Designing Purr: A Tactile Escape from Sensory Overload
I built Purr for a very specific moment: the one when you need a reassuring touch, but your phone delivers a visual and auditory sensory overload, the one when your brain wants rest, but your fingers keep scrolling.
Not every problem needs a complex solution. Purr is purposefully simple: a minimal, sensory experience that encourages you to stop, slow down, and gently step away from compulsive phone use. This is especially true in those moments before bed, when overstimulation is most intrusive.
No need for fancy AI here, only empathy.
A Sensory Rebalance
The app is built on a few key principles: fade away visual stimulation, soften sound, and elevate touch. Where most apps compete for attention, Purr quietly invites release.
When Purr opens, you’re greeted by a playful yet calm minimalistically drawn cat. It’s a brief and gentle visual anchor—just enough to establish comfort and familiarity without hijacking your attention. Stroke the screen, the serinely content cat starts purring, and the app begins to disappear.
From Screen to Stillness
Repeatedly stroking the screen with your finger triggers a purring response, not just through sound, but primarily through subtle, rhythmic haptic feedback. The screen slowly fades to black during this interaction, reducing visual stimulation to zero. This is not a fade-to-black as an afterthought: it is the destination.
I deliberately designed the app to lead the user’s attention away from the phone, toward a state where there’s nothing left to see, and very little to hear. Instead, the phone becomes a soft, tactile object that vibrates gently under your touch.
It is a sensory inversion: turning your phone, usually a beacon of glowing activity, into something you feel more than see or hear.
If you stop interacting, the purring slowly fades away. Maybe your phone falls asleep with you. This isn’t a gamified mechanic. It’s a subtle way to encourage presence and physical engagement. Not tapping, not swiping, not scrolling. Just the simplest possible interaction: a soft, continuous touch.
Why Design Toward Disappearance?
In a world that encourages overstimulation—especially through our phones, I wanted to build something that retreats. Every part of Purr was crafted to reduce sensory input, not add to it: visuals fade, audio softens, touch becomes the primary interaction channel.
This design is not about novelty or cleverness. It’s about restoring balance. By shifting interaction to the body rather than the eyes or ears, Purr offers a different kind of relief, one that encourages you to disconnect without friction or guilt.
If Purr can help you put your phone down a little easier, sleep a little faster, or feel a little calmer, I’ll consider it a success.