The DOI matches its Crossref record; 6 of the 6 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Affordance, conventions, and design
Abstract
I was quietly lurking in the background of a CHI-Web discussion, when I lost all reason: I just couldn’t take it anymore. “I put an affordance there, ” a participant would say, “I wonder if the object affords clicking … “ Affordances this, affordances that. And no data, just opinion. Yikes! What had I unleashed upon the world? “No! ” I screamed, and out came this article. I don’t know if it changed anyone’s minds, but it brought the CHI-Web discussion to a halt (not what good list managers want to happen). But then, Steven Pemberton asked me to submit it here. Hope it doesn’t stop the discussion again. Mind you, this is not the exact piece I dashed off to CHI-Web: it has been polished and refined: the requirements of print are more demanding than those of e-mail discussions.
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“Media affordance theory suggests that technologies offer specific capabilities that influence their use (Gibson, 1986; Norman, 1999).”
From Motivations and Affordances of ChatGPT Usage for College Students’ Learning (2025) · cites this paper as Norman, 1999
In the citing paper
“This is not to suggest that technologies are value neutral, but that the affordances that they possess [59,100] can play out differently in different environments.”
From From computer ethics and the ethics of AI towards an ethics of digital ecosystems (2022) · cites this paper as [100]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Norman, D. A.
- Affiliations
- Nielsen Norman Group
- Corresponding author
- Norman, Donald A.
- ORCID
- Norman, Donald A.
- Venue
- Interactions
- Published
- 1999-05
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 38-43
- ISSN
- 1072-5520 (ISSN-L)
- 1558-3449
- OpenAlex
- W2091909921
- Cited by
- 2,040
- References
- 6
- Citations by year
- 2026: 122 · 2025: 137 · 2024: 116 · 2023: 88 · 2022: 182 · 2021: 130 · 2020: 101 · 2019: 101 · 2018: 122 · 2017: 110 · 2016: 104 · 2015: 98 · 2014: 83 · 2013: 84 · 2012: 63
- FWCI
- 20.44
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- interactions (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Innovative Human-Technology Interaction
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Usability and User Interface Design
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Interactive and Immersive Displays
- Keywords
- affordances, design conventions, user interface design, usability, human-computer interaction
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