November 8, 2000

5:04 PM

The first site to use the "SuperMedia" technology from Rail is up. The new Groovetech.
posted by endquote (20 comments total)

Ack. How do you buy anything at Groovetech? The interface is more complicated than Boo.com's original flash store. I seriously can't figure out what all the tiny buttons do or how to browse what they have for sale.

Shoppers don't have patience for things like this.
posted by mathowie at 5:19 PM on November 8, 2000

Hey, it wouldn't even load on my machine...
posted by dogwelder at 5:32 PM on November 8, 2000

If it's proprietary, it sucks. I don't care what it can do.

-Mars, freedom curmudgeon
posted by Mars Saxman at 5:36 PM on November 8, 2000

DHTML: 99% Bad

I couldn't even figure out what the site was about let alone how to buy anything. The info I was looking was buried somewhere under "policies" in the tabbed info panel.

It's a pretty impressive piece of DHTML work, but the UI needs some serious rethinking, IMO.
posted by scottandrew at 5:40 PM on November 8, 2000

And old members need to reregister. What a great way to encourage repeat business. Scoff scoff.
posted by cCranium at 6:08 PM on November 8, 2000

I couldn't get it to load. But judging from the rail site, it doesn't look user friendly at all.
posted by Zool at 6:13 PM on November 8, 2000

Finally got it to load, but still think that user friendliness is missing. Looks good though, but that's not exactly going to keep you in business. Something like this might work in say about 10 - 20 years when computers and the web are second nature to everyone.
posted by Zool at 6:24 PM on November 8, 2000

When will people stop making sites like this? It is too busy, too slow, over-designed, poor usability...
posted by tranquileye at 6:31 PM on November 8, 2000

the groovetech site suggested to me that my browser (mozilla seamonkey) wasn't invited to the party. oh well.
posted by lescour at 6:46 PM on November 8, 2000

Yeah, but don't worry: it's a high school party.
posted by tranquileye at 6:53 PM on November 8, 2000

Holy....

I never liked flash sites... I always tried to advocate dHTML wherever possible.. but this is terrible!! Suddenly flash people now have a counterargument!

This site is a perfect example of a site using the technology just because it can. It's the exact same idea behind all the bad Flash use. It didn't NEED all the fancy pulldown windows and whatnot. And all those extra *things* loading in the background.. I don't know what it was, but I kept hearing this incessant click-click-click-click-click from my Internet Explorer. It breaks the back button too (one of Jakob Neilsen's primary reasons for not liking Flash)...

Terrible, terrible usage of dHTML...
posted by PWA_BadBoy at 7:34 PM on November 8, 2000

Groovetech isn't trying to sell anything. They provide pretty good, free, streaming techno music.

If you're into techno, and have the patience to get past their badly implemented new interface, then you should check them out...
posted by Neb at 9:37 PM on November 8, 2000

Hmm, a well designed site with a keen insight into it’s audience. They needed an identity re-direction reflecting their position at the forefront of club and dance kultcah. The last rev was staid and clunky. This version could stand a color scheme revision, but otherwise is a fine update of their brand. I like the idea of web sites mimicing OS UI, as users are much more acclimated to it’s metaphors and principles.

If it doesn’t work in all browsers they lose major points. I’ll take your word for it. Sadly, it crashed my browser.

+ design
- production/coding
= mas o menos
posted by capt.crackpipe at 10:01 PM on November 8, 2000

If they are not selling anything, why is there a shopping cart?
posted by Zool at 10:06 PM on November 8, 2000

mac IE5: doesn't work. a stupid, stupid choice on their part.
posted by patricking at 10:20 PM on November 8, 2000

Win 98 SE IE 5.5, didn't work for me, kept showing the dialog about secure and non-secure pages being displayed together over and over again.
posted by riffola at 11:06 PM on November 8, 2000

win 95 ie5.01. worked for me, but this was interesting: i got onto the page, and went one link deep into the site, decided it was bulky and too long, then pulled the back button arrow down to go back. it looked like i had been through 20 pages of groovetech instead of just the one. not a major issue, sure, but a pain in the ass, that's for certain.
posted by bliss322 at 5:37 AM on November 9, 2000

Zool,

I missed that. I guess its a feature they added when they redesigned. Because of their very narrow target audience, hard-core technoheads will probably use the site to buy obscure mix tapes regardless of the bad UI. Those that can access the site, that is...

But, again, they have some pretty good free streaming stuff. Check it out.
posted by Neb at 9:30 AM on November 9, 2000

Wow... Groovetech's already bailed on the new Supermedia site -- no browser detection, simple meta refresh to an ordinary framed page, and no DHTML in sight, save for the image rollovers.
posted by nikzhowz at 8:52 AM on November 10, 2000

Sucks for them. Probably a good decision until they can get the redesign working for everybody. Putting the burden on the user is always a failing move. Too bad, I hoped the new site would work for them.

Hypnotic uses some DHTML, and looks a bit better to boot. 100k templates, however.
posted by capt.crackpipe at 11:18 AM on November 10, 2000