The Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) has responded to the Pensions Dashboards Programme Design Standards Consultation and Call for Input and has continued to stress the need for extensive user testing.
The PLSA says it considered the standards’ overall usability, security, and technical viability when responding to the consultation and has urged thorough user testing of understandability.
The PLSA also says that it anticipates standard iterations, but would like a balance between what is required and avoiding burdening pension schemes and providers with excessive modification too frequently.
PLSA director of policy and advocacy Nigel Peaple says: “The PLSA welcomes the emerging clarity and encouraging progress towards creating an ecosystem for pensions dashboards, that the PDP’s standards create.
“However, we have identified many important technical issues where further analysis is needed before the standards can be settled, with just a few being: do users expect and want to see figures within two seconds, as proposed; how can multiple warnings be displayed so as not to confuse users; how will users react to possible matches; and will most users use dashboards on their phones, as expected?
“Of course, no one will be sure whether the standards are fully correct until dashboards are operating and savers are interrogating their pension data.
“We expect iterations of the standards to be necessary for the future, but we would like PDP to seek the right balance between perfecting the standards via future amendments and the number of iterations required of pension schemes and providers.
“We have consistently asked for extensive user testing in respect of understandability, and we believe this should still happen and feed into the standards.”