MoneyHelper Pensions Dashboard update: Low volume testing begins

Testing completed so far

This follows the successful completion of the first rounds of industry expert testing.

Usability testing

Before live testing started in September, which used a dashboard in production and real pensions data, the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) conducted extensive testing of prototypes and user journeys. This was invaluable in helping resolve important usability questions and ensuring that when consumer testing began, it was built on solid foundations.

Early testing included mock-ups of the MoneyHelper website, the identity service (GOV.UK One Login), the find your pensions service, and the MoneyHelper Pensions Dashboard. Areas explored included comprehension, user consent journeys, accessibility and device testing.

These insights informed the first live iterations of the MoneyHelper Pensions Dashboard, used during testing with internal MaPS users and industry experts.

Some of the earliest MaPS testers included PDP Principal Chris Curry, who has shared his experience using a dashboard for the first time, and MaPS CEO Oliver Morley who wrote on LinkedIn about finding a lost pension he was previously unaware of.

Industry expert testing

Industry expert testing has provided valuable insights and will continue alongside wider testing. Industry experts are best placed to know whether the information returned to dashboards is correct, so their input will continue to be important.

These experts have included dashboard project team members from pension providers, schemes and directly connected organisations.

This type of testing has helped validate core functionality, data flow, and that view data can be returned and displayed as intended in specific scenarios, while identifying areas requiring fixes and improvement before wider access.

What’s next: Low volume testing

Testing is now moving into low volume testing, with the intention of running several rounds of testing over the next few months, commencing October 2025. The focus will be on ensuring the service is broadly working as expected and identifying any critical or severe pain points that need to be resolved.

This will include up to 300 users, with around 50 in moderated testing, and the remainder taking part in unmoderated testing. Users will primarily be non-pensions specialist employees recruited from pension providers and schemes connected to the ecosystem, and from existing research panels.

Moderated and unmoderated testing

Moderated testing, where the participant is observed directly by a user researcher, will focus primarily on usability of the MoneyHelper Pensions Dashboard, the GOV.UK One Login identity service and the wider user journey. The purpose is to observe the users’ behaviour, ask for and collect feedback, while also guiding users towards parts of the service to explore in more depth.

Unmoderated testing, where participants are not observed, will help preparations for future phases, informing the scope of higher volume testing.

Testing objectives

Testing will assess whether users can understand the pensions dashboard service and navigate through the complete journey independently, including on mobile and desktop devices. This includes evaluating how well they understand the information returned about their pensions.

Only State Pension, simple defined contribution (DC) and simple defined benefit (DB) pensions will be displayed to users initially. Pensions that cannot be displayed may still be found, but not displayed to the user yet. The ability to display other pension types will be added in following iterations.

We will examine data matching performance, such as whether expected matches appear, and user expectations around acceptable match levels. This will include looking at users’ behaviour around providing their National Insurance number and impacts on data matching outcomes.

Testing will also evaluate users' experience of GOV.UK One Login to prove their identity and identify any technical inconsistencies or accessibility issues that could impact the user experience.

We will also look at where users need support during their journey, how they respond to error messages and warnings, and capture feedback on improving the overall service.

As set out in our published approach, we intend to share an informal update on our interim findings at the mid-point of this phase via our regular engagements and forums. At the end of the phase, we will share key findings publicly.

Resolving possible matches

In some cases, users may receive a ‘possible match’ where the pension provider or scheme requires more information from the user to be certain that the pension belongs to them.

We will not test industry’s ability to resolve possible matches during this phase, but we will look at users’ support needs. User researchers conducting testing will not encourage participants to contact their pension providers and schemes. However, pension providers and schemes should be prepared to help individuals resolve their cases, as required by the legislation.

Looking ahead: High volume testing

Once low volume testing concludes, testing volumes will increase to thousands of users in the next phase. The scope and timing of this high volume testing will be informed by findings in the low volume phase.

High volume testing will be gradually scaled up over time until confidence is achieved in the performance of the service. Testing will be carried out through a combination of different research methods based on the programme’s learning needs.

Information on how organisations can get involved in this phase will be published in due course.

Looking further ahead, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has committed to providing 6 months’ notice for the launch of the MoneyHelper Pensions Dashboard.