There is a reason VisiCalc was such a big deal when it first came out. This is a UI that is both intuitive to regular people and also incredibly powerful -- and one that takes little effort to learn. It's a sign of the kinds of things that are possible with computing (reducing the gap between what today we call "coders" and "users"). There are few really large efforts towards research in this area these days and we are poorer for it.

Here is a good paper from Alan Kay that relates: https://frameworker.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/alan-kay-com...