Summary
A reflection on how inherited assumptions shape products, and why questioning them can lead to opportunties.
Selling Speed
I love Nike.
I love how their shoes look and the story they tell. The design. The advertising. Shoes that look like a spaceship taking off.
It also looks fast. A pointed shape suggests forward motion, aggression, precision.
Realization
Then those same shoes nearly ended my running career. They put my scholarship at risk. I assumed the problem was my body, not the equipment. I trained harder. I ran through pain. That is what runners are taught to do.
Eventually, I questioned that assumption. I took my shoes off and ran a mile on grass. The knee pain faded almost immediately.
Many performance running shoes share a narrow, pointed toe box. The shape was inherited, not designed around the human foot. It traces back to dress shoes and older footwear traditions where symmetry mattered more than anatomy.
What stood out to me was how similar most running shoes were. Despite all the research and development, the same basic shape persisted, even when it might not serve the user.
Question first, design next
I did change how I ran. But the bigger shift was realizing how many assumptions I had never questioned because they were handed down and worked well enough.
Once you see that, it becomes hard to stop seeing it. In products. In systems. In the stories we tell ourselves about why things are the way they are.
Most progress does not come from new ideas. It comes from revisiting the ones we inherited and asking whether they still hold.