Work in Progress... 

Overview

The goal of this page is to create a large pool of realistic usecases to be used for investigating different aspects of the P4A platform and the services it can possibly offer.

Structure

Usecases are developed based on the following structure:

 1. The following stakeholders are identified: 

1. • Consumers
   • Developers
   • Mainstream Companies
   • Clinicians, Educators, Professionals
   • Schools, Libraries, Other public venues
   • Service providers, NGOs
   • Government

2. The potential P4A services are defined:

1. • Media and Materials: Auto augmentation/ transformation/ Replacement
   • Assistance on Demand: User can call up for any assistance any where
   • Consumers and Experts Connections: Network of experts, consumers and testers to help new developers
   • Developers’ Space: Free and available commercial parts to speed development and lower cost
     
   • GPII Unified Listing and Marketplace: Developers can quickly and efficiently market their products worldwide

3. Appropriate usecases are developed for the potential P4A services and organized based on their scope:

1. • Small: These usecase mostly require quick interaction between user and provider/ developer. These types of services are provided to respond to one person's urgent needs although they may become useful for other P4A members. Small usecases require little time and efforts from both sides to be completed, consequently the compensations are low.
   • Medium: These usecases also require direct interaction between user and provider/ developer, however, more people can benefit from the outcome. Medium usecases require greater efforts and take longer to be completed, thus, the compensations are higher.
   • Large: These usecases are initiated by an individual or group of people and they need a collaborative effort between several groups of stakeholders to be completed. As a result, their outcome can impact many people's lives. Large usecases require great deal of time and efforts and they may require funding and organizational support to be accomplished.
     
     

Note: The names that have been used for particular actions such as 'AoD', 'Call to Action', 'Challenge', 'P4A Empowerment Open Source', etc. are just for the purpose of clarifying content and are not final.

Usecases

For Consumers

A rich set of solutions and services that match their diverse needs.  

Media and Materials

Small Usecase: *

Marney has recently purchased an electric scooter. However, it is very difficult for her to go through its manual and figure out how to use its different features. She wants someone to simplify the manual for her. She goes to the P4A platform, logs into her account and creates a 'Call to Action' to describe her problem, indicate the type of compensation she can afford and share it to the platform. Don is an active member within the system who receives a newsletter with content that may be relevant to him. His wife uses the same kind of scooter as Marney. He finds out about Marney's request through the newsletter and contacts her. Marney and Don negotiate the terms (timing, compensation, etc.) Don uses the platform's authoring tools to create the content, uploading images as well as text descriptions. He simplifies the manual's feature descriptions and shares the result with Marney. They can continue their conversation by messaging each other directly, or through a discussion page related to her ‘Call to action’ to address all Marney's concerns and questions. She compensates Don and rates his response. This simplified manual also becomes available on the P4A Empowerment Open Source for others to use.

Medium Usecase:

Judith is living in an assisted living house and she is deaf blind. Different health care providers, such as physicians, specialists, dentists or oral hygienists visit her in rotation. In most of these visits, Judith is accompanied by her assistant, Sarah, who helps her effectively communicate with the care provider. However, sometimes Sarah can't be present in an appointment, which causes spending too much time and efforts to communicate just the basic information. Thus, Judith is looking for a generic and basic communication kit to help her interact with her providers in the absence of an assistant. She makes Sarah aware of her concern. Sarah gets excited about this idea as she can use this kit for some of her other clients as well. Sarah uses P4A to engage with other communications assistants and wants to share the idea with them. So, she logs into her P4A and starts a discussion around the topic. She is encouraged by the group to create a project so she creates a 'Call to Action' and describes the issue and the possible solution. A freelance developer who uses the P4A platform for supplementary income browses projects that are tagged as 'seeking developers' and finds Sarah's project. He has already developed an application with similar functionality seems interested in this call and responds to Sarah's request. They start a discussion about what the current application does and how it can be modified to meet the needs of a deaf blind user. The developer gets feedback from Sarah and other communications assistants and has the chance to test it on Judith and other deaf blind users throughout the process. After modifying the app, the developer can either add it to the P4A Empowerment Open Source or make it available for sale on the GPII marketplace.

