I agree that Excel is easier than Access
I came to access after being a Filemaker Pro user ... and I hated Access ... Still don't like it but was forced to use at my job. I had to fight the temptation to use Excel instead.
For a novice user ... Access is baffling ... Heck, it was baffling for me and I understood databases. And let's face it, most novice users don't have a great need for a relational database and Excel works just fine for them.