Could a new digital tool help people access free support from their energy supplier?

We took our new tool to Westfield shopping centre to find out

Laurie Johnston
We are Citizens Advice

--

Millions of vulnerable people are missing out on free support from their energy supplier and we’ve been testing a new tool to help them access this support.

The Priority Services Register is designed to support vulnerable people. For example, people with poor eyesight can sign up for braille bills. Although 11 million UK households are eligible for this free extra help, only 2 million are signed up.

We needed to test whether our new tool helps vulnerable people get on the register, so we took it to where people already are — a shopping centre.

Reaching the right audience

We look for people who’ve had relevant problems or experiences so that they engage emotionally with what we’re showing them. Usually, we test in a lab-style setting like a quiet room at our head office. While this approach works, it has limitations:

The unfamiliar surroundings can make people feel nervous or uncomfortable
We can’t always reach the people we’d really like to speak to, and we can’t be sure how much the environment influences their feedback

A broad range of people are eligible for priority services — you could be eligible if you have a child under 5, you’re over pension age, or you’re physically disabled. You can also sign up to the register on behalf of someone else.

Going to where people already are

To reach as many different people as possible, we decided to try pop-up research at Westfield Stratford City. This is an example of what Whitney Quesenbery, co-founder at the Center for Civic Design, calls ‘sampling by location’, or going where your users are.

It gave us the opportunity to:

  • test in the community rather than at the office
  • reach a broad range of people relatively easily
  • talk to vulnerable people in a familiar environment

Getting the idea off the ground

We approached Westfield Stratford City as a venue for our pop-up testing. If you want to test in a large, commercial setting like this you need to find the right person to ask. This won’t always be straightforward and you need to be persistent.

We found that Westfield has a community program and offers a ‘charity desk’ for organisations like us. Building a relationship with the centre means we can easily use the location again in the future.

Before we set about testing, we needed to handle logistics — printing leaflets, tracking down marketing banners, and arranging a courier to get it all to Westfield.

This paid off in the end. As Citizens Advice is a trusted brand, it helped reassure people that we weren’t selling anything. Some people also expected us to give advice, so having materials to hand out was useful.

How we tested the tool

We wanted to know how easily people could complete the form to register for priority services, so we did short, informal ‘usability tests’ with 11 passing shoppers. A usability test is a way to find out how well a product or service works by asking representative users to do tasks while you watch, listen and take notes. We also alternated roles to develop research skills among the team.

People pitched in on different tasks — recruiter, screener and consent form manager, moderator, and note-taker. For example, our developer took research notes for the first time, and our content designer moderated a test.

It was an effective way to recruit participants in half a day, and we tested with a wide range of people, including some people who were more vulnerable and less able to use technology.

To encourage people to take part we offered a £20 voucher. This worked well and attracted a wide range of people. However, it was hard to tell which participants were genuinely interested in the research rather than just the incentive. A familiar dilemma to user researchers!

3 things we learned

  • Using dummy data in the tool prevented a seamless, realistic experience, which meant the testing was less robust.
  • People could complete the form, but some were unsure at the end exactly what service they were signing up for.
  • Professional carers quickly understood the benefits of priority services and the point of the tool.

For our next round of testing we want to find out what barriers the tool presents to a more targeted audience of vulnerable people. We’ll keep you updated on what we find.

--

--