Regarding using pen and paper, for certain tasks, I'm never fully satisfied with either working on paper or doing it on a computer.
For things like UI, mapping out the basic architecture of an app, on one hand I find that pen and paper is much faster and more convenient: you can scribble notes here and there, easily scratch out parts, draw arrows; but on the other, I wish it were more digital to reorganize things: make more room here, duplicate this, move that...
With software, if I want to add a small note, I need to select a different font or a different tool, click where I want to put it... On paper, I can just write smaller.
But on paper, if I realize that I need to add an element in between two others, the best way is often times to start all over again,
So neither are perfect, but maybe some touch interfaces will get us there.
A nice middle ground is a whiteboard + a digital camera. That sort of plot list I would draft in a whiteboard, first the global, then the specifics, and later worry about making sense of it in excel or something.
For things like UI, mapping out the basic architecture of an app, on one hand I find that pen and paper is much faster and more convenient: you can scribble notes here and there, easily scratch out parts, draw arrows; but on the other, I wish it were more digital to reorganize things: make more room here, duplicate this, move that...
With software, if I want to add a small note, I need to select a different font or a different tool, click where I want to put it... On paper, I can just write smaller.
But on paper, if I realize that I need to add an element in between two others, the best way is often times to start all over again,
So neither are perfect, but maybe some touch interfaces will get us there.