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Research in Engineering Design
Published in: Research in Engineering Design 3/2012

01-07-2012 | Original Paper

Representational affordances in design, with examples from analogy making and optimization

Authors: John S. Gero, Udo Kannengiesser

Published in: Research in Engineering Design | Issue 3/2012

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Abstract

Affordances in design can be understood as the action possibilities of a user interacting with a designed object. In this paper, we develop the notion of “representational affordances” to denote affordances provided by design representations to the designer as the “user” of these representations. A major characteristic of representational affordances is that they do not have to rely on existing representations but can drive the construction of new representations that may then afford different design actions. We describe representational affordances ontologically, proposing three affordance types: reflexive, reactive and reflective. We illustrate them with examples of analogy making and optimization.
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Metadata
Title
Representational affordances in design, with examples from analogy making and optimization
Authors
John S. Gero
Udo Kannengiesser
Publication date
01-07-2012
Publisher
Springer-Verlag
Published in
Research in Engineering Design / Issue 3/2012
Print ISSN: 0934-9839
Electronic ISSN: 1435-6066
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00163-012-0128-y

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