Affordance, conventions, and design

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.