One of the things that slowed me down in the beginning was being confused by [v] and [k], and I think the fact that they're so easily confused yet are both very necessary is one of the biggest interface problems.
I agree with this a lot.
A lot of stuff just needs to be merged. It's all muscle memory now, but when I think about doing something, or trying to explain it, even I don't know what the buttons do. Categorizing the build menu would be amazing as well. Workshops, Construction, Machinery, that's it, lump everything in one of those. If I were new and thinking about building pillars, I'd go look under constructions, since building a pillar is like building a wall right? Why does Hatch Cover get as much prime real-estate as ALL workshops? The main build menu has almost every letter taken up too, so you have to memorize strange combos of buttons, but using broad subcategories, you could get everything down to the first or most significant letter.
Err, so interface turn offs and quick fixes for me, from since I was a beginner, up until now. These 4 changes all seem reasonable and wouldn't take much time to do:
1) Build Menu, completely reworked, option to self-sort would be almost as good.
2) V and K, much like T and Q, should be merged. Even better would be a left mouse click doing the job of both. (Example, I'm not in a menu and I left click on a ground tile with an anthill. It should bring up what is now the "k" screen for that tile. I click on a cat, standing on a dwarf, it should bring up the cat's V screen, I click again, same spot, bring up the dwarf's V screen. I click on a workshop and it brings up the relevant bits of T and Q.) I don't think I used the T button for months after I started playing, and while it's not essential to play, it's a very handy thing. I think it would be great to have it work at-a-glance, and just show job queue and the items in the workshop on the same screen.
3) D, I and P, these should be merged and some other stuff might be better as a submenu. "c" is rarely if ever used and only takes up space ATM. Let's make the main menu bar extremely concise. If you are thinking of doing something, there should be no doubt in your mind that 'X' button will let you do it.
4) I still don't know exactly how to install a tileset. I tried once and got totally lost while following the directions. If DF came with a very simple one, no bells and whistles, and just required one .png swap to switch to a shinier one that all the other kids liked, that would be fantastic. The grid size also goes along with this. I get lost trying to figure out the gridsize in the init.txt. There should be a couple options in game to switch the gridsize to something that works. Default, how it is now, double-height, so it's the same width as default, but double the height, and a couple more of whatever people think works with the different monitors and aspect-ratios out now. For example this is what I settled on after messing around with the grid for an hour or so:
[GRAPHICS:YES]
[GRAPHICS_WINDOWEDX:1600]
[GRAPHICS_WINDOWEDY:1024]
[GRAPHICS_FONT:GuybrushSemiGraphic_curses_square_16x16.bmp]
[GRAPHICS_FULLSCREENX:1280]
[GRAPHICS_FULLSCREENY:800]
[GRAPHICS_FULLFONT:GuybrushSemiGraphic_curses_square_16x16.bmp]
[GRAPHICS_BLACK_SPACE:YES]
[GRID:125:75]
[FULLGRID:80:25]
It was just trial and error over and over because I didn't really understand what I was doing and would have no advice for someone I was trying to help set it up. Most new players are going to want a much larger gridsize than the default, so a couple built in options would completely smooth out that bump.
(err by merging, I don't mean just dumping all the current options into one submenu, I mean categorizing and reworking what doesn't mesh that well right now. Like, changing all resizing in the game to to be done with mouse and arrows, instead of "some arrows, some UKMH" I still don't know off the top of my head which things use UKMH. For simplicity's sake, I think everything resizable should be made to be like designating dig squares.)
Umm, thanks for humoring me, I have no idea why it took me that long to explain myself.