Total Product Affordance Management During Improvement Projects

Abstract

The concept of affordance is linked to external and internal subsystem design aspects. The external subsystem design aspect focuses on product utility and product-user interaction at the interface with a product's external form. The internal subsystem design aspects focuses on the configuration of component or artefact parts to embody planned utility functions. During development, the external product-user interface communicates an offering of utility which must be consistent with the actual utility functions internally embodied in the product and vice versa. For Maier and Fadel (2009) such external artefact-to-user affordance emerges as a result of the internal artefact-to-artefact affordance of component parts. Norman (2013) identified incremental improvement of a standard design as the most successful way of realising useful product affordance designs. Yet, how the development of a relational complementarity between the affordance subsystems (internal and external) and product use scenarios is managed remains an unexplored phenomenon. This research inquired into the management of incremental improvements to the standard design of two established products. A contribution to theory emerges as a deeper understanding of the process by which relational complementarity with a product's use environment is enabled through design. The emergent affordance design management process comprises start points and iterations of the coordinated sequences of actions. They indicate how interactive design dialogue and decision making on internal and external subsystem affordance design considerations are harmonised relative to product use scenarios.