Signal is the safest chat software in the world, even Snowden recommended it, and its core technology has been adopted by big companies such as Facebook and Google. However, as an open source software with few developers, will its usability be very bad? This is not the case. If you have used Signal, you know that it is actually very easy to use.
"the Signal project originated from a basic idea, and usability is an important part of security," Tyler Reinhard, the chief designer of signal, told the Fastcodesign website. "If the software is unavailable, it is useless even if it is secure."
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Reinhard said that the development process of signal is different. In many companies, designers work separately from privacy teams. Even if they all put the interests of users first, some security loopholes are inevitable, especially when new functions or new experiences are introduced.
"If the role of a designer is to please users and exceed their expectations. I think the most noteworthy area for designers is the privacy of users, "Reinhard said." This is our working philosophy. "
however, in this highly competitive market, Signal faces many challenges. To this end, the Signal team is constantly developing new features and trying to catch up with competitors. For them, each new function is not only a design challenge, but also an encryption technology challenge.
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"We must think about privacy first, so we can't take other people's things and use them directly on our own products-this is the model adopted by other big companies. They get a technology from a startup, throw it on their own platform, and then start to expand horizontally. " Reinhard said.
This is because some common interactions are likely to invade our privacy. For example, "infinite scrolling" allows you to view chat records conveniently, because all your chat records exist on the remote server. "We want to provide these functions to users, but everything has to be designed from scratch," Reinhard said. "Of course, Signal should be more interesting and provide more diverse ways of interaction, but our priority must be the privacy needs of users.