Helping Nest members take control of their retirement
Helping Nest members take control of their retirement
Client: Nest Pension - 2026
Scale: 13 million members
Role: UX Designer
Stakeholder interviews, data analysis, customer journey maps, ideation workshops, wireframing, design system, prototyping, dev support.
Tools:
Figma, Figjam
The Problem
Nest was introducing a flexible retirement option, giving members more choice over when they accessed their pension and how much they took.
The challenge was to make these options easy to understand and manage. Many members only engage with their pension when they are approaching retirement, so we needed to support them with clear information as well as a straightforward way to make decisions.
Nest was introducing a flexible retirement option, giving members more choice over when they accessed their pension and how much they took.
The challenge was to make these options easy to understand and manage. Many members only engage with their pension when they are approaching retirement, so we needed to support them with clear information as well as a straightforward way to make decisions.
Research
We looked at member engagement data to understand when people were most likely to engage with their pension.
We found that engagement tended to increase around key milestones, such as pension anniversaries and other moments when members were prompted to think about their savings. This suggested there was an opportunity to increase communication and guidance in the lead up to these moments, rather than relying on members to seek out information themselves.
We also knew that members had different levels of financial confidence and literacy. Pension terminology and retirement options can be difficult to understand, so we looked at how we could make important concepts easier to digest.
These insights shaped the experience. We focused on providing clear, timely information that could help members understand their options before asking them to make decisions.
We looked at member engagement data to understand when people were most likely to engage with their pension.
We found that engagement tended to increase around key milestones, such as pension anniversaries and other moments when members were prompted to think about their savings. This suggested there was an opportunity to increase communication and guidance in the lead up to these moments, rather than relying on members to seek out information themselves.
We also knew that members had different levels of financial confidence and literacy. Pension terminology and retirement options can be difficult to understand, so we looked at how we could make important concepts easier to digest.
These insights shaped the experience. We focused on providing clear, timely information that could help members understand their options before asking them to make decisions.
Auditing the current experience
We reviewed the existing retirement content across Nest’s public website and member portal.
This helped us identify gaps in the information available to members and areas where the experience could better support the new flexible retirement option.
We wanted to make sure members could understand their choices before reaching the point of making a decision.
Tree testing
We used Treejack in Optimal Workshop to test how easily members could find key retirement information within the existing information architecture.
We gave participants realistic tasks and looked at where they navigated successfully, where they got stuck and which parts of the structure were unclear.
The results helped us understand how members expected retirement information to be organised and highlighted areas where the existing navigation and terminology could be improved.
We used these findings to inform the structure of the new experience and make sure important information was easier to find when members needed it.
Customer journey mapping
We mapped the retirement journey to understand where members needed information, where they were making decisions and where they might need reassurance.
This helped us identify opportunities to connect educational content with the actions members needed to take.
Workshops
We worked with product, content and development teams to explore how the new flexible retirement option could work within the existing experience.
We discussed the different retirement scenarios, prioritised member needs and explored how to make the process clear while working within regulatory and operational constraints.
Making complex concepts easier to understand
A key part of the work was simplifying complex pension concepts.
Rather than relying solely on financial terminology and long blocks of text, I used infographics and visual explanations to help members understand how different options worked.
The visuals were designed to break down concepts into smaller, more digestible pieces of information and show things such as how accessing a pension could work over time.
This was particularly important given the varying levels of financial literacy across the Nest membership. The aim was not to simplify the information itself, but to make it easier for members to understand.
UI
I designed the flows that allowed members to manage their flexible retirement option.
This included helping members choose when they wanted to access their pension and how much they wanted to take, while making sure they had the information needed to understand those decisions.
Alongside the transactional flows, I worked on the supporting UI and content that explained the different retirement options and helped members make more informed choices.
Outcome
We created a more flexible retirement experience that brought education and action together.
Members could understand their retirement options, explore what flexible retirement meant for them, and manage when and how much of their pension they wanted to access.
The experience gave members more control over their retirement decisions while making complex pension information easier to understand.
