Portfolio Updates6 min readSeptember 24, 2026

STRIDE: Your Life Is Bigger Than Your Socket

STRIDE is a private digital notebook for prosthesis users — document socket fit, track changes across a day, compare identical activities between morning and evening, and walk into the next appointment with evidence instead of memory. The companion to SOMA: where SOMA designs for the prosthetist, STRIDE records for the wearer.

A fitting appointment lasts an hour. The prosthetist asks how the socket has been. The answer is almost always the same: "fine, mostly, except sometimes it hurts on the inside, maybe in the afternoon, I think."

The information is real. The format is unusable. A prosthetist cannot adjust a socket based on "maybe in the afternoon, I think." They need location, timing, activity context, and change over time. But nobody gives the wearer a structured way to capture that information between appointments.

STRIDE does.

What STRIDE is

STRIDE is a private digital notebook for people who wear below-knee or above-knee prostheses. It is not a medical device. It does not diagnose, prescribe socks, or say the prosthesis is safe to wear. Those decisions belong to the care team.

STRIDE does one thing: it gives the wearer a structured way to document what happens between appointments so the next conversation starts with evidence, not memory.

The four-step workflow

Describe the prosthesis. One page per limb. Socket, liner, components — the baseline record that makes every subsequent entry interpretable.

Check in when it feels different. Log the location of discomfort, the activity you were doing, and the warning signs. Time-gated entries — morning and evening — capture the variation that a single fitting appointment cannot see.

Keep the story. Store photos, track changes, archive clinical guidance. The record accumulates across months and appointments, building the longitudinal picture that no single visit can provide.

Compare two hours. Track an identical activity — the same commute, the same walk — across morning and evening. The two-hour comparison reveals volume change, pressure shifts, and comfort patterns that only become visible when the same activity is measured at different times of day.

The 3D explorer

STRIDE includes an interactive 3D prosthetic system visualization. Rotate the model. Separate the layers — residual limb, liner, socket — to understand the spatial relationships. Browse a component library featuring Ottobock knee systems (Genium X4, C-Leg 4, Kenevo) with manufacturer photographs and source-linked specifications.

This is not a clinical tool. It is an educational one: helping the wearer understand what they are wearing, how the components relate, and what to look for when something changes.

Privacy by design

Individual account isolation — each user accesses only their own records. Optional single-issue case linking via email token lets the wearer share a specific concern with their prosthetist without opening the entire record. Access is revocable. The wearer controls what is shared, with whom, and for how long.

SOMA designs. STRIDE records.

STRIDE is the companion to SOMA. The relationship is precise:

SOMA is for the designer and researcher. It centres prosthetic design on lived experience through guided care journeys, pressure visualization, 3D/4D inspection, and seven research demonstrations. SOMA asks: what should the next generation of prosthetic care look like?

STRIDE is for the wearer. It captures the daily reality of living with a prosthesis through structured documentation, activity comparison, and photo annotation. STRIDE asks: what is actually happening between appointments?

SOMA sees the forces. STRIDE hears the person. Together, they close the loop between the design studio and the daily life.