User Experience Study

file:///C:/Users/gomez/Downloads/9780429345913_previewpdf.pdf “Desire lines are the paths people create through regular

usage. There are other names for them: social trails, pirate paths, cow paths,

donkey paths, goat tracks, elephant trails, and doubtless more. They appear where

people repeatedly choose to walk, and usually signify a route from A to B that is

quicker or more easily navigated than the formal path provided (see Figure 1.1

a, b, c). This can be interpreted as a design failure; the formal path was rejected

because there was a better way. Or perhaps there’s no path at all. Desire lines

can show the mismatch between what a designer thinks best and what people

actually prefer. They also speak of a sense of local knowledge, where local people

see better routes than those by designers or planners. The symbolism seems apt

for a book about putting local people at the centre of the design process, and

allowing their needs and wishes to shape development.” (Malone, 2018, p.4)

I love this framing of public space as using architecture and surveillance to govern and filter that space and think that their notion could easily be extended to websites, like university library sites, that while framed with an inclusive narrative actually do govern in this same way (through established hierarchical structures of knowledge production and language) that reinforce social boundaries. Then the use of desire lines to show how the disenfranchised public may move through the space is very helpful in thinking about how people use their own agency to make it their own as best as they can 

Steve Krug download from his book Rocket surgery Made Easy: Usability test scripts, recording consent forms, checklists, instructions for observers, etc. for download https://sensible.com/download-files/