(Summary at the bottom for the impatient)
There are 3 things I can think of immediately that turn people off of Dwarf Fortress: the interface, the learning wall, and lack of a goal/direction. Graphics are another, but that's a massive can of worms that can't be properly opened until full graphics support is added. Now, Toady is busy coding awesome new features that make us fans happy, and occasionally putting some work into accessibility, but I thought it might be nice for us (the DF community) to brainstorm on how to make it more accessible. It's easy to say "it needs work", and it's easy to come up with cool feature ideas, but coming up with solid ideas on how to make DF easier to newbies is hard.
First point: the interface. To be honest, I really don't know how I'd "fix" this. Its design appears to evolve largely from roguelikes (keyboard control, mouse is generally ignored, there's a ley or menu for everything, etc), which are notorious for having obscure control schemes. Most people, it seems, would prefer a mouse controlled GUI with descriptive buttons and icons, rather than nested menus controlled by memorizing keypresses. That's not to say keyboard is bad, but it's daunting to use at first. It'd be nice if someone with some training in UI design couldn chime in here, because I'm clearly out of my element.
Second point: the learning curve, or wall rather. Ok, say you've first opened Dwarf Fortress. You sit through the charming intro, and are confronted with a confusing menu. Where is "start playing"? You'll most likely choose "create world", which will get you to an option to start playing. You'll probably go with "Dwarf Fortress", pick and embark site at random, and then embark now. Then you stand there baffled as your dwarfs mill around aimlessly. How do you control them? What do you do about food and water? What do you do with this ore you somehow managed to mine out? Why are my fisherdwarfs being slaughtered by carp, and how do I fix this? Although the wiki provides a good companion, I feel that a series of minitutorials in game could help. In the init, there could be a "tutorial mode" that pops up hints at appropriate times. Just embarked for the first time? Have a tutorial explaining how to mine out a room, and why. Running low on food? Show thr player how to set up a farm. Booze is running low?
Give up all hope Show the player how to use a still. Give them a trade tutorial for the arrival of the caravan, smithing on finding ore, burial tutorial upon the first death, etc, etc, etc. Toady could spend weeks writing these, but we as a community could start writing these microtutorials now. We already have a few good large tutorials on how to start, and a couple more specific ones on the wiki, but I think small tutorials could be very useful to new players feeling overwhelmed.
Third point, lack of direction. This could be somewhat implemented with the tutorials as above. Give new players a bit of a nudge towards setting up, such as suggesting they build a farm and a still to start. Ease the players into a full fortress, but don't force them along. Like the tutorials idea above, these must be optional so as not to annoy veteran players. And for those noticing this point is far shorter than the others, yes, I did choose three points to make it look better.
So, what can we do, as a community? Brainstorm and mock up some more accessible interfaces. Write small, basic tutorials that won't overwhelm newcomers. Lastly, give some short term goals for settin g up a fortress.
What do you, bay12ers? We've got time to kill before the new version, so why not spend some time working on the future of DF?