CoDAS, a Method for Envisioning Larger-Scaled Computational Artifacts Connecting Communities

Information Technologies are increasingly embedded into artifacts of the physical world—furniture, rooms, buildings, and urban infrastructure—making communities around-the-globe more connected and, arguably, more intelligent. However, such larger-scaled, social computing artifacts arrive with critical concerns of cost, material choice, design requirements, fabrication means, robust and safe use, power, and resistance to vandalism and the elements. Given the complexity of realizing larger-scaled, computational artifacts, conventional design methods prove inadequate and potentially costly and dangerous if researchers move too quickly to full-scale prototyping. In this paper, we present CoDAS, a hybrid methodological approach that combines elements of well-known HCI methods to effectively develop larger-scale social computing artifacts.