Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Federal Statistical Office FSO "Making data be understood – and easily produced" Interactive visualization from.

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHAFederal Statistical Office FSO

"Making data be understood – and easily produced"Interactive visualization from a user and

producer perspective

A. Grossenbacher, Statistics Switzerland16 May 2008 UNECE Workshop on Communication

and Dissemination of Census Results

2 Interactive visualization from a user and producer perspective| UNECE May 2008A. Grossenbacher


We all agree

Visualizing data, creating images out of data is the beeline in bringing statistical information to the users.

But: There are many dangers and open questions lurking alongside this route.



Images carry messages …







… this is true for (photo)journalism




…. but also for statistical graphsCriminality and its development from 1988 to 1992

An authentic history

Offences against the Criminal Justice Act















Offering graphs:User-side interactivity

User-created graphs are increasingly offered.

Statistical Institutions use a large set of graphical information types.

Bottlenecks in dissemination services, advanced technologies and demands from users push interactive graphs.

There are several types of interactive graphs.



User-side interactivity

1. Populating graphs with data in an automated way. Interactivity is restricted to building a graph on the basis of predefined tables or online databases.The result: ad hoc graphs for a first analysis




2. Giving users the possibility of changing the appearance of graphs. Choosing bar or pie chart presentation, colours and size are part of this interactivity. A playground for adapting presentation aspects to user preferences.




3. Offer an interactive choice in information. In predefined graphs variables can be changed and new information elements displayed.

http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/en/index/themen/03/04/blank/key/lohnstruktur/nach_branche.html




All of these graphic types can also be dynamic.

Users can decide to let variables or developments in time be presented in a film. Such films are attractive but usually difficult to follow..




4. A combination of interactivity, dynamics and explanation.

It is interactivity conceived, controlled and presented with commentary to the users by intermediate persons.

This television-like presentation leads to fascinating statistics courses for a wide public.

Hans Rosling



Producer-side interactivity

The number of graphics tools is quite large.

How do we find the best and fastest way to produce?



Producer-side interactivity

• Automated production of graphs with software like Excel (or some Online-Databases) leads to “working graphs” but not necessarily to “publishing graphs”.

• High-quality graphs need authoring. But this becomes increasingly difficult.

• So we observe an increasingly important trend in making the publishing of high quality graphs and maps both cheaper and....faster. How to?

• Following this approach authors have to be provided with all the necessary interactive tools to publish graphs.

• A step further would be to use more advanced specific procedures so as to ensure (semi-)automatic production.



Template-driven graphics production

Specialists can use semi-automatic tools to build templates for graphics and to introduce data via i.e. Excel files or xml/SDMX.This technique allows for the fast and easy updating of an application: it is kid's play to add an additional year to a graphic.



Template and graphics power to the authorsGranting authors the direct publishing power in the field of visualizations is a further approach. Here, Web Content Management Systems (CMS) open new possibilities. Authors can edit texts and introduce data for graphs.



Template and graphics power to the authorsPredefined CMS templates for author usage and the central activation service ensure quality before publishing. In a future step these graphs will be exported via xml to other publishing tools, opening in this way all sorts of cross media opportunities...



Automatically generated high-quality graphsThe last step i.e. the automatic production of high quality graphs is not yet achieved in Statistics Switzerland.

Through this process, quality controlled templates would be filled and updated with data via a direct database access. So graphs presented in a web page or pdf-reports could be produced and presented easily and rapidly.

Projects aiming to achieve this and to combine graphic templates and databases are underway.



We’re working on it

An international discussion about generating high-quality visualizations of data is of fundamental interest for us all.

Federal Department of Home Affairs FDHA Federal Statistical Office FSO "Making data be understood – and easily produced" Interactive visualization from.

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