Process

For this project, I focused on the personality first by identifying what I wanted people to be able to engage with Frasier in conversation about. I had originally wanted a chatbot that would interrupt the user sporadically with jokes, gifs, and fun facts because I felt that action/interaction really demonstrated what it is like having Frasier around when you are trying to work. I thought of this chatbot as part annoying but also a nice little mental break from working. I found that I was not advanced enough to figure out the code to the spontaneous interruptions, even with all the googling I did. So I re-evaluated my concept and moved toward a bot that the user could ask questions to learn about Frasier's favorite things. I also thought what I say to Frasier when I am alone and talking to him (you know, thinking out loud) and how I could incorporate those kinds of questions, such as I always ask him "what should we have for dinner tonight?" This really got me thinking about what I would ask the bot and how it would respond. I wanted to still incorporate the "mental break" idea so I included jokes, however, I adjusted it so it would have a back and forward interaction (Frasier asking a joke, the user can guess, and then receive the answer). I wanted to incorporate the giphy api so I would have lots of different gifs that could be sent to the user as responses but I had a lot of issues adding it correctly. So to work around that I still incorporated gifs into the responses I created but they are specific gifs per response. It is not ideal but I do think it adds to the personality I am trying to develop.