The greatest nations on earth

Reader Kirsten P. sent me to Ben Byrne's website (link), where we learn that Europe has the greatest countries on earth.Byrne presents a solution to a visualization challenge that arises frequently in business and social science studies. We have a composite ranking, built from component ratings. The entities being ranked can be placed into larger groups. In this case, the composite ranking is the greatness of nations. The component ratings (what Byrne calls "pillars") consist of six factors, each of which is drawn from published statistics by reputable organizations. The entities are countries, and the grouping is by continent.The right panel is the key event. The countries are sorted by the composite ranking from best to worst. The component ratings are visualized as a set of columns. These columns are not labeled, indicating the designer's assumption that it's of secondary interest.The "rank range" on the right side is quite interesting, and I'll come back to it.The right panel by…