Designer’s Notes
“As a long-time Apple enthusiast, the idea to create a simulated Siri conversation for my code-meshing multimodal project came to me almost instantaneously. The nature of The Siri Project was quite simple: I would ask Siri numerous questions related to my research paper topic, and it would respond with my findings. My topic was, fittingly, the impact of employing increasing amounts of technology in education; it seemed natural to me to create something that incorporated the very topic of my research itself into the project. Clever, I know!
There were two versions of The Siri Project, the first of which is displayed here. In this version, viewers will watch a short video of a candid “conversation” between myself and Siri, which was modified to say or show anything I wanted it to. A second, more involved version of the project was used for my initial presentation. All of the content remained identical between both versions, with the only difference in the presentation version being the lack of my recorded voice asking Siri my questions. I would go on to “perform” this conversation live for my presentation, which required an immense amount of memorization and speech-pacing to match what I was saying to the microphone actions and words displayed in the video.
In addition to the research materials used to formulate Siri’s responses to my questions, resources used in the creation of this project ranged from Apple’s Keynote presentation creator for animations to an odd website titled ifakesiri.com that allowed me to make Siri’s responses look authentic. By coupling a screen recorded iPhone, my Keynote animations, and macOS’s (then Mac OS X’s) text-to-speech feature, I was able to make it look, feel, and sound like Siri was actually responding to my questions with thought-out, in-depth answers… along with the wit and charm that Siri is known for.”
