How Artifacts Afford - (Design Thinking, Design Theory) by Jenny L Davis (Hardcover)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>"The term "affordances," at least in the design literature, was popularized in Don Norman's The Design of Everyday Things. He brought affordances to design studies to address human-machine interactions. In recent years, the concept has picked up considerable steam as the study of computer mediated communication (CMC) and information communication technologies (ICTs) have become firmly entrenched in the academic canon. How ArtIfacts Afford is about the social dynamics of technology. It is about the ways that ethics, values, and interests are built into technological objects and how these objects take shape through interaction with human subjects. More specifically, this book is about technological affordances. Formally, affordances are defined as "the 'multifaceted relational structure' between an object/technology and the use that enables or constrains potential behavioral outcomes in a particular context". That is, affordances mediate between the features of a technology and the outcomes of engagement with that technology. Technologies don't make people do things, but instead, push, pull, enable, and constrain. Affordances are how objects shape behavior for socially situated subjects"--<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><b>A conceptual update of affordance theory that introduces the mechanisms and conditions framework, providing a vocabulary and critical perspective.</b><p>Technological affordances mediate between the features of a technology and the outcomes of engagement with that technology. The concept of affordances, which migrated from psychology to design with Donald Norman's influential 1988 book, <i>The Design of Everyday Things</i>, offers a useful analytical tool in technology studies--but, Jenny Davis argues in <i>How Artifacts Afford</i>, it is in need of a conceptual update. Davis provides just such an update, introducing the <i>mechanisms and conditions framework</i>, which offers both a vocabulary and necessary critical perspective for affordance analyses.</p><p>The mechanisms and conditions framework shifts the question from <i>what</i> objects afford to <i>how</i> objects afford, <i>for whom</i>, and <i>under what circumstances</i>. Davis shows that through this framework, analyses can account for the power and politics of technological artifacts. She situates the framework within a critical approach that views technology as materialized action. She explains how <i>request</i>, <i>demand</i>, <i>encourage</i>, <i>discourage</i>, <i>refuse</i>, and <i>allow</i> are mechanisms of affordance, and shows how these mechanisms take shape through variable conditions--<i>perception</i>, <i>dexterity</i>, and <i>cultural and institutional legitimacy</i>.</p><p>Putting the framework into action, Davis identifies existing methodological approaches that complement it, including critical technocultural discourse analysis (CTDA), app feature analysis, and adversarial design. In today's rapidly changing sociotechnical landscape, the stakes of affordance analyses are high. Davis's mechanisms and conditions framework offers a timely theoretical reboot, providing tools for the crucial tasks of both analysis and design.</p><p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>"<i>How Artifacts Afford</i> is nothing short of magical! Jenny Davis describes what technologies can do in social life. The writing is crisp and clear and the work is groundbreaking. This book will teach--both scholars and students alike--a socially informed framework for thinking about how technologies shape our world, and I predict it will have a field-defining impact."<br><b>--Gina Neff, Senior Research Fellow and Associate Professor, University of Oxford</b> <p/>"<i>How Artifacts Afford </i>offers a clarifying survey of the relationship between humans and technologies via the filter of affordance theory. Attentive to detail and always aware of the importance of the mundane, Jenny Davis provides a schematic for understanding how people make, and are made by, objects."<br><b>--Nathan Jurgenson, author of <i>The Social Photo;</i> Cofounder and Cochair of the Theorizing the Web Conference; Founder and Editor-in-Chief of <i>Real Life magazine</i>; and Sociologist at Snap Inc.</b><br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br>Jenny L. Davis is a sociologist at the Australian National University.
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