« Build Your Own adidas Powerband 3.0 »

Despite frustrating interface, miadidas.com builds a sweet custom golf shoe

Following in the customized footsteps of myjoys.com comes the miadidas.com offering of the Powerband 3.0. Currently the only golf shoe offered on miadidas.com, the Powerband 3.0 can be fully customized to match your style.

Chapeau Noir's customized adidas Powerband 3.0. Chapeau Noir chose to go monochrome.Choose your size, or sizes if you have one foot bigger than another, width (medium or wide), and then let the fun really begin.

Pick your base color (black or white), the overlay (nine color options), stripe color (10 colors), stripe outline color (11 colors)... then don't forget to choose your lace color (10 colors), interior lining (10 colors), along with the color of the midsole, chassis, outsole, and spikes.

If your brain hasn't exploded at this point, and if you haven't created an absolute monstrosity, you're ready to add a flag or logo, and your personal stamp.

As with any online configuration tool, simple usability issues arise within the configuration process.

First, the customization process isn't as obvious, and subsequently, not as smooth as it could be. This is due to the annoying habit some of the flash layers have as they seem to hide themselves underneath other layers for no apparent reason, making it easy for customers to lose their way along the path to checkout.

Chapeau Noir presumes to configure his shoe from top to bottom, but look what happens when the mouse hovers to the left of the page... interface hiccups like this will cause customers to abandon their configuration, and therefore their purchase.

Second, the miadidas.com customization process is nonlinear, meaning that the customer can jump past certain steps, presumably to allow them to come back to the step later, or simply go with the default offering for that option. While this sounds like it could be an intended benefit, it could prove to be more frustrating for customers who think they've performed a full configuration only to miss unique opportunities to detail their shoe along the way.

Finally, while the range of custom options available are copious, the customization application itself gets in he way, and the lack of more than Powerband 3.0 (if you're a staunch Tour360 LTD or Tour360 4.0 man, you're out of luck) leaves adidas lagging well behind Footjoy on the personalized shoe front.