Summary
ServiceNow builds enterprise products that help companies and their end-users work smarter, faster, and easier. As a team, we strive to create product experiences that people love and make work, work better for people. In this presentation, George and Joy, designers at ServiceNow, will explore what it means to deliver amazing experiences throughout the design process focusing on our end-users. We will share a case study that empowers designers on building great, sustainable products that are user friendly, visually beautiful, empowering and super charge productivity.
Key Insights
-
•
COVID-19 accelerated ServiceNow's development cycle from the usual six months to a biweekly release cadence for return-to-office applications.
-
•
ServiceNow's return-to-work product integrates with partners like Microsoft for contact tracing and Uber for essential worker transportation.
-
•
Employee sentiment surveys are embedded to ensure companies respect readiness and comfort levels when returning to the office.
-
•
Facility management features include PPE ordering and desk cleaning scheduling linked to actual occupied workspace data.
-
•
ServiceNow's Atomic Design-based system organizes UI components into four hierarchical layers: base components, experience components, page templates, and core experiences.
-
•
The drag-and-drop UI builder enables designers to create and tweak interfaces themselves, conserving engineering bandwidth for backend work.
-
•
Designers collaborated remotely across multiple time zones using tools like Miro and Figma, enabling rapid, creative iteration during the pandemic.
-
•
The demo for a fictitious apartment rental platform was built in two weeks, including front-end design, backend data integration, and realistic content like federal housing links.
-
•
ServiceNow employs its own products internally before public release, facilitating immediate feedback and early problem detection.
-
•
Their publicly available design system on developer.servicenow.com provides reusable components and usage guidelines to reduce reinventing the wheel for customers.
Notable Quotes
"We ramped up from six-month release cycles to releasing every two weeks to keep ahead and still deliver experiences that wow."
"We met with local health officials, governments, and partner health companies to define best practices for returning to office safely."
"Employees can self-report COVID-19 status, get temperature checks, and request rideshares like Uber all within one workflow."
"We organized UI components hierarchically so designers focus on solving user needs rather than building basic elements."
"The drag-and-drop UI builder frees engineers to focus on backend data integration while designers create and tweak layouts."
"We use realistic demo content, like equal housing opportunity links, so demos feel relevant and authentic."
"We’re drinking our own champagne—using our products internally months before release to stress test and improve them."
"Collaboration during COVID was successful using tools like Miro to do remote whiteboarding and brainstorming across time zones."
"Designers connected with engineers closely, sometimes building templates themselves to quickly validate visions."
"Our design system and components are public on developer.servicenow.com to encourage customer reuse and consistency."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Sales and support teams are closer to ground truth than many might realize and are invaluable partners for researchers."
Dave HoraAdvice for Establishing Research
December 8, 2022
"Talent hits a target that no one else can hit; genius hits a target that no one else can see."
Sam YenDriving Organizational Change Through Design? Do more of this and less of that
June 9, 2017
"How do we show the value of the work that enables us to really advocate for the humans whom we are serving?"
Dr. Jamika D. Burge Robert Fabricant Peter Merholz Noam Segal Teresa TorresA Genuine Conversation about the Future of UX Research
March 20, 2024
"If you only have five people with disabilities available for research, it can be hard to get the scale you need."
Kate KalcevichIntegrating Accessibility in DesignOps
September 23, 2024
"If you’re managing over 100 design practitioners, it makes sense to start looking at a chief of staff role."
Isaac HeyveldExpand DesignOps Leadership as a Chief of Staff
September 8, 2022
"I am sick and tired of other people telling us what our role is without having done the work."
Jemma AhmedTheme 2 Intro
March 26, 2024
"Does communal proximity guarantee the right to engage in research? This is a complicated question without easy answers."
Sahibzada MayedThe Politics of Radical Research: A Manifesto
March 27, 2023
"Don’t try to tag all historical work at once — tag as you go to avoid re-platforming nightmares."
Jon White Erin MayUnsticking Research for Better Information Flow
March 11, 2026
"We moved from versioning the entire system quarterly to individually versioning components, so changes are easier to track and prioritize."
PJ Buddhari Nate BaldwinMeet Spectrum, Adobe’s Design System
June 9, 2021
