Human Affordance and Ideation

We have come, again, to the need to decide the extend by which our taxonomy will include human affordances or be limited to the affordances of objects and tools.

Our outlined a flow chart “Hand>Tool>Content>Format” as a process to generate meaning raises a question: Are we assuming the human element in creating this meaning or are we overlooking it? The answer to this question leads to another important decision, that is to what extent to we immerse ourselves in the psychology of the human affordance and the complications associated with it.

Determining our interest in human affordance is particularly important as we explore the making of ideas. Mainly because there is so much variability in the act of making ideas. For example, there is at least two types of idea making: Ideas which lead to concept and ideas which assist in production. These two actions alone beg for two separate research agendas. Additionally, there are affordances that have a great impact on ideation and must be considered when developing tools and spaces for idea making. For example, I believe the affordance of time has the greatest influence on the resulting idea.

I have included a simple diagram depicting some of these thoughts: