ServiceNow Knowledge Base · Interaction design prototype
What’s it called?
PMs and UX designers would ask to revisit a label. A perfectly reasonable request. Too often, after digging through guidelines, documentation, and glossaries, you’d find the label already appeared in so many descriptions that changing it meant a mountain of work. That held even when the new label seemed perfect.
This working prototype is one way to approach the problem. It’s a searchable, role-aware knowledge base where anyone can browse, members can propose a term, and admins can find the decision maker and publish it. Nine iterations in, it reflects how I approach interaction design.
Product Designer. Interaction design, terminology architecture, role-based permission modeling, and front-end prototyping. May 16 to July 4, 2026.
Problem
No one place documented which names were settled and off-limits, which still needed a name, and which were being retired or had been replaced.
Move
A role-aware knowledge base where guests browse, members propose terms, and admins approve and publish them.
Outcome
A working prototype with search-first entry, live type-ahead, a suggest-and-approve pipeline, and an interactive related-terms graph.
The context
A knowledge base breaks when it’s designed for only one kind of user. This one has three. A guest needs an answer. A member is shaping the language other people will search for. An admin decides when a term is ready to publish. Here’s what each one needs from the system.
The Guest:Learning to drink from a fire hose
Anyone who needs the terminology and doesn’t have it yet. New to the company, the team, or to ITSM concepts, a guest is here to learn the acronyms and how they affect the work, not to change them.
The Member:Building and defining the platform
Part of the team defining or adapting the language, whether that means proposing a new term, tagging and modifying existing ones, or sitting on the panel that decides what sticks. A member might be new to the company or a veteran from a sister team with a stake in the outcome.
The Admin:Gatekeeper to the source of truth
Approves a term once the panel responsible for WCAG, industry standards, or new terminology gives the OK, and answers for what gets published. In a smaller org, that panel might just be the product owner, or whoever is standing in for them.
The POC:Proof of Concept
This is a concept built from real ServiceNow terminology. It treats “who’s asking” as a first-class input. Switch roles in the top bar of the tool below. As Admin, you publish immediately. As Member, your suggestions land in a pending queue for review. As Guest, you can browse and search but not contribute. The “Add term” action disappears, so nothing fails quietly.
To try it, search for something (“glide,” “CMDB,” “role”) and select a result card. Related terms highlight in green, scored by shared tags instead of a fixed taxonomy. Switch to Member, suggest a term, then switch to Admin and approve it from the Pending queue. Propose, review, and publish is the interaction loop this prototype set out to solve.
Not affiliated with ServiceNow, Inc. The terminology is real; the tool is a portfolio concept.
Design evolution, five iterations annotated
There were nine versions in total, and four are lost. The five still live are below, each annotated with what changed and why. Each opens in a new tab. The version switcher in the tool’s About panel brings you back here.
- v4 Sidebar layout · 32 terms · DM Sans · typeahead search · inline edit and delete · working pending approve/reject panel with live count
- v5 About modal added · opens on load · kebab menu · subtle visual update
- v6 Redesigned header · 62 Airtable terms · IBM Plex · color-coded category badges · stability overlaid on card corner · pending approve/reject regressed to non-functional in this rewrite (restored in v9)
- v8 Category colors removed (arbitrary + inaccessible) · stability moved to card footer · maturity filter dropped · AI highlight introduced · role-aware add term CTA
- v9you’re on it Search promoted to the primary entry point, with a larger input and live type-ahead across terms and categories · CTA hierarchy simplified to one solid action per view · matcha green re-scoped from a static AI tag to an interactive related-terms highlight on hover or click · multi-role pending review restored: amber-highlighted proposed terms visible to every role, Admin-only approve, and session state standing in for a live Sheets/Airtable connection
Solving something similar?
If your team is wrestling with scale, roles, or governance in a content system, let’s talk.