How Nike Designed Hands-Free Sneakers For People With Disabilities
Source: Bloomberg Businessweek, Kim Bhasin
Photo: Conceptual image of the Nike Go FlyEase. (ALEX WALLBAUM FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK)
The Go FlyEase is a big step for “accessible” footwear. The underlying technology has more places to go.
Earlier this year a curious sneaker popped up on Nike Inc.’s website. Instead of lying flat on the ground, the shoe has a band that squeezes it so its sole bends in the middle, creating an unusually large opening for a person’s foot. Just slide your toes down into the gap and press down with your heel, and the band contracts to close the shoe into its proper shape and hold the foot firmly in place.
This is the Go FlyEase, a breakthrough in Nike’s attempts to make a sneaker that’s effortless to put on and take off. Removing the shoe is a little more complicated than putting it on—wearers use a hand or the other foot to engage a built-in kickstand—but the band system makes a big difference for many people with disabilities who struggle to lace up Air Jordans. If its technology can be integrated into other sneaker designs, the Go FlyEase could open up all sorts of possibilities.
“The North Star for us was creating something that was hands-free,” says Sarah Reinertsen, who worked with Nike’s innovation team to develop the shoe. “We just couldn’t get there right away.”
After her left leg was amputated almost four decades ago, when she was 7, Reinertsen spent much of her childhood wearing a clunky medical boot over her prosthesis. Today she’s an accomplished distance runner and triathlete who’s represented the U.S. at the Paralympic Games and set marathon records. She started with Nike as a sponsored athlete before becoming a full-time staffer and now works at the company’s headquarters in Beaverton, Ore., developing more accessible footwear with athletes and the innovation team.
Normalizing fashions that make things easier for marginalized groups isn’t easy, but it’s happened before. Eyeglasses are medical devices worn right on the face, made ubiquitous so long ago that we don’t think of them as technology. Canes are part of this family, too. But almost everybody wears shoes, so sneakers that improve accessibility should also be able to blend in if that’s what the wearer wants.
Nike’s work in this vein began in earnest during the mid-2000s, when Tobie Hatfield, who now runs design and special projects, started tinkering with custom gear for a colleague who’d suffered a stroke. The focus on ease of use coalesced in 2012, when Hatfield read a letter from a teenager with cerebral palsy who wanted to be self-sufficient but couldn’t tie his shoes. Three years later the first FlyEase hit the market in the form of a LeBron James high-top that used a wraparound zipper to open up the rear of the shoe.
The latest model took years to develop. Designers started by dissecting a Nike Roshe sneaker and experimenting on it with some surgical tubes. For the key bendable piece, they settled on a bi-stable hinge, meaning that the component can rest either open or closed, without the shoe threatening to snap shut. This proved tricky, because the designers had never put such a component in a shoe before. And they knew the final design would have to be able to be mass-produced and sold at a price people would actually pay.
The finished product retails for $120 and has three main components: the hinge, the band, and the kickstand on the heel. The Go FlyEase looks a bit odd when open and empty, but once a pair snaps onto a wearer’s feet, it’s unmistakably a set of Nike kicks. Early styles sold out quickly. “Aesthetically speaking, the Go FlyEase is the best compromise between fashion and utility,” says Chad Jones, co-founder of Another Lane, a shoe resale website. Ryan Jans, a sneaker aficionado who was born with cerebral palsy, reviewed the shoes for the site WearTesters and gave them average marks for cushioning but strong ones for traction and fit. (His caveat: You can’t adjust the band, so make sure you get the right size.)
While this latest iteration is a major advancement, there are plenty of people who can’t take off the Go FlyEase without using their hands, including Reinertsen. She says it’s still far preferable to a conventional sneaker. She and her colleagues are continuing to work on FlyEase designs for people with different types of disabilities, though she declined to elaborate.
Nike is studying how to incorporate FlyEase technology into performance shoes. The high-tops iteration, for example, started on the basketball court and made its way to running tracks and football fields. Pro athletes are now asking when they’ll be able to compete while wearing a pair of Gos, according to Reinertsen. For now, though, the sneakers are meant for everyday wear, not Ironman triathlons. Reinertsen says the pressing demand for high-performance versions isn’t lost on her. “I want this technology to hit the market sooner,” she says. “We also want to get it right.”