Google may be a database of intentions; ‘desire paths’ are the record of user intentions which in some way conflict with what the designers intended…

…whereas Carleton University’s Brian Burns, in ‘From Newness to Useness
and Back Again’, looks at how wear-and-tear ‘use marks’ can reveal the life story of products, and how modern throwaway, non-maintainable design detaches us from this rich interaction history. Presentation is 9.9 Mb PDF; fantastic collection of use-mark photos starts on page 29.