Niki Marathia
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UX of whispering Week 1 of 2
Term 1 week 5
Team

Whispering is more than just a way of speaking. It’s an act. A sensation. A boundary between sound and silence. It is private, coded, secretive, and yet profoundly social. Design an experience that amplifies the qualities or customs of whispering.

Research methods:
Bodystorming, directed storytelling
Keya Bangera
Matthew Yue
Muskan Gupta
Nicole Shu
Niki Marathia
Sakshi Pansare


Whisper
According to The Chambers Dictionary, a whisper is “to speak by breathing rather than voicing one’s words; to speak in a low voice; to speak covertly, spread rumours; to plot secretly; to make a rustling sound, or a sound like soft speech” (Schwarz, 2015). This definition stood out to us because it frames whispering as both something you do with your body and something that involves interpersonal relationships.
Body
stormingWe sourced cardboard tubes from the studio to start our bodystorming exercise. We whispered to each other from either end and placed the tubes on the floor with our phones inside to test how much audio could be lowered before it became inaudible. We also listened for the buzz of the room through each tube to explore how background noise could be isolated.

Figure 1. Listening to the buzz of the room through different tubes.
Figure 2. Whispering through a tube. Taken by Nicole Shu.
Figure 3. Listening to the buzz of the room through both ears.
Figure 4. Our phones at the bottom of the tubes. Taken by Matthew Yue.
Figure 5. Playing low-volume music. Taken by Nicole Shu.
We recorded our initial thoughts based on our bodystorming session. Whispering through a tube felt unexpectedly intimate, so Intimacy, warmth, and sense of closeness were some areas of interest that emerged from the session.

Figure 6. Mapping our initial ideas. Intimacy, warmth, and sense of closeness are emerging areas of interest. 


Directed storytelling We decided to keep our directed storytelling open to a broad range of participants, so we could gather perspectives from people we might not have heard from otherwise. I started with a visit at my local yoga studio, where I spoke to the assistant behind the counter, Cassie. I then talked to Amelia, a university student who worked at my neighbourhood deli. Finally, I headed to a coffee shop and spoke to Maisie, a girl who was sitting near me. 

After reviewing and comparing the responses, we identified four recurring themes that emerged across the conversations: intimacy, social awareness, rule bending, and emotional response.

Transcript:Coding:

N: Can you tell me about the last time you had to whisper?

C: At work, I try to speak softly but not quite in a whisper. I’m an acupuncturist and work with people in hospice so I try to stay in “empathy” without shifting to “sympathy”. I try to keep a soft, neutral voice without quite whispering.

N: Outside of work, how do you think of whispering?
C: I visited my niece recently and she’s 3 months old, so I whispered to her how much I love her. I also used to whisper to her in the belly.

N: Do you feel it can be soothing?
C: I suppose it does have a negative connotation associated to gossip, but yes, I find it can be calming.
Wants patients to feel respected

Tender moment with newborn baby and pregnant sister


It can be about gossip
Whispering can be calming

N: Can you tell me about the last time you had to whisper and what it was like?
A: I was at a poetry event and my friend called because they’d just arrived. I picked up the phone and had to whisper as I was running down the stairs to get them.

N: That’s a nice sort of neutral way to have had to whisper. How do you feel about whispering when you’re around others?
A: There’s something quite sensual about it. You’d have to be quite close to someone to be whispering to them.

N: Does location or where you are physically play a role in perceiving it this way?
A: Yeah, definitely. It doesn’t always have to be sensual, but I think you always have to be intimate with someone if you’re this close them, whispering.At a social event where they may not want to disturb others

Sensuality in closeness

Physical proximity in whispering

N: Can you tell me about the last time you had to whisper and what it was like?
M: I studied dance so most times I’d whisper was in class. If we’d forgotten our steps, my friends and I would whisper to each other to ask because we wouldn’t want to disturb the teacher.

N: Did you study ballet?
M: Yes. My friends and I used to do that quite a lot actually.

