Despite the conclusions drawn in my last post, I found Omeka to be less then user friendly. At first when I downloaded the program, I thought I would be able to simply learn the basics and create a website with ease. As it turns out, Omeka is extremely difficult to actually use without any real understanding of it. Although the video clip posted on the Omeka’s homepage made the program seem aesthetically pleasing and easy to use, it was anything but that.
Luckily, I mentioned my struggles to Professor Ross and he recommended a website called webs.com. This site proved to be what I wanted in a website publishing program. It functions much like Tumblr or WordPress, where you simply input your email address and select a theme for your website. It allows for easy customization and organization, which is exactly what I wanted from Omeka. Despite the fact that Omeka definitely appears to have a professional look to it and would definitely be my choice for a project that was much bigger in scale, the templates available from webs.com were just what I needed for this course.
Simple layouts and a high degree of user friendliness make webs.com significantly more practical then the programs I had looked at before, such as Omeka. As a history student I have not really been engaged with any sort of complex programming. In fact, what little computer experience I have is mostly from databases, social media sites and word processing programs. Although we are reaching the end of our semester, and most of you are completed or at least on your way to completing your final projects, I highly recommend webs.com. It requires almost no prior experience with computers and I have found it to be useful and practical in the development of my project.
aroibas 