↖ Selected workServiceNow / App Engine Studio
servicenow.App Engine Studio / Design leadership

Creating tools
for creators.

A powerful platform.
A more human way
to build on it.

Making enterprise app creation more accessible by connecting the tools, guiding the experience, and aligning the teams behind it.

The vision · A connected creator experience.

The vision · A connected creator experience.

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My role
Design leadership
UX & creative direction
The work
Vision → alignment
Experience → execution
The team
Partner teams
Across 6 global hubs
The ambition
Enterprise power.
Creator confidence.
01The challenge

The platform could do almost anything. Getting started was another story.

ServiceNow gave organizations an enormous amount of capability. But creating an app meant navigating a collection of tools, technical concepts, and workflows that often required training and platform expertise.

We began by simplifying the developer experience. The bigger opportunity was to help more people turn an understanding of their business into something they could actually build.

The starting point · A platform built around expertise.

The starting point · A platform built around expertise.

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The questions behind the interface

Where do I start?

Which tool do I need?

What’s possible?

Where is my app?

The design challenge

Make creation approachable.
Without taking the power away.

02The pivots

The right experience starts with the right creator.

“Anyone can build” is an ambition, not a single persona. A professional developer, a process owner, and a spreadsheet power user bring different expectations, and need different kinds of help.

Across the project, the focus moved through pro-code, no-code, and low-code. Each phase explored a different balance of guidance and control.

Research behind the work
1,078Developer survey respondents
1,620NOW Community respondents
35+Interviews
The audience changed. The ambition didn’t.

Help developers get moving.

For people who already understood the platform, the opportunity was a clearer path into app creation. Guided App Creator made the setup sequence visible and broke it into approachable steps.

Keep the capability. Reduce the setup friction.

Guided App Creator · Early developer-focused experience

Guided App Creator · Early developer-focused experience

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03The experience

Less blank canvas. More forward motion.

The opportunity wasn’t just to make the interface cleaner. It was to help people understand what they could make, take the next step, and stay oriented as their app came together.

01 / A useful starting point

Show what’s possible.

Templates translated platform capability into recognizable business tasks. Instead of beginning with an empty app, a creator could begin with something close to their goal.

Vision exploration
Templates turned abstract capability into tangible starting points.

Templates turned abstract capability into tangible starting points.

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02 / Guidance without a dead end

Make the path visible.

We explored an end-to-end sequence that connected basic information, data, experiences, and submission. Guidance could be turned on or off, supporting a first-time creator without making every future task feel like a tutorial.

Vision exploration
A visible path through creation, with optional guidance along the way.

A visible path through creation, with optional guidance along the way.

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03 / Freedom with guardrails

Bring people into the process.

Creating an enterprise app isn’t a solo act. The vision included sharing for feedback before submitting to IT, with permissions and review built into the journey.

The aim: give people room to create while keeping the organization in the loop.

Vision exploration
Collaboration and review were part of the creation journey, not an afterthought.

Collaboration and review were part of the creation journey, not an afterthought.

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Some concepts use the working name Creator Studio. The product was renamed App Engine Studio shortly before launch.

04The leadership

One experience. Many teams.

My job was to connect the vision to the people who could make it real: align stakeholders, lead the experience, coordinate dependencies, and keep the work coherent across a broad ecosystem of builders.

A shared creator experience

Data

Data Builder

Experience

UI Builder · Mobile Studio

Logic

Flow Designer · Integrations

Governance

Review · Permissions

01

Make the whole journey visible.

End-to-end reviews, workshops, and design sprints helped connect decisions that would otherwise happen inside individual product teams.

02

Create a rhythm for the work.

Shared planning, focused working sessions, and stakeholder communication kept a distributed team moving. I also mentored new program and product partners as we shaped the design process.

03

Hold the vision. Adapt the plan.

The work spanned changing personas, product names, and leadership. Maintaining a coherent experience meant staying open to change while continuing to advocate for the creator.

A distributed effort

Six hubs. One shared ambition.

A team spanning North America, Europe, and AsiaTeam hubs in San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago, Amsterdam, Tel Aviv, and Hyderabad.San FranciscoSan DiegoChicagoAmsterdamTel AvivHyderabad
  • San Francisco
  • San Diego
  • Chicago
  • Amsterdam
  • Tel Aviv
  • Hyderabad
05The MVP

Keep the principles. Find the path to ship.

A vision creates direction. An MVP has to work within the system that exists. We audited components, mapped what could be reused or enhanced, and established shared patterns across the builders.

The first release didn’t reproduce every concept. It carried forward the core ideas: guidance, useful starting points, sensible defaults, and integrated editing.

App Engine Studio / MVP

A place to start.
A path to build.

The MVP paired a welcoming home with templates and a step-by-step app creation flow.

MVP · Quick starts and templates on the home screen.

MVP · Quick starts and templates on the home screen.

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MVP · Bringing the app’s building blocks into one guided flow.

MVP · Bringing the app’s building blocks into one guided flow.

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06The impact

More people creating. More confidence to keep going.

Early launch feedback spoke to making work easier. Along the way, the team grew in confidence, too.

Product feedback
“AES has saved me weeks of work compared to what we used to have to do.”

Early App Engine Studio feedback.

Leadership recognition

I was awarded the Visionary Award.

I was recognized for inspiring the AES team, encouraging collaboration, and pushing for the best experience possible.

Product craft + team confidence.
Business impact

$13B

A business unit empowered
to help more creators create.

App Engine Studio made the platform’s power more approachable, giving people across the enterprise a clearer, more confident path from an idea to a working app.