Developing digital literacy with people who have low or no digital skills

Good Things Foundation is the UK’s leading digital inclusion charity. We’re on a mission to help everyone become digitally equal, able and safe, so that they can be happier, healthier and better off.

Our digital inclusion services, which help people use and access the internet and technology, are delivered by organisations in communities nationwide.

These organisations form the National Digital Inclusion Network, and are at the heart of everything we do. One of these services is Learn My Way - our free learning platform for beginner digital skills and confidence.

In 2020 when we started to look at the next evolution of Learn My Way we formed a cross-functional team including learning designers, curriculum specialists, user researchers and UX designers.

We also worked with a user group from the National Digital Inclusion Network, and as wide a range of learners as we could, who we tasked with helping us keep the focus on what improvements would be most valuable for our learners and those who support them.

Using the insights gained during this project we moved away from a linear one size fits all approach on LMW and disaggregated our content into over 100 bitesize topics, presented under 11 subject areas.

The flexibility of this approach means learners can easily and immediately start with a topic of learning that matches an area of interest or an urgent need, and then use a pick and mix approach to work through subsequent topics, building a personalised learning programme as they go.

We also decided against including an initial or diagnostic assessment tool on our platform. For this specific audience, we found that traditional starting points, such as diagnostic assessments, often create more barriers than they remove.

Consider the impact on motivation for someone with low digital skills and confidence who may struggle to interact with a digitally based assessment tool.

Our network panel told us that they typically have an informal, light touch chat about a learner’s existing use of the internet and their interests to help find a starting point and they had no need for an online tool.

They approach these conversations individually so a standard option was an alien concept for this group.

Groups affected by low digital skills

Digital exclusion is not a randomly distributed phenomenon; rather, it disproportionately affects specific demographic groups, often those who are already facing other forms of disadvantage.

Evidence consistently shows that digital exclusion is heavily concentrated among low-income households, residents of social housing, older people, and individuals with disabilities:

• A significant digital gap persists among older age groups. 37% of those aged 65 and over lack basic digital skills
• Individuals with disabilities or health conditions also face heightened rates of digital exclusion with 25% of this group lacking basic digital skills
• Socio-economic status is a strong predictor of digital engagement. 19% of individuals in the lowest income brackets (less than £13,499 per annum) lack Foundation Level digital skills, a stark contrast to the 96% proficiency rate among those on higher incomes
• Individuals with no formal qualifications are significantly more likely to be digitally excluded, with 48% lacking basic digital skills
• Those who are not working also exhibit lower levels of digital skills, with 24% lacking skills at foundation level

Confidence, trust and motivation barriers

Behind these stark statistics lies a complex layer of psychological and emotional factors.

What is often more challenging to address than tangible skills gaps when working with these groups are the psychological and attitudinal barriers related to confidence, trust and motivation.

A lack of confidence is consistently identified as a significant barrier to digital engagement and research has identified some who believe the internet is not for them.

Some people may be unaware of the potential benefits of being online, while for some their stated lack of interest might mask underlying reasons such as a lack of skills, concerns about affordability, or a fundamental lack of trust in the digital world. This can manifest as: 

• A fear of making mistakes or "breaking" their device or the internet
• Anxiety about protecting themselves from scams, fraud, or privacy breaches
• Mistrust of online platforms or digital services
• Expressing negative past experiences with technology or learning
• A belief that the internet is irrelevant to their lives, or "too complicated" to learn

These barriers are often deeply ingrained and require approaches that build trust, demonstrate personal relevance, and gently challenge pre-conceived notions.

Overcoming these barriers hinges on approaches that are sensitive to an individual's needs, motivations, and learning preferences.

• Successful interventions prioritise the learner's experience. This includes learning that’s tailored to their individual needs and starting point
• Interest-led learning, which connects digital skills to learners' existing hobbies, passions, or practical needs can be a powerful motivator. Focusing on the "motive", the immediate, personally relevant trigger for wanting to learn, can unlock engagement
• A core objective should be to build digital "self-efficacy" where we develop a person's belief in their own ability to learn, in their ability to use digital tools effectively, and to continue learning as technology evolves. This fosters autonomy and resilience in the evolving digital

So in conclusion, while a well designed initial or diagnostic assessment can be successful in identifying skills gaps when written against a robust and relevant framework of competencies, for those who have low or no digital skills it risks demotivating and disengaging the very learners we are trying to reach.