On my morning walk to the gym I cut across a large open field to get to get to the Rec. Centre. A few weeks ago, after a huge snowfall, I found a very crooked, inefficient path recently broken through the field. Being the blog-reading geek that I am, I was immediately reminded of Peter Merholz’s musings about cow paths. Peter’s advice was to pay careful attention to cow paths, or the ways that people use the things we design, and to pave them where appropriate.

Now, I’m as obsessive about efficiency as any designer, and I wondered if I could change the course of this cow path and provide a straighter line to our collective destination. So, boots firmly laced, I cut a straight new path, curious to see if I could lure people over.

I knew enough about how people behave to realize that I wouldn’t be successful with my first trudge through the snow, but I wanted to know if there would be a point a few days hence when my path would be sufficiently packed that people would switch. So each day I tried to firm up my path to make it more attractive.

What I discovered was that, at my normal once-a-day pace, I could never build my path up enough to encourage followers. Each day my path got better, but it never matched the easy walking of its well trod, but terribly crooked forerunner. I thought there might be a point where it would be packed enough to attract another obsessive-compulsive soul like me, but it never happened. In the end, I joined the rest of the cows on the meandering, but easy path.

So why, other than cabin fever, did I do this? In the midst of redesigning a registration and login process, I was musing on how best to change established behaviours. We all know that people hate change – sometimes even when it’s for the better. It’s just something new to think about; some routine to change; some additional demand on our over-taxed brains. Resistance can be hard to overcome. I wanted to run a simple, real-world experiment to see if I could influence people.

And what did I take away from my silly northern experiment? First, question your assumptions. I started out convinced that my straight line was better, and that once I’d packed the path sufficiently everyone would follow. In the end I had to admit that my path, though better, wasn’t better enough. It didn’t provide enough practical benefit to be worthwhile. My “better” was purely theoretical.

Second, in situations where you really do need to change behaviour you need to provide a very much better option. Small increments just aren’t worth people’s effort.

Third, two winter weeks in Florida should be mandatory for all Canadians.

Posted in on March 4, 2010

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