Wacom's Yuify - а revolutionary digital rights management tool

Providing top-notch front-end development services

Wacom's innovative leap into digital rights management with Yuify marks a significant strategic shift for the company, primarily known for its hardware products like graphics tablets. Yuify shines by empowering artists with strong safeguards for their creative assets, ensuring they have full control over their work and its use, including protection from unauthorized access and content duplication. In a world increasingly shaped by AI and AI-generated content, Yuify uplifts artists by verifying the authenticity of their work and support them stand out and build trust with their audiences. 

Client Background

Wacom, a leader in the graphics tablet industry, decided to diversify its portfolio by introducing Yuify, a cutting-edge digital rights management (DRM) platform. This move aimed to address the increasing concerns of artists about safeguarding their digital creations in an ever-evolving digital landscape.

Plan A’s involvement

• Technical

By putting together and growing a specialised front-end team that assumed complete responsibility for the front-end development, Plan A was instrumental in the Yuify project. This involved carefully selecting the right technological tools for the front-end, setting up efficient development processes, and contributing significantly to the overall technological direction of the project. The aim was a reliable, user-friendly interface that could carefully document user interactions.

• Hiring 

A careful two-step interview process was used to select the team. The team lead conducted a technical interview first, and Wacom's technical representatives gave their final approval. Later, this process was streamlined to a single technical interview.

Comprehensive onboarding familiarised the team with management and development tools, product aspects, and progressively complex tasks.

Team composition

• Team lead & Senior Front-end developer
• 2x Experienced Front-end developers
• Junior Front-end developer  

Project Management

The project was organised into three-week sprints in accordance with the Scrum framework, with two weeks dedicated to active feature development and one week for bug fixes and stabilisation. Tools like Jira, Confluence, and Bitbucket facilitated effective management, ensuring smooth execution of daily stand-ups, planning sessions, grooming meetings, and retrospectives.

Development Process

The development process involved the collaboration of product managers, automation and manual QAs, UX/UI designers, and our front-end squad. The development focused on the following aspects:

1. Authentication and Security

• Implemented authentication and security measures, including biometric authentication and account restrictions.

2. User and Project Management

• Developed comprehensive user and project management tools, including portfolio pages and export management.

3. Collaboration and Licensing

• Streamlined collaboration and licensing processes with License Builder and request flows.

4. Watermarking and Verification

• Enhanced artwork protection with advanced watermarking and verification tools.

5. User Experience Enhancements

• Excellent user experience with responsive UI, internationalization, and helpful tooltips.

6. Marketing and Outreach

• Created a landing page with engaging content to promote Yuify.

Technical Stack

1. Application
   React.js with Typescript. Vite for build tool, React-Router for routing and navigation, Formik for form management, Styled components for styling & bootstrap for layout, i18next/react-i18next for translations, luxon for dates.
2. Website
   Next.js framework, Strapi CMS, GraphQL for API
3. Backend
   C#
4. Watermarking service
   C++

Challenges and Solutions

From unclear requirements ​ to improved sprint preparation

From unreasonable demands  to active participation in requirement definitions

From outdated dependencies to regular dependency updates

How we ensure quality within the front-end squad

• Pair programming
• Pull requests and code reviews
• Strict code of conduct and guidelines
• Project Sync Meeting
• Active participation of the team in requirements definitions to reach the best functionality-to-clean-code ratio
• Proactively do code refactoring / code improvements to ensure the quality and maintainability of the code
• Inspire team members to always learn and stay up to date with technological advancements in the industry

Conclusion

The Yuify project showcased Plan A's ability to deliver a service focused on project goals, quality, and innovation. This successful collaboration underscored how an organisation can benefit from an IT partnership that offers an autonomous and self-managed front-end team. Additionally, the flexibility to scale the team up and down quickly helped cut operational costs and mitigate the risks associated with hiring.