I think it would be interesting to conduct an experiment
that would provide some insight on the usefulness of a voice-operated mobile
search tool such as the iPhone’s Siri.
Between myself and other iPhone users that I know, it seems that Siri is
rarely used, and when it is used, it is not to find an answer to a particular
question but to provide some sort of obscure, short-lived entertainment such as
hearing Siri beatbox or rap.
I suppose this experiment can work in two different ways, by
either providing a voice-operated mobile search tool to users who currently do
not have one on their mobile device to see if it effects how frequently
standard search engine inquiries are made, or oppositely to disable something
like Siri for current iPhone users to measure any change in the frequency of
typed searches. The results from
this experiment would ideally provide insight on whether or not Siri is
convenient and useful in information inquiries, or if it is merely a bell or
whistle that does not often get much practical use.
The independent variable would be having the voice-operated
mobile search tool such as Siri, since this is what would be deliberately changed, and the dependent variable would be typed
searches in the phone’s web browser, since we are seeing if the change applied affects the user's typed searches.
The controlled variable in this experiment would be the age demographic
as well as users that either disabled or not as these factors could play a role
in the usefulness of a voice-operated search tool and deem it as essential as opposed to a factor in convenience.
I think this would be a very enlightening experiment. I have an iPhone myself and I think the only time I have ever used Siri was to do one of those joke commands to see what she says. I would be interested to know how often people use Siri and even what the demographics are for using voice-command tools. I know it is becoming more popular now with the development of smart watches. Even experimenting with the difference between Siri and the "Ok Google" voice search tool would be beneficial.
ReplyDeleteIt is very interesting to see a push for voice-operated commands in what has become such a text-based culture. It seems like most millennials will do anything they can do avoid actually making a call... as there is a preference to send either texts or emails. It almost seems embarrassing to be speaking to a smart watch in public as it attracts attention and it is not yet a common thing to do. I'm curious to see what will happen.
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