Risee · Yixi (Chris) Wu

Risee

English is not my first language, so every day I look up words like

coherent

Risee began as a way to remember them.

Then I noticed that translating is only one thing you can do with selected text.

Polish it, summarize it, explain it, or anything else you can write as a prompt

So in Risee, every tool is an

Action

A prompt you write once and run on any text, anywhere on your Mac

Select text, press a shortcut, and your actions appear.

Shift + Option + Space, anywhere on your Mac. Translate, Summarize and Polish come built in; add your own in a minute.

Recorded in the real app.

The tools orbit your words.

Actions and target languages ride a ring of capsules around the selection. Arrow keys turn it, Enter runs it, or just click.

The words you met stay on your screen.

A small widget in the corner keeps your latest words, with their sound. Only short selections, so it stays a word list.

Small tasks deserve fast models.

Short text runs on faster, cheaper models, and Google Cloud Text-to-Speech reads it aloud

I built it twice.

In Swift for macOS in summer 2025, then again in Electron over one weekend in January 2026, to try a new way of interacting

The first version also wrote me a story every day.

In a genre I like, from the words I had just learned, one step beyond what I knew. That idea grew into Lifeo.

I designed and built all of it.

Interaction designThe orbiting ring, a shortcut-first flow, the resident word widget
Visual designCapsule components, motion, the app icon
Desktop engineeringA native macOS app in Swift, then Electron
LLM integrationPrompts for the built-in actions, model choice for speed and cost, text-to-speech

I still use it every day.

ELino