An investigation of function based design considering affordances in conceptual design of mechanical movement

Abstract

Using the concept of affordances could lead the designer to consider the user's possible actions during design activities, which is increasingly important in many design cases. This paper proposes a model that attempts to incorporate the concept of affordances to function based design in conceptual design of mechanical movement. The role of affordances in the initial design process considers the user's possible actions to the solution in the environment. A simple example of door latch design is demonstrated to see how affordances can support in the divergent and convergent design activities. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.