Virtual Affordances: pliable user expectations

The experience of virtual environments is often based on contradictions: the user should perceive the environment and objects as real, and yet the behavior of the environment is typically unreal; the user should accept the world as a temporary reality, yet at the same time interact with it magically. At the core of these differences is affordances and the question: Are virtual affordances the same as real affordances? This is important, as perception of a “real” environment implies that the affordances are those of the real world, and conversely, magical interactions and environment behaviors are “un-real.” By understanding that perceptual differences may exist and what they are, we can to leverage this knowledge to improve the experience of virtual environments. In this position paper, we lay out the issue of virtual affordances, why they are critical, and what we believe are the core factors that effect the user’s expectations of virtual content.