The comments on this article here is a useful read for what could be done to make 3D printers easier to use. I'd like to imagine what could be done on the slicer side of things. The most notable points are the debug process of the printer itself and the time consuming process of CAD. I know of the latter all too well, and had started a research project to discover if, and how, this could be improved. At the moment, gd0096 and gd0045 (this project) are planned to be seperate software packages, but I do see the potential of having gd0096 as a feature inside gd0045, similar to MatterControl or Craftware Pro.

Some of the ideas I have

• Essentially a Gamertar for printing, like a "Make-atar" or something. A digital collection of if-statements. 
  • Things like 
    • looking at a phone case from thingiverse and the software going "well that's obviously not in the desired printing orientation. Let me just rotate it 90 degrees.
    • or a user voting 3 starts on the last print, saying that the corners were fat and all wavy, and the software going "Ok I'm thinking of changing your default speed, acceleration and jerk settings. It'll be x% slower but should produce better print quality. Want to make the changes?".
  • This would also determine what soft/hard/error warnings show up (explained further below)
• Troubleshooters, like seen in Windows
• Perhaps a somewhat lengthy Out Of The Box Experience
  • One that can sort users by:
    • "Don't have a printer but either trying out the software to see what I'm getting into or want to watch virtual timelapses", 
    • "Got a printer / trying out this fancy new slicer for the first time" and 
    • "bro imma pro just gimme the list of settings to tweak or a profile import button"
  • It'll likely be something like Vivaldi's experience.
• Putting the backups and plugins somewhere like Documents of 3D Objects library (Windows) so that non-tech savvy users have to fish around in appdata.
• No branded filament profiles
  • This is just an annoyance I have in Cura.
  • The printers are all different, the filaments are all different, the filament profiles are usually somewhat dependent on the printer...
• Heirarchy
  • Right now, I'm thinking of Printing Profile -> Filament Profile -> Specific Printer+Filament tweaks -> Per Print Changes
• Warnings similar to a compiler.
  • I'd like to be able to click on a warning and the camera moves to it.
  • Warnings could be soft things like an overhang looking kinda steep but it should print ok, hard things like there being a sizable 90 degree overhang ledge sticking out, or extreme/error being "You're print has already failed" like some micromanagement surface area on the bed.
• That cool Save To SD Card feature in Cura
  • But it goes for the empty SD or card that has almost nothing but .gcodes in it. 
    • Maybe Save To [SD card name] would be sufficient. 
    • Maybe even different icons for somewhere on pc, SD/USB and Octoprint
• Some kind of quick tips or tutorial zone
  • similar in idea to going to monkeytype or typing.com to improve touch typing
• Some kind of "Corner Correction" feature that deals with pressure advance, input shaper, ringing...
• A "What printer should I buy/build" database could be pretty cool
  • it probably won't stay up to date though so I'll skip on that.