Thanks for the feedback guys.
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As for the “bad” and “good,” I was gearing that towards the ideal features for toddlers…so that first market is bad in terms of those features, and that second market is good. I see how this can be misleading and subjective now, and I will definitely go ahead change that.
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I looked into it…and those examples in the “bad” section are labeled as toddler shoes in the sources that I have gotten them from (zappos, etc)
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The Asics shoe is a source of inspiration based off of some of the results of the questionnaires I have distributed so far (which I will post soon). A majority of the parents stress that their kids want the gimmicky, glittery details on their shoes, and if thats not present, it makes it that much harder for the parents to get the shoes on their kid’s feet successfully. I was looking at the asics shoe and was wondering how that design sense could translate into a more functional, successful toddler shoe? Maybe where a line of characters begins to build a more iconic brand image and creates an emotional connection with the user?
Taking a step back and looking at this again, I’m thinking that the dual-user scenario (parents + kids) is making it difficult for me to focus on one main problem that defines this project…there seems to be a lot of problems that I am trying to solve for both those users, which is just taking away from the main focus of the project.
As far as walking goes, the problems that keep coming up in my research are things like walking bow-legged, or also pigeon-toed in the early stages, which causes concern for the parents. The other main problems that are fighting with this are:
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Parent-child interaction with the footwear: How do the parents get the shoes on/off? How do they get the kids to want to wear the shoes? How can the shoes promote a positive learning experience?
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Footwear Replacement: like I mentioned earlier, children’s feet are growing very rapidly at these ages, causing parents to buy new shoes like crazy, costing them a lot of money in the long run.
Like I said, I think it is evident that I may have started out trying to solve too many issues at once. I’m wondering if the walking issue should be my main focus after all? Or if one of the other issues should shift into the main focus? Let me know what you guys think…