Authors
Ruth McKeever & Kevin McDaid
Abstract
Although experts diverge on how best to improve spreadsheet quality, it is generally agreed that more time needs to be spent testing spreadsheets.
Ideally, experienced and trained spreadsheet engineers would carry this out, but quite often this is neither practical nor possible. Many spreadsheets are a legacy, developed by staff that have since moved on, or indeed modified by many staff no longer employed by the organisation. When such spreadsheets fall into the hands of inexperienced, non-experts, any features that reduce error visibility may become a risk.
Range names are one such feature, and this paper, building on previous research, investigates in a more structured and controlled manner the effect they have on the debugging performance of novice spreadsheet users.
Sample
The experiment group, using range names, found 6% fewer errors than the control group.
This shows that range names do not improve debugging performance. The greatest problems with names lie not in their implementation, but in the effect their inclusion has on users' perception of the spreadsheet.
Publication
2010, EuSpRIG
Full article
How do range names hinder novice debugging performance?
Also see
An exploratory analysis of the impact of named ranges on the debugging performance of novice users
