My ArcGIS experience went fairly smoothly; other than some rough patches following some of the directions, ArcGIS was a relatively pain-free system to utilize. As the system may look daunting at first glance with countless number of files and various buttons on the screen, the instructions are relatively straightforward and easy to follow which allowed me to pick up the how-to's of the system quickly. This advantageously allows for a greater, wider audience to be able to access and learn how to use ArcGIS, expanding the ability to share, learn, and analyze spatial information in our everyday world. However, despite its easy learning, the system has many files that are needed to be obtained, imported, or converted to create such elegant maps as the above, deterring its audience from even wanting to learn the ways of the program. I, too, had some difficulty understanding what all the .mxd files were before going through the tutorial.
When following the instructions, I ran into trouble when it came to the zoom in/out button. As there seems to be multiple ways to zoom in and out, I often times found myself zooming in too much on one map thinking I was zooming in on another map and so forth. It took some time getting used to, as this part was surprisingly the hardest part of the tutorial in my opinion. This could potentially be a pitfall for first time users like myself as maneuvering the different basic functions of ArcGIS may not be comfortable at first. One must always make sure what diagram he or she is working with, what layer he or she is viewing at the moment, and how much to zoom in or out.
Going through the tutorial step by step proved to be quite helpful and informative, as I was able to learn all the various functions ArcGIS had to offer. There is a vast number of functions that ArcGIS can do when it comes to drawing, creating, editing, and analyzing spatial data that is efficient and helpful to the daily user. Taking just one particular feature on a map, there seems to be countless number of things that could be done, from adding and subtracting layers to creating attribute tables and calculating the populations of particular regions. Without ArcGIS, I would imagine obtaining this kind of information would take a lot longer and maybe not even be as accurate as this system. One could even change up the presentation of the map, adding effects and legends as well as changing up the visuals, such as background, symbols, and colors to portray exactly what one wants.
Despite the vast potential of ArcGIS, there is another major pitfall to this system. ArcGIS, due to its availability to anyone who is able to access and purchase the system, can be susceptible to potential misrepresentations by amateurs who are not quite familiar with the system or do not provide correct spatial data. This could be potentially dangerous as people within this field often share their spatial data with one another, working off each other to create more maps and to further analyze the information at hand. However, I do not believe that this poses much of a threat because of the efficiency and effectiveness of ArcGIS to provide correct and useful information to users around the world.
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