[zapzupnz]

People shouldn't have to learn how to use its complicated interface. The killer feature is managing eBooks, not rocket science.

There is nothing at all about the Calibre interface that needs to be the way it is. What's so interesting is the way it apes an old version of iTunes, one which nobody would've considered the pinnacle of UX, and still manages to complicate and bury things in unexpected places.

[pmlnr]

EVERY user interface needs to be learnt. Ask anyone: they hate it when it changes.

[zapzupnz]

Yes, they all need to be learnt. How odd that an excuse for failing to reduce complexity?

There are well-documented user interface design guidelines to follow, both vendor specific and general ones made by experts like Jakob Nielsen.

Well-designed user interfaces lend themselves to user experiences where the learning curve is low, not steep, sometimes coming close to flat.

The only excuse I can fathom for those who prefer the learning curve be as high as possible or never be lowered is resentment that their own efforts to scale the same mountain of learning the UI themselves.

I call that technical elitism. It says “I worked hard to learn how complicated interfaces work, everybody else should be held to the same expectation”. No, they should not.