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Design Thinking is predominantly visual: a variety of visualisations – from sketches to analytic diagrams – can support designers' work. Each visual format has affordances that constrain and enable specific cognitive and collaborative actions: how can we describe, select and design visualisations for supporting specific phases of the design process? By integrating literature from related domains we developed a "Collaborative Dimensions of Visualisations framework", which allows to distinguish seven traits of visualisations: Structural Restrictiveness, Content Modifiability, Directed Focus, Perceived Finishedness, Outcome Clarity, Visual Appeal and Collaboration Support. Each dimension is described and an illustrative example is provided. The framework is a pragmatic and theoretically grounded discussion tool aimed at helping designers make more informed decisions regarding the visualisations they work with. • Design Thinking is heavily based on visual practices. • Visualisations utilised for Design Thinking have different affordances. • A Collaborative Dimensions of Visualisation framework is advanced. • The dimensions provide a vocabulary to discuss visualisations' characteristics. • The framework is a theoretically grounded evaluation technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As design of interactive products started to address the whole user experience, User Experience (UX) became an established field of research. Nevertheless UX design presents some risks, such as providing users with experiences that they do not wish. Furthermore, UX methodologies lack prescriptive tools for guiding designers. This paper establishes a link between UX research and Affordance theory and postulates the concept of Experience Affordances. Affordances represent a first step toward the development of prescriptive methods and help preventing designer from imposing experiences to users. Thus, a framework for describing product experience in terms of affordances is exposed and discussed by analysing exemplary products. In concluding the paper, the implications of the framework are presented. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The term affordance carries different meanings within design communities. Traditionally, affordances were discussed within a Gibsonian framework in which affordances arise from direct perception. Some authors now describe affordances as being mostly perceptual while others describe them as being culturally bound. We suggest that both of these descriptions are correct and that they can be explained from a cognitive conceptualization of perceived affordances. We suggest that perceived affordances are supported by automatic perceptual processes in the user developed over time through consistent interactions with the environment. Design consistency is critical for producing effortless usage, because interaction consistency facilitates the formation of long-term memory structures. We explore the underlying mechanisms that could explain how affordances arise and affect the cognitive system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Even though aesthetics and affordances are two important factors based on which designers provide effective ways of interaction through their artifacts, there is no study or theoretical model that relates these two aspects of design. We suggest a theoretical explanation that relates the underlying functionality of aesthetics, in particular, of interaction aesthetics and of affordances in the design process. Our claim is that interaction aesthetics are one among other factors that allow users to enhance the detection of action possibilities and consequently, the detection of affordances. Our aim is first to discuss the role of interaction aesthetics in the design process, and second to suggest an explanation for their role in the detection of affordances when users interact with artifacts. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Artefacts offer opportunities for action, ‘affordances’, that can be described on various levels, from manipulations (‘pushing a button’) to social activities (‘dialling a friend’). However, research in design into affordances has not investigated what an ‘action’ is, nor has it distinguished those levels. This paper addresses the question of which kinds of descriptions can be applied to affordances. Its main claim is that different descriptions can apply to a single affordance. On this claim a descriptions-of-affordances-model is built that shows how these levels are connected, and that specifies what knowledge the artefact user would need in order to perceive affordances under each kind of description. The paper also shows several ways in which the descriptions-of-affordances-model can contribute to affordance-based design. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper aims to establish an online affordance evaluation model for measuring affordance degree to evaluate the usability of a product. By using this model, designers could easily identify the appearance features of a product necessary to be revised and optimized. In addition, an online survey, which replaces the realized operational survey, is also recommended. This model includes three parts: first, identifying the affordance properties and its correlative weights by using multidimensional scaling, K-means clustering and the Analytic Hierarchy Process; second, analyzing the user’s tasks and functional components of the product; third, constructing an evaluation model which provides the affordance degree. Finally, a case study with the steam iron GC2510 is performed to verify the effect of this model. