Sociotechnical impact refers to the effects that technological systems have on social systems, organisations, and individuals, and reciprocally, how social factors influence the design and use of technology. It recognises the interdependence of technology and society, emphasising that technological systems are not isolated entities but are deeply embedded in and influenced by social contexts. Use the SocioTech Impact Canvas to be proactive in ensuring your innovations create a positive social impact.
What is it?
The SocioTech Impact Canvas helps you to explore the bi-directional relationship between your technological innovations and society. It guides you in assessing the impact technology can have on social systems and vice versa, both the past and in the future.
The SocioTech Impact Canvas provides a framework to facilitate the necessary considerations for ensuring that technological advancements consider and benefit society as whole.
Why does it matter?
Innovation often stems from a focus on the needs of a dominant user group, without consideration for the wider societal impact.
Technological products are not ‘objective’ or ‘neutral’ — they shape social systems. Conversely, social systems shape how tech products impact people.
It is therefore critical to interrogate:
- How one’s tech product — the beliefs and biases embedded in it, the institutional and technological affordances reflected in it, etc. — shape social systems like race, gender, and power.
- How social systems themselves — cultural norms, narrative, structures of inequality, etc. — shape the technological product or service offering.