HUMAN KIND

BY POON KING WANG

Kindness runs through pandemics and N95 masks.

Via a bra cup.

In 1961, the company 3M released a new surgical mask made from its new non-woven fibers. Standard masks press flatly and uncomfortably against the nose and mouth. With this unique mask, its bubble shape creates adequate space for the wearer to breathe better.

It was no coincidence that this bubble mask resembled a bra cup. It was inspired by it. 3M has worked with a consulting designer who had developed 100 novel ideas to take advantage of the company’s groundbreaking non-woven polymer fabrics. One of those ideas, which she was subsequently asked to work on, was a new molded bra cup design.

This designer – whom the Metropolis magazine in 2000 called “corporate America’s secret weapon” – was Sara Little Turnbull. And she was a “master of the ‘creative accident’”.

The specific creative accident that married mask to bra started with distress but ended with kindness. At that point in Turnbull’s life, she was in and out of hospitals a lot. Her family members were ill, and she was caring for them. She was hence no stranger to the existing masks, and how their discomfort aggravated the grief, giving neither solace nor comfort.

She saw that the new bra cup’s shape would be a kinder design because it would be more comfortable to breathe in. The bubble mask that ensued – and which kindness had engendered – eventually evolved into the N95 mask that we know today.

Paradoxically, this expression of kindness was borne out of an experience of distress. Incidentally, this is a paradox that many of us are familiar with because of what we have experienced in the last few months.

In the first half of this year, we locked down our countries but paradoxically unlocked our latent reservoir of kindness.

As the world ground to a distressing halt, many rallied around to help each other. The young shopped for the elderly. Volunteers translated critical information for migrant communities. Citizens showed support of all stripes to healthcare workers. Families placed plush toys in windows to cheer up neighbors. Colleagues sent care packages to one another. Companies gave away products to those in need. Others pivoted their tech expertise to design and manufacture essential equipment. And countries shared experiences and donated masks to each other.

The groundswell of goodness was remarkable for both its breadth and depth. It took many by surprise. It reminded us just how kind we all could be. In the same breath, it showed us how it was easy to forget to be kind, as we hustled and bustled through our busy pre-pandemic lives.

Post-lockdown, we risk forgetting again as we worry about jobs, downturns, health, and safety. And just when we need more kindness for those who will suffer socio-economic distress after we lift the lockdowns, we lock up our sympathy again.

Unless we choose to design our recovery from kindness.

This might seem idealistic and a pipe dream. But it is not. On the contrary, designing for kindness is a pragmatic pursuit for three reasons.

The first is we are already equipped to do so. Through design thinking, many of us already know how to create for purposes such as usability, experience, efficiency, safety, and stickiness. Why not build on these to design for kindness, too?

That was, in fact, what Turnbull did. Decades after she turned distress into kindness, she told me that for her, to design was to extend benevolence. We take the kindness we show to each other every day and put it into what we design so that those who use our creations will feel our kindness.

Her success in doing so inspires the second reason. Once it achieves commercial success and social impact, designing for kindness will be a sought-after skill. We will use it with other critical skills such as creativity, collaboration, complex problem solving, computational thinking, and emotional intelligence. As we have seen with the lockdown groundswell of goodness, combining all these skills with kindness can do a lot of good for everyone, personally and professionally.

The third reason designing for kindness is pragmatic and not idealistic is that it can be pursued for purely self-centered intentions. To develop it, we will have to think, observe, and practice kindness consistently. A 2018 University of Oxford publication found that people who performed or saw kind acts for seven days were happier at the end of the seven days. The more kind acts, the happier the person. This was so even when the kind acts were for people they hardly knew. In other words, we can be self-centered and choose to design for kindness solely to make ourselves happier. And that would be alright.

Therein lies yet another paradox about our latest reservoir of kindness that our busy lives had masked.

When we are kind to others, we are kinder to ourselves, too.