From Throw-Away to Takeaway: How GenAI and Vibe Coding Accelerate Prototyping Across Technical Skill Levels

A new generation of GenAI tools fueled by vibe coding practices promises to democratize software development, explicitly targeting users without programming backgrounds. Yet, we lack understanding of how technical and non-technical users actually engage with these tools across the product development lifecycle. We conducted a mixed-methods study combining an online survey (N = 85) with interviews of hackathon participants (N = 31) and practitioners (N = 8), examining how different user groups employ chatbots, local development assistants, and cloud development environments from ideation through deployment. Our findings reveal that cloud development environments accelerate prototyping, enabling non-technical users to generate high-fidelity "throw-away" prototypes valuable for experiential exploration. However, deployment and long-term maintainability remain dependent on technical expertise, with non-technical users consistently encountering barriers when transitioning beyond prototyping. We contribute a comparative analysis of how technical and non-technical users appropriate GenAI tools across the full product development cycle in contexts approximating real-world product building, highlighting implications for tool design and educational practices.