Detecting tech-driven inequalities: a service design framework

Abstract

Technological growth is realizing an ever more intelligent and convenient future. But is this future equal, and what role does service design hold in addressing, or exacerbating, these inequalities? The relationship between technology and inequality is fluid, moving from the elimination of existing inequalities to the creation of new ones, and service design has the potential to impact this relationship. However, current literature to identify this potential is limited, with service design’s contribution to the technology-inequality-design nexus not clearly identified. This paper analyses the mutual relationship between technology, inequality, and service design, and proposes a novel framework incorporating four dimensions of service design and their links to inequality and applies the framework to autonomous vehicle (AV) technology as an example. More broadly, the framework can be used by service designers to identify different dimensions of hidden inequality within service design.