Two of the biggest challenges in any web application are simplicity and security.

The importance of good security is immediately obvious. The security and integrity of a user’s data is the most important thing that an organisation such as myows.com is entrusted with when the user signs up to their service… and the challenges airtight security represents are numerous.

Secure design is also not something that can be tackled on at the end of development, but must be a consideration every step of the way.

Simplicity is another very well recognised goal, however it is seldom achieved as much as it is aimed for (or paid lip service to). A simple interface or experience doesn’t mean one that is “dumbed down” or offers less capability than a complex one – even the most powerful and capable tools should aim for the simplest possible presentation. Truly simple and functional design is surprisingly difficult to achieve.

When your aim is to excel at both security and simplicity, you cannot sacrifice either one for the other, and the interaction between them can be complex. Many security procedures can make users feel like they are being made to take a longer way around than necessary.

Also one must be careful of “security theatre” – security procedures that may seem effective, and make people feel safe, but in actuality are easy to defeat (and so do not really add anything of value).When making things simpler, it’s important to realise that some things should still require a few steps or additional confirmation.

When creating the interface and interaction flow for myows.com, we faced quite a few decisions on how to best manage and balance these factors. One of the these concerned Myows’ central function – how to handle the actual timestamping and certification of works.

Many solutions around the timestamping and certification of documents and other data have focussed on digital signatures – signing works and providing users with signed versions of their files, or hashes of the file’s content to keep.

With myows.com, we decided to keep the actual work, along with the timestamp data, all together in one place. This frees users from having to deal with private and public keys, or storing their own hashes and works securely (and having to make sure these are kept safe).

As all transactions are over HTTPS, works are secure between the user’s computer and Myows, and cannot be tampered with. Once the works are with Myows, we store them in our secure system – nothing else is required of the user.

This solution satisfied our goals of being safe and straightforward to use and understand, without sacrificing any functionality – actually, it’s more convenient and useful than having to keep track of hashes, keys, etc. It also makes for more reliable evidence at the end of the day as opportunities for tampering are non existent when evidence is stored by a neutral and reliable third party.

This kind of balancing act is guaranteed to turn up many times in any project – however by staying flexible and aware of the overarching design ideals, very rarely should one goal have to be sacrificed for the sake of others.

Technology seems to be, by its nature, a democratising influence. As new advancements are made, capabilities that were once in the hands of an elite few are unlocked for anyone who wants them. In recent times the interplay between this increasing of ability and the way that copyright has traditionally worked has come to the fore.

In modern times, copyright theft is easy to achieve

The way that technology develops is usually uneven, often surprising us with the way that the landscape is changed. Essentially, some things become easier more rapidly than others. One of the most prominent examples in the creative fields has been the ease with which works can be duplicated.

For a long time, copyright (the right to copy) was enforceable mostly simply through the relative difficulty of creating copies of a work. When films had to be printed onto actual film, specialised equipment was needed.

When VCRs first arrived on the scene, some know how and two machines were required. Now, all that is needed to create duplicates is a regular computer – even a notebook will do. The same is true for images, books, software – practically everything to which copyright applies.

The spread of the ability to reproduce works is by no means a bad thing for creators. For instance, it allows many who could not previously get their work out there without distribution deals or printing equipmen to have the kind of ability to reach an audience that was previously very hard to get to. However, the tools for protecting original works have not kept pace with the tools for duplicating them.

New factors are involved in protecting your copyright

Part of the reason for this is that protecting works is a process – it’s not an action that is taken once, and then remains done, but involves several factors – proving ownership, keeping track of assigned rights, finding infringers, and taking the correct legal steps. Much of the technology influencing copyright has been about actions – authoring or copying a work. Recently however, process focussed innovations have been gaining popularity.

When creating myows.com, we realised that solving the problem of proving ownership of a work without necessarily always being able to use the official copyright process was only part of the problem facing creators. Providing evidence of ownership and date of creation was obviously of primary importance. Just as important though, if not more so, was the process of keeping track of works and permissions and following the correct steps when infringing content was discovered. In this way we could provide not only a starting point, but also steps toward a favourable solution.

The change created by technology is a constant force – however, with the right tools, we can ensure that it works to our advantage as creatives by continuing to benefit from the positives, and protect ourselves from the negatives.