Surface
Name the client: iOS, web, desktop, email. If two surfaces share a name in the product, they still get two rows. Shared names are how mixed-platform lies begin.
Method
The Signal Atlas
A one-sheet we use before anyone opens a dashboard. It is not software. It is a way of refusing vague App Analytics questions in the United Kingdom product rooms we keep getting invited to.
Job
The user job in one sentence, written without the feature’s marketing title. If you cannot write the job, you are not ready to instrument it.
Window
The time span in which the job can honestly complete, plus timezone. See the retention essay if you are tempted to default to seven days.
Refusal
What you will not claim. Examples we like: “we will not call this retained,” “we will not average desktop with iOS,” “we will not report lift without exposure.”
How it is used in the studio
Students fill an Atlas for the feature they bring to Product Telemetry Studio. Tutors mark the refusals first. A sheet with no refusals is incomplete. The Atlas then becomes the cover page of the Monday brief.
Organisations on a Circle Retainer keep a living Atlas in their own drive. We do not host it. If the sheet diverges from production events, the next review starts by reconciling the sheet, not by drawing a new chart.