Designing Public Services Through Digital Twins. A Multi-Scale Perspective

Governments face increasing pressure to optimize public services under constrained budgets and rising citizen expectations for accessible, high-quality services. Digital Twins (DTs)—virtual representations of physical systems—offer new possibilities for resource optimization and decision-making. This research explores how Service Design (SD) can enhance DT integration in the Public Sector across different levels. The goal is to ensure that DTs do not function solely as technological solutions but actively support service transformation, aligning with public needs and institutional objectives. For public administrations, Digital Twins enhance strategic planning, service efficiency, and civic engagement. Examples include supporting local governments in forecasting urban development, managing utilities in innovation districts, simulating mobility scenarios, and collecting citizen input on infrastructure projects via digital platforms. The variety of these projects can obstruct the understanding of what tangible assets are twinned, underlining the first research gap, and engaging in the creation of the first framework. Simultaneously, Service Design, as an interdisciplinary field, can provide skills of User Research, Strategic and Operations Management, Interaction, and Graphic Design. However, SD’s application in DT projects has often been limited to economic models, such as service-dominant logic. Thus, the second research gap is the lack of knowledge on the role of Service Design in Digital Twin projects, covered by the creation of a second framework. This study employs an integrative literature review to identify key challenges, best practices, and opportunities for DTs in Public Sector and Service Design methodologies. As a result, the study describes two interconnected frameworks: Digital Twin Levels According to Physical Entities Twinned and Service Design role in Digital Twin projects. The first introduces a classification of Digital Twin levels based on the physical scale of twinned entities, distinguishing between Human, Populations, Equipment, Building, Living organisms, Non-living components, and Urban Digital Twins. The second framework accomplishes the previous one by explaining the Service Design role in Digital Twin projects through Service Design thinking phases (exploration, creation, reflection, and implementation), describing Service Design fields impact: User Research (empathising through immersion), Strategic Management (creating sense of urgency and desire for the future, building trust, and managing complexity), Operations Management (mapping service systems, orchestrating feasible concepts, balancing efficiency and experience, and managing service transitions), Interaction Design (enhancing usability, and humanising technology), and Graphic Design (visualising complexity, reducing cognitive load, and promoting visual reliability). To connect two frameworks, the article describes what relevant Service Design disciplines can be activated for different DT levels. Starting from Human, Population, and Equipment DT, the main suitable fields can be User Research and Interaction Design, while for Living organisms, Non-living components, Building and Urban DTs, the main field may be Strategic Management. Additionally, the study outlines the PhD research plan, which explores DT integration across public services. This research reinforces the role of Service Design in making Digital Twins across different levels more human-centered, usable, and understandable to public services.