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This study evaluates a prototype Plan Mode for spreadsheet programming against a non-planning baseline through a within-subjects user study with 24 participants. While task outcomes were comparable between the two tools, the Plan Mode significantly reduced the need for refinement and improved user perceptions regarding creativity support and human-machine collaboration. These findings suggest that incorporating planning features in spreadsheet environments can enhance user experience, even if it does not directly impact task performance.
Users reported greater creativity and collaboration when using a planning mode in spreadsheets, despite similar task outcomes to traditional methods.
Plan Modes have become standard features in agentic programming tools, allowing users to gain transparency and control by working with the agent to develop a plan before task execution. However, it remains unclear whether the benefits of this feature translate to end-user programming environments such as spreadsheets. Since spreadsheet programmers tend to work iteratively and care less about technical correctness, upfront planning may not fit into their workflows as easily. In this paper, we build a prototype of a Plan Mode for spreadsheet programming and evaluate it against a non-planning baseline through a within-subjects user study (N=24). We found that despite similar task outcomes with both tools, using Plan Mode led to a reduction in refinement and a better perception of the tool across dimensions of creativity support and human-machine collaboration. We discuss the implications of these results for the future design of Plan Modes, and for the broader role of human-AI planning in end-user programming.