Inside the Nudge Unit

We found that tax letters written in plain English, with a clear, simple request at the beginning, could often be 200–300 per cent more effective than the originals we compared them with. And, generally speaking, we found that ‘less is more’. For example, we found that click-throughs by businesses to get further information in response to emails from a major government agency could be increased by 40 to 60 per cent by reducing the volume of text in the email. Similarly, we found that sign-ups –from stopping smoking to youth skills and employment programmes –were significantly increased when the website landing pages were simplified and de-cluttered.