Idea for a website to help buying shoes
|
I'm not sure how to do this in terms of the actual website design and programming, but as far as I've seen while looking, this idea doesn't exist and I think it would be pretty useful to climbers. |
|
I've had the same idea and think it would be very useful. |
|
It would be useful for sure, having to shove shoes on my weirdly shaped feet in the non-virtual world has been a huge hold up for me in wanting to try new shoe brands. most people are basically limited to what REI will carry. |
|
I think climbers are generally pretty willing to help out other climbers, a few hundred data points and it would start to get useful. I can probably personally badger a hundred climbers. |
|
Love it! |
|
It would be useful to have an online exchange for people with differently sized feet, where people could offer the one shoe that doesn't fit and look for one that does. |
|
I started talking to a programmer/climber I'm friends with and we're gonna start. Just so we have some data to work with, if anyone wants to contribute, here is a link to a google form. |
|
That's a good point. I just tried to add some more flexibility to the responses. Thanks! |
|
ethanfromwildohio wrote:here is a link to a google form.Love this idea! I do some work with infographics, and would love to find a cool way to display the information that you gather! I threw together a quick form, but then saw that you already made one. PM me if you and your programmer want to share your data and collaborate on this! Also, rather than gathering the climber's gender, can you add a spot for each shoe's 'gender' style? Many of us wear shoes of both styles! |
|
Hopefully people specify in the shoe description but I've received enough responses I don't want to start adding things because then I wouldn't have it for half the data. When I do it for real I'm going to import a database of shoes and you'll be able to find the specific shoe so it won't be ambiguous. |
|
I know a calculator of this type exists out there already... I remember it being kind of tough to search for but it does indeed exist. |
|
I see so many people wearing shoes that don't fit. Will they be contributing? |
|
Could this potentially be expanded to include boots? That'd be rad. |
|
First, I think it's a great idea and I hope you do it. I have a hard time finding climbing shoes that properly fit. |
|
nicelegs wrote:I see so many people wearing shoes that don't fit. Will they be contributing?Definitely something to worry about. I'm hoping the multiple options on fit will help alleviate that. Maybe have some option about selecting a skill level or something. |
|
This is insane. |
|
I think it would be useful, but with some limiting factors. The problem is that different people have different foot shapes, and different shoes have different toe boxes to account for these different shapes. Some shoes have symmetrical toe boxes, others have semi-asymmetrical, and many have asymmetrical. If I have a foot that requires a symmetrical toe box, and you have one that requires an asymmetrical shoe size, it's possible we would both wear the same size street shoes but completely different climbing shoes. Further, if I switch to a shoe that does not conform to my foot as well as it does to your foot, I might have to go with a larger size even though we might both have the same foot length. |
|
You mean like the Shoe Fitr website that allows you to compare shoes by length, width and volume? Click on show me how it fits |
|
20 kN wrote:I think it would be useful, but with some limiting factors. The problem is that different people have different foot shapes, and different shoes have different toe boxes to account for these different shapes. Some shoes have symmetrical toe boxes, others have semi-asymmetrical, and many have asymmetrical. If I have a foot that requires a symmetrical toe box, and you have one that requires an asymmetrical shoe size, it's possible we would both wear the same size street shoes but completely different climbing shoes. Further, if I switch to a shoe that does not conform to my foot as well as it does to your foot, I might have to go with a larger size even though we might both have the same foot length.All very good points. Perhaps that is the reason behind the suggestion to include tracing/photo of wearer's foot? |
|
I think this is a great idea for a website as I have been dealing with this very issue for the past couple years. I feel like I'm never able to go into a shop and find a size in the shoe I want, and I'm always hesitant to pull the trigger buying them online. A website like this would make things a lot easier. I ended up putting in the entries from my quiver of shoes just now. One suggestion for improvement that may be hard logistically at this point, is to make some sort of ID for the people that are giving you data entries so that if they ever want to add another style of shoe, they don't have to re-enter all the same information over again (and possibly skew your data). |
|
I can imagine applying machine learning to classify foot shapes & make predictions on shoe fits based on user-supplied data. |