Spreadsheet bibliography
Title | XLBlocks: A block-based formula editor for spreadsheet formulas |
---|---|
Authors | Bas Jansen & Felienne Hermans |
Year | 2019 |
Type | Proceedings |
Publication | 2019 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC) |
Series | October |
Abstract | Spreadsheets are frequently used in industry to support critical business decisions. Unfortunately, they also suffer from error-proneness, which sometimes results in costly consequences. Experiments in the field of program education have shown that programmers tend to make fewer errors and can better focus on the logic of a program if they use a block-based language instead of a textual one. We hypothesize that a block-based formula editor could support spreadsheet users in a similar way. Therefore, we develop XLBlocks and conduct a think-aloud study with 13 experienced spreadsheet users from industry. Participants are asked to create and edit several formulas, using our block-based language. We then ask them to evaluate this editor using the Cognitive Dimensions of Notations framework. We found that for all dimensions the block-based formula editor received a better evaluation than the default text-based formula editor. |
Full version | Available |
Sample | LOOKUP formula in XLBlocks ![]() To do a lookup, the user simply specifies:
XLBlocks translates this into the following formula: Using the |