The Golden Rules of Spreadsheet Design
Summary
TLDRThis video script emphasizes the importance of thoughtful spreadsheet design to prevent errors and enhance efficiency. It outlines six golden rules: adopt and implement a standard format, ensure team competence, identify your audience, include a welcome sheet with instructions, separate data, calculations, and analysis, design for longevity, and control data input. By following these guidelines, users can create professional, error-free spreadsheets that are easy to update and understand.
Takeaways
- 😀 Adopt a standard for spreadsheet design, including consistent formatting, fonts, colors, and file naming conventions.
- 🔒 Ensure team members have appropriate Excel skills and knowledge to maintain the spreadsheet without causing errors.
- 👥 Identify the audience for the spreadsheet to tailor the design for clarity and simplicity, considering both internal and external users.
- 📊 Include a welcome sheet with instructions to guide users on how to interact with the spreadsheet effectively.
- 📑 Separate data, calculations, and analysis into different worksheets to enhance readability and organization.
- 🛡️ Design for longevity by using features like Excel tables and avoiding hard coding values to accommodate future changes.
- 🎨 Use color coding and cell styles to visually distinguish between input, output, and calculation cells, enhancing user understanding.
- 🚫 Remove grid lines for a cleaner look that focuses attention on the data, rather than the spreadsheet structure.
- 🔐 Control data input using data validation and protection features to prevent errors and maintain spreadsheet integrity.
Q & A
What are some common issues that can arise from not planning the design of a spreadsheet?
-Common issues include errors introduced by others when the spreadsheet is unprotected, formulas being changed unintentionally, time-consuming queries from colleagues about data entry and calculations, and difficulty in making future modifications due to lack of initial planning.
Why is adopting a standard and implementing it important in spreadsheet design?
-Adopting a standard ensures consistency in cell formatting, fonts, colors, and file naming, which helps in maintaining a professional look, avoiding distractions, and making the spreadsheet easy to navigate and understand.
How can ensuring an appropriate level of knowledge and competence within a team prevent spreadsheet issues?
-When team members have sufficient training and skills in Excel, they can work on spreadsheets without causing errors or requiring excessive guidance, leading to more efficient and error-free collaboration.
What is the significance of identifying your audience when designing a spreadsheet?
-Identifying the audience helps tailor the design to their needs, ensuring the spreadsheet is as clean and simple as possible, and appropriate for the intended viewers, whether they are internal team members, managers, clients, or external stakeholders.
Why should a welcome sheet with instructions be included in an Excel spreadsheet?
-A welcome sheet with instructions provides clear guidance on how to use the spreadsheet, reducing confusion and the number of questions asked, and ensuring that users enter data and perform calculations correctly.
How does separating data, calculations, and analysis into different worksheets improve spreadsheet usability?
-Separating these elements avoids confusion, enhances readability, and allows for easier management and updates of the spreadsheet, as changes in one section do not inadvertently affect others.
What is the benefit of designing spreadsheets for longevity?
-Designing for longevity ensures that the spreadsheet can accommodate future changes without significant rework. This includes using features like Excel tables and avoiding hard coding values into formulas, which allows for easier updates and maintenance.
Why is it recommended not to hard code values into formulas in a spreadsheet?
-Avoiding hard coding allows for easier updates; for example, if a tax rate changes, updating it in one cell will automatically adjust all related formulas, rather than having to manually change each instance.
How can color coding and cell styles contribute to a cleaner and clearer spreadsheet?
-Color coding helps visually group related data, while cell styles can indicate the purpose of cells (input, output, calculation, etc.), making the spreadsheet easier to understand and navigate.
What is the purpose of controlling data input in a spreadsheet?
-Controlling data input through features like data validation and protection ensures the integrity of the spreadsheet by preventing unauthorized changes and errors, maintaining accuracy and reliability of the data.
Outlines
📊 Spreadsheet Design Fundamentals
The paragraph emphasizes the importance of thoughtful design and structure in spreadsheet creation. It points out that neglecting these aspects can lead to errors and confusion when the spreadsheet is shared or updated. The speaker introduces 'golden rules' of spreadsheet design to prevent such issues, such as adopting and implementing a standard for formatting, ensuring team competence in Excel, identifying the audience for the spreadsheet, and including a welcome sheet with instructions. These rules are aimed at making the spreadsheet user-friendly, error-free, and adaptable to future changes.
📑 Enhancing Usability with Instructions and Structure
This paragraph focuses on the practical aspects of making spreadsheets more user-friendly and efficient. It suggests including a welcome sheet with instructions to guide users on how to interact with the spreadsheet, which can reduce confusion and the number of support queries. The paragraph also advocates for separating data, calculations, and analysis into different worksheets to maintain clarity and organization. Additionally, it stresses the importance of designing spreadsheets with longevity in mind, using features like Excel tables and avoiding hard coding values to facilitate easy updates and modifications in the future.
