Designing Public Access Without Public Accounts
Designing Public Access Without Public Accounts
One of the core goals of music teaching is to give students opportunities to perform.
Sometimes that happens in person at concerts, studio classes, or examinations. But there are many situations where live performance isn’t practical, whether because of distance, scheduling, or the realities of running a busy studio.
My Music Studio enables teachers to offer an alternative method of performance, through its Online Performances feature. Creating a way for students to perform online, however, raised questions that went well beyond video playback.
When students perform, the audience is rarely just the teacher.
Parents want to watch.
Grandparents want to share the moment.
Families want something they can open easily, without friction or setup.
But treating access casually, or making performances fully public by default, isn’t acceptable in an educational software setting.
That creates a design tension.
How do you make student performances easy to view, while avoiding open, unmanaged access?
In My Music Studio, performance access is designed to be specific, intentional, and bounded, without requiring public accounts or broad exposure.
This article explains why.
The problem with “just make it public”
The simplest approach to sharing performances is to make them public URLs.
That approach is tempting because it feels easy:
• no logins,
• no permissions,
• no setup.
But it comes with hidden costs:
• links can be shared far beyond their original context,
• access is no longer tied to purpose,
• and there’s no meaningful distinction between “intended viewers” and “anyone who finds the link.”
In education contexts, that trade-off is not acceptable.
Making something easy to access should not mean making it unbounded.
Why public accounts aren’t the answer either
At the other extreme is forcing everyone to create an account.
This also sounds reasonable on paper:
• accounts mean control,
• control means safety.
In practice, it introduces new problems:
• grandparents and extended family shouldn’t need accounts for a one-off watching event,
• casual viewers shouldn’t be added to a system designed for teachers and students,
• and collecting identities where they aren’t necessary increases risk rather than reducing it.
Account creation should be reserved for people who need ongoing participation, not one-time access.
Access is not the same as identity
A core design principle in My Music Studio is this:
Not everyone who needs access needs an identity in the system.
Watching a performance is not the same as:
• managing lessons,
• viewing student records,
• or participating in studio administration.
Because of that distinction, performance access is designed around purpose, not permanence.
Access exists:
• for a specific performance,
• for a specific context,
• for a specific period of time.
It is not an open invitation into the system itself.
Invitations, not discovery
Performance viewing in My Music Studio is invitation-based.
That means:
• access is created intentionally,
• links are issued for a reason,
• and viewing does not rely on browsing or discovery.
There is no public index of performances.
There is no search surface.
There is no assumption that content should be findable.
This reduces exposure while still allowing sharing where it makes sense.
Why this matters in education software
Music education involves:
• children,
• families,
• personal effort,
• and moments that feel significant.
Designing access for those moments requires restraint.
The goal is not to maximise reach. The goal is to respect context.
By separating access from identity, and by using invitations instead of open accounts, the system supports sharing without expanding its risk surface.
How access stays bounded in practice
Making performance viewing easy does not mean handing responsibility to the browser or leaving access to chance. Even when recordings can be viewed without logging in, access is still issued deliberately and managed by the system.
Viewing links are created for a specific performance and context, and they are resolved server-side rather than being guessed or reconstructed in the interface. This allows the system to control what is viewable, replace recordings cleanly, and withdraw access when needed, without relying on permanent accounts or long-lived public URLs.
Importantly, public visibility does not remove the system’s authority. Playback URLs are treated as outcomes of a controlled process, not as static files that live independently once shared.
That distinction is what allows performance sharing to remain flexible for families, while still bounded for teachers and studios.
Safety that goes unnoticed
None of this is especially visible when things are working well, and that’s how it should be.
Families can watch performances easily. Teachers remain in control. Students don't have to manage accounts for simple viewing.
Behind the scenes, the system stays bounded.
That balance is deliberate.
It’s part of building software that treats education, and the people involved in it, with care.