Affordance in Safety

Affordances: These are the properties of an object that suggest how it can be used.
- A door handle affords pulling or pushing
Signifiers: These are cues that indicate where and how an interaction should occur
- A green button might signify that it is safe to press

Mapping: This involves the relationship between controls and their effects
- Affordance mapping in safety refers to the design principle where objects and environments are created to naturally indicate their use and functionality, enhancing user safety
- Good mapping ensures that users can intuitively understand how to operate a device or navigate an environment
- In safety contexts, affordance mapping helps prevent accidents by making the correct actions obvious and reducing the likelihood of user error

Anyone involved in Safety by Design is probably familiar with the concept of Affordance to design controls to prevent physical accidents
In psychology, Affordance is a spatial representation of what the environment offers the individual
Rob Long: Affordance is the way context, objects and social presence 'afford' a response

- Y-axis: Human Energy cost to change
  - Low to High depending on Resistance, resources, number of people involved. etc.
- X-axis: Time potentially required to implement change
  - Short to long-term like 6 months, 1 year, 3 years
- It tells you where you are in the Present
- It identifies where change is extremely difficult
  - Top-right high energy cost and long time
- It helps to understand where change is volatile and can happen suddenly
  - Bottom-left
  - Cannot control so need to monitor closely
- In the space between is where change is viable and navigable
Note: Preceding is a simplified version of the Estuarine Mapping Energy/Time Grid
- The terms Counterfactual was not introduced
  - It has a special “black line” meaning in accident investigations
- Liminal boundary was not drawn but can be easily introduced