Large Usecase:

Edwina who has just started grade 10, realizes that Math and Physics concepts have become more difficult to understand. She has no problem with visuals and diagrams, however, formulas and large bodies of text seem incomprehensible to her. When she informs her adviser of her concern, she encourages her to check out P4A to find a solution. She browses through the platform and notices few other discussions related to her problem. She creates an account and submits a 'Challenge' to visualize grade 10-12 Math and Physics formulas. After a few days, her challenge is approved, packaged and broadcasted on the P4A platform. Her challenge gets a lot of votes from teachers who would like to have access to this type of visualized material, foreign learners, people with learning disabilities and every one of them can contribute something to this challenge to cover the cost of developing this visualized content. Busy with school, Edwina cannot manage the project herself, however, P4A matchers notice the great level of activity around this challenge and find an active member who is willing to manage this challenge, recruit the required producers and look for potential investors. An educational government body that is focused on addressing accessibility barriers within the education system is contacted by the challenge manager and encouraged to back the project financially. A freelance designer working in data visualization also joins the project. With the help of math and science teachers, they come up with visualizations for formulas taught in the high school curriculum. The manager also posts the challenge in different groups and discussions inside and outside of the platform and requests feedback. All participants use discussion boards to give feedback and improve the visualizations. When the formulas are ready, they are made available to the educational government body as well as the P4A resources section; Edwina receives the 'Initiator' badge and producers receive their compensation along with recognition points.

Assistance on Demand (AoD)

Small Usecase: *

Patrick has recently moved out of his parents’ house and experiencing an independent lifestyle. To minimize the impact of his visual impairment, he has created a system around the house where every item follows a specific order. However, every time his mom visits, she rearranges Patrick's stuff without informing him. Apparently she has also rearranged all his canned soups the other day, since Patrick is not able to find a can of chicken noodle soup. He opens the P4A app on his cell phone, goes to the ‘AoD’ section. He takes a photo of the canned soup he is holding, tags it with a 'Flag', sets a timer that indicates the time frame within which a response would be useful (once this timer runs out, the request disappears from the feed), and asks for the image description and shares it to the platform. After a few seconds, he receives a response from another P4A user with an image description. Now, he can mark the task as complete and rate the person who has provided the description.

Patrick can either pay a monthly subscription fee for the ‘AoD’ service or purchase per use credit. People who reply to an instant help request can collect points, that can be cashed out any time. Patrick has used 'AoD' for reading the price tags in retail context, medication labels at home and signage at urban environments.

Medium Usecase:

Steven is trying to make a Skype call to talk to his grandson in Australia. Steven's daughter has already setup his computer and Skype account, but for some reason nothing is working today and Steven does not know how to fix the problem. He opens his P4A application on his computer and goes to the 'AoD' section. He describes the problem, tags it with a 'Flag' and shares it to the platform. After a few seconds, Steven receives a message from a person who is willing to help. The message notes that there are several ways in which they can try to solve the problem, asking Steven to either share his screen, or describe the problem over the phone or chat. Once Steven agrees to share his screen, a dialog pops up for screen sharing with simple 'Yes' 'No' actions. Steven selects 'Yes' and now his screen is shared with the other person. That person tries to diagnose the problem and guide him to take the appropriate actions to solve the issue. After they are done and Steven closes the dialog, another dialog pops up that simply asks Nora to rate the service or make a comment.

Large Usecase: *

Jackie is running out of groceries, however, her caregiver has been very sick lately and can't help her out this week. Jackie logs into her P4A account and goes to the 'AoD' section. She describes her situation, and identifies her location and tags it with a 'Flag'. Instead of sharing it to the  platform, she shares it with people who are within a certain perimeter of her location. Brad, who runs a small transportation company is signed up for notification related to transportation within his area in town, notices Jackie's request. He checks out their schedules, and finds an available seat in a group transportation close to the Jackie's house scheduled for the next morning. He contacts Jackie via P4A, discusses his terms and conditions and arranges for a pick up. Jackie makes a payment, which would not be confirmed until after receiving the service. The next day, when Jackie is dropped off at her house after the grocery shopping, she confirms the pending transaction and simply rates Brad's service through P4A.

For developers

The tools and systems they need to more affordably develop, market, and support products that can address the full range of platforms and technologies their customers need to access.

Consumers and Experts Connections

Small Usecase:

John is designing a multiplications/division game for kids with learning disabilities. Before publishing the game, he would like to get his target group's feedback. He has previously used P4A for testing some of his other products to get users or developers' feedback. He logs into his P4A account and creates a 'Call to Action', includes his game's API, screen captures, videos and a full description of his request, and shares his 'Call' to the platform. In a few days, he receives lots of feedback from parents, kids, developers, teachers and even other users who can benefit from this game. After making the suggested modifications, he can publish the game to his desired app store as well as making it available for sale on the GPII marketplace.

