The Role of Affordance in Cyber-Physical Systems for Behavioral Change

Cyber-Physical Systems are the next generation of embedded ICT systems, interconnected through the Internet of Things and endowed with data gathering functions and able to provide some output to users. Thanks to their features, if opportunely designed, they can affect user behavior on two levels: by means of the data gathered, promoting self-awareness to motivate change in the long term, and by means of direct physical cues, inviting users to perform some action in real time. The concept of affordance becomes crucial to the latter aspect: it is necessary to design novel, intuitive object affordances that foster a particular behavior.