>Handford generally shies away from putting Waldo near the bottom or top of a page, which leads me to theorize that Waldo placement is largely a function of two

>Handford generally shies away from putting Waldo near the bottom or top of a page, which leads me to theorize that Waldo placement is largely a function of two factors: aversion from extremes and aversion from the middle. Perhaps the methodology is flawed, but this is exactly what I would expect. Ask someone to pick a "random number" in a given range and their response is actually quite nonrandom. http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2007/02/05/is-17-the-most-random-number/ http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2007/02/05/is-17-the-... http://blogs.msdn.com/b/shawnhar/archive/2009/12/17/the-psychology-of-randomness.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/shawnhar/archive/2009/12/17/the-psyc... >When asked to pick a random number between 1 and 100, most people will choose a number that is odd, often prime, and approximately 1/3 or 2/3 of the way between the lower and upper limits. For some reason we think these values are "more random" than other numbers. The prime concept doesn't apply here, but this is basically what we see with the two bars. It wouldn't surprise me that Handford is reasoning, if even subconsciously, about where a reader might look. The extremes and middles seem like good starting points. Similarly, if we are trying to create a "random number" we tend to avoid numbers that seem like they could be derived from something else. Like starting in the beginning, middle, or end of a range. Or by multiplying other numbers together (which is why I think we pick primes).