Been building dashboards for our mobile app but they end up being pretty charts that nobody actually uses for decisions.
Looking for examples of dashboards that actually changed how teams operate or influenced real product choices.
Find where users are dropping off and fix those spots first. That’s your biggest bang for the buck.
Skip the charts - build alerts instead. Day 1 retention drops below 30%? Someone gets pinged on Slack right away. CPA jumps 20% overnight? Your paid team knows before lunch. Those pretty static dashboards just sit there while problems pile up. Real dashboards interrupt you when something’s actually wrong. Set thresholds on your key metrics and make them scream when things break.
Track few metrics that drive team actions
Built a dashboard for a dating app tracking user activity by hour. Simple concept, but it transformed our campaign strategy.
Turns out users were most active 7-9pm while we ran ads all day. Moved 60% of our budget to peak hours and cut cost per install by 23%.
Kept it stupidly simple - one chart showing actual usage times. Team checked it every morning and tweaked ad scheduling immediately.
Most dashboards try to show everything and end up useless. Pick one metric that’ll actually change what you do tomorrow.
Focus on metrics that prompt action when they reach certain thresholds.
For example, if daily active users fall below your goal, look closely at recent changes or initiate retention strategies. The same applies to trial-to-paid conversion rates.
The key is to connect each metric with specific team actions.