Service Design for Resilience: A Multi-Contextual Modeling Perspective

This paper introduces a conceptual framework aiming to broaden the discussion on resilience for the design of public services. From a theoretical point of view, the paper explores service design with a Systems Thinking lens. A multi-contextual perspective aiming to analyze, decompose, and design smart cities services where resilience is an input at the service design level is described and the four diamonds-of-context model for service design (4DocMod) is introduced. This service model accommodates various actors' contexts in public service design and consists of four design artefacts, the diamonds ( \boldsymbol {S} ee, \boldsymbol {R} ecognize, \boldsymbol {O} rganize, \boldsymbol {D}\text{o} ). From a practical point of view, guidelines for the application of the 4DocMod service model extension for resilience are described along with two case studies addressing the recent COVID-19 pandemic that illustrates a clear situation of resilience with insights in multiple contexts. According to the findings of this paper, it is obvious that resilience is not "just" a request. Instead, it plays a higher role within the service system. It is not "just" another Context, either. Instead, it goes through many contexts with different circumstances. In this manner, it is possible to address the qualities through which actors can become resilient, at the service design stage, to ensure continuity of the public services in times of emergency. As our approach using the 4DocMod is proposing, resilience may be is achieved when specific properties are provisioned at information service design level.