Accessibility and conformance

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Accessibility and conformance

    The Australia release of ServiceNow prioritizes enhanced usability and accessibility, focusing on users who navigate via keyboard, use assistive technologies, or have low vision or cognitive differences. This release introduces several new features and improvements designed to create a more inclusive and navigable experience for all users.

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    Key Features

    • Guided Tour for Accessibility Preferences: A new guided tour helps users customize navigation, keyboard behavior, and visual themes in the Next Experience, making accessibility settings more discoverable and user-friendly.
    • Auto-focus on Page Alerts: Users can enable a preference to automatically move keyboard focus to page alerts, ensuring critical messages are not missed during keyboard or screen reader navigation.
    • Semantic Tags in Service Portal Designer: Enhanced semantic markup allows for better definition of portal areas, improving screen reader navigation and context for users who are blind or have low vision.
    • Reflow Support on Create a Change Request Page: Content can be zoomed up to 400% with an adaptive layout that stacks content vertically, aiding users with low vision or those using smaller devices.
    • Format Painter Plugin for TinyMCE: Enables copying and applying consistent font styles and table formats in the HTML editor, supporting clean formatting beneficial for cognitive and visual accessibility.
    • Enterprise Modeling and Visualization Enhancements: Supports up to 400% magnification, improved keyboard navigation including access to shape context menus, and more visible popover menus, aiding keyboard-only and visually impaired users.
    • Telecommunications Network Inventory Accessibility Improvements: Focus on keyboard navigation, screen reader compatibility, zoom levels, color contrast, and text spacing to enhance usability for assistive technology users.
    • Configurable Accessibility Headings in Employee Center: Administrators can set widget heading levels (H1–H6) to maintain organizational standards and improve navigation support for assistive technologies.

    Product Accessibility

    ServiceNow uses the international Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) format to create Accessibility Conformance Reports (ACRs) for its products. These reports evaluate accessibility compliance and are available for all currently supported releases, assisting customers in meeting accessibility requirements.

    View a summary of accessibility updates and improvements completed for the Australia family release. Learn which Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) was used to create Accessibility Conformance Reports (ACRs) for ServiceNow® products and where to access them.

    Release Highlights

    The Australia release focuses on enhancing usability for everyone—especially users who navigate by keyboard, rely on assistive technologies, or have low vision or cognitive differences. Key improvements include a new guided tour that showcases accessibility preferences, a new user preference that auto-focuses page alerts, improved semantic markup in Service Portal Designer for better screen reader navigation, reflow support for the Create a Change Request page, and a Format Painter plugin for TinyMCE.

    New features and other improvements

    Learn about Accessibility Preferences with a guided tour:Explore accessibility preferences with a guided tour that shows how to customize navigation, keyboard behavior, and visual themes in Next Experience.

    New Accessibility Preference: Enable Auto-focus on page alerts.Enable this user preference to automatically move keyboard focus to page alerts, so you won’t miss critical messages while navigating with a keyboard or screen reader.

    Semantic tags in Service Portal Designer:Add and edit more semantic tags to define key areas of your portal, giving screen readers better context for navigation and page structure. This helps users who are blind or have low vision by enabling assistive technology to identify and describe different sections of each page.

    Reflow for “Create a change request” page in IT Service Management: This page now supports reflow, allowing content to be zoomed up to 400% in your browser without losing content or functionality. At 400% zoom, the layout automatically transforms into a vertical, stacked view. This helps users with low vision or anyone viewing content on smaller screens, different devices, or in challenging lighting conditions.

    Format Painter plugin for Tiny MCE: Copy and apply consistent font styles, sizes, and table formats across content in the HTML editor field. Maintaining clean, predictable formatting throughout documents is particularly helpful for users with cognitive or visual differences. Keyboard navigation is supported for keyboard-only users.

    Enterprise Modeling and Visualization in Enterprise Architecture Workspace: Magnify content up to 400% while retaining full access to all features. Keyboard navigation is improved, including keyboard access to the shape context menu. Popover menus on connector lines are more visible. These enhancements help keyboard-only users and those with visual needs navigate and use the interface with ease.

    Telecommunications Network Inventory: Improved overall accessibility across the Network Inventory application, focusing on keyboard navigation, screen readers, zoom levels, color contrast, and text spacing. These updates help users relying on assistive technologies and those with visual needs work more effectively in the application.

    Configurable Accessibility Headings in Employee Center: Admins can configure widget heading levels (H1–H6) to meet organizational standards and support assistive technologies. Clear heading hierarchies improve navigation for screen reader and keyboard-only users

    Product Accessibility

    A Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) is a globally recognized reporting format used to evaluate the accessibility of a product or service. ServiceNow uses the international version of the VPAT to create Accessibility Conformance Reports (ACRs). ACRs are available for the currently supported ServiceNow releases.

    For a full list of available accessibility conformance reports, see Accessibility conformance reports.