Personal Cognitive Characteristics in Affordance Perception: The User Activity Case Study in a Building Lobby

Abstract

User activities in performing tasks are influenced by the way the user perceives the related surrounding context and environment and determined with user judgment preferences. Physical environment structures afford user activities when these are perceived. Thus, this paper addresses how user activities and perceived affordances are different reflecting personal creativity modes, which are determined by factual-intuitive perception inclination and subjective-objective decision preferences as well as introverted-extroverted nature. To design-in various affordance features for diverse users in varying contexts, understanding on relations between user personal characteristics and affordance perception would be helpful. We conducted a case study in a public space — building lobby — used by many general people. User activities and behaviors were analyzed in several specific tasks given to twenty students in the lobby of a building they have never been to before. The tasks were devised so that various affordance features could be relevant while eliminating other factors affecting the affordance perception than those due to user personal characteristics. User activities can be classified into several different groups for each task based on affordance features involved in their activities. These user activity differences are then compared with their personal creativity modes. For user of less common activities for some tasks, relevant personal cognitive characteristics have been identified.

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