Thursday, January 29, 2009

Mass Customization: Nike iD and Puma Mongolian Shoe BBQ




Nike iD’s main page has a simple look with bright colors, but it’s a bit difficult to navigate and understand because it’s clutter with a variety of options to choose from. The opening page has an athletic theme and refers to your shopping cart as my locker, and another feature known as the team locker. At the team locker you can design, share, rate, and customize your shoe based on your favorite sports team. Other features included on the homepage are two of the major shoes that Nike allows you to customize. The Zoom Kobe IV iD shoe and the Nike Air Morgan iD shoe. When you click on the Kobe IV iD shoe icon, it allows you to choose shoes previously customized to match certain sports teams colors, or you can start from scratch and create your own unique shoe. As you go through the proper steps, you can choose from an array of colors to customize each part of the shoe to your unique style. At the bottom of the page the website gives an overview of each part of the Kobe IV iD shoe, the technology used, and the inspiration for the shoe and its overall features. This gives the consumer insightful knowledge of the shoe they are personalizing. It also gives them the option to customize another type of shoe, the Nike Air Morgan iD. This has many of the same features as the Kobe IV iD shoe. While these features give you different ways to customize your shoe, it’s difficult to find out how exactly how to go about doing so and to also keep the consumer entertained. Also included on the homepage of the website are a variety of popular Nike shoes as well as athletic ones to select from and also customize. The most interactive feature of the website is the Studios icon. This is where consumers can make an appointment at either Niketown or Nike Sportswear 21 located in New York City to get a one-on-one session with studio design consultant and obtain the experience of creating their own shoe at a store. This also features a video of the rapper Ludacris at the Niketown NY studio discussing a Nike iD signature series contest. Overall the Nike iD website gives you several options to customize your shoe, but has parts that are easily ignorable and difficult to navigate through.


The opening page on the Puma Mongolian Shoe BBQ site it is aesthetically pleasing and inviting with a lot of vivid colors, pop-out icons, and a very excited chef! The idea of using the Mongolian BBQ and comparing that to customizing your own shoe is something that makes this site unique, distinctive, and interesting. They take this theme and use it throughout the site by calling your shopping cart a doggie bag, and describing their new shoes as the daily special. It also gives a description of the Mongolian BBQ and how this relates to creating your personal shoe. Some other options included are designing your own shoe in the store, subscribing to the website, and starting your own shoe on the website. When you click on the icon, start new shoe, it continues with the theme by using menus as options for shoe styles. It takes you through an easy step-by-step process to choose the style of your shoe, the size, and the option of customizing by either starting from a blank shoe or shoes that already have selected from previous styles, referred to as a customer recipe. When designing your custom shoe, the Puma Mongolian shoe BBQ site has detailed features you can use, but not a variety of colors. After creating the shoe you can email it to a friend, buy it online, or buy it in a puma store. Overall the Puma Mongolian Shoe BBQ site uses creativity, simple yet sophisticated navigation tools, and vivid and animated colors which make it more appealing to the eye and an enjoyable experience for the consumer when customizing their shoe.


Compared to the Puma Mongolian Shoe BBQ, Nike iD is a lot more complicated to navigate, a bit out of date in terms of the technology, and not nearly as interactive or attention grabbing. Although the Nike iD site gives the consumer detailed information about the shoes and offers more options of the types of shoes, as well as the selection of colors you can choose from, the homepage is too cluttered. The homepage is the most important part of a website. The Puma Mongolian Shoe BBQ site uses modern technology to generate the best consumer experience by creating a Mongolian BBQ themed website and relating it to the idea of customizing shoes, which is both innovative and original. It also creates a more personalized experience for the consumer by making the site aesthetically pleasing and easy and fun to navigate through.