how to make Excel application GUI look better?

[cfman]

Hi all,

I am not a professional software developer, nor a GUI designer.

I need help in improving the GUI of my Excel spreadsheet application.

I currently have a few cells that user put their inputs, and then 4 buttons
in an array that they can choose to click and execute. That's it. I feel the
spreadsheet environment makes it look very dull.

Do you guys also feel that with a few cells and a few bare buttons in Excel,
the GUI is very dull?

How to make it look better? Any sample GUIs, and good websites that I can
learn from?

Thanks a lot!

 

[Earl Kiosterud]

cfman,

At the very least, you can use cell borders (Format - Cells - Borders) and fill colors
(Format - Cells - Patterns) to create sections for various parts of your sheets. Borders
can have various colors and line styles. You can place buttons in them as they should be
grouped, making for better visual clarity. You might need to group them (select them using
the Ctrl or Shift keys, Right-click, Group) to keep them from moving around later. There
are graphics you can use to dress it up (use the Drawing toolbar -- there are various
Autoshapes, as they're called) that can be useful. They can be filled with patterns or
images. Setting up a text box with the border and fill color set to none gives you a way of
placing text anywhere you want, without concern for cell boundaries. The Align and
Distribute tools in the Drawing Toolbar take some of the work out of getting graphics lined
up and spaced nicely.

You can end up spending a lot more time making it pretty than you did making it work.