I found ArcGIS to be one of the more frustrating pieces of software we’ve worked with so far, but also the most fascinating. It is definitely a lot more interactive with how it displays its data, and I think that is so much more interesting than what we’ve done so far with Omeka. The level of customization with layers is very cool, and if datasets are big enough, the map can translate a wealth of visual information very quickly.
That said, actually using it with certain datasets is very limiting. There’s no way that I’ve found to change the location a blip is set to from within ArcGIS. This would make sense for data using exact coordinate locations, but when I tested this with a dataset that used city names, the program picked a place and stuck with it. These places were, more often than not, incorrect despite the city name being entered correctly in my data sheet. Using ArcGIS reliably would require the knowledge of coordinate points in respect to the location you’re aiming for, though this would be a challenge for data that was vague in its location in the first place.