Digital communication strategy for statistics

Transcription

1 Digital communication strategy for statistics Shared ECB OECD visualisation tools Per Nymand-Andersen (ECB) Matthias Rumpf (OECD) Valencia, May 2016

2 Outline 1 Statistics and the need for communication 2 Digital communication strategy and experience 3 Shared visualisation toolkits ready to be used 4 Measuring the impact of the digital communication 2

3 Statistics is the evidence for sound decision making Rubric Good sustainable decisions Professional users and citizens Policy-making Knowledge-based society Policy accountability Analysis & assessment Statistical and financial literacy Policy validations Policy decisions Policy options Analysis & assessment FACTUAL AND INDEPENDENT COMMUNICATION Factual and independent communication of statistics is fundamental for creating trust in policy making and institutions so what is the challenge? 3

4 The need for communication concepts Everyone has a mix of learning styles Visual - Aural Verbal - Pictures, images Sound and music Words, speech and writing Kinaesthetic - body, hands and sense of touch Logical - logic, reasoning and systems Social groups or with other people Solitary - alone and use self-study Research shows that approximately 65 per cent of the population are visual learners the brain processes visual information 60,000 faster than text 4 90 per cent of information that comes to the brain is visual Source: 4

5 The need for communication concepts Does the public and private sector obtain information in a form that leads to behaviour and expectations which are supportive of sustainable policy decisions? Information which feeds into the decision making process Presentation of decisions and assessments Interpretation assessment of impacts and effects Trade off evaluations Transparency and clarity Summarising and messaging Selection process (i) Simplification Simplistic (ii) Objective Manipulative Convergence signalling Feed-back effects and expectation management Trade off evaluations Summarising and messaging Interpretation and instability and side effects Simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication Leonardo da Vinci We shouldn't abbreviate the truth but rather get a new method of presentation Edward Tufte (professor of political science, statistics, computer science, Yale University) 5

6 The need for communication concepts Information Statistics Intelligence Facts and figures Methodology Comparability Business sense Clarify Simplicity Presentational Design Accuracy Consistency Reliability Effective Visualisation Form & function Transparency Business context Readability Understandable Engagement Re-usability Channels Digital communication Reach, share, visual narratives 6

7 The Data Viz Toolkit: Our challenges Missing link: Communication follows dissemination Visual presentation is key for wider communication of statistics - BUT: visuals alone do not do the job Very often the bigger challenge is poor access, metadata and limited context information Stand-alone platforms and commercial tools are difficult and expensive to integrate into existing corporate platforms. At the same time Share-ability is key for online communication At-hoc own software development for data visualisation is costly, resource intensive and hard to maintain (inefficient) 7

8 The Data Viz Toolkit: Our solution Two websites with a shared set of visualization templates to compare national statistics across countries and other geographical areas 8 & stics.org

9 The Data Viz Toolkit: Our solution Effective distribution channels Share/embed for re-use in digital media, 3rd party websites, tweets and blogs 9

10 The Data Viz Toolkit: Our solution Additional beauties of share-ability Builds on SDMX and therefore easy to plug-in new statistics A shared back-office to set up new statistics (projects) Common structure to enrich statistics with metadata, indicator titles and detailed definitions Integration of available tools such as the Commission service for maps Easy to use interface for multiple languages and integration into corporate workflow Shared software project. Components are published under CC licence Very limited use of proprietary software Easy and low maintenance costs use of external webhosting 10

11 Impact - Digital communication channels 2 weeks of campaign: additional total visits: ~ 21,833 (~ 42,000 page views) Approx. 3 times as many visitors as before the campaign (from 200 to 600 and now 300) Max daily visit was ~ 2,500 on the day of the release of the visualisations functionality (map_ Feb 24-Feb 25-Feb 26-Feb 27-Feb 28-Feb 29-Feb 01-Mar 02-Mar 03-Mar 04-Mar 05-Mar 06-Mar 07-Mar 08-Mar 09-Mar 10-Mar 11-Mar 12-Mar 13-Mar 14-Mar 15-Mar 16-Mar 17-Mar 18-Mar 19-Mar 20-Mar 21-Mar 22-Mar 23-Mar 24-Mar 25-Mar 26-Mar 27-Mar 28-Mar 29-Mar 30-Mar 31-Mar 01-Apr 02-Apr 03-Apr 04-Apr 05-Apr 06-Apr 07-Apr 08-Apr 09-Apr 10-Apr 11-Apr 12-Apr 13-Apr 14-Apr 15-Apr 16-Apr 17-Apr 18-Apr 19-Apr 20-Apr 21-Apr 22-Apr 23-Apr 24-Apr 25-Apr 26-Apr 27-Apr 28-Apr 29-Apr 30-Apr 01-May 02-May Average 176 visits per day before the campaign ( until ) ) Various campaigns for new statistics releases RANKINGS visualisation launched MAP visualisation launched Average 321 visits per day during the campaign ( until ) 11

12 Impact - Digital communication channels elperiódico Economia (ES) Finanz-links (DE) Follow the money (NL) Capital (GR) Verslo Zinios (LT) 12

13 Impact - Digital communication channels Example: eleconomista.es and Makronom.de Embeds our statistics and writes the narrative 13

14 Take away 1. Communicating factual statistics is fundamental for creating trust in policy making and institutions 2. Visual communications facilitate the understanding and triggers the curiosity to use and share statistics 3. Digital media and opinion leaders are amplifying the statistics narratives resulting in greater outreach and use 4. A digital communication strategy for statistics is needed including sharing of infographics and visualisation tools 14

15 Q&A All pictures are from freedigitalphoto.net