Charting a Ninja Eagle on Stilts
Who doesn’t love a good chart about animal behavior? Better yet, a chart that shows the striking capabilities of a predator. Within a BBC article titled “The most powerful punches and kicks of all time” is a list of punches and kicks by animals ranging from the Peacock Mantis Shrimp to our topic of discussion, the Secretarybird. After clicking through some links to even find a chart, I found this trio of charts presenting data recorded from Madeleine, a captive male secretarybird who was trained to strike a rubber snake to exhibit its hunting strategy.
Long story short, researchers found that Madeleine could deliver a strike that was five or six times his own bodyweight in a tenth of the time it takes a human to blink. How cool is that? Too bad that’s not very clear from the charts above. So let’s take a look at these graphs and see what could be changed.
Considering this graph was published in a science article, these graphs probably all make a lot more sense to their intended audience than myself, someone who randomly happened upon this article looking for a chart to evaluate. If the audience for these graphs were like me though, a BBC Earth reader, I would have to say Graph D is the hardest to understand. While I understand the image and transfer of weight, I’m not sure how the data of the graph relates to a strike versus Madeleine walking around. So I would probably take out Graph D entirely. Graph C has a very strong presence and is incredibly effective in communicating the information I’m trying to reinforce, that secretarybirds have awesome strike power in a short amount of time. Prioritizing Graph C by making it larger would make the charts more effective in conveying the point of the BBC article. Graph B is helpful to the audience because it directly relates to the information of Graph C, and the consistency of color used across the two graphs tie them together visually. Despite the general rule of thumb to be wary of traffic light colors, I think the vividness of the red relates to the energy and impact of Madeleine’s most powerful blows. However, using one color with different shades could describe the data in an equally powerful way.
The charts of Madeleine’s strike force describe a very powerful predator, and the corresponding graphs could be improved to enhance the awesome nature of this information using current data visualization techniques and methods.
Original article:
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170605-the-most-powerful-punches-and-kicks-of-all-time
