How To Innovate Your Designs Using Affordance

Have you ever walked up to a door and instead of a door handle, you were presented with a flat panel area where the door handle would normally be? What do you do? You push and the door opens.

This signal of the properties of the door, in this case, to push, is called affordance.

For companies, paying attention to affordance can create highly differentiated customer experiences that create brand loyalty.

Ignoring affordance can lead to customer confusion and frustration which will open the doors to others to your market.

Ask yourself — what affordance signals are you sending to your customers? Maybe it is the front door? Or a user interface in your mobile app or website? Or maybe a feature available or unavailable with your product?

You can find the show notes at philmckinney.com/affordance/