Accessibility Persona Cards Are Now Publicly Available — Here's How to Use Them

[E-Illingworth]

Great news for anyone building on the ServiceNow platform: our Accessibility Persona Cards are now freely available to download — no code, no form, no friction. Just grab the PDF and start designing more inclusively.

Here's what they are, why they matter, and how to put them to work.

What are the Accessibility Persona Cards?

Developed by ServiceNow's UX Research & Insights team through a combination of primary and secondary research, the deck includes 12 cards spanning five disability categories: visual, auditory, speech, cognitive, and physical.

Each card covers a specific functional limitation and gives you:

• Digital challenges — what people with this limitation actually experience when interacting with software
• Solutions — concrete design decisions you can make to address or accommodate the limitation
• Assistive technologies — the tools people rely on, so you know what your designs need to work with
• Clinical diagnosis examples — common conditions associated with the limitation

These aren't abstract empathy exercises. They're practical design tools.

How do they fit into your process?

Think of the cards as overlays, not standalone personas. You pair them with your existing personas or target users to surface additional challenges those people might encounter when using what you build. Reference them during design reviews, brainstorming sessions, or as a quick gut-check before you ship.

One important note: anyone can experience various combinations of disabilities at any point in their life. That's why the cards focus on work activities rather than individual experiences — and why it's worth looking at all 12, not just the ones that feel most relevant to your use case at first glance.

Where do the cards connect to Horizon?

The cards live inside the Horizon Design System — ServiceNow's source of truth for experience design. Horizon's accessibility guidelines cover the full range of disability categories the cards address:

• Mobility — tab order, visual focus indicators, bypass blocks, and keyboard accessibility foundations
• Low vision — reflow down to 320px viewports, WCAG 2.1-compliant color contrast, and Forced Color Mode support
• Blindness — semantic HTML and ARIA, accessible form labels, and text-based descriptions for visual content
• Neurodiversity — consistent navigation, reduced animations, light/dark themes, and content density preferences
• Intersectionality — recognition that many people experience multiple disabilities at once, and that designing for one often improves the experience for all

The persona cards bring the human context. Horizon's guidelines give you the implementation path. Used together, they're a complete starting point for accessible design.

Get the cards

• Download the Accessibility Persona Cards PDF directly from Horizon.
• Then explore the full accessibility guidelines on Horizon, including guidance on color contrast and APCA, reflow, live regions, forced colors, and more.

Have questions, ideas, or examples of how you've used the cards in your work? Start a question here in the Community or email the team at Accessibility_support@servicenow.com.