My current dashboard includes metrics like free -> paid user conversion, app crashes, features that are most used, etc.
Those are fundamental aspects of my business that I need to track every day and map to events in time like new releases, marketing efforts, etc.
How are they "an invitation to pattern-match the past instead of interrogate the present" or "answers to some long-forgotten question"?
The problem is that dashboards are static snapshots of a dynamic reality. They are built on past understanding, and as systems evolve, they can become outdated and misleading. This can happen in several ways, two common ones are:
- Data drift: The underlying meaning of the data changes. For example, a bug might cause app crashes to be misreported, rendering crash-related metrics unreliable.
- Blind spots: Dashboards can't capture what they're not designed to measure. If user needs shift, a dashboard focused on existing feature usage won't reveal those changes.
This limitation isn't unique to dashboards. Any projection from a higher-dimensional space (reality) to a lower-dimensional representation (dashboard) will inevitably lose information. The problem is exacerbated when the representation doesn't adapt to the changing reality.