🔢 Serial Position Effect:

Better recall of the first and last items.

When presented with a list of things, people are better at remembering the first and last items, than those in the middle.

This is a practical design principle based on two concepts: 

  • The Anchor Effect—people become anchored to the first piece of information they see.

  • The Recency Bias—people are better at remembering the most recent thing they've seen.


✅Purchases
  • If you sell multiple products (tiers), then the order that they're presented is likely to influence which options people select. 

✅Complexity & understanding
  • If you're trying to explain a lot of things (i.e., features or benefits), the position makes a difference.

✅Perception of value
  • Similar to the Anchor Effect.

✅Attention & interest
  • When creating lists (or bullets, like this), consider the order as an important decision (i.e., important stuff at the beginning or end).

  • During onboarding, show a killer feature right away. Don't start gentle (and boring), with a dull feature.

  • Keep lists concise.