GoKawiilCrossword Heatmap
Inspiration: Curiosity initially around what the most common crossword layout is. Kinda morphed into wondering about distributions of empty spaces and letters.
Description: I downloaded some crossword data from Saul Pwanson. I focused on the NYT crossword which has had two variations for its history, the 15x15 daily and the 21x21 Sunday version. For each version, I tallied up counts of characters per cell.
What's visualized above are frequencies that answer the question “When character X shows up, where is it most likely to show up on the board?" The shading is scaled to the max per-cell-frequency of that particular character. So it's really highlighting distribution, not overall frequency.
For example, the character A is far more common than G, but G appears darker because it's very evenly distributed whereas A has a couple of extreme outliers in the top left. It's fun clicking through as some patterns emerge.
Quasi-Groupings
Anywhere works
A G K L O R T W
Great starters
B C F M P
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