Digital

Statistics.gov.scot Improvement Project – Discovery

January 23, 2025 by Stewart Hamilton No Comments | Category Data, Digital Scotland

Blog by Auren Clarke, Senior Product Manager in the Digital Directorate’s Open Data Team, Data Division.

I work in the Scottish Government’s Open Data team, and we are responsible for maintaining Scotland’s Official Statistics platform statistics.gov.scot. Last year, we gave an update on the work of the open data team – we are focused on supporting government openness and transparency by making it as easy to publish data to make it available for everyone to use.

Statistics.gov.scot site was launched in early 2016 and provides high quality data organised by theme, organisation and geography, made available as tables, maps, and multiple download formats. It represents an advanced solution to managing and publishing linked open data at the highest level of openness (5-star) for humans and machines. It includes a searchable data catalogue, an API SPARQL endpoint, and the ability to make complex and custom data queries and data visualisations.

In 2024, we supported data producers in publishing and updating over 250 datasets.  We would like to thank everyone who is publishing open data as well as our contractors at TPXimpact who provide technical support.

Improvement project

The Scottish Government is committed to providing a high-quality service where data producers can publish their open data and metadata easily, and where the people of Scotland can discover, find, and access the data they need.

While the site provides a rich source of well catalogued data, the team recognises there is large room for improvement. From previous user research, our users have told us that it can be challenging to find the data or metadata that they are looking for, they have unmet expectations on the granularity of information available, and terminology and processes can be overly complex.

As part of Scotland’s Open Government Action Plan 2021-25, the Scottish Government made a commitment to review statistics.gov.scot. In 2024, the Open Data team followed through on this by running an Agile discovery project to:

• Understand of the service’s current and potential user base, their needs, problems, and barriers, how the service currently addresses these, and how it could be improved to address these better in the future.
• Understand the context of relevant Scottish policies and initiatives.
• Understand opportunities and challenges in the context of data discoverability and dissemination platforms that have emerged or are emerging.
• Embrace and adopt Agile Delivery methodology to put the user at the core of the service and to ensure user involvement by design in every phase of the project.

The improvement project consisted of three workstreams: Users, Technology & Process, Policy & Landscape. The Open Data team partnered with StormID who provided user research expertise to lead an extensive programme of user research.

 Discovery findings

 I’m pleased to share with you the full report on the programme of user research. Tom Farrington, StormID User Researcher said “It’s been a pleasure to work with the Open Data Team on this timely and exciting project. This was teamwork in the truest, most collaborative sense, and the enthusiasm and fresh thinking from everyone involved was highly motivating.”

In summary, we found that:

• A confusing user interface amplifies performance issues. The unintuitive design of the site not only confuses users but also makes them more sensitive to the platform’s poor performance.
• Complex language and outdated content discourage effective use and undermine trust. When users encounter technical language that they do not understand, outdated elements, and/or find data that hasn’t been updated, their confidence in the reliability of statistics.gov.scot diminishes.
• Ineffective search functionality pushes users to external sources. The ineffective search tools on the site force users to spend more time and effort locating datasets, often abandoning the site in favour of external search engines or alternative sources.
• User frustration is a barrier to unlocking the platform’s potential. Despite the challenges, most participants recognise the potential of the site as a source of official statistics and data. However, frustration with the interface, performance, and basic functionality discourages users from exploring the site more widely or using it as their primary resource.

Statistics.gov.scot has the potential to become a trusted and valuable tool for a wide range of users. The findings suggest the need for a comprehensive, iterative overhaul of the site, focusing first on making datasets easy to publish, update, find, and access, before implementing any additional features. Any improvements to the site should be based on clearly evidenced and regularly assessed user needs, as well as being aligned with the Scottish Government Statistics Group strategic priorities (Users, Efficiency, Data and People).

What’s next?

This year we are commencing an Agile alpha to build prototypes to test different ideas and explore new approaches. Prototypes will be focused on addressing the high priority user needs that were identified during discovery, as well as addressing the key problems and challenges our users face.

We are always interested in hearing from you. You can get in touch with the Open Data team directly at: statistics.opendata@gov.scot.

Tags: discovery, improvement, Open data, Statistics.gov.scot

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