The effect of tailoring pension information on navigation behaviour

Abstract

We conducted a randomised control experiment (RCE) amongst employees of several firms who got enrolled into a new workplace pension scheme. Participants were sent a generic invitation email to log in to the digital pension environment (DPE) and were subsequently randomly assigned tailored versions of digital pension information based on age. We analysed whether tailoring the general structure of pension information based on age affected the participants’ navigation behaviour. The effect of tailoring on navigation behaviour has been analysed using the time spent in the DPE and clicking on relevant pension information. Tailoring of the DPE has been based on selected goals that were relevant for each age group. We found no tailoring effect for young participants regarding the goal about knowing how the participants’ pension is arranged. Concerning the goal of knowing whether one is on track, tailoring the structure of the pension document was effective in distracting young participants from clicking on information not relevant to them and in motivating senior participants to click on relevant information. As for the goal of being aware of the choices available, we found that tailoring worked for senior participants as they clicked on relevant pension information.