Service Portal/Widgets

Popular topics

Allows users to quickly discover the most frequently viewed topics within a portal.

This widget is only available with the Employee Center application installed from the ServiceNow Store.

Overview

  • Release version
    Australia
  • Available sinceZurich
  • A11Y WCAG 2.1 AA

The Popular topics widget showcases topics that are receiving the most engagement. Topics are hierarchical containers that brings together different content types, such as requests, articles, quick links, learning content, and employee communications. By highlighting these high-demand areas, the widget helps users quickly identify and navigate to trending resources. This automated approach ensures that the most active parts of the taxonomy remain visible and accessible to the user base.

ServiceNow Docs link
Popular topics widget documentation

Additional information about the widget

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When to use

Use when the primary goal is to raise awareness of high-traffic areas and surface relevant content based on machine-driven popularity.

When not to use

Avoid using when you prefer to manually curate the specific content a user sees rather than letting the system determine popularity. If specific links, services, or documents must be promoted regardless of their traffic, use a static widget like a Simple list instead.

Usage

Consider how Popular topics effectively guides users to trending content without overwhelming them. Keep the following suggestions in mind:

  • Placement strategy: Place the widget high up on the page or within the main content column to capture user attention early in their session.
  • Title clarity: Use a descriptive title like "Trending Topics," "What's Popular Now," or "Most Viewed Services" to clearly communicate the widget's purpose.
  • Minimalism: Limit the displayed topics to between 5 and 7 items to maintain visual balance and prevent the widget from becoming a dense list.

Examples

  • Portal homepage: A list of the most viewed service catalog items in the past week to highlight frequently requested services.

Anatomy

The Popular topic widget consists of the following components:

  1. Widget title: A configurable heading (e.g., "Popular topics") that describes the purpose of the widget.
  2. Tray/grid: The visual container or layout structure (list or grid) that holds the individual topic items, often aligning with the responsive container tokens of the Horizon design system.
  3. Topic item: The clickable element that directs the user to the underlying content (article, catalog item, etc.)
  4. Text: The label or name of the popular topic (e.g., the title of a Knowledge article or Catalog item) displayed within the topic item.
  5. Icon (optional): A relevant icon to enhance visual appeal.
  6. Favorite button: When clicked adds topic to favorites.

Instance options

Presentation

Field Description
Title Text that displays in the widget header and describes the purpose of the widget.
Number of topics Number of topics you want to appear on the widget. Default value: 8
Display size Size of the card tiles on the widget. The choices are:
  • Normal
  • Small
Border color Select a border color variable to use for this widget instance. The border color choices for this widget are:
  • Border-primary
  • Border-secondary
  • Border-tertiary
  • Hexcode
Default value: Border-tertiary
Hexcode Define the border color when Hexcode is selected for Border color option.
Show topic icon Toggles the visibility of the topic icon

Other options

Field Description
Load configuration Order in which the page and widget's data loads. Select one of the following options:
  • Asynchronous: First the page loads, then the widgets data loads. Users see content appear in the widgets as soon as each individual widget loads.
  • Synchronous: Page and widget data loads at the same time. The page remains blank until all the data loads.
Show empty state Determine whether to show the widget when there is no content to display.
Widget behavior during high load Option to show the view from the available options:
  • None
  • Lite view: Minimizes the load and displays a message that the portal is experiencing heavy usage.
  • Regular view: Displays the standard view regardless of the usage that the portal is experiencing.

Usability

This widget complies with all internationalization and accessibility requirements.

Internationalization

Accessibility

Learn how to access the actionable elements of the widget through keyboard interactions and screen readers. 

Widget tab order

Tab through each button

Keyboard interactions

You can access the actionable elements of the Information links (CD) with these keyboard interactions:

  • Tab: Moves focus to the next interactive element within the widget (e.g. the next link in the list)
  • Shift + tab: Moves focus to the previous interactive element within the widget (e.g. the previous link in the list)
  • Enter/spacebar: Activates the focused element
  • Escape (esc): Blur focus of element