Medium Usecase: *

To facilitate data transfer between devices, Todd has been trying to develop a software to make an AT device discoverable by any mobile device or computer in its proximity. His goal is to make this discovery Wi-Fi independent. However, he has been unable to do so. All his discussions on different blogs have been fruitless as most of those developers are not familiar with AT. In one of those blogs, he was recommended to check out P4A. He checks out the platform and decides to start a discussion around this issue. After creating an account, he goes to the 'Discussion' section and creates a new discussion describing his issue, and then tags it to target developers. All P4A members who have identified themselves as developers are informed about Todd's question. Other members can join the discussion and leave comments and feedback. They can also point Todd to use specific codes that are already available on P4A Empowerment Open Source.

Large Usecase:

Marry is an inventor-developer and she often browses through P4A to find a problem to solve. Marry notices that there are several discussions on P4A around the punctuation issue during the speech to text input. She is interested in exploring this issue further and possibly coming up with a solution for it. She sends out a message to some of the other developers who had participated in the related discussions on P4A and invites them to join her to build a punctuation plug-in for Speech to Text technology. Once, she has found some collaborators, they submit their proposal as a 'Challenge' asking for funds, feedback and design input. When their challenge is approved by P4A, it is packaged and broadcasted on the platform. Members or any other organization that needs such product can contribute something to the development process and receive the final product as a reimbursement. When the solution is ready, the team can either make it available for all through the P4A's Empowerment Open Source or make it available for sale on the GPII marketplace.

Developers’ Space

Small Usecase: *

Jeff is a freelance web developer. Currently, he is working on a local district school board's website to make it more accessible. The site lacks personal adjustment tools for modifying text size and contrast. He logs into his P4A account and runs a search for modifying text size and contrast. In the results page, he is pointed to 10 different discussions and 3 available sources in the P4A Empowerment Open Source. He reviews all the three available sources and then downloads the one that fits his need best.

Medium Usecase:

Ana is developing an application that creates sign language subtitles for live stream, such as TV shows or movies. To test her product, she needs to use an expensive piece of hardware that she cannot afford at the moment. She creates a project describing her application and the equipment she needs. An accessibility lab finds her project and sends her an invitation to come to the lab and test her software there at no cost. The director also provides her with contact information of a few other labs that are closer to Ana and may have the hardware. Since it's difficult for Ana to travel to the lab she sends them her software and the director gets his graduate assistance to test it for Ana. When testing is completed, Ana gives the lab a good rating and credits them on her project page. She also collaborates with the lab to write a paper about her software. 

Large Usecase:

Richard is developing specialized programs for AT. Since his applications are very unique, there is not a great demand for them, and the cost of development does not match up with the revenue. One possible approach to cut cost is to remove the licensing fee of the software he uses to develop these programs. He searches P4A software library, which consists of programs that are purchased to run the P4A platform or given to P4A by different organizations or individual developers. Unfortunately, he can't find his requested licenses there. He decides to create a group for interested developers describing this issue and asking for others to join. Many other developers join Richard's group and express their need for the same software. After assessing their requests, P4A matchers confirm that this software is an essential tool for developer who are working with AT. A matcher puts the group in contact with an appropriate company that allows P4A developers to use their software. Richard and other developers can either pay a subscription fee, donate money or contribute their time to reimburse the company.

GPII Unified Listing and Marketplace

Small Usecase:

John is a freelance game designer/developer. He is specifically interested in developing games for kids with learning disabilities. He is always trying to discover a new problem that can be solved through a game. He creates an account on P4A and adds his name and his interests in the GPII unified listing. So, anyone who is interested to work with him or has a project for him to work on can easily find him there and contact him.

Medium Usecase: *

Besides adding his name to the GPII unified listing, John would like to publish some of the games that he has already designed and developed for kids with learning disabilities on the GPII marketplace. First, he submits these games to the P4A platform. Two of his games are approved, and they are published on the GPII platform. Although he publishes his games in different app markets as well, they never get the same attention as they do in the GPII marketplace. In the GPII marketplace, he has a more direct access to his target users, his games are published on a global platform and he can also sell his games to larger institutions, such as schools. In other app markets, his games get mixed with thousands of other regular games and never get the required visibility.