N: What do you associate whispering with, based on your background?
M: I associate it with secrecy and it makes me quite uncomfortable because I’m aware people are saying something I shouldn’t know.
Whispering in class so the teacher wouldn’t know they forgot their steps

Whispering so they wouldn’t disturb the teacher

Whispering amongst friends

Uncomfortable because it can hide secrets


Closeness in interpersonal relationships

Tender moment with newborn baby and pregnant sister

Sensuality in closeness

Physical proximity in whispering

Whispering amongst friends
Considering how it may affect others

Wants patients to feel respected

At a social event where they may not want to disturb others

Whispering so they wouldn’t disturb the teacher
Keeping secrets and gossiping

It can be about gossip

Whispering in class so the teacher wouldn’t know they forgot their steps
Affective qualities

Whispering can be calming

Uncomfortable because it can hide secrets


Intimacy

Social awareness

Rule bending

Emotional response


Creative direction
We wanted to combine our insights with inspiration from artists whose work we admire. London-based Catherine Repko’s paintings capture the intimacy of a whisper, showing figures bathed in yellows, crimsons, and blues. Seeing how she uses colour to create mood helped us think about how we might create atmosphere in our own work.

Figure 8. Ashes by Catherine Repko (2023). Source: catherinerepko.com. Available at: catherinerepko.com (Accessed: 26 December 2025).


We were also inspired by the sound installations of Yuri Suzuki, whose work encourages people to listen and pause. The installation shown in Figure 9 is situated in a Tokyo airport, where it fills space with distilled sounds of Japanese sounds. Seeing how a simple intervention could have a strong presence helped us think about how to achieve a similar effect in our project.

Figure 9. Crowd Cloud by Yuri Suzuki. Source: yurisuzuki.com. Available at: yurisuzuki.com/projects/crowd-clou (Accessed: 26 December 2025).

To help us decide on an approach for a prototype, we did two simple explorations. First, we made a model out of paper cups and tape to see how its shape and material would transmit sound. When we tested the model, it did not transmit sound effectively, possibly because sound waves travel best through a continuous channel (NDE‑Ed.org 2025). Based on our cardboard tube experiments earlier in the week, we concluded that tubes would be more efficient in prototyping.

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We also experimented with salad bowls because their shape resembles a parabolic surface, which is known to amplify sound (SpaceMath@NASA n.d.). To test this, we placed our phones inside the bowls playing low music. 

Figure 11a. Salad bowl 1.
Figure 11b. Salad bowl 2.
Figure 12. Trying to determine if a salad bowl can amplify sound.¹


We listened for any increase in volume but could not detect a difference. This was possibly because the size and shape of the bowls, as well as the phone’s position, all affect how well sound travels (SpaceMath@NASA n.d.). We decided not to move forward with the bowls because it was difficult to determine how to correct the setup.


Sources
NDE-Ed.org (2025) The speed of sound in other materials. Available at: https://www.nde-ed.org/Physics/Sound/speedinmaterials.xhtml (Accessed: 28 December 2025).

Repko, C. (2023) Ashes [Online image]. Available at: https://catherinerepko.com (Accessed: 26 December 2025). 

Schwarz, C.M. (2015) ‘Whisper’, The Chambers Dictionary. 13th edn. Available at: https://arts.idm.oclc.org/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Faccess.infobase.com%2Farticle%2F708979-whisper%3Faid%3D275139 (Accessed: 25 December 2025).

SpaceMath@NASA (n.d.) Exploring parabolas: The shape of a satellite dish [PDF]. Available at: https://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/IRAD/IRAD-4.pdf (Accessed: 28 December 2025).

Suzuki, Y. (2024) Crowd Cloud [Online image]. Available at: https://yurisuzuki.com/projects/crowd-clou (Accessed: 26 December 2025).


Notes¹To clean up the background in Figure 12, I used Photoshop’s AI Generative Fill tool. The subject was not edited or altered.