ABSTRACT

The strategy of the Office for National Statistics has been to increase user engagement with census data, often via interesting data visualisations. Here we describe a logical development of this approach, namely to engage politicians and their aides with visualisations of rich data (including census data). We describe the development of the Constituency Kit, a resource developed collaboratively by the House of Commons Library and Durham University which synthesises census data from UK Census Offices and other sources. It was designed to support planning and analysis around the 2015 UK General Election. We describe our user-oriented design process, and some criteria for creating interactive data visualisations. We argue the case for collaborative links between national statistics offices, academics and secondary data providers which can be mutually beneficial.