You are unique and so should be your running shoes. Finding the perfect pair of running shoes has always been a very personal endeavour. No two people have the same feet, and no two people are looking for the same features in the perfect running shoe. As a cross country runner myself, I have faced this dilemma before, and know the pain of spending hours, rummaging through pages of shoe reviews, often from multiple websites, in order to find the right running shoes. So using big data, natural language processing and analytics, I devised a solution in the form of a recommender system, which uses your desired features in the perfect running shoe as inputs, and outputs 3 pairs of running shoes that are tailored to you as an individual.
What is the data you are using to recommend these shoes, you may ask. Well, I'm using the exact same data you use as a shopper, product reviews from different websites including Amazon. Using over 100k product reviews allows my recommender system to familiarize itself with the pros and cons of each shoe, including which features it is most associated with, in order to determine the best pair of running shoes that match your needs. By saving you the time of deciphering thousands of product reviews and recommending the perfect running shoes for you, hopefully my recommender system can help you get back to what’s really important - Running!