While it is true that one does not need to be an expert to be able to use spreadsheet software, it is not the easiest to use.

Can you imagine if the application you use is complex and has many features you are unfamiliar with? This causes a lot of frustration, and people are even intimidated by it!

This week, we prepared two UX stories of two of the most commonly used spreadsheet programs - MS excel and Google Sheets.

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It just won't fit!!

Sandra's not having it! 💆‍♀️

She's a newly hired assistant, and one of the first few things she was assigned to do

👉🏼 was to create a detailed and organized data report of the current projects the company has.

Sandra used MS Excel to do this.

Although she only knew the basics of this software, 💁🏼‍♀️ she was determined to do her task well.

As she added longer texts in the cells, the words wouldn't fit, 🤯

so they just overlapped the next cell beside it.

Plus, she wanted every word to be visible on each cell. 👌🏼

She was getting annoyed 😒 because she wanted everything to be neat and organized.

If only she was an Excel expert... 😓

But she wasn't!

So she explored the software for several minutes ⏲️ and tried to figure this one out on her own.

Minutes later... ⏳ frustrated yet determined, she finally learned how to fit the texts in a cell!

All she needed to do was click the 👉🏻 "Wrap text" tab from the toolbar!

Sandra felt stupid for not knowing this. 🤦🏼

But who could blame her?

Intuitiveness in apps is important. 🙌🏼

In Sandra's case, maybe her experience would have been much better

if the software would automatically fit the words she was typing in each cell. 🤜🏼

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Mom needs help with the sheets!!

Annie's the best! 🙌

She's home for the holidays 🎄 and wanted to make the most out of her time off being with her family.

She noticed her mother was glued to the computer 👩‍💻

and appeared to be struggling 😩 with what she was doing.

Annie found out that her mother was creating a simple template

for this organization in Google Sheets.

Mom needed to enter numbers into some cells, ⌨️

but they always moved to the ➡️  right side when she hit enter.

She needed all of them on the left, but she didn't know how.

Annie noticed this and offered 🤚 to assist.

Her mom was very happy to get help from her.

She certainly needed it because she was unfamiliar with the software.

Annie knew exactly what to do. 👌

She only needed to change the alignment to left, and it's done!

The numbers were now on the left! 👏

"Annie's the best!" thought mom.

But, if you think about it, Annie's mother wouldn't really need help

if the software didn't move the numbers automatically. ❗️

Sure, there's a workaround for this, but not everyone knows that.

This is something we should always keep in mind 🧠 when designing software.

We consider the user experience and make it as simple as possible. 📌

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Poll This Week

MS Excel or Google Sheets? For this poll this week, we asked people which of the two giant software is the most user-friendly.

Check the poll below.

And the people have spoken! More than half of respondents chose Google Sheets as the easier software to use!

Link to the poll: Click here!

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Sometimes users get intimidated by using certain applications because of how complicated they are to use.

This doesn't have to be the case with spreadsheet programs such as MS Excel and Google Sheets. With a good and improved UX, these kinds of applications can be user-friendly too!

As product designers, it is critical that the software we create does not cause our users undue stress.

If you have any questions about your software and how it can be improved, click the link below, and let's do a UX audit NOW!

https://www.intentux.com/lp/ux-audit

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