Human Height & Weight Chart

Rob Cockerham is a very funny dedicated man. One of his most striking work-in-progress can be found here on Cockeyed.com. It's called the Photographic Height/Weight Chart.

The idea is simple and deep: people submit a head to toe photo of themselves along with their height and weight. Then Rob puts it in the corresponding empty square on his chart. So far, 193 photos have been placed on the chart, both men and women together.

Here's how it work: 

Height increases from bottom to top, from 4 ft 10 in. to 6 ft 8 in., each row counting for one more inch.

Weight increases from left to right, from 90 lbs to 380 lbs, each column standing for 10-lbs increment.

The diagonal pattern forming in the center of the chart is also to be found in a BMI chart. The Body Mass Index is defined as the individual's body weight divided by the square of his or her height.

Overlaying BMI lines over Rob's chart gives you this picture below. The leftmost line is BMI = 18 and the next one right to it is BMI = 25. Anyone in between these two lines has a healthy weight, according to insurers science. The next lines from left to right are BMI = 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, and 55.

It should come as no surprise that more people will found themselves in the 18-25 range than on any other area of the chart. Rob's sample obeys the same rules of ramdomness found in any poll or public survey. Unless there is something very special no one knows about about sending a photo of oneself over the web, all kinds of people should be willing to participate without skewing the stats intentionally.

This bar chart shows how many submissions Rob got for each 5-BMI unit range. This is close to the normal weight distribution in the US population. One has to remember that Rob counts only one submission for each square in his chart. While he must be receiving several submissions for the most frequent height/weight combinations, he's keeping only one for display.

When all squares will be filled in, the chart will somehow flatten and this will be skewed stats. Counting all real submissions should rather tend toward showing the normal distribution.

One final note:

To get a BMI of 55, one has to be something like 4' 10" and 380 lbs. No one of that size has participated in Rob's experiment yet but it's live since last year only.

There is plenty of empty squares left in the chart just waiting for volunteers. I guess Rob is still taking entries this year too so if you feel like it, just take a photo of yourself and send him an e-mail.
Here's the instructions about how to do it.

The MVM Look Creator Gets Improved

Ever wonder how a fashion look might really look like on you? The My Virtual Model Look Creator allows you to try on looks on a model of your own. You simply select your body shape, height, weight, hairstyle and color, and you can now shop visually.

We all know that people have their own shopping habits: some would shop for items from their favorite brands and others would shop for looks they want to achieve. The MVM Fashion Community gives you both and then more. Now you can shop by visual style.

Need new outfit ideas? MVM stands for self-expression. Design your own looks or browse the ever-growing collection of members' creations. Fashion is there for everyone to share. Just dare to try it on.

The MVM Community is a friendly meeting place for women and shoppers. People get to know each others by sharing fashion advices directed at their virtual models. A great tool for would-be fashion consultants!

Other sites featuring a style editor, outfit builder, or styleboard cannot show personalized models at all. MVM members will soon be able to refine their search for all looks created using a model similar to their own. Searching by body type, shape and other features such as skin tone, size, age group, etc. is sure to increase relevance, usefulness and fun.

Stay tuned!

Raving Reviews of My Virtual Model

Did you ever try Google Books? A search for "My Virtual Model" returns some 150 citations. I selected these four recent books which look pretty interesting.

Why She Buys: The New Strategy for Reaching the World's Most Powerful Consumers, by Bridget Brennan, Crown Business, 2009

"The website Sears.com does the zoom function one better through its "My Virtual Model" feature. The site allows shoppers to input their height, weight, and personal characteristics--even a photo of themselves--to create their own animated online model to try on clothing. It also offers the same feature for home fashions section of the site, enabling shoppers to click and paste everything from furniture to paint colors in images of rooms. It's brilliant and totally unexpected."

Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions, by Bill Scott, Theresa Neil, O'Reilly Media, 2009

"Showing a close-up of a camera on an electronics site is a common technique. But what sets a Live Preview apart from a simple preview is its interactive nature.

Lands' End uses a tool called My Virtual Model to bring Live Previews to clothes shopping. It is based on the premise that if you can show what the clothes will look like on the shoppers, they will be happier with their purchases. While virtual models can only come so close to reality, users can personalize the model with their height, weight, body shape, and so on. Then when they select shirts, pants, and shoes, their virtual model will appear dressed with the items."

Electronic Commerce, by Gary Schneider, Course Technology, 2008

"About 15 percent of visitors to the site use the virtual model and, on average, dress the model 40 times during a visit. Lands' End has found that the dollar amount of orders placed by customers who use the virtual model is about 10 percent larger than other orders. The Canadian company that developed this Web site feature, My Virtual Model, has sold the technology to a number of other clothing retailers."

