Crossword 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 Great enders D    E    S    Y Anywhere but the start N Anywhere but the end H    I    U Just the middle V Rarities J    Q    X    Z

Sources NYT Crossword Data (2024)