Comments on: Desire Lines: Let Your Audience Shape Your Design

By: Select a Wordpress.com theme Part 3 « onecoolsitebloggingtips

Select a Wordpress.com theme Part 3 « onecoolsitebloggingtips — Sat, 29 May 2010 22:56:50 +0000

[...] Desire Lines: Let Your Audience Shape Your Design Web Designer Steven Bradley explains that desire lines are the path people choose to take as [...]

By: Bravus » Desire Lines

Bravus » Desire Lines — Sat, 29 May 2010 03:40:16 +0000

[...] Such a cool concept: http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/desire-lines/ [...]

By: Steven Bradley

Steven Bradley — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 04:35:30 +0000

Thanks for the kind words Larry. I’ve been trying to focus a lot on fundamental design principles in part because I’ve teaching and reteaching them to myself and in part because you don’t see a lot of people talking about this stuff online.

It’s certainly out there, but you have to dig for some of it. Too many design posts seem focused on trends and tricks. There’s a place for that, but I think there’s a lot of room for things like the fundamentals too. And a few years down the road the trends will be gone, while the fundamentals will be exactly the same as they are today.

By: Larry La

Larry La — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:44:46 +0000

Thanks a lot, your blog has some of the most insightful design posts I have come across. They keep me thinking about the fundamentals of design which is what a lot of web designers are forgetting these days.

I look forward to all your future posts!

By: Steven Bradley

Steven Bradley — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:23:37 +0000

That’s a good analogy. I suppose you could try to swim against the current, but you’re not going to get very far. The current is still going to take you where it wants to go.

By: Steven Bradley

Steven Bradley — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:22:46 +0000

Thanks Vladimir.

By: Steven Bradley

Steven Bradley — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:22:21 +0000

Thanks Sijia.

By: Steven Bradley

Steven Bradley — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:21:50 +0000

Ellen most of the things I listed can be tracked with any analytics package like Google Analytics. Crazy Egg provides heat map tracking. They used to have a free limited service, but I think they now charge $9/month for what used to be free. There are some free open source heat mapping applications like ClickHeat, which you'd have to install and set up on your site. Click paths you should be able to get from your analytics package. In Google Analytics if you view any page in top content and then click navigation summary it shows you how people entered that page and where the visited next. You can try clicky. The do have a free plan that limits you to tracking one site.

By: Steven Bradley

Steven Bradley — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:00:43 +0000

Thanks for the link Andy. It doesn’t strike me as quite the same thing though. Maybe I’m interpreting psychogeography incorrectly, but it sounds more like observing the emotional response people have to the geography in order to get them to take a path other than their usual route.

Again maybe I’m misinterpreting, but I think psychogeogaphy and desire lines are two different the perhaps related ideas.

By: Steven Bradley

Steven Bradley — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:52:24 +0000

Thanks Jacob. Sorry I didn’t get back to you yet. I will take you up on your offer and send you out an email in a few.