cognitive psychology
Serial position effect
When you try to remember a list, the items at the start and the end stick, and the ones in the middle slip away. Position on the list, not just the item itself, decides what you keep.
The demo
I will show you twelve words, one at a time. When they stop, type as many as you can remember, in any order. Watch closely - it goes quickly.
What this demo shows (text version)
You watch a list of twelve words presented one at a time, then recall as many as you can. Plotted against position in the list, the hits form a U-shape: people reliably remember the first few words (primacy) and the last few (recency), while the middle fades. It is why the start and end of any sequence (menu items, onboarding steps, the first and last line of a page) are the positions people actually retain, and why burying important things in the middle of a long list is a quiet way to lose them.
Look where your hits landed: the start and the end, with the middle a blur. That is the serial position effect, and it is why the first and last items in a menu, a nav bar, or a pitch carry the most weight.
It is a free lever most layouts waste. The top and bottom of a list, the first and last step of a flow, the opening and closing line of a screen: those are the seats people actually remember. Put what matters there, not in the soft middle.
Recency fades fast while primacy lasts. If there is a gap before someone acts (a confirmation email, a come-back-tomorrow flow), lean on primacy: the last thing they saw will have evaporated by the time they return.