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From DigitalRhetoricCollaborative
The Spatial Affordance
The Spatial Affordance in multimedia is a concept that refers to the ability of a digital medium to represent space, as well as encourage navigation through that space via organization and spatial metaphors. Affordances in general suggest how an entity could or should be used.[1] Spatial affordances employ a hierarchy of labels, where each space possesses its own label and function. When spatial affordances are appropriately used, the labels of each space will make obvious the space’s function.
How the spatial affordance in digital media is understood today is based on work in occupations, such as wayfinding, mapping, and curation, which consider the spatial affordances of physical entities. Specifically, articles discussing the ability of wayfinding and mapping to encourage navigation have influenced how space is utilized in digital media.
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Background
Affordances
The concept of affordances was first introduced by Gibson (1979)[2] referring to the “action possibilities” of an object. For example throwing is an action possibility of a ball the size of one’s hand. This concept was then expanded by Norman (1988)[3] to include the “perceived and actual properties” of an entity. Affordances then also referred to the inherent quality of an object that a user is able to perceive. Because an affordance is also based on user perception, the possibilities of an object are dependent on the user.[4][5]
Janet Murray, author of Inventing the Medium<i>, has since defined affordances in the context of digital text. She describes it as “A concept used in the field of human computer interaction to describe the functional properties of objects or environments – the properties that allow particular uses.[6] For example, a blackboard affords writing and erasing, a low, flat, supported surface 30 inches square affords sitting.” Murray asserts that there are four affordances that are useful for representation within the digital realm: procedural, participatory, encyclopedic, and spatial. [7]
Janet Murray's Spatial Affordance
Janet Murray, one of the forefront authors on affordances, defines the spatial affordance as such: "i. With the encyclopedic, participatory, and procedural properties, [the spatial affordance is] one of the four defining representational affordances of the digital medium. Digital environments can represent space using all the strategies of traditional media, such as maps, images, video tracking, and three-dimensional models. Unlike older media, however, and similarly to the experiential world and the designed spaces of landscapers, urban planners, and architects, digital media artifacts can be navigated. This affordance is not a function of visual representation, since it can be produced in text adventure games like Zork and Adventure, which created navigable spaces without any images. It is by-product of the procedural and participatory affordances, of setting up rules of interaction that have the consistency of navigating a fixed landscape, and of the innate human propensity to make sense of the world through spatial metaphors: we are predisposed to spatialized our experience, turning the appearance of text on our screen into the experience of “visiting’ web sites. Navigable space is created by clearly distinguishing one place from another and creating consistent interaction patterns that support movement between spaces. When encyclopedically large and detailed informational spaces or virtual worlds are well organized with clear boundaries, consistent navigation, and encyclopedic details that reward exploration they create the experience of immersion." [8]
According to Murray's definition, spatial affordances do not represent real space, but instead act as an abstraction that may be used to fulfill a certain function or provide a certain piece of information. All of the spatial affordances working together in a text create easy user navigation of the text.
References
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