SizeSquirrel - Climbing Shoe Sizing & Sales

Eddie Ferrer wrote:

I'm open to suggestions. The "rating" is just a subjective rating of the shoe, but if you have suggestions on how to evaluate fit let me know. My current thinking is that the sizes on your profile should really be the size you think are a good fit. For example, I had some instincts that were 40.5, after using them for a while decided that I should have really gotten the 41, so I edited the shoe on my profile. 

What about just a 3 or 5 point slider indicating how well these fit? Ranging from "too large" to "too loose". Might not be incredibly useful because the majority of your account holders will have figured out sizing on shoes and will more often than not select the middle value "just right" lil goldilocks action! 

Right now they still fit good because they haven't packed out, but I'm sure they'll too big eventually. When that time comes I'll be sure to change them. Didn't mean to sound critical either, you are making an awesome and necessary product that when it has enough user input will be a wicked tool. Have you reached out to anyone beyond MP to try and get more users?

Matt Racicot wrote:

What about just a 3 or 5 point slider indicating how well these fit? Ranging from "too large" to "too loose". Might not be incredibly useful because the majority of your account holders will have figured out sizing on shoes and will more often than not select the middle value "just right" lil goldilocks action! 

Right now they still fit good because they haven't packed out, but I'm sure they'll too big eventually. When that time comes I'll be sure to change them. Didn't mean to sound critical either, you are making an awesome and necessary product that when it has enough user input will be a wicked tool. Have you reached out to anyone beyond MP to try and get more users?

I'll think about this some more. 

You didnt come off as critical, I appreciate all the feedback. Most of the added features and improvement have come from user feedback. 

Yes, the larger the user base the better. The site is growing every day. I have definitely tried to get the word out there, on MP, reddit and on FB. 

Wait...are you telling us that you should NOT put up the shoes and sizes that had a shitty fit?

Does the rating scale for proper fit not down weight shoes that are off size and increase the weight of shoes at perfect size?

I put in more than one size of the same shoe ...

Jef Anstey wrote:

Wait...are you telling us that you should NOT put up the shoes and sizes that had a shitty fit?

Does the rating scale for proper fit not down weight shoes that are off size and increase the weight of shoes at perfect size?

I put in more than one size of the same shoe ...

Yes, you're welcome to put in shoes that are a shitty fit, and also shoes in multiple sizes, many people wear an agressive size and a comfortable size for the same shoe. The site doesnt weigh sizing recommendations in that way. In my previous comment I meant shitty size more than shitty fit if that makes sense.....

Just wanted to bump SizeSquirrel and say thanks for an excellent and super-useful site. Checked four pairs, and they're all spot-on. I just wished I'd thought to check the site before ordering my latest pair!

Mark Berenblum wrote:

Just wanted to bump SizeSquirrel and say thanks for an excellent and super-useful site. Checked four pairs, and they're all spot-on. I just wished I'd thought to check the site before ordering my latest pair!

Thanks! 

Quick bump. I've added some bug fixes, and new shoes. The sales page should be more accurate now, and messages for new features added if you haven't logged in in a while...... 

Also added new shoes:

Scarpa Vapor Womens, Scarpa Chimera, Mad Rock Remora, Mad Rock Agama, Butora Narsha blue and orange, all the Black Diamond Shoes and more.

More bumping.

SizeSquirrel now has over 3000 shoes added.... It's pretty cool to see the site grow this much. 

Haven't visited the site in a while? Check it out! 

Have any new features you would like added? Let me know!

Bump. Don't know about SizeSquirrel? Check it out. 

Also, recommendations on shoes by foot shape coming very soon.

Nate Tastic wrote:

I know there is the Brannock device but, that is only for width and length. 

Also doesn't take into account most people don't know how to use a brannock properly. If you're using it right there are actually two length measurements even before you take into account loading your foot. Also width can drastically change with loading your foot.

And again that's before taking into any other foot shape measurements...

Bump. 

I've added recommended shoes based on your foot shape. You'll see it in your profile if you have put in your foot shape in your user details. 

These are shoes that you do not own, that are rated 5/5 by folks who have your same foot shape. 

Check it out!

Eddie, what algorithm do you use for matching? One, I’m curious, and two, maybe I could give some pointers on things to try out. Send a PM if interested.

Nate Tastic wrote: Feature Request:

Help us find split shoe partners.

