Desire lines
I haven’t yet worked out the implications for interaction and UX design but I’m sure ‘desire lines’ have something to teach us: design what you like, people will still do what suits them best.
I learnt what a ‘desire line’ was, amongst other things, at a talk Sanky gave at the Typographic Circle.
The good designer should assess where the desire lines are most likely to form, and act accordingly.
If people stray from the path you provide for them, the path is redundant and you must accept that however good your intentions, your design has failed.
That failure is something that no amount of remedial work – be it in the form of strategically placed logs or brightly coloured fibreboard – can hide.