Improvement Insights Blog
Users Barely Using Excel
Renu Davi, Sr. Program Manager for Excel, reported at Excelapaloosa that two-thirds of the 650 million users use Excel to make lists. The other third of users do deeper analysis, but I’m wondering how? Microsoft keeps tabs on Excel usage. Here’s some statistics for usage in an Excel workbook:
- Only 4.3% have a function like SUM(A1:B2)
- 7.5% have Pivottables
- 17% use Freeze Panes
- 54% use Merged Cells (instead of Center Across Selection which works much better in many ways)
I wonder why we need any new features if the vast majority of users don’t or won’t use them. Maybe we need to invest in teaching people how to use the Excel features they have. Or maybe ways to simplify the use of more power tools?
That’s why I added the Data Mining, PivotTable, Control Chart and Statistics Wizard to QI Macros, to get people using the advanced functionality easily.
