Whisp

Overview

Technology connects us to more people than ever and to ourselves almost not at all. Platforms are built for clicks and views. Almost nothing is built for pause.

Watch people be alone and you'll notice they almost never are.

I spent weeks observing public spaces on campus. People sat by themselves constantly, but with headphones in and a screen up, so they were alone and surrounded at the same time. Whenever stillness showed up, it got filled within seconds.

Then I surveyed people, and got a contradiction.

62% said being more in tune with themselves would help them build stronger relationships. But asked what makes that hard, the top answers weren't apathy. They were too many distractions, and no time or space. People wanted this. They had nowhere to do it.

People crave emotional space more than emotional guidance.

Somewhere to pause and be honest without being analyzed, corrected, or judged. Which made me look at what already exists for this, because plenty of products claim to offer it.

Reflectly structures reflection into daily prompts and mood scores, so introspection becomes a task you can fall behind on. Replika simulates a friend who cares, and that comfort comes from imitation rather than understanding. Friend.com is a pendant that listens all the time, trading intimacy for surveillance without ever asking if you wanted to be heard right then.

Each one is trying to give you something. Nobody was building the space to have your own thoughts in.

So I built a room.

Whisp is an Unreal Engine space with no goals, no metrics, and no sign-up. Four rooms of light keyed to emotional states, a Convai companion that asks questions instead of giving advice, and Brian Eno's Music for Airports underneath. It listens when you invite it and not before.

Solution

Whisp: a digital space that listens, with nothing to complete.

Key design moments

I built a forest first and it completely backfired

The first version was a forest, lush and glowing and a little magical, with a floating orb that was the AI. Realism seemed like the obvious way to make something feel calm, so I spent weeks on it.

Then I put people in it and they said it was stressful. They felt like they were supposed to be doing something, like the place was building toward an event they were meant to go find. Which is fair, because the more real a world looks, the more you feel you have to perform in it.

So I threw the whole thing out, forest and orb both, and rebuilt it as four spaces of light where color and pace do the work instead of anything you'd recognize as a place.

The AI asks questions, it never gives answers

Every AI companion I looked at wanted to help you. Replika builds a friend who cares about you, except the caring is imitation, and I didn't want to hand someone comfort that isn't real.

My research said people wanted space, not advice. So I wrote the Convai character to only ask. Open ended questions, nothing prescriptive, no telling anyone what to do. Every time I was tempted to make it more useful it got worse.

Two ways in, because nobody reflects the same way

Talking out loud is fast and you say things before you've cleaned them up. Typing is slower and you get to think first.

But the real reason was watching people test it. When someone else was in the room, they typed. Every time. Nobody wants to say something honest out loud with a stranger three feet away. And Whisp is supposed to be something you can use whenever you need it, not only when you happen to be alone in a quiet room.

So you can do either, and switch whenever you want.

Impact

3 in 5 people who tried Whisp said it helped them feel more centered.

I tested it at the Immersive Design Research Lab, where people came in, put headphones on, and sat with it for a while. What I was watching for was whether the light thing actually worked, and whether they'd talk to it honestly.

They did. One person said it felt like stepping out of their comfort zone. Another said it was immersive in a way where each room had its own character, which was the exact thing I was hoping for after the forest failed. The rooms were doing what I built them to do.

54.5%

Called the voice interaction relaxing and natural

63.6%

Rated Whisp a 5/5 for feeling calmer or at ease

100%

Scored 4 or higher on calm/ease — zero low ratings

11/11

Sessions completed, recorded, unfiltered

Reflection

You have to make the bad thing first.

I spent a long time trying to start with the right idea. This project forced me to start with any idea and follow it until it broke, then follow the next one. The forest was wrong. The orb was wrong. But without them there are no rooms, no stillness, no Whisp. I stopped being afraid of making something unimpressive.