You walked in for milk and eggs.

You walked out with more.

Not wildly more.

Just enough.

In this episode of Curious by Design, we explore how grocery stores became some of the most carefully engineered decision environments we encounter every week, and why feeling slightly disoriented inside one is not an accident.

Before self-service stores, customers handed a list to a clerk and left with exactly what they needed. That changed in 1916 with the rise of the modern supermarket. Once customers began walking the aisles themselves, layout became leverage. Movement could be shaped. Attention could be guided. Exposure could be increased.

This episode breaks down the psychology behind store design: why produce is placed up front, why milk and eggs sit at the edges, why carts are oversized, why prices end in .99, why eye-level shelf space is expensive, and why music, lighting, and even scent subtly influence how long you stay.

It’s not about forcing bad decisions.

It’s about creating more of them.

Uncertainty slows you down.

Time increases exposure.

Exposure increases spending.

The next time you find yourself wandering an aisle you didn’t mean to visit, remember: you’re not being careless. You’re moving through an environment built to keep you browsing—just long enough to notice something new.

That’s Curious by Design.

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Twice a year, we all agree to feel slightly off.

The clock changes.

Sleep breaks.

Schedules wobble.

And we just… accept it.

In this episode of Curious by Design, we explore why Daylight Saving Time exists—and how a wartime energy strategy became one of the most persistent design choices in modern life.

The idea didn’t start with farmers. It started with fuel. During World War I, countries shifted their clocks to conserve coal, hoping to extend usable daylight into the evening. The policy returned in World War II, resurfaced during the energy crisis of the 1970s, and was eventually standardized in the United States under the Uniform Time Act of 1966.

But the energy savings were always modest. The disruption, however, is measurable—sleep loss, increased accidents, and even short-term health effects follow the clock change each year. And yet, it persists.

This episode looks at how Daylight Saving Time became embedded into transportation, commerce, broadcasting, and software—how coordination hardened into infrastructure—and why changing it now is harder than keeping it.

Daylight Saving Time isn’t really about time.

It’s about synchronization.

The next time you wake up feeling slightly misaligned with the world, remember: you’re not failing to adjust. You’re responding to a design choice inherited from a moment of crisis—one that worked just enough to stick.

That’s Curious by Design.

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Everyone has an assigned seat.

The plane isn’t leaving without you.

And yet… boarding always feels tense.

In this episode of Curious by Design, we unpack why airline boarding feels chaotic, stressful, and strangely competitive, even when, on paper, it shouldn’t be.

Airline boarding isn’t designed around comfort. It’s designed around constraints passengers rarely see: turnaround time, overhead bin interference, narrow gates, and predictable departure schedules. What looks like disorder is actually a system shaped by operations research, behavioral psychology, and monetized scarcity.

This episode explores why “efficient” boarding methods often fail in the real world, how overhead bins, not walking speed, create the true bottleneck, and why systems that are mathematically faster are often rejected because they feel unfair. We look at how standing creates the illusion of progress, how vague boarding groups reduce conflict, and how charging for checked bags turned early boarding into a competition for survival.

Airlines don’t optimize for happiness.

They optimize for reliability.

The result is a boarding process where position feels like value, waiting feels like risk, and movement feels like safety, even when it changes nothing.

The next time you find yourself standing up before your group is called, hovering near the lane, or guarding your place in line, remember: you’re not being irrational. You’re responding exactly as the system was designed for you to respond.

That’s Curious by Design.

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