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Client Information

Packback exists to awaken the fearless, relentless curiosity in every student. Packback creates Artificial Intelligence-powered learning communities that improve critical thinking and support curiosity in college students. 

The Packback AI platform coaches students on how to ask better questions while they type, identifies the best content within each community, grades the posts based on the soft skills displayed within the post, and moderates the community to maintain a focus on open-ended, high-level discussion. Their AI was informed by research on student engagement and post quality, and guided by Bloom's Taxonomy of Cognition. 

After launching in April of 2014 upon airing on ABC’s “Shark Tank” to a record 8.1M viewers nationwide, Packback has grown to serve over 130K students nationwide and is backed by $3M+ in venture funding from notable investors including Mark Cuban (Owner Dallas Mavs), Howard Tullman (CEO 1871), and Mark Tebbe (Founder Answers.com). 

Packback has been featured on numerous occasions in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, while its founders have been named as Crain’s Chicago 20 in their 20’s and ChicagoInno's 50 on Fire.

Project overview

In an effort to elevate their user experience for all individuals, Packback joined forces with Promet Source to ensure their products, applications and websites were equally accessible to all users, regardless of ability. Packback had several unique challenges, the chief of those being that 99% of their content is user generated by higher education students around the globe. This diverse user group needs to not only be able to generate and share their content, but also able to consume the knowledge being shared in a clear, concise way for students utilizing assistive devices and technology across both web and mobile applications.

The ability for Promet's accessibility team to quickly and seamlessly integrate with Packback's product development team was integral to the success of this project. Packback needed an accessibility partner that could quickly understand the technical complexities of their products and platform, and found just that working with Promet's accessibility team. 

Following the initial audit process, Promet worked closely with Packback to identify top level priorities and create a strategy for rolling out ADA accessibility best practices across all current and future development. The detailed audit report provided by Promet enabled Packback's development team to quickly remediate the code level accessibility issues. 

Packback and Promet continue to partner on ongoing accessibility testing, consulting, remediation and maintenance for Packback's entire digital landscape.

 

 

 

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