Interacting with Computers 17 (2005) 787800

www.elsevier.com/locate/intcom

Affordance as context
Phil Turner*
HCI Research Group, School of Computing, Napier University, 10 Colinton Road, Edinburgh EH14 1DJ, UK
Received 11 March 2004; revised 1 April 2005; accepted 23 April 2005
Available online 12 July 2005

Abstract
The concept of affordance is relatively easy to define, but has proved to be remarkably difficult to
engineer. This paradox has sparked numerous debates as to its true nature. The discussion presented
here begins with a review of the use of the term from which emerges evidence for a two-fold
classificationsimple affordance and complex affordance. Simple affordance corresponds to
Gibsons original formulation, while complex affordances embody such things as history and
practice. In trying to account for complex affordance, two contrasting, but complementary
philosophical treatments are considered. The first of these is Ilyenkovs account of significances
which he claims are ideal phenomena. Ideal phenomena occupy are objective characteristics of
things and are the product of human purposive activity. This makes them objective, but not
independent (of any particular mind or perception) hence their similarity to affordances.
The second perspective is Heideggers phenomenological treatment of familiarity and
equipment. As will be seen, Heidegger has argued that familiarity underpins our ability to cope
in the world. A world, in turn, which itself comprises the totality of equipment. We cope by making
use of equipment. Despite the different philosophical traditions both Ilyenkov and Heidegger have
independently concluded that a thing is identified by its use and that use, in turn, is revealed by way
of its affordances/significances. Finally, both authorsHeidegger directly and Ilyenkov indirectly
equate context and use, leading to the conclusion that affordance and context are one and the same.
q 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Affordance; Familiarity; Phenomenology; Context

* Address: School of Computing, Napier University, 10 Colinton Rooad, EH9 5DT Edinburgh, UK. Tel.: C44
131 4552721; fax: C44 131 4552727.
E-mail address: p.turner@napier.ac.uk

0953-5438/$ - see front matter q 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.intcom.2005.04.003

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1. Introduction
This is a concept paper rather than a report of a case study or the presentation of a new
methodology. The concept in question is affordance which is one of the most ubiquitous in
human computer interaction (HCI).
This paper seeks (a) to review the use of the term affordance and (b) to consider two
contrasting philosophical accounts of how affordance operates. The review concludes that
there is a case for a binary classification of affordance into simple and complex.
Moving beyond Gibsons psychological account of affordance, two different
philosophical accounts of affordance are considered. The first of these is Ilyenkovs
treatment of significances which may be thought of as Soviet affordances. Significances
are described as real and objective, but dependent on us as they are a product of our
purposive, sensuous work. For some, Ilyenkovs writings offer a philosophical
underpinning to Activity Theory. Turning from Soviet thought, Heideggers phenomenology is then considered. In the past, selected aspects of his work have already been used
in the related fields of HCI1 and cognitive science to elucidate a number of the central
problems of these disciplines (e.g. Winograd and Flores, 1986; Dreyfus, 2001; Coyne,
1997, 1999; Dourish, 2001). For the present discussion Dreyfus observation (Dreyfus,
2001; p. 3) that at the foundation of Heideggers new approach is a phenomenology of
mindless everyday coping skills as the basis of all intelligibility is particularly relevant.
This everyday coping with technology must be one of the key interests of HCI.
There was an anecdote published in the magazine interactions some years ago which
centred on a claw-hammer inadvertently being left behind in an orang-utans enclosure.
The orang-utan picked it up, sniffed it, moved it about in its hands and then proceeded to
use the claw of the hammer to scratch the walls of the enclosure; a few minutes later the
animal used the head of the hammer to strike any and all available surfaces. In short, the
orang-utan had seen directly how to use the hammer (Brock, 1996). This anecdote may be
regarded as an example of simple affordance. That is, affordance operating in a classic
Gibsonian perceptionaction loop. Affordance, however, is not limited to mediating such
relatively simple behaviours: a second, brief anecdote illustrates this. Last year I witnessed
a young American (judging from her accent) failing to open the train door when we arrived
at her station. Opening, closing, pushing and pulling doors are frequently used to illustrate
examples of good and bad affordance, but in this case another factor operated, namely
familiarity. The American tourist was unfamiliar with the design of (old) British slamdoor trains which require a passenger to open a window, reach outside and use the
exterior handle to open the door. Thus the interior side of the door does not offer the simple
affordance of depressing a handle and pushing open, while the exterior of the door
offers the complex affordance of knowing to lean outside, depress the handle and
push. Figs. 1 and 2 illustrate this.
This paper will begin by developing this case for a two-fold classification of affordance.
The familiar territory of simple affordance is considered first.

