What is this?

Creating Experience Prototypes

Activity: The No-Build Hack

Learning Goals: To help learners use improvisation to help them understand an idea, concept, or motivation. To help them deepen curiosity, let go of perfection, and explore for the sake of learning.

How do you close the gap between I wonder and I know? You make a prototype. A prototype is a tool that gives you a chance to investigate your ideas and explore what could, should, or would come next, whether you are designing a new product, working out a new routine, or rearranging your furniture.

Experience prototypes are just one of a whole portfolio of ways that learners can explore a question. No-build hacks are a type of prototype that actively ignore fancy technology in favor of simply setting a context. They are cobbled together with anything you have at hand. These prototypes often have some kind of tactile or sensory engagement so the participants don’t just watch; they do or react to something—like setting a scene for a play.

This activity shows how making and question-asking can be key tools in learning, and how prototypes can be used to understand an idea, an early concept for something new, or a motivation.

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