Mapping affordance dimensions: A design model for enhancing visually impaired persons’ agency in food-mediated recycling

This study examines how design practices shape the participatory roles of visually impaired persons (VIPs) in recycling systems. By integrating affordance theory with case studies ( n = 26), we investigate intervention mechanisms that shape VIPs' agency in food-mediated recycling (FMR), asking how food and related processes serve as catalytic mediators that indirectly facilitate VIPs' recycling behaviours. We identify three key affordance dimensions, with subcategories: sensory affordances (mono-/multi-/trans-sensory), recycling affordances (enabling/constraining/emergent), and VIPs' participatory roles (compensatory/co-creation agents/empowerment actors). The distribution of and relationships between multi-dimensional affordances are visualised using an alluvial diagram, yielding the following findings. 1) Current design interventions predominantly configure affordance pathways with multi-sensory affordances, constraint-type recycling affordances, and co-creation agent roles. 2) Modulated sensory/recycling affordances dynamically influence VIPs' participatory roles, which reciprocally activate their recycling behaviours. A multi-dimensional affordances design model for enhancing VIPs' agency in FMR is developed, integrating static components with dynamic design intervention pathways. This model provides an actionable framework that emphasises the mutually reinforcing effect of VIPs’ role transition and participation in recycling behaviours through affordance regulation, challenging ableist assumptions in sustainability discourse.