The UK’s Pensions Dashboard Programme (PDP) said it plans to launch a user testing and planning group later this year, to develop and coordinate plans for user testing of the live service once industry staging has begun.
In its latest progress update, following the Department for Work and Pension setting out connection guidance for the dashboard, PDP said that once the first pension providers and schemes are connected to the live dashboard ecosystem it will undertake testing with real individuals using the service to see real data about their pensions.
This, it said, is crucial to ensuring that the service is working effectively and that the end-to-end user experience delivers a positive encounter that meets users’ needs.
It added that this type of testing can be carried out at scale and provide insights on, for example, user behaviour and the success of data matching. User testing will also inform the Secretary of State’s decision-making around the date that pensions dashboard services will be launched to the public, known as the dashboards available point (DAP).
PDP will define testing requirements and the activities involved, how users will be invited to participate in testing the service in a controlled environment, volumes of users, and how insights from the testing will be gathered and reported on.
PDP said it has already engaged with a range of industry individuals and partners who are interested in getting involved with user testing and will help develop user testing plans. This, it added, has identified expertise and experience developed from testing other digital services with pension savers which will be invaluable in testing dashboards in the live environment.
PDP highlighted that there is a need to robustly test dashboards as they develop, whether that is in design, end-to-end journey completion, user experience or security.
It said: “Within [Money and Pensions Service] MaPS, working with the DWP and industry partners, there is research and testing underway to continue to develop the design and build of the MoneyHelper dashboard as well as other aspects of the user journey.
“The outputs of this work will generate a clearer sense of priorities for testing in the live environment, which will be the time to invite our wider stakeholder community to contribute to user testing plans for this phase.”
PDP said it will keep industry and partners informed of plans as they develop, and will provide “plenty of notice” before it embarks on live user testing.
