Spreadsheet Comprehension: Guesswork, Giving Up and Going Back to the Author

“It’s Freedom to Put Things Where My Mind Wants”: Understanding and Improving the User Experience of Structuring Data in Spreadsheets

“…We also build on the findings of Ragavan et al, who observed that spreadsheet authors make efforts to improve the comprehensibility of their spreadsheets [101]. Our findings reaffirm a deep consideration for the readability of the spreadsheet both by the author and by their collaborators, and that private spreadsheets often contained less structure than shared ones (Section 5.1.3).…”

“…Spreadsheet data arrangement practices are largely ad hoc [101], and suffer from inadequate tool support, cultural resistance to tool uptake, and limited user expertise [53]. Users commit 'considerable management effort' to locating different sources of data, reconciling differences, and arranging data for sharing.…”

“…However, a survey of spreadsheet usage found that 90% of users don't follow any written guidelines [104]. Written guidelines are often under-specified with respect to common user concerns, e.g., data validation, conditional formatting rules, charts [101].…”

End-user encounters with lambda abstraction in spreadsheets: Apollo’s bow or Achilles’ heel?

“…In turn, each of the above proposals sparked questions about their effective use. 3) Spreadsheet tooling and experience: Editing and reading long formulas is already challenging [39]. LAMBDA encourages an extended, programmatic style of formula writing that throws into sharp relief the limits of the current formula management environment, exposing several inadequacies of tooling and user experience for formulas.…”

“…Ragavan et al's study of spreadsheet comprehension found two main bottlenecks to formula comprehension: first, the information-seeking detours required to understand the quantities on which a formula operates; and second, understanding the usage of unfamiliar formula functions [39].…”