Footwear, Human Factors, and the Problem With “Comfort”

Footwear occupies a strange and often overlooked position in product design.

It is one of the only products worn continuously, load-bearing, and directly interfacing with the nervous system, yet it is rarely treated with the same rigor as products like car seats, medical devices, or aerospace interfaces. In most industries, human factors are foundational. In footwear, they are often optional…or ignored entirely.

This gap creates a deeper issue: we don’t just design shoes poorly, we define comfort poorly.

To move footwear forward, we must first understand why human factors have been neglected…then redefine comfort in terms the body and nervous system actually recognize.

Why Human Factors Matter in Every Industry…Except Footwear

Human factors (ergonomics) is the scientific discipline concerned with understanding interactions among humans and other elements of a system, applying theory and data to optimize human well-being and overall system performance (International Ergonomics Association).

In automotive and aerospace design, human factors research rigorously evaluates:

• Posture and joint alignment

• Pressure distribution

• Muscle activation and fatigue

• Sensory feedback

• Long-term musculoskeletal health

Footwear, however, often defaults to aesthetics, marketing narratives, and simplified cushioning metrics despite the foot’s extreme anatomical and neurological complexity.

The human foot contains 26 bones, 33 joints, and more than 100 muscles, tendons, and ligaments (Standring, 2020). It also houses one of the highest densities of cutaneous mechanoreceptors in the body, making it a primary sensory interface for balance, posture, and locomotion (Kennedy & Inglis, 2002).

From a systems perspective, the foot is not simply a passive structure…it is an active sensory and control organ. Neglecting this reality compromises the entire kinetic chain.

Fashion, Scalability, and the Cost of Oversimplification

One major reason human factors are neglected in footwear is scalability. Shoes must be mass-produced, sized discretely, sold emotionally, and accepted culturally. This encourages:

• Narrow morphological assumptions

• Rigid sizing systems

• Over-reliance on cushioning

• Comfort defined primarily as softness

  
  

However, the human body is highly plastic and adaptive. According to principles of mechanobiology and motor learning, tissues remodel based on loading history and neural input (Wolff, 1892; Davis, 1867; Lieberman, 2012).

When footwear restricts movement or dampens sensory input:

• Intrinsic foot musculature weakens

• Proprioceptive acuity declines

• Motor strategies shift toward compensation

• Injury risk and inefficiency increase

Short-term comfort may increase, but long-term resilience decreases.

The Fundamental Problem: Comfort Is Poorly Defined

Ask two individuals to define “comfortable footwear”:

• One habituated to maximal cushioning

• Another adapted to minimal or barefoot footwear

Both will describe comfort confidently…yet their neuromuscular demands, sensory feedback, and biomechanical strategies differ drastically.

This highlights a critical design flaw:

Comfort is treated as a subjective feeling rather than a physiological state.

Without a functional definition, comfort cannot be objectively measured, compared, or engineered.

A Scientific Reframing of Comfort

From a neurophysiological perspective, comfort aligns closely with efficiency of neural control rather than the absence of sensation.

Research in motor control and pain science suggests that the nervous system continuously evaluates threat, stability, and energy cost (Hodges & Tucker, 2011; Moseley, 2007).

A functional definition of comfort emerges:

Comfort occurs when the nervous system operates at the lowest level of threat and metabolic cost required to maintain posture and movement.

This state is characterized by:

• Minimal unnecessary muscle co-contraction

• Efficient joint loading

• Clear sensory input

• Reduced protective tension

  
  

In contrast, distorted or muted sensory input increases uncertainty, leading the nervous system to upregulate tone, stiffness, and energy expenditure as protective strategies.

Cushioning vs Neurological Efficiency

Cushioning reduces perceived impact forces, but studies show it can also reduce plantar sensory feedback, alter landing mechanics, and increase joint loading elsewhere in the body (Nigg et al., 2015; Robbins & Hanna, 1987).

Excessive cushioning may:

• Delay reflexive stabilization

• Increase muscular effort proximally

• Encourage heavier ground contact

Minimal footwear, while initially uncomfortable, has been shown to:

• Increase sensory feedback

• Improve foot muscle activation

• Promote more economical gait patterns after adaptation (Lieberman et al., 2010)

This explains why comfort is often confused with neurological familiarity rather than neurological efficiency.

Footwear as a Human–Machine Interface

In ergonomics, interfaces are evaluated by how effectively they transmit information between human and environment. Footwear is no different.

If footwear were treated like other high-stakes interfaces:

• EMG patterns would guide design

• Sensory fidelity would be preserved

• Support would be adaptive, not rigid

• Long-term neuromuscular outcomes would matter

Rather than controlling the foot, footwear should facilitate communication between the body and ground.

The Future of Comfort Is Measurable

True progress in footwear design requires redefining comfort through quantifiable metrics:

• Neurological load and muscle co-contraction

• Energy efficiency during gait

• Stability without overconstraint

• Sensory resolution rather than dampening

• Long-term tissue adaptation

Comfort, reframed this way, becomes an optimization problem, not a marketing adjective.

The most comfortable state is not the softest…it is the state in which the body expends the least unnecessary effort to remain stable, aligned, and adaptable.

Closing Thought

Footwear sits at the intersection of industrial design, fashion, biomechanics, and medicine…yet it is rarely allowed to fully belong to all four.

Until human factors become foundational rather than optional, and until comfort is defined scientifically rather than emotionally, footwear will continue to look advanced while functioning primitively.

The future of footwear isn’t softer…it’s smarter.

Selected Academic References

• Davis, H. (1867). Conservative Surgery.

• Hodges, P. W., & Tucker, K. (2011). Moving differently in pain: A new theory to explain adaptation to pain. Pain, 152(3), S90–S98.

• Kennedy, P. M., & Inglis, J. T. (2002). Distribution and behaviour of glabrous cutaneous receptors in the human foot sole. Journal of Physiology, 538(3), 995–1002.

• Lieberman, D. E. et al. (2010). Foot strike patterns and collision forces in habitually barefoot versus shod runners. Nature, 463, 531–535.

• Lieberman, D. E. (2012). What we can learn about running from barefoot running. Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews, 40(2), 63–72.

• Moseley, G. L. (2007). Reconceptualising pain according to modern pain science. Manual Therapy, 12(3), 169–178.

• Nigg, B. M., Baltich, J., Hoerzer, S., & Enders, H. (2015). Running shoes and running injuries. Sports Medicine, 45(6), 777–789.

• Robbins, S. E., & Hanna, A. M. (1987). Running-related injury prevention through proprioceptive training. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 19(2), 148–156.

• Standring, S. (2020). Gray’s Anatomy: The Anatomical Basis of Clinical Practice.

• Wolff, J. (1892). Das Gesetz der Transformation der Knochen.