Gordon Brander recommends to start with a toy .
Toys are, in his definition:
* fun
* inviting
* free of (directed) goals
* non-threatening to the existing players
Say we want to build a learning tool — how would we apply this mental model?
First, I think we have to admin that we are inherently stretching the mental model, because declaring that we want to build a "learning tool" is declaring a goal. But that's also the interesting conflict, given how central explicit goals are in common paradigms of educational software design. Thou shalt communicate the goal structure , and all that.
That said, I can think of two ways:
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Build the main mechanic (core game loop) of the learning tool and leave out any grading or feedback. For example, build a fancy cloze deletion setup , but don't show any kind of feedback, progress or evaluation, simply let the user play around with it.
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Offer up the learning material to explore, without any kind of exercise. For example, instead of building an interaction where the user has to find a country on the world map , build an interactive map allowing the user to explore.