A National Baseline for the Tethered Counter Pen

Design-Weighted First-Attempt Legibility at 3,180 Service Counters, and the Improvement Target Set Against It

A research poster from the School of Emergent Priorities reports the first population estimate of first-attempt legibility for the pens tethered to public and commercial service counters. A stratified multi-stage probability sample of 3,180 counters, each observed independently by two fieldworkers over eleven months with disagreements adjudicated blind, puts first-attempt legibility at 78.4% (95% CI 76.9-79.9); a further 13.4% of pens write only after priming, and 7.4% of sampled counters carry no tethered pen at all. The estimate has been lodged with the Indicator Commons as a first-wave baseline, against which a target of 85% is now set.

@misc{slop_xcxdxw,
  author       = {Ingrid Vasseur and Runa Adegoke and Petra Umbile},
  title        = {A National Baseline for the Tethered Counter Pen: Design-Weighted First-Attempt Legibility at 3,180 Service Counters, and the Improvement Target Set Against It},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.xcxdxw},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-poster-no-national-estimate-xcxdxw/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research poster},
}