New (school) year, new possibilities!
I decided to go back to school this year and enrolled in a teaching master's degree. One of the classes is about information and communications technology (ICT) and all the possibilities it offers when applied to the world of teaching. Our first task is creating a web.
There are many choices available if you want to create a web page without being tech savvy. Most of them even have free options if you just want to play around. While having a personal domain looks a lot more professional, it might not be the best idea if your goal is to see how a website works and whether you want to commit to the task of writing regularly. Wix is one of these free options.
Wix compared to other platforms
I have to admit that I'm not a huge fan of Wix. The only reason why this web has been created with Wix is the requirements of the class. Having created webpages using both Blogspot and self-hosted Wordpress, I find the free version of Wix to be rather limited, especially as someone who enjoys HTML and CSS a lot. Since I realise that comparing a free Wix site to a self-hosted Wordpress one is somewhat unfair, I will try to keep an open mind.
First of all, Wix has a free version. This is a huge incentive for anyone who just wants to try it out. Then again, Blogspot is also free and Wordpress has a limited free version where you don't have to worry about other things such as hosting.
Then, there's the part about not needing to be tech savvy. Do you feel that HTML and CSS are just clusters of randomly chosen letters? No problem. You don't need to have ever seen either of these acronyms to create a website with Wix. Technically, you don't need any of this for Blogspot or Wordpress either, but some of their pre-made templates look a lot better if you tweak them a bit with code. Or maybe it's just that I want to do stuff that's not supported by pre-made templates without some extra code.
Wix's fancy free stuff
What definitely puts Wix well above both Blogspot and Wordpress if you don't want to pay are its templates. Wix has a ton of very cool free templates. They look modern, and whether you want your site to be a standard business page, an online CV or a blog, it won't look as if it belongs in the 90s. There were blogs in the 90s that stood out and would not look out of place today, but you probably know what I mean.
The pains of Wix
Remember I said I'm not a big fan of Wix? Well, here's why: Wix gives users mixed signals. On one hand, it's very visual and its design is based on blocks you can create, move around and delete. You don't need to do any coding to put a block exactly where you want it. You don't need to guess pixels to resize it. You don't even need to know what a pixel is. Sounds easy, right? However, on the other hand, it's not as intuitive as it should be. Wix made easy unnecessarily complicated.
Another area where Wix seems to be lacking is easy web accessibility. It's definitely possible that I haven't found out how to do it without so many clicks, but, for example, the field to add text alternatives to images doesn't seem to be available when adding images to the site. Wix does have this feature, but it's hidden. You need to click on the image after you've added it to the site and then click on the little wheel to have access to that text field. And this is Wix in a nutshell. Lots of things are there, but not where you would expect them to be. Since you can't just write your post directly in HTML, you need to find those things if you want to use them. Or maybe you can write posts in HTML and I don't know where to find this.
To finish
If you want to see for yourself which platform you like the most, just give all of them a chance and choose whichever one you prefer. The wonderful thing about having so many free choices is that you can play around with them and then decide. Even if you eventually decide to move to a different platform, you can export your site. It might be a bit tricky in some cases, but it's not impossible. The best part is that the tech community is very nice and you will always find someone willing to help you or point you in the right direction. Don't be afraid of technology! It's a great hobby!
As for the master's degree and this blog, I'm looking forward to learning new things and have high hopes for this class. And I will definitely write a final post at the end of the semester about my experience using Wix.
Comments