Because of the power of cognitive affordances to influence users, misuse of cognitive affordances in design can be a force against usability and user experience. When cognitive affordances do not telegraph physical affordances, it is not helpful.

Worse yet, when cognitive affordances falsely telegraph physical affordances, it is worse than not helping; it leads users directly to errors. Gibson calls this “misinformation in affordances”; for example, as conveyed by a glass door that appears to be an opening but does not afford passage. Draper and Barton (1993) call these “affordance bugs.”

Sometimes a door has both a push plate and a pull handle as cognitive affordances in its design. The user sees this combination of cognitive affordances as an indication that either pushing or pulling can operate this as a swinging door. When the door is installed or constrained so that it can swing in only one direction, however, the push plate and pull handle introduce conflicting information or misinformation in the cognitive affordances that interfere with the design as a connection to physical affordances.