Discoverability, in the context of design and user experience, refers to how easily a user can find or identify a particular feature or function within a product or system. It's a crucial aspect of design because it directly impacts how easily a user can understand and use a product. If a feature is not discoverable, a user may not know it exists or how to use it, which can lead to frustration and a poor user experience. In the context of the book, "The Design of Everyday Things," discoverability is related to affordances and anti-affordances, which are properties of an object that determine how it can be used. For example, a chair affords sitting because its design makes it discoverable that it can be sat upon.
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How do designers improve their products to work around flaws in human logic? In The Design of Everyday Things, Don Norman teaches the top frameworks b...
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The relationship between an object's properties and the capabilities of the agent that interacts with it—ergo, a chair affords support, so in turn, it affords the ability to sit on it. An affordance only exists if the agent can interact appropriately; for example, if a child is not strong enough to lift a stool, the stool does not afford lifting. Affordance is relative. To be effective, affordances and anti-affordances have to be discoverable.