Training and Skill Development

Small Usecase:

Meg is a middle school teacher in rural England. Her friend Bailey loves painting but recently she has been having trouble holding her brushes because of her arthritis. For Bailey’s birthday Meg wants to create a set of custom grips for her brushes and painting palette. Meg has access to a lot of different tools and supplies through her school but she needs some information about the best way to create the molds and what materials are best to use. She learned about the P4A platform through a friend and searches it for help and resources. The platform directs Meg to several videos that guide her through the process of casting a mold as well as a few articles that suggest materials that would be best suited for the task. These resources serve as a starting point for Meg’s project.

Medium Usecase:

Bronwyn recently graduated from high school. She has been looking for work for the past four months but hasn’t been able to find anything steady. While looking for opportunities online, she finds the P4A platform. She cannot find any work that she is qualified for but she notices that the platform provides some training. She browses through the training resources and takes an open online course in accessible media creation.  Throughout the learning process she can complete assignments and check her work using the available resources. After completing the course, Bronwyn receives a badge. With her badge she can respond to a wide variety of requests for converting media and materials. As she spends more time within the platform, receiving feedback and additional badges, it becomes more and more easy for her to find small jobs she can do.

For mainstream companies

It will provide a way for them to identify the features that they can and should build into their products as well as a means to do so affordably.

Media and Materials

Small Usecase: *

A software development company that specifically develops programs for ABM (Automatic Banking Machine) is planning to integrate the Preferences Management Tool (PMT) into their existing and future products. They can simply log into the platform and download the required component from the P4A Empowerment Open Source. In return they can contribute software licenses or donate money to P4A.

Medium Usecase: *

A small pharmaceutical company is branching out to Australia. There is a resources section on the company's website that includes flash animations as well as PDF documentations for each medication. However, the Australian accessibility rules and guidelines do not recognize either flash animations or PDF documents as accessible documents. The Australian officials recommend this company to get assistance from P4A. The company searches the GPII unified listing and finds developers who are expert in the accessibility field and are able to transform flash videos and PDF documents to an accessible format. These developers are contacted via P4A for further discussion.

Consumers and Experts Connections

Small Usecase: *

(Backend Process) There are a lot of comments regarding a specific AT device in different discussions on the P4A platform. These similarities are spotted in the P4A heatmaps. P4A includes all these points in a featured project and includes a link to related discussions and projects and present it on the platform's home page. A link to the featured project is also sent to the Provider of that AT device. This would create a direct and effective communication between the consumers and the providers and hopefully leads to product improvements.

Medium Usecase:

A local bank is trying to comply with the recent rules and guidelines regarding accessibility. Thus, they need a group of experts to go through their digital documents to make sure the information is tagged properly, images and diagrams are described clearly and videos have correct subtitles. The bank contacts P4A for assistance. In addition to recommending them a couple of people, P4A also advises them to check the GPII unified listing to find other candidates. After running a quick search, a list of people who can do the job is populated. The requiters can select their final candidate based on the available reviews and ratings on P4A.

Large Usecase: *

An insurance company is trying to create informed packages for families who have dependents with disability. This company creates a 'Call to Action' on P4A and invites people to share their stories, talk about their needs and describe their desired insurance packages. Users who give feedback receive 'Points of Recognition' from P4A. In addition, the insurance company pays a specified amount of money to P4A for each received feedback. This money is used to run and maintain the platform.

For clinicians, educators and other professionals

A better mechanism to keep track of the rapidly changing array of solutions, the devices and platforms they will work with, which solutions will work with which other solutions without conflict, and which devices, software, or services match the individual needs of each of their different patients/students/clients.

Media and Materials

Medium Usecase:

Oscar is teaching Art History at a state university. Every semester, he comes to the class armed with a PowerPoint presentation loaded with images of famous works of art. However, this semester, the school has informed him there will be a blind student in his class. He has never thought about describing the images for a person who can’t see them. The school recommends him to get assistance from P4A. Oscar checks out the P4A platform. Just by browsing through discussions and available projects on the site, he gets a better idea of how to modify his presentations. While browsing, he realizes that he can create a 'Call to Action' and ask for assistance. He describes his request, includes an example of his preferred image description and indicates that he has no budget for this project. A few days later, he is contacted by Eric, another Art teacher volunteering on P4A who is willing to help. At the end, all these images with their descriptions become available on the P4A Empowerment Open Source. Every time someone access those images via P4A, Oscar and Eric get 'Effort Recognition' points.

