Using Heartbeat involves first defining the themes that you would like to track. Themes are then applied to time-series text data to create a Heartbeat chart that visualizes how those discussions are changing over time.
If you already know what you want to track, you can create or upload a theme and follow the instructions here.
What are themes?
Themes are collections of topics, words, phrases, and grammar elements that you want to track on an ongoing basis. Within a theme, you can track either individual linguistic features or group related terms together into sub-themes.
Themes are applied to time-stamped data to create Heartbeat charts that visualize how the proportion of conversation dedicated to your themes is changing over time.
For example, you define a theme group titled 'Electric vehicles.' Within this theme group, there may be several themes relating to different elements of the conversation. For example:
Appearance - attractive, beautiful, sporty, fancy, cool
Affordability - cheap, affordable, expensive, cost
Supply chain - lithium, mining
Each of these themes would display as its own line on a Heartbeat chart.
When you need to identify what to track
For the most effective results and robust insights, we recommend creating a comparison in Explore to identify the key features of your data set to track on an ongoing basis.
From the blue theme side panel, select an existing theme from the drop-down or create a new one by clicking the 'Create Theme' icon and then 'Create.'
Drag and drop the relevant items into the side panel to form your bespoke set of themes.
Click the 'Create Heartbeat Chart' icon.
You'll see a pop-up screen where you can add images, descriptions and check the data. When you're ready, click the 'Create Heartbeat Chart' button.
If you already know what you want to track, you can create a theme in Custom Themes.