An interesting review of phenomenology is offered by McCarthy and Wright (2004).

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Fig. 1. The interior view of a slam-door. Where the handle might reasonably be expected only a steel plate can
be seen.

2. Simple affordance
Gibson introduced the term affordance to denote the relation between the organism
and its environment. The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal,

Fig. 2. The exterior view of a slam-door.

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what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill. (Gibson, 1986, 127). Specifically on
tool use, Gibson wrote, An elongated object, especially, if weighted at one end and
graspable at the other, affords hitting or hammering (a club). A graspable object with a
rigid sharp edge affords cutting and scraping (a knife). Further examples of affordances
include surfaces that provide support, objects that can be manipulated, substances that can
be eaten and other animals that afford interactions of all kinds. The properties of these
affordances for animals are specified in stimulus information. Even if an animal possesses
the appropriate attributes and senses, it may need to learn to detect this information. An
affordance, once detected, is meaningful and has value for the animal. It is nevertheless
objective, inasmuch as it refers to the physical properties of the animals ecological niche
and the constraints of the animals body. An affordance thus exists, whether it is perceived
or used or not, furthermore it may be detected and used without explicit awareness of
doing so. This description was revised in 1986 when Gibson wrote, An affordance cuts
across the dichotomy of subjectiveobjective and helps us to understand its inadequacy. It
is equally a fact of the environment and a fact of behaviour. It is both physical and
psychical, yet neither. An affordance points both ways, to the environment and to the
observer (Gibson, 1986, 129). Thus affordances hover uncomfortably in a dualistic
netherland between the world and the observer. Yet this was not how they were originally
conceived. The concept of affordance has its origins with the Gestalt School of
psychology. The Gestaltists working in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s argued that we
perceive the function of a thing as quickly as its colour or shape. Gibson quotes Koffka,
who publishing in 1935, makes the following point, Each thing says what it is.a fruit
says eat me, water says drink me, Gibson (1986, 138). Koffka used the term demand
characteristic to describe these (directly perceived) properties of objects, while Lewin,
again quoted by Gibson, preferred the term Aufforderung-scharakter (invitation
character). These properties were seen as being phenomenal in nature and not the
physical properties of objectsthat is, we see directly what these objects are for and how
to use themno one taught us to drink water.
2.1. Beyond the very simple
Fruit and water are a long way from the challenge of designing interactive media, but
plentiful examples of simple affordance can be found in Ergonomics. For example, the
work of Murrell in the 1950s included the design of physical knobs and dials for which
up meant more and down meant less, equally, rotating a knob clockwise afforded
increasing the volume or the amount, likewise an anticlockwise direction signified a
lessening or reduction (Murrell, 1965). These simple affordance which inform such design
principles remain essential to the creation of tangible, ubiquitous and pervasive devices
such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and such things as MP3 players.
This simple account of affordance has, of course, been significantly extended and
complex affordance is reviewed in Section 3. However, Hartson (2003) has also recently
proposed a four-fold division of (simple) affordance for the purposes of designing for
interaction. These four categories are (a) cognitive affordance; (b) physical affordance; (c)
sensory affordance and finally, (d) functional affordance. This four-fold classification
maps onto corresponding functions: for example, physical affordance is synonymous with

