Okay, then how about "pretend you're a human" as opposed to the lizard people who design and write computer software. Spin it however you like. You still have to make the distinction between techies and "the rest of us". Systems have been designed that do not make this distinction and assume the user will be able to figure everything out, the most notorious of which is Unix -- when unadorned with Apple treacle, arguably one of the most user-hostile systems in common use. Normies perceive Unix as being more arrogant than the systems which "condescend" to them. It seems to say "Oh, you don't belong to the super-secret cabal of users who know these arcane commands? Fuck you, then!"
> You still have to make the distinction between techies and "the rest of us"
The language you use for this is important because it shapes the way you think about the difference. The way it is often phrased is in the form of "we're special, better, smarter, people than those dumb people who have no hope of understanding the arcane magicks we are naturally attune to". Which is of course bull. We have specialized knowledge and familiarity from spending years working with this stuff. That's it.
> [UNIX]... seems to say "Oh, you don't belong to the super-secret cabal of users who know these arcane commands? Fuck you, then!"
It seems to say that because that's exactly what UNIX says. They don't even name commands sensibly, not even in 2019. Discoverability basically doesn't exist.
> Systems have been designed that ... assume the user will be able to figure everything out, [such as] Unix -- ... arguably one of the most user-hostile systems in common use.
Um, you do know that Unix used to come with user manuals? Like, oh I dunno, the vast majority of software in the 1980s and early 1990s? The designers of Unix and comparable systems were perfectly aware that command-line incantations cannot be figured out simply by sitting at the system and playing with it; this is very much not what it was designed for!
If discoverability by novice users is a priority, then that is an argument for menu-driven, interactive interfaces and UIs - which could well be built on top of something like UNIX. But documentation is always going to be important.
Unix manuals are reference manuals, not training manuals. To learn something from them, first you already need to have a very good idea of what you're looking for.
The kind of documentation that Unix comes with is of little use to people who already have some specific training in computing disciplines.
