Verifiable Credential Rendering Methods

[msporny]

New Work Item Proposal

This specification describes mechanisms that can be used to represent a Verifiable Credential through a visual, auditory, or haptic medium. It covers rendering a Verifiable Credential to a physical document, digital image, screen reader, or braille output.

https://digitalbazaar.github.io/vc-render-method/

List Owners

@msporny @dmitrizagidulin

Work Item Questions

1. Explain what you are trying to do using no jargon or acronyms.

We are trying to make it possible for issuers to express how they want the credentials they issue to be displayed in a variety of mediums. While it's ultimately the choice of the individual on how they want their VCs to be displayed to them, it can be useful for the issuer to provide a selection of choices to pick from.

2. How is it done today, and what are the limits of the current practice?

At present, issuer websites, digital wallets, or verifier websites decide how VCs are displayed to an individual and it is not possible to have a consistent visual rendering of the VC across each site/app.

3. What is new in your approach and why do you think it will be successful?

While not novel, merely providing a mechanism for the issuer to express their rendering preferences, such as an image or an SVG file (embedded or linked in the VC they issue), creates the possibility of having at least one uniform method of rendering a VC across multiple sites and apps.

4. How are you involving participants from multiple skill sets and global locations in this work item? (Skill sets: technical, design, product, marketing, anthropological, and UX. Global locations: the Americas, APAC, Europe, Middle East.)

This is the result of work performed at the last Rebooting the Web of Trust in The Hague, which brought together a number of people from the EU, Japan, and the US:

https://github.com/WebOfTrustInfo/rwot11-the-hague/blob/master/draft-documents/rendering-vcs-snapshot-9-27-22.md

We hope to gather more feedback from the diverse community in the CCG as well as during engagements with US Federal, EU, and Canadian governments.

5. What actions are you taking to make this work item accessible to a non-technical audience?

While the specification is technical in nature, the output is meant to be accessible to a very broad audience. While we do not expect the specification to be accessible to a non-technical audience, the discussion and debate around "What we show people when we render a VC." is a broad topic that invites commentary from many types of non-technical audiences such as accessibility specialists, artists, graphic illustrators, interaction designers, marketing, advertising, and business executives. This work, when employed, provides a mechanism for non-technologists to comment on what they see and hear.

[tkendal]

We are exploring a variety of dynamic, AI-driven rendering solutions for LearnCard (P)VCs. I would love to hear thoughts/perspectives on how we can make room for such innovation without compromising standardization. This obviously hits on deeper exploitation-exploration dilemma themes.

[msporny]

I would love to hear thoughts/perspectives on how we can make room for such innovation without compromising standardization. This obviously hits on deeper exploitation-exploration dilemma themes.

That's fascinating, though I don't think it puts us into a dilemma. The renderMethod extension is extensible... meaning that there is no /one/ way to do it. So, the concept of an AiRenderingTemplate2023 is within the realm of possibility without harming the other more traditional static image and vector graphics approaches.

[msporny]

@mprorock @man4prez @kwlinson Do we have approval to move vc-render-method into CCG? It's been a month, support shown on the mailing list, no objections. Not having this merged into CCG is negatively affecting PRs in the VCWG: https://github.com/w3c/vc-data-model/pull/1142/files#r1220122705

Do I have the go-ahead to transfer the repo to CCG?

[msporny]

Do I have the go-ahead to transfer the repo to CCG?

@mprorock provided confirmation that the work item was approved here:

https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-credentials/2023Jun/0111.html

The transfer is now complete:

https://w3c-ccg.github.io/vc-render-method/

Chairs should feel free to close this issue at this point (I'd do it, but I forget if that's allowed by the CCG new work item process).

[TallTed]

https://w3c-ccg.github.io/vc-render-method/

That doesn't show a completed transfer. Several links that I'd expect to reference w3c-ccg still point to digitalbazaar.

Primarily —

Latest editor's draft:
https://digitalbazaar.github.io/vc-render-method/

— and —

Feedback:
GitHub digitalbazaar/vc-render-method (pull requests, new issue, open issues)

(Though, the latter links do now redirect to the w3c-ccg repo... I'm certain they didn't when I first clicked them, moments ago. I'll blame internet hiccups.)

[TallTed]

see w3c-ccg/vc-render-method#2

[msporny]

see w3c-ccg/vc-render-method#2

I have merged the PR, thank you! The issues you pointed out should be fixed now.