Measured, Not Assumed: Inside The Award-Winning QUT Study

09 Oct 2026

Most footwear is judged by how it looks on the shelf. The study behind this year's Good Design Award was built to judge something harder to see: what happens between the foot and the shoe, step after step.

Working with researchers at the Queensland University of Technology, FRANKIE4 took the Jackie sneaker and the Sole Hero® Footbed into the lab with 29 women experiencing plantar heel pain. Pressure was mapped, impact was measured, and every woman rated how each footbed combination felt to wear.

The work has now been named a 2026 Australian Good Design Award winner in the Design Research category. Here is what the study set out to answer, what surprised the team, and what it means for the shoes in your wardrobe.

Why Ask The Question At All

Women have been telling FRANKIE4 for years that their shoes changed how their feet felt by the end of the day, and so many explain how the pain they have been dealing with has eased, or gone entirely. Stories like that are encouraging, but they do not explain the mechanism. The research team wanted to know what was actually happening underfoot.

“We thought, or assumed, that it was the cushioned materials and arch contouring that would help, but we wanted to prove that there was actually biomechanical offloading and redistribution of pressure.”
-QUT Research Team

The design team had a parallel question. The original focus was the Sole Hero® Footbed itself, compared with orthotic footbed inserts that are regularly prescribed but not custom-built, and whether independent evidence would support what the footbed was designed to do.

What Was Measured

Twenty-nine women walked through the lab in a random series of 6 different shoe and footbed insert test conditions. Three things were captured on every walk.

Pressure insoles inside the shoe mapped exactly where load landed, at the point where the foot meets the shoe.
A force plate set into the floor measured the jolt as each foot struck the ground.
As part of the lab data, every participant rated how comfortable each test condition felt to wear.

That last measure matters as much as the first two. Lab data tells you what the shoe is doing. Her rating tells you whether she would keep wearing it. The individual feedback on comfort is so important to measure.

The Surprise: The Shoe Itself

Going in, nobody knew which way the results would fall. The finding that stood out most was about the shoe rather than anything placed inside it.

“The biggest surprise to me was that the effect of the shoe alone was actually larger than any of the insert conditions, which highlighted how important it is that the shoe outsole design works together with the Sole Hero® Footbed.”
-QUT Research Team

“We always believed that the sole of the shoe and the footbed work together to cushion and support, but we were surprised at the amount of difference the sole made. Both the engineered construction and the considered choice of performance materials have a massive impact.”
-FRANKIE4 Design Team

The Footbed's Balancing Act

Taking pressure off one part of the foot is the easy half of the problem. The harder half is not simply pushing it somewhere else.

“When taking pressure off one area it's very easy to overload another area. We found that the Sole Hero® Footbed was able to offload the heel without significantly increasing pressure in the arch area, which participants rated as very comfortable.”
-QUT Research Team

The result: Up to 67% better comfort at the heel, in Jackie with the Sole Hero® Footbed.*

A Shoe Only Works If She Wears It

“The best shoe in the world won't help your heel pain if it's sitting in the back of your wardrobe. A shoe or insert can only work if you actually wear it, and comfort is what makes that happen. That's why it matters that our lab measurements and the women's experience matched. It's a shoe that works and one women wanted to wear.”
-QUT Research Team

That is the design brief in one sentence. The principles do not change from style to style: support, cushioning, alignment and pressure distribution underfoot. What changes is how invisibly they are built into a silhouette she would choose anyway.

“We constantly test, refine and innovate our technology, but we also constantly test, refine and elevate our designs to achieve a beautiful silhouette with a massive amount of comfort engineering hidden inside.”
-FRANKIE4 Design Team

What The Award Recognises

The Good Design Awards look for research with continuing value, not a study read only by other academics. This one was designed to be used. Biomechanical data, women's own ratings and a lifestyle sneaker, deliberately combined so the findings could go straight back into how shoes are made.

“It recognises that good design and good evidence work best together. The designers brought an understanding of what women want to wear, and we brought the tools to measure what's actually happening under the foot. Neither would have been enough on its own.”
-QUT Research Team

The Takeaway

“What you put on your feet matters more than most women realise, because not all shoes are equal. In our study, simply swapping the shoe or footbed changed how much pressure the heel took and how comfortable it felt. You take thousands of steps a day, so that cumulative effect is important.”
-QUT Research Team

Evidence-backed comfort and support, validated by independent research. Principals FRANKIE4 applies to each and every style in the range. Not just marketing claims. 

* Based on a 2025 independent QUT study with 29 women experiencing Plantar Heel Pain. Results specific to the Jackie sneaker and Sole Hero® Footbed. Individual results may vary. Not a medical device. Full disclaimer at frankie4.com/pages/php-research-study.