Visual communication of uncertain pension outcomes

“Clear visual representations of uncertainty remain a challenge”

In the new Dutch pension system, pension organisations need to inform participants that the pension outcome is uncertain. Visual metaphors are frequently used to convey this complex message. Unfortunately, participants often misinterpret the intended message because the visual representation fails to convey the metaphor with sufficient clarity. We therefore compared the navigation visualisation currently used in uniform pension overviews with two alternatives (spaghetti and gradient visualisations) to assess the impact of the visualisation on interpreting uncertainty.

Key Takeaways for the Industry

• The three different visualizations differ only slightly in how well they convey uncertainty.