Case study / Community platform

Plaazaa case study

Plaazaa is a community platform for cities and local businesses. It has Spaces with roles, live chat, problem reports with a map, events, polls, announcements and six languages. I design, extend and run it as a product.

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Role: Only engineer: design, build, run
Stack: PHP, Socket.IO, MariaDB, MapLibre
Base: Third-party social engine, extended by me
Screens: Demo with sample data

My role

I am the only engineer. I plan the features, build them, test them, release them and keep them running. I also design the interface. Plaazaa sits on a third-party social-network engine. The Spaces, the tools, the look, the apps layer and the real-time pieces on top of it are my work.

The problem

A town office and its residents need one place to talk. Reports, notices and events usually end up scattered across chat apps and general social networks. Staff need a queue they can work through. Residents need to see what is happening in their area today.

Business owners have a related need: a place to talk to their own customers without building an app.

The approach

I split the product into Spaces. Each Space has tabs, and each tab is a tool: reports, announcements, events, polls. Roles decide who can do what, so a staff member sees the queue and a resident sees the board.

Problem reports carry a photo, a category and a map pin. Staff can group duplicates, update the status and show before and after photos. Announcements cover warnings, the daily area status and office status. Polls show results as bars.

Small apps and games run on a shared real-time platform that I also designed. See the Convoy case study for one app built on it, and the platforms and SDKs service for how I scope that kind of work.

Stack

PHP, Socket.IO, MariaDB and MapLibre, as listed on the demo page.

Screens

Demo with sample data

All screens come from the demo: a sample town, test accounts and made-up reports. Fictional personas only.

Plaazaa home portal with a greeting, quick tiles, events and market picks — Demo with sample data

Plaazaa Space home, Today in this area: warning, office status, announcement and quick actions — Demo with sample data

Plaazaa Report summary in dark mode with KPIs, categories, still-open items and fixed before and after photos — Demo with sample data

Plaazaa staff queue with grouped duplicates and a report card with a timeline — Demo with sample data

Plaazaa polls in dark mode: an open poll and a closed poll with result bars — Demo with sample data

Plaazaa on a phone in dark mode: Space home with stats, an urgent strip and bottom navigation — Demo with sample data

What is public and what is not

Public: the feature list, the stack above and the sample-data screens. The live product is at plaazaa.com.

Not public: real residents, real reports, staff names, office data and any user numbers. I do not publish user counts or speed figures for Plaazaa. No results are claimed here.

Related pages

Need a platform like this?

Tell me about your community, your office or your shop. I reply with a one-page recommendation, then a written scope and price before any code.

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