Large Usecase:

An ultrasound lab has recently purchased a 3D printer to print tactile images for visually impaired parents who want to have a glance at the fetus. However, the ultrasound machine does not recognize the printer format and can't print 3D images. This clinic is looking for a person who is able to make these two devices work with each other and also convert the Ultrasound output to a 3D image that is conceivable by visually impaired consumers. The clinic signs in for a P4A account and consequently creates a 'Call to Action', describes the issue and shares it to the 'Developers' space.The result can be made available on the P4A Empowerment Open Source or sold on the GPII marketplace. A platform member who has worked in 3D printers before is notified of the project through a newsletter that covers content of interest. The member contacts a representative from the ultrasound lab that is managing the project. His request to join the 'Call to Action' is approved and the project members use the platform to share resources, create timelines and provide feedback. After the initial stage of the project is completed the project remains active within the system for further development, such as collaborations with materials specialist and more product testing.

Consumers and Experts Connections

Small Usecase: *

Christine is a grade 1-3 teacher. Over the years, she has had a lot of experience solving problems and issues related to kids with learning disabilities, and she likes to share her experiences with others. P4A is a great platform for her. She can participate in relevant discussions, check out services that are developed for these kids and give her feedback and even integrate some of those services in her classes. She has gained many 'Points of Recognition' due to her active participation and turned into a reliable source for anyone who needs feedback about teaching tools for  children with learning disabilities, age between 6-9.

(Move to Archive) Medium Usecase:

An assisted living home is planning to upgrade their computer system. However, they are not sure if the new computers would be compatible with all the different types of AT each resident is using. To prevent from future conflicts, they want to get an expert advise before making any purchase decision. Sherry, the purchase manager, opens up P4A and checks out the GPII unified listing for an AT adviser, however, she is not able to find any local experts. Thus, she goes to the 'AoD' section, describes her need, tags it with a 'Flag' indicates her location, and then shares it to the 'Around Me' section. She has also selected an option that requires her approval before someone addresses her request, this way she can screen candidates first. She gets contacted by several AT experts who are willing to accompany her during the purchase and give her some directions.

Large Usecase: *

Dr. Peter Brown is working in the ER at the Toronto General Hospital. Over the years, he has noticed a significant increase in the number of limited English proficient patient visits across the Emergency Department. When a live interpreter is not available, they have to rely on the telephone interpretation line to address the language needs of their patients, which often causes miscommunication and delays in service. Thus, when receiving these patients in the ER, Dr. Brown and his staff experience lack of spontaneous interaction, inability to explain treatment plans and procedures and facilitate a clear informed consent process. He is passionate about this issue and is looking for a solution to overcome it. One of his colleagues suggests checking out the P4A platform. After browsing the site, and browsing some of the completed challenges, he decides to create an account and submits his ‘Challenge’ to P4A. After a few days, P4A approves his challenge, creates a comprehensive package for it, and then broadcasts it on the P4A platform. All members including designers and developers get an invitation to participate. Since Dr. Brown does not have a clear idea for the solution, he creates a brainstorming session on the project page where members can submit solution ideas. After reviewing the proposed solutions, Dr. Brown and his colleagues select the solution they like best and get in touch with the member. They ask the member to create a list of roles they will need to complete the project and publish the list on the project page. Because neither Dr. Brown nor the member who came up with the solution are able to invest enough time to manage the project, they find someone for the role using P4A. After the team is created they use the page to work on project components, manage their workflow, meet and create timelines).

For schools, libraries, and other public venues

These venues are increasingly relying on ICT, a realistic and affordable mechanism for them to be able to ensure that their ICT will work with the full range of students/patrons of their facilities.

Media and Materials

Small Usecase:

A local library has recently upgraded their central computer system. Their computers used to be equipped with the Infusion Preference Management Tool. However, this tool seems to be incompatible with the new system and does not run on the computers. The library manager logs into the P4A, goes to the Resources section and downloads a new version of the Preference Management Tool.

Medium Usecase:

At a state university, students have to use the school's website to register for their courses. Last semester, the school received a few complaints regarding the inaccessibility of the online registration process for students with visual impairment. According to these students, insufficient or incorrect labels for different sections had led to confusion and selecting wrong courses or sections. This was a very important matter, and the university is making any efforts to fix this issue before this year's registration begins. The staff from the registration office search the GPII unified listing for developers who have worked with visually impaired users and are able to work with the existing program to fix its problems. They also send a request to P4A to introduce them to the possible matches.

