Our design insights will help education, workforce, and tech innovators build more user-friendly credential systems that people actually trust and adopt.
Download the Design Insights Brief
Digital credentials are transforming how we prove our skills and qualifications, but adoption remains challenging. Workers and learners need confidence that these new systems will actually work when they need them most — like when applying for jobs or transferring between schools.
Education Design Lab’s latest Design Insights Brief, Building Trust in Digital Credentials: What It Means to Be Human-Centered in an LER Ecosystem, tackles a critical gap: How do we signal to everyday users that a digital credential platform is trustworthy, secure, and easy to use?
Drawing from real-world pilots and expert collaboration, we’ve developed recommendations building trust in digital credentials — a way to ensure users that their credentials will work seamlessly across different systems.
Our core audience includes workforce development professionals, education leaders, and technology providers who want to implement digital credentials successfully. We want you to use these recommendations to build more user-friendly credential systems that people actually trust and adopt.
Three key insights emerge:
Trust requires simplicity. Users need clear visual indicators (like the lock icon for secure websites) that their credentials meet technical standards without understanding the complexity behind them.
Standards matter for real people. Technical compliance with open standards directly impacts whether someone can access their own achievements and share them where needed.
Human experience drives adoption. Even the most sophisticated technical infrastructure fails if people can’t easily understand and use it.
Our insights and recommendations provide a roadmap for building credential systems that serve real human needs while meeting rigorous technical requirements.
Download the Design Insights Brief
This post and publication was authored by Colin Reynolds, Senior Designer of Digital Transformation with Education Design Lab, in partnership with SkillsFWD, an initiative of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. SkillsFWD launched in 2023 to advance the use and adoption of digital Learning and Employment Records (LERs) by supporting grants designed to launch LER lifecycle infrastructure.
