No-code AI tools for fast prototyping (in code!)

Imagine you’re at the whiteboard with your team planning out the page flow for your coming new museum exhibition microsite. You’re mapping out visitor interactions, donation prompts, and storytelling elements—all with quick, hand-drawn lines.

Now… I’m a big fan of hand-drawn prototypes as a first step for any technology project SO PLEASE STAY AT THE WHITEBOARD. (Digression: Drawing is native to humans — there is no “translation” layer to distract the idea-maker from the idea-rendering. Everyone can make a sketch (even if they aren’t looking) that represents what is in their brain as the basic idea. And that’s hugely valuable as a collaboration and communication first step. Don’t skip it.)

But after the whiteboard session?

Get it into a clickable and interactive prototype form fast.

A few clicks are worth a thousand post-it notes on a wall.

No-code and low-code tools help with rapid prototyping

There are new no-code and low-code tools out every day in this generative AI boom. I stumbled across one of many such tools today for in-code rapid prototyping called boltnew.ai and did a fast experiment, below.

With just a few sentences of chatbot-prompt-like input, boltnew.ai was generating code, per my instructions, and popping up a working, clickable prototype for my 5K sign-up form in seconds.

• If you’re a developer— great! Jump in and edit the code.

• If you’re not a developer— great! Jump in and edit the prompt to iterate on the idea.

Read more about BoltNew.ai here. (Even better—just have it create a project for you.)

An admittedly ugly but clickable and nearly-instant webpage prototype created in seconds using BoltNew.ai’s no-code coding tool. Just imagine mocking up your entire new project with plain prompts as you brainstorm!

Democratizing technology

No-code and low-code tools are democratizing data and tech more and more, making it easier for ALL of us to get our hands into the weeds creating effective technology.

Let me know what prototyping tools you’re using most these days! I’m constantly collecting new ideas.

Kristin Darrow is an independent consultant working with Arts and Culture organizations to do more with less using technology effectively. You can find her at kristin@matters.work or on LinkedIn.