Introduction: What Is a taxonomy?
The Employee Center's unified taxonomy is a structured collection of hierarchical topics that consolidates various content types—such as requests, articles, quick links, and employee communications—across departments into a single, employee-focused system. It also enhances content discovery through navigation and topic pages.
The term "taxonomy" (in the context of ServiceNow) is sometimes used interchangeably with terms like "information architecture," "navigation structure," or "menu." While these terms have distinct definitions, they all refer to the way information is organized and structured within a website, app, or system. Essentially, it's a blueprint that helps users quickly and easily find what they need.
Note: For further guidance and insights into curated experiences, watch the Employee Center Academy Webinar.
If you are building out an Employee Center taxonomy and not sure how to begin, reference ServiceNow's out-of-the-box (OOTB) taxonomy models as a starting point.
Drafting your initial portal information architecture?
Recommended high-level approach for a quick solution:
- Review the out-of-the-box taxonomy models.
- Identify gaps and topics that may need to be renamed, removed or added to align with your organization, content or services provided.
- (Recommended) Validate your navigation structure draft using tree testing methods.
- Iterate based on findings
(Optional) If the OOTB taxonomy does not align with your organization, it is recommended to conduct a card sort and learn how your end users categorize content.
Learn more about including users in your taxonomy development process.
Choose an Approach for Designing Your Information Architecture
Don't know where to start? Follow this decision tree to determine which path best suits your organization when designing your information architecture.
IT Taxonomy:
Portal View:
HR Taxonomy:
Portal View:
Workplace Taxonomy:
Portal View:
Purchase and Expense Taxonomy (Finance):
Legal Taxonomy:
Portal View:
Click here to download the Excel version of these taxonomies.
Enhance Your Information Architecture Through Advanced Portal Navigation
You can now use the out-of-the-box enhanced information architecture for improving content discovery and visibility.
Note: ServiceNow Advanced & Total Impact customers can take advantage of the Unified Taxonomy Review & Design Accelerator
