"Quality requirements for web-sites –
recommendations for best practice for fulfilling user
needs”
Best practice in communicating statistics: Making statistics meaningful for users
Celia Santos Sánchez
Unit D4 – Dissemination
celia.santos-sanchez@ec.europa.eu
Thursday 8 September 2011
Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities
Task Team: Quality and Dissemination
1
Quality requirements for web-sites
 Principle 1: Have general guidelines for organisation
 Principle 2: Provide rich set of content, free access to
data with consistent tools across all domains
 Principle 3: Make data reusable
 Principle 4: Track usage, user behaviour, user feedback
2
Principle 1
Important to have general guidelines
for organisation
Thursday 8 Septem3ber 2011
Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities
Task Team: Quality and Dissemination
3
1. Quality requirements: general EU guidelines
Information Providers guide/The internet handbook
Thursday 8 September 2011
Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities
Task Team: Quality and Dissemination
4
1. Eurostat guidelines
Thursday 8 September 2011
Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities
Task Team: Quality and Dissemination
5
Principle 2
Provide
• rich set of content,
• free access to data
• with consistent tools across all
domains
Thursday 8 September 2011
Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities
Task Team: Quality and Dissemination
6
2. Rich set of content
Statistical content
 All section follows the “Content providers guide” to ensure
harmonization and coherence between the sections
 Multilingualism: EN, FR, DE
 Writing for the web: big exercise to re-do all the introduction
pages in web style
Thursday 8 September 2011
Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities
Task Team: Quality and Dissemination
7
2. Eurostat: rich set of content
Thursday 8 September 2011
Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities
Task Team: Quality and Dissemination
8
2. Eurostat: content: sections harmonised
All sections have the same
look& feel
the user finds always the
content structured in the same
way…helping navigation
Thursday 8 September 2011
Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities
Task Team: Quality and Dissemination
9
2. Free access to data (free dissemination policy)
 Started 1st October 2004
 All statistical Data and electronic publications are FREE OF CHARGE via the
Eurostat website
 Available in three languages – (en,de,fr)
 > 4.500 datasets online available
 > 1.200 tables online available
 > 6.000 publication available (.pdf)
 Data updated twice a day
 Among top 5 visited websites of European Commission
Thursday 8 September 2011
Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities
Task Team: Quality and Dissemination
10
2. Consistent tools across all domains
 Navigation tree
– Data Explorer (dataset interface)
– Tables Graphs and Maps interface
 Country profiles
 Business Cycle Clock
 Bulk download facility
 Statistics Explained
Thursday 8 September 2011
Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities
Task Team: Quality and Dissemination
11
2. Consistent tools across all domains navigation tree
Thursday 8 September 2011
Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities
Task Team: Quality and Dissemination
12
2. Consistent tools across all domains: other visualisation
tools
• Business Cycle Clock
(BCC) for economic
cycle analysis
• Country and regional
profiles for comparisons
Thursday 8 September 2011
Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities
Task Team: Quality and Dissemination
13
2. Consistent tools across all domains: Statistics Explained
Thursday 8 September 2011
Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities
Task Team: Quality and Dissemination
14
Principle 3
Make data reusable
Thursday 8 September 2011
Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities
Task Team: Quality and Dissemination
15
3. Making data re-usable
 Users needs cannot be predetermined
 Allow users to re-use data with tools they prefer
 Provide various data formats in visualisation tools
(xls, html, txt, xml, spss, pc-axis)
 Bulk download facility – raw datasets
(tsv, sdmx-ml, dft)
Thursday 8 September 2011
Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities
Task Team: Quality and Dissemination
16
3. Making data re-usable: Bulk download facility
Thursday 8 September 2011
Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities
Task Team: Quality and Dissemination
17
Principle 4
Track
• usage
• user behaviour
• user feedback
Thursday 8 September 2011
Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities
Task Team: Quality and Dissemination
18
4. Track usage: monitoring figures – May 2011
 4 million page views
 886,000 dataset extractions
 675,000 tables consultations
 510,00 publication downloads (.pdf)
 1,2 million datasets downloaded via bulkdownload
 Internal Commission usage less 3%
Thursday 8 September 2011
Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities
Task Team: Quality and Dissemination
19
4. User behaviour: benchmarking 2010
1.
Comparison between Eurostat Website and other IO websites of
similar nature
OECD website www.oecd.org
IMF website – section “Data and Statistics” www.imf.org/external/data.htm
UN website – section “Publication, Stamps, Databases” www.un.org/Pubs
INE website www.INE.es
1.
Analyse the quality of content
2.
Produce recommendations
Thursday 8 September 2011
Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities
Task Team: Quality and Dissemination
20
4. User behaviour: benchmarking 2010
•
First impression It is clear who and what the site is for
•
Overall impression7,8/10 Best rating
•
Usability3,5/5 Best rating (vs 2,5/5 in 2007)
but: “not always clear what to do next”, position in the website
•
Functionalities
Complete but should enhance search and result page
Can enhance assess to data (appreciated service)
•
Technical issues
2nd place – need to improve accessibility
Thursday 8 September 2011
Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities
Task Team: Quality and Dissemination
21
4. User feedback: support helpdesks
Thursday 8 September 2011
Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities
Task Team: Quality and Dissemination
22
Future developments
Inflation Dashboard
(ECB)
Mobile Devices
23