Heels, or stilettos as the tall ones are called, are possibly the only piece of clothing that require the user to learn how to use them. Sure there are things like watches and ties that you may need to learn how to read or tie respectively, but heels are on a totally different level (no pun intended). If you do not know how to use them, you can look damn right ridiculous, you know what I’m talking about. And it takes practice. Lots of practice. In fact it can take an entire training strategy to get you from novice to pro, from low to high. That’s right, in most cases you will actually need to work your way up to the big boys (or should that be big girls). A search for “how to walk in heels” on YouTube returned over 700,000 results.
700,000!!!
If you designed a product and found there were over 700,000 videos teaching people how to use it, would you believe you did a good job? Probably not.
The positive take away from this though, is that even though your product is designed badly, people still want to use it. No matter the pain.
Oh the pain. Yes, pain, the other problem with your design. How many other pieces of clothing do you wear, regardless of how much pain they cause you? Probably none.
So what gives?
Are designers of woman’s shoes lazy? Or are they just focused on one aspect of the shoe, the look? I think that may be the problem. I mean why bother right, woman are going to wear them anyway, no matter the pain, discomfort, or how silly they may not think they look. This is bad design, and yet they get away with it.
Form is easy…
Show me form and function, then I’ll be impressed….and so will your users.
Citizenrod | art | design | think