Target user stories

[crazy4pi314]

For working on the GUI design, it would be good to learn more from potential users what features/workflows that they need from the tool. Add in the comments how you might like to use Stage Whisper! <3

[mattahorton]

My main use case is locally transcribing YouTube videos and podcasts before I upload them. I dislike the cloud sub/saas model for this particular problem.

[petersterne]

As a journalist, I want to be able to quickly and accurately transcribe lengthy audio files into time-stamped text documents so that I can skim the contents of an interview I've conducted with a source, identify potential quotes to use in an article, and then listen to the relevant portion of the audio to confirm the exact quote.

[petersterne]

I'm going to take some of the feedback I've gotten about potential use-cases and put them in the classic Agile user story format:

As an attorney or medical professional, I want to be able to quickly and accurately transcribe client interviews on-device so that I do not violate legal and ethical requirements that prohibit me from sharing client information with unvetted third parties (such as cloud-based transcription services).

As an avid podcast fan, I want to be accurately transcribe long podcast episodes so that I can easily record quotes in my notes as I listen to the podcasts, rather than having to constantly rewind the podcast to capture a good quote.

As a fan of Youtube videos, I want to just enter a URL and quickly get a full transcript of the audio of hours-long Youtube videos, so that I can easily scan and search them.

As a reporter who conducts interviews over speakerphone, I want to click a button to turn on the microphone and record the audio while transcribing it in near-real-time, so that at the end of the call (or shortly after the call finishes), I have both an audio recording of the interview and a full transcript of it.

As a podcaster, I want to produce a full, accurate transcript of my show so that I can publish it on my website to increase accessibility for people who would prefer to read the episode than listen to it.

As an attorney who must review videotaped depositions and security footage, I want to drag a video into the app and have it produce a time-stamped transcript, so that I can then caption the video. If the app will caption the video for me, that's great. If not, then I'd like it to produce a transcript in a format (like VTT or SRT) that another program can use to automatically caption the video.

As someone who dictates notes in iOS Voice Memos, I want an app that will easily transcribe these notes so I can read them later without having to relisten to them. I want it to be as easy as possible to get my mobile audio notes into Stage Whisper — maybe even integrating it with the iOS share sheet?

As a podcast editor and producer, I want to a free app that lets me feed raw audio into it and quickly produce a full time-stamped transcript so I can more easily figure out where to cut the audio when editing.

As a non-English-speaking journalist, I want to quickly produce an accurate transcript of a non-English-language interview. If my personal computer takes too long to render an accurate transcript, then I'd like to use a more powerful machine for the transcription — either on a local server or in the cloud.

As a Youtube creator who is frustrated with the site's inaccurate auto-captions, I want an app that will create an accurate, time-stamped transcription of my video's audio, so that I can put more accurate captions on my videos.

[petersterne]

I also want to share this very detailed use-case from JustABody on the Discord:

My use cases are two. First is for personal journaling and the second is for dictations with health information. Ease of use, ability to quickly refer to old audio and transcripts, and privacy are my top concerns.

In both cases I need to be able to listen to and read notes, sometimes at the same time. I need to be able to make edits to the transcripts while keeping the updated transcripts in line with the audio.

I would like the app to function as the audio capture tool as well. Ideally I can press record, audio will be recorded, and I can transcribe once finished with recording. I would also like the option of pointing Stage Whisper towards an audio file to have it transcribed. I want to keep transcription local for privacy reasons.

In terms of assets management, I’d like some form of file management system. I would like to easily find an audio file, so functionality like tagging, search, and filtering would be useful. I would like search to include words in transcripts. I will need to think about protecting client information, so maybe added features like password protection would be useful.

I would like to either use the text and audio files as stand alone files to place with other files, or be able to refer or link back to the specific audio file and transcript in stage whisper to play the audio and transcript. So for example, if I am looking at a client file, I would like to be able to click on an embedded link that would open Stage Whisper and play audio and transcript.

[eloquence]

For the microphone transcription use case, it may be worth looking at https://github.com/chidiwilliams/buzz for inspiration (a front-end designed for that use case).

[petersterne]

Thanks for the suggestion @eloquence! I think Buzz is also a good model of how to bundle the app as a single executable file (though unfortunately it still requires the user to install ffmpeg separately).