What the desire path means

The planner drew a square. The walkers showed that the square was wrong. The
path is a vote, and it is a vote the planners cannot argue with because it is
worn into the earth.

The desire path that is still wrong

I watched a path form in a park that took people through a muddy area in
winter. The path persisted even in summer, when a direct route would have been
drier. The desire path was chosen for a reason—it was visible from the street,
it felt safer—and the reason was not efficiency.

Why this matters

A desire path is not always the shortest route. It is the route people prefer.
The reason is often safety, or visibility, or the feeling of being on a
path rather than cutting through space.

Paving the desire path straight might make it faster and worse, if the reason
people chose it was that it felt safer to be on an obvious path.

The website’s desire path

Analytics show where people click, what they skip, what they search for. The
desire path in an interface is a trail of clicks.

The mistake is paving it without understanding why it formed. If people are
clicking through three pages to get to the one thing they need, the desire path
is not “make it faster,” it is “understand why they are avoiding the direct
route.”

What I do now

I follow the desire path to understand it, not to optimize it. I ask why the
trail goes where it does. Then I change the thing that makes the direct route
feel wrong, instead of straightening the trail.

The desire path is always right for a reason. The reason is not always
efficiency.

The hospital that does not make sense

Long corridors that all look the same, signs every 30 feet that all say
different things, and anyone walking for the first time will turn the wrong way
at least once.

What the architect drew was a grid: corridors going north-south and east-west,
each one the same. What the walkers need is a landmark: something that looks
different, that marks a boundary, that tells them which side they are on.

The rule that works

The building should tell you:

1. Where you are now
2. Where you can go from here
3. What is in each direction

A successful building has landmarks at decisions—places where you choose a
path. A landmark is not a sign. A sign is a label on a landmark. A landmark is
a color, a change in architecture, a view, something different.

The building that works

The library I grew up in had:

• A main desk in the center, always visible
• Different colors for different levels
• Large windows that told you which side faced the street
• Furniture that defined spaces

You could orient yourself by standing still, and you could remember where you
were by remembering what color the space was.

What signs cannot fix

A maze of corridors with signs on every wall is still a maze. The signs tell
you where you are but not why you ended up here instead of the path you meant
to take.

The counter-example

The subway station that is the opposite: no signs, no landmarks, and everyone
knows where they are going because the paths only go to one place. There are
no choices to make.

What I learned

Wayfinding is not about information. It is about structure. A building where
you cannot get lost is not a building where you are told constantly where you
are. It is a building where you cannot make the wrong choice.

The sign is what you read when the building has failed to tell you where you
are.

Orienting the map

Hold it so north points up, or north points toward you, or north points toward
the thing you are looking at. Consistency matters more than convention.

Once the map is oriented, every line on the map is in the direction it appears
on the ground.

Finding yourself on the map

1. Look around and identify something you can see from both the map and the
   ground—a building, a tower, a hill
2. Find that thing on the map
3. Understand that you are somewhere on a line between you and the thing
4. Identify a second thing and draw a second line
5. Where the lines cross is where you are

Following a route

This is different. A route is a line from here to there. You do not need to
know where you are as long as you are on the line.

Pick a feature on the map. Walk to it. Pick the next feature. Walk to it. Repeat.

Why this matters

A person navigating by a line does not know where they are if the line wrong.
They follow it until it is obviously wrong, then they are confused. A person
who knows where they are can navigate by any route, or by no route at all.

The difference in practice

I taught someone to navigate by a line—always keep the church on your left—and
they walked in a circle for an hour because they turned around and did not
notice.

I taught someone to orient the map and identify landmarks and they navigated
the same territory in the dark.

The map is not a route. The map is a conversation with the ground about where
you are.

The shortcuts in the park

Every public space has them. The corner where a sidewalk would make sense but is
not there, and the diagonal trail worn through the grass instead. The park
planner drew a square and the walkers drew a diamond.

What the worn ground means

The planners got it wrong. The planners drew where people should walk. The
walkers showed where people want to go.

The paving that comes after

Sometimes the city notices. They follow the trail, they pave it, and the path
becomes official. Sometimes they do not notice, or they notice and choose not
to pave, and the trail keeps wearing deeper.

The path that refuses to wear

A paved path that nobody walks is a path someone decided for a reason that made
sense at the time. The path that wears itself into the earth is a path that
everyone agrees on, without a meeting.

What I learned from this

Listen to the worn places. Do not build where you think people should go. Build
where they are already going, and pave it so they stop wearing the grass.

This is as true of websites as it is of parks.