With the latest release of the new Google Sites (BETA), I took 30 minutes to remake my school's student homepage. Have a look for yourself and compare the interface...
ORIGINAL VERSION
 |
| Created using "OLD" Google Sites |
NEW VERSION |
| Created using "NEW" Google Sites |
Apart from the aesthetics...a few other observations from my brief dabble.
TICKS
- sites are now easily accessible from my Drive rather than having to go to sites.google.com
- can double click anywhere for quick insert (see image below)
- header banner is more customisable...can add text boxes, images etc.
- preview mode allows you to see tablet and phone views
- much easier interface for editing, will be very student friendly even down to junior years
CROSSES
- templates are very limited (yes...it is still in BETA)
- where are all the font styles??
- elements can be dropped and dragged, but this is still a bit clunky if you want to get something in a particular spot
- no ability to add external links to horizontal menu- it is just auto-populated with any pages from your site. In my example above, the workaround was to insert a series of little text boxes directly below the header and hyperlink each one
- appears to be no "page-level permissions" feature as yet- something that can be very handy if you want to allow students to manage certain elements of a site, but not everything!
Above all else, it is a breath of fresh air in a tired old product...looking forward to new features rolling out in the near future!
