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AHS: Report Redesign Opinions Sought

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As I mentioned in my recent update on the state of the AHS, we are beginning to work on redesigning the printed report. Our aim is to distribute a lot less paper and put more of the details on the web. This message summarizes what we're thinking about doing, as of right now. All of it is subject to change. I earnestly entreat you to give us your comments.

It may be helpful if you read this message with a copy of one of our current reports handy to look at.

PAPER REPORT:
My current vision of the new paper report is that it will consist of only the first two chapters of the current report (all housing units and all occupied units). Each table will be only the lefthand-side of the current two-page spread. Redundant material in Chapter 2 will be removed, leaving only those rows that specifically need occupied units to make sense. (For example, "units in structure" or "number of bedrooms" will be in Chapter 1 only.) We may also prune some of the specialized tables and rowstubs from these chapters (for example, degree days). The appendicies will be reduced to just appendix A. The other appendicies may be one-page summaries, with URLs directing you to where you can find the full appendicies on the web. If the Census clearing process will allow it, we may add a short introductory essay on the current state of housing, written by HUD (we use more adjectives than they do).

ON THE WEB:

The more detailed chapters from the current report, plus the righthand-side columns, would be published on the web. We are discussing some combination of HTML tables, PDF files, and spreadsheets. Right now, it will probably be two of those, but it might be all three. One technical point which we are hoping will help is that the Census Bureau works in SAS now, and SAS has something called the Output Delivery System (ODS) which will output tables in each of these formats by just changing a keyword in the source code. On the other hand, if you have any experience with that sort of promise, you know that what you get often needs some manual tweaking, and that may well nullify the work saved through automation. We'll have to see how well ODS can deliver.

An important consideration for any government distribution of information is that we have to make sure that at least one form is accessible to persons with disabilities. This is called "Section 508 compliance." For tabular data, we're mainly concerned with being compatible with various "screen reader" programs that turn tables into sound. Some of these presentation formats can embed tags in the documents that help the screen readers keep their place in complex documents.

HTML: Similar to what we have now, but designed to make printing easier. There is an inherent problem with HTML in that what you get depends on the hardware and software at your end, and so the designer has to make some assumptions about the minimum requirements. Importing the numbers into other software for manipulation or reporting is relatively easy. Printing, especially for wide tables, can be difficult or impossible. HTML can be used with screen readers, if the right codes are embedded. It's not clear whether this embedding can be automated.

PDF: Best for printing. Most people like to have some tables on paper (I know I do). Hardest for exporting the numbers to other software. Not as good for screen readers, although this is improving. Larger documents can be bookmarked, so that subsections can be found with the click of a mouse (although this is not currently being done with AHS reports). We have to give some though about whether we want to publish PDF tables one at a time, in chapter-size documents, or as one big document (as we do with the current report).

Spreadsheet: This probably means Microsoft Excel format, since that is the most widely used. Spreadsheets are easiest to manipulate. Users will have to purchase their own spreadsheet software. Screen readers can work with spreadsheets, although the documents have to be designed with this in mind. Not as handy for online viewing. As with the PDFs, we have to think about how to bundle the tables.

It is possible that we may decide to make the format available in all three formats. While this does increase the amount of server space that the AHS needs, a more important consideration is the burden of maintaining three sets of files and keeping them synchronized through updates and corrections.

We would like to know what you think of these plans. I'm sure that there are important factors that just haven't occured to us yet. Any concerns or suggestions you have should be mentioned as soon as possible. By all means, send your response to the entire listserve, so that others can see them. That may inspire other users to suggest things that they wouldn't have thought of otherwise. Remember that if you do want to respond to the listserve, you must enter the address (AHS@huduser.gov) int the To: field of your message. If you just do an ordinary reply, the message will go to me only.

Dav Vandenbroucke
Economist
U.S. Dept. HUD
david_a._vandenbroucke@hud.gov
202-708-1060 ext. 5890