Chocolates on the pillow aren't enough: reinventing the customer experience, by Jonathan M. Tisch, Karl Weber, Wiley, 2007

"To be effective, technology must be subservient to human ends. The software and web site features used by Lands' End to develop custom clothing designs look simple and may even seem a little hokey. (Does it really matter that My Virtual Model has hair the same length, color, and curliness as mine?) But they help customers take psychological ownership of their clothes even before they order them, providing a sense of figurative comfort that matches the literal comfort we enjoy in well-fitting clothes."

Shop.org 2009 Strategy and Innovation Forum

Feb. 2-4, Louise Guay, Jean-François St-Arnaud and Chantal Desrosiers demoed MVM's new offering at Shop.org 2009 Strategy and Innovation Forum. Our 3D Visual Search and My Virtual Model Community seem right on target as demonstrated by Ellen Davis' post on Shop.org Blog, "On the EXPO Floor":

"I spent quite a bit of time at last night’s networking dinner speaking with Jean-François St-Arnaud, one of the founders of My Virtual Model, which attempts to help retailers get customers over the hurdle of buying apparel online. The concept allows customers to build an avatar with their measurements and customize features like hair and eye color so that people can virtually "try on" clothing. In addition to helping customers put together outfits and get an understanding of what clothing would look like on them, the platform features a community where people can rate and comment on others’ looks, in addition to sharing their own styles.

Don’t take my word on how cool this is: check out the retail "dressing rooms" using My Virtual Model on websites like H&M, Sears and MSN Shopping. In addition to making people feel more comfortable with the idea of buying apparel online, I imagine that a platform like this could lower return rates as well."

Ok, if you don't want to take Ellen's word, you may take these:

The Technology Starlet: "My Virtual Model is the best virtual dressing room I found so far. You can find this interactive web app anywhere."
Virtual Dressing Rooms... Have They Gotten Any Better?

Momentary Lull: "One of the pleasures - and main selling point - when shopping for clothes is the ability to try things on, stroke the fabrics and have a reality check in the changing room. You can’t do that online but stores like sears.com try to fill this gap by letting you create a virtual model that looks like you. You can dress it and undress it at will and get a sense of how these crazy colors suit you."
Shoppertainment: 5 ways to have fun while shopping online

3DWalkthroughs: "My Virtual Model is one of the few companies that have really nailed it with regards to creating an application with real business value."
My Virtual Model - 3D Virtual Commerce Hit’s it’s Stride

Digital Vinyl: "It’s definately the best shopping avatar I’ve seen."
Style Avatars - H&M rocks online retail

Second Life Pros: "My Virtual Model is a concrete, and in my opinion very good, example of how you can try to make business on virtual things."
My virtual model

YPulse: "If this is successful, other brands will soon be forced to rethink the way they sell clothing online."
Sears Introduces Online 3-D Shopping

Thank you all, folks. Spread the word.

Fun is Transforming Online Fashion Shopping

There’s no doubt that online fashion shopping coupled with social networking is gaining momentum on the Internet. Online shopping will even grow faster in coming years as Digital Kids replace Boomers on the marketplace.

As John Palfrey and Urs Gasser say in "Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives" (Basic Books, 2008):

"The first generation of "Digital Natives" - children who were born into and raised in the digital world - are coming of age, and soon our world will be reshaped in their image. Our economy, our politics, our culture and even the shape of our family life will be forever transformed."

Already popular with teens and young fashionistas, social shopping strongly appeals to a wider market of professional women, working moms, special sizes and seasonal shoppers going for casual and workplace clothes, swimsuits, outerwear, party dresses, jeans, sportswear, sleepwear, lingerie, etc.

Beth Cherry posted this plea on her blog (October 12, 2008):

"Dear All Clothing Stores in the World,

Could you please, please, pretty please with a cherry on top, engage with My Virtual Model? Right now, you can only really play with Landsend, H&M, Sears, and a few others. I stayed up way past my bedtime tonight dressing my blue-eyed pony-tail wearing model, but I PROMISE this is the way I want to shop online: (1) it’s fun, (2) I "try on" things I would never try on in the store because it is fast, (3) I can store the data (outfits) for future reference (or for when I go into the store to try on an outfit for real) and share with my girlfriends. The more stories that participate, the more I can build outfits without running from store to store. It reminds me of that Fashion Plates toy from when I was a kid, except my model actually has hips as wide as my own. She needs to get on an exercise bike.

Regards,

Beth"

What we have learned from MVM users is that there’s never enough clothing, brands, styles, colors or accessories to curb any appetite. That’s because sameness is boring; the end of fashion is boring; having your cake and not eating it is boring.

The truth is: Fashion is Fun!