🛡️ Controlling Data Input and Protecting Spreadsheets
The final paragraph discusses strategies for controlling data input and protecting the integrity of spreadsheets. It highlights the use of data validation to restrict user entries to predefined options, thus preventing errors. The paragraph also covers the use of worksheet and workbook protection to safeguard formulas and critical data from unauthorized changes. By implementing these measures, the speaker aims to ensure that spreadsheets remain reliable and accurate, even when shared among multiple users.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Spreadsheet Design
💡Data Protection
💡Excel Tables
💡Data Validation
💡Cell Formatting
💡File Naming Convention
💡Formulas
💡Welcome Sheet
💡Color Coding
💡Data Analysis
💡Workbook Protection
Highlights
The importance of designing spreadsheets with future modifications in mind to avoid extensive rework.
Adopting a standard and implementing it for consistent cell formatting, fonts, colors, and file names.
Using appropriate colors that add to the data without causing distraction.
Choosing readable fonts like Arial or Calibri for spreadsheets.
Organizing large datasets into tables with borders and background fills for clarity.
Implementing a consistent file naming convention for easy identification of spreadsheet content.
Ensuring team members have adequate Excel skills and knowledge to work effectively with spreadsheets.
Identifying the audience to tailor the spreadsheet design for clarity and simplicity.
Including a welcome sheet with instructions to guide users on how to use the spreadsheet.
Separating source data, calculations, and analysis onto different worksheets to avoid confusion.
Designing for longevity by using Excel tables and avoiding hard coding values in formulas.
Using color coding and cell styles to identify different types of cells within the spreadsheet.
Removing grid lines for a clean, focused view on the data.
Controlling data input with data validation and protection to maintain worksheet integrity.
Utilizing data validation drop-down lists to control user inputs and prevent errors.
Protecting specific cells or the entire workbook to prevent accidental changes to formulas.
Transcripts
[Music]
simon says subscribe and click on the
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when most of us are asked to put
together a spreadsheet we tend to dive
into this task without giving too much
thought to the design or the structure
and whilst the result of simply just
entering in data into a spreadsheet
without thinking too much about it might
be sufficient for the task at hand and
your manager might be completely happy
with the spreadsheet that you've
produced it can cause problems further
down the line if you haven't really
thought about how you're designing it
for example if you've spent a long time
working on a spreadsheet and you haven't
protected it in any way when you share
that with other people when it comes
back around to you you might find that
you have lots of errors in that
spreadsheet or maybe formulas that you
didn't intend to be changed have been
changed or maybe you're getting lots of
questions from your colleagues about
where they should enter their data what
type of calculations they should be
using which can become very time
consuming or maybe when you originally
set up this spreadsheet you didn't
really think about the future so in six
months time when you come back to that
spreadsheet and you need to make changes
to it you find that you're really having
to spend a lot of time
modifying different formulas in
different cells as opposed to just being
able to update one figure and have
everything else in the spreadsheet
automatically update so it's things like
this that we really do need to think
about at the design stage so what i've
done here is i've put together some
golden rules of spreadsheet design that
would be very helpful to think about
before you get too far into the creation
process
so let's take a look at them
number one adopt a standard and
implement it so this relates to adopting
a consistent convention when it comes to
things like cell formatting fonts colors
and file names it might be that you work
at an organization that has branded
colors and so the colors that you're
using in your spreadsheet need to be
from a specific palette whatever colors
you choose to use make sure that they
are appropriate for the type of
spreadsheet that you're putting together
they add to the data and don't distract
and you use color consistently across
your spreadsheet and it doesn't end up
looking like a rainbow also when it
comes to fonts make sure that you're
using a font that's easy to read
ariel font calibri font those are always
great examples of font that works well
in excel
stay away from some of the fancier font
which again is really going to distract
from your data and make it difficult for
other people to read put things like
large data sets into tables so that they
look organized and use borders and
background fills to highlight certain
pieces of data even when you're thinking
about naming your spreadsheets try and
implement a consistent file naming
convention if the spreadsheet relates to
an invoice maybe think about using a
prefix in the file name like inv and
then maybe the date if it's a report
maybe use a prefix like rpt
so immediately if you're looking at your
files in file explorer you have a rough
idea as to what's contained within that
spreadsheet all of these things really
help you adopt a consistent standard
number two try and ensure there is an
appropriate level of knowledge and
competence within your team if you have
top-notch excel skills and it's your job
to put together the majority of the
spreadsheets but you're sharing those
spreadsheets with colleagues who have
very basic excel skills that can cause
problems so it's a really good idea to
make sure that the people within your
team have not only had the sufficient
training but they have the knowledge and
skills to work on your spreadsheets
without having to ask many questions or
maybe cause problems with that
spreadsheet number three identify your
audience
ensure that the design is appropriate
for your audience and it's as clean and
simple as possible to understand
it's really important when you're
putting together a spreadsheet to think
about who's going to be looking at this
spreadsheet
is it just going to be internal is it
just your team colleagues is it your
manager or is it going to a client or up
to stakeholders
maybe it's a personal project that
you're working on maybe you're putting
together something for your after-school
club and so therefore have a little bit
more leeway on how professional that
spreadsheet needs to look
so think about whose eyes are going to
be on this spreadsheet and design
accordingly
for example if this is a professional
business spreadsheet that's going to go
