Digital communication strategy for statistics

Shared ECB – OECD visualisation tools

Per Nymand-Andersen (ECB)

Matthias Rumpf (OECD)

Valencia, 17 -18 May 2016

Rubric

www.ecb.europa.eu

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Statistics – and the need for communication

Digital communication strategy and experience

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Shared visualisation toolkits – ready to be used

Outline

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Measuring the impact of the digital communication

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Rubric

www.ecb.europa.eu

Good sustainable decisions

FACTUAL AND INDEPENDENT COMMUNICATION

Analysis & assessment

Policy options

Policy decisions

Policy validations

Analysis & assessment

Statistical and financial literacy

Professional users and citizens Policy-making

Knowledge-based society

Policy accountability

Factual and independent communication of statistics is fundamental for creating trust in policy making and institutions – so what is the challenge ?

Statistics is the “evidence” – for sound decision making

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Rubric

www.ecb.europa.eu

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Everyone has a mix of learning styles Visual - Pictures, images Aural – Sound and music Verbal - 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

The need for communication concepts

Research shows that approximately 65 per cent of the population are visual learners the brain processes visual information 60,000 faster than text 90 per cent of information that comes to the brain is visual

Source: www.visualteachingalliance.com 4

Rubric

www.ecb.europa.eu

Information which feeds into the decision making process

Presentation of decisions and assessments

Convergence signalling Feed-back effects and expectation management

Interpretation assessment of

impacts and effects

Selection process (i) Simplification

Simplistic

(ii) Objective

Manipulative

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)

Simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication Leonardo da Vinci

Trade off evaluations Transparency and clarity Summarising and messaging

Trade off evaluations Summarising and messaging Interpretation and instability and side effects

Does the public and private sector obtain information in a form that leads to behaviour and expectations which are supportive of sustainable policy decisions ?

The need for communication concepts

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Rubric

www.ecb.europa.eu

Facts and figures Methodology Comparability

Clarify Simplicity Presentational

Effective Visualisation

Business sense

Information Statistics Intelligence

Design

Understandable Engagement Re-usability Channels

Transparency Business context

Readability

Digital communication

Form & function

Accuracy Consistency Reliability

Reach, share, visual narratives

The need for communication concepts

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Rubric

www.ecb.europa.eu

The Data Viz Toolkit: Our challenges

• 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)

Missing link: Communication follows dissemination

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Rubric

www.ecb.europa.eu

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

www.compareyourcountry.org & www.euro-area-statistics stics.org

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Rubric

www.ecb.europa.eu

Effective distribution channels Share/embed for re-use in digital media, 3rd party websites, tweets and blogs

The Data Viz Toolkit: Our solution

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Rubric

www.ecb.europa.eu

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

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Rubric

www.ecb.europa.eu

Impact - Digital communication channels

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Average 176 visits per day before the campaign

(17.10.2014 until 21.02.2016)

Various campaigns for new statistics releases

RANKINGS visualisation launched

Average 321 visits per day during the campaign

(25.02.2016 until 02.05.2016)

24572457

Average 176 visits per day before the campaign

(17.10.2014 until 24.02.2016)

Various campaigns for new statistics releases

RANKINGS visualisation launched

MAP visualisation launched

24572457

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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_

Rubric

www.ecb.europa.eu

Finanz-links (DE)

Capital (GR)

Follow the money (NL)

elPeriódico Economia (ES)

Verslo Zinios (LT)

Impact - Digital communication channels

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Rubric

www.ecb.europa.eu

Example: elEconomista.es and Makronom.de Embeds “our statistics” and writes the narrative

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Impact - Digital communication channels

Rubric

www.ecb.europa.eu

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

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Rubric

www.ecb.europa.eu

Q&A

All pictures are from freedigitalphoto.net