100% of our customers will skim-read or pay no attention to most of our long content. On average, users read only half the information on web pages, 111 words or less.
That's every customer.
Half of our customers only see part of the message. That’s because of reading, numeracy skills, health and their environment. We know our customers have short attention spans and many more things to get on with. So, we need to look at other ways of presenting our existing content.
Our customers aren’t interested in Pensions. Most will never find it easy.
Yes, they care and know it's important. That's why they trust us with our 200 years of expertise. They expect us to sort it out for them. We already have a set of principles and consumer duty, which make sure we do just that.
Re-read, re-think and re-present
- Edit content rather than cutting and pasting
- Re-consider what is important
- Simplify content
- Redesign structure
- Create more appealing content
More things to consider:
- Bullet point long content
- Summarise content under a clear headline
- Use infographics
- Use audio content
- Short 7-second snippet video
- Chunk up long content into smaller bite sizes
Our Audience
Our audience comes in overlapping subsections.
Almost half the UK population 45.7% of men and 50.1% of females reported having a long-standing health problem. 15% of the UK population has long-term chronic disease or conditions.
How might this affect them financially? They could find it harder to maintain a well-paid job and pay consistently into their pension. When they retire, they need access to their money faster, which can have tax implications.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) data shows that around one in sixpeople in the UK had relatively low income (relative poverty) before housing costs in 2021/22. This has risen to over one in five people if we include housing costs.
14 million people are on low income. 12 million are in absolute poverty.
Literacy and Numeracy Skills
- Adults in England with poor reading ability account for 1 in 6 — 16.4% / 7.1 million people
- In Scotland, it's 1 in 4 — 26.7% / 931,000 people
- In Wales 1 in 8 — 12% / 216,000 people
- And in Northern Ireland 1 in 5 — 17.4% / 256,000 people
Add to this — one in 10 people in the UK have Dyslexia
Poor numeracy remains endemic in the UK.
17million adults — 49% of the working-age population of England — have the numeracy level of primary school children.
How might this effect our content?
We should stop writing about finance or tax savings, expecting our customers to make mental calculations using standard examples.
Instead, we should present individually tailored calculations, which are more relatable to our customers and easier to understand.
Take drawdown. Users found this complex to understand. In user testing, more customers grasped the basics by looking at infographics than by reading the wordy explanation.
Visual Impairment
Sight loss affects 1.8 million people in the UK. Most people find their sight gets worse as they get older.
RNIB research predicts that by 2050 the number of people with partial sight and blindness in the UK will double to nearly 4 million.
Compelling Content
In the UK, the number of ADHD in adults is estimated at 2.6 million.
This is 3% to 4% of the population, with a male-to-female ratio of approximately 3 to 1.
About 15% of people are neurodivergent. Meaning that the brain functions learns and processes information differently.
Neurodivergence includes a range of conditions including:
- Attention Deficit Disorders
- Autism
- Dyslexia
- Dyspraxia
Let’s stop cutting and pasting. Re-read, re-think, re-present.