public space - a building lobby - used by many general people. User activities and behaviors were analyzed in several specific tasks given to twenty participants in the lobby of a building they have never visited before. Then we identified affordances and building structure elements, called affordance features, critically related to those affordances. The affordance features have hierarchical nature, ranging from areas to detailed attributes. Affordance-feature map obtained from user activity studies could be used in developing a repository for affordance based design so that specific affordance features could be retrieved in support of certain affordances.