A good user interface should have a clear, concise, easy to navigate, and non-burdensome overall graphical layout and design, whereas an excellent user interface should also exhibit the qualities of simplicity, customization, and design consistency. Although, it is worth noting that this is not to say that all user interfaces should strictly adhere to these specific guidelines. Nevertheless, a seasoned and expert user interface designer would put more effort into making logically sounding and intuitive interactions that are of the best fit with their application and capitalize on achieving the best user experiences. For example, in typical productivity software, it is generally good to make the user interface as simple as possible to enhance functional visibility and improve ease of use for beginners. Whereas on the contrary, a game platform’s user interface should instead focus on being more decorated and tailored to specific life events that incentivize and attract sales. Having that said, let us take a closer look at two of the most popular spreadsheet software, Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets, and evaluate which one does a better job at satisfying the above requirements. We will also be taking a look at Valve’s Steam game distribution platform and see if it also meets the above requirements.

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel’s overall GUI design has gone through several iterations. However, the placements of key features such as toolbars and the overall cell layout have largely remained untouched since its inception back in the early 1990s. This is critical in maintaining the spreadsheet’s overall design consistency. Suppose there were a drastic change and overhaul to those fundamental and basic designs, the overall user experience would have likely suffered. But, so far, we have not seen any major complaints. Also, this consistency lasted over the past couple of decades without issues, which further proves that Microsoft was right in preserving consistency over lavish design overhauls with each of its iterations and major releases.

Google Sheet

Google Sheets, however, is a very different story in the realm of simplicity and customization. Even though Excel has proven time and time again to be the ultimate go-to spreadsheet software because of its functionalities and customization methods, its overall user interface is very archaic at best. Hence, it is not a very beginner-friendly software. Speaking from experience, I know people in my previous workplace who only know how to navigate through Google Sheets. At times when they are limited to using only Microsoft Excel, they would be completely lost. This phenomenon is highly evident with the pivot table functions. In Microsoft Excel, you will have to know how to navigate through the different tables. Whereas on the contrast, Google Sheets has made it much simpler by implementing a state-of-the-art and easy-to-use drop-down menu on the side with helpful suggestions and tips. This makes it a much more beginner-friendly piece of productivity software, in stark contrast to excel’s cumbersome and out-of-date menu options.

Steam

Valve is a very interesting company because they are very traditional. They do not like to implement massive changes to their GUI. Their Steam platform’s visual appearance has largely remained this way since the early 2000s. Therefore, Steam has a very archaic and unappealing visual design. In addition, being a privately owned company, it seems like Valve has no intentions to issue a complete revamp of its software design in order to preserve maximum consistency. However, despite all of the criticisms of its overall unattractive design. It does, quite surprisingly, get its job done relatively well. The overall web design of the steam store makes up for the poor user interface designs of its main application. Similarly, their overall game distribution and cloud data service are quite advanced. All of which subsidize and offset its old and archaic design. The overall game library interface is very simple and straight to the point without any overly fancy decorations. This design has kept the application running smoothly and was able to maintain maximum stability for both the newer and older machines. So, the conclusion is that, although it is visually unappealing, it does get the job done very well. At the end of the day, for a company that is heavily reliant on the revenues generated from its game sales, the platform’s stability, reliability, and quality of service are what really matter the most.