The Affordances of Words

Tl;dr: Consider the relationships words-as-objects have with readers

Welcome to the latest installment of my five-part series on writing as a user experience design. I’m exploring how user-centered design might apply to writing.

Today I’m talking about the affordances of words. I know, I know: words are signifiers. They communicate where action occurs. But I want to flip the script and ask what might we learn by considering words as designed objects with which human reader-users have relationships? What are the affordances of words?

These are just the intended affordances. These same properties allow other actions, depending on my creative capacity. Some of these unintended affordances are useful: I can use the pen to prop my phone up at a low angle. Other are ridiculous, but doable: the pen narrow enough to jam into the spout of my teapot, although it’s too long to fit all the way into the teapot. Why would I do that? I don’t know — what matters in this context is that I could.

Meanwhile, humans have capabilities that enable interaction with what would otherwise be weird marks on paper or blackboard or screen:

Combine these human capabilities with word properties and you end up with infinite possible relationships between reader and text. Consider two warnings:

You have different relationships with these words: in one case, general unease, for which you might take action; in the other, an immediate response to a clear threat. The word properties and your reading capability interact to afford these unique relationships.

Context matters, too. If you’re driving on a mountain road and you see a sign instructing you to look out for falling objects, you’ll probably assume rocks could tumble onto the road. But how do you react if you’re picnicking in the middle of an empty field and a sign tells you to look out for falling objects? Do you worry about birds or meteors or UFOs dropping out of the sky? Do you dismiss the sign as not making any sense after looking around? Or maybe you know the field is next to a golf course, entailing the risk of a stray golf balls. Context shapes your interaction with the words.

Many e-commerce websites post an “add to cart” or “add to bag” button (known as a “call to action”) somewhere on product pages.

At first glance, these are specific, action-oriented words intended to guide the customer into a transaction. But do these phrases also have an unintended affordance of letting shoppers add items to their carts without really pushing them to purchase those items? These words are noncommittal: customers can add shirts and jeans to their Madewell cart all day without ever feeling like they need to make a purchase. Maybe this is convenient for casual shoppers, but surely it’s not the effect businesses want.

A few companies seem to be wrangling noncommittal customers. Google’s online store requires customers to a click a button that says “Buy” to order a new phone. The next page, where customers choose the phone’s specs, also ends in a “Buy” button. These buttons don’t give shoppers the opportunity to question whether want they to make this purchase: they’re on a direct path to a transaction.

Amazon, ever customer-oriented, offers even more clever variation. Prime members can add an item to my cart or “Buy Now.” This second option is genius: it demands immediate consumer action. Buying now doesn’t even require a visit to a confirmation screen. Just click the button and the purchase is complete! These words afford a sense of immediate wish(list) fulfillment and efficiency. By the time a customer questions whether they need a rose gold desk lamp, she’s already committed to the purchase and moved on to looking at matching bookends.

Even if words and phrases are properly categorized as signifiers, I still think writers, especially those involved in product design and copywriting, can benefit from sometimes considering the affordances of their writing as a designed object. Stuck writing a sentence or confused about why users keep misinterpreting a call to action? Try to list all the affordances a word might have for a particular audience or user. Let this process be a strange and unusual analytical intervention in your writing toolbox and give yourself the chance to redesign to accomplish your intention.

What do you think? Can people and words exist in a distributive affordance relationship?

Check back in two weeks for part three of this series, where I’ll look at testing!

o you have ideas about user experience, design, and writing you’d like me to explore? E-mail me at annietadams@gmail.com.

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