Dot plot

Also known as dot plots, dot plot visualization

1 Talk 6 Facts 6 Sources Used by 1 company

Key facts

Capabilities: Can be applied to sampled users at very large scale
Can reveal usage patterns and retention problems not apparent in aggregate charts
Shows individual users’ meaningful actions over time in a two-dimensional grid, optionally encoding onboarding, features, and user attributes

From talks

Results and examples shared in single talks

Use day-level or finer time periods; weekly periods can obscure behavior 12:27 Dot Plots: How to Actually See What Your Users Are Doing

Used by 1 company

Based on job postings, talks and research

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How we verify

20263 events

reported 2026-07Capability
Can be applied to sampled users at very large scale
“This is a tool we used at Google Photos when we had well more than a billion users.” 9:51
Unverified1 source· Talk
reported 2026-07Capability
Can reveal usage patterns and retention problems not apparent in aggregate charts
“patterns that you probably wouldn't have seen with your human brain just looking at aggregate charts” 3:44
Unverified1 source· Talk
reported 2026-07Capability
Shows individual users’ meaningful actions over time in a two-dimensional grid, optionally encoding onboarding, features, and user attributes
“Each row represents one individual user. Every column represents a time period.” 1:23
Unverified1 source· Talk

Talks 1

13:50

Dot Plots: How to Actually See What Your Users Are Doing

Dave

The talk teaches how to use dot plots to see individual users’ product activity over time, complementing aggregate metrics such as DAUs and cohort retention curves. Each row represents a user, each column a time period, and symbols mark meaningful actions or user attributes. The resulting view can reveal usage patterns, retention problems, feature associations, and at-risk B2B accounts that aggregate charts might hide. Choose events that reflect real user value and use daily or finer time periods, especially when the user base is small.

Jul 9, 2026· 14 minDiscussed 1:23