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utility, while sensory affordances include such things as noticeability, colour, contrast and
so forth.
2.2. Breakdown analysis
Rather than the Ergonomic approach of matching the machine to the man, an alternate
approach to designing for affordance has been adopted by De Souza and her colleagues
who among have modelled the breakdowns in the communication between the user
interface and the user (de Souza 1993; de Souza et al., 1999, 2000; Prates et al., 2000a,b).
Their analysis uses tagswhich represent an utterance that expresses a users reaction to
what happens during interaction such as Where is?, What now? and Where am I. This
use of tags parallels the taxonomy of potential breakdowns in using a tool as presented by
Dreyfus. It will be recalled that Heidegger famously classified tools as being either readyto-hand or present-at-hand (the former implying transparent, un-thought use, the latter
suggesting some measure of uninvolved reflection). Hubert Dreyfus, an important
commentator on Heidegger has extended this treatment to deal with the range of
breakdowns in our day-to-day use of tools. Table 1, which has been adapted from Dreyfus
(2001) holds a description of these breakdowns and their consequences. As with most
philosophers, the hammer is the artefact of choice.
While this is an interesting treatment of Daseins relationship with hammers it does
leave a number of questions open with respect to our use of more complex and, perhaps,
socially constructed tools such as those outlined early in this essay.

3. Complex affordance
Norman (1988) sought to adapt the original, direct unlearned formulation of affordance
with one which is at one remove, namely perceived affordance. He suggested that an
individual could be said to perceive the intended behaviour of, say, interface widgets such
as the sliders and buttons. The intended and perceived behaviours of such widgets are, of
course, very simple, including sliding, pressing and rotating leaving him to conclude that
real affordances are not nearly as important as perceived affordances; it is perceived
affordances that tell the user what actions can be performed on an object and, to some
extent, how to do them (Norman, 1988). Though like Gibson he subsequently modified
his position on perceived affordances to observe that they are often more about
conventions than about reality (Norman, 1999, 124) citing scrollbars as examples of such
a convention. While he has remained resolute that perceived affordances are not real
affordances this discussion opened the door to the wide spread adoption of the term.
Indeed the literature is replete with examples the extended the use of the concept (e.g.
Gaver, 1991, 1992; Robertson, 1991; Hudson and Smith, 1997; Norman, 1999; St Amant,
1999; Silveira et al., 2001; among numerous others). Typical of these, Robertson (1997)
has reported on an ethnographically-informed study of a distributed design team. One of
the themes she considered were the affordances a technical system must have to support
remote cooperation. From the perspective of embodied action she considered the aspects
of a system which should or must be present to afford communication. She identified

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Table 1
Modes of being of entities other than Dasein (after Dreyfus, 2001, 1245)
What happens

Daseins stance

What is encountered

Available-ness

Equipment functioning
smoothly

Transparent coping.
Absorbed in practical
activity

Transparent functioning,
readiness-to-hand

Un-available-ness

Equipment problem
1. Malfunction (conspicuous: hammer too
heavy)

2. Get going again

(picking up another
hammer)

Temporary breakdown
(obstinate: head comes
off hammer)
Permanent breakdown
(obstructive: unable to
find hammer)

Practical deliberation.
Eliminating the disturbance
Helpless standing
before, but still concerned

Occurrent-ness

Everyday practical
activity stops

Pure Occurrent-ness

Rest. getting finished

Detached standing
before, theoretical
reflection. Skilled scientific activity. Observation and
experimentation
Pure contemplation. Just
looking at something
(curiosity)

3. Context-dependent
aspects or characteristics
of objects (hammer
as too heavy)
The inter-connectedness
of equipment. The
towards-whichsb
The worldly character of
the workshop, including
the for-the-sake-ofwhichs
Just occurrent and no
more. Isolable, determinate properties. The
universe as a law-governed set of elements

Bare facts, sense data

a
Heideggers use of language is notoriously challenging, for example, Heidegger uses the term Dasein which
means there is to indicate a human being. It is the convention to use the term un-translated. To add such
difficulties, commentators have offered a range of different translations of key terms. Dreyfus is no exception. In
the following table readiness-to-hand (Zuhandenheit) is translated by Dreyfus as availableness and present-athand (Vorhandenheit) as occurrentness.
b
Heidegger also uses the expressions towards-which to mean something like a goal, and for-the-sake-of-which
to indicate purpose.

