Always Go Left

I have long had a ‘always go left’ policy for exploring potentially confusing areas, both in video games and in real life. According to this article, I’m not the only one. It is so much an ingrained part of our nature, that police will often dedicate more resources to searching areas to the left of an escapee’s last known location. This strategy, apparently, yields improved results.

I can think of two uses for this information: when designing anything requiring the natural flow of people, whether a supermarket, airport, work cell or video game, encourage people to flow left, or counterclockwise. When fleeing from the police, go right.