1. Improving the user journey through design
Ian Polanowski
Session structure: Intro to HSS > GSS Audience insight and the impact on design > Reviewing the previous year in light of this insight work > Breaking down the new look and how it improves accessibility > Conclusion

2. Introduction to health and safety statistics
HSS is the single biggest project the team works on- it is an annual update to the vast majority of our outputs including web based summaries and commentaries, a suite of tables and, the focus of this presentation, a flagship summary booklet. The work underpins HSE’s strategy and policy work while also communicating information to the general public.

3. The power of the persona
Inquiring Citizens – Search for the unbiased ‘truth’ about topics raised by the media and political parties. They want simply-worded, visually engaging summaries, charts and infographics.
Information Foragers – They look for data to make practical, strategic business decisions so want high level summaries, narratives and charts. They don’t know exactly what to search for, until they come to it.
Expert Analysts – They download data for their own statistical models to create bespoke datasets. They know exactly what they want and can be frustrated by not being able to find it quickly. They need reliable, high quality data to feel confident in their own analyses.
One of the most important developments across the GSS has been the development of user personas which are useful sets of behaviours and needs that characterise the audience for statistical content. While that work continues to develop and increase in specificity, we adopted three personas when considering our outputs. The first of these is the inquiring citizen. As the summary document is the most visible part of the release we opted to target this segment of the audience with that

4. The power of the persona
Inquiring Citizens – Search for the unbiased ‘truth’ about topics raised by the media and political parties. They want simply-worded, visually engaging summaries, charts and infographics.
Information Foragers – They look for data to make practical, strategic business decisions so want high level summaries, narratives and charts. They don’t know exactly what to search for, until they come to it.
Expert Analysts – They download data for their own statistical models to create bespoke datasets. They know exactly what they want and can be frustrated by not being able to find it quickly. They need reliable, high quality data to feel confident in their own analyses.
Information foragers are served by our suite of HTML pages and, if they identify a topic of interest, our more detailed commentaries

5. The power of the persona
Inquiring Citizens – Search for the unbiased ‘truth’ about topics raised by the media and political parties. They want simply-worded, visually engaging summaries, charts and infographics.
Information Foragers – They look for data to make practical, strategic business decisions so want high level summaries, narratives and charts. They don’t know exactly what to search for, until they come to it.
Expert Analysts – They download data for their own statistical models to create bespoke datasets. They know exactly what they want and can be frustrated by not being able to find it quickly. They need reliable, high quality data to feel confident in their own analyses.
Finally there are expert analysts who we provide a suite of data tables for. What is worth noting about this model of needs and behaviours is that a user can transition between the personas. You are most likely an expert analyst in your field of expertise, for example, but may be an inquiring citizen when it comes to another topic like, for example, health and safety statistics.

6. Identifying areas for development
With the personas in mind, we opted to review our previous version of the publication, a page of which you can see here. Each element was assessed for how well it served the inquiring citizen and the first of these was the change indicators highlighted. While these have potential as a communication tool, the cut off points of previous year, five year and ten year can potential mislead a user

7. Change Indicators
If we consider this series, which I believe most of us would interpret as showing a flat trend, the story changes depending on which contrast you look at- however the most important story, the lack of change over time, could be lost in that noise. The need for clear statistical storytelling which provides an authoritative view on the data ultimately led to these being dropped.

8. Identifying areas for development
The next element under consideration was the inclusion of a table. As this document is available primarily in PDF format, the inclusion of the table was not considered best practice as users couldn’t easily access or reuse this information. It was determined that, if the table was required it should sit in our suite of tables and if a table was being used to highlight a specific figure that should be converted to a clearer headline.

9. Identifying areas for development
Finally we considered the charting and this chart in particular showed a problem we were running into due to the constraints of the format

10. Charting
There is an awful lot going on in this chart and a lot of elements which may not be immediately understandable to a non-specialist audience such as the dual axes or the stacked bar chart with an uneven base. The decision was made that the chart, in support of statistical storytelling, should focus on one element of the data and be simplified.

11. Identifying areas for development
As you can see, this didn’t leave much of the original layout and so a full redesign was decided upon

12. Anatomy of the redesign
Here is how that page looked in the new format we adopted. As you can hopefully see, the key figures can be picked out more easily and we have a dedicated commentary area to discuss long term trends or features. I would now like to examine each element more closely.

13. Anatomy of the redesign
The headline figures pull out straightforward stories that simply convey the key messages for the latest year. It also allows us to use information from complimentary sources to provide an overview by topic area rather than using sources as the dividing line as we had done previously.

14. Anatomy of the redesign
The charts themselves are more focused and have adopted a new style to make them more accessible to the audience. This includes removing the more traditional I-bars around confidence intervals and this has been replaced with a more intuitive band of confidence. The colour palette has also been leveraged to improve communication- each colour has been assigned to a topic area which is supported by a series of icons to readily identify the area being discussed. Differences between series are based on contrast and luminance rather than colour which ensures the document is accessibility friendly.

15. Anatomy of the redesign
This section highlights the commitment to simple storytelling and, for those moving from inquiring citizen to data forager, we have created a path for them to take on their user journey. The idea that each story should be self contained and work if separated from the rest of the document is a principle that applies to each element of the booklet to ensure that content can be shared easily across various platforms

16. Making information shareable
This was another key idea in putting the user at the heart of our design. As well as identifying what a user would want from our content we were also mindful of how they might use that content- someone in the health and safety field may want to share a particularly interesting or powerful figure via their social media or a data journalist may want to lift a chart to include an article and this modular design easily allows for this. This page also shows off the use of colour and distinctive icons that I mentioned earlier

17. User experience
Of course, the point of the redesign was to better serve the public so we felt it was important to actively seek out feedback. As you might have inferred from my invitation to speak today, that feedback was overwhelmingly positive and we have taken our user feedback on board into subsequent design projects.

18. Concluding thoughts
By building your design around the user you end up with a more effective and impactful product
That statistical storytelling is improved by focusing on one element at a time
Consider how your audience might use and share your content
So in conclusion, we rebuilt our flagship publication with the user at the centre of our decision making process. In doing so, we have created something that communicates clearly and with impact as seen from the statistics prominence in HSE policy decisions. We aimed to simplify and tell simple stories well and encourage users to explore the data rather than try to front load every element of the data set. Finally, we built a product that could be easily shared and that looked and felt distinctive- this is essential for when official statistics are in competition for the audiences attention in ensuring the statisticians voice is heard first, loudest and carries the authority needed.

19. Thank you Ian Polanowski ian.polanowski@hse.gov.uk
Thank you very much for inviting me and if you have questions that we aren’t able to address later in the session please feel free to contact me at the address on screen.