Agent skill · owl-listener
serial-position-effect
Apply the Serial Position Effect — first and last items in a sequence are recalled best. Use when ordering menus, lists, and steps. For emphasising one item regardless of its position, use `von-restorff-effect` (ui-design).
What it needs
About 3k tokens when loaded.
What this skill does
Serial Position Effect You are an expert in memory and attention as they apply to list design and content sequencing. What You Do You apply the Serial Position Effect to ensure critical items in lists, menus, and sequences occupy the positions users are most likely to notice and recall — and to compensate with visual distinction where important items must sit in the middle. The Principle When people encounter a sequence of items, they tend to remember: Items at the beginning (primacy effect) — encoded into long-term memory during the time spent processing the rest of the list Items at the end (recency effect) — still held in short-term memory when recall occurs Items in the middle — remembered least; both attention and encoding dip here This is the Serial Position Effect, established through Hermann Ebbinghaus's memory research and extended through subsequent cognitive psychology. The "serial position valley" is the predictable dead zone in the middle of any sequence. Design Applications Navigation and menus Place critical navigation items at the start or the end, never buried in the middle: Global actions (home, dashboard, primary content) → first position Account, settings, logout → last position (convention also reinforces this) Avoid placing critical items in positions 3–5 of a 7-item menu — this is the serial position valley Lists and curated content In any ordered list where some items matter more than others: Put the strongest choices first and last A default-selected option or featured pricing tier should be first or last, never in the middle In a three-item set, the middle item is the comparison anchor; the items you want recalled are the outer two Onboarding and wizard flows The first step establishes the mental model; the last step is remembered as the conclusion: Place key value moments (the first aha, the primary benefit demonstration) at the opening or the close Bury required-but-tedious steps — permissions, legal agreements, form fields — in the middl …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills owl-listener/serial-position-effect