My PhD work is on studying affordances of products that can change their forms.

The advantages of modern manufacturing methods combined with recent research in material sciences has led to the development of form-shifting products - products that can change their form or function or both in a pre-decided manner on providing force or stimulus. 4D printed objects and metamaterial objects constitute form-shifting products.  Perceived affordance refers to the property of objects through which they convey information to the users about what interactions are possible with them. Research on perceived affordances of form-shifting products is lacking. We wish to bridge that gap by working on the following RQs:

(i) What does affordance and perceived affordance mean in the context of form-shifting products?

(ii) What physical properties of form-shifting products lead to a coupling between form-change mechanisms and user-response?

(iii) How can we evaluate the perceived affordances of form-shifting products?