Someone like the person you replied to would consider a big failure and inefficient to be told by security where to go when there are signs. I'd be thinking about it for a while after too and it'd never happen again in an airport because I'd be even more aware next time to prevent it.

I think the point of GP is "following the herd" is also a strategy that works 90% of the time (I would argue 99% of the time if there is no malicious intent to mislead involved). It's not by chance that this behaviour has been selected by nature. It is simple. It works in a lot of cases including cases where there are no signs or where you can't read the signs. And it makes for a great fallback strategy when you have a better strategy for the specific case.

And what I was sharing is that someone like me wouldn't consider that outcome as "works". Someone that follows the herd in this scenario is exactly the type of person that would say "what do you mean, it worked anyway?".

In my mind if I'm an adult person in an airport and I missed obvious signs and just went with everyone I'd be genuinely thinking about this for days and softly beat myself up, look up the airport floorplan and for years after in every airport I would think about this.

This is not a hypothetical for me because it has happened and I'm still triggered about it to the point that's years later and I'm here typing about it.

So you’ve never encountered a situation where going against the grain, even if for completely good reasons, fails? I know I’ve been in that place more than once.

GP was only saying that going with the herd is most of the time a more successful strategy, and even if I don’t follow it, I’m not blind to my selection bias to say it doesn’t. As he stated, it wouldn’t have been selected otherwise.

> So you’ve never encountered a situation where going against the grain, even if for completely good reasons, fails? I know I’ve been in that place more than once.

I'd rather be wrong on my own decision than on one I blindly followed from someone else :)

And it's not about going against the grain. It's about making conscious decisions rather than blind following. The outcome can very well be the same as everyone else's of course.

I probably sit in the middle, where I see the value of good signs (and good design in general) to properly guide the users so they don't have to rely on heuristics and "blind" fallbacks. In particular for airports where dealing with huge influx of users at peak time is critical.

On the other hand, for many people, having to talk to a security guard and move to the lane on the other side is a non-event, and they might have tried to talk to the guard even if there was absolutely no need for it, if they felt it wouldn't be an issue for the guard (not too busy, looks bored etc.). Efficiency could be super low on their priority list, if it wasn't they'd be paying a lot more attention to the signage in the first place.