14 Jan 2005 | RichFX said...

shameless plug:
The MoMA online catalog was created by RichFX.com

We help retailers get to the market quickly and easily We integrating into their normal business process. We can take the assets from a print catalog and produce a full site in days. That's kinda cool.
/shameless plug

I love the MoMA store. The best part about the store, as opposed to the catalogs, is that you can actually touch all the products; play with the cool little office and kitchen gadgets and get a feel for them.

14 Jan 2005 | Jeni said...

The catalog was done by RichFX, not MoMA.

I'm not entirely fond of the RichFX catalogs - the interface is really unpolished and could stand a redo. The backend technology is pretty neat, though.

14 Jan 2005 | jarv75 said...

I think it's kind of cool (the flash catalogue thing) but can't help feeling that it doesn't add much.

As far as I see it, brochures/catalogues are great for their purpose and are read in a certain way, but reading them online just doesn't work for me.

Reminds me of someone I knew who used to do almost the exact opposite - print out every page on a website so they could "look at it properly".

14 Jan 2005 | Ryan Mahoney said...

Yeah, I hate to hate... but I'm not too impressed either. For a site designed for the moma... it's so bland. Interfaces that mimic real life are generally tedious, this catalogue is no different. Having been in the business of e-commerce though, I bet this catalogue was a major sales tool. Executives who don't know how to check their own email and have never purchased anything online love this kind of crap ;) Doesn't mean that it's the best thing for the *consumer* however.

14 Jan 2005 | kageki said...

The catalog interface isn't perfect. It may even be less perfect than other interfaces. But the "magazine" is an interface most people understand, it has a very low learning curve. That means people get browse the site very easily and comfortably, which is a good thing.

14 Jan 2005 | grady said...

argh! there is a special place in obscurity reserved for gratuitious use of flash. this is the exact opposite of intelligent web design. what's next - email that comes in a flash/paper envelope you need to open?

15 Jan 2005 | David Benton said...

I'd love to see aformentioned catalog, but at the moment it's suffering from some sort of problem. Here's an excerpt from the error page:

User: CMN3101E The system is unavailable due to "CMN0203E"

...and that's one off the more informative parts. Send those folks a book.

17 Jan 2005 | stephen said...

in reply to kageki's comment, "But the 'magazine' is an interface most people understand," I would add that the web browser is an interface that most people surfing a website understand.

17 Jan 2005 | kageki said...

Stephen,

1) I think you're looking at too wide an angle by thinking about the browser.
2) you may be overestimating how comfortable most people are approaching information interfaces like the web or even an ATM.

Browsers are one thing, but the design of the website is another. I've seen so many usability tests where people go to a site, and just sit there waiting for something to happen, or they have to spend a minute trying to figure out how to navigate the site, how to find what they're looking for.

Designers are constantly trying to reinvent the medium, and there's still very little lingua franca established in web interfaces. A virtual magazine is a transparent metaphor to most people, "Oh i know how that works." It's linear, and it acts as expected.

Be all that as it may, i think the the flash catalogs are way too slooooooow. Damn, they crawl slower than molasses moving up hill on a february morning.

17 Jan 2005 | Ryan Mahoney said...

A virtual catalog does not work like a catalog... it works like a virtual cataolog which is quite different than a catalog, and imho much more confusing. I think it's a novelty or a gimmick, which, although I find it difficult, might be purposeful on a site like this, even if just as a curiosity that rarely get's "used". Like google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" button. Nobody uses it, but people are glad that it's there.