Abstract
The Malaysian women population frequently face the problem of finding the best fitting shoes. This problem is created by the absence of a Malaysian women shoe sizing system. Standard statistical methods involving the Multivariate Normal distribution are used in a novel process of addressing issues related to the creation of a shoe sizing system, in particular, the problem of defining categories of shoe sizes. This study focused on the use of five-foot measurement namely, foot length (FL), foot breadth (FB), foot's ball girth (BG), instep length (IL), and fibulare instep length (FIL). Univariate hypothesis testing was performed taking advantage of the existence of normal probability distribution. For brevity, details for FL, FB, and BG are shown in this paper, followed by a comparison of performance results between (FL, FB, BG) and (FL, FB, BG, IL, FIL). Our results were compared to a similar study showing almost the same aggregate loss and coverage percentage. The result shows that a modest sample size of 160 was sufficient to define categories of shoe sizes to help develop a prototype shoe sizing system using the proposed novel approach. The proposed prototype shoe sizing system provides information for the planning, design, and manufacturing of Malaysian women's footwear with implications for better fitness and comfort.
Highlights
The search for the best fitting shoe has been motivated by the need for comfort and foot health [1], avoiding injury that led to a better quality of life [2], excellence in sport [3], higher workplace performance such as in a factory [4] or hospital [5]
Improved technology has resulted in the development of devices such as a two dimensional (2D) foot scanner [10], three dimensional (3D) foot scanner [11], [12] and 3D non-contact human body laser scanner [13] to and readily obtain foot measurements, for example foot length, foot breadth and ball girth
A sample size of 160 is commonly regarded as sufficient to satisfy the statistical requirement for model fitting and hypothesis testing done in this study
Summary
The search for the best fitting shoe has been motivated by the need for comfort and foot health [1], avoiding injury that led to a better quality of life [2], excellence in sport [3], higher workplace performance such as in a factory [4] or hospital [5]. Many methods [6] and approaches [7], [8], [9] have been considered to develop a shoe sizing system. Whilst it is possible to create the best fitting shoe for a given individual, which usually involve considerable expense, the problem of the best-fitting shoe is still prominent for the general masses. Ported by the fact that different countries have different shoe sizing systems [14]. The adjusted shoe size does not fit well to foot shape and size [16], [17]. Kong et al [18] suggested that the shoe size standard should be countryspecific
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