Build a Custom Area Profile

Build a custom area profile is a tool that I led the design and development for at the Office for National Statistics (ONS). It allows users to create their own data profile for any area in England and Wales using Census 2021 data, including a custom area drawn on a map.

The main challenges on the project were to build an intuitive and performant interface for selecting and drawing areas on a map, for merging the selected geographic boundaries and area codes, and to efficiently request data from an existing API (Nomis) in a way that would be performant for hundreds of concurrent users.

Map-based interface for drawing and selecting geographic areas. ONS

Interface for selecting census data and comparison areas. ONS

A demo of the bilingual Arabic/English interface

“Draw your own geography” prototype using 2011 census data (view). Ahmad Barclay/ONS