SITUATING ACTION .2. AFFORDANCES FOR INTERACTION - THE SOCIAL IS MATERIAL FOR DESIGN

This article explores an ecological approach to social interaction, us ing the concept of affordances to describe material properties of the environment that affect how people interact. My examples come mainly f rom the design of technologies that support collaboration. The physica l properties of paper and electronic media-for instance, E-mail or vid eo communication systems-affect how they can be used and how people ca n use them to interact. Many of these effects are due to differences i n the degree to which the media afford prediction and exploration. Bec ause they are based on material properties, these affordances run deep , and trying to design against their grain is not easy. Difficulties o f design, however, can shed light on subtleties of interaction that mi ght otherwise be overlooked. Thus, design is both guided by, and can g uide, an ecological approach to social interaction. Nonetheless, desig n is only one example of the wide range of issues an ecological approa ch to social behavior might address. Such an approach may provide as f undamental a challenge to existing perspectives on social interaction as it has to traditional theories of perception.