You can learn a lot about design from a mountain goat . More specifically, you could learn a lot about design by watching how a mountain goat moves. Despite being mountaintop daredevils perched on precarious peaks and straddling rocky heights, they do not in fact climb mountains (see Figure 16-1). They walk, run, and skip up mountains. Jumping from boulder to outcrop at heights sometimes reaching hundreds of feet, a mountain goat searches for food and shelter in among the bluffs. However, their fearless activities do not highlight the mountain goat’s most important quality: they are lazy.

Even though appearances might deceive us, mountain goats do not randomly choose their path up a rocky mountainside. They look for whatever foothold is easiest to reach. A mountain goat doesn’t debate the inherent dichotomies of risk and reward, or the perceived benefits of a complicated approach; no, a mountain goat chooses its path by whatever seems to be the quickest way up—the path of least resistance.

In terms of user experience, creating a path of least resistance is a virtue. Laziness is often maligned, as if it were an attribute limited to the uninspired and neglectful. Yet, laziness is also a matter of efficiency: it represents the least effort necessary to achieve a goal—and nothing more (see Figure 16-2). We witness such efficiencies in everything from economics to linguistics. The principle of least effort, first conceived in 1894, forms the basis for modern information science. People seek information using the most convenient, fastest method available. They stop looking once they find a minimally acceptable result. This behavior is what psychologist Daniel Kahneman described as “System 1” in his seminal book, Thinking Fast & Slow . Only after exhausting convenience and immediacy will people engage in higher-order, analytical thinking—otherwise called “System 2.”

Apply this concept to your own online activities. Do you want to fill out form fields? Watch compulsory ads? Receive convoluted driving directions? These questions are of course rhetorical. Such experiences disorient users and foster their abandonment. Instead, we must provide an unobstructed ascent to their goals. A completed goal is the pinnacle of user experience. Favor laziness and you will conquer human nature, as well.