This term is used in a variety of industries, from psychology to industrial design. When used to its advantage, affordance can be used so that the user would know exactly how to use the object without the need of lengthy instructions or complicated labels.
We learn how to work things by the power of observation. Seeing how others do stuff create a memory in our mind to follow what they do and in turn learning how to use it ourselves. Even animals follow in this situation. A good example would be sheep. They are born with the strong instinct to follow the sheep in front of them. Flocking together gives them a sense of safety which in turn leads the sheep to trust the other sheep by copying their move. Then again, sheep have been known to follow the flock regardless of whether the decision is wise or not, like following the ever-so-cheerful line that would eventually lead to falling off the edge of a cliff. Hopefully us human would have at least a tad of common sense not to go jump off a cliff any time we see someone else do the same.
Designers should take this into account by designing so that it would guide the user by applying the appropriate affordances and constraints. A forcing function can also be applied, such as forcing the attention of the user onto a specific thing to disrupt the monotonous automated task so the user would have to use at least some part of their brain to engage in the product and not just be a blind sheep.
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