The Cow Path Rule That Shapes Every Decision

Why is that? Beautifully described by a Romanian chap living in Holland. He describes this as paving the cow paths.

There's a thing in architecture where you don't actually put paths in across a grass court. You wait to see where people naturally walk and then you put concrete paths where the muddy bits have formed because you now know where it is that people want to walk. If you just design paths, it's based on a whole load of assumptions about where people are going that you can't possibly know.

He refers to this as paving the cow paths in the sense that if you make choices feel instinctively comfortable, lots of people will make them. If you make choices feel effectively contrary to your natural instinct, people find it really really offputting.

So that's why that's why if you think about it, that's a completely small and counterintuitive thing to try. But in the event when you have the results, it proves to be brilliant.