a number of generic, embodied actions and their relevant affordances: for example,
pointing at something, emitting signs and monitoring of signs, moving in and out of shared
space. An example of one of these affordances is highlighting some aspect of an object.
Robertson quotes Goodwin (1994) in defining highlighting as those methods used to
divide a domain of scrutiny into figure and ground, so that events relevant to the activity of
the moment stand out. Highlighting embodies not only ones perception, but serves to
direct the attention of others.
A second example of the extended use of the term affordance can be seen in a study
reported by Silveira et al. (2001) entitled, Augmenting the Affordance of Online Help. There
are two things to note from this title alone: firstly, that a high level online interactive system
like the help system might have affordances; and secondly, that affordances can be subject to
augmentation, indeed this augmentation is managed by a process of semiotic engineering.
A further example is an extension of the concept of affordance to partition the
evaluation of a collaborative virtual environmentCVE (Turner and Turner, 2002).

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793

In their study they create an explicit three layer model of affordance: basic level
equating with simple usability/ergonomics, a middle layer matching user tasks (and/
or) embodiment and finally, a top level corresponding to the purpose of the activity
for which cultural affordance are appropriate. This extended use of the concept of
affordance reaches a fuller flowering in the discipline of computer supported
cooperate work (CSCW), where the social organisation of work is often spoken of in
terms of affordance. Indeed, the use of the term affordance in anthropology is not
unusual (e.g. Cole, 1996; Wenger, 1998; Holland et al., 2001). Cole (1996), for
example, identifies a range of affordance offered by a variety of mediating artefacts
including the life stories of recovering alcoholics in AA meeting (affording
rehabilitation), patients charts in a hospital setting (affording access to a patients
medical history), poker chips (affording gambling) and sexy clothing (affording
gender stereotyping). Cole notes that mediating artefacts embody their own
developmental histories which is a reflection of their use. That is, these artefacts
have been manufactured or produced and continue to be used as part of, and in
relation to, intentional human actions. Holland and her colleagues add to this with a
discussion of how the men of the Naudada (native to Nepal) use of the pronoun ta
(you) to address their wives. This pronoun is the least respectful of all forms of
address and is usually reserved for children, dogs and other inferiors. As Holland
notes, .pronouns, through their collective use in common practice, have come to
embody for, and so impose on, people [.] in Naudada a conception of the tasks to
which they are put, and a conception of the person(s) who will use them and be the
object(s) of them (Holland, 2001; p. 62). Thus the use of the least respectful form of
the pronoun places women as inferior to men, that is, their use affords the
maintenance of social structure in their society. In a closely related vein, researchers
in the field of CSCW have noted that artefacts mediating cooperation are frequently
socially constructed and their affordances can be seen to differ from one workplace to
another. These so-called boundary objects (Star, 1989) are resources or artefacts
which support the work of separate communities such as different departments within
an organisation or even between very different communities of practice. To be useful
by these different communities they must be sufficiently flexible to be used in
different ways, by different people for different purpose in a range of contexts. The
term boundary object is, of course, primarily descriptive rather than a design
imperative as they are seen to develop or evolve within and between communities
by embodying custom and practice. There are numerous examples of boundary
objects, descriptions of which are frequently couched in terms of affordance. For
example Berg et al. (1997) have described the shared use of patient records by a
range of clinicians and nurses and again more recently Reddy et al. (2001), while
Bdker and Christiansen (1997) describe the use of scenarios as boundary objects
between users and designers. Of further interest is Sellen and Harpers (2002)
extended study of the affordances of paper. Their analysis of the affordances of paper
include: reading, being easy to navigate through a [paper] document; being able to
read more than one document at once; writing notes upon/annotating; ease of filing;
portability; joint viewing and so forth. Examples of complex affordance are clearly
very diversethe challenge now is to account for them.

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4. A very soviet view of affordance

Evald Ilyenkov was a Soviet philosopher who is often portrayed as one of the key
thinkers behind Activity Theory. Among his many contributions, Ilyenkov sought to
provide a materialist account of non-material phenomena, significances being one such
non-material phenomenon. Significances, as will be seen, have remarkable similarities to
affordances. Ilyenkov2 begins his argument by identifying two classes of nonmaterial
phenomena namely:
1. mental phenomena such as thoughts, beliefs and feelings and
2. phenomena that are neither material nor mentalmeaning and values, such as
goodness.
This second class he calls ideal [idealnoe]. Ilyenkov then goes on to contrast two
opposing accounts of these ideal phenomena. An objectivist account might argue that such
ideal phenomena are external to us and constrain our actions, e.g. many religions present
these phenomena as god-given. In contrast, subjectivists would argue that these
phenomena are the product of our human nature and as such are merely projections having
no existence independent of us. Rejecting both of these accounts Ilyenkov proposed a
classic dialectic position arguing that a thing can be objective without being independent
of us. Through human activity we idealise our world (i.e. endow it with meaning) and in so
doing we also endow it with properties that come to exist completely independently of us.
As Ilyenkov puts it:
Ideality is a characteristic of things, but not as they are defined by nature, but by
labour, the transforming, form-creating activity of social beings, their aim-mediated,
sensuously objective activity. The ideal form is the form of a thing created by social
human labour. Or conversely, it is the form of labour realized [osushchestvlennyi] in
the substance of nature, embodied in it, alienated in it and realized
[realizovannyi] in it, and thereby confronting its very creator as the form of a
thing or as a relation between things, which are placed in this relation (which they
otherwise would not have entered) by human beings, by their labour.
Ilyenkov, 1979: 157
Ideal properties such as significances are thus real, objective but not independent of us
as they are products of meaning-endowing in human activity. This clearly echoes many of
the insights from anthropology and CSCW. However, the most problematic part of this
argument (excepting the obscurity of Ilyenkovs expression) is the issue of idealitys
complete independence from the individual mind. The key to understanding this is the
expression individual mind rather than mind per se. The ideal exists in the collective not
the individual minda concept reminiscent of distributed cognition (e.g. Hutchins, 1995).
Thus while social life is a product of the collective, it is experienced by individuals as a set
of given rules, practices, tools and artefacts. We, individually, grow up among pre-existing
2

The following description of Ilyenkovs work draws heavily on Bakhursts commentary (1991).

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Fig. 3. Making clogsor objectifying wood by way of human purposive activity.

and apparently objective phenomena. From this perspective human development can be
seen as the process of becoming enculturated into this objectified, historically developed
world. Ilyenkov offers a specific example of this: ancient mariners saw the stars as a preexisting navigational aid, while priests regarded them as pre-existing guides to future
events (astrology). These interpretations, that is, the need to find ones way at sea or the
need to predict future events, were subsequently attached to the stars as the result of their
incorporation into human activity.
Ilyenkov (1977) describes the creation of artefacts as a further illustration of how ideal
properties could be held to exist objectively in the world. He uses the example of a table. A
table is part of objective reality and yet can be distinguished from a block of wood because
it has been objectified by the human activity shaping it. This is how we distinguish wood
from tables; and wood from footwearsee Fig. 3.
Wood affords a variety of uses, for example, burning, throwing, shaping, trading and so
forth. Through purposive use objects acquire significance. Shaping a block of wood into a
pair of clogs, endows the wood/clogs with the significances of wearing, being purchased as a
souvenir or being thrown into machinery3. Ilyenkov notes that activity is the source of the
world we inhabit and the principal expression of how we inhabit it. This is more than saying
simply that objectification is the source of the ideal properties of this or that thingIlyenkov
was proposing that objectification is the source of human culture. So, for example, we nonarchaeologists are unable to distinguish between a shard of flint and an ancient stone tool
while a student of the discipline who has been successfully enculturated can. Ideality is like
a stamp or inscription on the substance of nature by social human activity:
3

ClogZsabot, throwing a sabot into machinery, sabotage.

