Desire Paths: What They Reveal About Human Psychology

Desire Paths: What They Reveal About Human Psychology



Have you ever noticed those dirt paths that cut across parks and aren’t a part of the official sidewalk? Those are called desire paths and in this video we will be taking a look about what they can tell us about psychology and designing with human behavior.

Desire Path Subreddit (

If you enjoyed this video, subscribe to MindfulThinks for more human behavior, simply explained: (

Like what I do? Buying me a coffee helps support my work: (

Want more insights straight to your inbox? Join the MindfulThinks Newsletter for free: (

Let’s connect!
Instagram: (
Website: (

Related articles you might like:
• Social Desire Paths: A New Theoretical Concept to Increase the Usability of Social Science Research in Society (
• Desire Lines: The Unofficial Pedestrian Paths That Shape The City (
• Desire Paths Revisited: Recruiting Students in Low Friction (

About Me:
Hi, I’m Carlos! I’m the creator of MindfulThinks, where I break down the world of human behavior into simply explained content . With a background in behavioral science and a passion for storytelling, I love helping people understand themselves and others better.

source

Author: MindfulThinks

47 thoughts on “Desire Paths: What They Reveal About Human Psychology

  1. Something else that’s interesting is animals do it to if walk or drive or what ever past a live stock field like cows or sheep or something you can see there winding trails and stuff to different things like water shade or food.

  2. Psychedelics are just an exceptional mental health breakthrough. It's quite fascinating how effective they are against depression and anxiety. Saved my life.

  3. there was a massive field in front of one of the buildings on my college campus that everyone would cut across my freshman yr, by my sophomore year they added concrete over the desire path and made it an actual walkway

  4. You get really wacky desire paths in more hilly/vertical towns. I know a place where, instead of walking down the hill inside the parking lot, then back up again on the higher level, people will climb up and cut across the top of the retaining wall. There's even an old faucet handle embedded in the concrete, to help people pull themselves up.

  5. When I was younger I would ride with my bike around rhe house and I always took a short cut and each time it was easier to ride their and the Gras got les and les

    Edit:also at my school happened the same thing as with the collage they didn't pave where the students walked but we just walked over the veiled

  6. to the way to school, there was one of these that literally just went the opposite direction of the roads way up to another road, instead the path went straight to the hospital.

    The hospital that i also walked past to get to school.
    Thank you desire paths for saving 10 seconds of my life, that’s awesome.

  7. i always think that if whoever is in charge ego trips and wants people to take the original path, why don't they put a flower bed or bushes in the way? They almost always put a fence up instead

  8. It seems that UX designers of microsoft mostly ignore the users of their products (and/or not even use theirv own products) given the fact how user hostile it is what they make.

    Or worse: the average user is an idiot… and the UX is based on all the telemetry info they gather, (whereas the pro users – a minority already- have disabled telemetry).

  9. Because people aren't out to take up time, they need to get somewhere and most sidewalks do this bullshit curvey shit if they make a straight line to destination then people will not walk in the dirit. Honestly city planners are the most useless job to ever exist it's just there to waste tax payer money.

  10. The real crime are the stupid city planners not making the path a straight line and instead having people to walk a longer route and wasting their own resource making said roundabout route.

  11. This is all well and good in a city on the flat, but planned trails up hills often zigzag to reduce erosion. When people ignore the path and cut out the zigzag the contribute to erosion and shorten the life of the trail as well as damaging the surrounding flora.

  12. Several conditions spring to mind: Being in a hurry, not wanting to conform to designed standards nor social norms, as well as either no concept of Borrelia, or if it is winter; choosing mud over comfort and conformity.
    Oh, and phone-ghouls stumbling around in broad daylight while watching online drama, slouching forward to their place of work, or to their place of study.

  13. i find this strange people go to the park as a choice yet they chhose to take the shorter path even tho the whole point of going to the park was to walk ig this shows people look to ahieve a gole that bieng getting to ur destination even subconciosly

  14. I always follow pavements, and I always thought it was weird that desire paths exist, because the pavements are where they are for a reason. To not use that pavement would be insulting the designers, it's like saying "no, you're wrong about these paths". Turns out, I'm the weird one.

  15. at my collage there was this desire path cutting though the grass to make the route shorter. However, when the Pandemic hit, the grass grew back and the path disappear. I was one of the few who still walked on the grass where the desire path use to excite, but the desire path never came back.

  16. So, theres a lake next to my house with a bunch of geese. And there's a fence separating the path and the lake and the geese created their own burrow under the fence, which all of them use. Despite their ability to fly, they still depend on that geesemade burrow to go through the fence. This shows that its competely natural to reject paths and obstacles that are presented to us.

  17. So i was told to stop using the desire path at work because they put down mulch and its now a "safety issue"
    Don't lie to me just say the person in corner office doesn't want peons near their windows

  18. In the Philippines specifically University of the Philippines just right before the campus famous ring like thingy there was a desired path I/most of us go so after a while I visited that same place and now there's a pathway there

  19. I live next to two of these that even are paved in small rocks. Even a bench. The funnier thing is there is essentially S shaped asphalt, and the desire roads connect them to end. You can use either one but a smart person won't use both. I think I used all three ways few times.

  20. The funny thing is, I wouldn't necessarily want a paved path to replace the desire paths near my local lakes. I find them charming and like them just the way they are. 🙂

  21. I know a desire path between a little trail and a horse stable. People use the way to go quickly to a school. I suspect that the horse stable allows people use the path because it makes young people look at the horses and get interested in the horses.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *