Introduction
This week’s challenge focuses on building a unit chart (dot matrix / isotype) in Sigma – a non-native visualization that shows proportion using a 100-unit grid.
Instead of traditional bar or pie charts, you’ll construct a 10×10 dot grid per category and use conditional logic to fill dots based on percentage of total orders.
The goal:
Make category share instantly readable and highlight how much volume sits in the long tail.
Need Access to Sigma?
Note: You will only have view access to WOW Workbooks, Folders, and Workspaces, not edit access. Please create your WOW Workbooks under “My Documents.” We suggest creating a folder to organize all your workbooks.
1. Aggregate your data
- Group by
Menu Type - Create:
Order Count = Count(Order Id)Create % of Orders
2. Create “Top Categories + Other”
- Rank categories by Order Count
- Keep top N (e.g. 4–5)
- Bucket remaining into
"Other" - Re-aggregate to get final % per group
3. Create a 1–100 scaffold
- Create or import a table with values
1 → 100 - This represents your unit grid
4. Join scaffold to categories
- Add
Join_Key = 1to both tables - Join to create:
-> 100 rows per category
5. Create grid positions
Row = Floor(([Unit Id] – 1) / 10) + 1
6. Create fill logic
Dots Filled = Round([Pct] * 100, 0)
Filled = Fill Order <= Dots Filled
7. Build the chart
- Chart type: Scatter
- X-axis:
Col - Y-axis:
Row - Color:
Filled - Trellis:
Category - Turn OFF aggregation
8. Format
- Fix axes to 1–10
- Hide gridlines and labels
- Increase point size
- Add % labels below each panel
Stretch Goals (optional)
- Toggle between % of Orders vs % of Revenue
- Experiment with alternative fill patterns (zig-zag, random)
- Add annotations or narrative callouts
Requirements
Dataset
Share
After you finish your workout, share on LinkedIn, Sigma’s Community page, (or Twitter) using the hashtags #WOW2024 and #SigmaComputing, and tag Stanley Gai, Jess Batten, Ashley Bennett, Eric Heidbreder, Katrina Menne, Carter Voekel, and Michal Shaffer!
Create an interactive, sharable version of your solution here.
Also, make sure to fill out the Submission Tracker so that we can count you as a participant this week to track our participation throughout the year.
Solution
