Affordances
http://interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/affordances.html

Soegaard, Mads
Interaction-Design.org
2006

Abstract:

The concept of an affordance was coined by the perceptual psychologist James J. Gibson in his seminal book The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. The concept was introduced to the HCI community by Donald Norman in his book The Psychology of Everyday Things from 1988. There has however been ambiguity in Norman's use of the concept, and the concept thus requires a more elaborate explanation.