Affordance is the design principle in which a designer considers the ease with which the user can make use of the design, in comparison to other solutions. A design with high affordance is valued because it makes more logical sense than other solutions. It allows for more understanding, and less misunderstanding. An example is a door with a handle on one side and a push plate on the other, in which the suggestion to pull is clear from one side and the suggestion to push is clear from the other. Another example is that both a round wheel and a square wheel will roll, but one clearly makes easier work of rolling. Good design that incorporates affordance considers the clarity and ease with which a task is done.
I recently attended a lovely lunch with a friend, and it seemed as though there was no design to the layout of the table, that anything could go anywhere. In learning about affordance, I thought that designing a placemat in which places were predetermined for the various dishes, drinks, and accoutrement would have been helpful. Since there is a shared central dish in the design, all of the places would be connected by it. The design could work in a round table, a long table, or a square table. By suggesting actions, the design considers affordance. In the same way that you can push on a handled door, you could place dishes anywhere on this place setting, but the most sensible action suggested by the design brings ease and order. This placemat would be reversible, in the event that a left handed person was seated.
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