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An affordance lens for wearable information systems

ABSTRACT The proliferation of wearable technologies calls for the development of conceptual lenses to understand the drivers of their success. This research employs an affordance lens rooted in the individual perspective of Activity Theory to examine personal information systems built around wearable sensors. Since wearable devices have size constraints, designers have produced a variety of simple technology products lacking screens and buttons, but supplemented with customised apps. Due to their novelty, the impact of these minimalist wearables on the quality of the user experience is not yet well understood. To investigate this issue, this study proposes a theoretically driven framework of affordances and applies it to qualitatively analyse a sample of online user reviews from a specific fitness tracker wristband. The findings suggest that minimalist wearables produce a more complex user experience if affordances are not properly balanced and combined. Specific usability challenges stem from affordance integration failures and inconsistencies. These results have theoretical and practical implications. Overall, an affordance lens offers a unified view of user experience that is valuable for researchers and practitioners seeking to understand what makes modern wearable information systems transparent to use at the physical and digital level.