How Google Spreadsheet can be a tool for UX designer
The benefits of using Google Spreadsheet as a tool that you may not know
“Google Spreadsheet is a handy tool for UX designer to perform in-depth calculation and to surface the insights and findings in concise and constructive presentation way.”
This article is aimed to offer a new perspective of how Google Spreadsheet can be a tool for UX designer. By saying UX, the digital product that we Uxers are designing for is beyond the interface. As we are designing it for experience, the content display logic that works behind is what we need to cater as well. When it comes to design the logic, Google Spreadsheet is a handy tool for UX designer to perform in-depth calculation and to surface the findings in concise and constructive way.
Example Project Background
Before we go through of how is the spreadsheet being designed, let’s have a context of the example project background first. Because designer is here to solve particular problem, the design solution without objective is meaningless.
Design Objective
The example spreadsheet is aimed to illustrate the display logic of Product Recommendation section. This section is sitting at the bottom of the Product Detail Page, which is used to nudge target users to explore more other products that contain similar features.
As a result, it requires to design the display logic of how to recommend products that have similar features with the user are viewing currently.
The Spreadsheet Design
The spreadsheet design contains 4 major parts
- Main spreadsheet to show the final result of similar features percentage in table format
- Available Features spreadsheet to convert available features into binary format for comparison calculation
- Spec spreadsheet contains all products with listing features
- Individual Product Comparison spreadsheet to calculate comparison result with other products
Logic Design Principle
Step 1: Check is the product has the feature in binary format.
In order to do features matching calculation, it is required to convert the product features listing to binary format, which allows Google Spreadsheet to understand and do the calculation.
Logic: Use AvailableFeatures spreadsheet to check Spec spreadsheet. Return 1 is represented the feature is available on the product.
Sample formula to convert available features into binary format
=IF(ISBLANK(Spec!C6),0,1)
Step 2: Check feature is available on both products.
Use individual product spreadsheet to compare with other products. The sample shows below is Product 01 Comparison spreadsheet with other products.
Logic: Returns 1 represents the feature is available on both products. Higher number of this total number represents the selected products have more similar features.
Sample formula to check available features between two products
=IF(AND(AvailableFeatures!$A4 = 1, AvailableFeatures!B4 = 1), 1, 0)Sample formula to get total number of available features
=COUNTIF(A3:A36,1)
Step 3: Check how many percentage of features are covered by the other machines.
Higher percentage represents both machines have most similar features.
Logic: Total number of available features on both products / Total number of features on selected products X 100%.
Sample formula
=’Product 03'!A3/AvailableFeatures!$C$2
Key Takeaways
- Google Spreadsheet is an optional tool for user experience designer to express the logic behind the interface.
- Modern user experience designer should not and never limiting ourself into certain tools or let others to tell us what tools we need to master.
- Be flexible and adaptable to tackle new problems and challenges. Use the right and comfortable tool to solve the core problem is the key.
The Mentioned Google Spreadsheet Example: https://goo.gl/avLcKk
About Author
Davis C.K. Yeung is an User Experience Architect at DigitasLbi Hong Kong office. With the greatest opportunity to be surrounded by awesome mind in the team, he believes design solution should be grounded by principles and should not be vague.
