Communicating Statistics Professional users requirements for Statistics Knowing

Communicating Statistics Professional users’ requirements for Statistics Knowing your users? What are the user patterns? What do users suggest? UNECE: Work session on Communication of statistics Per Nymand-Andersen Geneva, 27 -29 June 2012 1 1

Creating a “culture of stability” Welfare enhancement Policy making Professional users and citizens Knowledge based society CO MM UN IC A TIO N Analysis & assessment Statistical and financial literacy Policy decisions Policy options N TIO ICA UN MM CO Policy accountability Policy validations Analysis & assessment FACTUAL AND INDEPENDENT STATISTICS 2

Measuring the requirements of professional users An array of user surveys Ø Interviews with media/journalists Ø Survey of international statisticians Ø Survey on the ECB web-site Ø Survey of large data users/data vendors 3

Communication initiatives ► Recommendations from journalists 15 recommendations • Overview of statistics & core statistics • Forecast statistics • Workshops & training with media, contacts • Euro & national statistics in one source • Facilitate the redistribution of statistics • Notification and alerts • Euro area with other geographic areas • Press releases together with statistics • Select, point, view and print series on screen • Chart and facts of the week • Statistics in context (high/low) • User friendly and interactive web-sites • Use common language • Select data and charts from ECB publications • Search engine 4

ECB web-site user survey results 44. 1 % 68. 3% 19. 3 % 6. 9 % 2. 8 % 49. 0 % 7. 6% ØAdvising, accounting, daily business, Phd/reports, checking exchange rates/loan paybacks. 5 5

ECB web-site user survey results The usefulness of selecting the underlying data from tables and charts used in the ECB’s Monthly Bulletin articles & other ECB publications directly ? 81. 7 % 18. 3 % 83. 8 % 16. 2 % The ability to select, combine and visualise data before downloading data 6 6

Survey of international Statisticians Main barriers for using and accessing E(S)CB statistics • 136 replies on barriers by 83 respondents Six broad categories; Ø Structure of the web-site Ø Searching for statistics Ø Description of statistics Ø Terminology Ø Language Ø Technical user friendliness 7

Users requirements for statistics 300 barriers / proposals 8

New initiatives to meet the challenges • Task Force on Accessibility of Statistics: An ESCB concept • Need for closer cooperation among ESCB and statistics organisations • Communication of statistics – a challenge for the statistics function • Work together with (sparring) partners from the private market • Propose ways for representing the methodologies applied Provide a set of best practice and recommendations of new ideas to make ESCB statistics more understood, reach larger audience and easier accessible 9

Conclusions • Communication of factual and independent statistics enriches the political debate and has a welfare enhancement effect in society Focus on professional communication amplifiers ► Policy makers ► Journalists ► data redistributors ► Research centers • Measuring professional users’ requirements for statistics! ► Knowing users ► working patterns ► helping them - helping themselves • Significant call for facilitating: Understanding, use, re-use & analysis ► Knowing users ► working patterns ► helping them - helping themselves • Statistics needs a two-way communication strategy ► Building on synergies and sharing of functionalities ► building private partnerships ► pro-actively engage core use segments ► Task Force on Accessibility of Statistics: Recommendations, priorities, implementation strategy to make statistics more accessible 10 10

Effectiveness in communicating statistics Questions 11