Abstract:

Life Design approaches increasingly incorporate design-based tools to help students explore possible future trajectories through experimentation and reflection. Among these tools, prototyping plays a central role by encouraging participants to test potential life and career directions through conversations, small experiments, and real-world experiences.

The value of these practices lies in their ability to generate insights from lived experience rather than relying solely on imagined scenarios or theoretical reflection. By engaging directly with possible futures, participants can extract meaningful insights that support a deeper understanding of their interests, motivations, values, and goals, facilitating the transfer and assimilation of learning into their personal and professional trajectories.

However, teaching practice in Life Design courses suggests the existence of a potential implementation gap between the moment participants design possible prototypes and the moment these experiments are actually carried out. While students often generate meaningful prototype ideas during the learning process, many of these experiments appear not to be implemented once the course experience ends. In other cases, prototypes may be carried out but without a structured reflection process that allows participants to extract insights from the experience.

This study explores these possible gaps between ideation, action, and reflection in the prototyping phase of Life Design processes. The research is based on the hypothesis that participants who complete Life Design programmes do not always translate the prototypes designed during the course into concrete actions or fully integrate the learning derived from these experiences.

To explore this question, the study combines a conceptual review of the role of prototyping in Life Design with a qualitative analysis involving former participants of Life Design courses at the Universitat Politècnica de València. The aim is to better understand what happens between the design of a prototype and its real-world implementation, and to examine how current Life Design course structures support the transition from prototyping to meaningful action and learning.

Keywords:

Life Design, Prototyping, Experiential Learning, Learning Transfer, Career Design.