to clients you're probably not going to
want to use something like comic sans
font you also might not want to add any
images that appear to cartoony or colors
that are very lurid so think about your
audience prior to starting out with the
design number five include a welcome
sheet with instruction it's always good
to provide a welcome sheet with your
excel spreadsheet which has instructions
on how to use the spreadsheet and this
is really something that i don't tend to
see a lot of people do but it can be so
helpful particularly if you're sharing
this workbook with lots of people simply
having a worksheet at the beginning
called how to use can offer valuable
instructions so people aren't confused
as to how to use the worksheet and where
they need to input their information it
might provide some guidance as to where
that user needs to enter their data or
what they need to do
and you can add things onto this sheet
such as keys or legends
so if you have lots of formatting in
your spreadsheet let other people know
what that formatting means you might
want to give some guidance about where
this worksheet needs to be saved once
they've made changes
or you might even want to go a stage
further and have a versions worksheet
that people update once they've made
changes all of this type of information
is so useful when you're sharing your
workbooks with other people and really
cuts down the amount of questions that
you're being asked
number six separate your data make sure
that you have your source data your
calculations and your analysis on
separate worksheets to avoid confusion
excel is one of the best tools out there
when it comes to analyzing data so if
you have a whole bunch of sales data
like i have just here you want to ensure
that you have your raw data source your
sales data on one worksheet but any
calculations you perform based off of
this data you want to keep those
separate on a different worksheet if i'd
put these on the same worksheet as the
source data things can start to get
really confusing and it really doesn't
assist with readability for other people
i would also then put my analysis of
that data on another worksheet entirely
so my analysis might be something like
taking that source data and creating a
pivot table or creating some kind of
chart so don't try and cram all of these
different things your source data your
calculations and your analysis on to one
worksheet separate everything out
design for longevity
make sure that you future-proof your
spreadsheet and allow for future changes
now this is a really important one
as i said at the beginning we tend to
just put our data into a worksheet and
sometimes we don't really think about
having to use that worksheet in six
months or a year's time particularly
when it's been circulated around
numerous people so make sure you think
about using things like excel tables
which is going to make updating your
data a lot quicker and easier
and the golden rule here never hard code
values into your formulas
for example if we take a look at this
tax column i'm currently clicked on cell
i6 i have a formula here which is just
multiplying the sales value in cell h6
with the sales tax
now instead of typing in or hard coding
the number 15
into this formula i've used a cell
reference
so if this sales tax changes in six
months time to 20 percent it means that
i'm not having to go into the formula
and change 15 to 20 in everything in
this tax column i can simply change it
in one cell and all of the formulas will
automatically update
so don't hard code numbers into your
cells and think about using things like
tables
use a consistent clear structure so
think about color coding your worksheets
and use cell styles to identify input
output and calculation cells it's good
to get into the habit particularly when
you're working on larger workbooks that
have lots and lots of different
worksheets of color coding those
worksheets
so worksheets that contain related data
or similar data make the tabs all one
color for example if you take a look at
my tabs in this workbook you can see
that the three that are in green are all
kind of related to each other
so it's a really good visual indicator
of which worksheets are related to other
worksheets
another thing that can be really helpful
is to use something called cell styles
i'm actually going to talk more about
this in the first lesson but what cell
styles do i basically let the user know
which cells are input cells i.e which
ones they can change which ones contain
calculations which ones contain a
heading which ones contain warnings so
on and so forth
and once you have cell styles in your
workbook you can then add those into the
legend on that welcome sheet so that
people understand exactly what each of
these formatted cells mean another thing
that really assists with keeping your
spreadsheets looking clean and clear is
by removing the grid lines
you can see on all of my worksheets i
don't have the excel grid line showing i
have a really nice clean white
background which really allows the focus
to be entirely on the data
and finally a really important golden
rule
control data input
so keep worksheets error-free using data
validation and protection if you're
sharing your workbook with lots of other
people as i mentioned at the beginning
the more people who have access to your
workbook the more likely it is that
somebody's going to change something
that's going to cause an error and you
really don't want to be spending a lot
of time putting together a really nice
worksheet with lots of wizzy formulas in
it only to have someone break the
formula the first time they use it so we
can help with that by controlling access
to certain parts of our worksheet for
example you could think about using
things like data validation drop down
list to control exactly what users are
entering into the cells with this drop
down list just here nobody can free type
into that cell they are forced to select
one of the options that i've set up in
this drop down list it also might be
that you want to add protection to the
worksheet or even the entire workbook
so that people can't edit specific cells
so if you have a cell that contains a
formula like this one just here if i
don't want anybody changing what this
formula says i can choose to protect
this cell but keep everything else
unprotected so they can do things like
select manager names they simply can't
edit the formula
notice if i try and edit anything i'm
getting a message pop up because i've
applied protection
so there's lots of things we can do in
excel to control the data that's going
into our spreadsheet to keep them as
error-free as possible
so those are my golden rules when it
comes to designing spreadsheets have a
little think about your work and how you
might adopt some of these approaches if
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simon says it
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