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper aims to clarify the concept and elucidate the role of affordances in the interaction design for physical products by making a parallel comparison to product semantics. This study argues that the core of affordance concept in design lies not in expressing the design intent, but constructing the actions required in the user–product interaction. A framework consisting of three design dimensions: affordance, perceptual information, and symbol, is suggested to deal with different aspects in physical interaction design, in particular, the motor, perceptual, and cognitive factors with an illustrative example. In conclusion, implications for interaction design and future research are suggested. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Sticky notes abound as a material in design practice, yet their use is under-explored empirically and theoretically. We address the research question: how do sticky notes support design cognition and collaboration when compared to other kinds of design materials? We compare four types of design materials (sketches, prototypes, cards, sticky notes) and the activities afforded by the properties of these materials. We find that the affordances of sticky notes make them well-suited to supporting cognitive processes associated with visualizing and understanding "part/whole" relationships in concept development. Furthermore, sticky notes facilitate design collaboration by enabling shared attention through material anchors and the modulation of turn-taking. We conclude by suggesting new directions for theorizing about sticky-note usage in design. • Sticky notes serve as a ubiquitous – yet under-explored – type of design material. • The properties of sticky notes give rise to affordances that support design activity. • Sticky-note affordances support visualization of part/whole relationships in design. • Sticky notes support design collaboration, enabling shared attention and turn-taking. • The versatility of sticky notes may explain their popularity in real-world design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the role of tactile co-design tools to enable interdisciplinary collaboration in complex healthcare settings. We present the Tactile Tools method and discuss our comparative case study of five healthcare settings then demonstrate how affordances of tactile co-design tools can support equality in decision-making, improve literacy within teams and challenge established power structures. We show how re-usability and the affordance of "sliding" help to manage complexity and circumnavigate traditional hierarchies. Design diagrams are investigated as a way to capture the exploration space and support better problem understanding in interdisciplinary teams. We argue that the Tactile Tools method enables participants to collaboratively explore complex interdisciplinary (healthcare) challenges and helps teams to empathize with the lived experience of health seekers. • Tactile co-design tools enable complex problem exploration. • Tactile co-design tools improve experience of interdisciplinary teams. • Tactile co-design tools support interdisciplinary collaboration. • Design traces including diagrams help capture interdisciplinary team dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary understandings of vulnerability highlight its critical, relational and enabling aspects. Through leveraging these understandings, this article contributes to conceptualizing the notion of everyday design by interweaving it with that of vulnerability. A case study brings vulnerability into view by zooming out from and in on everyday practices around an aquarium in a paediatric oncology ward. Subsequently, we unravel the notion of vulnerability as used in design research and in anthropology and philosophy: while vulnerability grounds everyday design philosophically and ethically as a form of care, everyday design challenges the tendency to situate vulnerability in (relations between) human beings. Our article thus exemplifies design anthropology understood as bringing in dialogue theory and methods from both anthropology and design. • We leverage understandings of vulnerability from anthropology and philosophy. • We show how these align with research about the indeterminacy of design. • We propose to ground everyday design philosophically and ethically as a form of care. • We show how design research challenges tendencies to situate vulnerability in humans. • We exemplify design anthropology as bringing anthropology and design into dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shape grammars are a framework to view design as non-deterministic, creative, visual computation, and making as the deterministic execution of a design in the material world. Making grammars conceive of making as creative, multi-sensory, material computation. However, examples in the literature on making grammar are insufficiently complex to demonstrate the creativity of non-visual senses in making. This paper develops a making grammar for thin-tile vault construction as a sensory ethnography to 'show making' to designers as being a creative practice involving visual and non-visual senses. To do so, the role of drawing in shape grammar and making grammar is differentiated, and environmental psychology is used to develop a framework for the use of drawing to depict multi-sensory processes in making grammar. • Gibson's theory of depiction is applied to making grammars. • A making grammar is developed for a multi-tool & multi-material construction. • The generative role of environmental factors in making is demonstrated. • Making is shown to be a creative act independent of designing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]