Assumptions, Affordances, and Melted Plastic.

Yesterday, while melting butter in a pan on my stovetop, I reached for a spatula, grabbing the smaller of my set of two. Since they came packaged together and the larger spatula was heat-proof silicone, I assumed the smaller one was as well. It took me a few moments to realize that I was calmly swirling melted plastic into my melted butter.

As designers, we need to be mindful of the unintended hints we give our users, and the bevy of wrong turns our users may take given those hints. Who’s out there melting plastic into your website?