Three Monkeys, Three Typewriters, Two Days

I think your justification of the paper 1040 being easier because of skills works just as well with console gaming. I have attempted to introduce games to people where the world interaction seems so obvious and intuitive yet they have trouble grasping it. You and I have much more experience to draw on with which to try various approaches.

I think it really comes down to things like Human Interface Guidelines and getting desktop applications to interact and behave similarly.

Well, HIGs are nice. But that's hardly enough to solve the problem....

I'm not talking about console games like RPGs here. I'm talking about simple things like car games or Super Mario. Places where the controller is perfectly designed for the interaction, with 1-1 mapping of buttons on the controller to actions you can take.

The same thing is true of physical objects -- there is a clear mapping between physical motions and things that happen to the object; something our minds deal with well.

With typical software, HIGs or no HIGs, a very small set of physical motions maps to a bewildering array of results that is highly context-sensitive. This means that evaluation of the proper motions has to take place at a much higher level of consiousness. Compare looking around the room for the book you were reading to looking for a particular file on your computer. The latter requires a lot more in the way of higher-level thought processes.

The point is, I think we should make an attempt to move toward UI that lets humans use their brains in a way that's consistent with the way the brains are normally used. The "muscle memory" stuff people talk about with context menus and other UI elements is a tiny baby step in this direction.

I think that console menus are used most of the time to perform simple tasks, like DVD menus. It's the product of focus.

Document manipulation indeed sucks on computers. It feels like being handicapped. Small screens, awkward zooming/moving controls, having only one hand (mouse), awkward window manipulation controls in operating systems/WMs. Mouse gestures are a step in the right direction, but there's still so much to do.

I better stop, I could rant for hours about this. :)

Actually, menus are terrible UI in general, in my opinion... Consoles, DVD players, etc. Even the physical world analogues of menu systems (eg a bunch of filing folders with labels on them) tend to be a pain to use unless the user is the one who assigned the labels and decided how things are grouped.