EuroMOMOVisualizing mortality data at the height of a pandemic

Design and the sciences rely on each other to produce and communicate knowledge. Even as this relationship is increasingly called into question as the perceived legitimacy of both fields fractures under misinformation campaigns, we view the interreliance of the two as an earnest priority. Much of our work relies explicitly on our ability to operate across the spheres of science and design. This is particularly true in our overhaul of the website of EuroMOMO, or the European Mortality Monitoring Project. EuroMOMO is an online analytical tool that tracks mortality data across 29 European countries. The website began in the 1990s as a minor public health project funded by the Statens Serum Institut, the arm of the Danish Ministry of Health responsible for preparedness against infectious disease. While some European countries make their mortality data public through national websites, EuroMOMO is the only place to view and compare data of all its participating countries simultaneously. These wide-reaching sets of data allow users to observe morbidity around specific events, such as earthquakes or H1N1 outbreaks, against more average rates.

At its inception and throughout most of its history, EuroMOMO received no more than a few hundred visitors per month, most of whom were researchers and data enthusiasts. Each week, the original website showed users the newest data received from national government agencies in composite form via various graphs. Each graph was a static image, a low resolution PNG that had to be uploaded manually to the site. Aside from creating tedious work for the web manager, EuroMOMO’s previous data management reduced the site’s functionality for its users. Professionals went to great lengths to extract more granular information than what the flat images readily contained, resorting to counting the pixels between axis labels.

The coronavirus pandemic has tested the ability of science to communicate with the public, and has shown science’s vulnerabilities in the face of attempts to undermine it. Even as funding and commendation for the arts and design continue to decline, it is precisely this expertise in human communication that can mobilize societies to act toward a common good. We have larger quantities of data on ever more granular topics, but find ourselves lacking the ability to make much of it. Even when they do successfully reach the public, graphs like those EuroMOMO creates can be manipulated to depict harmful non-realities, such as a downward climb in new cases when the opposite is true. For many of us, data visualizations like graphs and charts carry an air of scientific objectivity, and nefarious actors can capitalize on this misplaced certitude. In these cases, design is anything but decorative. Done correctly, design can make up the crux of science’s ability to be received accurately by individuals. In this high-stakes, time-sensitive project, we prioritized both legibility and trustworthiness to further indicate EuroMOMO’s reliability as a source for mortality information in the region.

After scrolling down from the landing page, which also maps EuroMOMO’s participating countries, users see a bulletin of the most recent week’s mortality data. This bulletin is an abbreviated version of the previous website’s, showing an updated graph of pooled mortality across participating countries over the last four years. Several disclaimers use both text and graphic elements to reinforce each other: bold typeface provides notes about data collection in Germany and Ukraine, while an italicized warning about delays in data is mirrored with a yellow highlight over the corresponding section of the graph. At the top of the bulletin, the blue header is updated with a simple, factual interpretation of the graph below, communicating in the most basic terms whether the mortality estimates are at, below, or above the typical rates. It’s a minimalist update that provides accuracy even for users just briefly checking in on EuroMOMO.

Separate from the weekly bulletins is a new website tab called “graphs and maps.” This section contains a variety of data visualizations that we selected together with the EuroMOMO team. While they’re based on the original website, the visual form the graphs and maps take is entirely overhauled to increase their functionality for the website’s staff and users both. The same formal, trustworthy color scheme of blue and grey makes up graphs of pooled mortality rate by age group, excess mortality (based on the expected level), and z-score, which is a statistical tool used to allow comparison between individual countries without exposing the sensitive raw numbers they share with the project. The “rolling average” graphs from the previous website have been discontinued, as they made the spikes in the data look smaller than they actually are, and thus aided the downplay of various mortality drivers.

The multiple forms of interactivity turn what were basic images into fully fledged graphic tools of analysis. They do allow serious users to access the particular scale of data they need in a clearer way than before, but they also encourage more casual users to explore the various elements and dig deeper into their understanding of the images in front of them. With high contrast, low clutter visuals and minimal quantities of simple text, the intimidation factor in approaching new information is lowered. Users can feel empowered in their ability to understand the source data themselves, rather than turning to more subjective, narrative-based sources. Even without meandering exploration, users are readily able pick up on the trends that the visuals illustrate with their blue plotlines and dotted grey baselines, all of which are consistent across the website.