Heatmaps and Defining Color Scales
With color as the visual encoding, choose the scales that allow you to see actual patterns.
Heatmaps can be a quick and easy way to see a grid of numbers. Sometimes patterns pop out but only if you use a color scheme that complements the data. As you’ll see in this tutorial, it’s quite easy to end up with useless heatmaps. Luckily, it also goes the other direction.
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About the Author
Nathan Yau is a statistician who works primarily with visualization. He earned his PhD in statistics from UCLA, is the author of two best-selling books — Data Points and Visualize This — and runs FlowingData. Introvert. Likes food. Likes beer.
