this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2025
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[–] [email protected] 94 points 1 day ago (15 children)

To everybody acting like the desire path is the problem:

  1. If the problem for you is that it's 'bad' or 'illegal', grow a spine so that when you need to break the law, for something that matters, you can do it with dry pants.
  2. If the design doesn't take into account how people will interact with it, it's bad and lazy. Only time it would be acceptable to 'force' a way to interact with something is when there are safety concerns, and there are none here.
  3. You are traped in a cage of your own making, break free or perish like the dog you are.
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Not that I have a particular problem with desire paths, but what's shown in the comic here is an example of how the design changed to take into account how people are interacting with it, and yet it didn't work out.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago

right, it was changed specifically to deny the most popular use. so thats why it doesnt work.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It didn't work out because the design didn't change, it was reinforced. Each attempt failed because there was no actual effort to understand why it's not working. Like wraping a leaky rusted pipe in ducktape.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Um. You did notice panel 10 - 12, right?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yes? The new path is there because it's still shorter, people don't walk in straight lines and sharp angles. That design is still lazy and not thought out

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

I mean what is a "thought out" path, besides just saying fuck it and paving whole plot. I mean maybe a funnel or something, but again kind of seems likely that we'd wind up with more desire paths forming just differently, maybe people coming from different starting points etc...

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago

The only time where the design actually changed, the designer made the point of moving the path away from whhere the desire path was pointing.

That comic captures it so incredibly well. It's almost perfect.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Yeah, that person you replied to missed the point entirely, and all the people who up-voted them.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Oh. What is the point then? /gen

[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 hours ago

For me, it was heavy on the "you can't please everyone" aspect. You try and try, first at enforcing the solution you thought was best, but people have their own problems and their own agenda. Then you try to accommodate that. But you'll find that there's always someone whom you can't please.

That was my personal take-away.

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