Large Usecase:

Sherry is a student in computer science who has vision loss. In April, she approaches the professors who will be teaching her in September asking for the titles of the textbooks she will need so that the Disability Services Office can arrange to get them digitized for screen readers. The digitization process for several textbooks can take up to a few months. Thus, Professors immediately provide the Disability Services Office with their required titles. In the office, John who is responsible for providing the accessible academic material for students logs in to the university’s P4A account and runs a search for the required titles. He finds a discussion regarding one of those textbooks and finds out that the book has already been digitized for other customers and is available for sale on the GPII marketplace. He sends out a request for a copy any pays for it through P4A. A large portion of the money goes to the person who had digitized the book and some part of it goes to the consumer who had initially purchased the service. For the other titles, he creates a ‘Call to Action’ for digitizing those textbooks. He describes the situation, desired solution, timeline, and available budget for each textbook. His ‘Call to Action’ pops up on all the relevant discussions, projects, and user accounts. Upon university's agreement, the digitized books can be made available to public on the P4A Empowerment Open Source.

For service providers and NGOs

It needs to provide the information these agencies need to be able to determine which types of solutions would be effective for the different individuals they are supporting, and to provide new models for funding access solutions.

Media and Materials

Medium Usecase:

Arizona's Transportation Union is trying to make their members more aware of their rights at work place. Drivers often tend to skip long and verbose pages of information either on the website or in pamphlets. Thus, they are not fully aware of their rights and benefits. So, the union is planning to team up with a group of qualified candidates to simplify these documents and make them more comprehensible for all readers. They log into their P4A account and create a 'Call to Action' describing the issue and inviting volunteers to participate in the simplification process.

Large Usecase: *

An Indian NGO is hoping to make the voting process more accessible and enable people to participate in their municipal or national elections. They reach out to the P4A and submit a 'Challenge' for transforming the election ballot. P4A approves the challenge, and presents it on the platform. All members including developers, designers and regular users are invited to participate in the challenge. Members can discuss the right approaches in the P4A platform, select the best strategy, make quick prototypes for it and get feedback from the NGO.

For governments

It needs to provide more cost-effective mechanisms for the governments to ensure that the people in their countries can be maximally productive and prosperous in an increasingly digital world even if they face barriers to ICT use due to literacy, digital literacy, disability, or aging.

Media and Materials

Large Usecase:

One of the European countries is planning to convert all their tourism material including maps and booklets to an accessible format in order to host a wider range of visitors from across the globe. At the same time, they would like their products to be made by people who are either experts in the field of accessibility or have experienced a type of disability. The tourism department signs in to the P4A and creates a 'Call to Action' to invite designers and developers and volunteers to participate. They also announce the available resources and grants for the final project.

Multi-Sided Usecase: *

- Maria needs a large bag for the back of her wheelchair and she's found that although wheelchair backpacks exist there's nothing as large as what she needs. So she designs a backpack that meets her needs, but she needs someone to source the materials and make the backpack for her.  She goes to P4A and initiates a call to action detailing her needs and also asking for a cost estimate. Guy responds to Maria's call for action and says it will cost about $250 for the materials and sewing work.

- Maria is on a low income so can't afford to pay Guy for his work, and as far as she knows there are no organizations or government funding sources that will provide funding for a wheelchair backpack, especially one that's custom-made. So she goes into the financial section of P4A and initiates a request for financial assistance, detailing why she needs the money and maybe attaching a copy of Guy's price estimate. Janet sees Maria's request and can help, so she contacts Maria and suggests sending the money to Guy directly. Maria passes on Janet's suggestion to Guy and he agrees. Janet sends Guy half the cost of the bag up-front and sends him the rest when he completes the bag and gets it to Maria.

- Guy realizes there are other people who need wheelchair backpacks like Maria's and also don't have the money to pay for one. He advertises his service on the GPII Marketplace and Unified Listing, but he also sends out a call to action in the Financial section of P4A, requesting a funder who from time to time can help out people who want him to make a wheelchair bag for them but can't afford it.

