Hi again. Thanks for your input...

Inkscape contains an impressive quantity of features - and that is one
of its problems!

Interesting... :)
Most of the features included in Inkscape are user requested features for a wide variety of different tasks.
It's possible that some of them could be integrated into tool functions, but that does not necessarily cut down on the complexity of using the program.

Enabling various user modes is one option, but we would have to know a lot about the workflow of each user group before hiding tools, and settings, etc. Many tools admittedly could use better defaults, however.
 
 
My artist wife's first concern is to produce artwork, at present in the
form of cartoon strips or illustrations for children's books.

What, particularly, is getting in her way?
I've been doing illustration work for a very long time, and there are few tools in Inkscape that do not benefit a professional artist. Maybe you could describe a bit more where the frustration is happening. This will allow us to see where workflow items can be streamlined, and perhaps design features which make it easier (like a wacom pen click colour and brush palate that pops up over the canvas when the pen button is clicked (like in Krita).

Of course, others may complain that these are useless features they will never use. So we face criticism from all sides when we change the UI dramatically. Which is why we have to toil a bit over changes, to find a good solution that works for our different user's needs.

In order
to get started on her latest projects she has been attracted by some of
the simple doodling applications such as the one in OneNote, but of
course to go further she needs to use vector graphics rather than bitmaps.

Has she tried Krita? It's made from the ground up to be for illustration work.
It too is a complex program with many features, but it's presently more streamlined for working with a wacom pen tablet.

Inkscape can do all that Corel can do,
but finding a way through the menus can be a problem.

We would need specifics to consider changes. Could you provide a workflow?
More specifically, the workflows that are causing her to become frustrated.

For example:

Workflow: Draw Rectangular cells for comic
1. Select Rectangle tool
2. Enable grid snapping <- Problem, grid does not match page rulers
3. Draw Rectangle <- Problem, line is too thick, now have to hunt for how to change it. Nothing is snapping yet.
4. Find the grid snapping button to enable snapping to grid <- This took me a long time to figure out. Is there an easier way? Maybe grid snapping should be enabled automatically when I turn on the grid?
5. Open Fill and Stroke dialog <- Problem, tapping twice on the tiny line colour is hard with a pen! Also, the scroll bar on the colour swatches gets in the way of clicking in the first place.
6. Decrease line width <- Problem, not easy with pen tablet alone, arrows increment by a set value, and are not affected by the zoom percentage.
7. Copy rectangle area <- This works really well! I can just hit the spacebar to duplicate! Now we are talking! Don't accidentally hold the spacebar down though! Wooah!
8. Auto arrange rectangles in a grid <- Took me a while to find the new "Arrange" dialog. Shouldn't it be in alongside the Align and Distribute options, maybe as another tab? That's instantly where I thought to look first. 

Etc.

The more information you can provide, the better.
I know this is a lot of tedious work, but this is what it takes for us to understand different workflows.
We lean heavily on user input from all directions, and there are a lot of conflicting opinions.
This is why it's very important to understand what are the actual bottlenecks in the workflow, which also lets us combine them in a functional way across different workflows to collectively solve them without creating new ones.

My first suggestion is that you show a 'newcomer' option when the
software is first loaded.  Only three or four pen settings are offered
and most of the other tools are hidden. 

We would have to assume that the users do not wish to use certain tools.
Newcomers wanting to make a simple flow-chart would not like the option hidden, for example.
To hide things successfully, we would need to ask questions on startup about what the user wants to use Inkscape for, if they did not want to answer the questions (because questions are annoying when you just want to start playing), we would not be able to assume anything at all about their intended use for Inkscape.

That said, which tools would you hide? Since mousing over the tool tells you what the tool does, would it be better just to allow the user to re-arrange them to their liking? Or maybe an automated walk-through to explain the basics would work better?
 
On the basic pen, pressure
changes width, rather than opacity.  Instructions and hints are directed
to enabling more of the features - when the user is ready for them.

Agree. It's a drawing tool, and all the popular ones key line width to pressure for the Calligraphic/Brush stroke tool.
Since this tool is supposed to mimic a real drawing tool, this is a natural way to go... and it's in-fact the default for that tool. :)
 
Find an artist friend who knows nothing about graphics software, if you
can, and watch them as they start to use Inkscape.

For just drawing on-canvas, the Caligraphic/Brush tool is the only real option included in Inkscape.
From an artist perspective, that's the tool we need to add more brushes to to make Inkscape more usable for illustrators (with previews of each brush, so you don't have to guess from a drop-down list).


Thanks for your time, John!

-C




 
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