Study Overview

Working alongside UX Research Lead, we met with the Project Lead to clarify research goals and expectations. Stakeholders wanted both generative (to explore members’ understanding) and evaluative (to test an early version of a financial infographic) study.

Research Questions

• How do members currently think about their retirement income sources?
• What role does OMERS play in their financial planning?
• What information gaps or misconceptions exist across age groups?
• How effective is the new infographic in communicating key retirement income sources?

Participants

We collaborated with the Project Lead to design a recruitment approach and ensure diverse insights and perspectives. Because members engage with their pension differently depending on their stage in life, we defined three major segments:

• Younger members (26–35) who are early in their career and typically less engaged with retirement planning.
• Mid-career members (36–49) are starting to take retirement planning more seriously and may seek for information.
• Pre-retirement members (50–59) are actively preparing for retirement, allowing us to assess comprehension of complex financial concepts and the usefulness of OMERS materials for decision-making.

Methodology

Given the research goals to both understand and evaluate a visual concept, we used a mixed-method qualitative approach.

• Semi-structured interviews allowed us to learn about pension knowledge and probe deeper into individual experience.
• Concept testing helped us assess comprehension, clarity, and visual communication effectiveness of the new graphic.

Key Findings

Our research uncovered several key insights about members’ understanding of retirement income and their interaction with the proposed graphic.

1. Financial Knowledge Gap: While most members had a general idea of their retirement savings, few understood how different income sources work together.
2. Limited Understanding of Government Pensions: Many participants were unsure when they could start receiving government pensions (CPP and OAS) or how much they might expect.
3. Differences in Financial Outlook: Younger participants (26–35) expressed concerns about economic uncertainty as a main factor that influenced their planning mindset. In contrast, older participants focused more on maximizing income and security.
4. Visual Comprehension: Although participants could generally interpret the graphic, several participants struggled with unclear labeling and ambiguous icons.

Recommendations

Based on the research findings, we proposed the following recommendations to improve comprehension and engagement with the retirement planning content:

1. Build foundation: Provide members with clear, foundational information to bridge knowledge gaps and help them understand how different income sources contribute to their retirement income.
2. Use full names: Replace abbreviations like CPP and OAS with their full names to make the content friendly to users with varying levels of financial literacy.
3. Tailored Content: Develop targeted educational materials for early-career, mid-career, and pre-retirement members to address their distinct needs and motivations
4. Graphic Accessibility: Avoid using all-caps for better accessibility, and use consistent horizontal orienttation for labelling.