Amazon.com today introduced a new visual search feature for shoppers looking to purchase men’s and women’s shoes.

The new visual search feature allows people to browse for shoes based on how they look with the aim of helping them find the styles they want more quickly.

“With the launch of this new search feature, finding the right pair of shoes becomes even easier for customers,” said Bill Stasior, president of A9.

“The customer is presented with a palette of shapes, representing different styles of shoes and that palette is constantly changing to match the customer’s context. Because the styles are shown graphically as silhouettes, customers don’t even need to know the name of the styles they are exploring.”

The new visual shape feature is integrated with existing navigation, including price range, brand and color.

Amazon says its shape search feature relies on global and local shape contour descriptions, along with texture descriptions, computed using algorithms developed by A9.com, a subsidiary of Amazon.