Codename, Cinderella.

I'll keep it in mind... But looking at some numbers, split shoe users are barely 1% of users on SizeSquirrel. So the chances of finding your split shoe partner is very very small

Hey guys, been mostly working on behind the scenes improvements...

But I did want to bump this to say that we have a new sales page: https://sizesquirrel.com/sales/

Check it out. It is much faster, both to load and filter shoes, as well as including a couple additional filter options. 

Hey Eddie, wanted to thank you for the great tool. I am a web dev as well and wanted to give some functionality/UX feedback.

Eddie Ferrer wrote: I'm open to suggestions. The "rating" is just a subjective rating of the shoe, but if you have suggestions on how to evaluate fit let me know. My current thinking is that the sizes on your profile should really be the size you think are a good fit. For example, I had some instincts that were 40.5, after using them for a while decided that I should have really gotten the 41, so I edited the shoe on my profile.

This is extremely unintuitive. The concept of a user's profile is very clearly a collection of shoes that the user DOES have, not a collection of what they WISHED they had. Even if you made it more clear that it is actually the latter, that is a can of worms that once opened could only lead to bad data. For example, my 41.5 Miura's are way too small. Should I have gotten a 42 or a 42.5? If I input that I should have gotten the 42.5, how should I say they fit qualitatively? At this point I am rating a shoe I don't even own.

As far as suggestions, I think a 3 scale system would be simple, intuitive, and give you more fine grained data. Basically split the "Fit" into 2 separate fields.

Intended Fit:     Very Aggressive      Aggressive      Normal      Comfort
Relative Fit:         Too Small        Slightly Small       Just Right        Slightly Big       Too Big
Rating:   5 star slider for the "quality" of the fit (already implemented)

Intended Fit: This would allow users to search for not just a shoe, but a specific use for a shoe. Since most climbers top priority is getting a shoe that will fill a specific role, this to me is very important. In fact for myself at least, finding a shoe to fill a specific role is much more important that being able to find the right size of some predetermined shoe. This data would allow you to let users to search for "Aggressive Shoes" and in turn recommend specific shoe/size that users with similar profiles have the same intended use and rated highly. Basically, a refinement of the existing "recommended shoes" box. On regular searches for a particular brand/shoe you could display multiple recommended size, or perhaps a range: 42 (Super Aggressive) - 43.5 (Comfort).

Relative Fit: This allows users to enter the shoes they own without risking bad data by encouraging shoe size speculation when their shoes don't actually fit. Slightly Small/Big might be used to nudge your calculation values by a half EU size, where Too Big/Small could skip the entry altogether. Even in the latter case, it is an improved user experience for someone to be able to view a profile (maybe even their own!) and see that 41.5 Miuras are too small.

Rating: Same as now.

Anyway, thats my 2 cents. Thanks again for an awesome tool! Would love to talk about the above if you have any questions/comments/concerns/disagreements. Also, I realize the performance implications of some of the advanced search functionality I mentioned. I would be happy to banter about how you could go about dealing with that in a scalable way.

Additionally, it would be nice when viewing a single shoe (/shoes/brand/shoe_name) to be see the rating broken down by foot type. A bar graph for example would be an effective way of displaying the 5 ratings in a compact and meaningful way. Again the above search functionality would be nice. Shoes could be ordered not by their overall rating, but by the rating corresponding to your particular foot shape.

If the "Intended Fit" feature above were implemented it would by cool to see the ratings broken down by use as well. This would give users a better idea of what people are using the shoe in question for. For example, I doubt many people are fitting their Moccs super aggressively or their Solutions for all day comfort.

Last thing, would be nice to have a user configurable preference for sizing standard.

You could leave the big number in the blue circle as whatever the shoe owner entered (since that is only "true" size of the shoe considering conversions could have errors), but maybe put a converted size in parenthesis underneath it. That way users wouldn't have to do so much mental math when looking at other peoples profiles.

For example, if I am trying to decide between a 43 and a 43.5 EU, it doesn't do me a lot of good to see someone with a quiver full of 10's. I know its in the ballpark, but would need to find a conversion chart to know for sure.

Cole Varner wrote: Hey Eddie, wanted to thank you for the great tool. I am a web dev as well and wanted to give some functionality/UX feedback.

