Next Experience preferences

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Next Experience preferences

    Next Experience preferences enable ServiceNow users to personalize the user interface (UI) of their instance to better suit individual needs and roles. These preferences allow customization of the interface's look, behavior, accessibility, notifications, and more. While some options are available to all users, others, such as debugging preferences, are exclusive to administrators. Administrators can also set global preferences that affect the entire instance.

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    Key Features

    • Preference Modal Structure: The preferences are managed through a modal divided into a search field, a preference category panel, and a preferences panel that displays toggles related to the selected category. The search uses fuzzy filtering to quickly locate relevant preferences.
    • Display Preferences: Users can adjust UI layout, visual density, and presentation options to tailor their on-screen experience.
    • Accessibility Preferences: Options for keyboard navigation, contrast, and motion behavior help accommodate diverse accessibility needs.
    • Debugging Preferences: Available only to administrators, these help identify and resolve errors in Next Experience components and scripts.
    • Themes: Users can select from multiple themes, with available options influenced by user access and administrative customizations.
    • Notification Preferences: Control the delivery and appearance of system and in-product notifications, including banners, badges, and email channels.
    • Language and Region Preferences: Set preferred language, time zone, and date/time formats to localize the interface.
    • Workspace Preferences: Customize workspace-specific behavior such as layout and interaction, accessible only if the user has Workspace access and it is active.
    • User Experience Preferences: Manage high-level behaviors like enabling/disabling Next Experience, analytics collection, and start page selection, based on user permissions.

    Key Outcomes

    By leveraging Next Experience preferences, ServiceNow customers can:

    • Enhance user satisfaction and productivity through personalized UI settings tailored to individual roles and accessibility needs.
    • Enable administrators to maintain consistent and optimized user experiences across the instance with global preference controls.
    • Improve system usability and communication by customizing notification delivery and appearance.
    • Facilitate troubleshooting and maintenance with admin-level debugging preferences.
    • Ensure localization and regional relevance via language and time settings.

    Next Experience offers user preferences to personalize your instance UI.

    Next Experience preferences let you personalize how the interface looks, behaves, and communicates with you; some options are available to all users, while others appear only to administrators or in specific contexts. If you have the admin role, you can customize the behavior of Next Experience across your instance by setting global preferences.

    The Preference modal is divided into three parts: a search field, preference category panel, and a preferences panel that displays the associated preferences for each selected preference category. Once a preference category is selected you see all the preference toggles for that category listed in the Preferences panel.
    Figure 1. Preference modal
    Preference modal with search bar, preference categories and associated preferences for each category.
    As you enter text into the Search field, the Preferences panel dynamically updates to show relevant user preference toggles, organized by category. The search function uses a fuzzy search filter, which finds applicable results even with shortened text.
    Figure 2. Preference modal Search field
    Preference modal with highlighted Search field and applicable search results.

    The following table shows how you can customize different preference types.

    Table 1. Next Experience preferences
    Preference Description
    Display preference button. Configure Next Experience display preferences: Control how the Next Experience interface looks and behaves on screen, such as layout, visual density, and presentation options. These settings affect only the current user’s view.
    Accessibility preference button. Configure Next Experience accessibility preferences: Adjust the interface to support accessibility needs, such as keyboard navigation, contrast, or motion behavior, to make the UI easier to use for different abilities.
    Debugging button. Configure Next Experience debugging preferences: Debug your Next Experience instance to detect and remove the existing and potential errors in your Next Experience components and scripts.
    Note:
    The debugging preferences only appear for users with the admin role.
    Theme button. Select a theme in Next Experience: Personalize your Next Experience instance by choosing from the multiple themes that are available to you.
    Note:
    The themes that appear in the Theme user preference are determined by the user access and admin customizations.
    Notifications preference button. Configure Next Experience notification preferences: Control how and where you receive system and in‑product notifications, including banners, badges, and delivery channels such as email.
    Language & Region button. Configure Next Experience language and region preferences: Define your language, time zone, and date and time formats.
    Workspace preference button. Configure Next Experience Workspace preferences: Customize behavior within a specific workspace, such as layout or interaction settings
    Note:
    The workspace preferences appear only if you have access to Workspace and the workspace is in focus.
    User experience preference button. Configure Next Experience user experience preferences: Manage high‑level Next Experience behaviors, such as enabling or disabling the experience, analytics collection, or selecting a start page, depending on your access.