[taude]

On being a maker: Most non-designer/non-technical business types I know can pretty competently use tools like Keynote or Basalmiq Mockups to slap screens and ideas together. I'm not sure that hand drawing sketches out would be any faster for them. And then if you're paying for UI stencils to draw...what's the point? Maybe it's nice to take a break from looking at a computer screen?

If learning Keynote or a tool like Basalmiq is too much of a learning curve, I'm not sure someone should even be working in the world of app design? I know non-technical people that downloaded some Keynote templates and were slapping together ideas in less than an hour after reading some quick tutorials.

Also, as far as mobile prototyping goes, I'm a strong believer of higher-fidelity mockups since screen real estate is such a premium.

[ams6110]

Using drawing software for prototypes has the disadvantage that there is a temptation to start tweaking nonessential details... fonts, shadows, colors, obsessing over alignment of widgets, etc.

Pencil and paper doesn't have these problems except for the most anal-retentive of folks.