Introduction to Excel
I have used Excel off and on for years, mainly for school, and a few times professionally. It is a good tool for people who are spreadsheet-mindedwhich is not necessarily what I am. It is simple enough to use once you get the hang of it, but it does require learning a few of the tricks and mechanisms in order to make it work effectively. When I have used it in school, it was for statistics classes, and we had to learn formulas, pivot tables, and charts to manage and present visualizations of data. From my personal experience, Excel is a good tool for presenting statistical data, charts, and so on. Some people I know like using it also for managing tasks, for budgeting, and so people at work use it for creating reportswhich I have done, too. In professional settings, it is also used for more advanced purposes like tracking business performance or creating data models (Alexander, 2022)but I have not done much of that in my own work. I find that it has utility, but one really needs to be a spreadsheet type of person to really gravitate towards it.
As for whether Excel is user-friendly, the answer may vary depending on experience levels. For me as a beginner, it took me a while to appreciate it. Excels considerable array of features is definitely overwhelming at first. However, as you become more familiar with its functionalities, it becomes somewhat easier and more intuitive. The interface is simple enough, and the availability of tutorials and help resources makes Excel somewhat accessible (Bendoly, 2020).
When I was new to Excel, the learning curve felt steep at first, and daunting, because I did not really care much about creating spreadsheets, or performing calculations, and visualizing data. Yet, after a while, I began to appreciate the fact that I could use Excel for data sorting, and for creating graphs, and using formulas and so on. I hope to learn some more so as to improve presentations and just get better at organizing and presenting information. I have not mastered all the tools or formulas and processesand that is what I hope to learn.
References
Alexander, M. (2022).Excel dashboards & reports for dummies. John Wiley & Sons.
Bendoly, E. (2020).Excel Basics to Blackbelt: An Accelerated Guide to Decision Support
Designs. Cambridge University Press.
