Pretty sure the user experience folk are screaming for a path to be built there but are getting ignored.
They aren’t being ignored. The corner needs to be a right angle for compliance reasons.
What we should do is put chainlink fence around the corner, but make the part that the users loved the most accessible with a monthly pass that they can only walk on with shoes purchased at the university store.
- spez
A lot of universities with large campus grounds take the approach of observing the natural foot traffic wear patterns on grassy areas, and then build walkways where the most worn down parts are.
Its… pretty obvious.
If everyone is taking an alternate, non designed path… your design sucks, modify it to facilitate what people find more effective.
These are apparently called “Desire Paths”
And there’s a whole community for them! Not sure how to link to it though.
They did this in a park by my house. It used to have a long paved path that meandered through some woods. Engineers with the city noticed the shortcut that people were cutting through, and realized that most people didn’t care for the long path. Apparently some anonymous person or several had been dumping gravel along the shortcut for traction and to make it less muddy. So the city paved the shortcut, and removed the long path so that nature would reclaim it.
Democracy in action.
It was kind of sad though to lose the long path because I liked walking through there, especially during the fall, but if it means having less maintenance machines going in there every week to pollute the place (lawnmowers, asphalt patching, etc) then so be it.
It is not design issue but not well behaved people. It is like saying that the trash can isn’t a good design because people are throwing trash on the street. You don’t path like that in countries with people that respect rules.
People throwing thrash on the way usually is a sign of not enough trash cans in an area.
Yes of course there are always a few assholes who just waste, but in general you can go by that rule.
People throwing thrash on the way usually is a sign of not enough trash cans in an area.
No. I regularly see trash on the ground with sometimes as much as 5 trash cans in sight that are less than 20m away.
It is not an excuse, you can always bring your trash with you. That is what Japanese people do as there no trash bins in Japan (they are really real rare).
Where do you see frequent trash cans and people regularly throwing trash out in the street?
Typically trash in the street means you don’t have enough trash cans, or a bunch of youth or homeless people whom society is failing.
I have been in few countries in Europe and I see trash in the street. Japan doesn’t have trash bins (not in the street, train, stations) and you won’t see trash in the street.
Whenever that happens, the design is wrong.
Designers need to wake up and realize their job is to understand what the user wants not what they saw in a wet dream.
