Affordance, Role, and Script as Complementary Concepts of Artefact-User Interaction, Illustrated by the Example of an Egg Separator

Abstract

This article suggests employing the affordance concept, the role concept, and the script concept in a complementary manner as analytical tools for investigating artefact-user interaction at three different levels of stability, abstraction, and interrelatedness. It argues that the affordance concept is best suited to describing general possibilities for action constituted by common technical features in combination with common taken-for-granted knowledge of how to use them. The script concept, in contrast, is best suited to analysing the most concrete situations of interaction between artefacts and users: those situations in which the interaction is defined by one particular course of action. In between, there is a middle level characterised by artefacts and users being involved in several interrelated activities for which the role concept provides the tools for analysis.