Introduction
Heatmaps are two-dimensional (2D) visible representation of information, which uses colours. In heatmaps, the colours will depict different values.
Breaking Down Heatmap
Heatmaps can be utilised for any kind of data. The data that can be interpreted using heatmap ranges derived from CDS (credit default swaps), the real estate market depicting the foreclosures, and analysis of a webpage showing the number of clicks it received.
Heatmaps were first known to be utilised in the nineteenth century for statistical analysis and went on to grow as a handy tool in almost all the industries and fields, including engineering, medicine, research, and marketing.
They turned out to be extremely popular, specifically at times when the recession happened in the year 2008 due to the subprime mortgage crisis. Most individuals use heatmaps to swiftly see the rate of foreclosures in several states and make comparisons with heatmaps from the past months to find out if the number of foreclosures is increasing, decreasing, or remaining the same.
Uses
Heatmaps can be of immense use as they can offer an effective and holistic view of a topic at once. Unlike tables or charts that have to be studied or decoded in order to be understood, a heatmap is a straightforward data visualisation tool, which is much like a self-descriptive image and uncomplicated to gauge.
In particular, heatmaps can be of great help for those consumers that are not used to read large volumes of data to understand things and are the ones that grasp things quickly by looking at things visually. They don’t like to access traditional formats of data representation as they find it hard and time-consuming to break down things and imagine the same to understand.
