I thought the guide that went along with ArcGIS made using it for the first time very easy. The program seems intimidating at first glance because it's kind of hard to figure out where to start, however, the guide was extremely detailed and didn't leave out any of the nuances for any of the steps. By the end of the process, I felt comfortable doing the basics of ArcGIS, and could get through the more advanced steps without too much difficulty as well.
What really impressed me about this program is how easy it was to create a simple poster that you could show to someone who isn't familiar with the technical jargon of GIS. By the end of the lab, the final product is a simple graph that anyone could understand. I think this is very important because a lot of the people who would be making decisions based on a GIS map could be confused by a more complicated depiction.
I think one of the potential pitfalls of this program could be that it is not as interactive as it could be. Maybe we haven't gotten far enough into the program and you are able to do more interactive stuff, but if you can't, I think programs like Google Maps will always be more useful for some things because of how accurately they can portray the real world. If there was some way to make the maps a little more 3-D, I think that could be an improvement.
Overall, the program is very impressive. Obviously overtime the program will improve because all technology does, but even as it stands, the program is good at creating maps. I think that in going forward and learning how to better utilize the more intricate tools of the programs, I will find ways to do more of the things I want to with this program.
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