Richard Smith has embarked on his tour of Euro-dashboards and first stop is Denmark. Here’s his report and here’s a screenshot of the Danish dashboard in action

You’ll notice that the Danes present pensions in a way that makes their value easy to understand. You get a one off payment and then a payout each year.

There is clearly a lot more to the pension calculation than that – increases, spouses and all the tra lah lah, but what you get to see is enough to get you started. And there’s a click-through for a “full overview” if you need it.

Of course you’ll need it – but a simple statement of your retirement financials is exactly the opposite of what most people consider their “pension” in the UK. I would be really interested to know shat pension regulators would make of a screen without a single caveat or regulatory warning!

Simplicity is hard

Simple words like “yes” or “no” are greatly valued, more so than words like “maybe” and that terrible phrase “it depends”.

Simplicity is terribly hard, it requires the bravery of conviction and a thick skin.

The Danes are brave and fearless as we Southerners found when they visited us in the dark ages. They have swapped the spear and sword for the mouse and keyboard but have kept the courage of their conviction.

Richard’s first lesson has been in useability. People want things simple and they want to be told it straight. Start small and build.

There are lessons here for Britain, and not just relating to dashboards. If we want to deliver VFM metrics we need to adopt the same simple approach and allow people to see in an instant what it has taken us  decades to deliver.