Comment by paulgerhardt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by paulgerhardt | Hacker News Reader

Regarding the questions at the bottom, much of this is believed to do with one leg being more dominant than the other.

The stronger leg may take longer strides. This manifests in surprising emergent phenomena. Grocery stores for instance tend to be laid out so you enter on the right by the veggies and circle around the back to the meats and dairies and come around the left to check out.

This isn't just limited to humans. Bees will spiral CCW when climbing. Wounded deer tend to drift left after being shot.

Simone Kosig's conclusion is even more surprising: "The basic driver behind this phenomenon seems to be the fact that all cells in nature are composed of amino acids which have a left spin. Chemists can manufacture amino acids with a right spin, yet we can't use them. Apparently both types of amino acids existed in the primordial soup at the beginning of life hundreds of million years ago. Yet life developed only from those with a left spin. The favorite theory is that at that time - when the earth did not yet have the protective ozone shield - radioactive rays from the cosmos did more harm to the amino acids with a right spin. Yet why those with a left spin would be more protected - if at all - is still a mystery."[1]

[1] http://www.somatics.de/artikel/for-professionals/2-article/2...

I'm skeptical of the grocery store claim. Do you have anything to support the claim that one layout is more common than the other (and that would further suggest it's for this reason)?

If I think of all the grocery stores I've been in, I can think of many examples of clockwise layouts. Much more so than counter-clockwise, but that's likely because of my personal brand preferences. The factors in the layout seem to be dominated by:

1. The position of the entrance (if the store is part of a mall, the entrance is often predetermined, and only one layout will be feasible).

2. The brand of the store. Thinking of Canada (and in my experience) Loblaws brand tend to be clockwise, and Sobey's counter-clockwise.

I don't think you're going to get a concrete answer here. I've heard anecdotes justifying both layouts but in all major instances it's by design and not an arbitrary choice. In theory, forcing people to walk in an unnatural direction (clockwise) will make them go slower but be more on edge.

This[1] paper suggests clockwise layouts result in higher sales in discount stores. If you want to put your customers at ease it may not be a good idea to go with a clockwise layout. This[2] article interviews a few retail strategists that describe their intent. This[3] article contends that 'legged-ness' does not matter at all (albeit with a very small pool).

The science is soft enough that I wouldn't put too much weight in the grocery store example specifically. As I recall the trend in the '80's was initially pushing for CW stores to make customers browse slowly but shifted to CCW in the late '90's to make them feel more comfortable. I've heard other stores about shifting the grocery store layout from aisles to the "ring." This roughly coincides with Target stores pre-95 that were competing with Kmart for the blue collar and post '95 that focused on curated, upmarket design for the middle class.

From personal experience, products on end caps absolutely do sell better by 30-60% than those in aisle.

[1] http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/eacr/vol8/eacr_vol8_153.pd... [2] http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223808 [3] http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post/do-people-really... & http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1207918/Find-...

I totally believe that the choice of layout can cause those symptoms. But for me, I get them in a CCW layout, despite being right-footed. I think it has more to do with disorientation because I'm simply used to a CW layout. That's why I'm curious about if/how a study would eliminate that bias. Thanks for the paper, I'll take a look.

Interestingly, I find Independent to be mostly CCW, even though it's under Loblaws.

The writer's belief that all racing is counterclockwise turns out to not be correct for horse racing, some auto racing, and even some long-duration foot racing.

http://risaaustralia.blogspot.com/2012/12/why-race-courses-a...

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1001/why-are-races-...

I've always been aware of the direction I go through a store (especially grocery stores) and i've always found that I follow the driving rules for where I live. I stay on the right side of isles and walk counter clockwise. If I were to walk clockwise then walking on the right side of the isles would involve blindly cutting off people coming out of the middle isles (if you actually shop the middle isles its still a problem although slightly less so)

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