** My Intellectual Flakes **

There is quite an interesting incident today. I switched cell phone with my husband today since his phone has the speaker. I need to record some phone conversation, so the solution I came up was: use a phone with a speaker coupled with a recorder. Then Angie mentioned that the phone has the inherent recording facility. The funny part was that when I called my husband trying to tease him, he told me MY phone had the recording function too!

This triggered me to contemplate on the relationship between the need and affordance. Most people usually don’t bother to explore the functionality of the device until they have a need for it. There are some people who like to play with all the possibilities afforded by the device. I am not that type. I don’t know my phone has the recording function because I never had the need for it. (I am a practical person in a sense.) Plus, I hate read manuals. Basically I learn the features based on needs.

However, when the need came up, it didn’t occur to me that the phone might have the recording function. The solution I came up with pretty much based on the old/traditional affordances of the device. That means for one, my perceived affordance of the device was rather fixed. Phone is for calling and recorder is for recording. I don’t know the availability of such a function on my phone. How lucky I am to have a friend like Angie. Then the question here is how the manufacturer can help customers like me to be better informed of the new features of the device, especially those features that are not part of their traditional affordances?

I think a video-based walk-through might help. I’d like to watch those video showing me the how-tos  and features of the products.