A method of identifying exemplary spans associated with a real user session comprises aggregating ingested spans associated with user interaction with an application during the user session. The method also comprises segmenting the user session into chunks and storing each chunk with an identifier indicating a location of a respective chunk. Further, responsive to user-specified parameters included in a query, the method comprises accessing a chunk using a respective identifier and applying the user-specified parameters to spans in the chunk. Additionally, the method comprises rendering a waterfall visualization comprising exemplary spans associated with the user session, wherein the exemplary spans surface in response to the applying the user-specified parameters to the plurality of spans in the chunk.