Perceived Affordance, today’s interaction design word of the day, as defined by Donald Norman. and summarized by yours truly:
A user’s perception of relationships between herself and an object. Norman says, “What the designer cares about is whether the user perceives that some action is possible (or in the case of perceived non-affordances, not possible).”
Norman states four principles for screen interfaces that help new users understand what to do: conventional usage, labels that describe actions, metaphors, and a coherent conceptual model.
There’s a subtle difference between perceived affordance and feedback:
All screens
afford touching: only some detect the touch and are capable of responding.
But the affordance of touchability is the same in all cases. Touch sensitive
screens often make their affordance visibly perceivable by displaying a
cursor under the pointing spot. The cursor is not an affordance; it is
visual feedback.