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P. Turner / Interacting with Computers 17 (2005) 787800

it is the form of the functioning of a physical thing in the process of social human life
activity.[it is] human social culture embodied (objectified or reified) in matter, that
is, [a quality] of the historically formed modes of activity which confront individual
consciousness and will as a special non-natural [sverkhpriroda] objective reality, as
a special object, comparable with material reality, and situated in one and the same
space as it and hence often confused with it.
Ilyenkov 1979: 139140 cited by Bakhurst, 1991, 180
In other words, a significance makes a thing knowable. For Ilyenkov, nothing about the
physical nature of a thing in itself explains how it is possible that it can be knowable.
However, significance is not merely a synonym for affordance. In order to be knowable
some significance has to be attached to the thing through the process of the objects
incorporation into the sphere of human activity which is not necessarily true of an
affordanceparticularly simple affordances. The ideal properties of an artefact represent
to the individual a reification or embodiment of the practices of the human community that
has historically developed the thing. In other words, objects acquire this ideal content not
as the result of being accessed by an individual mind, but by the historically developing
activities of communities of practice.

5. Familiarity and equipment

Heideggers philosophy focuses on the nature of beinghuman being in particular
(who he describes as Daseina term we have already seen in Table 1). In doing so,
he distinguishes and distances himself from those who are concerned with
epistemology which he regarded as disinterested and theoretical knowledge. Dasein
is in-the-world, a world comprising everyday practices, equipment and common
skills shared by specific communities. Despite the richness and volume of Heideggers
work, it has not been widely quoted and applied, for example, Winograd and Flores
(1986) have (only) brought the concepts of readiness-to-hand, present-at-hand and
throwness to our attention. This is now extended to consider Heideggers treatment of
familiarity and equipment.
Commercial training courses often specify as a pre-requisite familiarity with Microsoft
Windowse; the safety briefing on a commercial jet often includes the warning that
passengers may not be familiar with this specific aircraft. Familiarity has a central role in
everyday life. More than 20 years ago Bewley et al. (1983), writing of the four design
goals which were adopted in the design of the legendary Xerox Stars user interface, noted
that the first of these was, There should be an explicit users model of the system, and it
should be familiar (drawing on objects and activities the user already works with) and
consistent. User model, familiarity and consistency. Similarly, Raskin (1994) discussing
the rise of intuitive user interfaces concluded that by intuitive we really meant familiar.
While familiarity is generally understood to refer to a knowledge of something, for
Heidegger, it primarily encompasses the ideas of involvement and understanding. Here
involvement may be taken as something approaching a synonym for being-in-the-world
while understanding should be interpreted as the tacit knowledge of our everyday

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activities. We daily demonstrate our familiarity by coping with situations, tools and
objects by our understanding of the referential whole. A world, according to Heidegger,
has three key characteristics:
1. A world comprises the totality of inter-related pieces of equipment. Each piece of
equipment being used for a specific taskhammers are for driving nails into wood (it is
not meaningful to consider a hammer without reference to other equipment, for
example, nails); a word processor is used to compose text.
2. The second component of a world is the set of purposes to which these tasks are
put. Of course, while we cannot meaningfully separate out purposes from tasks in
these (non-Cartesian) worlds we can recognise that the word processor is used to
write an academic paper for the purpose of publication and dissemination.
Similarly nails are driven into wood to provide illustrations for philosophical
discourse.
3. Finally, in performing these tasks we acquire or assume an identity (or identities)
as carpenters, academics and so forth. Thus by worlds we mean cultural worlds. In
using these concepts and viewpoints we are moving away from thinking in terms
of what are the nature of things (and ourselves) to how we manage and cope with
things.
My encounter with the room is not such that I first take in one thing after
another and put together a manifold of things in order then to see a room.
Rather, I primarily see a referential whole.from which the individual pieces of
furniture and what is in the room stand out. Such an environment of the nature
of a closed referential whole is at the same time distinguished by a specific
familiarity. The.referential whole is grounded precisely in familiarity, and this
familiarity implies the referential relations are well-known.
History of the Concept of Time (187)
This contradicts the view which assumes that we have to synthesize a manifold
of things, perspectives and sense data. Instead Heidegger argues that we simply
perceive the rooms Gestalt and in doing so we are able to deal with its contents
through our familiarity with other rooms. Familiarity is then a readiness to cope
with, say, chairs (e.g. by sitting on them) which has developed from our earliest days.
Heidegger describes this readiness as:
the background of.primary familiarity, which itself is not conscious or intended,
but is rather present in [an] unprominent way
History of the Concept of Time (189)
And in the Basic Problems of Phenomenology he calls it the sight of practical
circumspection [.], our practical everyday orientation (163). Assuming that we are
enculturated into the world of modern computing, when we enter our places of work
we see desks, chairs, computers, network points and so forth. We do not perceive a
jumble of surfaces, wires and inexplicable beige boxes (unless we have just been
burgled). We demonstrate our familiarity by coping with situations, tools and objects.