- Maria has been complemented a lot on the design of her wheelchair backpack, so she creates a Unified Listing and uploads her design along with a few variations. On her listing she advertises that for a fee (e.g. $50) she will design a bag to meet a person's individual needs. Some of the people who buy Maria's design work are in Guy's area so she also puts them in contact with Guy so he can make the bag for them.

Automated Services:

Small Usecase:

Ajay and his parents have recently immigrated to Quebec from Pakistan. Besides his Punjabi accent, his speech disorder has made it difficult to communicate with others. Upon arriving to Canada, he is introduced to P4A services in his welcome package. After browsing through the platform, he notices that he can sign up for a quick translation service within P4A. With his parents' assistance, he signs up for this 'AoD' service, selects the languages he is interested in, agrees to the service terms and conditions and chooses his payment options. From now on, every time he needs to use this service, he does not need to go through a setup process. He can simply open the 'AoD' service on his device and type in his desired word/phrase/sentence in Punjabi. First, the service translates the word/phrase/sentence into French text. Then, an automatic voice repeats the text with Quebecois accent. If there are no available translations for the requested word, the service provides Ajay with possible images that may represent his requested term. Upon selecting an image, a french translation is provided. If nothing is found, Ajay is asked to modify his query for better results. This service is also equipped with Geolocation. Thus, when Ajay travels to other cities with a different language or accent, the service suggests Ajay to translate his query to the local language.

Ajay won't be charged if he looks up words that he has already searched and paid for. He is charged depending on how much he uses this service. The payment is distributed between P4A and the organization that has made this service available on the platform.

Medium Usecase:

An international bank needs to revise its online documents in order to comply with global accessibility standards. Prior to making any changes, the bank would like to know the scope of required work and efforts. They sign up for an automated service within P4A. A list of URLs are provided for this service and it checks out all these pages and documents for proper formatting, tagging, image description, etc. At the end, this service provides user with an estimate for the required time and efforts to revise these documents. It also populates a list of experts from the GPII Unified listing that may be helpful for this project. The bank is charged based on the number of documents submitted for estimation. (AChecker is a smaller scale of such service).

Large Usecase:

Lance is a professor at the University of British Columbia. In addition to teaching product design courses at the University he volunteers some of his time to create online open education courses. After finding out about P4A through his University, Lance becomes engaged with the P4A community, participating in discussions and contributing feedback to products in development. In addition to his engagement through discussions and groups, he contributes to the P4A community by making his online courses available through the platform. Lance likes to use a lot of videos in his teaching. He wants to make these videos accessible and create subtitles in other languages so that more people around the world can watch his courses. He creates a call to action to produce transcripts, captions, and audio descriptions of visuals for his videos, he also requests that the content be translated into French, Spanish and German because several of the platform members he has been chatting with who are interested in his courses speak those languages. Because he uploads videos regularly, he automates the service so that the format for his output, the terms and conditions as well as the payment structure are specified once in advance. After setting up the service, each time he uploads a video a request is automatically submitted and [usually] within a few days he receives the transcript, captions, visual descriptions and translations. The task is completed by several platform members, for example one member creates the transcript and captions in English, another translates the content into French, another into Spanish and so forth.

Unsuccessful Usecases: Planning for Success

For AoD Services:

When consumers use the 'AoD' services, they require a response within a specific timeframe. If they receive no response within that timeframe, the system should provide consumers with incentives to prevent them from leaving the system. For example, in Patrick's usecase, if he doesn't get a reply within 30 minutes, the system can offer him a free pass for the next time he has an image reading request.

For Call to Actions and Challenges:

When consumers create these types of projects, they probably need people or automated services to help them solve a problem. Although these projects have a more flexible timeframe, they need other members' participation in order to get done. Thus, if the system is not populated enough or if the current members are not interested in participating the project will be left out. P4A can help these projects get more visibility through reaching out to the possible candidates on GPII listing, promoting the project in related spaces, helping consumers to slice up their project to more manageable pieces and promote them separately, connecting projects to relevant sources outside of P4A .

For Discussions and Groups:

When users create a discussion page or a group, they are possibly looking for peer feedback, directions and user insights, etc. Thus, discussions/ groups with no participants are not desired. Discussions/ groups do not have a defined timeframe and they can grow over time. P4A can promote discussions/ groups on the relevant spaces in order to get people interested in the topic. For instance, in Richard's usecase, if no body joins his group after a week or so, the system should promote this group anywhere that Richard's desired software or relevant issues are mentioned.