The Affordance of Intimacy ⇥ anxiousmachine.com

Robert McGinley Myers:

Designers like to talk about affordances, the property of an object that encourages a specific kind of action. Levers afford pulling, knobs afford twisting, buttons afford pushing, and so on. […]

What makes the iPad stand out from other tablet computers, and what makes it so much more appealing, is that it was designed with intimacy in mind. And I think we’re just on the cusp of discovering how that intimacy affords different kinds of behaviors, different kinds of creativity and productivity.

I’ve been reading and re-reading this piece since it was published yesterday, and I’ve been struggling to think of anything more to say. McGinley Myers nailed this one.