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Volumental Online Footwear Recommendations

February 2024

For more than two years I worked with Volumental as a remote team member crafting an online sizing solution for footwear shoppers. The main idea we explored and then productized was to use the user’s own mobile device for scanning their feet to receive a footwear size recommendation during online shopping.

It has been a great learning experience to witness and influence a large swath of the lifecycle of a tech product finding product-market-fit in a completely new category, from very rough early prototypes to a sleek fully integrated offering with quickly growing sales and usage.

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Graphic shows the Volumental in-store scanner and a very early mobile user interface exploration that we ended up scrapping. (c) Volumental AB.

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Company

Volumental is a scale-up company that has established itself as a leader in the in-store retail FitTech and footwear recommendation space. Their foot scanners are in use in thousands of physical stores around the world. You will probably recognize some of the brands and stores, see website for up-to-date details: volumental.com.

Company mission statement (source: Volumental website, early 2024):

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  • “We believe every body is unique and deserves a simple and fun way to find a perfect fit. Our FitTech solutions take the guesswork out of sizing for all shoppers and the brands and retailers who serve them. Because the perfect fit is not a size, it’s a feeling.“*

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Research and Development Journey

It is a fascinating challenge to create something anyone can use and benefit from, regardless of their age, gender, skin color, technological familiarity or the device they have. We needed to find answers to some tricky questions so that we can create a product that is truly a win-win-win value proposition for the shopper, B2B customer company and Volumental alike. As a brainteaser, consider the following:

  • - How does one provably know a mobile measurement technology is measuring foot dimensions accurately enough?
  • - How does one provably know a recommended shoe size is the one the shopper would actually choose to keep after trying the shoes on and using for a while?
  • - How does one provably know a footwear size recommendation product delivers a positive business impact to the customer company?

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We were experimenting with different mobile technologies for both native apps and web apps, along with various server-side services. We built lots of versions of how users interact with the app and how our algorithms work. Along the way we used multiple user interface toolkits and programming languages, and a myriad techniques within computer vision and machine learning.

My tasks included implementation of high-fidelity user interfaces on mobile browsers and iOS, prototyping of augmented reality features, supporting tasks for machine learning development, along with exploratory discussions, alignment, planning and scoping of work.

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A big thank you to my colleagues. Looking forward to finding Volumental technology in use when shopping and least expecting it!

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