So people can find where a product or artwork can be viewed and experienced.
Introduction
At showroom.fm we focus on one simple question: “Where can I see and try this today?”
That applies to furniture and design retail, but just as much to museums and other physical places. People don’t only care if something is purchasable online — they want to know where it’s on view so they can sit in a chair, test a sofa, or see an artwork in person. Right now, schema.org has no clean way to express that reality.
The gap in schema.org
Schema.org already gives us a very good framework:
- Product to describe the item.
- Offer for availability and price.
- availability values like InStock, OutOfStock, or InStoreOnly.
But InStoreOnly ≠ on display.
InStoreOnly only says you can go to a store and buy it; it does not say the item is actually around for you to view, try and test and experience.
Examples:
- An item can be “in store only” but still boxed in the stockroom.
- An item can be on display even if it isn’t for sale (e.g., a limited-edition sample).
This distinction matters both for consumers and businesses, visitors and museums.
What this looks like for museums and artworks
- VisualArtwork covers what the work is (artist, medium, edition, etc.). It doesn’t state whether it’s on view now.
- Museum models the venue (hours, address, geo). It doesn’t list which works are currently on display.
- ExhibitionEvent (with
workFeatured) can say which works appear in a named show with dates — great for special exhibitions. - contentLocation on CreativeWork is about the depicted place, not whether the work is hanging on a wall today.
Reality in museums: many works are on permanent display or rotate in and out of view without a formal exhibition. There’s no simple, machine-readable switch for “on view now at this museum.”
So the key user question remains unanswered: “Is this artwork on view here today?”
One of schema.org’s strengths is being explicit – so why don’t we help millions of people allowing for an explicit answer to this question, too?
Why we propose “onDisplay”
One of schema.org’s strengths is that it makes things explicit. Today, it cannot explicitly answer whether a product or artwork is physically viewable.
Adding an onDisplay property would:
- Give consumers a direct, unambiguous answer.
- Help retailers and museums highlight what’s truly visible.
- Support richer and less frustrating search experiences — for example:
- “Where can I try the Vitra Eames Lounge Chair in Berlin?”
- “Which Picasso paintings are currently on view in Amsterdam?”
In short, it makes the internet more useful for anyone who values physical presence and experience — a need that spans retail, culture, and beyond.
To make this concrete, we’ve drafted a namespace proposal that shows how onDisplay could be applied to Product, Offer, and VisualArtwork. You can read it here.
Next steps
In short, onDisplay makes the internet more useful for anyone who values physical presence and experience — a need that spans retail, culture, and beyond:
- ✅ Explicit flag for “currently viewable”
- ✅ Helps retailers and museums highlight what’s truly visible
- ✅ Enables richer search and AI experiences
- ✅ Serves both consumers (“Where can I try this today?”) and businesses (foot traffic, visibility)
We believe this is a simple but powerful step forward for schema.org.
Call for feedback
We invite the schema.org community, cultural institutions, retailers, and developers to:
- Review the namespace proposal
- Share use cases or improvements
- Test the property in your own markup