Affiliations: Statistics Netherlands, Henri Faasdreef 312, 2492 JP
The Hague, The Netherlands. Tel.: +31 70 3375025; Fax: +31 70 3877429; E-mail:
[email protected]/[email protected]
Abstract: Data are everywhere: on the internet, in newspapers, in computer
games, at school, at work and on TV. Data are essential to our daily
information needs and people are increasingly becoming used to reading and
interpreting data. Companies use advanced technologies to present their data in
fancy and visually attractive ways. Animated and interactive graphs, mapping
tools, charting components are now common techniques, and many examples of
attractive and well-designed data visualisation are to be found on the internet
in particular. Many of these concepts can be used to visualise official
statistics. Indeed, we think people expect official statistics to follow these
trends so that they can use the same tools and concepts to consult official
statistics. This paper presents an overview of visualisation trends on the
internet. It highlights visualisation initiatives that can currently be found
on the web and are likely to be useful for official statistics. It also
describes the status of visualisation activities at Statistics Netherlands, in
the field of regional statistics as well as other more specific data
visualisations, and touches on some of the more experimental features currently
being developed.
Keywords: Statistics, data visualisation, dissemination, internet trends, animation, charts, maps