This is extremely unintuitive. The concept of a user's profile is very clearly a collection of shoes that the user DOES have, not a collection of what they WISHED they had. Even if you made it more clear that it is actually the latter, that is a can of worms that once opened could only lead to bad data. For example, my 41.5 Miura's are way too small. Should I have gotten a 42 or a 42.5? If I input that I should have gotten the 42.5, how should I say they fit qualitatively? At this point I am rating a shoe I don't even own.

As far as suggestions, I think a 3 scale system would be simple, intuitive, and give you more fine grained data. Basically split the "Fit" into 2 separate fields.

Intended Fit:     Very Aggressive      Aggressive      Normal      Comfort
Relative Fit:         Too Small        Slightly Small       Just Right        Slightly Big       Too Big
Rating:   5 star slider for the "quality" of the fit (already implemented)

Intended Fit: This would allow users to search for not just a shoe, but a specific use for a shoe. Since most climbers top priority is getting a shoe that will fill a specific role, this to me is very important. In fact for myself at least, finding a shoe to fill a specific role is much more important that being able to find the right size of some predetermined shoe. This data would allow you to let users to search for "Aggressive Shoes" and in turn recommend specific shoe/size that users with similar profiles have the same intended use and rated highly. Basically, a refinement of the existing "recommended shoes" box. On regular searches for a particular brand/shoe you could display multiple recommended size, or perhaps a range: 42 (Super Aggressive) - 43.5 (Comfort).

Relative Fit: This allows users to enter the shoes they own without risking bad data by encouraging shoe size speculation when their shoes don't actually fit. Slightly Small/Big might be used to nudge your calculation values by a half EU size, where Too Big/Small could skip the entry altogether. Even in the latter case, it is an improved user experience for someone to be able to view a profile (maybe even their own!) and see that 41.5 Miuras are too small.

Rating: Same as now.

Anyway, thats my 2 cents. Thanks again for an awesome tool! Would love to talk about the above if you have any questions/comments/concerns/disagreements. Also, I realize the performance implications of some of the advanced search functionality I mentioned. I would be happy to banter about how you could go about dealing with that in a scalable way.

Thanks for the feedback Cole, I really appreciate it !

You're absolutely right in that the shoes on the profile should be the shoes the user owns. I don't think it's wise to stray from that, for the reasons you mentioned.

Great idea to search by aggressive shoes / etc. I will definitely add that. You're right in that the ability to search for a shoe using several parameters is sorely missing from the site. I don't think this would be an issue to implement. I also really like the idea of displaying a range like you mentioned "42 (Super Aggressive) - 43.5 (Comfort)" but this will be harder to implement.

I'm not sure I agree with you on Relative Fit. And I think thats kind of what I meant with my original comment. For example, if you tried a size 42, and its so big that you dont use it, then its not eally useful to have that shoe on your profile, and its not useful to the site. I guess my thinking was that if you bought a 41.5 Miuras and they're so small that they dont fit. You either: get rid of the shoes, and they arent on your profile, or you get a different size, and you add the new size accordingly to your profile.

Cole Varner wrote: Additionally, it would be nice when viewing a single shoe (/shoes/brand/shoe_name) to be see the rating broken down by foot type. A bar graph for example would be an effective way of displaying the 5 ratings in a compact and meaningful way. Again the above search functionality would be nice. Shoes could be ordered not by their overall rating, but by the rating corresponding to your particular foot shape.

If the "Intended Fit" feature above were implemented it would by cool to see the ratings broken down by use as well. This would give users a better idea of what people are using the shoe in question for. For example, I doubt many people are fitting their Moccs super aggressively or their Solutions for all day comfort.

The foot type / rating break down -  I'm already working on this, it'll be the next feature to be released. 

Ratings by fit, also great idea!

Cole Varner wrote: Last thing, would be nice to have a user configurable preference for sizing standard.

You could leave the big number in the blue circle as whatever the shoe owner entered (since that is only "true" size of the shoe considering conversions could have errors), but maybe put a converted size in parenthesis underneath it. That way users wouldn't have to do so much mental math when looking at other peoples profiles.

For example, if I am trying to decide between a 43 and a 43.5 EU, it doesn't do me a lot of good to see someone with a quiver full of 10's. I know its in the ballpark, but would need to find a conversion chart to know for sure.

I had also thought about this, and planned to release something like this in the future.