Overview
Users have a propensity to best remember the first and last items in a series.
Takeaways
- Placing the least important items in the middle of lists can be helpful because these items tend to be stored less frequently in long-term and working memory.
- Positioning key actions on the far left and right within elements such as navigation can increase memorization.
Origins
The serial position effect, a term coined by Herman Ebbinghaus, describes how the position of an item in a sequence affects recall accuracy. The two concepts involved, the primacy effect and the recency effect, explains how items presented at the beginning of a sequence and the end of a sequence are recalled with greater accuracy than items in the middle of a list. Manipulation of the serial position effect to create better user experiences is reflected in many popular designs by successful companies like Apple, Electronic Arts, and Nike.
Further Reading
Related
Peak-End Rule
People judge an experience largely based on how they felt at its peak and at its end, rather than the total sum or average of every moment of the experience.
Miller’s Law
The average person can only keep 7 (plus or minus 2) items in their working memory.
Von Restorff Effect
The Von Restorff effect, also known as The Isolation Effect, predicts that when multiple similar objects are present, the one that differs from the rest is most likely to be remembered.