The Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) is a national data service that provides access and support for an extensive range of key economic and social data, both quantitative and qualitative, spanning many disciplines and themes.

The ESDS web site is divided into seven main sections accessible from every ESDS web page via the top menu tabs: About - ESDS and the web site, including FAQ and contacts Data - find and access data using the Data Catalogue, browse by subject, HASSET thesaurus etc. Support - including help desk, new users, how to register and access data, training Resources - including guides, data analysis, learning and teaching, themes Create and deposit - advice for data creators and depositors News - including latest news, past news, mail lists, publications, staff vacancies Events - forthcoming and past events

The navigational structure features a 'quick links' menu bar at the top of each page including login, a search facility enabling searching the web site and for data simultaneously, A-Z listing and site map. A dropdown list on every page provides links to all ESDS services.

Each of the seven main sections available from the purple section tabs have further sub menus listed on the left side of each page. The page on view is highlighted in this left side menu.

ESDS has created specific web pages with the audience in mind, including pages for new users, teachers, data creators, depositors, and users from outside the UK. Select the service required from the Which service? dropdown list avaliable on all ESDS pages. How to find data, what types of data are available, how to register with ESDS and many other frequently asked questions are all answered in these pages.

The Data Catalogue contains descriptions of all data supported by the ESDS specialist support services as well as a vast range of other survey data. The full catalogue can be searched by checking the All Data Catalogue button (this is the default search), or a focused, service-specific search can be performed by selecting one of the appropriate buttons.

A free-text search can be carried out on All of Study Description or a more focused search can be made on a specific field selected from the drop-down list. The catalogue may also be browsed by subject or the latest additions and new editions viewed via the New data releases listings. Quick links are also provided to the most popular datasets from the Major studies page.





ESDS provides support for key economic and social data for teaching and research through four specialist data services. Each of these services has a dedicated suite of web pages with a similar style and navigation structure as the main site to provide a 'uniform' look and feel and stylistic coherence, but with the four services employing their chosen colour scheme and images.

The ESDS web site follows agreed best standards and good practice in web design, accessibility and usability, complying with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and W3C guidelines for XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets.
Print-friendly page	ESDS pages are compatible with the following standard browsers: Firefox 3.0; Internet Explorer 7.0; and Opera 9.0. The web site allows resizing of text, and print-friendly pages are available from the link at the top right of the content of each page.

E1 Using the ESDS web site