Have you ever noticed which way you turn when you walk into a room? According to How Stuff Works “most people tend to instinctively veer to the right.” There can be many underlying causes to these psychological tendencies that humans have. Here we will dig into a few of them and how your business might benefit from taking the time to understand them.
These psychological tendencies are a combination of psychological, cultural, and neurological factors. Many retailers and architects design spaces with the knowledge that most people will look right first. Placing key displays or important information to the right could be vital in obtaining customers’ attention. Here are some explanations to why this is the case:
- The majority of people are right-hand dominant. They will naturally favor their right hand. This impacts how we interact and adapt to an environment. This includes which direction we pick to turn first.
- Culturally we read right to left. We are taught from a young age to identify words and letters starting from the right. This trains our minds to automatically move and visually scan objects to our right.
- Foot and vehicle traffic patterns usually have us stay to the right. We subconsciously keep this in mind throughout all aspects of our lives. This is applied especially to unfamiliar places.
- Studies show that the brain’s right hemisphere that controls attention to the left side of space could be slightly less dominant than the left hemisphere in right- handed people. This causes a bit of a bias in moving to the right.
Businesses can use this knowledge to influence customer behavior and engagement. For example, retail stores might put their most important or high margin products on the right wall because it gets the most attention. Paco Underhill, the author of Why We Buy states, “Shoppers often follow their instincts, not signs. If you understand the psychology of movement-like the natural tendency to turn right-you can design a space that sells without saying a word.” In most cases businesses will encourage customers to go right to create smooth movement throughout their space. Impulse buys tend to be placed statically to the right as well.
In 2015 a study was conducted using in-store eye-tracking. This showed that consumers demonstrated stronger visual attention and spent more time on the right-side displays and signage. Stores like Aldi and Target will often guide customers in a rightward direction to highlight more product zones. Disney theme parks will design their queue systems with the right directional flow in mind.
This tendency can also be taken into consideration when designing seating arrangements. In places like classrooms or career fairs it is important to remember to turn to the right. Offering seating options to the right often aligns better with people’s preferences. Setting up a booth at a career or job fair to the right can determine engagement and satisfaction from the audience. This can make consumers more comfortable and can also enhance their experience with your business. From a business standpoint, it can create better performance outcomes.
The human mind raises many questions. This is just one example of how businesses can achieve even greater success while also creating a better environment for their customers based on their natural tendencies. We encourage you to take the time to consider your customers, what natural instincts drive their decisions? How can you use that to impact your business?
