Why do people touch books in bookstores without buying them?
Curiosity becomes stronger when it gains a physical form.
A bookstore is one of the few places where people touch things they have no intention of owning.
Hands slide across covers.
Pages are turned carefully.
Some books are returned to shelves only seconds later.
However, the hidden mechanism is Spatial Anchoring. Ideas become easier to imagine when they occupy physical space.
A title on a screen is information.
A book in the hand is an experience.
Its weight suggests seriousness.
Its texture suggests personality.
Donald Norman has noted that objects influence emotions long before their practical functions matter.
Books do this exceptionally well.
People think they touch books to decide whether to buy them.
More often, they touch them because curiosity likes to become tangible before it becomes knowledge.
