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How Artifacts Afford

The Power and Politics of Everyday Things

Part of Design Thinking, Design Theory

Author Jenny L. Davis
Paperback
$25.00 US
| $34.00 CAN
The MIT Press
On sale Mar 04, 2025 | 208 Pages | 9780262554107
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A conceptual update of affordance theory that introduces the mechanisms and conditions framework, providing a vocabulary and critical perspective.

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, The Design of Everyday Things, offers a useful analytical tool in technology studies—but, Jenny Davis argues in How Artifacts Afford, it is in need of a conceptual update. Davis provides just such an update, introducing the mechanisms and conditions framework, which offers both a vocabulary and necessary critical perspective for affordance analyses.

The mechanisms and conditions framework shifts the question from what objects afford to how objects afford, for whom, and under what circumstances. 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 request, demand, encourage, discourage, refuse, and allow are mechanisms of affordance, and shows how these mechanisms take shape through variable conditions—perception, dexterity, and cultural and institutional legitimacy.

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.
Jenny L. Davis is a sociologist at the Australian National University.
Jenny L. Davis View titles by Jenny L. Davis
Table of Contents
Series Foreword ix
Acknowledgments xvii
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
A Trolley Problem of a Particular Sort 1
Affordances 6
Operationalizing Affordances: The Mechanisms and Conditions Framework 11
How Afforances Matter 14
Situating the Text 15
Outline of the Book 21
Chapter 2: A Brief History of Affordances 25
Origins in Ecological Psychology 27
Afforances Spread 29
Objects, Subjects, and Contexts 34
Sustained Critiques 39
Pathways Forward 41
Chapter 3: Politics and Power 45
The Medium Is the Message: McLuhan on Technologies as Objects of Study 47
Actor-Network Theory: Overcoming Technological Determinism 50
The Politics of Artifacts 53
Technology as Materialized Action: Technological Efficacy and Human Agency 56
Chapter Summary 60
Chapter 4: Mechanisms of Affordance 63
Requests and Demands 66
Encourage, Discourage, and Refuse 71
Allow 80
Chapter Summary 83
Chapter 5: Conditions of Affordance 87
Perception 91
Dexterity 94
Cultural and Institutional Legitimacy 96
Chapter Summary 100
Chapter 6: Affordances in Practice 105
Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis 108
The Walkthrough Method and App Feature Analysis 110
Values Reflection 116
Adversarial Design 118
Chapter Summary 121
Chapter 7: Conclusion 123
Big Question 1: How Do We Identify and Equalize Digital Inequalities? 128
Big Question 2: How Do Social Media Affect Sociality and Psychological Well-being? 129
Big Question 3: How Do Information Economies Affect Political Life? 130
Big Question 4: How Will Driverless Cars Affect Urban Infrastructures? 130
Big Question 5: How Do Medical Technologies Afford Embodied Relations to Health? 131
Moving Forward 132
Notes 135
Bibliography 161
Index 181

About

A conceptual update of affordance theory that introduces the mechanisms and conditions framework, providing a vocabulary and critical perspective.

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, The Design of Everyday Things, offers a useful analytical tool in technology studies—but, Jenny Davis argues in How Artifacts Afford, it is in need of a conceptual update. Davis provides just such an update, introducing the mechanisms and conditions framework, which offers both a vocabulary and necessary critical perspective for affordance analyses.

The mechanisms and conditions framework shifts the question from what objects afford to how objects afford, for whom, and under what circumstances. 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 request, demand, encourage, discourage, refuse, and allow are mechanisms of affordance, and shows how these mechanisms take shape through variable conditions—perception, dexterity, and cultural and institutional legitimacy.

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.

Author

Jenny L. Davis is a sociologist at the Australian National University.
Jenny L. Davis View titles by Jenny L. Davis

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
Series Foreword ix
Acknowledgments xvii
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
A Trolley Problem of a Particular Sort 1
Affordances 6
Operationalizing Affordances: The Mechanisms and Conditions Framework 11
How Afforances Matter 14
Situating the Text 15
Outline of the Book 21
Chapter 2: A Brief History of Affordances 25
Origins in Ecological Psychology 27
Afforances Spread 29
Objects, Subjects, and Contexts 34
Sustained Critiques 39
Pathways Forward 41
Chapter 3: Politics and Power 45
The Medium Is the Message: McLuhan on Technologies as Objects of Study 47
Actor-Network Theory: Overcoming Technological Determinism 50
The Politics of Artifacts 53
Technology as Materialized Action: Technological Efficacy and Human Agency 56
Chapter Summary 60
Chapter 4: Mechanisms of Affordance 63
Requests and Demands 66
Encourage, Discourage, and Refuse 71
Allow 80
Chapter Summary 83
Chapter 5: Conditions of Affordance 87
Perception 91
Dexterity 94
Cultural and Institutional Legitimacy 96
Chapter Summary 100
Chapter 6: Affordances in Practice 105
Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis 108
The Walkthrough Method and App Feature Analysis 110
Values Reflection 116
Adversarial Design 118
Chapter Summary 121
Chapter 7: Conclusion 123
Big Question 1: How Do We Identify and Equalize Digital Inequalities? 128
Big Question 2: How Do Social Media Affect Sociality and Psychological Well-being? 129
Big Question 3: How Do Information Economies Affect Political Life? 130
Big Question 4: How Will Driverless Cars Affect Urban Infrastructures? 130
Big Question 5: How Do Medical Technologies Afford Embodied Relations to Health? 131
Moving Forward 132
Notes 135
Bibliography 161
Index 181

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