: Have there been any attempts to improve the design of spreadsheets? Are there notable attempts to redesign the spreadsheet, as a number-heavy GUI which requires hours of painful concentration?
Are there notable attempts to redesign the spreadsheet, as a number-heavy GUI which requires hours of painful concentration?
As of today, the mainstream spreadsheet applications still use the same basic screen design as in 1980s: a large collection of small uniform cells, some of which have data. Excel indeed allows resizing the columns and building different fonts, but basically it is still the same. Hundreds of millions of office workers worldwide have to stare into ugly uniform screens for hours, trying to find what they need.
I suppose most take it for granted, but I wonder if anyone recently tried redesigning the entire paradigm.
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...by the definition of what spreadsheet is it can't be rethought. Spreadsheet is a tool for inserting data into tables. The closest thing to an alternative would be databases particularly on the front end so office workers are no longer visually seeing a table even though thats exactly what it is.
In fact a buddy of mine started as a spreadsheet programmer for Lockheed Martin. From there as databases developed he naturally progressed into that role. The progression you're looking for in spreadsheets are databases and the most recent change could be looked at as NoSQL or JSON on the back end.
On the front end for office workers to not be "bored" there's a steady supply of ways to interact with the data on custom applications. Even cash registers these days are essentially databases with a custom user interface.
Spreadsheets are all 'basically the same' because it's a pretty basic construct. It's a table of numbers. A spreadsheet is a data tool. First and foremost, it's designed for data input and manipulation. It's been essentially the same since the beginning of GUIs--and even before that if you look at ledger books.
That's not to say people haven't likely rethought it at different times, but in the end, people that use spreadsheets simply need a spreadsheet. It's a pretty basic tool in that sense.
What has changed, is how we interact with them, however. Apple's Numbers app incorporates touch into the experience:
www.apple.com/ios/numbers/
Look back at the history of spreadsheets. This has been addressed in the past:
Javelin
Lotus Improv (v1 was for NeXTstep, v2 for Windows) --- review here: simson.net/clips/1991/1991.NW.Improv.html Flexisheet (this is moribund, but opensource)
Quantrix Financial Modeller (still available --- be sure to check the price tag)
Basically, the improvement which is needed (and was implemented) is to force the naming of every row, table and ultimately cell, and allow a dynamic re-arranging.
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