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6. Discussion
In reviewing the use of the concept of affordance it has been observed that researchers
have moved far beyond Gibsons original account. He saw affordance as a reciprocal
relationship between object and action and that this could be characterised as part of the
perceptionaction loop. This mechanism alone cannot account for the very wide range of
affordances which have been discussed.
Instead and in their own very different ways, both Ilyenkov and Heidegger have argued
that we understand the world in terms of use. Ilyenkov has also argued that we understand
our historically constructed world in terms of significances. These significances are ideal
that is, they are subjective and independent of an individual mind existing instead in the
collectiveaffordances/significances are the visible manifestations of our culture.
Heideggers perspective on equipment also forces us to conclude that an affordance
cannot exist in isolation. He has argued that we perceive/experience the world as an interconnected mesh of things which we can use. The totality of equipment means that each
tool occupies a specific position in the system of forces that makes up the world. The
totality of equipment is the world. Harman illustrates this point well in his discussion of a
bridge.
.in turn, the bridge as a whole is not a self-evident, atomic finality; rather, it
functions in numerous different equipmental ways, swept up into countless larger
systems. Usually, it enacts an official plan of efficiency, shaving ten minutes from
the drive around the bay. But in certain regions of the world, separating hostile
factions, it is monitored by snipers. The bridge can be the unforgettable site of a
fateful conversation (nostalgia-equipment), the location of a distant relatives
suicide (memorial-equipment), or perhaps it is simply stalked in a troubling
insomnia. It is an object of study for architectural critics or material for sabotage by
vandals. In the lives of seagulls and insects, it takes on different aspects.
Harman, 2002:23
This is not to suggest that things have different meanings in different contexts. For
Heidegger, equipment is context. So, it would appear that on affordance, Ilyenkov and
Heidegger, despite differences in language, are of one mind. A thing is identified by its
usethat is, we identify it through its affordances or significancesso as equipment is
context, affordance and context must be synonyms. Interestingly, Brezillon and Pomerol
(2001) also equate context with knowing how which Heidegger regards as the basis of
understandingto understand something is to know how to use it.
So, what does this mean for the design and evaluation of interactive systems, devices and
media? The difficulty of trying to apply this reasoning to everyday HCI engineering is that it
is necessarily holistic. Use, affordance and context are treated as a Gestalt by both Ilyenkov
and Heidegger and to date no one has managed to create holistic forms of design. The design
of interactive systems requires the designer not to be involved with use per se, but to be
engaged with design for use. Much the same is true for evaluation. This is the difference
between specifying the materials and dimensions of a hammer and the act of hammering.
In conclusion, from a holistic or phenomenological perspective, affordance, use and
context are one. From a design perspective affordance is not an intangible, elusive property

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799

of interactive systems, it might better be thought of as a boundary object between use and
design for use recalling Wengers (1998) remarks that all designed artefacts are
boundary objects both between and within the communities of practice of designers and
users.

Acknowledgements
Thanks to the anonymous reviewers of this paper for their constructive comments.

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