Knowledge of Command Usage in a Spreadsheet Program

Knowledge of how software is actually used by people can assist software developers and internal MIS application development personnel to improve the user-interface of existing software, in creating new user interface styles for existing software packages, and to improve the training for personnel using software packages. This article reports results from a study that examined the use of a popular spreadsheet software by 40 experienced users in their work environment. Of the 505 commands that could be used, 18 (3.6%) accounted for over 80% of the usage. More than 50% of the available commands were never used. Most of the command usage was related to creating, maintaining, and printing spreadsheets.