NVU is an open source web authoring tool for Linux, Windows, and Mac. It is designed to allow users to create web pages and manage a website with no technical expertise or knowledge of HTML.
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Squarespace
Score 8.3 out of 10
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Squarespace is a CMS platform that allows users to create a DIY blog, eCommerce store, and/or portfolio (visual art or music). Some Squarespace website and shop templates are industry or use case-specific, such as menu builders for restaurant sites.
NVU is an easy self explanatory program that helps us edit the Landing Pages for the company for which I work. However, many of the features of being able to edit text & text boxes is out of date & very jumpy. I often have to rewrite sentences in order to fit better on a line because I can't adjust the text box without it messing up the entire Landing Page.
I have a gorgeous website that I made myself, thanks to Squarespace. I'm able to integrate marketing emails, SEO, analytics, online carts, pretty much instantly. If you want to get started fast, it's really great. I think if you want to customize square space and you're having trouble, it would be most helpful to hire a square space designer. That's what I would have done in retrospect.
It allows me to easily create the Landing Pages for my company. I can easily create a copy of an NVU file & then rename it in order to create a new file. Then once I've made the necessary changes to the new file, I just drag & drop the new file into our backend to automatically upload to our site.
It allows me to edit text fairly easily. I can drag & drop the text within a text box.
Stupid simple to use. I know very creative people who cannot code and this is probably the easiest ever platform for them!
Pretty website templates and great functionality with showing off portfolios.
They've already figured out what are the problems that non-coding people have when creating websites and they've figured out a simple solution for all of it.
I can't widen a text box without it jumping & messing up the entire Landing Page.
I can't drag text from one text box into another.
The text settings change if I don't copy a word that already exists in a word box & paste it into the new line of text before starting to type a new sentence.
Sometimes I try to open a Landing Page to edit it & it says that NVU is unavailable & I have to close the program & try again.
It's simple to use for someone who is really good with computers as well as those who are not. I've been using my personal squarespace for years and have also helped clients build a starting page which they are later able to manage theirselves.
Help is available directly from the back end and uses full sentence searching to find answers to questions others may have asked before. With a ton of articles and support questions documents, it is very likely that your question has been answered. If not each page has the ability to open a direct email to support. Each case has a number and can be followed. Responses are often quick and have links and directions clearly stated
Overall, as a designer, it makes perfect sense for small to large businesses to use a site such as SquareSpace. Costs are relatively reasonable with the ability to go in and do custom code.
The issue is certain aspects of it, depending on the plan, you can't do. So, if you want to do API to the site, you need to use the top-tier program to do so. Even at custom code, you won't have access to the API section.
As well, like all templates and themes, everybody is using the same style too.
The key positive impact on my overall business objectives is how simple Squarespace sites are to implement new information. Whenever our services change, we can quickly update pages or even change how the website flows, in a very short window of time. This allows me to get back to more urgent work sooner.
Our Squarespace site for Club Swim Show helped present our web series to potential partners; Club Swim Show went on to partner with a popular swimming magazine and reach a larger audience through that magazine's hosting thanks to the professional design of our original website.
Squarespace does not bring in customers to my storefront, which is fine for me, since I sell things infrequently and it is not my main business, but might work against someone who is expecting a Shopify or Etsy level connection with buyer markets.
