Serial Position Effect
People remember the first and last items in a list and forget the middle.
What it is
Recall favours the start of a sequence, which has had the most rehearsal, and the end, which is still in working memory. Items in the middle get neither. Navigation menus, feature lists, pitches and email sequences all follow the same curve.
The research
Free recall of word lists showed strong primacy and recency effects, with items in the middle positions recalled least often.
Murdock, 1962
How to use it
Bookend the menu
The two things you most want people to click go first and last in the navigation.
Open and close with the strongest point
In a proposal, the headline benefit is on page one and repeated on the last page. The pricing detail sits in the middle.
Related
Sources that shaped this entry: growth.design.