not up to date

These usecases have been developed in the early P4All research phase and are not up-to-date with the most recent P4All discussions.

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: 

2. The potential P4A services are defined:

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

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.