Affordances and Constrains
In this article Norman talks about several concepts: the conceptual model, real affordances, perceived affordances, constrains, and conventions. By giving example of screen-based products, he clearly tells the difference between real affordances and perceived affordances, that real affordances “reflect the posible relationships among actors and objects”, for instance computer system comes with the affordances of pointing, touching, typing, clicking, while perceived affordances provide clues for people of what to do with and how to use an object when first see it. Also with this screen-based example, he distinguishes conventions and perceived affordances. Thinking of this I find that it is really possible to confuse and mistake conventions as perceived affordances, and I still cannot clearly tell whether a function or factor is a convention or perceived affordance.
Thoughtless Acts
It is very interesting to see and to be aware of the thoughtless acts occur around me. I am kind of surprised by some of the acts, and even after I notice such acts I still cannot think of a reason for taking this thoughtless act, maybe it is conventional, or maybe is intuitive. In the article Jane Fulton Suri also shares 10 techniques for observation. This inspires me to observe from more perspectives. Aside from looking at the surface, we also need to dig deeper to find why this happens, and think wider from for instance emotional and cultural aspects.