It's the users own fault? Really? We make products for the users, and they never do anything wrong – and it's never their fault.
Do they require practice and a certain (very small) amount of domain knowledge? Yes. Is that a bad thing, considering how useful they are? No.
"The user is always right" isn't an ultimate mandate. The customer isn't right if they come in to your store and demand everything for free. Likewise a driver isn't right if he doesn't want to figure out which pedal is "stop" and which one is "go". You must have a certain small amount of domain knowledge to use the complex tools you're given, and dumbing things down for the lowest common denominator is a Sisyphean task because there's always a lower common denominator just under them.
how about some detailed, effects heavy video project?
Oh, yeah? Show me the data you have that supports your statement.
(e.g. users need to know how to turn on their computer, what a usb port is to charge/connect peripherals, etc.)
I don't think reasoning like "must" (or "never") pushes innovation and great design.
"I don't think reasoning like "must" (or "never") pushes innovation and great design"
So "never" getting to know what a USB port is for, "must" be the result of great design ? It "must" be, but that would be bad... by you own stunted definitions. But do keep moving the goal posts around.
In the end you just produce a lot of forced substitutive declarations, like the concepts of innovation and great design that you use. You seem to void them in the process.
They will always be "better" solely because they are used by you, no matter the paradox and bs level needed to try to justify something that isn't even real.
Does this configure or bring any hope for users, it would be the designers that lock users out of the know-how... you see how that may not even be possible, because of innate properties like human curiosity, the very target of said "great design".